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

He had never paid me much attention-poor radio hack that I was-when we first knew each other-he always thought he was better than that, even though he was a hack too at the time-but now he had me down as someone with influence and a touch of mystery. He didn't know exactly what I did or who I worked for, but he knew something about my occasional appearances at chic discos, expensive restaurants, racecourses, celebrity suppers, Stamford Bridge, as well as ghastly dives no Spaniard would ever venture into (Tupra's sociable spells sometimes went on for weeks), and all of this in the company of the natives, which is rare in England for almost any foreigner, even diplomats. (On this occasion, moreover, he would have noticed me wearing those extraordinary shoes made by Hlustik and Von Truschinsky, and Garralde had a keen eye for such things and an infuriating tendency to copy them.) He felt what it best behooves acquaintances to feel about oneself: confusion and curiosity. This led him to imagine that I had all kinds of contacts and powers, which meant that he would do anything I asked. And so, offering no explanation, I asked if I could come and see him at the Embassy and, once I was there at his desk, immediately clarified the situation (in a prudently low voice, for Garralde shared a room with three other functionaries; if he was thinking of staying there, he still had quite some way to go before he made it to the top).

'I haven't actually come to see you, Garralde. I made the appointment so that I wouldn't have any problems getting in. I'll just spend a couple of minutes with you, if that's all right. We can have a proper chat over lunch another day, I've just discovered this fantastic new place, you'll love it, you see lots of people there, fresh out of bed. They skip breakfast, you see.'-For him 'people' meant 'important people,' the only kind he was interested in. He spattered his Spanish with really ghastly foreign expressions like 'the cream of society' or even worse ' la crème de la crème,' 'the haut monde and 'the jet set'; he talked about 'big names' and people being 'top-notch,' and said that at weekends he was 'unplugged.' He might climb quite high with his blend of groveling and abuse, but he would never be anything more than a social yokel. He would also exclaim 'Oro!' whenever he thought something particularly wonderful or remarkable, having heard an Italian friend use the expression and finding it highly original. 'As soon as we finish here (it will only take two minutes), I want you to tell me where I can find the office of a colleague of yours, Rafael de la Garza. He's the person I really want to see, but I don't want him to know I'm coming.'

'But why didn't you ask him for an appointment?' asked the vile Garralde, more out of nosiness than to make any difficulties. 'I'm sure he'd have said "Yes."'

'I don't think so. He's upset with me over some nonsense or other. I want to make up with him, it was all a misunderstanding. But he mustn't know that I'm here. Just show me where his office is and I'll turn up there on my own.'

'But wouldn't it be best if I told him you were here? He's a higher rank than me.'

It was as if he hadn't heard what I'd said. He may have been clever when it came to manipulating friends and acquaintances, but he was basically an oaf. He irritated me, and I was on the point of hurling myself on his abundant hair, its similarity to the legendary hat of Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, was really quite incredible (although it looked more matted than on other occasions, perhaps it was beginning to bear more of a resemblance to a Russian fur hat). I once again restrained myself, after all, he was about to do me a small favor that he would soon ask me to pay back, he was not the sort to wait.

'What did I just say, Garralde? If you announce me, he'll refuse to see me, and besides, it might get you into trouble.'

Since he was a base creature, this last argument sharpened his wits a little. He would never want to make an enemy of a superior, or to annoy him, even if that person wasn't his direct superior. For a moment, I felt sorry for him: how could he possibly consider Rafita de la Garza his superior? Our world is very badly ordered and unfair and corrupt if it allows other people to be at the orders of that prize dickhead. It was just pathetic. Of course, it was equally shocking to think that someone might have Garralde as their superior and have to obey him.

'Fine, if that's what you want,' he said. 'Let me just check if he's on his own. It wouldn't do you much good to burst in on him if he's in a meeting. You wouldn't be able to undo the misunderstanding with witnesses present, now would you?'

'I'll go with you. You can show me the way and the right door. Don't worry, I'll wait outside and before I go in, I'll give you plenty of time to clear off. He'll never know you had anything to do with my visit.'

'And what about lunch?' he asked before we even set off. He had to make sure he got his reward, at least the minimum and immediate one. He would try to get something better out of me later, that was his way of charging interest. But I didn't care a fig about that or indeed about our lunch date, which I probably wouldn't keep. He'd be momentarily angry, but it would only increase his respect for me and his curiosity when he saw how little care I took over my social commitments. 'I'd love to go to that restaurant you mentioned.'

'What about Saturday? I have to fly over to Madrid for a few days after that. I'll phone you tomorrow and we'll arrange a time. I'll reserve a table.'

'Oro!'

I couldn't bear him saying that. Well, I couldn't bear anything about him. I decided there and then that I would not damn well reserve a table nor would I damn well phone him, I'd invent some convincing excuse later on.

He led me down carpeted and slightly labyrinthine corridors, we changed direction at least six times. Finally, he stopped at a prudent distance from a door that stood ajar or almost open, we could hear declamatory voices, or rather one voice, barely audible, which sounded as if it were reciting poetry in a strange, insistent rhythm, or perhaps it was a litany.

'Is he alone?' I whispered.

'I'm not sure. He might be, although, of course, he is speaking. No, wait, now I remember: Professor Rico is here today. He's giving a lecture this evening at the Cervantes Institute. They're probably rehearsing.' And then he felt it necessary to enlighten me: 'Yes, Professor Francisco Rico, no less. You may not know it, but he's a great expert, really top-notch, and very stern. Apparently he treats anyone he deems stupid or importunate like dirt. He's much feared, very disrespectful and has a caustic wit. There's absolutely no way we can interrupt them, Deza. He's a member of the Spanish Academy.'

'It would be best if the Professor didn't see you, then. I'll wait here until they've finished. You'd better go, you don't want to get a dressing down. Thanks for everything and, don't worry, I'll be all right.'

Garralde hesitated for a moment. He didn't trust me. Quite right too. However, he must have thought that whatever happened next and whatever I did, it would be best if he wasn't there. He set off back down those corridors, turning round every now and then and repeating noiselessly to me until he had disappeared from view (it was easy enough to read his lips):

'Don't go in. Don't even think of interrupting them. He's a member of the Academy'

I had learned from Tupra and Rendel how to move almost silently, and to silently open closed doors, if there were no complications, and how to jam them shut, as with the door of the handicapped toilet. And so I made my way over to De la Garza's office, keeping close to the farther side of the corridor. From there I could see practically the whole room, I could certainly see both men, the numbskull and Rico, whose face I was familiar with from television and the newspapers and which was, besides, pretty much unmistakable, he was a bald man who, curiously and audaciously, did not behave like a bald man, he had a disdainful or sometimes even weary look in his eye, he must get very tired of the ignorance surrounding him, he must constantly curse having been born into an illiterate age for which he would feel nothing but scorn; in his statements to the press and in his writings (I had read the occasional article) he gave the impression that he was addressing himself not to a few cultivated people in the future, in whose existence he doubtless did not trust, but to readers from the past, all good and dead, as if he believed that in books-on both sides of the divide: for books speak in the middle of the night just as the river speaks, quietly and reluctantly, and their murmur, too, is tranquil or patient or languid-being alive or dead was merely a secondary matter, a matter of chance. He perhaps thought, like his compatriot and mine, that 'time is the only dimension in which the living and the dead can talk to each other and communicate, the only dimension they have in common and that binds them together,' and that all time is therefore inevitably indifferent and shared (we all existed and will exist in time), and the fact that we coincide in it physically is purely incidental, like arriving late or early for an appointment. I saw his characteristically large mouth, well-formed and rather soft, slightly reminiscent of Tupra's mouth, but less moist, less cruel. His mouth was closed, his lips almost pressed together, so the primitive rhythms I could hear were emanating not from there, but from Rafita, who, it seems, not only considered himself to be a black rapper by night, in chic and idiotic clubs, but a white hip-hopper in the broad light of day and in his office at the Embassy, although he was dressed perfectly conventionally now and wasn't wearing a stiff, over-large jacket, or a gipsy earring in one ear, or some faux matador's hairnet or a hat or a bandana or a Phrygian cap, or anything else on his empty head. His recitation droned to a halt, and he said with satisfaction to Francisco Rico, that man of great learning: 'So what did you think, Professor?'