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

I also took to going to the Prado each morning, before I did anything else and as soon as I'd had breakfast, it was right across the street from my hotel. This wasn't just for my enjoyment and because I hadn't visited the place for ages. I also had in mind something my sister-in-law Cristina had said to me about Custardoy: '… sometimes he's commissioned to copy paintings from the Prado and he spends hours there studying and copying.' And so the first thing I did on the first day I went into the museum, and before looking at any pictures at all, was to search the place from top to bottom and from end to end, scrutinizing the copyists who were working in the various rooms, in case one of them was a fifty-something man with his hair scraped back in a ponytail, a man prepared to spend hours and hours before some painting not of his choice, whether good, bad or indifferent. Needless to say I spotted none of these characteristics, indeed, most of the copyists were youngish women, although not all of them young enough to be art students. Perhaps it's another of those professions, like art restoration, that the female population has appropriated and which they do very well. I saw no one answering that description on the second day either. I carried out that same preliminary patrol, although I was filled this time with less hope or was it mere superstition: copying is such a slow task that it was likely that only those from the day before would be there again, or so it seemed; it would have been an extraordinary coincidence if Custardoy had started work on one of his copies or forgeries on the very day I happened to be there, on the alert. This, however, did not prevent me from repeating what I had done the previous morning and striding round all the galleries, studying the few people who were sitting or, in some cases, standing at their easels, intent on reproducing what was there before their eyes, something that already existed and which had, usually, been painted better several centuries before.

On the fifth day, I got up late, after a relatively wild night with some old friends, and only arrived at the Prado around one o'clock, about two hours later than usual. I wanted to visit some of the rooms containing works by Italian artists that I hadn't seen for years, and since those in charge of the museum have the ridiculous habit of moving everything around every so often-as if they were running a supermarket-and I suspected that it would take me a while to find the current location of those paintings, I dispensed with my preliminary patrol and inspection of the copyists. And it was there and then that I noticed in passing, in one of the long galleries on the ground floor, a man with a short piratical or matadorish pigtail who wasn't copying anything, but taking notes or doing pencil sketches of a painting in a fairly sizeable sketch pad, although not so large that he couldn't hold it in one hand. He was standing quite close to the picture in question and therefore with his back to me or to anyone else who was not right next to him or who had decided to block his view. I was perfectly within my rights to do either or both of those things, it is, after all, quite common nowadays for rude tourists-almost a tautology really-or indeed the rude natives of any city to impatiently, inconsiderately interpose themselves between painting and viewer and even elbow the latter none too subtly out of the way in order to occupy his or her more central position, the way of the world of which Tupra spoke has become ill-mannered, especially in Spain, although it's now a near-universal phenomenon. I kept a safe distance from him and not only so as not to appear rude. Initially, I observed him from behind, but just as there was no space to his right, only a rope barrier and the side wall, to the left of the painting there was a high door and to the left of that another painting (there were only two on that end wall), and so I moved cautiously in that direction to get as clear a view as possible of his profile, at the same time doing my best not to enter, or only minimally, his field of vision. I realized at once that I needn't worry about him seeing me, for he was totally absorbed in the painting and in his sketchbook, his eyes moving rapidly back and forth between the two, with no interest in anything else, he wasn't even distracted by the continuous ebb and flow of tourists, mostly Italians (come to admire their ancient compatriots), who, curiously enough, did not insist on crowding round him and bothering him by looking at what he was looking at, rather, on seeing him so absorbed in his work, they walked past without stopping, as if intimidated by that tense motionless figure and as if prepared, for the moment, to allow him exclusive usufruct and enjoyment of it. I noticed that he had a mustache and sideburns, which, although not long, were somewhat longer than is perhaps considered the norm nowadays, or perhaps they were merely striking because, while his hair was straight and rather fair and with no visible grey in it, his sideburns were curly and much darker, almost black, but streaked with white and grey, as if old age had decided to begin its work from the sides, leaving the pale dome for later. He was quite tall and thin, with perhaps some evidence around his belly of having drunk too much beer, but the general impression was of someone gaunt and bony, and what I could see of his cheekbones and his broad forehead confirmed that impression, as did his swift active right hand, which had the long strong fingers of a professional pianist; alarming fingers, like piano keys.

Since I was unable to view him from the front, and so couldn't see his eyes or lips or teeth or facial expression (although I could see his nose in profile), it was impossible for me to interpret him, I mean, in the way I used to do at the building with no name when confronted by all those famous and unknown faces, whose voices I almost always heard as well, either in person or on video. From what I was able to make out (which was only his left side, whenever, that is, I pretended to be looking at the other painting separated from his by the high door and placed myself level with him, protected by the distance between us), everything seemed to agree with, or at least not contradict, Cristina's grudging but, as it turned out, accurate description of Custardoy. I had only asked her what he looked like at the end of our conversation, when she was already tired and eager to bring things to a close. 'Oh, I don't know,' she said, 'he's bony, sinewy, with a long nose like a flamenco singer, like the singer in Ketama, for example, you know the one I mean?' (I had an idea Ketama were some kind of semi-flamenco group.) 'And very strange dark eyes, I can't really describe them, but there's something strange, something peculiar about them that I don't like. Sometimes, he has a mustache and sometimes not, as if he kept shaving it off and then letting it grow again I suppose, because I've seen him with one and without.' 'What else? Tell me more,' I had urged her, just as Tupra or Mulryan or Rendel or Pérez Nuix used to urge me on, one more insistently than the others. 'That's all really. I can't think what else to say. Bear in mind that I only know him by sight. I've come across him over the years here and there, I know who he is and I've heard things about him as I have about a lot of other people (well, up until this business with Luisa, of course, since when I've heard rather more about him). But as far as I can remember, we've never been introduced, I've never been that close to him or exchanged a single word.' 'You must have noticed something more,' I had urged her again, knowing that if you press someone, there is always something more. 'Well, as I've said, he wears a tie on all occasions, as if he were trying to compensate for the slightly bohemian impression he makes with that ponytail and the half-grown mustache he sometimes sports: a contrast, a touch of originality. He dresses very correctly, very traditionally, he aspires to elegance I suppose, but doesn't quite make it. Perhaps because elegance is simply not compatible with the salacious look on his face, I don't quite know how to explain it, but he has one of those faces that oozes sexuality, absurd really, but maybe that in part explains his success with women, you can smell it on him. Even from a distance, you can tell what he's about. At least you can if you're a woman. He looks at you so brazenly, he sizes you up. He gives you the once-over, from head to toe, lingering shamelessly on your breasts and your ass, and, if you're sitting down, on your thighs. I used to see him do this, years ago, with loads of women at the Chicote and at the Cock, as soon as they walked in; and he's done it to me too, from a distance, because he doesn't care whether you're with someone or not. But he obviously didn't fancy me much or else could sense that he wasn't my type, because he never approached me. According to Ranz, he can tell immediately who is a willing prey, and he knows even more quickly whether he wants to sink his teeth in or leave well enough alone.' Given their present relationship, it had troubled me to think that he had spotted Luisa as a victim right from the start, as soon as he saw her. And I couldn't help but then go on to wonder if he would have seen the same thing in her had they met when she and I were together. The thought that followed was even worse: it wasn't impossible that they had met before I went off to London and before our official separation. That idea didn't bear thinking about, and so I did not pursue it.