Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream (37 page)

Then I looked round for the group of noisy Spaniards who had come with De la Garza; I couldn't hear them, so it was logical to think that I wouldn't be able to see them either, their table was empty. They had left or scattered, without waiting for him or going in search of him, they would have assumed that he was either in full or partial copulatory mode somewhere; there was, therefore, no need to worry about them, to worry that they might rescue their friend and prevent his complying with Reresby's implacable orders and deadlines.

I had more than enough time - contemplative or dead time - to become retrospectively angry. How could it have happened? I asked myself, and with every second it seemed more like a stupid, disturbing dream, of the sort that will not go away, but which lingers and waits. Why hadn't Tupra contented himself with merely giving De la Garza the slip, with all four of us leaving and making sure that he wasn't following us? Why was it so important to continue the conversation there, in that noisy, pretentious place, rather than somewhere else, where there would be no hold-ups or interruptions? The city was full of such places, there were several in Knightsbridge itself, and Tupra would have been perfectly at home in any of them; I couldn't understand the need for the thrashing either, still less the sword. And why hadn't I grabbed his arm? (When I thought he was about to bring the sword down on living flesh.) The answer to this last question came to me at once, and it was very simple: because he might have cut my head off instead, or sliced through one of my shoulders and punctured a lung. With a single two-handed blow. ('And in short, I was afraid.') And given that answer and what I had seen, I interrogated myself about Tupra as if Tupra were interrogating me in one of our
sessions spent interpreting lives in the building with no name, and he might well have asked me questions such as these — almost impossible to answer at first, until you plunged in - the day after any meeting or outing, after any encounter or observation, about anyone with whom we had spoken, or even been with, or whom we had merely observed and heard:
'Do you think that man could kill, or that he's just a braggart, the sort who looks as if he's going to do something, but never dares? Why do you think he stopped short of decapitating him with the sword?'

And I could have replied:
'Perhaps we should start by asking why he took the sword out in the first place. It was melodramatic and unnecessary and, in the end, he didn't even use it, except to cut off the hairnet and frighten his victim half to death, and the witness too, of course. One has to ask oneself whether he brandished that sword purely so that I would see it and feel alarmed and shocked, as indeed I did, or, I don't know, so that I would believe he was capable of actually killing, without giving it a second thought, in the most brutal manner and for no reason. Or perhaps he stopped short so that I would believe quite the opposite, that he wasn't capable of doing it despite having every opportunity to do so or, how can I put it, despite being already halfway there. Or perhaps he wanted to test me, to see my reaction, to find out whether or not I would back him up or if I would confront him over such a violent act. Well, he knows the answer to that last point. He knows that I wouldn't, not when unarmed. Not that this tells him very much: he would have got a clearer idea if I had been wielding a weapon as well.'

'So what do you actually believe? You haven't given me an answer, Jack, and the reason I ask you a question is because I'm interested in your answer; whether you're right or wrong doesn't really matter, because most of the time we'll never find out one way or another. Do you think this man Reresby could kill or would ever really kill? Don't just consider this one situation, think of the man as a whole.'

 
'Yes, I think he could,' I would have said. 'Everyone could, but some are more likely to do so and the majority far less so, and as regards the latter, infinitely less.' And I would have added to myself: 'Comendador could, I've always known that, Wheeler could and I could, although I've only known that very recently; Luisa couldn't, but I don't know about Pérez Nuix, I can't tell, and Manoia and Rendel could, although not Mulryan or De la Garza or Flavia, or perhaps De la Garza could accidentally, treacherously, in a moment of panic; Beryl couldn't nor could Lord Rymer the Flask — he doesn't get aggressive when he's drunk, although, of course, he might when he's sober, but no one can ever remember seeing him sober - and, on the other hand, Mrs Berry could, as could Dick Dearlove, but for very different horrific reasons, I don't know quite what, but not out of narrative or biographical horror, which only affects celebrities. My father and my sister and my brothers couldn't, and my mother couldn't have, nor Cromer-Blake or Toby Rylands, well, Toby could have killed in battle and probably did. Alan Marriott with his three-legged dog couldn't, but Clare Bayes, my former, clinging lover from Oxford, could. My son wouldn't be capable of killing, but my daughter might be, as far as one can tell, which is, as yet, very little. Incompara certainly could, even though I have stated the contrary.' And I might have continued that train of thought: 'When I think about it, I know this about nearly all the people I have ever known, or pretty much, and I believe I also know who would come and kill me, take me out and finish me, as they did with Emilio Mares and so many others: if they had the chance, if another civil war broke out in Spain, if there were enough confusion and enough excuses and a way of covering up their crime. I'm better off in England.' And then I would have continued interpreting for Reresby: 'He has probably killed before. Sometimes with his own hands, but far more often by using intrigue, subterfuge, defamation, poison, by dint of innuendo, laconic orders and condemnatory silences. He has doubtless spread outbreaks of cholera and malaria and plague
too, and then pretended to be either surprised or in the know already, depending on the circumstances and what seemed appropriate, depending on whether he wanted to leave his mask on or take it off. Take it off to instil fear, leave it on to instil confidence. Both things bring great benefits, they never fail.'

'So you have to be very careful with him, then,' Tupra would have said of Reresby. 'He's dangerous and, of course, to be feared.'

This was almost the conclusion reached by the somewhat vague report about me which I had discovered among some old files in the building with no name, an anonymous report, but which had referred to particular people, although I had no idea who they were (or perhaps they were merely archetypes) and was clearly addressed to someone: 'He may not care very much what happens to anyone . . .' it said in that English text someone had devoted to me. 'Things happen and he makes a mental note, not for any particular reason, usually without even feeling greatly concerned most of the time, still less implicated. Perhaps that is why he notices so many things. So few escape him that it's almost frightening to imagine what he must know, how much he sees and how much he knows. About me, about you, about her. He knows more about us than we ourselves do.' And further on: 'He makes no use of his knowledge, it's very odd. But he has it. And if he did one day make use of it, he would be someone to be feared. He'd be pretty unforgiving, I think.' And it concluded, as if to emphasise this point: 'He knows he doesn't understand himself and that he never will. And so he doesn't waste his time trying to do so. I don't think he's dangerous. But he is to be feared.'

The first statement might be true, that I rarely gave much importance to what was going on around me (perhaps that is why I had not grabbed Reresby's arm, when he was wielding the Landsknecht sword). The second was, I felt, an exaggeration: however much I might think I knew, I didn't know
that
much, there is always an enormous difference between those two things which are constantly being confused -
thinking you know something and really knowing something. And who was ‘I’, who was 'you', who was 'she' in that report? Was 'I'
Tupra? Was 'you' Pérez Nuix, or was she 'she'? It suddenly occurred to me that 'I', the person writing and pondering, the person who had observed me, must have known me for longer and in greater depth than my colleagues (although this was to forget for a moment what they did, what we did, with great arbitrariness and audacity). Was it Wheeler, was it Mrs Berry or was it even Toby Rylands himself who had written or dictated and prepared it years ago, just in case, at a time when I was still living in Oxford and wasn't even married and when it was unlikely that I would return to England once my university contract ran out? Did they really file away such useless stuff? Would he really have thought so far ahead? That would mean that the 'you' was his brother, Wheeler, whom I hardly knew during my stay there. And who could 'she' be but Clare Bayes, who was my only 'she' at the time. 'He knows more about us than we ourselves do.' Perhaps that was a way of referring to the Congregation, which is what the assembly of dons at the university call themselves, following the strong clerical tradition of the place, and of which both brothers were members. Peter had told me that Toby was the first person to talk to him about me and my supposed gift, which in fact was why we met: 'he aroused my curiosity. He said that you might perhaps be like us ...’ That was a different 'us', not an Oxonian one this time, he was referring to what both of them were or had been, interpreters of people or translators of lives. 'That's what he had given me to understand, and he confirmed it later when we happened to talk about the old group.' These had been his words while I was having breakfast, and later he had been even more explicit: 'Toby told me that he always admired the special gift you had for capturing the distinctive and even essential characteristics of friends and acquaintances, characteristics which they themselves had often not noticed or known about...’
All these things were possible, it might even have been
Rylands's voice from beyond the grave reporting on me to Wheeler or to Tupra himself, who was, after all, a former student of his, I mustn't forget that. (We never know to what extent and in what way we are observed by those who surround us, by those closest to us, our most loyal supporters, who appear to have long ago renounced objectivity and to take us for granted, or to consider us permanent or inviolable or non-negotiable, or to have bestowed on us their eternal clemency; we don't know what silent and constantly changing judgements they are making, our wives and our husbands, our parents and our children, our best friends: we consider them utterly and definitively safe, as if they were going to remain like that for ever, when it is clear that their faces change as ours do for them, that we might love them and end up hating them, that they might be unconditionally on our side until the day they turn against us and devote themselves to seeking ways to ruin us, wreck us, drown us and bring us pain. And even to expel us from the earth and from time itself, that is, to destroy us.)

As for the third statement, that I was not dangerous, but that I was to be feared, and that I was unforgiving (although this was offered only as an opinion), that seemed even more of an exaggeration. I'm not sure that anyone knows whether they are to be feared or not, unless they set out to be feared, unless they work at it, dominating minds and laying down rules or calling the shots, as part of a plan or strategy, or, when I think about it, as a fairly common way of going about the world. Otherwise, how can I put it, you never see yourself as someone to be feared because you never fear yourself. And of those who struggle hard to be dreaded and feared, only a few actually manage it. Tupra and Wheeler, each in his own way, were good examples of this, and if there were links between them and if there were, in turn, links between each of them and the teacher or the friend or the dead brother, if among those three there were similarities and bonds of character, or, rather, of capability, the shared gift which, according to their wise view, I also had, then it was not impossible that I too, however unintentionally, must also be
feared, and the report was therefore right. I had already been less than honest with Tupra on one occasion, in my interpretation of Incompara: I had agreed to Pérez Nuix's request, and so had kept silent or said too little or lied. And perhaps that alone made me someone to be feared or, which comes to the same thing, someone not to be trusted or, which is very similar, a traitor. (Asking favours is, after telling tales, the most common curse; let us hope that no one ever asks us for anything, but only gives us orders.)

'Oh, yes,' I would have said to Tupra about Reresby. 'Even though he doesn't appear intimidating, not initially, or make you feel you should be on your guard, rather, he invites you to lower your sword and remove your helmet in order to be more easily taken captive by him, by his warm, enveloping attention, by those eyes of his which plumb the past and end up making the person they're looking at feel really important: even though, to begin with, despite being a native of the British Isles, he seems a cordial, smiling, openly friendly man, whose bland, ingenuous form of vanity proves not only inoffensive, but causes you to view him slightly ironically and with an almost instinctive fondness, he is, nevertheless, infinitely dangerous and, I believe, to be infinitely feared. He is certainly a man who takes it very badly if someone fails to do what he himself considers to be just, right, appropriate or good, especially when it's perfectly do-able.'

And Tupra would then have asked me the most difficult question of all:
'Do you think he could have killed you, Jack, there in the Disabled toilet, if you had grabbed his arm, if you had tried to prevent him decapitating that loudmouth? You believed he was going to kill De la Garza and that seemed to you wrong, very wrong. Even though you loathed the individual, it horrified you. Why didn't you stop him? Was it because you thought that if he was capable of killing one man, he was capable of killing two, and then you would all end up losing still more? Two deaths instead of one, and one of them yours? I mean, do you
believe him capable of killing you, not a friend exactly, but someone in his charge, an employee, a hired man, a workmate, a colleague, an associate on the same side as him? Tell me what you think, tell me now, just say whatever comes into your head. Have the courage to see. Be irresponsible enough to see. This is the kind of thing that one believes one knows.'