Javier Marías - Thus Bad Begins

I didn’t know if this long speech was intended as a way of avoiding giving me an answer and thus abandoning the subject, but then, I wondered, why had he chosen to bring the subject up in the first place and why ask me that question? I tried again, swearing to myself that it would be the last time, at least for that morning. He would soon be leaving for his office, where he spent most of the morning until lunchtime; at first, he didn’t usually take me with him, although later on he did. Sometimes he had lunch out, with other people, and did not come back until mid-afternoon. Sometimes he wouldn’t reappear all day and would return only at night when his wife, Beatriz, had gone to bed. If that occurred on several consecutive days, they would only see each other over breakfast. When, that is, he wasn’t travelling or filming.

‘So is this business with your friend to do with the Civil War or not? You haven’t yet answered my question, Eduardo. Or, rather, I’m not sure whether what you’ve just told me is a Yes or a No. But if you’re not more explicit with me, I still can’t help you.’

He smiled his luminous smile, and his eye smiled too, sympathetically, indulgently, the look of amused indulgence with which many adults regard or speak to children.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry, so impatient, I was just coming to that. No, it’s neither of the things you mentioned. As far as I know, he didn’t kill anyone or take part in any summary executions or send anyone to their death, among other things because he wasn’t old enough to do that between 1936 and 1939, or only if he’d been some prodigy of precocious evil, of which there were a few. He’s not much older than me. Nor did he betray or denounce anyone. It’s actually related to the fact that he apparently didn’t betray or denounce anyone. Of course he’s always had a reputation for having behaved very well in the post-war years, of having helped those who most needed him, I mean for political reasons. He’s irreproachable in that sense, in that respect. As I say, that, at least, has been his reputation.’

I couldn’t help but notice the words ‘in that respect’, as if his friend had been less irreproachable in other respects, which, to be fair, was not so very unusual: there are so many aspects to our lives that we are bound to be found wanting in some. Nor had I failed to notice the even stranger part of what he had said, the part I had most difficulty in grasping, and that I couldn’t simply allow to pass:

‘Yes, but what I don’t understand is how the problem can possibly be related to the fact that your friend neither betrayed nor denounced anyone, isn’t that what you said? Because surely that’s a good thing. And if what you’ve been told doesn’t imply any crime and doesn’t affect you directly because it isn’t a betrayal of you as such, well — I mean, you can tell me about it another day, if you like — but I really can’t understand what you meant when you said “something like that”. Something that you can’t dismiss as mere gossip and that anyone would deny to anyone who asked, “to a friend, an enemy, a mistress, a stranger, a judge, not to mention his wife or children”. Those were your words. Don’t go thinking I haven’t been listening. I have, as you see.’

He ran his hand over his cheeks and chin, as if checking to see that he had shaved properly. Then he rubbed his forefinger several times up and down his large, straight nose, which resembled that of a TV actor from my youth, Richard Boone, who also had a slender moustache; in fact, Muriel was possibly more like him than any of the others I mentioned earlier. Then he gently drummed his fingertips on his bulbous eyepatch, doubtless preparing himself to make a decision, although perhaps only as regards me, rather than the matter in hand.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have got you all intrigued for no reason, but just for the moment, you’re going to have to wait. I still don’t know what to do with this story. In fact, it’s really bothering me. So much so that I daren’t tell anyone else. I don’t think I should. Not yet. And if I did tell someone, you or whoever, I would be spreading the story, and there’s no way of catching or stopping something once you’ve thrown it to the winds. Later, depending on what I decide (which will be soon, don’t worry, one way or another), I might have to ask you to do something for me, might need your help as my assistant or, more than that, as my bishop or even my knight, for, as you may or may not know, the knight is the most unpredictable piece on the chessboard, capable of leaping over obstacles in eight different directions. I may also simply ask you to forget this whole conversation, as if it had never happened. But I don’t want to leave you completely in the dark and, besides, since it’s quite likely that you’ll meet this friend at some point, you could, anyway, see what you think, since he’s the person involved, just to see how he strikes you; one tends not to notice things so much in people one has known for ages. His name is Jorge Van Vechten and he’s a doctor. Dr Van Vechten.’

I couldn’t resist interrupting him, we all leap up like a coiled spring whenever we hear an unfamiliar word or name. Now I know exactly how that name is written, but when I first heard it (Muriel pronounced it ‘Ban Bekten’, as did Van Vechten himself and everyone who knew him, although later I was told that in Holland and Flemish-speaking Belgium, they would say ‘Fan Fechten’ or something like that), I couldn’t catch it the first time nor imagine how it was written.

‘Van what? Is he Dutch?’

‘No, he’s as Spanish as you and me.’ And he spelled out the obscure part of the name. ‘But his distant ancestors must, of course, have been Flemish, like the painter Carlos de Haes or that other artist, Van Loo, although he may have been French, but of Dutch descent, or Antonio Moro, who was really Anthonis Mor, they all came to Spain and stayed; or like the soldier-sailor Juan Van Halen and possibly the Marqués de Morbecq, do you know him, he has a collection of editions of Don Quixote that would take your breath away; Professor Rico is green with envy. So there have been quite a few in Spain. His family, Van Vechten’s that is, came from Arévalo, in Ávila, if I remember rightly, he told me about it once: apparently, there are lots of fair-haired, blue-eyed people there because it’s one of the places, in Castile and Andalusia, that was repopulated with Flemings and Germans and Swiss in the time of Felipe IV or Carlos III, or perhaps both, I’m not sure. Not that it matters. Now he’s as Spanish as Lorca. Or as Manolete. Or as Lola Flores. Or as Professor Rico himself. Imagine that!’ He smiled. He had amused himself more than he had me. I knew Professor Rico only by name. He paused and asked: ‘So, can I count on your help if I need it? As an infiltrator, shall we say? Or would you rather not get involved in anything that goes beyond your strict duties? Not that we’ve ever defined what those are, so they can’t be very strict.’

Having just about finished my degree, not only did it suit me perfectly to earn the monthly wage that Muriel paid me, but I counted myself lucky that, thanks to my parents, I had found a job so quickly, however strange and transitory it might be. Most young people then — things have changed since — subscribed to my father’s view: ‘There’s no such thing as a bad job as long as there’s no better one in sight.’ Also, right from the start, Eduardo Muriel had become for me one of those people whom one admires unreservedly, whose company one finds enjoyable and illuminating and whom one very much wants to please. Or more than that, one of those people whose esteem and approval you hope to gain. As you would with a particularly good lecturer at college or university (although, with one exception, all the teachers in my faculty were absolutely dreadful) or a school teacher, or a guru if you’re an ignoramus trying to be less of one, even if only by dint of staying close and being in the presence of his wisdom. At the time, I would have done almost anything Muriel asked, I was at his service and very happily so, and was filled with a growing sense of loyalty that bordered on the unconditional. He wasn’t even in the habit of issuing orders, or only when it came to minor matters and practices. When, as in this case, it was something unusual, he would consult me and ask my opinion; he was always polite and never imposed his views on me. He was also very persuasive: having drawn me in, having aroused or pricked my curiosity (and he must have known that, as a great admirer of his, I would be interested in everything he did), he would doubtless know that I would go wherever he sent me, find out whatever he asked me to, if that was within my capabilities, and would even be prepared to strike up a friendship with the most vile or unpleasant of individuals.