Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow, and Farewell (55 page)

'As I said, it's best not to talk about it. I prefer him to be the only one who knows, so that if by some stroke of bad luck they should meet later on and she should corner him, he'd be the only one who could tell Luisa what happened, not that I think he would, it wouldn't be worth his while and it would merely be his word against mine, with no way of corroborating the facts. It's not that I don't trust you, now, I mean. But you never know. One day, you might be angry with me for some reason and want to harm me. If something is best not known, then it's best that no one knows about it, not even your accomplice. Why else do you think criminals are always bumping people off?'

Cristina took this well, she laughed and didn't press me further. She said only:

'Don't worry, I won't say anything to Luisa. I hope you're right and that this story
is
over. I'll act surprised if she mentions it, the break-up I mean. She might be having a rough time and want to get it off her chest or just talk to someone. And if something has happened to Custardoy, I'll be bound to find out somehow, you know how people gossip.'

'No, I don't think you will find out. He's not in Madrid at the moment and he won't be around for several weeks at least. And when he does come back, he'll invent some tale, if, that is, he still bears the marks of our encounter. A garage door perhaps, or a bollard.' I realized that I had already said too much, it's so easy to let your tongue run away with you, especially when you're boasting, and I
was
boasting a little, even though several days had passed: I did feel slightly proud of my exploit, pistol in hand, and had no problem forgetting that the word 'exploit' is entirely misplaced when the other party was unarmed. I knew perfectly well that such private bragging was unforgivable, especially after what I discovered on my arrival in London, or just before. And yet that's how it was, and I couldn't help myself; I imagine it must happen to any otherwise nonviolent person who, when forced to use violence, meets with success. And so I added: 'Not that I'm saying I did anything to him, or that anything happened to him. Anything bad, I mean.' (In that brief conversation I had trotted out some of the classic lines recommending denial, ignorance and silence, appropriate to espionage and conspiracies and criminality, to the clandestine and the underhand: 'It's best if you know nothing; then, if they interrogate you, you'll be telling the truth when you say you know nothing, the truth is easy, it has more force, it's more believable, the truth persuades.' And: 'If you know only about your part of the job, even if they catch you or you fail, the plan can still go ahead.' Not to mention: 'Your ignorance will be your protection, so don't ask any more questions, don't ask, it will be your salvation and your guarantee of safety.' And even: 'You know the score, I've never spoken to you or said anything. This conversation and this phone call never took place, you haven't even heard these words because I didn't say them. And even though you can hear the words now, I'm not saying them.')

Cristina laughed again, perhaps because she was glad to think that her sister was now out of danger.

'You sound very mysterious and a touch threatening,' she said, half-serious and half-joking. 'This isn't the Jaime I know. It would seem that London and being alone there suits you. Just one thing, whatever you've done, I'm not your accomplice. So there's no need to bump me off.'

All this happened days later, when I was back in London again, and feeling more anxious and that the situation had changed for the worse. What I
was
thinking about on that return flight was that Luisa had still said nothing about herself right up until the last moment. On the final day, on the eve of my departure, I had gone to the hotel to change after visiting my father and then to Luisa's apartment to say goodbye to the children and, in passing, to her.

'So, when will you be back again?' Guillermo had demanded in accusing tones, even as Marina was insisting that I take her with me, up in the air.

'This time,' I had lied, unaware then that I wasn't lying, 'I'll be back soon, I promise.' And I had likewise promised Marina that, on my next trip, I would take her with me to that large island, knowing full well that small children barely remember what's said to them from one day to the next, one of their many privileges.

That was the sole occasion when Luisa seemed about to invite me to sit down in the living room for a while, as if she had suddenly realized that we wouldn't see each other again for some time and that we hadn't had a single proper conversation; that she hadn't asked me about my life in London or about my work, my habits, my prospects or my general state of mind or about my friendships or possible lovers (on that last point I could have declined to answer, just as she had done), not even about the slovenly, dirty, drunken or crazy—and definitely pantyless—women who had possibly dripped blood in my house or in Wheeler's house and who had caused her such amusement. Her lack of curiosity, her lack of interest in me, had been very marked during my brief stay, and were it not for what I had done behind her back, for my brutal interference in her life—in a way I had ruined or torn down the life she was trying to rebuild—and for my consequent feeling that I was in her debt, such indifference would have been more than enough reason for me to feel offended and to mutter darkly to myself about it. She, however, was so distracted and doubtless so immersed in her own story that she didn't even find it odd, my apparent resignation to the situation or my excessively discreet behavior. She knew me well, probably better than anyone. She knew I was respectful and certainly not inclined to make a nuisance of myself, that I accepted what was given willingly and did not fight for what was denied to me, that my pride kept me from pestering anyone and that I acted in a roundabout way to achieve my ends, lingering and delaying for however long it took. Whichever way you looked at it, though, it was very strange that with time to spare I hadn't made more of an effort to see her alone, that I'd left all the initiative to her and taken a back seat, that I'd let the days pass without making myself a more obvious or visible presence and without demanding that we meet alone. All of these things should have made her suspicious, and yet they didn't. Her mind was otherwise occupied, doubtless with Custardoy, first with the incomprehensible excitement he aroused in her, and perhaps, too, with the tension she felt between desire and distrust—she must have seen that choosing a man like him would always, at least in part, be inadvisable—then with her disquiet at his abrupt and unexpected departure with barely a word of explanation, with her growing unease over his delay in phoning her, for he had perhaps not yet, as I had ordered, given any sign of life since his disappearance. ('While you're away, only call her now and then, and make those calls less and less frequent'), and when you wait in vain for something it does take on a degree of urgency and occupies all your time and fills up every space: you expect the doorbell to ring at any moment and each moment becomes intensely long and oppressive, like a knee digging into your chest, like lead upon the soul, until exhaustion overwhelms you and gives you a slight respite.

Perhaps it was precisely that kind of truce brought on by weariness that allowed her to look around for an instant and to see me, to remember who I was and to realize that I'd be gone the next day, and that she would have allowed me to pass through without—so to speak—making the most of me; that I was still there that night and could serve as a way of killing time and diverting her for a few minutes—with my stories about London, with comments or anecdotes about a world of which she knew nothing—from her obsessive thoughts that continued unabated. She would probably only have listened to me with half an ear, not even a whole one, like someone vaguely aware of the murmur of a steady comfortable rain, so strong and sustained that, when he does finally look up, it alone seems to light up the night with its continuous threads like flexible metal bars or endless spears; or like someone sleeping with one eye open who thinks he can hear and connect with the languid murmur of the river that speaks calmly or indifferently, or perhaps the indifference comes from his own weariness and his own sleeplessness and his dreams that are just beginning, even if he believes himself to be wide awake; or like someone who allows himself to be infected and drawn in by an insignificant humming that reaches him from afar, across a courtyard or a square, or when he happens to go into a public toilet and hears a happy man humming as he carefully parts his hair with a wet comb ('Nanna naranniaro nannara nanniaro,' and then he can't help but add meaning and words to that catchy tune, if he knows it: 'For I'm a poor cowboy and I know I've done wrong.')

That is how Luisa would have listened to me, inattentively, if we had ever had the brief conversation she was on the point of proposing. I had already said goodbye to the kids in their respective beds, and left them, not sleeping, but about to fall asleep. I had closed their bedroom doors and said to Luisa, who was waiting in the corridor:

'Right, I'm off. I'm leaving tomorrow' Then I had gently touched her chin so as to study her profile and added: 'Your black eye's nearly gone. Be a bit more careful in future.' The bruise was barely visible now, apart from one small area that was still slightly yellow, but only someone who had seen how it looked before would have noticed it.

'Oh, of course, you're leaving.' And judging from the slightly wistful tone in which she said this, it seemed to me that she would probably miss me in a vague kind of way, now that she would be spending more time with the children and have fewer distractions. 'We haven't really seen much of each other, you've hardly told me anything about yourself—you caught me at a bad time, with a lot of previous commitments and a lot of work, things I couldn't cancel or change, if you'd given me a bit of advance warning that you were coming . . .'

It was an apology of sorts, she was the one feeling slightly in my debt, but only slightly, because one does usually try to accommodate someone who's only going to be around for a few days, and she hadn't. She seemed sad and distracted, as if filled with bad presentiments or, worse, a prescience of bad things to come. She was quite serene in her despondency, like someone who has thrown in the towel before receiving a single punch, like someone who knows what's about to happen. She must have been convinced that something strange was going on with Custardoy, whom she would probably call Esteban; true, he did occasionally travel and spend days or weeks observing and studying paintings in various places, but such a sudden departure wasn't normal—without saying goodbye or seeing each other—nor was the ensuing long silence. I imagined with satisfaction that he must be following my instructions to the letter, or had perhaps gone even further: yes, it was quite possible that he hadn't phoned her again since that first time, after his supposed arrival in wherever it was he had told her he had gone. He might even had told her he was in Baltimore, when he hadn't, in fact, stirred from Madrid. I really didn't care, just as long as he did as he was told and disappeared for good.

'How are you?' I asked. 'You seem a bit down. Has something happened in the last few days?'

'No, nothing,' she replied, shaking her head slightly. 'A minor disappointment, nothing important. I'll get over it soon enough.'

'Can I do anything about it? Is it about anyone I know?'

'No, not at all. It's someone you don't know, someone new. And anyway, it's not his fault either, it was unavoidable.' She paused for a second, then added: 'It's odd; now there'll be more and more of my people whom you don't know, not even by name, and so there'll be no point in my telling you about them or mentioning them. The same thing will happen with your people. And that hasn't happened for years, or only rarely. It's strange, when you live with someone, you keep up to date without any difficulty at all, without making any special effort, and then suddenly, or, rather, gradually, you know nothing about the people who come after. I know nothing about your friends in London, for example, or about the colleagues you work with every day. You said it was quite a small group, didn't you? And that one of them was a young woman, half-Spanish, is that right? How do you get along with them? I'm not even entirely sure what it is you do.' And as she said this, she waved her arm in the direction of the living room, not in order to show me the door so that I could leave, but as if she were suggesting we go in there for a moment before I left so that I could tell her about my work, or maybe simply so that she could listen to me talking. Perhaps she had realized that I could help her get through a few minutes of her waiting or lift the lead that weighed ceaselessly upon her soul. I thought of asking about the young gypsy mother and her children, who were, in a sense, her people and whom I knew about from when she and I were still living together and sharing a daily life, and whom I'd thought about while in that other country.

We started walking in that direction, with her leading. We were about to sit down at home and talk, and, while it lasted, this would seem the most natural thing in the world, with none of the artificiality that would have surrounded an arrangement to meet at a restaurant or anywhere else. Then her cell phone rang, the phone whose number other people knew and I did not, and she hurried on into the living room, almost ran, she had left it there, in her handbag, and I had left my raincoat and gloves in the room too, draped on the back of an armchair. I let her go ahead, of course, I didn't hurry, but since we had been walking along together, I didn't stop or hold back either, my discretion being limited to not actually going into the room, to lingering on the threshold, looking at the books on a shelf, my books, which I might, on one not too distant day, have to take away with me, although where I didn't yet know.

'Hello?' I heard her say, her spirits suddenly buoyant, as if the voice at the other end had managed to drive away her melancholy (or was it sorrow?) with just a word or two. I was sure it was Custardoy, calling for the penultimate or antepenultimate time. 'Yes. Are you OK?' A pause. 'Yes, I understand. Although, to be honest, your leaving like that, so suddenly, did throw me a bit . . . And you've no idea how long you're going to be away? That's a bit odd, isn't it? Them not giving you a fixed deadline, I mean.' She instinctively moved away from me and lowered her voice, so that I would hear as little as possible. However, since she didn't want to be rude and close the door on me or go into another room, her murmured comments were still audible. I missed a few words, but not her tone of voice. She wasn't saying much, Custardoy was the one doing most of the talking, and the conversation was rather brief, as if he were in a hurry (he was obeying my instructions to be distant and abrupt and concise). 'But that just leaves me completely in the dark. And what am I supposed to do if I can't even call you?' said Luisa almost pleadingly and raising her voice, only to lower it at once and add by way of explanation: 'Look, Jaime's here at the moment, he came to say goodbye, he's flying out tomorrow, he was just about to leave, why don't you call me back in five minutes?' Another longer pause. 'No, I don't understand. You mean you've got to go out right now, this very minute?' For a few moments I couldn't hear what she was saying, only intermittent words and odd phrases. 'No, I don't understand the situation; first of all, that rushed departure and now all these difficulties. I'm perfectly aware that we haven't known each other very long, and I don't presume to think that I know you inside out or anything, but I'm not used to this kind of behavior from you, it's never happened before. And you sound strange, different.' She fell silent again, then spoke almost in a whisper, before raising her voice to say: 'Look, I don't know what's going on with you, it's as if I were talking to someone else entirely. It's as if you were suddenly afraid of me, and I'd hate to be any kind of burden to you.'—'It isn't you he's afraid of, my love,' I thought. 'It's me.'—'Fine. If that's how you feel. It's up to you. You're the only one who can know how you feel. I'm not a mind-reader.' And her last words, which followed immediately after, were spoken coldly. 'Fine. If that's what you want. Goodbye.'