Javier Marias - While the Women are Sleeping

By this point, I was sitting on the lift floor. He, on the other hand, immaculate and circumspect, remained standing, still in coat and gloves, one hand resting on the wall and one foot elegantly crossed over the other. His shoes were unnaturally shiny.

The butler said:

‘So generally speaking, she’s at home, with nothing to do, apart from watching television and making long-distance calls to her friends in Spain, inviting them to visit, not that they often do, which is hardly surprising. When she can’t talk any more, when she’s tired from so much talking and her eyes hurt from watching so much TV, then the only thing she can think of is to fixate on me, because I’m always home, or almost always, I’m the one who knows where everything is or where to find things if we have to send out for something. She fixates on me, you see, and there’s nothing worse than being someone’s sole source of distraction. Sometimes she betrays herself, or, rather, betrays her usual disdainful self: without realising it, she’ll find that for some minutes she hasn’t been giving me orders or asking me pointless questions, but has actually been talking to me — imagine that, conversing.’

I remember that, at this point, I got up and pounded on the door again with the flat of my hand. I was about to shout out again too, but decided to follow the example of the butler, who spoke very calmly, as if we were, in fact, outside the lift, waiting for it to arrive. I remained standing, like him, and asked:

‘What do you talk about?’

The butler said:

‘Oh, she makes some remark about something she’s read in a magazine or about some contest she’s seen on TV. There’s one particular show that’s on every evening at half past seven, just before my boss gets home, Family Feud , she’s crazy about it and everything has to stop at half past seven so that she can give it her full attention. She turns out the lights, leaves the phone off the hook, and during the half-hour that Family Feud lasts, we could do absolutely anything, even set the house on fire, and she wouldn’t notice; we could go into her bedroom, where she watches TV, and burn the bed, and she wouldn’t notice. During that time, the only thing that exists is the TV screen. I’ve only seen that capacity for total concentration in children, but then she is rather like a child. While she’s watching Family Feud, I could commit murder, I could slit the throat of one of our chickens behind her back and scatter its blood and feathers over her sheets, and she wouldn’t notice. When the half-hour was up, she’d get to her feet, look around her and scream: “Where has all this blood and feathers come from? What’s happened?” But she wouldn’t have noticed me slitting the chicken’s throat. We could steal paintings, furniture, jewellery, we could bring our friends over and have an orgy on her bed while she’s watching Family Feud. We don’t, of course, because it’s also our boss’s bed, and we like and respect him. But I’m not exaggerating when I say that we could even rape her while she’s watching Family Feud , and she wouldn’t notice. Before I realised this, I always had to find an opportune moment, as I explained, to snip off a lock of her hair or steal an item of clothing, underwear or whatever, a handkerchief or some stockings. But now, if I wanted to steal some personal possession of hers, I’d just wait until half past seven from Monday to Friday and take what I wanted while she watched her show. I’ll tell you something, just so you can see that I’m not exaggerating. I conducted an experiment once, which is why I say that we could rape her and she wouldn’t notice. On one occasion, I went up behind her while she was watching Family Feud. She sits very close to the screen, very upright on a kind of low stool, probably thinking that the discomfort will help her to concentrate. One evening, I approached her from behind and touched her shoulder with my gloved hand, as if I wanted to get her attention. She insists that I always wear gloves, you see, I only have to put on full livery when there are guests for supper, but she likes me to wear my white silk gloves all the time, in the belief that a butler should be constantly running his finger over every surface, over the furniture and along the banisters, to check for dust, because if there is any dust, the gloves will pick it up immediately. Anyway, I always wear them, but they’re so fine that it’s almost like not wearing gloves at all. So, I touched her shoulder with my sensitive fingers, and when she took no notice, I left my hand there for a few seconds and gradually increased the pressure. So far, nothing very out of the ordinary. She didn’t turn round, didn’t move, nothing. Then I moved my hand — I was still standing up — stroking rather than squeezing her shoulders and collarbone, and she remained utterly impassive. I began to wonder if perhaps she was inviting me to go further, and I have to admit that I’m still not sure; but I don’t think so, I still believe she was just so absorbed in watching Family Feud that she didn’t notice anything. And so I slid my gloved hand towards her cleavage, she always wears very low-cut tops, too low-cut for my taste, but my boss, on the other hand, likes it, I’ve heard him say so. I touched her bra, which was a bit rough to the touch to be honest, and it was that, rather than any desire on my part, that persuaded me to avoid the bra or, shall we say, arrange things so that its fabric only rubbed against the back of my hand, which is less sensitive than the palm, even though I was wearing my gloves. I’m not much for the ladies, I barely have anything to do with them, but skin is skin, flesh is flesh. And so for several long minutes I stroked one breast and then the other, left and right, breast and nipple, it was very pleasant, and she didn’t move or say anything, didn’t even change position while she was watching her show. I think I could have carried on if Family Feud lasted longer, but then I saw that the host was about to say goodnight and I withdrew my hand. I was able to tiptoe backwards out of the room before she emerged from her trance. My boss got home that night at eight o’clock on the dot — and the theme tune was still playing on the TV.’

Are you sure they’re going to get us out of here? They’re taking forever,’ I said as my only response, and again shouted out and beat the metal door. ‘Hey! Come on!’

The butler said:

‘I’ve told you, they won’t be much longer. Each minute may seem like an hour to us, but in reality a minute only ever lasts a minute. We haven’t been in here for as long as you think, just take it easy.’

I again slid down to the floor and stayed there, leaning my back against the wall (I had taken off my overcoat and draped it over my arm).

‘Did you ever touch her again?’ I asked.

The butler said:

‘No. That was before the little girl died, and she disgusts me so much now that I wouldn’t even stroke her finger. A year ago, she became pregnant. My boss had no children from his previous marriage, so this would be his first child. You can imagine what the pregnancy was like, a real nightmare as far as I was concerned: it meant double the work and double the attention that she always demands of me — she was constantly summoning me to ask the most stupid, useless things. I really considered quitting then, but, as I say, there’s not much work around. When she gave birth, I was pleased, not just for my boss, but because the child would become her main source of distraction, relieving me of that role. The little girl, however, was born with a serious defect. She would only survive a matter of months, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into detail. As I say, it was clear from the start that the child was doomed, that she wouldn’t live for more than a few months, three, four, six, or, at the most, a year. Now I realise how hard that is, I understand how, knowing this, a mother might not want to grow too attached to her child, but for as long as the baby lives, she deserves to be cared for and loved, don’t you think? After all, the only thing that marked the baby out from the rest of us was that she had a known expiration date, because we all expire at some point, don’t we? When the mother found out what was going to happen, she wanted nothing to do with her. She more or less handed the child over to us, the servants, she even brought in a woman to feed her and change her nappies, so there were five of us in the house during those months, but now there’s just the four of us again. My boss didn’t get very involved either, but then that’s different, he works such long hours he wouldn’t have had the time anyway, even if the child had been healthy.