The Man of Feeling (11 page)

"It's Hieronimo Manur"—that is how he said his own name, at least in Spanish, with an aspirated "h" but with less stress on the second syllable than there would have been in any Spanish
Jeronimo
—"Natalia's husband, we met a few days ago, as you will remember. I know that tonight is the first night of your performance and that you must be very busy"—he spoke quickly, admitting of no interpolations, like someone despatching what you might call the formal business at the beginning of a meeting—"but I would like to speak to you as soon as possible. Would you mind if I came to see you in your room in about five minutes?"

In fact I minded very much, a visit from Manur just before a first night or indeed at any other time was definitely not in my plans, but his resolute, naturally authoritarian tones, prevented me from saying so outright.

"Well, actually, I was just getting shaved before going down to breakfast with your wife and Dato, your secretary. Why don't we meet up with them in the dining room? What is it about exactly?" I made the stupid mistake of asking two questions at once because, in such cases, one question, usually the most important one, always remains unanswered.

And Manur (as I think I knew from the very first moment) was an intransigent (a tycoon, a man of ambition, a politician, an exploiter).

"No, I'd rather talk to you alone. If you want to finish shaving, I'll order two breakfasts to be brought to your room for us. What would you like, tea or coffee?"

"Coffee," I replied as automatically as I have always replied to that unvarying question in endless luxury hotels; and with that reply, I suppose, I agreed to receive Manur, for all he said was: "Fine, me too. See you soon then," and he hung up.

Manur did not give me the five minutes he had not so much announced to me as imposed, instead he gave me the ten minutes I so much hoped for.

I wasted at least the first of these minutes listening to the phone ringing vainly in Dato's room. I did not dare to ask for Natalia's room again, because Manur himself would still be there—always assuming that he was giving me the extra time I so craved. After some hesitation, I asked to be put through to the dining room, in the hope that my habitual companions would have already arrived. The person who answered took no fewer than three minutes between putting down the phone and locating Dato, at least that is the amount of time that passed before I heard Dato's voice at the other end.

"Hello," he said. "I've just come down."

"Listen, Dato, Señor Manur has just phoned to say that he wants to talk to me and he's coming to see me here in my room, so I won't be able to have breakfast with you and Natalia. Do you have any idea what he might want?"

There was a brief silence and then Dato said:

"Have you committed some error?" I was troubled more by the frankness of his response than by its actual content, that is, the impertinent words "commit" and "error."

"An error? What do you mean? What kind of error?"

Dato fell silent again, long enough for me to ask impatiently:

"Is Natalia with you?"

"She must be just about to come down. Do you want me to ask her to call you?"

"Yes, would you? No, wait; if I can, I'll call her again in a couple of minutes. That would be best."

Just as I hung up, someone knocked at the door, and I thought it would be Manur. It was the waitress bringing the two breakfasts (coffee and coffee): doubtless Manur had taken the liberty of ordering them before consulting me as to my preferences. While the waitress was placing the trays on the table, I again put a call through to the dining room and this time asked to speak to Señora Manur. I did not know what I was going to say to her, I had no idea. Before leaving, the room service waitress required my signature and—as waitresses always do in luxury hotels to remind the forgetful client of the need for a tip—she smiled rather too broadly: with the telephone in one hand and the cord stretched as far as it would go, I had to fumble for some coins in the pocket of a jacket hanging in the wardrobe. And what I imagine to have been the last of those ten minutes was squandered in useless waiting: when Manur knocked at my door, Natalia Manur had still not come to the phone and I had still not finished shaving. I hung up and went to the door feeling dirty (which I wasn't), ill-dressed (which I wasn't), nervous (which I was) and less than immaculate (which I also was, and you have no idea how it upsets me to be seen when I'm less than immaculate). Manur, on the other hand, was clean and as if new-minted, in his New England-style clothes and smelling of that cologne which might perhaps have aroused feelings of nostalgia in Natalia Manur's passive consciousness. He was carrying his green fedora in his hand, his bald head was impeccable, his moustache neat, and his eyes cold and watchful. He did not say that he had just twenty minutes to spare, nor did he look at his watch. And even before we had done any more than exchange greetings, when he had sat down at the table on which the breakfasts had been laid, when he had poured me a cup of coffee with a steady hand and proceeded to pour one for himself, circumstances conspired once more in his favor. The telephone rang. I picked it up after the first ring hoping it would be that fourth journalist I had erroneously anticipated—even though now it would be too late— and not Natalia Manur. But I was out of luck: what I heard was her voice saying: "Hello, we got cut off. What's wrong? Dato told me to phone you immediately." I had not, I thought, told Dato to tell Natalia Manur to phone me immediately, I had said that I would ring her. I did not know what to say and I had to say something. Manur, in his coffee-colored suit, was already sipping his coffee and, from behind his cup— with his eyes of an entirely different hue—he was watching me intently.

"I can't talk now," I said at last. "I'm sorry, I'll explain later." And I hung up.

"I don't know if that will be possible," Manur was quick to say.

"What do you mean? What won't be possible?"

Manur looked fleetingly at his nails, as I had seen him do before. Then he looked at my still unmade bed, on which lay my electric shaver and the hand mirror. Then he looked at my chin. I almost blushed.

"I see you didn't manage to finish shaving."

"No, you didn't give me enough time."

"Oh, I calculated ten minutes from the time I called you, and, if you don't mind my saying, you do not have a particularly heavy growth of beard." He paused and I thought two things simultaneously: "Manur knows expressions in my language that most foreigners don't" and "Should I ask him now if he's come to talk about my beard and am I supposed to answer to him as to whether or not I've shaved?", but before I had come to any decision, he glanced at the phone, pointed at it with his finger and added: "However, I see that you didn't manage to speak to my wife during those ten minutes either, and I don't know if it will be possible, as I have just told her, for you ever to do so again."

This time I did turn red, and there was no darkness to conceal my blushes.

"I don't understand," I said.

Manur finished his coffee and immediately poured himself another cup. Perhaps he was one of those obsessive drinkers of black coffee, I thought, a voluntary insomniac, a slave to coffee. I still hadn't even tried mine, that is, I still hadn't had any breakfast.

"Nor did you manage to speak to her last night."

I felt a second and much stronger wave of blushes. I thought, though, that perhaps my still unshaven beard might disguise this slightly (I momentarily blessed the fact that I had not finished shaving). I made an awkward attempt to shift my chair slightly so that I was sitting with the light behind me.

"Last night? Of course I spoke to her. I had supper with her and with your secretary, as you doubtless know. We've had supper together nearly every night. We have become good friends."

"That isn't what I meant. I was referring to your phone call to our room at just after half past midnight. Don't you remember? I picked up the phone, and you hung up without saying anything. That's not a nice thing to do at all."

"Ah. And how do you know it was me?"

"I don't want to play games with you. I immediately phoned reception and asked if that fleeting, anonymous call had come from outside or from another room in the hotel, and when they said it had come from another room, I asked them which one."

Again I did not know what to say. I thought: "There seems to be no escape, this man obviously knows what he's doing. It would be best just to own up, to apologize for having phoned so late and invent some excuse." The previous night seemed to me now remote and confused, although I did clearly remember (for they had not gone away) my feelings of desire for Natalia Manur.

"Yes, you're right. I asked for your number because I'd forgotten to tell Natalia something about the performance tonight (which I hope, by the way, you too will be able to attend). Then, when the phone was already ringing, I realized how late it was, which is why I hung up. I'm terribly sorry if I disturbed you, I didn't mean to."

But Manur appeared to have heard only part of my explanation. At every pause, he smiled a minimal, mechanical smile, the same smile with which he had been so prodigal when I was observing him on the train, where he had sat in complete silence, staring straight ahead.

"No," he said, and spread his thick lips into a slightly wider smile, "you hung up afterwards, when you heard my voice." And as if everything else I had said was irrelevant to the conversation, he went on: "Look, it doesn't bother me in the least that my wife should make friends, on the contrary. I'm a busy man and I can't devote all the time to her that I would like, so it seems perfectly normal to me that she should have fun with other people, people like you, for example, an opera singer. However, what I cannot allow is for those other people to demand from her any more than that In a word, if I see (as I have seen already to be happening with you) that one of those people is beginning to show an excessive or irregular interest in my wife, then I do not hesitate to intervene in order to dissuade that person from continuing. I try, moreover, to do so before any real complications arise, and before the person in question becomes too stubborn or is likely to get hurt, do you understand? That is why I am here now."

I was so surprised that, for a few seconds, I wasn't sure whether it was a bad joke or one of those moments of resounding ingenuousness so often indulged in by northern Europeans, with their incorrigible taste for frankness.

"And what makes you think that I have, as you put it, an excessive and irregular interest in your wife? This all seems somewhat disproportionate to me."

"It's quite simple," said Manur, and with his hand he checked that his green silk tie (which matched his fedora and the paler green of his shirt) was quite straight: he wasn't wearing a tiepin. "It may seem disproportionate to you, but I know that it isn't. Last night, for the first time, you did something anomalous: you phoned at a very late hour and then hung up when you heard my voice. Just one anomalous action is enough for me to see what will happen next Besides, there was a second anomaly: you had a prostitute sent up to your room, doubtless intending to vent your unease and frustration on her. These two actions of yours last night are intimately linked, and (although it's quite likely that you yourself may not yet have realized it)"—Manur was a pedant—"together they indicate an excessive and irregular interest in my wife. If you haven't realized it yourself, then I am here to put you straight. I know the whole process well and your response is absolutely standard. Believe me, I would prefer to put a stop to it in its initial phases."

I did not blush this time. I thought: "I could deny that link, I could pretend to be insulted and tell him he's mad, but I've got time to do that later; I can also hear what else he has to say."

"You've been extraordinarily quick and efficient in your investigations, Señor Manur. Who told you all this? Cespedes?"—I was pleased that the name came so immediately to mind: in order to instill respect, it is vital to remember the names of both people and things. "Or does Dato keep an eye on me at night as well as during the day?"

"Dato knows nothing about this. I deal personally with any matters affecting my marriage. But I have not yet finished my exposition of the facts. There is a third anomaly: you did not actually avail yourself of the services of that prostitute, did you?"

This Belgian banker knows everything, I thought in some alarm: about my language and about what I did last night. He had even spoken to the prostitute Claudina. But when? Prostitutes tend not to be early risers. Perhaps her next appointment had been with Manur himself. Or would the prostitute have told Cespedes and then Cespedes told Manur? Why would the Argentinian prostitute have let the cat out of the bag like that? Not, of course, that she owed me any loyalty. Besides— and, as I said, this is something I have been thinking about a lot this morning—I had not exactly been very nice to her and had not treated her well. I felt like laughing.

"It seems absurd to me that we should be talking about such things, Señor Manur."

"It would indeed be absurd if, before these things happened, you had not telephoned
my
room. But you did not avail yourself of that prostitute's services,"— Manur repeated this rather formal phrase somewhat hesitantly, as if he had only recently learned it and wanted to try it out—"and I cannot help but interpret this as confirmation of everything I have been saying to you regarding your interest in my wife. We have reached a point when I feel obliged to tell you not to see her again. We will all go to your first night tonight, we will congratulate you after the performance (we will even have a drink afterwards to toast you), but tomorrow you will not meet. In a few days' time, you can bid each other a polite farewell, and she will thank you for your kindness. That shouldn't be so very difficult, since neither you nor we will be spending many more days in Madrid, and I very much hope you will not come to Brussels. I would be most put out."

"Listen, Manur, aren't you getting things out of proportion?"