I’ll go further. I don’t know whether Bevilacqua himself would have recognized, in that series of biographical versions, which one was his, the real one. How can one know, among all the various faces reflected back to us by mirrors, which one represents us most faithfully and which one deceives us? From our tiny point in the world, how can we observe ourselves without false perceptions? How can we distinguish reality from desire?
During my childhood in Poitiers, I was once witness to an event that sheds a mysterious light—at least for me—on this dilemma. My parents, my sister, my grandfather and I lived close to the Parc de Blossac, in one of the developments built there in the 1970s, at the foot of the Tour à l’Oiseau; my school was close by, just before the Pont Saint-Cyprien, by the river Clain. A good part of the route from my house to school ran alongside a narrow stretch of the river. My grandfather—who, in spite of his advanced years, often accompanied me—was walking ahead of me that morning. The spring rains had swollen the river, which threatened to flood the hideaways of dozens of mangy cats. Suddenly, as we reached the site of the old sawmill, I saw my grandfather give a brief shrug and throw himself into the water. I could not shout or move. People near the river raised the alarm, fetching a gendarme who lived close by. I remember him perfectly. He was a tall, thin man who moved slowly, always dressed in an impeccably neat uniform. He walked onto the riverbank, took his gun out of the holster, and, pointing it at the would-be suicide, shouted: “Get out of there or I’ll shoot!” My grandfather obeyed and we returned home, he dripping water and I terrified, both of us silent. Bevilacqua, I believe, would also have obeyed.
I’ve decided not to write a profile of Bevilacqua. Lover, hero, friend, victim, traitor, apocryphal author, accidental suicide, and so much more: that’s a lot of things for one man. I’m all too aware of my limitations. And at the same time, I feel that the very fact of resigning myself to not writing has imbued my character with new life: Bevilacqua has declared himself. With my act of resignation, Bevilacqua steps forward with a body, a voice, a presence. It is I, his reader, his hopeful chronicler, Jean-Luc Terradillos, who disappears.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to: Vanesa Cañete, Javier Cercas, Valeria Ciompi, Marusha and Tony Díaz, Silvia Di Segni, Graeme Gibson, Maite Gallego, Felicidad Orquín, Enrique López Sánchez, Willie Schavelzon, Gudrun Schöne-Tamisier, Zoe Valdés.
Born in Buenos Aires, Alberto Manguel is the prize-winning author of The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (cowritten with Gianni Guadalupi), A History of Reading, The Library at Night, and News from a Foreign Country Came, and the translator and editor of many other works. He lives in the south of France.
* Or perhaps “evanescent”—I’m not sure how to read this word. Vila-Matas had (and still has) terrible handwriting.
All Men Are Liars Page 17