Javier Marías - Your Face Tomorrow 1 - Fever and Spear

That is how Sir Peter Wheeler was and still is – that simulacrum of an old man, by which I mean that his venerable, docile appearance often conceals certain energetic, almost acrobatic machinations, and his absent-minded digressions an observant, analytical, anticipatory, interpretative mind, which is constantly judging. For several interminable minutes he had directed my attention towards Bertram Tupra, on whom I would find myself obliged to focus during the buffet supper, which had doubtless been Wheeler's main aim, that I should focus on him I mean. But he had not, in the end, explained why, nor had he actually uttered a single descriptive or informative word about the individual or fellow in question, only that he had been a pupil of Toby Rylands's and that he had a new girlfriend, the rest had been nothing but idle disquisitions on and conjectures about his absurd name. He had not even been able to bring himself, after all those unexpressed vacillations, to specify what his 'line of work' was, the one in which he would never have prospered had he been called Pavel or Mikka or Jukka. Finally, he had even diverted me from any possible interest I might have had about that by referring for the first time in my presence to his own New Zealand roots, to his rather late transplantation to England and to his changed or apocryphal surname, and had, at the same time, prevented me from asking him about this by adding immediately 'But then you know all that, and it's hardly relevant', when the truth was that I had known nothing at all about it until that very moment.

'Something else he has in common with Toby,' I thought after I'd put down the phone, 'it was rumoured, among other things, that he was originally from South Africa; yet another reason for them to become friends when they were young, both of them British foreigners or British by virtue of citizenship alone, both of them bogus Englishmen.' Rylands had never thrown any light on these rumours and I had never asked him about them, as he didn't much like talking about the past, at least so people said and so it was with me; and it seemed to me disrespectful to make my own investigations after his death, it would have been like going against his own wishes when he was no longer there to maintain or revoke them ('Strange to no longer desire one's desires,' I quoted to myself from memory, 'strange to have to abandon even one's own name'). I wondered whether I should dial Wheeler's number immediately, so that he could flesh out these new facts about himself, about his past, and explain to me why the devil he had talked so much about Tupra, almost to the point of exasperation on my part. Just before he called I had been trying the number in Madrid that was still fisted under my name, but was now no longer mine but the children's and Luisa's, and which had remained so insistently engaged that I wanted to try it again as soon as possible, if only to gauge the length of time it took me not to get through. That's why I didn't phone Wheeler back at once, as soon as I'd hung up, because I was in a hurry to continue dialling that now-lost number of mine, the number I'd had to abandon, and which I often used to answer when I was at home. Now I never answered it because I wasn't at home any more nor could I go back there to sleep, I was in another country, and although not as alone as Wheeler believed me to be, I was sometimes a little alone, or perhaps I merely found it hard not to be always in company or occupied, and then time weighed heavy on me or I hampered its passing, which is perhaps why it was no hardship for me to listen attentively, first, to Wheeler, at his house, and then to accept Tupra's proposition, which, if nothing else, would at least afford me constant company, even if, sometimes, it was only auditory or visual, as well as keeping me fully occupied.

Luisa's phone in Madrid was still engaged, there was no fault on the line the Faults Department told me, and neither of us owned one of those snooping devices, a mobile phone. Perhaps she was on the Internet, I'd begged her to get another line installed so as not to block the telephone, but she hadn't got around to it, even though I'd offered to pay for it, true, she only used the Net now and then, so that was unlikely to be the reason the phone was engaged for such a long time on a Thursday night, which was one of the days we had agreed on in principle as a time when I could talk to our son and daughter before they went to bed, it was too late now, an hour later in Spain, gone ten o'clock there and gone nine o'clock here, the three of them would have had supper with the TV on or a video, it wasn't easy for them to agree on what to watch, the age difference was too great, fortunately, the boy was patient and protective towards his sister and often gave in, I was beginning to fear for him, he was even protective about his mother and, who knows, possibly even about me, now that I was far away, exiled, an orphan in his eyes and understanding, those who act as a shield suffer greatly in life, as do the vigilant, their ears and eyes always alert. They would have gone to bed by now, although they would still have had the light on for a few minutes longer, which was what Luisa and I allowed them by way of extra time so that they could read something – a comic, a few lines, a story – while sleep circled over them, it's wretched knowing the precise habits of a house from which you are suddenly absent and to which you return now only as a visitor and always with prior warning or like a close relative and only occasionally, yet remain caught in the web of settings and rhythms that you established and which sheltered you and seemed impossible without your contribution and without your existence, the long-term prisoner of what was seen and done so many times, and you are incapable of imagining any changes, although you know there is nothing to prevent them and that they might well occur and might even be wanted, and you learn, in an abstract fashion, to suspect them, what could they be, those changes that will happen in your absence and behind your back, you cease to be present, you are no longer a participant or even a witness, and it's as if you had been expelled from advancing time, which, seen from the disadvantage of distance, is transformed for you into a frozen painting or a frozen memory.

I foolishly believe that they will wait faithfully for me to return, not in essence, but at least symbolically, as if it were not infinitely easier to lay waste to symbols than to actual past events, when these are suppressed or erased with no effort at all, one has only to be resolute and to subdue one's memories. I cannot believe that Luisa will not soon have a new love or lover, I cannot believe that she isn't waiting for one now without knowing that she is, or maybe even looking for one, neck straining, eyes alert, without even knowing that she's looking, nor that she isn't passively anticipating the foreseeable appearance of someone who as yet lacks a face and a name and therefore contains all faces and all names, the possible and the impossible, the bearable and the repugnant. And yet, illogically, I believe that Luisa will not take this new love or lover back to the apartment where she lives with our children or into our bed which is now hers alone, but that she will meet him almost secretly, as if respect for my still recent memory imposed this on her or implored it of her – a whisper, a fever, a scratch – as if she were a widow and I a dead man deserving to be mourned and who cannot be replaced too quickly, not yet, my love, wait, wait, your hour has not yet come, don't spoil it for me, give me time and give him time too, the dead man whose time no longer advances, give him time to fade, let him change into a ghost before you take his place and dismiss his flesh, let him be changed into nothing, wait until there is no trace of his smell on the sheets or on my body, let it be as if what was had never happened. I cannot believe that Luisa will admit that man into our habits and into our picture just like that, that she will allow him suddenly to be the one helping her to prepare supper – it's all right, I'll make the omelette – and who sits down with her and the children to watch a video – has anyone got any objections to Tom and Jerry – nor that he should be the one to tiptoe in afterwards – no, don't you move, you're exhausted, I'll go – to turn out the lights in their two bedrooms, having first checked that my children have fallen asleep holding a Tintin book that has now slipped quietly to the floor or with a doll on the pillow that will be smothered by the tiny embrace of innocent dreams.