Javier Marias - Your Face Tomorrow 3 - Poison, Shadow and Farewell

'When does this video date from, when did it happen?'

'Relatively recently,' he replied. 'A couple of months ago or less.'

'Does Patricia know? I mean, has she seen this?'

She had said nothing to me, perhaps because my favor or my pretense had failed so completely: why give me the bad news which, after all, did not concern me, why make me feel responsible, why get me any more involved than I already was? She hadn't told me the opposite either, that everything had turned out well and the debt had been settled, thanks, in part, to my good offices. Then again, it had never occurred to me that she would and I hadn't asked her about it, she had only asked me that one favor, after all, and that ought to be respected; contrary to popular belief, the first occasion doesn't necessarily give rise to a second, whatever it might be.

Tupra gave that same laugh, like a short cough, which indicated sarcasm or incredulity at what he was hearing.

'No, of course she hasn't seen it. What do you take me for? It was bad enough for her seeing him in the hospital. Her father spent a long time there, in fact he may only have been sent home a short time ago, I'm not sure, and it's still unclear whether he'll recover, and well, he's getting on a bit now, he'll never completely get over something like that, they gave the poor devil a real going-over.'

Yes, there was young Pérez Nuix's poor father, whom she loved so much, frozen before my eyes at his saddest moment, his eyes were half-closed, and what little expression could be read in them bespoke disappointment, as if he had never expected the world to inflict such cruelty or that he would experience it in his own flesh, that frivolous man who found suffering tedious; I felt guilty for what they had done to him and that was one of the various shames I felt, perhaps I hadn't been convincing enough when I gave my views on Incompara, it's hard to lie when one doesn't oneself believe the lie, I should have tried harder, have been more insistent and underwritten my words with my thoughts thus making them true, or perhaps it wasn't a failure on my part at all and Tupra had merely seen what he had seen, which was, moreover, as clear as day: that Vanni Incompara was not to be trusted in any way and that he was also utterly ruthless, Pérez Nuix would have picked that up, but would have had to deceive herself, which is what we all do, even those who have the gift, even the most gifted, when what we see affects us and proves unbearable. Perhaps it had been an impossible undertaking, that of persuading my boss that things were otherwise, the same boss who was now showing me this video for who knows what reason, or was it pure coincidence and he had no ulterior motive, after all, I could have said nothing, and then he wouldn't have paused the tape, but let it run without making any further reference to it and without telling me who the victim was. 'And yet he seems to be saying to me: "Take a good look, you didn't deceive me, just see where your attempt at deceit has led, Iago, your cunning plan didn't work, and I paid no attention to your treachery, I wasn't taken in by your recommendations and so I rejected him, and then, of course, he flew into a rage because of the false expectations you had aroused in him; it would have been so much better if you hadn't bothered, he might have been more magnanimous with that cheerful and distinguished old man, your compatriot, and sent him only one thug instead of four, armed perhaps with a blackjack, not a long hard billiard cue, or else he would have found another way to settle the matter, without anger or violence. You really made a blunder there and underestimated me too, thinking you could pull the wool over my eyes, but you've a long way to go before you'll manage that. A whole lifetime." It could also be that he's not saying anything to me.'

'But why didn't you stop it, when you knew he was Patricia's father?' I continued to act dumb; once you set off along a path you have to follow it until it's cut off by the sea, a precipice, a wall, the desert, or the jungle. 'You're not telling me you knew nothing about this, or that the camera filming it was there by chance, that you had nothing to do with it and bought the video on the market. That would be a coincidence, don't you think, the father of a colleague being beaten up?'

Tupra remained impassive, or so I imagined. I still had my back to him, preferring not to see his expression and for him not to see mine. His voice sounded calm:

'Of course it wasn't a coincidence. It was precisely because it involved a colleague that they brought it to us, offered it to us.

They thought it might be of interest, either by revealing where her weaknesses might lie, or to help us carry out reprisals against the aggressors. You know, in our group, we don't talk much about our personal problems-Pat says almost nothing. If it hadn't been for this tape, I would hardly have known a thing. All she told me was that her father had had an accident and was in the hospital. We don't tend to mix socially, as you know'

'And didn't you take reprisals? Not even in a case like this? Then why keep the tape?'

'As I told you, nothing here gets thrown away or given away or destroyed, and this beating is perfectly safe here, it's not going to be shown to anyone. Although, who knows, it might be necessary to show it to Pat one day, to convince her of something, perhaps to stay, not to leave us, you never can tell. For the moment, though, there's no point in taking reprisals, those four men are rank nobodies, they do things like that-a hundred similar things for a hundred different masters-and they're sure to get caught now and then with no need for us to go after them, they're used to prison. As for the men behind it, as I've explained, it's best to wait, as we so often do, to make some better future use of it.'

'Is that what you wanted me to see?' I knew it wasn't, if it had been, he wouldn't have been fast-forwarding over it, risking me not saying anything and depriving him of the opportunity to enlighten me. He had still more poison with which to inoculate me, or more torment to put me through.

'No, that's not it. Let's get on.'

And more scenes, albeit fewer, sped silently by, I could still see most of them, I saw a man screaming at another man who was sitting in a car in an underground parking lot, I mean a private not a public one, he was leaning against the car and screaming at him, resting one elbow on the open window so that the other man couldn't wind it up, their two faces so close that he must have been spraying him with spit, I saw how with a rapid movement he took a pistol from his jacket pocket and placed the barrel beneath the ear lobe of his adversary or victim, I saw how he took not even three seconds to squeeze the trigger and shoot him right there, beneath the ear lobe, at point-blank range. I put my hand to my eyes, so that I could see only through the chinks between my fingers, ridiculous I know, I saw blood spurt out and tiny bits of bone, but that way you somehow feel that you're seeing less or could at least stop seeing it at any moment, although that moment never arrives because you never draw your fingers together. The blood spattered the murderer too, not that this appeared to bother him, there must be a shower nearby or else he has a fresh shirt in his car, another suit, or perhaps this was the underground parking lot for his own apartment building, he turned and disappeared, returning the pistol to his pocket, it was a very brief sequence, but judging by the cut of his trousers-rather short and narrow and made of shiny grey fabric-I would have said he was American, and the fact that Tupra kept the video must mean that the man belonged to the CIA or something similar, the Army perhaps, I refrained from asking questions, perhaps he was now one of its highest-ranking officers, who knows, well, Reresby would.