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

'Jaime, are you there?'

'We could try persuading him,' I said at last.

'Him? We don't know him, least of all you. What an idea! You can count me out. Besides, I'm off tomorrow. Anyway, if you did go and talk to him, he'd probably laugh in your face or punch you, don't you see, if he really is a violent man. Or were you thinking of offering him money to go away, like an old-fashioned father? Huh. For all I know, he may not even need the money, the art collectors he works for must be rolling in it. Then he'd go straight to Luisa and tell her, and exactly how would you justify such interference in her life? You are, after all, separated. She would never speak to you again, you know that, don't you? You're aware of that?'

But perhaps none of those things would happen after my attempt to persuade him. And so I ignored her objections and merely asked, as if I hadn't heard what she had said:

'Apart from the ponytail, what does he look like?'

I had learned a few things from Reresby and Ure and Dundas and even from Tupra, but I still wasn't like him, nor did I wish to be, except on the odd occasion, and this was just such an odd occasion. Perhaps it's not possible to imitate someone else only now and then and when you choose, and perhaps in order to act like your chosen model-even just once-you have to resemble him all the time and in all circumstances, that is, when you're alone and when there's no need, and for that to happen you must have more than just accidental reasons, reasons that come upon you suddenly and from without. You have to have a deep need, a profound desire to change, which was not my case. Initially, I behaved as I thought he would have behaved, but there came a point when I wasn't sure, or couldn't imagine exactly, how he would have behaved, or perhaps I preferred not to, or else couldn't imagine myself behaving like that, and I was filled with doubt, which he never would be; and so I went back to the idea that he might be able to help me, or at least give me advice and reassure me, or at least not dissuade me. I didn't phone Tupra until a few days into my stay and after my first visit to the children, my stolen glimpse of Luisa, my meeting with my sister and my father, my phone conversation with my sister-in-law Cristina Juarez, and after I had already taken a few steps in his imaginary wake.

I began by consulting the phone book and looking for that unusual surname, Custardoy. I discovered that I had been way off in my calculations, because there weren't a few Custardoys in Madrid, there was only one, who lived in Calle de Embajadores and whose initial, alas, wasn't E for Esteban, but a wretched R for Roberto, Ricardo, Raul, Ramon or Ramiro and what use were they? His number must be under another name, possibly his landlord's if he was renting, although it seemed to me likely that he would own his apartment or studio or whatever it was, if those art collectors really did pay him well, doubtless for forgeries that could later be switched for the real thing in some ill-supervised church or sold as authentic to naive, provincial museums, for I had already decided to myself that the man was a fraud, a con man. It might also be that he was listed under his second surname, some people do that to avoid being pestered, the ringing of the phone would disturb him when he was working, he would lose precision, concentration, he would jump and make the wrong brushstroke or put a hole through the canvas, the paint would run, he was, after all, an 'arty type,' but I couldn't think who would be likely to know that second surname, probably not even Luisa. I called directory assistance just in case, and asked for the number of someone called Custardoy living in Calle Mayor, but they had no one of that name, only the Custardoy in Calle de Embajadores. So I set off to the short stretch of Calle Mayor beyond Bailen and just before Cuesta de la Vega and the nearby park called Atenas, which I knew only from having driven through it once a long time ago, and I was in luck, because there were just two doors, and since one belonged to the offices of the nearby town hall, I deduced that it must be the other door, number 81. There were no names on the intercom-or portero automáttico as we call it in Spanish-only the numbers of the apartments, of which there were four and one on the ground floor. It was almost lunchtime-bad planning on my part-and the vast ornate carved door was closed, so there was no way of knowing if there was an actual flesh-and-blood doorman whom I could approach on another occasion. I thought of ringing a couple of the bells and inquiring after Custardoy, but if, by chance, I pressed the right bell and he answered in person, furious at this unexpected interruption to his fraudulent activities, I would have to invent some pretext, saying, perhaps, that I had a telegram for him and then not going up when he opened the street door for me, well, post office workers are so often unreliable and incomprehensible, he would wait for a while, mutter a few curses and then forget all about it, summoned back to work by his false art. I pressed a bell at random and no one answered. I tried a second one and, after a while, I heard a woman's voice.

'Is Don Esteban Custardoy there, please?' I asked.

'Who?' The woman was doubtless elderly.

'Cus-tar-doy' I said slowly and clearly. 'Don Esteban.'

'No, he doesn't live here.'

'I must have the wrong apartment. Would you be so kind as to tell me which apartment he lives in? I have a telegram for him.'

'A telegram for me? Who from? We never get telegrams.'

'No, not for you, madam.' I realized that I would get nowhere with her. 'It's for your neighbor, Señor Custardoy. Would you mind telling me which floor he's on?'

'Which floor? This is the second floor,' she said. 'But there's no Bujaraloz living here. You've got the wrong address.'

The sound on those tinny intercoms is always dreadful, but the lady in question must, like Goya, have been both Aragonese and deaf for her to be able to trot out so blithely and so fluently the name of that rather obscure town in the province of Zaragoza. I apologized and thanked her, then left her in peace.

I decided to press a third bell, but there was no response, so many people have lunch out in Madrid. I tried a fourth bell and immediately heard another female voice, younger and more encouraging.

'Esteban Buscato?' the voice asked. That was the surname of a former basketball player, she must be a fan, I thought. 'No, I don't know the name. I don't think he lives here.' There was some creaking and the sound of the sea in the background, it was like having a seashell pressed to my ear and as if a ship somewhere out there was about to be wrecked.

'The name's Custardoy' I said again. 'Cus-tar-doy. He's a painter. Perhaps you could tell me which floor he lives on or where he has his studio. He's a painter, Custardoy the painter.'

'We're not expecting any painter here.'

'No, I'm not a painter, Madam,' I said, fast losing hope. 'I have a telegram for Señor Custardoy. He's the painter. Don't you know of a painter living in this building? A painter, not a house painter, but a painter like Goya, do you know him?'

'Of course I know Goya. He's the one who painted La Maja! And she sounded rather offended. 'But as I'm sure you can imagine, he doesn't live here, or anywhere else for that matter. You may not know this, but he's dead.'

I silently cursed the forger's outlandish surname and gave up. I couldn't stay there much longer, ringing every bell, or I could do so on another occasion (ringing two was enough at any one time, I shouldn't overstep the mark), or return at a different hour when the real-life doorman would be in, if there was one. Besides, it occurred to me that Custardoy might have rented or bought his apartment or studio under a false name, as befitted a criminal, or maybe under his own name, Custardoy being a pseudonym. In either case, no one in that building would be able to tell me where to find him.