Javier Marías - Your Face Tomorrow 1 - Fever and Spear

'Sorry, Mr Tupra, I didn't mean to get diverted,' I said; I was still well behaved then. 'Well, they say that Dearlove is bisexual, or pentasexual, or pansexual, I don't know, but very highly sexed anyway, sex-mad, they hint at it all the time in the press. And last night he did seem rather overexcited when he slipped on his green gown and insisted on sorting out Mrs Thompson's tooth decay. Although he would doubtless have preferred to be rooting around in her young son's mouth. It was a shame for Dr Dearlove, I suppose, that the boy refused to oblige, however sweetly he insisted. They also say that he's very fond of… of the newly pubescent, shall we say.'

'They do say that,' replied Tupra gravely, but barely bothering to conceal the fact that he found all this highly amusing. 'And?'

'Well, supposing a minor, male or female, it doesn't matter, laid a trap for him. If my information is correct, he happily allows these rumours to spread, as long as they are only that, rumours. I imagine it's not a bad way of airing them: by ignoring them, by not even admitting their existence with denials and lawsuits and complaints. As I understand it, he has never said a word about his sexual predilections. Besides, everyone knows he's been married, twice, admittedly both marriages were childless, but that, nevertheless, is what he holds on to, officially at least.'

'More or less. I don't know much about that aspect of his life.'

'Anyway, suppose a minor, male or female, slipped a sleeping-pill into his drink. While they were at it, both of them stark naked. Suppose the minor takes some photos of him while he's off in Limbo, the boy or the girl also gets in on the shot, of course, puts the camera on automatic and takes charge of the stage direction, with our ex-dentist a limp rag-doll in his or her hands. Let's say, however, that the pill doesn't prove strong enough for the titanic Dr Dearlove: that an inner sense of alarm helps him pull himself together. So that he either doesn't fall very deeply asleep or else wakes up early. With one eye half-open he sees what's happening. With a quarter of his conscious mind he takes in the situation, or with even only a tenth part of it. It's not that he's puritanical in his attitudes or public declarations, that would lose him fans; he's quite daring, really, although he's careful never to go too far, he defends the legalisation of drugs, responsible euthanasia, the kind of cause that won't lose him any fans. But the appearance of such photos in the press belongs to an entirely different sphere, as would his knifing by thugs from Brixton, Clapham or Streatham. Exactly the same, I think you'll agree. Even though in one situation he would be the vile, despicable offender and in the other the poor, pitiful, much-mourned victim. As regards the effect on his narrative, they're not so very different, both are protuberances. In this case it wouldn't be an ending, the kiss of sleep and the photos I mean, but it would be an episode that would always have a place in his history, that could never be avoided in the story or in the idea of Dick Dearlove. And given the way the public feels about child abuse, it could lead to prison and an embarrassing trial. And even if he was absolved afterwards, the accusation alone and its reverberations, the images seen and repeated thousands of times, the scandal and the grave suspicions that will have lasted for months, could also end up as a warning used by mothers to their adolescent offspring: "Mind who you mix with, dear, you might end up with a Dick Dearlove." That's the trouble with being so famous: lose concentration for a moment and you could become the subject of a ballad.'

'You're very well informed about the buffoon. Even about his opinions; very impressive,' said Tupra wryly.

'As I say, he's almost as much of a superstar in Spain as he is here. He's given loads of concerts there. It would be hard not to know about him.'

'I always had the impression that the Basques were a very austere people, in the present context I mean,' he added, genuinely surprised. He never missed anything or forgot anything.

Austere? Well, that depends. There's no shortage of buffoons either. The leader sets the tone, you know. Like in Lombardy. Or anywhere else in Italy for that matter. Not to mention Venezuela; remember our friend Bonanza.'

'Well, we're not far behind,' he said, and that shocked me a little, for no reason really: I didn't know exactly who Tupra worked for (that is, who we worked for), I only had Wheeler's hints to go on and my own unreflective deductions. 'The kiss of sleep you called it.'

'Yes, that's how the trick is known in Spain, it's used mainly as a ruse to strip the sleeping person's house of all its valuables. That's what the media call it.'

'H'm, the kiss of sleep, not bad.' He liked the name. 'So what would happen with Dearlove. He wakes with a kiss, and only half an eye open. And then what?'

'Something outrageous, anything. That's what I was coming to. He could also kill in a situation like that, I mean, that's just a possible example, there would be others. Narrative horror, disgust. That's what drives him mad, I'm sure of it, what obsesses him. I've known other people with the same aversion, or awareness, and they weren't even famous, fame is not a deciding factor, there are many individuals who experience their life as if it were the material for some detailed report, and they inhabit that life pending its hypothetical or future plot. They don't give it much thought, it's just a way of experiencing things, companionable, in a way, as if there were always spectators or permanent witnesses, even of their most trivial goings-on and during the dullest of times. Perhaps it's a substitute for the old idea of the omnipresence of God, who saw every second of each of our lives, it was very flattering in a way, very comforting despite the implicit element of threat and punishment, and three or four generations aren't enough for Man to accept that his gruelling existence goes on without anyone ever observing or watching it, without anyone judging it or disapproving of it. And in truth there is always someone: a listener, a reader, a spectator, a witness, who can also double up as simultaneous narrator and actor: the individuals tell their stories to themselves, to each his own, they are the ones who peer in and look at and notice things on a daily basis, from the outside in a way; or, rather, from a false outside, from a generalised narcissism, sometimes known as "consciousness". That's why so few people can withstand mockery, humiliation, ridicule, the rush of blood to the face, a snub, that least of all. Dearlove cannot abide that feeling of repugnance, that anxiety, he cannot cope with that vertigo, and when he succumbs to those feelings, when the fit is upon him, then he no longer thinks. When he half-opens his eye and realises what is going on, it probably won't even occur to him to try and acquire the photos, to offer more for them than any tabloid newspaper would ever pay, to reach an agreement with the boy or the girl, to negotiate, to bribe, to deceive, to hire their services forever. His fortune, if he has both a plane and a helicopter, would allow him to buy them ten thousand, a hundred thousand times over, in body, in bondage and in soul.'

'But he wouldn't do that, you say. What would he do, then? According to you, what would he do next?'

'The same as he would with the knife-wielding thugs from Brixton, I think. He would misjudge things. He would throw caution to the wind. He would try to kill them, he would kill them. He would kill the minor, male or female, whom he had taken to his house that night. A heavy ashtray kills, it shatters the skull. A jug, a paperweight, a letter-opener, anything can kill, not to mention the swords and spears with which he has adorned that wall in his living-room, the long wall next to the dining-room where we had supper; I imagine you noticed them last night.'