Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

Muriel took out his compass-pillbox and studied the north-pointing needle.

‘Do you remember what I told you about Dr Van Vechten?’ he asked.

I think I blushed — although only very briefly, just for a moment, he wouldn’t have noticed — when I heard him mention that name which, only months before, I hadn’t even understood. Now it was different. I not only knew Van Vechten and had spoken to him at meetings and suppers and over card games, with other people present, I had also found out something about his personal life which, to put it more delicately this time, deeply affected Beatriz. Ever since that partially seen episode in the Darmstadt Sanctuary, I had been dreading Muriel mentioning the Doctor again. I didn’t know whether I should tell him about what I had witnessed while up a tree or if I should keep silent; it depended on what he asked or requested, I would decide then, I told myself, all the while hoping not to have to decide anything.

‘Yes, I do. Well, you didn’t really tell me anything, you were, you remember, reluctant. You announced it rather than telling me. You explained your doubts. And you also warned me that you might ask me to forget the conversation entirely, or forget what you had skirted round or announced. And that, more or less, is what I’ve done up until now.’ I reminded him of this possibility in the hope that he would choose that option, although he clearly wasn’t going to. Ever since that afternoon, I found everything to do with Van Vechten troubling, and thought that when I next saw him, I would try to avoid him. ‘But yes, of course, I remember. One can’t simply forget at will.’

‘Well, Juan, I told you that I might want you to do something for me,’ he went on, still staring up at the ceiling or at the painting. ‘And what I want you to do is to make friends with Van Vechten. More than that, I want you to make him one of your drinking companions, to involve him as much as you can in your nocturnal excursions and sorties. You often go out at night, don’t you? To discos, concerts, bars, the celebrated Madrid movida . Invite him to join you. He may be a lot older, but I can assure you, he’ll jump at the chance. He’ll be pleased to have a guide. Introduce him to your girlfriends or to your female acquaintances, to women young and old, I don’t care what age they are, and observe how he behaves with them, with women in general. Gain his confidence. Talk to him about your sex life. Tell him all about your promiscuity, your conquests (you’ve had a few, haven’t you?), and any other adventures in that field, and if they’re nothing to write home about, then invent some. Show off. Boast. Make him green with envy. Things were far more difficult when he was young, there were far fewer opportunities. When he sees how easy things are now, he’ll wish he’d been born two decades later. Don’t worry about seeming vulgar or even disrespectful when talking about women, be as vulgar and disrespectful as you like, exaggerate. Draw him out and, above all, observe him. I want you to encourage him to confide in you, about what he gets up to now and about his past exploits, his glory days. He always was a womanizer and, as you’ve probably noticed, still is. And he’s had quite a few successes too. But in his day, women played hard to get, here more than in most countries. Most were so armour-plated and bulletproof you had to resort to promises and tricks. See if you can get him talking about the past, because that’s what interests me most. There’s nothing like boasting about your own exploits to get others to tell you theirs, however ancient; it never fails. Make a note of any chat-up lines, watch him in action, see if he tries to get off with anyone, and he’ll try often, believe you me. Things will be more difficult for him now, but see how far he gets. Reveal yourself as vile and unscrupulous and watch his response, whether he approves or is of a like mind, whether he urges you on or censures you. Let me know what he tells you and what impression he makes on you. Let me know what you find out.’

‘But find out what, Eduardo? I don’t understand. It’s as plain as day that he’s the sort who’ll try it on with anyone, with the slightest encouragement and even without. He’s always looking to see how the land lies, with any woman worth pursuing that is, because he never gives the ugly or the asexual a second glance, which is not to say that he isn’t open to offers. Anyone can tell he’s a man with his eye on the main chance, and if there were no witnesses about, he’d be quite likely to overstep the mark. Compared to him, Professor Rico — to mention another friend of yours with very keen antennae — is a respectful, delicate herbivore. A contemplative. But you must know this better than I, given that you’ve known the Doctor most of your life. What is it that you want me to discover or coax from him? It’s hard to draw someone out if you don’t know what he’s got to tell you. Could you give me a bit more guidance, tell me more precisely what it is you’re looking for?’

Muriel drummed his nails on his bulky Bakelite or whatever eyepatch, cric cric cric, a pleasant sound, which I longed to imitate with my own fingers. Then he suddenly turned his one intense, dark blue eye on me with all the intimidating penetration of which he was sometimes capable, as if he were compensating for the immutable opacity of the other eye. He hadn’t looked at me until then. He seemed to ponder his answer for a few seconds, tempted to grant my wish. In the end, he let out a long sigh, perhaps frustrated that he must deny me any further information or help, or perhaps irritated by my faulty memory.

‘No, I mustn’t. As I said before, if I start voicing my suspicions, if I start revealing the story I’ve been told and which might or might not be true, I could be doing him an irreparable injustice. The Doctor is a great friend of mine, remember, whom I wouldn’t wish to harm without good reason. Or at least without a hint of certainty, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms; without more proof. As I explained, he would never tell me about something so very shameful; he’s told me other things, that is, I know a few things that he definitely wouldn’t want to be proclaimed to the four winds, but not this. Because he’d be ashamed if I knew. He knows me well and knows that I’m the very opposite of a puritan and not at all strait-laced, but that there are certain indecencies I cannot tolerate.’ (I remembered he had used the corresponding adjective when he had spoken more explicitly before: ‘According to what I’ve been told,’ he had said, ‘the Doctor behaved in an indecent manner towards a woman or possibly more than one.’ And he had, to my astonishment, concluded: ‘That, to me, is unforgivable, the lowest of the low. Do you understand? That’s as low as one can go.’) ‘With you it would be different, if you gave him the chance. He could tell you, because he hardly knows you.’ He fell silent. He looked at me still more intensely and with something bordering on curiosity, as if he were suddenly seeing me for the first time, or had just realized the truth of what he went on to say: ‘Even I don’t really know you.’ Then he averted his eye and fixed it once more on the ceiling or on the painting, and, still lying flat on the floor, started stroking his chin with that silver pillbox. What he said next was spoken in an indolent tone, as though it were almost too obvious to be put into words. ‘But then neither do you. You’re not quite fully formed.’

To him this was an obvious thing to say, but to me it was a surprise and even rather troubling. Probably no one ever is quite fully formed, still less the young, and that’s how we adults tend to see them, incomplete, indecisive, confused, like an unfinished painting or a half-written or half-read novel — there’s not a great deal of difference — in which anything could happen, well, not perhaps anything — but too many things — one or more characters could die or none at all; and one of them might kill someone and then he would be both formed and finished, or so it would seem in the eyes of a stern author or reader; what we are told in a book could be totally gripping or not at all, in which case the passage from page to page becomes a torment and the finger turning the page grows weary and stops, it doesn’t wait until the final page, after which there is nothing, even if, on the contrary, the finger wants to remain indefinitely in that world and with those invented people. It’s the same with people’s lives; some, however filled with troubles and vicissitudes, arouse in us so little curiosity that we can barely stand to hear about them, yet other lives, for some reason, prove hypnotic, even though there appears to be nothing very special about them, or the best part remains hidden and is mere supposition.