Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me

by Javier Marías

  And that was when I also saw – or recognized, or noticed – the woman who had grasped Deán’s arm with her beige glove, the neighbour whom I had seen twice already, once, when I was leaving the block of flats in Conde de la Cimera while she was arguing or kissing in the early hours of the morning and, again, when I was standing next to my taxi while she drove off, wearing her pearl necklace and tossing her handbag into the back of the car, and at that moment, I turned round in an impulse of pointless fear, since, if she had seen me and recognized me, it was too late (that was the third time I had seen her in three days). After those few seconds of reflex fear, I turned round again (after all, I had my dark glasses on, and it wasn’t yet night) and although I felt observed and even scrutinized by her, as if she wanted to make sure that it really was me – no one – I saw in her brown eyes no trace of suspicion or fear or even bewilderment, possibly quite the opposite – perhaps she imagined that I too was a neighbour or a friend of the family, an old, distant or discreet friend – a friend, perhaps, of the dead woman only – who was attending the funeral but keeping his distance. That is what she must have thought, because when the gravestone was drawn up to cover the grave, just as I had covered Marta with the bedspread and the sheets, and everyone began to move away – although they only moved a short distance, too busy greeting each other or milling around and exchanging comments, as if they were not quite ready to abandon the place where their more or less beloved Marta would now remain – the young woman said hello to me with a sad half-smile as she passed me by, heading for the cars, and I responded using the same word and possibly the same smile, as I watched her pass and continue on by with her graceful, centrifugal gait (again I noticed her calves), accompanied, it seemed to me, by a woman friend or sister and a lady. That insignificant contact gave me the courage to leave my adopted grave (“and they bring me salvation”) and to mingle with them, with the people in the funeral procession, not blatantly, but as if I too were on my way out. I saw that Marta’s father had not yet left: he was standing with one foot resting on a nearby grave, he had noticed the untied lace on his shoe and he was pointing at it with his index finger as if in accusation, but saying nothing; the excellent man was too unsteady on his feet and too heavy to bend or crouch down, and his daughter Luisa, one knee resting on the ground beside him (she wasn’t crying now, she had something to occupy herself with), was tying it up for him as if he were a child and she his mother. Three or four other people had stayed behind to wait for them. And then I heard a voice behind me, the electric voice, it was saying: “Oh, bloody hell, don’t tell me you haven’t brought the car, now what are we going to do? Antonio gave me a lift here, but I told him not to wait because I assumed that you would come in your car.” I didn’t turn around, but I slowed my steps so that they could catch me up, the electric-shaver voice with its hidden knives and that of a woman who replied at once: “All right, it doesn’t matter, we’ll get a lift with someone else, and if not, there’ll be taxis outside I expect.” “What do you mean, taxis, for God’s sake?” he said as he drew alongside and his profile came into view, he had a rather snub nose, or perhaps that was just the effect of his rather large dark glasses; “There aren’t going to be any bloody taxis at the cemetery; what do you think this is, the Royal Palace? Only you would think of coming without your car.” “I thought you would bring yours,” she said as they overtook me. “Did I say I was going to bring it? Did I say that? Well then …” he replied threateningly, thus putting an end to the dispute. He was a man of medium height, but well built, the kind who frequents gymnasiums or swimming pools, doubtless rude and tyrannical. He obviously wasn’t aware of funeral etiquette either, or else he didn’t care, since he was wearing a light-coloured overcoat (not that Deán was wearing black either). He had long teeth like the chap, two nights before, who had stood behind me at the restaurant waiting for me to hang up, it wasn’t the same man, just the same type: conventionally wealthy, conventionally dressed and with a wilfully plebeian vocabulary, there are thousands of them in Madrid, veritable waves of provincial self-made men who have been allowed to take over the city, a perpetual, centuries-old plague, and not one of them capable of pronouncing the final soft “d” in Madrid. He was about forty years old, and had fleshy lips, a firm jaw and a village complexion that betrayed his origins, an origin not so much remote as forgotten or, rather, erased. He used lacquer on his hair and wore it combed back as if he were a dandy, but talking like that, he was obviously not the genuine article. “Have they found out who the bloke was yet?” I heard him say in a quieter voice – he mumbled the question, and then his voice sounded like a hairdryer – while I walked a little behind them. And his wife, Ines, the magistrate or pharmacist or nurse, lowered her voice in turn and replied: “No, not yet, but they’ve only just started looking, but apparently Eduardo is determined to find him. But listen, Vicente, they don’t want anyone to know, so would you please, just for once, be discreet and not go telling everyone about it.” “So he’s a loudmouth,” I thought, “that’s why he’s always got some story to tell. For the moment, Vicente, I’ve done you an enormous favour, removing that tape from the answering machine. What a bit of luck for you that I was there with her.” “Everybody knows about it anyway,” replied Vicente scornfully, “people like to talk; there’s no such thing as discretion any more, it’s died out, it isn’t even considered a virtue. Poor Marta. They might manage to keep it from her father, but as for the others … They’ll forget about it anyway, nothing lasts, that’s the only form of discretion there is nowadays, I mean, everything’s so quickly forgotten. Look, go and see who we can get a lift with, go and ask some people if they’ve got room for us,” and with a swift shrug of the shoulders he readjusted his overcoat and stretched his neck. He probably used similar gestures to adjust his tackle when he felt uncomfortable. The people from the funeral had nearly reached their cars and I was there with them. Inés left Vicente’s side to find out who could give them a lift to the centre, I hadn’t got such a good look at her because she had been concealed by him while they were walking along, she had an unhurried gait, and her legs were rather on the muscular side, like those of a sportswoman or an American, the kind of calf that looks as if it’s about to explode at any moment, some men find them a real turn-on, I’m not so keen myself. She was wearing high heels and she shouldn’t. I imagined that she was probably a magistrate, rather than a policewoman or a pharmacist or a nurse. Perhaps hers was the infantalized, tearful voice on the answering machine and what she was asking Marta (“Please … please …”) was for her to leave her husband alone. In that case, her wishes had been granted, how that death gladdens me, saddens me, pleases me. The man stood waiting with his arms folded, nodding from afar to people he knew as they got into their cars and whistling, not realizing that he was doing so and forgetting that he was still in a cemetery, he didn’t seem either very affected or very worried, he had doubtless already heard about the disappearance of that tape on which he had described as “stupid” the person he was now calling “poor Marta”. “I’ve got you,” I thought, “I’ve got you, although that would also mean having to reveal myself. I would have to stop being no one.” I saw that Inés, standing next to the door of a car, was gesturing repeatedly to him, beckoning him to join her, the magistrate had found a lift. I looked around then for Téllez and Deán and Luisa: the father and the sister had not yet arrived, they were walking along together, arm-in-arm, with some difficulty, he with his shoelaces now tied, Maria Fernandez Vera and Guillermo following close behind them, ready in case the robust old man should suddenly stumble or fall, or else watching out for more puddles. Deán, however, had already reached the cars, he had opened the door of his own and was standing next to it, waiting, he was watching his in-laws who were advancing slowly towards him, advancing towards the tomb. He was actually looking back in the direction of the sealed grave and when his brother-in-law and his sister-in-law finally arrived, along with his brother-in-law’s wife and his father-in-la
w, the four of them got into another car with Guillermo at the wheel, while Deán, on the other hand, remained a few seconds longer with his hand resting on the door, apparently not waiting for anyone, thoughtfully watching whatever it was he was watching, a haunted look. Then he got into his car, closed the door and started the engine. He was going home alone, he had plenty of room, he wasn’t carrying any passengers, Inés and Vicente could easily have fitted in. “He could have given me a lift,” I thought after a while, when they had all already driven off and I was getting set to leave, knowing all too well that this was not the Royal Palace. And then another thought occurred to me: “But then, if he’d given me a lift,” I thought, “I would’ve had to stop being no one.”

  IN ONE SENSE I stopped being no one a month later, in another, it took me a little longer, in Deán’s case a few days and in Luisa’s a few hours. I mean that after a month, I became someone for Téllez and his son-in-law and his third and only daughter (the third to be born and now the only one left alive), I became a name and a face for them and I had lunch with them, but the man who had been present at Marta’s death, though he had achieved little by that presence, continued to be no one throughout the whole of that lunch, even though I was that man, of that I was sure, for them, on the other hand, that man was only one of various suspects with or without a name, with or without a face: not for Téllez, though, from whom they had managed to hide the manner and the circumstances of the death, he had no need to suspect anyone.

  I made the almost simultaneous acquaintance of his two children through their father, Téllez, and I tried to get to know him and did, in fact, meet him through a friend whom I have impersonated on more than one occasion, to whom I have often lent my voice and, in this instance, my physical presence, but unlike on those other occasions, this was precisely what I wanted. That friend’s name is, or so he claims, Ruibérriz de Torres, a man of indecorous appearance. He is a hardworking writer with a good ear, average talent and rather bad luck (in the literary field), since other less hardworking people with a terrible ear and no talent at all are held to be great men and are praised and given prizes (literary prizes). When he was still a young man, some years ago now, he published three or four novels; he had some success with the first or the second, but that success never came to anything, it simply dribbled away, and although he’s still not exactly old, his name is only known to older people, that is, he’s forgotten as an author except by those who have already been in the profession for some time and never really keep up with all the changes and alternatives, they are rather inattentive people with entrenched views, the civil servants of literature, ancient critics, resentful professors, resting academics susceptible to flattery, and publishers who find in the endless complaints about the insensitivity of the modern reader the perfect excuse for simply loafing around and doing nothing, which they continue to do with each new wave of writers. Ruibérriz has not published anything for years now, I don’t know if that is because he has given up or because he’s waiting until he has been completely forgotten in order to begin again (he doesn’t usually talk to me about his plans, he’s neither confidential nor prone to fantasy). I know that he always has various shady deals on the go, I know that he’s very much a nightbird, that he lives, in part, off various women, and that he’s immensely likeable; he tones down his caustic comments in the company of people he knows can’t take it, he flatters those who need to be flattered, he knows all kinds of people in all kinds of fields, and the majority of those who know him have no idea that he is or has been a writer, he’s not boastful, neither is he given to attempts at salvaging what is lost. He only looks indecorous in certain places, though not all: he looks all right in cheap bars, in cafes at night, as long as they’re not too trendy, and at open-air dances; he looks acceptable at private parties (preferably summer parties with a garden setting and a swimming pool) and he looks very good at bullfights (he usually has a season ticket for the bullfighting festival of San Isidro); he can get by amongst people in film, television and the theatre, although he does look a touch old-fashioned; he cuts a plausible figure amongst coarse, surly journalists of the old Franco and anti-Franco schools (the former are coarser, the latter surlier), although he’s obviously not one of them, since he’s always immaculately turned out and even rather vain about his appearance. But amongst his true colleagues, other writers, he seems like an intruder and they treat him as such, he’s too jokey and good-humoured, he tends to talk a lot and, with them, makes no attempt at tact. At official occasions or at a ministry, his presence causes genuine alarm, which presents him with a real problem, given that part of his income comes from that world of officialdom and ministries. His written style is as solemn as his talk is uninhibited, he is one of those people who feel such reverence for literature that, confronted by a blank sheet of paper, and regardless of his own scurrilous nature, he’s incapable of transmitting one iota of that irreverence and cynicism to that venerable page, to which he will never commit a joke, a four-letter word, a deliberate mistake, let alone some bold, impertinent remark. He will never allow himself to give expression to his true personality, perhaps considering it unworthy of being recorded, and fearful of defiling such a high office, and it is there, in a manner of speaking, that the scoundrel finds his salvation. Ruibérriz de Torres, who has little respect for anything, sees writing as something sacred (and, doubtless, therein lies the reason for his lack of success). His grandiloquent style, combined with a sound background in the humanities, is perfect for the kind of speeches that no one listens to at the time and that no one reads when they’re summarized in the press the next day, that is, the speeches and talks (including lectures) made by ministers, directors-general, bankers, prelates, presidents of foundations or professional bodies, much-talked-about or lazy academics, and other great men overly preoccupied with their image and their abilities as intellectuals, something which passes unnoticed by everyone else or which everyone assumes to be non-existent. Ruibérriz has no shortage of commissions and, although he doesn’t publish anything, he writes constantly, or rather he used to, for recently, thanks to a stroke of genuine good fortune with one of his shady deals and to his assiduous cultivation of a wealthy woman who indulges and genuinely idolizes him, he has opted for a life of leisure and has allowed himself the luxury of rejecting most commissions or, rather, he accepts them and passes them on to me, along with seventy-five per cent of the profits, so that I am the one who carries them out in the shadows and in secrecy (though not in the utmost secrecy), my education being in no way inferior to his. He is what is known in the literary world as a ghostwriter and I have therefore become the ghost of a ghost, a double ghost, a double no one. There is nothing very unusual about this in my case, since the majority of the scripts I write (especially those for television series) rarely carry my name: the producer or director or actor or actress usually makes me a large additional payment in exchange for the removal of my name from the credits in favour of theirs (that way they feel they are the true creators of their films), which, I suppose, also makes me a ghost as regards what is my main current occupation and the source of considerable sums of money. This is not always the case though; there are occasions when my name does appear on the screen, in company with those of four or five other scriptwriters who, generally speaking, I have never seen amend or add a single line, I have never even seen their faces: they are usually relatives of the producer or the director or the actor or the actress who, by adding their names, are extricating themselves from a temporary difficulty or making up symbolically for some previous swindle that swallowed up all their savings. On a couple of jobs about which I was imprudent enough to feel anomalously proud, I refused the bribe and demanded that my name should appear separately, beneath the pompous rubric: “Additional Dialogue”, as if I were Michel Audiard at the peak of his popularity. So I know that in the world of television and cinema and in that of speeches and perorations almost nobody writes what people think they write, although – and this is t
he most serious aspect, and not as rare as you might think – once these usurpers have read the speeches in public and received the polite or sparse applause, or have seen on television the scenes and dialogues to which they put their names, but which they did not themselves create, they become convinced that their borrowed or rather bought words truly are the product of their own pens or imaginations: they adopt them (especially if someone praises them, be it an usher or a bootlicking choir boy) and they will fight tooth and nail to defend them, which is rather sweet of them really and, from the ghostwriter’s point of view, flattering. This conviction runs so deep that the ministers, directors-general, bankers, prelates and all the other habitual givers of speeches are the only citizens who actually listen to and take an interest in the speeches given by others, and they are as fierce and pernickety about other people’s work as the more celebrated novelists can be about the work of their rivals. (Sometimes, without realizing it, they speak insultingly of a text written by the same person who writes their own speeches, attacking not only its content or ideas, which obviously vary, but the style as well.) They take their oratorical side so seriously that they even demand exclusivity from their ghostwriters in exchange for an increase in fees and a bonus, or else they try to appropriate – or make off with – other people’s ghostwriters, for example, if a minister felt jealous of the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Spain speaking at a charity supper, or if the president of a shareholders’ meeting turned green with envy watching the television news on which a harangue delivered by some rabid military man was greeted with hurrahs. (This exclusivity, it should be said, is but a vain hope in a job based on secrecy and anonymity: all ghostwriters accept it and commit themselves to it; then, in double clandestinity, they happily work for the enemy.) Some people commission the services of famous, practising writers (almost all of them are for sale, or may even lend their services free in order to make contacts and gain influence and put across a particular message), in the belief that the style of these writers, in general, pretentious and florid, will enhance their speeches, embellish their slogans, not realizing that these famous, veteran writers are the least suitable people for this kind of abject task, in which the writer must not only erase his own personality, he must also interpret and embody the personality of the national hero he is serving, something which such writers are not usually prepared to do: that is, rather than trying to imagine what the current minister might say, they think what they would say if they were the minister, an idea they find not in the least displeasing and a hypothesis they have no difficulty whatsoever in accepting. Many dignitaries, however, understand the problem and feel extremely uncomfortable uttering crass, lofty phrases such as: “Man, that sad, unfortunate animal” or “Let us carry out our work with the forbearance of the world”. It makes them blush. So writers like Ruibérriz de Torres or myself are the most suitable people for the task, cultivated and anonymous, with a knowledge of syntax, a wide vocabulary and a talent for simulation; as well as a capacity for getting out of the way when necessary. Neither overly ambitious, nor blessed with a great deal of luck. Although luck can change.