Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

I imagine there were various factors that overcame my natural and general reluctance to squeal on someone else. First, what I had learned was precisely what Muriel had asked me to find out and, as an unconditional admirer of his, I had wholeheartedly set about doing just that. Second, what Vidal had told me coincided all too closely with my boss’s suspicions: he had never been explicit about these, but had mentioned the possibility or rumour that Van Vechten had behaved indecently with a woman, or possibly more than one, as seemed to be the case (‘That, to me, is unforgivable, the lowest of the low’). Third, the Doctor’s actions had been so despicable that, once discovered, they deserved to be exposed. Not that anything would happen to him: there was no proof, it didn’t constitute a crime and, in Spain at the time, no one was in a mood to denounce anyone. The Amnesty Law had been passed, that is, an agreement had been reached according to which no one individual would begin an endless chain of accusations or bring out anyone else’s dirty linen, however filthy — murders, summary executions, betrayals provoked by envy or revenge, show trials, military tribunals condemning to life imprisonment or death civilians with little or no access to a lawyer (and that went on until the final, far milder years of the dictatorship): not even the crimes common to both sides during the War or those perpetrated afterwards by the winning side, which was free to continue soiling its own linen. It wasn’t just that there could be no judicial consequences for any abuse or crime, it was even frowned upon to talk about them in public or write about them in the press; as I mentioned, the few people who tried this were met with the instant disapproval not just of former Franco supporters who had a personal interest in the matter — in reality, there was nothing ‘former’ about them — but of anti- franquistas and committed democrats too: as Vidal had pointed out, it suited some people perfectly to have the slate wiped clean like that, so as to conceal their own remote pasts and polish up their less than immaculate biographies. It was decided rather too soon that all guilt was gone, that such ancient history should be left to dissolve into those blurring mists, as if a whole century had passed not just four or five years. I thought it likely that the Doctor’s misdemeanours would have been known by some in private, that they would at least have cost him one or, with luck, two precious friendships. Fourth, I was troubled now by that routine relationship between him and Beatriz Noguera, by those prosaic fucks at the Sanctuary; it wasn’t, I think, that I was jealous exactly — that would have been absurd when nothing between us had changed, certainly not on her part: the night spent in my cubbyhole must have been a mere caprice as far as she was concerned, or a remedy for insomnia, or perhaps a delirium she scarcely remembered or was unaware of the following day; she was, to use her own eloquent and simplified words, not always quite right in the head. But young men — or myself at the time — need to believe that every one of their experiences or actions is unique and all it takes is for something unthinkable — not to say impossible — to happen for them to embellish it in their memory and cleanse it of any ugly accretions, and Van Vechten was a vulgar and now very ugly accretion. And lastly, I had found his behaviour in Bar Chicote altogether disagreeable, unconvincing and evasive: he had begun by denying everything, then tried to make a joke of it, presenting himself as the victim of other people’s defamatory remarks, before becoming threatening and aggressive, planting one large hand on my shoulder, warning me that I could get hurt, calling me ‘boy’ and ‘little squirt’. As to his present-day links to and relationship with El Movimiento Apostólico de Darmstadt, he had not even attempted an explanation, indeed, had avoided doing so. In the light of all this, my desire to do him harm prevailed over my reluctance to squeal on him.

I could still not bring myself to be like Vidal, though, ready to unfold what I knew from the orient to the drooping west, to tell anyone who would listen. I ought to reserve that particular exclusive for Muriel and so, that same afternoon, I had to dodge Professor Rico’s questions as best I could. He was in such a foul mood after his lunch with the mummies that, initially, he forgot what had happened earlier and that he had ordered me to make detailed notes about why Van Vechten was an utter bastard and to inform him of his crimes.

‘What a bloody awful lunch,’ was his first comment. He removed his glasses and breathed on them furiously as if intending, after the fact, to poison his loathsome lunch companions with his breath. Such was his annoyance and frustration that he had dropped in at Calle Velázquez in order to vent his feelings on whoever happened to be there. ‘The three of them behaved like absolute piranhas and did nothing but raise objections and throw past insults in my face, insults I’d heaped on them, you understand; they were like the three witches in Macbeth at their most doom-laden or tricoteuses huddled round the guillotine. It’s true that in certain academic articles I did describe them as inept, superficial, obvious, ill-informed and obtuse, and even called one stupid. Not that I did so directly, mind, but it was implied; the fellow had dared to criticize my conclusions about Lazarillo in an impeccable study of mine that deserved, certainly in his case, open-mouthed reverence. But they’re just hell-bent on getting their own back. These were, in short, mere skirmishes; and since my arguments were unassailable, he immediately clammed up so that I wouldn’t lay into him if he attempted a riposte. Well, what does he expect when I have an unerring eye — or should that be aim? — and always get what I want? Those semi-cadavers know that all they’re good for is correcting exam papers with a chewed red pencil. Érforstrafó .’ — He came out with a possibly rage-fuelled onomatopoiea, longer than usual and with two stresses. He continued to breathe hard on his glasses as if he were a fire-breathing dragon, until the lenses were completely fogged; then, with remarkable dexterity, he removed a lens cloth from his glasses case and unfurled it with a flick of the wrist just as magicians do with their vast handkerchiefs. — ‘They made it clear that they have no intention of voting for me when my sponsors propose me as a candidate. Since they’re a meddlesome trio, I fear they may succeed in convincing some of their duller or dimmer colleagues, of which there are quite a few. They were clearly thrilled at the thought of having their revenge. The most irritating thing was that I could barely remember what it was I’d written that had so put their respective noses out of joint. That’s the trouble with dispensing blind justice, one doesn’t notice who one’s victims are.’ — He applied himself to polishing the lenses with painstaking brio, and they were so damp by then that they were sure to turn out spotless. Then he put the cloth away with a suave gesture (in this respect, he reminded me of Herbert Lom), lit a cigarette, and his gaze grew calmer as he added with jovial optimism (he was not a man to harbour resentments, he got bored too quickly for that): ‘Perhaps it would be best to wait until they kick the bucket before presenting myself as a candidate. I shouldn’t think any of them are going to last very long given the way they were coughing. Several times they came close to choking — it quite put me off my food. I hardly ate so much as a chickpea.’ — And it was then, to drive away this unpleasant thought, that he remembered I owed him a piece of gossip. — ‘Ah yes, what news of the Doctor, young Vera? When I left, that vehement, well-read friend of yours was about to tell you all about his horrendous crimes.’