Javier Marías - Your Face Tomorrow 1 - Fever and Spear

At the time, I didn't quite know what was meant by certain frequently used expressions, which cropped up in both written and oral reports, and even in the spontaneous and apparently trivial comments exchanged while studying photos or videos or the flesh-and-blood people that Tupra had invited or, as was often the case, summoned, or even, it occurred to me, ordered to come. If we were commissioned to do this work by others, if we had no interests of our own and were merely giving our opinions, airing our views and making judgements, I assumed that the people we observed and who could be 'useful' or 'not useful', 'of great service' or 'of no service' (I myself quickly picked up these expressions, and grew accustomed to the concept without actually understanding it, practice makes up for so many things, as does unreflective habit), would be designated as such by the commissioners of the various tasks, depending on their specific needs and their particular investigations or problems, which must be more varied than I had imagined to begin with, when Wheeler spoke to me about the past or prehistory of the group, as he called it in order not to call it anything, lacking as it did a real name ('You won't find anything about this in any books,' he had warned me, 'don't even bother consulting them, you'll just waste your time and your patience').

I rarely knew the source or origin of each commission, and it was rarely alluded to, I tended to think that all of them or the great majority came from official, state, governmental or administrative authorities within Britain, or, on a few occasions (given the remote or repeated nationalities of the subjects under study), from their equivalents in friendly countries or in countries which, out of self-interest or circumstance, were their allies: I was surprised how many Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Egyptians, Saudis and Americans crossed our screens, especially the last. Nor could I really explain why some of these people were being submitted to our vigilance and judgement (because that was the predominant feeling, that we were watching and judging them), especially when we were not questioned afterwards regarding any particular area or subject or characteristic. That woman, Judge Walton, for example. Neither Tupra or Mulryan or Rendel asked me any specific questions about her after my turn on watch (although perhaps they did ask young Nuix, who had caught so much of her character), and I found it hard to imagine what possible point there could be in watching, interpreting, deciphering, unravelling or unmasking a woman as decent, intelligent and solid as she seemed to be. At other times, the type of question gave me some idea as to what was going on, as to what it was they were after, Tupra, Mulryan, Rendel, Nuix, or, more likely, what the superior or inferior authorities – the clients – were after, the people who contracted them and made use of them, that is, of us and our supposed gift, of our presumed abilities, or perhaps, merely, of our audacity, which was always on the increase, always growing.

As the weeks passed and then the months, I gradually broadened the spectrum of my responses, as well as my sheer bare-faced cheek.

'Do you think this woman is being unfaithful, even though she swears she's not and there's not a scrap of proof?' Mulryan asked me of a well-dressed woman with a slightly hooked nose who was there in her living-room denying any such infidelity to her husband, the two of them sitting on a sofa in front of the television, which was on at the time, and who were clearly being filmed by a hidden camera, possibly installed in the set by her very own spouse (a man with a broad face and a propensity for smiling, even when, as at that moment, this was entirely inappropriate), who had presumably come to us for advice, because he felt he could no longer distinguish her honest tones from her deceitful ones, custom and cohabitation do sometimes tend to level these things out, a certain lacklustre quality, a certain lethargy overtake dialogues and responses, and there comes a day when the important and the insignificant, the true and the false, all receive the same scant degree of emphasis.

'Yes, I think she is,' I replied. 'Her denial was too brazen, too eloquent, almost sarcastic. For all her gesticulating, his question didn't really take her by surprise. She wasn't offended by it either. She had been expecting this to happen for some time and had her response ready, had learned the words she was going to use almost by heart, had rehearsed precisely the tone and expression she would use when she spoke them. Not in front of the mirror, perhaps, but mentally. Her imagination was so imbued with it beforehand, all she had to do was to activate it. She was almost longing for the unpleasant moment to arrive.'

'You think. You think. Is that all, Jack? Or are you sure?' insisted Mulryan, ignoring what we all know: that no one can be sure of anything, unless they have acted or taken part or been a witness (and on many occasions, not even that: the drop of blood).

'I'm sure in so far as my sureness is based on what I see and perceive, on what you give me,' was my convoluted reply, a last attempt to protect my back slightly and not dive headfirst into further boldnesses. 'For example, she said she found his suspicions "hysterically funny". She wouldn't have used that adverb if she hadn't already considered, chosen, foreseen it. Nor would she if they really did strike her as funny. In that case, she wouldn't have used any adverb, or, at most, a more everyday one, like "terribly", less emphatic, less mocking. And if the accusation was false, she wouldn't have described it as "exhilarating", nor would she have lowered herself so much as to say how she, "little me", wished she could arouse the desires of other men. Few women, regardless of their age or physique, really and truly believe that they cannot still arouse someone's desire. I'm referring here to the wealthy, of course, to which class this lady apparently belongs. They might pretend that they believe it, they might complain in public so that others can contradict or reaffirm them, they might wonder to themselves and even doubt it in rare moments of depression or following a rejection. Rarely more than that. They soon recover from that kind of depression. They soon put the rejection down to a heart already taken, that usually provides them with a decorous, acceptable explanation.' – 'Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd,' I said to myself. And I thought: 'A bit of an exaggeration.' – 'And if they do one day believe it, they don't talk about it. Least of all to their partner.'

'But he believed her,' Mulryan objected or pointed out.

'Then he needs to be cured of his credulity,' I replied with more aplomb now. 'He can always choose to ignore our verdict, he can always tell us where to stick our verdict, assuming that the verdict is intended for him, assuming he's the one who commissioned it.' – By then, I knew that, during the sessions, there was no need to be overly careful with one's vocabulary. – 'But she's being unfaithful to him, I'll stake my life on it.' You always ended up putting your head on the block. Perhaps it was simply provoked pride, perhaps you really did see things more clearly as you talked; or convinced yourself that you did. Speaking is so dangerous. It isn't just that others can then no longer help but take account of what you've said. It's also that you yourself feel obliged to believe it, once it is there, floating in the air and not just in your head, where everything can still be ruled out. Once it has been heard and has gone on to form part of the knowledge of those other people, who can now make use of it and appropriate it, and even use it against us.

Or it could have been Tupra questioning me in his cosy office, the morning after a celebrity supper I had been drafted into as a guest – 'An old Spanish friend of mine who's just flown in, a real artist, I couldn't possibly leave him all alone in his hotel room': 'Being an artist is the perfect passport nowadays,' he used to say, 'because it doesn't commit you to anything, you can be an artist in any field, be it interior design, footwear, the stock market, tiling or confectionery' – because a couple of my compatriots were also going to be there – the man was an artist in the world of finance, and the woman in the world of theatre – whom he wanted me to entertain, at the same time finding out a little about our host, while Tupra took care of the host himself and a few other major British players: