Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (38 page)

“What a pair,” said Ruibérriz, tugging on his trouser belt with both hands and filling out his chest as they disappeared amongst the moving mass. And that was all he said by way of farewell.

We decided to go and collect our money later, we were really interested in the fifth race, we wanted to go straight to the paddock to study the best horses at close quarters, we could watch the race without worrying about the outcome now, we would emerge with a profit anyway, thanks to that pair, to the girls. We got a good place at the bar from which we could see when the horses left the starting post. The race track, by then, was packed, whatever happened they wouldn’t dare to cancel the fifth race, visibility didn’t matter.

“Did you see that wad of notes?” I said to Ruibérriz.

“I should say, an absolute fortune, where do you think she got that? And they were new notes too, weren’t they?”

“Brand new, I’d say.”

“Bloody hell,” he said.

I don’t know if he was going to say anything further, he didn’t get the chance, because, just opposite us on the other side of the
bar, we suddenly saw that a guy with a scarlet face and bulging veins had smashed a bottle and had grasped it by the neck, he was brandishing it in the air, the foam from the beer gushing out like urine. We just had time to see another man in a camel coat advancing on him with a knife clasped in his hand, those poisonous steps, we hadn’t heard the verbal part of the argument, in Madrid everyone talks so loudly anyway, the man with the knife tried to plunge it into the chest of the man with the bottle, an upward movement, he missed, nothing was torn, the jagged edge of the glass aimed at the throat or neck missed too, each caught hold of the other’s armed hand with their free hand, other men took advantage of the struggle to hurl themselves upon them and separate them and immobilize them (doubtless some pickpocket took advantage of the melee), then some policemen intervened, they would ask for documentation from every living soul on that side of the bar, the two rivals were hauled off, they were beaten with truncheons, their heads bleeding, we saw it, Ruibérriz and I went on taking sips of our beer, one sip, then another and another, it all happened very fast and the mist was growing thicker.

E
VERYTHING HAPPENED
very fast on Monday and on Tuesday too, the way everything seems to when it finally happens, then you have the feeling that it has all happened in a rush and is over in a flash and that the run-up to it was much too short, that it could easily have happened even later; everything seems as nothing to us, everything becomes compressed and seems as nothing to us once it is over, then we always feel that we were not given enough time, that it did not last long enough (we were still considering, still hesitating, how few letters and photographs and memories remain to me), when things come to an end, they are countable, they have a number, although what has happened to me is not yet over and may perhaps never be over until I am over and, on meeting death, I find rest and contribute to death’s salvation, like all the other centuries that have played their part, that monstrous riddle of 1914. And meanwhile, another day, how dreadful, another day, how fortunate. Only then will I cease to be the thread of continuity, the silken thread without a guide, when my weary will grows tired and withdraws and no longer wants to want or wants anything, and when what prevails is no longer “not yet, not yet” but “I can’t take any more of this”, when I interrupt myself and I travel along the reverse side of time, or along its dark back where there will be no room for scruples or error or effort.

It all happened very fast because not everyone is aware that the recent present can suddenly seem like the remote past: Deán was not aware of this and he doubtless considered that he had already spent far too much time waiting to know what he finally learned from his sister-in-law Luisa on the agreed or stipulated day, she was kind enough to phone me on Monday evening – or perhaps it was already night, the blurring mist of the previous days
continued – to confirm that she had spoken to him, she had just done so, she had unmasked me and for Deán I had become somebody in all respects, that is, someone with a face and a name who had confessed to certain deeds, or to warn me of that other phone call from the husband or widower which would come very soon, she thought, that same night, the moment we hung up and my line was free, or the next day at the latest, if Deán decided to spend his sleeping hours coming to terms with or pondering his newly acquired knowledge. I realized that Luisa had dialled my number immediately after giving it to him, perhaps to protect me for a few more minutes, perhaps to stop him making use of it the moment he had the number. She had been at the apartment in Conde de la Cimera talking to him, they had seen each other as they did almost every day about something or other to do with the child, now she was talking to me from the Russophile bar downstairs, where she had gone immediately after leaving the apartment. At least Deán had not rushed to the phone while she was coming down in the lift and turning the corner of the building and getting out her card or coins to warn me, if I wanted, she said protectively, I could leave the answering machine on all night, if I wasn’t yet ready to confront that voice, to confront Deán.

“How did he take it?” I asked.

“I think he was surprised, but he concealed it very well. He must have been thinking it was someone else. But listen,” she said, “I didn’t say anything to him about Vicente Mena, it suddenly felt too much, too many useless revelations, he’s a friend of his, I don’t know, what does it matter what happened if nothing can possibly happen now. I’m telling you this so that you don’t feel you have to tell him either, if you don’t want to.” She remained silent for a second, then she added in a detached way: “Although you’ll probably have to tell him, I don’t know, see what happens, it doesn’t really matter what he thinks of Marta any more. In fact, I don’t know if I should worry about her good name, one doesn’t really know quite what to do with the dead, I just feel terribly confused.”

“People used to venerate them or at least their memory, and they would go and visit their graves with flowers, and their portraits would preside over their homes,” I thought, “people
spent a period in mourning and everything stopped for a while or slowed down, the death of someone affected the whole of life, the dead person really did take with them a part of the lives of their loved ones and, consequently, there wasn’t such a separation between the two states, they were related and they were less frightening. Now people forget the dead as if the dead were plague victims, sometimes they use them as shields or dunghills in order to blame them and make them responsible for the terrible situation in which they have left us, often they are loathed or they receive only acrimony and reproaches from their heirs, they departed too soon or too late without preparing the ground for us or without leaving us free, they continue being names but not faces, names to which all manner of villainies and cowardices and horrors are imputed, that’s the current tendency, and thus they do not find rest even in oblivion.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything to him about Vicente if that’s what you want, I trust your judgement and I’ve no objection to keeping it quiet,” I said. “I didn’t know of his existence when I went to supper with your sister, I might not have known about it when I left, it would have made no difference. One of these days, I’ll throw the tape away, I’ll throw it away today, it’s of no help or benefit to anyone. Anyway, don’t worry about me, somebody’s possible anger doesn’t mean that there has to be a culprit, nor does somebody’s possible pain, no one does anything convinced that what they’re doing is wrong, it’s just that often one simply can’t take other people into account, we would be unable to do anything, sometimes you can only think about yourself and about the moment, not about what comes afterwards.” In fact, I was feeling nervous and rather frightened. Perhaps I didn’t know what I was saying, we often speak without knowing what we’re saying, merely because it’s our turn, impelled into speech by the silence, as happens in dialogues in plays, except that we are constantly improvising.

There was a silence at the other end of the line, but I didn’t go on, I was patient enough to wait. “Other people,” I thought, “other people have never quite done,” I thought while I was waiting.

“Just one thing,” Luisa said at last, “if he suggests to you that you should meet tonight, I would say no, if I were you. It would
be better if you met during the day and, if possible, when the boy isn’t there, if he wants you to meet at his place. My sister-in-law María will pick him up in the morning and won’t be back until the evening, it’s her turn tomorrow. As I said before, what Eduardo wants most of all is to tell you something, but even so I think it would be best if the situation were as different as possible to the one you experienced, the one he now knows about. I gave him a fairly faithful account of what you told me, and I gave him your version of events. He hardly said a word, he just listened, but I think what he finds hardest to understand is why you didn’t tell him about it, why you didn’t tell anyone. The fact is I really don’t what state he’ll be in.” Luisa paused and then added, “Will you tell me how it went?” She sounded a bit frightened, we’re always afraid when we’ve set something in motion. She was giving me advice and was worried about me, perhaps because she saw that she owed it to me, I was the one who would have to listen to any reproaches and to bear someone’s anger and to be called to account. Marta wasn’t there to share it.

“He’ll tell you about it himself, I imagine.”

“I’ll know how it went for him, but not for you. It’s different.”

That left the way open for us to see and phone each other again, to talk, how unfortunate and how lucky, one step leads to another step quite innocently and, in the end, they become poisoned, not always, perhaps not the steps that I might take towards her or Luisa towards me, perhaps not this time, we think and go on thinking until the end of the time allotted to us, our conclusion. I hung up, we hung up and I sat down to wait for the phone call. I didn’t just sit by the phone, I got up, I moved around, I went to the fridge, I opened a bottle, I took a sip, I went back to the living room, I picked up the tape in order to throw it out as I had told Luisa I would, but I didn’t, I left it where it was, on a shelf, you don’t always have to do what you say you’ll do, there’s always time, later on, no period of waiting is long once it’s over. After three minutes, the phone rang, I let the machine answer first, I was sure it would be Deán. Instead, I heard Celia’s voice beginning to leave me a message. We’re talking to each other again, we even see each other occasionally, but we talk fairly often, a telephonic relationship now that cohabitation is over, that
way the only temptations are verbal ones. Apparently, she’s going to marry again, then I’ll stop sending her cheques or giving her cash when we do see each other, she’ll have a wealthy husband of whom I am doubtless already a co-bridegroom, he’s the owner of an expensive restaurant which I will never visit, or so I think, no needs unmet, or so I hope. I picked up the phone and spoke to her, my line was busy again and I was safe for a few more moments, just a few, she was about to go out and just wanted to tell me something that I already knew: the tedious actor for whom I sometimes work had left me five messages on the answering machine, he was trying to get in touch with me urgently – I didn’t want him to find me that day – when there’s no other way of getting hold of me, some people still try to locate me through Celia as if she were still my wife (just as Ferrán tried phoning Marta when Deán had gone to London without leaving his address, I was a later ear-witness to that). Now we know little about each other’s lives, Celia and I, we don’t ask each other any questions, we wait until the other tells us something, perhaps the last time any concrete questions were asked was two and a half years ago, the day after my furtive night-time visit to her home which was once my home, she called me despite having suggested the previous night that I should be the one to call her in the morning to arrange to have lunch together and then talk about whatever it was, not at half past three in the morning as I wanted. That’s what she had said, but she didn’t mention any possible meeting when she phoned, she wanted to talk about one thing only, she asked me very seriously: “Listen, Víctor, you’ve still got the keys to the apartment, haven’t you?” “No,” I lied, “I threw them in the rubbish ages ago, in a fit of rage, one day when I got angry. Why?” “Are you sure?” she said. “Are you sure that you didn’t use them to get into the apartment last night?” Normally, I would have hit the roof or asked her if she had gone mad, it was one thing phoning her at some unearthly hour after months of silence, saying that I wanted to see her and quite another that, despite her refusal, I should turn up there with no warning, without even ringing the doorbell, I could have answered her in an offended tone: “Are you mad? That’s hardly my style.” Instead I replied soberly, too soberly not to betray myself, I think: “No,
why, what happened, it wasn’t me.” Sometimes I lie and not always very well, I still have those keys, although she would doubtless have immediately had the locks changed, that very day. I still have the tape too, I haven’t thrown it out, and Marta Téllez’s bra that I took with me by mistake, from time to time I sniff it, but it doesn’t smell of anything now, and the yellow post-it that says “Wilbraham Hotel”, I might stay there next time I happen to go to London. What doesn’t remain, though, is Marta’s smell that lingered after her, smells don’t last very long and are hard to remember, although one does remember other things through them very intensely when they reappear, though it’s unlikely that the smells associated with the dead will ever be repeated. Celia didn’t insist, she just said “Fine” and hung up, just as I said “I know, if he bothers you again, just tell him that you’ve no idea where I am,” when she told me about how impatient the tedious actor had been, and then I didn’t hang up, we both hung up at the same time, we get on well now, at a distance. I don’t usually like talking about Celia.