Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

The verb ‘stole’ seemed a strange one to use (but, then, insomnia does have a strange effect on the mind and the vocabulary that passes through it) and it made me wonder if she intended her words as a reproach or as an expression of gratitude or neither; perhaps she was merely stating a fact. At least she hadn’t said ‘who snatched me from the jaws of death’, which would have sounded both affected and accusatory.

‘Well, only indirectly. It was pure chance that I happened to see you go into the hotel.’ Chance had nothing to do with it, but no one knew that I had taken to following her on some afternoons, and had it not been for that habit of mine, she would have moved towards her end without witnesses. ‘But I wasn’t the one who realized what that meant, it would never have occurred to me. It was lucky, I suppose, at least for us. Whether it was lucky for you, I’m not sure. But I hope it was.’

‘Yes, let’s hope it was. I’ll let you know,’ she replied with a touch of irony. ‘And who is “us”, may I ask? Who do you include in that “us”?’

I don’t know why I had used the first-person plural, probably so as not to single myself out or draw attention to myself and have to explain. At that moment, on that dark night, I felt lucky to have her there alive and present, even if only because the sexual admiration I felt for her was now neither vague nor damped down, but real and palpable and growing, my gaze had cast aside all thoughts of age, position or hierarchy, leaving only a remnant of courtesy, which is to say, pretence. Desire is a selfish thing too and will do almost anything to achieve satisfaction — lie, flatter, take risks, inveigle, make false promises, all to ensure that the person stays long enough in this world for us to enjoy her. What follows is another matter; afterwards, everything returns to normal and it seems to us absurd to have risked so much of real value merely in order to achieve something that immediately seems empty and meaningless and is sometimes forgotten almost as soon as it’s over.

‘I don’t know, everyone, I suppose,’ I said. ‘I don’t think any of us would have felt indifferent to your death. For Susana, Alicia and Tomás it would have been disastrous. For Flavia too. For your friends, for Eduardo. For me, for Rico and Roy. For Van Vechten. For everyone. And I imagine for other people as well, people I don’t know.’ I thought of the man, whoever he was, who lived in Plaza del Marqués de Salamanca.

‘Don’t exaggerate, Juan. It might have saddened you, I don’t say it wouldn’t, but for you, it would hardly have been a disaster, you barely know me and, besides, you’re very young. It wouldn’t have been a disaster for Eduardo either.’

‘You should have seen him run, should have seen his distress, when we came to find you.’

‘Yes, Jorge told me that too. It must be all those films he’s made.’ She got up and went over to the fridge. She opened it, peered in, not knowing quite what she was looking for, took out a can of coke and poured half into her glass of whisky. I saw then that she was wearing knickers, I could see them through her silk nightdress when she had her back to me, she certainly didn’t have a small bottom, but it formed a pleasingly prominent curve and would have been the envy of any real fatso, any bag of flour or flesh, any ball of lard, any fat cow or El Alamo bell; Muriel was mad to call her those names, or not mad exactly, it was more the cold, calculated punishment of years, or perhaps, in his resentment, that really was how he saw her, because when you decide to dislike someone, nothing can save them, even what we liked yesterday now seems plagued with defects and problems, and nothing and no one can resist someone’s dislike. Perhaps I myself would see Beatriz differently, more negatively, were I to satisfy my desire, I mean, once that desire had been appeased, complaint and regret often follow on the achievement of an objective. But I wasn’t thinking of that desire as a real thing, it was still in the realm of the purely visual, any intended or conscious contact seemed to me an impossibility. The idea hadn’t so much as occurred to her, she hadn’t even noticed the covetous nature of my looks, not even the most furtive, and all my glances were becoming steadily less and less furtive. She probably included me in the world of minors, the world occupied by her own children, rather than the world of the real adults like Muriel, Rico and Van Vechten; after all, far fewer years separated me from the former than from the latter, and I was far closer in age to Susana than I was to Beatriz. Perhaps that’s why she didn’t bother to cover herself, although it’s also true to say that, at the time, the whole of society had instantly shaken off the modesty imposed by the dictatorship and its Church: it was a time of ease and unconcern as regards the way people behaved, a time of defiance. ‘There’s a very good reason why I don’t usually drink,’ she said, to justify that mixture. ‘I don’t actually like the taste. Do help yourself if you’d like something, though.’

‘Yes, in a moment.’ And almost without pause, I went on to ask: ‘What was that about? Why did you do it? I mean what happened at the Hotel Wellington. I suppose that, yes, I did save you, but I could easily not have seen you going into the hotel.’

She hadn’t yet sat down again and I was aware of her standing by my side, her large, exuberant body very close to mine, I thought I could feel her nightdress brushing against my shoulder or my arm, but I might have been imagining that, desire tends to have such imaginings. I again looked at her out of the corner of my eye, up and down, I didn’t have to raise my eyes very far: her bra-less breasts rose and fell as if her breathing had grown somewhat agitated in response to my question.

‘Why do you think, Juan?’ she said gently, without any of the bitterness those words, that question might suggest; without implying that she thought me utterly obtuse; it was more as though she had no option but to take that as read, because it was so obvious. ‘You’ve been here long enough to have realized that Eduardo and me … that I have nothing to do with Eduardo. And that sours my whole existence, I can’t bear it. Each day, I find it harder and harder to get up and get going. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t wake up at all, and this has been going on for years now. On some days, I just can’t carry on, and that’s what happened the other day. It’s happened on other occasions too. On some days, it’s because I don’t feel quite right,’ she said, then immediately corrected this to: ‘I mean, I don’t feel quite right in the head. You may not know it, but for years I went to a psychiatrist for intensive therapy. And when the two things come together … Well, even I don’t know how such a day will end. When I have one of those days, I simply can’t predict the outcome.’

I didn’t know what to say, not straight away. She again sat down beside me and rested her forehead on her hand, her palm open, all-embracing, the same gesture we make if we’re sick in the night, a memory of what our mothers did when we were children, they would hold our head in between spasms, and when they are no longer there, we, rather pathetically, as if we were them or were at least someone else, do exactly the same, just as someone dying alone clasps his own hand to pretend that someone is there with him in death.

‘Do you take any kind of medication?’

‘I have in the past. And now, of course,’ she showed me the bandage on her left wrist, ‘they’ve started giving it to me again. It does help. It helps me to function, but it doesn’t alter the basic problem, doesn’t take away the pain.’

‘Why don’t you separate? Why don’t you leave? Divorce will be made legal soon. Perhaps you would be better off putting some distance between you, just turning the page.’ There was no reason why she should know that I already knew the answer to this, more or less, having heard the explanation she gave to her malevolent female friends.