Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

‘Oh, it turned out to be a fuss about nothing, Professor. Hardly worth mentioning. Vidal was exaggerating, he just regaled me with a lot of hospital tittle-tattle and conference gossip. Well, you know what doctors are like, always at each other’s throats.’ — This was completely untrue, or at least I had no evidence to back it up, I knew nothing about their quarrels and rivalries. I imagined, though, that these did exist, as they do in any profession in Spain: even chimneysweeps have their differences, to mention a trade that ceased to exist centuries ago.

Rico regarded me suspiciously. I could see his eyes perfectly now, not a speck of dust marred the lenses.

‘Enough of this namby-pambyism, young Vere. You’re not going to bamboozle me, I’m not your gull.’ — He had resorted once more to his outdated vocabulary, and although I didn’t understand a word, I knew exactly what he meant. — ‘If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t, but I’m sure your friend wasn’t talking about nurse-chasing or plagiarism or stolen accreditations. Nor even groping any female patients who come within range or mothers accompanying their children. It’s as clear as day that the Doctor is an old lecher and we all know it, but that doesn’t make him an utter bastard.’ — He used the same word, ‘lecher’, that Celia had used, although it sounded less damning on his lips; neither of them knew just how right they were. — ‘The country would be full of utter bastards then, well, it is already: you need only look at those three old fossils who’ve just given me the go-by.’ — And he resumed his attack on those ancient academicians.

This continued to absorb him in the days that followed, hatching plots and inventing insults. However, he did not forget about Van Vechten either, and from time to time would return to the charge: ‘You owe me a salty tale of treachery, young De Viah, and you owe me a verbatim report of it,’ he would say as soon as he saw me. ‘Just when will you deign to keep your promise? If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being in the dark. Not having the foggiest. Not a clue. So be warned.’

If only Muriel had felt the same mischievous curiosity, for it proved to be a terrible disappointment when, at last, a week later, he eased up slightly on his frantic fund-raising and spent a little time at home. This was in part due to his friend Jack Palance, who immediately agreed to co-star in this new film — if it was new, or had Muriel simply pulled it out of a drawer of old projects that had failed or been delayed or gone astray? He often had difficulty bringing his plans to fruition, and there may well have been as many films in the making as there were actual films. Not that Palance was exactly at the peak of his career, indeed, he was probably at his lowest ebb. If you look at his filmography, you’ll see that from 1981 to 1986 inclusive, he didn’t make a single film, and during four of those years, his sole artistic activity was presenting an American TV series that was never shown outside the States. So it was perhaps not so very strange that he should be happy to participate in a phantom production, be it Spanish or any other nationality; after all, in the 1960s, he had been quite happy to work with Jesús Franco, Isasi-Isasmendi and a handful of insignificant Italians (even though, in that same decade, he had worked with directors like Godard and Brooks, Abel Gance and Fleischer). However, Muriel’s unbounded admiration for Palance meant that his promise to take part in the film calmed Muriel’s spirits and filled him with hope. Not that, at the time, the presence of the great Jack Palance in a cast was any guarantee of financial backing or success, rather the opposite, embarrassing though that may seem now. But Muriel felt it was a good omen being able to count on Palance and possibly also on Richard Widmark, with whom Palance had worked on two feature-length films in 1950 or thereabouts, and whom he had promised to persuade to take on the other leading role. I had and still have no idea what the film was about or even if Muriel ever began shooting it. I only know that Volodymyr Jack Palahniuk — to use Palance’s original Ukrainian name — was already sixty and Widmark would have been about sixty-five.

I also had the feeling that Muriel was feeling happier because he was in frequent contact with the impresaria Cecilia Alemany. I don’t know how he managed to get her to take an interest or what kind of interest that was exactly, but now they spoke almost daily on the phone and he would always turn away when he received one of those calls and speak in a murmur so as not to be heard by whoever happened to be in the apartment, including me. He also stopped making derisive comments about her inaccessibility. He no longer spoke of her as a demi-goddess, he no longer said things like ‘What a remarkable woman; what a business brain she has; why, compared to her we are mere microbes.’ When we stop exaggerating and stop joking about someone we revere, it’s usually a sign that that someone has finally descended to earth and become less remote. I didn’t dare to think that perhaps they both now chewed gum together or even shared the same piece, but one night when Muriel came home late and I was still up, I noticed that he gave off an intoxicating, almost narcotic whiff of perfume, and he had definitely not applied it himself. I was sure that the owner of the chic boutique no longer addressed him as ‘my dear man’, which Muriel had found simultaneously so humiliating and so amusing at that now far-distant first interview.

The following morning, he was, I suppose, in such a good mood that he summoned me to his office and, with one thumb tucked under his armpit and in the other hand his pipe, which he pointed at me as if he were Sherlock Holmes or, perhaps, Walter Pidgeon, who sometimes sported a moustache like his, he said:

‘Young De Vere, now that it seems things have taken a turn for the better, and the new project appears to be going ahead, forget what I said to you. If you haven’t taken on another job and prefer to stay here, I think I can find you something useful to do. The script, once it’s ready, will need to be translated.’ And he added with a kind of prematurely compensatory pride: ‘I can’t wait for Towers and a few others to hear the news.’

I had become accustomed to his changes of mind, to his commands and countermands, as well as to his variable moods. And so it occurred to me that this was perhaps not a bad day to see if his position regarding Van Vechten had changed at all.

‘Thank you, Eduardo, for your confidence in me. Working for you is, as you know, a pleasure, although I’m not sure I’m always that useful. Could you give me a little time to think it over? I’d got used to the idea of moving on in September.’

As I mentioned earlier, I was beginning to find the atmosphere in the apartment somewhat troubling, not to say troublesome on occasions. Beatriz was now going about her business in a relatively normal fashion, but during the hours she spent at home, the music-less, insistent tick-tock of the metronome had returned, and it seemed to me more ominous than ever, as if she were always doing a slow-motion countdown to an end that never arrived or that only she could see in her personal fog. I imagined her sitting staring at the piano keys, mechanically counting the black keys and the white and noting the time passing, letting it tick on without filling it with a single chord or melody, and unfilled time tends to be accompanied by static, repetitive thoughts, for example: ‘Not yet, not yet, not yet, it’s not yet the right moment.’ And she also seemed more depressed; even though Muriel and she barely exchanged a word, she must have noticed his sudden good humour and might perhaps even, from a distance, have smelled that distinctive perfume. As far as I knew, she no longer made any nocturnal incursions or stood guard outside his bedroom door, as if she had finally abandoned all hope. As for me, although she and I continued to treat each other with the same deference and affection as before, as if there had never been any kind of intimacy between us, I still felt guilty and so uncomfortable sometimes that I blushed, and my impulse was to leave the apartment and allow my transgression to dissipate; I couldn’t help thinking that I had behaved indecently, as regards Muriel, I mean. And I didn’t quite trust Beatriz or myself either, fearing that one day she or I might be tempted to reoffend. As everyone knows, what happened once can easily happen again; however, fewer of us seem to be aware that precedents are, in fact, of no importance: what has never happened before is just as likely to occur.