The Infatuations (36 page)

It was likely that Díaz-Varela had never told him anything about that, especially if he had deceived him as to his motive. I remembered that when he mentioned Luisa in the conversation I overheard, he didn’t refer to her by name. In Ruibérriz’s presence, I had been ‘a bird’, but she, in turn, had been ‘the wife’, ‘
la mujer
’ in the sense not of ‘woman’ but of ‘wife’, someone else’s wife. As if she wasn’t someone who was dear to him. As if she were condemned to being just that, his friend’s wife. Ruibérriz had obviously never seen the two of them together, otherwise, he would have been as struck by this as I was the very first moment I met him, that evening at Luisa’s house. I imagined Professor Rico must have noticed too, although who knows, he seemed too absorbed in his own thoughts, too abstracted, to be aware of the outside world. I chose to say nothing more on the subject. Ruibérriz’s gaze was, once again, pensive, absorbed. There was nothing more to say. He had abandoned his courtship of me, which had, it seems, been genuine; he must have been very disappointed. I clearly wasn’t going to make any more sense of it all, and, besides, I really didn’t care. I had just washed my hands of the matter, at least until another day, or another century.

‘What happened to you in Mexico?’ I asked suddenly, intending to shake him out of his relative stupor, to cheer him up. I sensed that it would be fairly easy to grow to like him. Not that there would be an opportunity, I had no intention of ever seeing him again, and the same went for Díaz-Varela and for Luisa Alday and for the whole lot of them. I just hoped that the publishing house didn’t commission Professor Rico to write a book.

‘In Mexico? How do you know about that?’ – This question did take him very much by surprise, he had obviously forgotten. – ‘Not even Javier knows the whole story.’

‘I heard you mention it at Javier’s place, when I was listening from
behind the door. You said you’d got into a bit of trouble there, that you were wanted by the police or had a record or something.’

‘Bloody hell, so you heard that too?’ – And he immediately added, as if he needed to explain something of which I was still unaware: ‘That wasn’t a murder either, not at all. It was pure self-defence, it was either him or me. And besides, I was only twenty-two …’ He stopped, realizing that he had said too much, that he was still remembering something or talking to himself, but doing so out loud and before a witness. The fact that I had referred to Desvern’s death as a murder had clearly touched a nerve.

I was startled. It had never occurred to me that he might have another corpse lurking in his past, whatever the circumstances of that first killing. He seemed to me an ordinary, straightforward crook, not really capable of violent crimes. I had seen the killing of Deverne as an exception, as something he felt obliged to do, and, when all was said and done, he hadn’t been the one to wield the weapon, he, too, had delegated, although to a lesser extent than Díaz-Varela.

‘I didn’t say anything about that,’ I responded rapidly. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. I was just asking a question. But I’d almost prefer not to know, not if there was another death involved. Let’s drop the subject. The lesson is: never ask questions.’ – I glanced at my watch. I suddenly felt very uncomfortable to be sitting where Desvern used to sit, talking to his indirect executioner. – ‘Anyway, I have to go, it’s getting late.’

He ignored my last words, still pondering. I had sown doubt in his mind, I just hoped he didn’t go to Díaz-Varela now and ask him about Luisa, demand an explanation, and that Díaz-Varela did not then summon me again, I don’t know, to give me a telling-off or something. Or perhaps Ruibérriz was reliving what had happened in Mexico all those years ago, which clearly still weighed on him.

‘It was all Elvis Presley’s fault, you know,’ he said after a few seconds, in a quite different tone of voice, as if he had suddenly alighted upon a new way to impress me and not leave entirely empty-handed, so to speak.

I giggled slightly, I couldn’t help it.

‘You mean
the
Elvis Presley?’

‘Yes, I worked for him for about ten days, when he was shooting a film in Mexico.’

This time I laughed out loud, despite the sombre nature of the conversation.

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, still laughing. – ‘And I suppose you know which island he’s living on. That’s what his fans believe, isn’t it? Who is he currently hiding out with: Marilyn Monroe or Michael Jackson?’

He looked annoyed and shot me a cutting glance. He really was annoyed because he said to me:

‘Don’t be such a dickhead, woman. Don’t you believe me? I did work for him, and he got me into deep trouble.’

He sounded far more serious than he had at any other point in the conversation. Genuinely miffed and angry. But that couldn’t possibly be true, it sounded like pure bluster, or else a delusion; but he had taken my scepticism very much to heart. I swiftly backpedalled.

‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. But you must admit it does sound a touch unbelievable.’ – And I added, in order to change the subject without completely abandoning it, without beating a retreat that would lead him to believe that I thought him either a complete fraud or a nutter: ‘How old are you, then, if you worked with the King no less? He died years ago, didn’t he? It must be nearly fifty years.’ I was still struggling not to laugh, but fortunately, managed to contain myself.

I noticed at once that he was recovering some of his old flirtatiousness. But he began by ticking me off.

‘Don’t exaggerate. It will thirty-four years ago next 16th of August, I think. That’s all.’ – He knew the exact date, he must be a real fan. – ‘All right then, so how old do you think I am?’

I wanted to be kind, to make amends. But I couldn’t go too far, I mustn’t flatter him too much.

‘Oh, I don’t know, about fifty-five?’

He smiled smugly, as if he had already forgotten the offence I had caused him. He smiled so broadly that his top lip once again shot upwards, revealing his healthy, white, rectangular teeth, and his gums.

‘Add another ten, at least,’ he replied, pleased. ‘What do you think?’

So he really was very well preserved. There was a childish quality about him, which was what made him so likeable. He was doubtless another victim of Díaz-Varela, whom I was now growing accustomed to calling not by his first name, Javier, that name I had so often spoken and whispered in his ear, but by his surname. That’s pretty childish too, but it helps to distance us from those we have loved.

It was then that the process of attenuation began in earnest, after that first act of washing my hands, after thinking for the first time – or not even thinking it, perhaps it has less to do with one’s mind than one’s spirit, or with one’s mere breath: ‘Why should I care, what’s it got to do with me anyway?’ That thought is always within the grasp of anyone regarding any situation, however close to home or serious it might be, and if someone can’t shake a situation off, it’s because they don’t want to, because they feed on it and find it gives meaning to their lives; it’s the same with those who happily carry the tenacious burden of the dead, who are always ready to continue to loiter at the first indication that someone wants to hold on to them, because they are all would-be Chaberts, despite the rebuffs and the denials and the grimaces with which they are received if they actually dare to return.

The process is a slow one, of course, and it’s hard work and you have to apply willpower and effort and not be tempted by memory, which returns now and then and often disguises itself as a refuge, when you walk past a particular street or catch a whiff of cologne or hear a tune, or notice that they’re showing a film on TV that you once watched together. I never watched any films with Díaz-Varela.

As for literature, of which we did have some shared experiences, I immediately warded off that danger by facing it full on: although our publishing house usually only publishes contemporary writers – to
the frequent misfortune of readers and myself – I persuaded Eugeni to bring out an edition of
Colonel Chabert
, in a new and very good translation (the most recent one was, indeed, abominable), and we added three more stories by Balzac to bulk it out, because the story itself is quite short, what the French call a
nouvelle
. It was in the bookshops within a matter of months, and I thus shuffled off its shadow by producing a fine edition of it in my own language. I thought of it while I had to, while we were editing and preparing it for publication, and then I could forget about it. Or I at least ensured that it was never going to catch me out or take me by surprise.

I was on the point of leaving the publishing house after that final manoeuvre, so as not to have to continue going to the same café, so as not even to have to continue seeing it from my office, although the trees did partially block my view; so that nothing would remind me of anything. I was also tired of having to cope with living writers – what a delight to deal with dead authors, like Balzac, who don’t pester you or try to manipulate their future – with Cortezo the Bore’s clingy phone calls, with the demands of mean, repellent Garay Fontina, with the pretentious cybernetic nonsense of the fake young men, each of whom managed to be, at one and the same time, more ignorant, stupid and pedantic than the last. However, the other offers I received, from our competitors, did not convince me, despite a promised increase in salary: I would still have to continue dealing with writers of overweening ambition and who breathed the same air as me. Eugeni, moreover, having grown a little lazy and absent-minded, urged me to take more of the decisions, and I did: I trusted that the day would come when I could get rid of the odd fatuous author without even asking Eugeni’s permission, my sights being set particularly on that ever-imminent scourge of King Carl Gustaf, who was still tirelessly polishing his speech in garbled Swedish (those
who had heard him practising assured me that his accent was execrable). Above all, though, I realized that I mustn’t flee that landscape, but master it as best I could, just as Luisa must have done with her house, forcing herself to continue living in it rather than suddenly moving out; stripping it of its saddest and most sentimental connotations and conferring on it a new day-to-day routine, in short, remaking it. I knew that the publishing house was, for me, a place tinged with sentiment, which is impossible to conceal or avoid, even if the sentiment is only half-imagined. You simply have to get on good terms with it and appease it.

Almost two years passed. I met another man whom I found sufficiently interesting and amusing, Jacobo (who is not, thank heavens, a writer), I got engaged to him at his insistence, we made tentative plans to get married, plans that I kept postponing without actually cancelling them, well, I’ve never been that keen on matrimony, but in the end, what convinced me was my age – late-thirty-something – more, at least, than a desire to wake up in company every day, I don’t really see the advantage of that, although it’s probably not that bad, I suppose, if you love the person you go to bed with and sleep next to, as is true in my case – needless to say. There are things about Díaz-Varela I still miss, but that’s another matter. It doesn’t make me feel guilty, for nothing is incompatible in the land of memory.

I was having supper with a group of people in the Chinese restaurant at the Hotel Palace when I saw them, about three or four tables away, shall we say. I had a good view of them both, in profile, as if I were in the stalls and they were on stage, except that we were on the same level. The fact is, I didn’t take my eyes off them – they were like a magnet – apart from when one of the other guests spoke to me, which wasn’t very often: we had come from a book launch, and most of the guests were the proud author’s friends, whom I didn’t know
from Adam; they chatted among themselves and hardly bothered me at all, I was there as the publisher’s representative – and to pay the bill, of course; most of the guests looked strangely like flamenco artistes, and my main fear was that they might whip out their guitars from some strange hiding place and start singing loudly, between courses. Quite apart from the sheer embarrassment that would cause me, it would have been sure to make Luisa and Díaz-Varela look over at our table, for they were otherwise too immersed in each other’s company to notice my presence in the midst of that assembly of dark, curly heads. It did occur to me, though, that she might not even remember me. There came a moment when the novelist’s girlfriend noticed my gaze permanently trained on that one point. She turned round rather ostentatiously and sat looking at them, at Javier and Luisa. I was afraid that her uninhibited stare might alert them to my presence, and so I felt obliged to explain.

‘I’m sorry, they’re a couple I know, but whom I haven’t seen in ages. And, at the time, they weren’t a couple. Don’t think me rude, please. I’m just very curious to see them like that, if you know what I mean.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she replied warmly, after shooting them another impertinent glance. She had understood the situation at once; I must be very transparent at times. ‘I’m not surprised. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? Anyway, don’t you worry, it’s your business. Nothing to do with me.’

Yes, they really were a couple, that’s something that usually even complete strangers can tell, and I knew him very well, but not her, whom I knew very little, or only from talking to her at length on one occasion – or, rather, from her talking to me, she could have been speaking to anyone that day, I was just a useful pair of ears. But I had observed her in a similar situation over several years, that is, with her
then partner, who had been dead for long enough now for Luisa not to describe herself first and foremost, as if it were a definitive state, with the words: ‘I’ve been widowed’ or I’m a widow’, because she wouldn’t be that at all, and that fact or piece of information, while remaining the same as before, would have changed. She would say instead: ‘I lost my first husband, and he’s moving further away from me all the time. It’s such a long time since I saw him, whereas this other man is here by my side and is always by my side. I call him “husband” too, which is odd. But he has taken the other husband’s place in my bed and by virtue of that juxtaposition is gradually blurring and erasing him. A little more each day, a little more each night.’ And I had seen them together before, again only once, but enough to sense his love and solicitude for her and her obliviousness and blindness to him. Now it was all changed. They were both talking vivaciously, hanging on each other’s every word, occasionally gazing into each other’s eyes without speaking, or holding hands across the table. He was wearing a wedding ring, they must have got married in a civil ceremony at some point, perhaps very recently, perhaps the day before yesterday or even yesterday. She looked much better, and his looks had certainly not deteriorated, there was Díaz-Varela with those same lips, whose movements I followed at a distance – some habits we never lose or else recover immediately, as if they were automatic. Unwittingly, I made a gesture with my hand, as if to touch those lips from afar. The novelist’s girlfriend, the only one of the guests who occasionally glanced in my direction, noticed this and asked kindly: