Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (14 page)

It was Ruibérriz, then, whom I asked about Juan Téllez Orati, since he is in the know about everything and everyone. Unfortunately, he didn’t know him personally, but he did know who he was, that is, he gave me the rundown on him:

“He’s an academician in the Academy of Fine Arts and of History too, I think,” he said, “that’s where the
excelentísimo
comes from, although he could have got the title for other reasons too, I suppose, indeed, before he dies, he may well be given some minor title of nobility, he has contacts at the Palace. He long ago retired, but they still use him, he’s a good courtier, the way courtiers used to be twenty or more years ago. He hasn’t written very much, I mean in the way of books, but he is or was fairly
influential and still publishes the occasional article in a journal on some obscure, pedantic topic. With his other activities dwindling away, I imagine that he never misses a meeting at either of his Academies. He’s on his way out, but, doubtless, like most people, he’s a most reluctant has-been. What keeps him going is his contact with the Palace; from what I’ve heard, they’d give him pretty much anything he asked for, within reason. That’s all I can tell you, is that enough? Why do you want to know?”

That’s what Ruibérriz told me, when the two of us were sitting in a bar, the day after Marta Téllez’s funeral. I made no mention of the death, it didn’t seem appropriate. Given what he had told me, I was surprised that there had been only thirty or so people at the funeral and that I had seen no one whose face was familiar from the television or from the press. Perhaps, given the rather embarrassing circumstances of her death, the family had wanted a private ceremony, but, on the other hand, they had published a death notice, true, only on the morning of the service itself, people rarely read the newspaper in the morning and certainly not first thing: perhaps that way they felt they had done their social duty and, at the same time, avoided any potentially inquisitive or intrusive onlookers at the funeral itself.

“It’s nothing I need tell you about now,” I said. Not enough time had passed for my death to have become a mere anecdote (it was, of course, Marta’s death and mine only in the sense that I had witnessed it, which is reason enough to make it mine, although much less of a reason than having caused it) and although I know that Ruibérriz is a loyal friend to his friends, I still can’t entirely trust him. He has a pleasant face and I like him more and more as the years pass, but he still makes me feel uneasy, apprehensive: like everyone else, whatever clothes he has on, he always looks to me as if he were wearing a polo shirt. That’s how I saw him on that particular day, even though we were both dressed for winter, perched uncomfortably on stools at the bar, his favourite place in cafes and bars, as if sitting there were a sign of continued youthfulness, it’s also a way of keeping tabs on a place and, if necessary, can facilitate a fast getaway. I can just imagine him beating a hasty retreat from some dive or gambling den, in the early hours of the morning, with a flower in his lapel. Or even with a flower
between his teeth. “And what about Deán? Do you know anything about him? Eduardo Deán.” I noticed that Ruibérriz started as if it wasn’t the first time he had heard the name. “Eduardo Deán Ballesteros,” I said, giving him Deán’s full name.

Ruibérriz passed his tongue briefly over his top lip, the one that curls back when he smiles (only now he was thoughtful). Then he shook his head.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’ve never heard of him. For a moment, I thought I had, the name sounded familiar, but no, or if I do know him, I can’t remember where from. Sometimes a name rings a bell simply because someone has just mentioned it and, for a second, the recent present seems like the remote past. I think that’s what happened to me just then. Who is he?”

Ruibérriz couldn’t resist asking the question. He did so less out of genuine indiscretion or historical curiosity as out of familiarity, knowing that if I didn’t want to answer him, I wouldn’t, and that I would make that clear, as again I did.

“I’m not sure, I only know his name.” And that was true, I knew that he had been married and was now a widower, but I didn’t know what he did for a living, Marta had – naturally and irritatingly – mentioned his first name several times, but only in the context of that conjugal, domestic world. She hadn’t told me anything about him on the other two occasions either, as if she didn’t want to hide the fact that she was married (she didn’t), but nor did she want to make it too important either. “Do you know any of the other members of the family? Luisa Téllez? Guillermo Téllez?”

“He must be the son of William Tell, he’s probably got an apple on his head with an arrow through it.” Ruibérriz couldn’t resist the joke. He jovially slapped the knee of one of his crossed legs. He never could resist making jokes, good or bad, even in the company of people who didn’t appreciate them, and then they fell horribly flat, that was one of his problems. He waited for me to acknowledge the joke with a smile before going on. “There’s a bloke on the radio,” he added, “but his name’s not Guillermo. Who are they, Téllez Orati’s children?”

“Yes, they are.” And I was about to add “his surviving children” but I didn’t, that would only have provoked more questions from my friend. “Is there any way I could get to meet the father?”

Ruibérriz burst out laughing, with his lip curled back and his teeth flashing. He looked at me mockingly. He seized the ends of his scarf with both hands, despite being indoors in a heated environment, he had left the scarf on by way of adornment. (He grabbed it in order to check his short burst of laughter.) The scarf matched his trousers, both were cream-coloured: a nice colour, but more appropriate for the spring. The long, black leather coat he sometimes wears was draped over a nearby stool, the coat makes him look as if he had stepped out of a film about the SS, he enjoys that kind of nonchalant flamboyance.

“Why would you be interested in getting in touch with that old fogey? Don’t tell me you’ve got business at the Palace.”

“No, of course I haven’t, I knew nothing about that until you told me just now,” I said. “I’m not even sure if or why I do want to meet him; but he’s the only one of the whole family that I know anything about. It may be that I want to meet his children, or the daughter, and the father could be a means to that end.”

“And what about Deán, where does he fit in?” asked Ruibérriz.

“Could you get me an introduction to Téllez?” I asked, trying to extract an answer from him whilst, at the same time, avoiding replying to his question.

Ruibérriz likes doing people favours or, at least, showing that he is prepared to do so, that pleases everyone, he enjoys pondering, hesitating and then saying: “I’ll see what I can do” or “I’ll have a think about it,” or “I’ll sort something out for you,” or “Leave it with me.” He did ponder, but only for a few seconds (he’s a man of action who thinks quickly or barely thinks at all), then he ordered another beer from the barman (Ruibérriz is one of the few men who can still get away with clapping his hands or clicking his fingers in bars or open-air cafes and I’ve never yet seen a waiter get angry with him or take offence, as if Ruibérriz had some sort of dispensation that allowed him to continue the abusive practices of the 1950s – things imitated and learned in childhood – and that his right to do this was so clearly irrefutable that the gesture seemed perfectly comprehensible. He snapped his fingers
twice: middle finger and thumb, thumb and middle finger). He uncrossed his legs and stood up, that way he was taller than me; he turned towards me with his dazzling smile and a fresh glass of beer in his right hand.

“You could always pretend you were a journalist,” he said. “I’m sure he’d be delighted to give you an interview. The older and more forgotten they feel, the keener they are to have someone pay them some attention. They get anxious, their time is running out.”

“I’d prefer not to do it by deceit, the interview would never get published and he would be waiting for it to appear. Isn’t there some other way?”

Ruibérriz de Torres folded his arms and placed his hands on his biceps, he was standing up, he seemed amused, an idea had occurred to him that tickled him, some machination, some artifice.

“There might be,” he said. “It might mean a rather delicate little job.”

“What delicate little job?”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing you can’t handle.” He licked his lips again, looking even more like a scoundrel than usual, and gave a glance about him, a glance that combined the desires of both hunter and potential fugitive. “Give me a bit of time and I might just be able to hand it to you on a plate.” He said the last part of the sentence in a rather agitated voice and the expression he used revealed his excitement, “I might just be able to hand it to you on a plate” was like saying “Leave it to me” or “Don’t you worry about a thing.” “You don’t want to tell me what your intentions are, then?”

I wanted to tell him the truth and say: “I don’t really have any intentions, something horrible and ridiculous happened to me, and I can’t stop thinking about it, it’s as if I were haunted; there’s nothing I particularly want to find out because there’s nothing to find out, there’s no one I want to save because she’s already dead, I don’t even want to gain anything from it because there’s nothing to be gained, apart from the reproaches or the unjustified hatred of someone, of Deán for example, of Téllez and his children, or even of a certain despotic, foulmouthed bloke called Vicente who, to put it bluntly, had been having it off with her, I didn’t even manage to do it with her once, that one and only time. I don’t
want to supplant anyone or to harm them in any way, I don’t want to usurp anything or to avenge myself on anyone, to atone for a sin or to protect or ease my conscience, to free myself from fear, there’s no reason why I should, I didn’t do anything, no one did anything to me, and the bad part or the worst part has already happened, and for no reason whatsoever, I’m not motivated by any of the things that usually motivate us, finding something out, saving someone, gaining something, supplanting, harming or usurping someone, avenging oneself, atoning for something, protecting or easing or freeing oneself from something; having it off with someone. But even if there’s nothing, something moves us, it’s impossible for us to remain still, in our place, as if vacuous resentments and desires, unnecessary torments, emanated from our very breath. And now, not only is there nothing that I want to know, I am the one who has to hide, I am the one whose every action and every step will be investigated, I am the one who will be forced to recount my story, each passive action, each poisonous step, ‘They’ve only just started looking, but, apparently, Eduardo is determined to find him,’ had heard someone say, and that ‘him’ referred to me and to no one else, not even to that man, Vicente, who would be at my mercy if I revealed myself and to whom the words were innocently addressed. I have no intentions. It’s just that something horrible and ridiculous happened to me and I feel as if I were under a spell, haunted, watched, revisited, inhabited, my head and body inhabited and haunted by someone I only knew in death and by a few kisses we could just as easily not have exchanged.” I would have liked to have told him all that, but even my opening words would have intrigued Ruibérriz more than the reply I gave him, which was more commonplace, simpler and easier to understand:

“Not at the moment.”

It was nearly time for lunch, time for us to go our separate ways, an hour of the day when it still feels like morning; outside it was raining, we could see it through the large windows and on the people who came in through the revolving door, drenched and getting themselves entangled in their barely furled umbrellas. It was raining as it so often does in clear-skied Madrid, a weary, uniform rain, untroubled by any wind, as if it knew it was going
to last for days and there was no need for anger or urgency. The morning was orangey-green and, a little way off, beyond the centre and beyond the suburbs, the rain would be falling with even less urgency on Marta Téllez’s grave, raindrops falling on a gravestone that would be washed gratis until time or the stone ran out, although only infrequently in this place of bone-dry air, she was under cover, moreover, and there was no escape for her as there was for the passers-by on the Gran Vía, running across the road and keeping as far from the kerb as possible, seeking shelter under eaves and in shop doorways and in the entrance to the metro, as had their forebears, wearing hats and longer skirts, when they ran to find shelter from the bombing during the long siege, clutching their hats and with skirts flying, according to photos and documentaries I’ve seen about the Civil War: some of those who ran to avoid being killed are still alive, whilst others born later are dead, how odd: Téllez is alive but not his daughter Marta. The group of people who had taken refuge under the awning of our bar, a bar that was here in the 1930s and therefore saw the bombs fall and saw the fall of all those passers-by who did not manage to escape in the desolate Madrid of half a century or more ago, would block our path when we came to leave.

Ruibérriz ate a handful of nuts and looked apprehensively at his Nazi overcoat: it would get wet, what a nuisance. He excused himself and went to the toilet, he took more time than was necessary and, when he came back, it occurred to me that perhaps he had snorted some coke to help him face the rain and the inevitable drenching that his leather coat would get, as well as the lunch he was off to, where he would doubtiess be discussing some important matter, nothing in which he is involved can be considered unimportant. I know that he occasionally takes cocaine in order to stay cheerful and to continue having fun and to continue dazzling people as long as possible, although that too has caused him a few problems with certain of his clients, especially those who show an interest in the merchandise and end up demanding a sample. He was still standing by the stool, looking momentarily melancholy and thoughtful, as if regretting his exclusion from an important project whose initial stages would, moreover, depend on him.