Javier Marias - When I Was Mortal

The man raised a finger to his eye.

“Really?” I said. “Is your boss that rich, then? Is it so obvious?”

“It’s written all over his face, he’s got the face of a rich man. Even if he didn’t shave for three days and dressed like a beggar, you could tell from his face he was rich. I wish I had that face. Whenever we go into an expensive shop, I go first, as usual. And despite the fact that I’m well dressed, as soon as the assistants see me they pull a face or ignore me, pretend they haven’t seen me, they start serving other customers who they hadn’t taken a blind bit of notice of before or they start rummaging around in drawers as if they were stocktaking. I don’t say a word, I just check that everything’s all right and then I go back to the door to open it for the boss and let him in. And as soon as they see his face, the assistants abandon their other customers and the drawers they were rummaging in to come and serve him, all smiles.”

“Isn’t it just that they recognize your boss because he’s famous, if he’s as rich as you say he is?”

“Possibly,” said the bodyguard, as if that hadn’t occurred to him. “He is getting quite well known. He’s in banking, you know. I won’t tell you who with, but he is. But listen, why don’t we go down to the paddock for a bit, it’ll be time to start betting on the third race soon.”

So we did and, on the way, we finally tore up our tickets and threw them to the ground, huh, when we saw that we had lost. I passed a philosopher who’s there every Sunday, as well as Admiral Admira (with his predestined and incomplete surname) and his lovely and undeserved wife, who both nodded to me without saying a word, as if they were embarrassed to see me in the company of that rather gigantic individual, I only came up to his shoulder. I was now wearing his binoculars round my neck and carrying my own broken pair, mine are small and powerful, his were enormous and very heavy, the strap cut into my neck, but I couldn’t run the risk of dropping them as well. While we were watching the horses walking round the paddock, I sensed that the bodyguard was about to ask me what I did, and since I didn’t feel like talking about myself, I got in first and said:

“What do you think of number fourteen?”

“He looks good,” he said, which is what those who know nothing about horses always say. “I think I might bet on him.”

“I don’t think I will, he looks a bit highly-strung to me. He might even get stuck at the starting gate.”

“Really, do you think so?”

“Having a rich man’s face counts for nothing here.”

The man burst out laughing. It was a spontaneous laugh, without the slightest forethought, the laugh of an unpolished man, the laugh of a man who does not stop to worry about whether or not it is appropriate to laugh. What I’d said wasn’t that funny. Then, without asking my permission, he grabbed his binoculars and looked quickly through them at the grandstand, which you couldn’t actually see from the paddock. It hurt my neck, the man pulled too hard on the strap.

“So, has he arrived yet?” I said.

“No, luckily he hasn’t,” he said, going by instinct, I assume.

“Does he give you a lot of work? I mean, do you often have to intervene, intervene seriously I mean, when it’s dangerous.”

“Not as much as I’d like, really, it’s very stressful this job, but at the same time, very inactive, you have to be permanently on the alert, you have to anticipate trouble, on a couple of occasions I’ve grabbed hold of really distinguished people who were just going up to my boss to say hello. I’ve pinned their hands behind their backs and overpowered them, for no reason at all, they’ve even been on the receiving end of a few expert blows. I got hauled over the coals for it too. So you have to be very careful and not anticipate too much. You have to guess people’s intentions, that’s what you have to do. Not that anything much ever happens, and it’s difficult to stay alert if you have the feeling that it’s not really necessary.”

“I suppose you tend to lower your guard a bit.”

“No, I don’t, but I have a really hard time making sure that I don’t. My colleague, the one who stays with him while I go on ahead, I notice that he lowers his guard much more. I tell him off about it sometimes. He plays portable video games while he’s waiting, he’s a bit of an addict. And you just can’t do that, you see.”

“Yes, I see. And how does the boss treat you both?”

“Well, for him we’re invisible, he doesn’t not do anything just because we’re there. I’ve seen him get up to some really disgusting things.”

“What sort of disgusting things?”

The bodyguard took my arm and led me over to the betting booths. I felt suddenly embarrassed to be walking along like that with such a tall man. His way of taking my arm was protective, perhaps he didn’t know how to make contact with people in any other way: he was always the protector. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he said:

“Well, with women, in the car, for example. In fact, he’s a bit of a dirty old man, got a dirty mind, you know?” He tapped his forehead. “Listen, you’re not a journalist, are you?”

“No, not at all.”

“Good.”

I bet on number eight and he bet on number fourteen, he was a stubborn man, or else superstitious, and we went back to the stands. We sat down, waiting for the third race to begin.

“What shall we do about the binoculars?”

“What if I watch the start and you watch the finish?” he said. “After all, it was my fault.”

He again took the binoculars from me without first removing them from around my neck, but now we were sitting very close together and there was no need for him to pull on the strap. He looked at the grandstand for a second and then replaced the binoculars on my knees. I looked at his bootees, they seemed so incongruous, they made his very large feet look childish. He got excited during the race, shouting: “Go on, Narnia , move it!” at number fourteen which did not get stuck at the gate, but nevertheless got off to a bad start and only came in fourth. My number eight was in second place, so we both tore up our slips with an appropriately embittered look on our faces: ah, to hell with it.

Suddenly, I noticed that he looked depressed, it couldn’t be because of the bet.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He didn’t answer at once. He was looking at the floor, at his torn-up tickets, he had his broad chest thrown forward, his head almost between his spread legs, as if he felt sick and was taking precautions in case he had to throw up, so as not to stain his trousers.

“No,” he said at last. “It’s just that that was the third race, my boss will be about to arrive with my colleague, if they arrive that is. And if they arrive, then it’ll be up to me.”

“I suppose you have to stay here and keep watch.”

“Yes, I do. Do you mind keeping me company? Well, if you want to go down to the paddock and place a bet, you go ahead and then come back for the race. I’ll stay here with the binoculars, just in case anything should happen.”

“I’ll just nip down and place my bet. I don’t need to see the horses.”

He gave me ten thousand pesetas for the first two past the post, another five thousand for a winner, I went down to place my bets, I was only gone a matter of moments, the queue hadn’t started yet. When I got back to the stand, the bodyguard was still sitting with his head down, he didn’t seem particularly alert. He was stroking his sideburns, absorbed in thought.

“Has he arrived yet?” I asked, just to say something.

“No, not yet,” he replied raising first his eyes and then the binoculars to the grandstand. It had become an almost mechanical gesture. “I might not have to do it after all.”