All Men Are Liars (14 page)

Here I could give you one of those suspenseful pauses so beloved of spy films, but it would be intentionally bad literature. Margarita was in Spain. On her arrival at the Cesspit that evening, they had told her not to visit me again if she didn't want something horrible to happen to me; soon afterward they advised her to leave the country. She managed to arrange for the Venezuelan embassy to receive her in Madrid; there she had waited for months for news that never arrived. The voice had wanted to make me believe that I had lost everything, that there was no longer any reason for me to keep the code of the second account a secret—that, at any rate, the final chapter of my life had begun. Like Job's friend, the voice advised me: confess and die.

I read the letter, I got up, I filled in some forms, I asked them to take me to the airport, I arrived at Barajas that same night.

Margarita was working now at the Venezuelan embassy in Madrid; it wasn't difficult for her to find me a job as a pen pusher. I didn't mind what I did. I was with Margarita; I was out of prison. As I said before, I knew that I would never write again. I no longer felt that hunger, that thirst I had felt in the cell. As if to hush the echo of that infamous voice, I built my days in Madrid around Margarita's timetable, and when I found myself with her, a profound, immensely soothing calm enveloped me and wafted me to a placid sleep beneath a starry sky. I didn't need anything else. When you rediscover something so essential that you thought you had lost, that thing occupies all conceivable space. That's how it was with me.

That atmosphere of blessed torpor lasted a few months. No inner impulse, no outside spur tempted me. I lived purely in the present, far from everything, except Margarita. That was how I knew that no one in love ever writes. Because, I don't know if you'll agree with me, but writers are essentially disloyal, flitting from one passion to another; never dedicating themselves exclusively to one alone.

We were in Madrid, but we could have been anywhere. We went out for strolls, or we stayed in the flat that the embassy had arranged for us: it was all the same to us. We went on the odd excursion, to Toledo, Alcalá de Henares, Chinchón: it didn't really matter. Everything happened now as though nothing else could happen, or had ever happened. There are insects that evolve from chrysalis to butterfly in a few hours and then die. That was how we lived. Then, one night, Margarita told me that she had seen Bevilacqua.

It was a sickening coincidence, a hideous shock. The truth is that we had forgotten about him, as we had forgotten about everything. Margarita had wanted to say hello to him, to tell him what had happened to me, to ask him how he was. But Bevilacqua had rushed away from her, like a hounded animal, and Margarita could not understand why.

That night when Margarita told me that she had seen him was like remembering a shipwreck. Hearing about Bevilacqua revived thoughts of my book, since my Robinson had perhaps—no, surely—been saved. Because, to be honest, I was so happy with Margarita that I hadn't spared a thought for
In Praise of Lying
. Now, suddenly, her encounter reminded me of those old pages. As though on a whim, I told Margarita that I wanted to get them back.

Cheerfully, we made plans, started thinking about the publication, the readers, the reviews, the recognition. I dared to imagine a new career, a new life, something to anchor us again in time and space. Table, paper, ink. Stories. Woven words.

We let a few days pass. Then, in one of the newspapers, we saw an ad for the launch of
In Praise of Lying
. Author: Alejandro Bevilacqua. My
Praise
. His book. Think about it. I felt abused, violated. I felt betrayed by a ventriloquist, a gray dampener, a real Drinkwater, as his name suggested.

“Let's go and see him,” Margarita said.

We went to the launch. Not because I wanted to steal his thunder—do you understand? I don't care about all those prizes Argentine writers are always bragging about. One of my tropical compatriots, who never acquired the recognition he deserved until he was on the brink of death, claimed always to have lived “in a state of grace.” I felt the same way. Given that I have been able to shoulder indifference with total dignity, someday, I told myself, I shall be totally indifferent to fame. If fame comes.

And I had Margarita.

But it poisoned my blood to see that crowd gathered at the behest of some puffed-up editor to celebrate, in the name of an impostor, the birth of something I had conceived. There they were: the scribblers, the poetasters, the key bashers, the preening epistolarians. There they were: the babblers, the stammerers, the official cockatoos. All that brood who had once scorned me, pissing from a great height on my literary efforts—here they were now, applauding something they did not realize was mine. Margarita held my hand firmly, but it wasn't courage I was lacking now.

The bookseller-host had put out a few rows of seats. We sat down in the back row. When Bevilacqua took the stage, I fixed my eyes on him. Then he saw me. You know what happened next.

It was too late to reclaim my book, but I still needed to speak to Bevilacqua, to hear his explanations, which I already knew would not be credible. What did I want, then? you'll ask. I don't know if I ever really knew. To undo that other past, perhaps, to unravel the web of events, returning to the point at which I was dispossessed. At the end of the day, isn't that what we always want? Just because something is impossible, it doesn't stop us trying to attain it. Any traveler worth his salt wants to venture beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

Margarita found out that Bevilacqua had taken refuge at the home of that other Argentinian, the one who liked to pass himself off as French among Spaniards. We got past the doorman by pretending to have an appointment. Bevilacqua's face, when he opened the door, moved me—or almost moved me. From the back of the bookshop I had not realized how much my cellmate had aged.

Formalities are useful at times like these. He invited us in; he offered us a seat; we sat down. He smiled. I smiled. Margarita smiled.

“My friend,” began the lying thief, “you may not believe this, but I am happy to see you.”

And then he told me what had happened.

Margarita and I listened with a patience that surprised us both. His departure from Buenos Aires, his arrival in Madrid, his meeting with the other exiles, his abduction by the Circean Andrea, the literary transformation of El Chancho into Bevilacqua.

“My friend, I never intended to take anything away from you. As for your manuscript, I think I may even have forgotten that I still had it. In making such a great effort to forget all that had happened in those years, I also lost something that deserved to be remembered. Don't blame me. I give you my word that I never meant to deceive anyone.”

Misery does not easily provoke pity. On the contrary, a mangy dog invites you to throw stones. And yet I did feel sorry for Bevilacqua. There he was, my poor Judas, with his glory swiped away, groveling for forgiveness like someone who's just pissed himself. My coat, which Bevilacqua had neglected to take, the central heating, which he evidently liked turned up, the muddle of this situation as disorientating as a mild nightmare, combined to make me feel awkward and uncomfortable. I asked if we could open the balcony windows.

Then the bell rang. Bevilacqua stood up and, motioning us to be quiet, left us alone in the sitting room. We heard some impassioned clucking, two or three words from Bevilacqua, and then nothing. After a few minutes, he came back to sit with us and, without saying who had visited, continued on his
excusatio
.

He spoke, without making much sense, about
In Praise of Lying—
not how I remembered my book, not how I knew it to be, but as though it were an ancient thing. It was as if he were talking about some very learned classic, so excellent as to render all commentary banal. He divested, not so much me, as himself of the book, telling me time and time again that it was not his work, that everyone would come to know that, that the author photograph adorning the back flap would be mine in all future editions.

Of course, you have never heard Bevilacqua speak, the way he made you lose yourself in a story. He was not a literary man. I mean that it was neither the feeling nor the story behind his words that held his listeners' attention, but a kind of lulling plainsong in one key, rhythmic, uneven,
de la musique avant toute chose
. We had gone there to hold him to account, but he had turned the tables on us. He spoke as though relishing the words themselves. But he didn't smile; smiling was impossible for him. Whenever he made a stab at the gesture others might recognize as a smile, his face split in two, his nose dilated, his eyes creased as though he were focusing on his companion's jugular, and his whole head, bony and grayish, tipped forward, not back, less like someone rejoicing than like someone getting ready to charge.

I'm not exaggerating: it was his serious rhetoric that seduced us. We had gone to see him because we wanted him to return what was mine; by the time he stopped talking, there was nothing left to return.
In Praise of Lying
belonged to nobody more than its readers; the Marcelino Olivares whose name would adorn future editions was simply another character in that kidnapped work; the supposedly piratical Bevilacqua was merely a miserable fraud, with no ship or ensign. Our unwittingly shared story had dissolved in a sea of confusion and misunderstandings. My thief had become a victim, like myself. And now, with the encouragement of Margarita, my Margarita, here I was consoling him.

The doorbell rang again, interrupting a moment ripe for pathos. Bevilacqua asked us again to be quiet, and again closed the door behind him, while we again strained to hear what was going on. Then, as though from a distant, half-forgotten place, I heard the voice, as always very precise, syrupy, and kind. The voice wanted to know what had happened. Bevilacqua may have thought he had deceived everyone, it said, but he must understand that he had
not
. That the moment had come to speak clearly. That, without further excuses, he must tell him what we—Bevilacqua and your humble servant—were planning to do.

“I don't understand what you're saying,” our poor friend replied, “but if you want, you can ask him yourself.” And he opened the door to the sitting room.

You never knew Gorostiza, and I don't know if anyone ever showed you a photograph of him. He looked like a Russian poet: a mane of hair that fell over one side of his face; a heavy black coat; always clutching a book in mutton-fisted peasant hands, although I don't think he was ever inclined to manual labor. I had been introduced to Quita, but never to him.

“Hello, Chancho,” said the voice, dropping his bag containing the stolen bottles of sherry onto the floor. “And hello, señora. I'm delighted to see you've come back from the dead.”

“We were just leaving,” Margarita answered, and gesturing to me, she went toward the door.

“Please stay, because this concerns us all. I was just asking our friend Bevilacqua how you were planning to share the Swiss funds.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Bevilacqua.

“I'm talking about the funds, about money, about little bundles of green notes in a certain bank in Zurich. Ask your friend, who knows all about the subject—eh, Chancho?”

As if he owned the house, he strode to the balcony windows and closed them. In two bounds, Bevilacqua leaped across the room to open them again. Then, while these two squared up to one another, flapping the balcony door panels open and closed, I grasped the opportunity to take out my faithful bee and slip it into one of the bottles in Gorostiza's bag. As with books,
habeat sua fata apis
.

“Yes, we're going,” I confirmed, taking Margarita by the arm.

Before closing the door, I turned around and managed to say to Bevilacqua that I congratulated him, that
In Praise of Lying
was magnificent. Downstairs, out on the street, I felt as though I were fighting for breath.

You'll understand why I haven't given you my postal address, esteemed Terradillos. Thanks to Margarita (and to Margarita's family,
semper fidelis
), El Chancho has become a more discreet animal. Never mind the new name, new nationality, new disguise. Beneath the courtesies and formalities of a new nomenclature, I am still the caricature of that barrel-shaped boy who splashed around in the Camagüey mud.

Didn't I say that I believed in reincarnation? I am the proof. But I haven't been converted into an insect or a tree. No, I'm a Swiss gentleman now, in a three-piece suit, a camel-hair coat, and a white silk scarf. My presence is so imposing that even Rubén is intimidated and rarely dares to make himself felt.

“Be honest and good, and you'll be happy,” says the Blue Fairy to her puppet. It's a horrible lie, unless one is permitted to redefine
honest
and
good
. I think, in my case, both adjectives could apply. I have betrayed nobody but those who deserved betrayal, and I have been good to those on whom goodness is not wasted. This swine never scorned any pearls that were cast before him.

And Bevilacqua? I'm not so sure. In him, honesty got confused with ignorance, and goodness with sentimentality. It's not the same—we agree on that, don't we?

Bevilacqua was never happy, at least not after the disappearance of his woman, the only true one. I was, possibly because Margarita was returned to me. In the sun, beside an impeccably blue lake, surrounded by perfectly ordered mountains, a thin shadow looms over my rotund body: it is her, the exclamation mark that complements my full stop, as her father once remarked, on seeing us together.

We are growing old. Yesterday, believe it or not, I had my seventieth birthday. My Margarita is a dozen years younger; even so, we can count the Januarys left to us. I miss my much-loved bee talisman, in which I once foolishly placed all hope of ultimate salvation. That is the price of revenge: the loss of something that could one day turn out to be indispensable.