Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream (30 page)

He raised the Landsknecht sword, removed it from the neck it had so nearly touched, and this was both a good moment and a bad moment, it could be the prelude to a final, fatal descent, it could be a new gathering of breath before the threatened strike and decapitation, or else signify the renunciation, withdrawal and cancellation of fear, the decision not to use the sword and to allow the head to remain united with its trunk. He rested the flat of the sword on his right shoulder, as if it were the rifle of a sentinel or of a soldier on parade. It was a thoughtful, meditative gesture. He looked directly down at the kneeling De la Garza, who was not moving apart from a few disagreeable, involuntary, spasmodic tremors, he must be holding his breath while his heart raced, he would not want to do anything to tip the balance, not speak or look or exist, like insects which, when faced with danger, remain utterly still, thinking that they can disappear from view and even from smell by changing colour abruptly and blending in with the stone or leaf on which their enemies found them perched. Then Tupra lowered his left hand, took hold of De la Garza's hairnet and pulled it hard, the attaché really should never have worn it. De la Garza felt the tug and squeezed his eyes still more tightly shut as if he were trying to burst them and hunched his neck still more, but, having no protective shell into which to withdraw, he could not conceal it.

'Don't do what, Jack?' Reresby said this without looking at me, he was still studying the figure at his feet, at his mercy,
kneeling before the toilet. 'Who told you what I'm going to do or not going to do? I certainly didn't tell you, Jack. Tell me, what exactly is it that you don't want me to do?' He raised his eyes. He looked at me straight on, as he did at everything, focusing clearly and at the appropriate height, which is that of a man. And then he brought the sword down.

He sliced off the hairnet with one blow; a kitchen knife, scissors, a Swiss army knife would have been sufficient, a fir shorter blade than that used by a bullfighter to cut off his pigtail when he retires from the ring, although that would have been slower and made less of an impression on the person being threatened as well as on the witness, nor would it have sounded the same, it wasn't like before, like a whiplash or a riding crop swishing through the air, but like a light slap or a soft, clear handclap or even the sound of a gob of spit hitting a tiled floor, it was, at any rate, audible enough for De la Garza automatically to raise his hands to his ears in another gesture of imaginary protection, it obviously didn't occur to him that if he could make that gesture, he must still be alive, it doubtless took him a while longer to tell himself that he had, in fact, survived the third lunge or pass or swipe of the terrible blade, that it had not severed or opened up any part of his body, or perhaps he could not believe it - and if that were the case, he was quite right - and was still waiting for the next blow, and the next, and another, from the weapon that remains in the hand and is not thrown away; of course, I, too, waited for a few seconds, although fewer than he, because I could see what he could not: during the minimal amount of time it took Tupra to walk a few steps, free up his hands and then retrace those steps, De la Garza remained still as a stone, like a strange imploring statue, anguished or, rather, vanquished, terrified, resigned to the sacrifice, with his eyes closed and his ears covered, and in that position he reminded me of Peter Wheeler - although only in
that respect - when he had covered his ears in just the same way against the noise of the helicopter which he thought was a Sikorsky H-5 and against the winds that the helicopter kicked up, on that Sunday morning in his garden by the river, the day when he told me more about Tupra and the nameless group to which he too had belonged and to which I belonged now, and it was because of that tacit belonging that I was there, in that spotless, gleaming toilet, sharing in a man's terror.

The man who was Reresby that night moved away, holding his sword in one hand and the hairnet in the other, earned like a miserable little trophy, much less impressive than a scalp, a mere sweaty rag; he left the cubicle and winked at me - but it was not a reassuring wink, I took it to mean: 'That was just for starters' — and he went over to the overcoat he had left hanging up, and which now hung less stiffly, and then I realised that in the lining, at the back, there must be a very long inside pocket and inside it a sheath, because that is where he stowed his Landsknecht sword, and as it slid in, it made a metallic noise, and if there had been no sheath, the point would have torn the bottom of that long, narrow pocket, at least seventy centimetres in length if it was to hold the blade of the
Katzbalger
and with, perhaps, the grip protruding so as to make it easier to take it out, I couldn't quite see the actual pocket, but there was no other possible explanation. I gave a deep sigh - or perhaps more than a sigh — when I saw that deadly piece of metal disappear, at least for the time being. The
fact
that he had put it back in its sheath did not necessarily mean that he would not have recourse to it again - it was still to hand - and it might simply be a precaution typical of Tupra, not leaving the weapon within reach of the enemy, which was entirely the wrong word, for the poor nonentity of an attaché was certainly not putting up a fight, he was not even resisting; but if Reresby had placed the sword on the cistern or deposited it on the floor, there was no guarantee that, in a moment of desperation and panic, De la Garza would not have flung himself upon it and grabbed it, and then what, the tables would have been turned, the two-edged blade was
fairly light and easy to handle, and danger lurks in the weakest and most insignificant of beings, in the most cowardly and most defeated, and you must never underestimate anyone or give him the chance to recover or pull himself together, to screw up his courage or muster a little suicidal valour, that was one of Tupra's teachings and that is why he immediately understood -he appreciated it, even made a mental note of it — a Spanish expression that so perfectly defines us and which I mentioned to him one day and translated for him:
'Quedarse uno tuerto par dejar al otro ciego' — "To
put out your own eye while trying to make another man blind' - he dreaded such a response like the plague. I was grateful that it did not occur to him to ask me to hold it, the 'cat-gutter', I would not have relished the idea, that is, of holding it, although I would, of course, have picked it up and brandished it while I had the chance. Or perhaps he didn't trust me with it either, he couldn't be sure that events wouldn't take a different turn, and that I might not end up using it against the wrong person, I never knew if I had his full trust or not, in fact, one never knows that about anyone. Nor should anyone ever entirely win our trust either.

And so he walked back to the cubicle, wearing a pair of gloves that he had taken from one of the ordinary pockets in his overcoat - good black leather gloves, perfectly normal - and he passed me again carrying the hairnet or spoils in one hand and with his right hand free; he maintained his resolute, pragmatic, dispassionate air, as if everything he was doing at each moment were programmed and, what's more, belonged to a programme that was tried and tested. He winked at me again, and again it was not in the least reassuring, these winks did not imply a smile, they were merely announcements or warnings that bordered on being instructions or orders, this time I understood it as 'Right, let's get down to business, it won't take long and then we'll be done', and that is why I found myself saying:
'Tupra, that's enough, leave him be, what are you going to do now, he's already half dead with fright.' But there was much less alarm in my voice than when I had only shouted out his
name and little else, because I
was
feeling much less alarmed, now that the sword was out of the way; indeed, such was my relief, and so quickly had my feelings of anxiety and horror and heaviness abated, that almost anything that happened now seemed to me light, welcome, unimportant. I don't know, a few slaps, a few punches, perhaps the odd kick (even in the mouth): in comparison with my certainties of only a moment ago they seemed almost like manna from heaven, and to be honest, I didn't feel particularly disposed to stopping them; or only with my voice, I suppose. Yes, that was it: I felt grateful that he was going to hit him, as I imagined he would, with his gloved hands. Just hit him, that was all. Not cut him in two or into pieces or dismember him, what luck, what joy.

'It'll only take a minute. And remember who I am, that's three times now.'

I didn't grasp the meaning of those last words and didn't have
time to think about it either or to reflect on my worrying
feeling of gratitude and that anomalous sensation of a weight
having been lifted from me, a near-criminal sensation of
lightness, because Tupra went straight to work: he picked up
the packet from the toilet-seat lid, resealed the top and put it
back in his waistcoat pocket - of his varied collection I will
never forget that particular waistcoat, intense watermelon green
- then with the same two fingers he picked up the Visa card,
placed it in De la Garza's wallet from which it had come and put
that in his other jacket pocket along with the rolled-up
banknote. With one hand he swept away what remained of the
line of cocaine, or talc, and the dust scattered and fell onto the floor, Rafita had not even got a snort, had never had the benefit
of it, after all his preparations. Then Tupra looped the hairnet
around De la Garza's neck and tugged, and immediately my sense of relief went on hold — 'He's going to strangle him, he's going to choke him,' I thought, 'no, he can't, he won't'
—
before I realised that this was not his intention - he didn't wrap it around De la Garza's neck, he didn't pull it tight or twist it—
he was merely forcing him to lift his head, the attaché was still pressed so close to the lid that he was almost embracing the toilet bowl, and he would have embraced it, I think, if he had not chosen to keep his hands over his ears, he preferred not to see or hear anything in the vain hope that he would then not know much about what was being done to him, even though his sense of touch would be sure to inform him, and the pain and the hurt would tell him.

Once Tupra had lifted De la Garza's head high enough, he pushed up both lid and seat and plunged the latter's head into the bowl with such violence that De la Garza's feet lifted off the ground, I saw his loose shoelaces waving in the air, neither he nor I had got around to tying them. I did not, at first, fear that the water in the bowl would drown him, because it was too narrow at the bottom for his broad, full-moon face, which nevertheless got battered against the porcelain - and slightly stuck - every time Tupra pushed it back in again after puffing it up for a while, and he also flushed the toilet three or four times one after the other, the rush of blue water was so strong and so prolonged that I was once more briefly filled by terrible alarm -'He's going to drown him, he'll fill his lungs,' I thought, 'no, he can't, he won't' - and it occurred to me that, anyway, all it takes is two inches of water, a puddle in which to submerge mouth and nose and thus stop someone ever breathing again; and that the momentary rise in the water level, with each flush, would bring Rafita a sure sensation of drowning, or, at the very least, of choking; and in the toilet for the disabled too: with luck there would be no remnants of fetid smells, and with even more luck, it would never have been used.

'I don't want to see Tupra as Sir Death,' I thought, 'with the cold arms of a disciplined sergeant, always brisk and busy; but that is how I'm beginning to see him, given his many abilities and the variety of his threats, decapitation, strangulation, drowning, to name but three, how many more are there, which one is he going to choose, if he does choose, which one will he select to finish his expert work or task, which one will become accomplished fact and not just a feint or an attempt.' He did not
hold De la Garza under the water for very long, therefore that would not, it seemed, be the definitive form, although he might at any moment change his mind and all it would take would be for him to allow the seconds to pass, a few more, just a few, the seconds that normally pass so quickly that we don't even notice them, time's crumbs, he would only have to let those seconds pass while my compatriot's face was in the water - nose and mouth, that was all it would take - and life and death often depend on those scorned, wasted seconds or on a few centimetres that are often given away, or conceded to our rival for nothing - the centimetres that the sword declined to travel. 'You had two henchmen plunge me head first into a butt of your disgusting wine and drown me, poor me, poor Clarence, held by the legs, which remained outside the butt and flailed ridiculously about until my lungs' final intoxication, betrayed and humiliated and killed by the black, opaque cunning of your hideous, indefatigable tongue.' But this was not stagnant wine in a butt, it was blue water falling in torrents, and he was not George, Duke of Clarence, but the idiotic De la Garza, and we were not two henchmen, still less those of a murderous king. Or perhaps I was Tupra's or Reresby's henchman, I received small-scale orders from the former every day, and those issued by the latter that night were on a larger scale and of an unforeseen nature, utterly different from the kind of work I was paid to do, they had either released me from my normal commitments or had violated my contract, not that anything had ever been set down in writing or clearly stipulated. Or perhaps we were both henchmen, even though I didn't know it, of the State, of the Crown, of MI6, of the army, of the Foreign Office, of the Home Office, of the navy, I could be at the service of a foreign country and not even be aware of it in my foreign dream, and in a way, perhaps, that I would never have agreed to had it been my own country. Or we might be the henchmen of Arturo Manoia (according to Pérez Nuix, our employers, at the time, varied) and there we were beating Rafita to a pulp on his orders, wreaking revenge on his behalf, I had no idea how Manoia had
reacted to his wife's return to the table with, on her cheek, a
sfregio
or scar, she had gone off to have fun and to dance and come back with a mark on her face, Manoia would not have liked that at all. And make-up could only do so much.