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

'Clean?' I asked. I didn't understand the term.

'Yes, a gun that no one knows about, that hasn't been registered, and, above all, that hasn't been used in any crime. As I say, you never know' Miquelin, like all bullfighters I suppose, was all too aware that one never could know what might happen.

'What do you mean "you never know," Miquelin?'

'What do you think I mean, child? Listen to him, Eulogio!' And he chuckled again, he must have considered me a complete novice, which I was in such matters. 'Because if you put a gun in your pocket, there's always a chance you might end up firing it. You just want to give someone a fright, fair enough, but you never know how the other fellow's going to react. He might not be frightened, and then what will you do?'

'Fine, but where am I going to get a gun like that?' I knew that the Maestro owned various weapons, which he used when he went hunting on his estate in Caceres, where he'd spend longish periods of time. And perhaps other kinds of weapons too, the shorter variety that are of no use for hunting. However, it was likely that he had licences for them all, and therefore no entirely 'clean' ones.

'I'll lend you one, man, just as I would have lent you the sword or whatever else you might want. But where were you going to put a sword, my friend, I mean, really, what an idea! A gun, on the other hand, fits in your pocket.' This hadn't occurred to me either, that I didn't own an overcoat with a sheath in the lining at the back or even a raincoat. And it wasn't the weather for overcoats. Miquelin added: 'I'll get you one now. Eulogio, would you mind fetching me my father's Llama. And the other one as well, the revolver.'

'Where do you keep them now?' asked Cazorla.

'They're in the library, behind The Thousand and One Nights and a little to the left, behind several books with brown bindings. Go and get them for me, will you?'

The manager left the room (I wondered what kind of library the Maestro would have-I had certainly never seen it during those nights spent playing cards; but he was, like other bullfighters, quite well-read) and returned shortly afterwards carrying two boxes or packages wrapped in cloth which he placed before Miquelin on the coffee table.

Would you be so kind as to bring some gloves for Jacobo, Eulogio?' he said. Then turning to me: 'If you're going to use one of them, it's best you don't touch them. Not being used to handling guns, you might forget to clean it afterwards.'

Cazorla was as helpful as ever, his admiration for the Maestro being infinite, bordering on devotion. He again left the room and came back with a pair of white gloves, like those a head-waiter might wear, or a magician. They were made of very fine cloth; I put them on, and then Miquelin unwrapped the boxes carefully, almost solemnly, less perhaps because they were guns than because they had belonged to his father. Many fathers who had lived through the Civil War still had a gun or two, standard-issue and otherwise, indeed my own father had a Star or an Astra, of the sort that used to be made in Eibar. I had never seen it myself, however, and I wasn't going to ask him about it now or start rummaging through his apartment. 'He must have taken a risk after the War,' I thought, 'by keeping it and not surrendering it. Given that he was on the losing side and had been in prison.' Miquelin's father, who would, of course, have been older than mine, might well have been on the winning side, but we had never spoken about this, after all, it didn't matter any more. In fact, we had never talked about anything serious or personal. These Madrid-style friendships really are most unusual, often inexplicable.

'Is it all right to pick them up now?' I asked. They were very handsome objects, the revolver with its striated wooden grip, and the pistol forming almost a right angle.

'Wait just a moment,' he said. 'They both belonged to my father, and so those thieving bureaucrats have never got their paws on them. If they ever did, they'd probably sell them. The revolver dates from before the War, I think; it's English, an Enfield. It was a present from an English writer who was interested in bullfighting for a time, and my father persuaded one of the matadors in his group to let him travel around with them. He wanted first-hand experience for something he was going to write; his main character was called Biggies, a pilot I think, it was a series, and in one of the books the author thought he might send his hero off to have some adventures in Spain. My father was very proud of this, because apparently this Biggies fellow was very famous in his country' There it was again, that word 'patria'; perhaps it wasn't such a loaded word, Miquelin hadn't laid any special emphasis on it, maybe because he wasn't talking about his own patria, our country. 'The pistol dates from later on, a Llama, which is Spanish, an automatic. The revolver takes six bullets, the Llama ten. Not that this will matter to you if you don't foresee having to shoot. But if push comes to shove, you'll have more than enough with either gun: if not, it will be because you're dead. One magazine should be enough for the pistol. Here's your ammunition. Well-preserved and well-oiled, and all in working order, as my father taught me. The pistol can jam, of course, like all pistols. But on the other hand, look how big the revolver is, with the drum and the long barrel. I think you'd be better off with the Llama. Don't you agree, Eulogio, that a pistol is better for giving someone a fright?' Miquelin handled both weapons with ease.

'If you say so, Miguel. You know more about it than I do,' Cazorla replied with a shrug.

'Do you know how to use it?' Miquelin asked me. 'Do you know how it works? Have you ever held one before?'

'When I did my military service,' I said. 'But not since.' And I thought how odd that was, and how new, for there must have been many periods when it would have been unusual for a middle-class male not to have a weapon in his house, always close to hand.

'The first thing to remember, Jacobo, is never put your finger on the trigger until you know you're going to shoot. Always keep it resting on the guard, OK? Even if the pistol isn't cocked. Even if it's not loaded.'

He used what was to me an unfamiliar, seemingly old-fashioned word for 'guard,' 'guardamonte,' but then Miquelin was himself in the process of becoming old-fashioned too, a relic, like his generosity. I didn't need to ask any questions, though, because he showed me what to do and I could see where he placed his forefinger. Then he handed the pistol to me, so that I could do the same, or copy him. I had forgotten what a heavy thing a pistol is; in the movies, they hold them as if they were as light as daggers. It takes an effort to lift one, and still more of an effort to hold it steady enough to aim.

And then the Maestro taught me how to use it.

I don't know, but I think perhaps by then I had absorbed Wheeler's dictum about how we all carry our probabilities in our veins and so on, and I was more or less convinced that I knew how to apply this to myself; I had, or so I thought, a pretty good idea of what my probabilities were, although not as clear an idea as Wheeler would have of his, given that he could draw on far greater experience: he'd had more time than me, more temptations and more varied circumstances in which to guide those probabilities to their fulfilment; he'd lived through and been involved in wars, and in wartime one can be more persuasive and make oneself more dangerous and more despicable even than one's enemies; one can take advantage of the majority of people, who were, according to Wheeler, silly and frivolous and credulous and on whom it was easy to strike a match and start a fire; one can more easily and with impunity cause others to fall into the most appalling and destructive misfortunes from which they will never emerge, and thereby transform those thus condemned into casualties, into non-persons, into felled trees from which the rotten wood can be chopped away; it's also the best time to spread outbreaks of cholera, malaria and plague and, often, to set in motion the process of total denial, of who you are and who you were, of what you do and what you did, of what you expect and what you expected, of your aims and your intentions, of your professions of faith, your ideas, your greatest loyalties, your motives…