Your Face Tomorrow. Fever And Spear (37 page)

So I experimented two or three times, I stopped suddenly without warning, and on those three occasions the sound of cautious or semi-aerial steps, the whirr of crickets, the swishing sound or whatever it was — like the crazy trot of an old wall clock, which also resembles the footsteps of a dog — took longer than usual to stop, I could hear it when I was already standing still and when I could not possibly be emitting any involuntary or uncontrolled sound. I did not turn my head when I made this experiment, to look behind or to the sides, as I did when I was walking steadily along, resting the umbrella on my shoulder, almost as one would with a sunshade when out for a stroll, as if I wanted above all to protect the back of my neck, to protect it from the wind and the water and from the possible looks of other people and from imaginary bullets that would have pierced both (the back of my neck and the umbrella), you think such absurd things when you have to walk a longish distance alone and at night, feeling as if you were being followed even though you can't actually see anyone following you. During the final stretch there were occasional grassy areas to the left and right, I took a short-cut through a small local park, so perhaps those unseen steps were made on the grass. I waited until I had left that barely lit park behind me and was already very close to home. I had only another two blocks to go and another square to cross when I tried again, and this time I did turn round when I stopped and then I saw them, two white figures at a distance that would not normally have allowed me to hear panting or footsteps. The dog was white and the woman, the person, was, like me, wearing a light-coloured raincoat. I thought, from the first, that she was a woman, and she was, because, after only a second or a sliver of doubt, I took an immediate fancy to her legs, when I saw that they were covered not by dark trousers, but by black, knee-high boots (with no heels, or only very low heels) which delineated or accentuated the curve of her strong calves. Her face was still hidden by her umbrella, she had both hands occupied, she was holding the dog's lead in one, the dog, somewhat hopelessly and possibly wearily, kept tugging on the lead, the creature had no protection at all, it must have been drenched, the rain doubtless continued to weigh on it however violently it shook itself each time they paused (for when they did, the rain didn't stop falling on the dog), and they were pausing then, because the two figures had also stopped, with a slight but inevitable delay after me or my very abrupt halt. I stood for a few, but not too few, seconds looking at them. The woman didn't seem to mind being seen, I mean she could just be someone who, despite the wild weather, had decided to take her dog for a walk, and she wouldn't have to explain herself to me were I to ask her to. It could just be a coincidence: sometimes you do find yourself following the same route as another pedestrian for many long minutes, even if your route is not a direct one, and sometimes you can start to feel annoyed by this, for no reason, it's merely a longing for that coincidence to end, to cease, because it seems somehow like a bad omen, or simply because it irritates you, so much so that you even go out of your way and make an unnecessary detour just to separate yourself from and to leave behind that insistent parallel being.

There was between the two of us, or, rather, between them and me, a distance of some two hundred or more yards, far enough for me to have to shout or to retrace my steps if I was going to speak to her, to ask a question of that human figure, who was clearly a young woman, her boots were waterproof, supple, shiny and close-fitting, they were not just any old rainboots, they had been chosen, studied, were possibly expensive, flattering, maybe by a well-known designer. I stared at them, she had not uncovered her face, at no point did she raise the umbrella covering it and did not, therefore, return my gaze, but neither was she troubled because a man was standing watching her from not very far away, at night and in all that rain. She crouched down, the skirts of her raincoat fell open when she did so and I could see part of her thigh, she patted and stroked the dog's back, probably spoke softly to him, then stood up again and the skirts of her raincoat closed once more over that glimpse of flesh, she did not move, did not set off in any direction, it occurred to me then that she might be in need of help, lost in an area she did not know, or a young blind woman out with her guide dog, or a foreigner who did not know the language, or a prostitute so hard up she could not miss even one night-time excursion, or was wondering whether or not to ask me for money, help, advice, something. Not because I was me, but because I was the only parallel being there. I had the feeling that any meeting was impossible, and, at the same time, that it would be a shame if it did not take place and that it would be better if it did not. The feeling was one of pity, whether for myself or for her, I don't know, certainly not for us both, because one of us would have come off worse — I thought — and the other would have benefited, that is usually how it is with such street encounters.

Many years before, in this same country, when I was teaching at Oxford, I had been followed off and on by a man with a three-legged dog, one of its back legs neatly amputated, and subsequently, without prior warning, he had visited my house, his name was Alan Marriott, he was rather lame in his left leg (although it was still intact) and he was a bibliomaniac who had learned of my own bookish interests, which coincided in part with his, from the second-hand booksellers I used to frequent there. The dog was a terrier, he'll be dead by now, poor thing, they do not last as long as we do. The young woman's dog seemed to me, from a distance, to be a pointer and still had all its four legs, which I found strangely cheering, in contrast with the crippled dog, I suppose, who came suddenly to mind in that night of eternal rain. 'But I don't want anything of anyone,' I thought, 'nor do I expect anything of anyone, and I'm in a hurry to get out of this rain and reach home, and forget all about the interpretations of this long day which doesn't end or which won't end until I'm safe up there on my third floor. Let her come to me if she wants something from me or if she's following me. That's her problem. She must have a reason, assuming she was following me or still is, it can't be in order
not
to talk to me.' I turned and hurried on to my destination, but I couldn't help listening out during the rest of my walk to see if I could or couldn't hear that tis tis tis which was, as it turned out, the sound of a dog and its eighteen toes, or perhaps of those long boots with such low heels that they glided over the asphalt without even striking it, without making a sound.

I reached my door, turned the key and opened it, and only then did I furl my umbrella and shake it so that it didn't drip too much indoors, and once upstairs, I immediately took the umbrella into the kitchen, leaving my raincoat there to dry as well, and then I went impatiently over to the window and scanned the square, but I saw neither the young woman nor the pointer, even though I had heard their weightless noise until the end, accompanying me as far as the door downstairs, or so I thought. I looked up and across at my dancing neighbour, who had often before had a calming effect on me. There he was, of course, he was unlikely to be out in that awful weather, and he had a visitor too, the black or mulatto woman with whom he sometimes danced: judging from their movements and posture and rhythm I was sure they were immersed in some pseudo-Gaelic dance, feet frantically flailing, but going nowhere (the feet keeping strictly to a point on which they insist and stamp and stamp again, an area no bigger than a house brick or, lest we exaggerate, a floor tile), while the arms are held, inert and very stiff, close to the body, it was likely, I thought, that the dancing couple would be listening to the music of one of those demented shows put on by that idol of the islands, Michael Flatley, who stamps his feet like a man possessed, they re-issue his old videos with remarkable frequency, maybe he's retired now and rations his appearances so as to make his furious boundings about the stage seem even more exceptional. Whether dancing alone or in company, my neighbour always seemed so happy that I sometimes felt tempted to imitate him, after all, that's something we can all do, dance alone at home when we think no one is looking. But you can never be sure that no one is looking or listening, we're not always aware of being watched, or followed.

Having one leg missing, the bibliomaniac Marriott's poor terrier would only have had fourteen toes, I thought. Perhaps I had remembered the dog because its image was forever associated with that of a young woman who also used to wear high boots, a gypsy flower-seller, who used to set up her stall opposite my house in Oxford, on the other side of the long street known there as St Giles'. Her name was Jane, and, despite her extreme youth, she was married; she usually wore jeans and a leather jacket; I would sometimes exchange a few words with her, and Alan Marriott had stopped at her stall to buy some flowers before ringing my doorbell on the morning or afternoon that he visited me, on one of those Sundays 'in exile from the infinite' (I quoted to myself). He and I had just been talking about the Welsh writer Arthur Machen (one of his favourites) and about the literature of horror or terror which the latter had cultivated to the great delight of Borges and of very few others, although I remember that Marriott had not heard of Borges. And suddenly he had given me an illustration of horror through a hypothesis involving his dog with its three legs and intelligent face and the flower-seller in the high boots. 'Horror depends in large measure on the association of ideas,' he had said. 'On the conjunction of ideas. On a capacity for bringing them together.' He spoke in short phrases and hardly used conjunctions at all, making minimal, but very deep, marked pauses, as if he held his breath while they lasted. As if his speech too were slightly lame. 'You might never see the horror implicit in associating two ideas, the horror implicit in each of those ideas, and thus never in your whole life recognise the horror they contain. But you could live immersed in that horror if you were unfortunate enough always to make the right associations. For example, that girl opposite your house who sells flowers,' he had said, pointing at the window with one very taut index finger, one of those fingers which, although clean, seems to be impregnated with whatever it spends its days touching, however frequently the owner of the finger may wash it: I've seen such fingers on coalmen and butchers and house painters and even greengrocers (on coalmen during my childhood); his fingers were impregnated with book dust, which always clings so and which is the reason I wore gloves when I went rummaging around second-hand bookshops, but, then again, the chalk I used when I was teaching had already started to stick. 'There's nothing terrifying about her, she doesn't in herself inspire horror. On the contrary. She's very attractive. She's nice and friendly. She stroked the dog. I bought these carnations from her.' He produced them from his raincoat pocket, into which he had carelessly crammed them, as if they were pencils or a handkerchief. There were only two, they were almost squashed. 'But she could inspire horror. The idea of that girl in association with another idea could. Don't you think so? We don't yet know the nature of that missing idea, of the idea required to inspire us with horror. Her horrifying other half. But it must exist. It does. It's simply a question of it appearing. It may also never appear. Who knows, it could turn out to be my dog.' He pointed downwards with his vertical finger, the terrier had lain down at his feet, it wasn't raining that day, there was no danger of it dirtying the sitting-room, it didn't deserve to be exiled to the kitchen on the ground floor (his index finger covered in invisible dust). 'The girl and my dog,' he repeated, and again pointed first at the window (as if the flower-seller were a ghost and had her face pressed to the glass, it was the window on the second floor, that pyramidal house had three, I slept on the top floor and worked in that living-room) and then at the dog, his finger always very erect and rigid. 'The girl with her long, chestnut hair, her high boots and her long, firm legs and my dog with his one leg missing.' I remember that he then touched the dog's stump affectionately or tentatively as if it might still hurt him, the dog was dozing. 'The fact that my dog goes everywhere with me is normal. It's necessary. It's odd if you like. I mean the two of us going around together. But there's nothing horrific about it. But if she went around with my dog. That might be horrific. The dog
is
missing a leg. I'm the only one who remembers him when he had four legs. My personal memory doesn't count. It's of no importance in the eyes of other people. In her eyes. In your eyes. In the eyes of other dogs. Now it's as if my dog had always had one leg missing. If it had been her dog, it would certainly never have lost its leg in a stupid argument after a football match.' Marriott had told me the story already, I had asked him: some drunken Oxford United fans, late at night on Didcot Station, the lame man beaten and held down by several of them, the dog, not as yet lame, placed on the railway line so that it would be killed by a through train. They had let it go, they had drawn back, frightened, at the last moment, the dog had rolled over, it was lucky in a way ('You can't imagine the amount of blood he lost'). 'That's an accident. An occupational hazard for a dog with a lame master. But if it had been her dog, perhaps it would have lost its leg some other way. The dog is still missing a leg. There must be some other reason, then. Something far worse. Not just an accident. You could hardly imagine that girl getting involved in a fight. Perhaps the dog would have lost its leg
because
of her.' He emphasised the word 'because'. 'Perhaps the only explanation of why this dog should have lost its leg, if it were her dog, would be that she had cut it off. How else could a dog who was so well looked after, cared for and loved by that nice, attractive flower-seller have lost its leg? It's a horrible idea, that girl cutting off my dog's leg; seeing it with her own eyes; being a witness to it.' Alan Marriott's words had sounded slightly indignant, indignant at the girl's behaviour. He had broken off then, as if he had conjured up too vivid an image with his own terrible hypothesis and had indeed seen the horrific couple. As if he had seen the couple through my window — 'with the eyes of the mind,' I quoted to myself. He seemed to have unnerved himself, to have frightened himself. 'Let's change the subject,' he said. And although I urged him to continue — 'No, go on, you were on the point of inventing a story' — he was not prepared to go on thinking about it, or imagining it: 'No, forget it. It's a poor example,' he had said firmly. 'As you wish,' I had said, and then we had passed on to something else. There would have been no way of persuading him to continue his fantasy, I knew this immediately, not once he had alarmed himself by it. Perhaps he had horrified himself. He must have been shocked by his own mind.