‘I told you, I was never really interested in painting.’
‘Says the man who painted that!’
‘I painted that and actually enjoyed it, probably because I painted it for me.’
‘But when you used to paint, you couldn’t help painting Picassos.’
‘No.’
‘But you’re able to write something that isn’t by Kafka.’
‘I’m not able to write anything that isn’t nonsense,’ I say.
‘Then write another Kafka story,’ Anna says. ‘Can you do that?’
I so didn’t want to write another Kafka story, that it never occurred to me to wonder if I could. And when what I wrote resembled nothing like another Kafka story, I only cared that it fell short even of my low expectations, when in fact I had exceeded my highest expectation of all, to be able to write unlike anyone else: the mediocrity of my writing was all my own. As I think this, mentally I realize its hugeness, but I don’t yet feel it.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘And I’m not sure I want to find out, so I’m not going to try.’
‘I doubt if trying would make any difference.’
She spoke hardly any Spanish
I wrote Their Meeting on the Bridge, my last Kafka story, just before I painted Woman in Fur (1906), my last Picasso painting, and I can’t help wondering if this is in some way important. I don’t yet know anything for certain, but if Anna is right, then spontaneously, or perhaps by some chance combination, events may have deprived me irreversibly of my “gift”, and yet I feel neither loss nor any sense of relief.
‘This is quite a breathtaking moment,’ says Anna. ‘When can I read this? You say it’s a pile of rubbish, but it can’t do any harm to make sure.’
‘You’re being a ghost again.’
‘Just a fresh pair of eyes,’ says Anna.
‘Because mine can’t be trusted.’
‘Yours must be confused by what they’ve seen,’ Anna says. ‘First one thing, then something quite different.’
‘You can take it all with you if you like.’
‘You mean now?’
‘I mean when you go.’
‘At the end of the day,’ Anna says.
‘Which is when we go to sleep,’ I say.
‘Which is when we wake up,’ Anna reminds me.
I want her to kiss me, but her eyes have wandered to the painting again.
‘Stop looking at that painting,’ I say.
‘There’s something about it that bugs me,’ she says.
‘That’s because we’re in the bug’s room,’ I say.
‘Very funny,’ says Anna.
‘It’s just another painting,’ I say.
‘On so many different levels, that’s not just another painting,’ Anna says. ‘But it’s not about that. It’s the woman in fur, she seems familiar…’
‘I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.’
‘I know I’m noticing something,’ says Anna, ‘but I can’t put my finger on what.’
‘Have you ever seen a picture of Mary?’
‘I’ve seen many,’ says Anna. ‘Oh. Oh, I see. So Mary’s the woman in fur. But why were you hoping I wouldn’t notice?’
‘Because it’s only Mary vaguely,’ I say.
‘It’s actually a remarkable resemblance,’ says Anna. ‘Now that I know, I’m surprised I didn’t spot it straightaway, and not just because I’d seen pictures of her. Ana always talked about this tortured look of sadness she had, and that’s what strikes you most about the woman you’ve painted – the way she’s staring out at you as if she’s trying to pass on her anguish.’
‘She passed on her anguish quite successfully over the years.’
‘But still you painted her,’ says Anna. ‘In the room that’s your homage to Kafka, Woman in Fur is your homage to Mary.’
‘All the more deserving after what you told me.’
‘You have two mothers now,’ says Anna.
‘I want to know more about Bea.’
‘It’s difficult,’ says Anna.
‘I don’t mean just about what happened to her. About her life in general, before the coup.’
‘Then you must visit Santiago.’
‘Come with me,’ I say. ‘You said you’d like to go again, and I don’t speak Spanish, so I need you to come. Let’s make it part of our story to visit Santiago together. I’d like to see where we were born, find out where Bea lived, who her friends were.’
‘We’ll see,’ Anna says.
‘How old would she be now, sixty-something? My grandparents might still be alive.’
‘They’re not,’ Anna says.
‘So you know some things already,’ I say. ‘Did Bea have any brothers and sisters?’
‘She had one brother,’ Anna says. ‘Alonso.’
‘I’d like to meet him,’ I say.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ says Anna.
‘Why not? I’m sure he’d like to meet his sister’s son.’
‘Let’s not talk about this now, I’m not even sure if Alonso is alive.’
‘We could try and find out.’
‘It’s better we don’t,’ Anna says.
‘There’s something about Alonso you don’t want to tell me.’
‘I can’t,’ Anna says. ‘There was never any proof.’
‘Proof? I don’t understand, proof of what?’
‘I’ve said too much already,’ says Anna.
‘Anna,’ I say, ‘it’s too late for that. Tell me everything first, and then you can regret it.’
‘If I thought I knew everything I would,’ Anna says.
‘I promise I’ll bear it in mind that you don’t.’
‘It doesn’t feel right to be making accusations when they might be completely unjust.’
‘Accusations against Bea’s brother?’
‘Alonso and your mother didn’t really get on.’
‘So it was Bea who made the accusations.’
‘Beatriz didn’t have time to make accusations.’
‘Then it’s something to do with the day of the coup.’
‘I suppose so. Yes.’
‘Please, Anna.’
‘Not many people knew where she was.’
‘She was in hospital.’
‘But not many people knew,’ says Anna gravely.
‘Are you saying her brother betrayed her?’
‘That’s what some people suspected, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.’
‘Some people like who?’
‘Look, Jack… I mean Leon… Sorry.’
‘Why not Angel,’ I say, ‘since we’re discussing the day I was born. I seem to have a name for every occasion.’
‘We’re not really discussing the day you were born.’
‘Some people like who?’
‘I think this is unnecessary,’ Anna says.
‘Some people like who?’ I ask insistently.
‘My father,’ Anna says.
‘People like your father, or just your father?’
‘Just my father.’
‘And your father thought Alonso betrayed her, in other words denounced her and caused her to be murdered, because he and Bea didn’t really get on?’
‘He was already a police informer, he detested Beatriz’s politics and he knew she’d be wanted, but even if it was him who denounced her, he couldn’t have known she’d be murdered.’
‘Did your father know him?’
‘Yes. And he thought it very odd that he never came to look for his sister.’
‘Or for me,’ I say.
‘For the baby he knew she was having,’ says Anna. ‘But not everyone agreed with my father’s theories.’
‘Did your mother?’
‘No. Nor did your father. They thought the reason why Alonso disappeared after the coup was probably because he was a coward, keeping his distance from Beatriz to protect his own career – and he wouldn’t have been wrong to be afraid.’
‘Who else kne
w?’
‘Who else knew what?’
‘Where Bea was on the day of the coup.’
‘We’re talking about more than forty years ago,’ says Anna. ‘I don’t know anything for sure. No one knew anything for sure even back then. Everything was chaos, total chaos…’
‘Did Mary know?’
‘Did Mary know?’ Anna repeats disconcertedly.
‘Please,’ I say, ‘just answer my question.’
‘Yes. Mary knew.’
‘So that’s who your mother and my father suspected.’
‘Mary hardly spoke any Spanish,’ answers Anna inconsequentially.
‘But they suspected her.’
‘No one could be sure what had happened.’
‘And it was her idea to take me.’
‘It was the only solution.’
‘They suspected her and then they let her steal me.’
‘Mary wasn’t well,’ Anna says.
‘And my mother was murdered.’
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
14
Letting Go of the Past
Bedtime
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
I must, I must pick myself up. Morosely I have been staring at my feet not heedless of time but suspended in it, subsumed under its thick morass. The darkest hour of a country and a people had signalled the beginning of my history but deprived me altogether of its truth. As I accused, defended, exonerated or condemned first one and then another possible culprit, the barnacled uncertainty of the past clung to me fiercely, ever-tightening its stranglehold grip as if to impel me to cast my net wider: the narrowed-down choice of betrayer seemed deliberately arbitrary and self-fulfilling, and it may have escaped Anna but it hasn’t escaped me that it was made by people who also knew where Bea was on the day of the coup. If it wasn’t Bea’s brother who betrayed her, this does not constitute proof against Mary.
‘Breakfast,’ I say. ‘You must be starving.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to go?’ Anna asks.
‘Go? Why would I want you to go?’
Anna looks at the clock, then she looks at Mary’s sadness, and then she looks at me, reticently, as though merely to hint that the tick-tock symbolism of the passage of time might suffice to obscure its machinations.
‘I’ve upset you,’ she says. Her words are liquid, like an echo that laps over the shore indistinctly.
‘You’re right, it’s probably too late to find out exactly what happened,’ I say, answering my thoughts instead of answering Anna. ‘But I still want to try.’
‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ says Anna.
Instinctively I look at the clock, and then I look at Woman in Fur. If Anna’s words are liquid, my thoughts are congealed and opaque. My head is heavy and overcrowded with them, and in everything I lag behind Anna. As I catch myself unconsciously mimicking her gestures, I struggle to give meaning to her words.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Breakfast.’
‘Shall I make you something?’ Anna asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s eleven o’clock,’ Anna says again. ‘Twenty-four hours since we met. A long twenty-four hours since we met.’
‘You were twenty minutes late,’ I say stupidly.
‘And those twenty minutes caused someone’s death,’ Anna says.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I could make some porridge if you like.’
‘I think you need to sleep,’ Anna says.
‘You haven’t upset me,’ I say. ‘I’m upset, but you haven’t upset me.’
‘I’m not hungry, let’s just go to bed.’
‘Mary and Bea’s brother weren’t the only ones who knew where she was. My father and your father and mother, they all knew too, it doesn’t mean that one of them betrayed her. And it’s true what you said, Mary couldn’t speak more than five words of Spanish.’
‘I agree,’ Anna says. ‘It couldn’t have been Mary.’
‘So if it wasn’t the brother?’
‘It couldn’t have been anyone else. Come on, let’s go to bed.’
‘It couldn’t have been anyone else, but Mary was the unlikeliest of them all. Even if she knew about my father and Bea, she’d just had a breakdown, Santiago was in chaos and she didn’t speak the language, so how could she have known where to go or who to call?’
‘Only Alonso would’ve known.’
‘And why is it so impossible that other people knew where she was?’
‘Nothing’s impossible,’ says Anna.
‘Bea herself might’ve told them, or she might’ve been followed.’
‘Which I’m sure was quite common in the days before the coup.’
‘But if only the five of them knew, then Alonso is the only suspect. Your father knew him, and he thought so too. What I can’t understand is why your mother and my father disagreed. You say they thought Alonso was a coward, so they pinned the blame on Mary instead, just because she wasn’t well. Then everyone agreed to hand me over to her – to this unstable and dangerous woman - and like one big happy family we all moved to England, where my father and your mother started an affair behind your father’s back. Maybe they just needed a convenient excuse.’
‘We’ll never know exactly how things happened, it’s too long ago, and the people who were there are all gone.’
‘What you know is what your mother chose to tell you.’
‘And I shouldn’t have repeated it to you,’ Anna says. ‘Because you’re right, it’s unfair and it doesn’t make sense.’
‘It’s unfair and it doesn’t make sense but it’s what your mother thought. Why?’
‘Your father thought it too. People think all sorts of things.’
‘But usually they keep them to themselves.’
‘They were lovers.’
‘What a big surprise, Mary’s sadness.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna says. ‘I’ve offended you and I’ve misrepresented my mother.’
Sorry
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
I must, I must cut through the accumulating tick-tocks and apologize to Anna. Again I have been staring at my feet, as though dumbfounded that Anna hasn’t risen already to hers. While bitterness and anger and sadness interweave with self-reproach to cocoon me inside a dampness of fear, I can still feel her presence beside me. I must reach out to her now, before it’s too late…
‘I’m sorry too,’ I say.
‘Ana was dying,’ Anna says.
‘Please, let me hold you,’ I say.
‘She was sharing secret thoughts from the past with her daughter, not making accusations. Ana and your father never told anyone else.’
The room is warm, and we both took our jackets off before I made the tea. I’m wearing red trainers and nondescript jeans, sweating in a long-sleeved white shirt. Anna’s jeans are skinny, and her T-shirt, as strikingly red as our trainers, is only a little less tight than her jeans.
‘So many mothers and fathers and lovers, all of them with secrets and all of them dead.’
‘Dead and finally forgiven,’ Anna says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
With my arms crossed over her torso I hold her against mine in a slightly contorted position. Her head leans backwards to rest on my shoulder, and my face is buried in her neck. As I breathe it in, Anna’s freshness seems deeply entrenched, unshakeable by either arguments or infinite number of tick-tocks.
‘Even my father had secrets,’ she says.
‘Mine had too many,’ I say.
‘You shouldn’t be so angry with your father.’
‘Dead and finally forgiven,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ says Anna.
‘I’m glad Mary kept us apart.’
‘I think it suited everyone to keep us apart.’
‘But now there’s no one left to keep us apart.’
‘There’s no one left at all,’ Anna says.
‘Except maybe Alonso,’ I say.
‘No,’ Anna says, ‘not e
ven Alonso.’
‘Alonso is dead?’
‘He died about the same time that Beatriz disappeared.’ Anna twists her head around to hold my gaze fleetingly. Then she rests it again on my shoulder. ‘When you asked me about him earlier, I didn’t tell you everything.’
‘Tell me everything now,’ I say.
‘I thought it was the right thing to do - to try and keep things separate. I thought the past was made up of parts that either clearly belonged to your story or had nothing to do with it, but now everything’s become so tangled up that hiding any part at all feels like keeping a secret from you, and secrets are lies, like you said, and to lie to you is the last thing I want.’
‘But the secrets are other people’s secrets,’ I say.
‘They are,’ Anna says.
‘And that makes you hesitate.’
‘Other people’s secrets can be ugly, as you know. Whatever might have crossed Ana’s mind and your father’s isn’t really a part of your story, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I told you.’
‘Crossed their mind? Bea was my mother and Mary the woman who raised me.’
‘But what I know is just the little Ana told me,’ Anna says, ‘and your father isn’t here to tell you more.’
‘Dead and finally forgiven,’ I say. ‘I reacted badly, I know, but I’m glad you told me.’
‘What happened to Alonso has absolutely nothing to do with your story.’
‘But it has something to do with yours.’
‘It’s just so unbelievable, so beyond what I’ve known, that I’m not sure I’ve managed to process it properly yet.’
‘What you told me about Mary was also beyond what I’ve known.’
‘And you processed it by not believing it.’
‘Because I don’t think it’s true.’
‘I don’t have that choice, you see. To believe the unbelievable not to be true. For it not to be true, something even more beyond reason would have to be true.’
‘Anna, you don’t have to tell me. I’m not entitled to every secret. It’s enough that you told me Alonso is dead, it makes it easier for me to move on. And I don’t care how it sounds but I’m glad.’
‘It doesn’t make it easier for me to move on,’ says Anna. ‘Think about what made you angry earlier. Because you loved him and you thought he was a good man, everything about your father made you angry, not just what he said about Mary.’
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