Dance and Dream

by Javier Marías

  '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 silen
t 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.'

  And I would have succumbed to the habitual temptation of those first sessions when he used to question me about famous or unknown people scrutinised on video or in the flesh from the stationary train compartment or face to face, and often he would ask me very specific things about aspects of people that are usually impenetrable at first sight and even at last sight, even with those people to whom you are closest, for you can spend a lifetime by someone's side and watch them die in your arms, and, at the hour of their death, still not know what they were or were not capable of, and not even be sure of their true desires, if they were reasonably content in the knowledge that they had achieved such desires or if they continued to yearn for them throughout their entire existence, and that is what most frequently happens unless the person has no desires at all, which rarely occurs, some modest desire always slips in. (Yes, you can be convinced of something, but not know for certain.)

  So I would have preferred to answer 'I don't know', the words no one ever wanted to hear and which were deemed almost unacceptable in the building with no name, in that new group, which, as I was becoming increasingly aware, was the impoverished heir of the old group, the words that never found favour, but met with scorn and blank rejection. And it wasn't just Tupra to whom they were unacceptable: they were unacceptable to Pérez Nuix, Mulryan and Rendel as well, and probably to Branshaw and Jane Treves too, who although they were only occasional collaborators would doubtless not allow such words to be spoken by their lower-ranking narks and informers. 'Perhaps' was allowed - it had to be - but it made a bad impression, it wasn't much appreciated and, in the end, was ignored as if you had made no real contribution or suggestion at all, it had the same effect as a blank vote or an abstention, how can I put it, the attitude with which it was received almost never had a verbal correlative, but was equivalent to someone muttering: 'Well, that's a fat lot of use. Let's move on to the next subject'; and sometimes they would frown or pull an exasperated face. At that stage of my induced boldness and my carefully elaborated or developed powers of penetration, it would have been extraordinary for me to give such a reply to that final question about Reresby, shrouded, as he was, in his unending night: 'Perhaps. It's unlikely. It's not impossible. Who knows? I certainly don't.' And so I would have had to take a risk and, after considering for a moment, would at last have given my most sincerely felt verdict or wager, that is, the one I most believed to be true or, as people like to say, as I believed in my heart of hearts: 'I don't think it would have been easy for him, it would have been hard for him to do it, he would have tried to avoid it, that is, he would have given me at least one or two opportunities before unleashing the blow, the opportunity to desist. Perhaps a wound, a cut, a warning or two. But yes, I think he would have been capable of killing me if he had seen that I was determined and serious, or if it meant that I was stopping him doing what he had decided to do. He would have been capable of killing me because I was in his way and would not give up. Except that, as we have seen, he had not yet decided on an execution.'

  'Do you mean you would have so enraged him that he would have lost control and lashed out murderously in a burst of impatience, pride or anger?' Tupra might have asked, perhaps offended by such a possibility.

  'No, no,' I would have said. 'It would have been for the reason I gave before, because he takes it very badly if someone fails to do what, according to him, they should and could do. Something on which he has already reached a reasoned decision, based on his own or other people's reasons, which sometimes emerges after long reflection or machination and at others very quickly, in a flash, as if his all-seeing eyes saw at once what there was to see and knew at a glance what would happen, with just one clearly focused glance, with no going back. I don't know how to explain it: he could have killed me for reasons of discipline, which is something the world has relinquished; or out of determination or haste, or as part of a plan; because he was used to overcoming obstacles and I had suddenly, gratuitously, superfluously, become an unplanned and, from his point of view, unreasonable obstacle.' But then I would have had to give voice to a last-minute doubt, because it was a real doubt, and added: 'Or perhaps not, perhaps he wouldn't have been capable of killing me, despite everything, for one reason only: perhaps he likes me too much and has not yet tired of that feeling.'

  When we got up and went to fetch the overcoats, the Manoias' and mine, Tupra went back to the Disabled toilet. He didn't tell me he was going to, but I saw him do so. He indicated to me that I should accompany Flavia to the cloakroom, he gave me the tickets for the coats, and I saw him and Manoia head off in that direction, go through the first door and, I assumed, through the second door too, but I have no idea what happened next. I didn't have the energy to become alarmed and angry all over again: what had happened was bad enough, and the fact that De la Garza had not died - I realised - only made things marginally better. I had seen the expression on his face, the look of a dead man, of someone who knows he is going to die and knows he is dead. There were three or four or five times when his heart could have burst. 'Reresby is probably going to kill him now,' I thought without believing it, 'he's still got his sword with him. Or perhaps he's merely going to check that De la Garza has obeyed his orders. Or perhaps he wants to show his work to Manoia, to give Manoia or himself that satisfaction. Or maybe it is Manoia who has demanded to see the results of his labours and to give or withhold his approval, a "Basta cos?" or a "Non mi basta". Or, more likely, this Sicilian, Neapolitan or Calabrian isn't going there to check anything, but is going to finish him off in person.' They did not take long, they were in and out in a trice, and when they rejoined us, our coats, Mrs Manoia's and mine, were still lying across the cloakroom counter. The fourth or the third possibilities were the most likely, either a case of accounts rendered or of pure vanity; I doubted it was the second possibility, Tupra knew as well as I did that De la Garza would not have moved an inch from his place on the floor. In that idiotic place,
no one seemed to pay for anything, at least I didn't and I saw no one else pay either. Reresby must have an account there or else everything was always on the house or perhaps he was a member with a share. in the profits. Or, who knows, perhaps De la Garza had paid already behind our backs, before his last, interrupted dance, in order to seduce Flavia by that generous gesture. But that would have been most unlike him, nor would that dickhead have thought she was worth such a gesture.

  The four of us got into the Aston Martin used on nights when the aim was to make a good impression or to toady up to someone, that night it had been the former; it was quite a tight fit, but we couldn't send the couple off in a taxi, we were the hosts, and, besides, it was only a short ride. We took them to their hotel, the opulent Ritz no less, near Hatchard's bookshop in Piccadilly, which I had visited so often following in the footsteps of past notables, Byron and Wellington, Wilde and Thackeray, Shaw and Chesterton; and not far from Heywood Hill, which I frequented more when I lived in Oxford, and not far either from the shops of Davidoff and Fox in St James's Street where Tupra probably bought his Rameses II and where I obtained my rather less magnificent Karelias cigarettes, from the Peloponnese.

  When I said goodbye to Flavia, I had a presentiment - or was it prescience - that if she were still disappointed or disconcerted by the incident and the removal of the young man, after a while, in the darkness, when she and her husband were lying silently in their respective beds or together in their double bed, what she would remember most were the compliments paid to her during the evening and she would fall asleep feeling calmer and more contented than when she had woken up that morning; and this meant that she could still wake up the next day thinking: 'Last night, I was fine, but will I be all right today?' So at least, in that one respect, I had done my job and had, indirectly and extravagantly — the best way - given her a further extension. (How she would love to have known that she had been the cause of violence.) One more extension before the day on which her first thought would be: 'Last night, I wasn't fine, so what will happen today?' She kissed both Tupra and myself and went inside, not noticing the commissionaire who held the door open for her and not waiting for her husband to finish saying his goodbyes. He wouldn't tell her off for that, and she must have been eager to study her sfregio in a magnifying mirror and in a better light, and to start summoning up the more pleasant moments of that long night, when she had still been in such excellent spirits that she could urge me in mock-reproachful tones: 'Su, va, signor Deza, non sia così antipatico. Mi dica qualcosa di carino, qualcosa di tenero. Una parolina e sarò contenta.. Anzi, me farà felice.'