The Man of Feeling

by Javier Marías

  BUT NOT ALL OF THIS WAS IN MY morning dream, or at least not in such an orderly fashion as I am relating it now, but the dream was imbued with all the feelings I’ve described, feelings that, were just as oppressively present in what had once been my own city, Madrid, when I arrived there four years ago to play what, up until then, had been one of my most important roles, that of Cassio in Verdi’s Otello. I remember spending two whole days in the grip of these extremely unpleasant feelings, which were made all the worse in Madrid because there the buildings constituted neither novelty nor rediscovery, and contemplation of them did not, therefore, provide me with much distraction during my walks around the city, and above all because, although I felt like a visitor, I knew that I wasn’t a visitor, at least not strictly speaking, and I was afraid that what I most desired in other cities might actually happen: that, given my inevitable recollection of the place, given my appearance—possibly, who knows, my actual features—given my lack of accent in my own language, I might be taken for a native or a resident. Everything was at the same time strangely familiar and alien, intimate and reprehensible, from the ridiculous, affected gait of the inhabitants to the grimy, suffocating atmosphere in nearly all the streets, from the ill-disciplined traffic—directed by delinquents—always full of taxis (although these were now mostly white not black) to the bars which were inexplicably packed at the most unseemly hours, from the constant gabble and the brusque manners to the anachronistic façades of the cinemas with their vast billboards, and the omnipresent garbage trucks. All of it abominable and utterly typical.

  Perhaps it was the overwhelming sense of ambivalence in my contact with the city as a whole that made me hesitate rather longer than usual on my third night in the hotel bar—where at least the degree of familiarity and strangeness was within the habitual bounds of all capital cities—over whether the other man sitting there, while I was sipping a glass of hot milk before going to bed, the two of us separated by several feet of empty bar, looked more familiar to me than usual because his was a face from my remote Madrid past and who—for example—had just happened to arrange to meet someone there, or because he combined every one of the most common characteristics of traveling salesmen on their way to the four final truths: the bright, shining eyes of someone who has suddenly lost all scruples or is delaying the advent of a unique experience the nature of which he alone will decide; the slightly worn clothes which, at first sight, look new: rehabilitated too suddenly and too soon; a need to drink which one senses is quite recent and which is comparable only to the need felt by certain Nordic types on some festive eve or to that felt by Americans when they set themselves down at a bar, an act, it seems, indissolubly linked in their imaginations to the ingesting of alcohol as both process and goal; an undisguised predisposition to dialogue which, however, has nothing to do with the verbal diarrhea of certain drunks—for traveling salesmen, however drunk, keep a cautious grasp on their prudence until the very moment when they explode, for fear of being unmasked prematurely—and which is only evident in the impatient glances they give the disdainful barman or the other customers; the sagging or, at best, loose-fitting socks (something about which the dry-cleaner can do nothing); the position of their hands, often folded and resting on the table or the bar in a gesture of uncertainty—a remnant of prayers, which may or may not be answered—a gesture in which I too have sometimes found momentary relief from my latent despair. It was this man’s hands—tiny hands like those emerging from frilled cuffs in paintings or from eighteenth-century costumes—which, after a few involuntary sideways glances on my part and much racking of my memory, allowed me to identify him as the individual who had sat opposite me on the train four or five days before. I had not immediately recognized him because, despite his highly unusual appearance, the first time I saw him I had been deprived of the two things which I could now observe unimpeded, first, while he kept shooting me insistent looks and, subsequently, when he finally turned and addressed me in an act of recognition that seemed almost simultaneous with my own, and which were, in fact, the most striking thing about him (more even than his perverse jacket, more than his huge head, more than his presumptuous perfume): his indisputably bulging eyes and the large expanse of protuberant gum that his brief and cordial smile instantly revealed.

  “You,” he said, pointing at my chin with a movement of his little finger that seemed to me overly intimate in a stranger, “you were on the same train as us a few days ago, weren’t you?” And without giving me time either to reply or to agree, he added: “Don’t you remember me?”

  These two sentences, exactly as they were spoken, albeit with more emphasis on the word us, were repeated over and over in this morning’s dream, while I watched—although it was, I think, in black and white—the pleased and candid smile on the face of that man, Dato, who was holding an almost empty glass of whisky in one hand, while with the other he was still pointing at my chin with the easy satisfaction of someone who finally sees before him the person for whom he has long been waiting. Yes, I remembered him. I remembered him. I do not know why the selective memory of dreams is so different from that of our conscious senses, but I cannot believe in those vengeful explanations according to which the things that the latter suppresses resurface, in various guises, in the former. Such a belief, I feel, contains an excessively religious element, a vague idea of reparation in which I cannot help but see traces of such things as the presence of evil, turning a blind eye, the oppression of the just, the struggle between opposites, the truth waiting to be revealed and the idea that there is a part of us which is in closer contact with the divinities than our own direct perceptions. And that is why I am more inclined to believe that the frequent slowing down of time in dreams provides a civilized, conventional breathing space of a dramatic or narrative or rhythmic nature, like the end of a chapter or an interval in a play, like a post-prandial cigarette or the minutes spent leafing through the newspaper before getting down to work, the pause before reading a long-feared letter or that last glance in the mirror before going out for the night. Or perhaps it is merely hesitation, for dream truth and dream reasoning are not always as straightforward as they are made out to be. Some dreams contain as much vacillation, backsliding, and dead time, as one finds in the broad light of day. Occasionally it may be necessary to play for time in order to channel that dead time, that is, it may be necessary deliberately to kill time. I am not so very far removed from the beliefs of certain ancients and, like them, apart from any premonitions and warnings that we give to ourselves, I see in dreams intuitions and explanations that are not in the least at odds with our alert consciousness, but which are, in fact, explicit comments about the world—however metaphorical: there is no contradiction in that—about the same and only world that accommodates the daylight world, regardless of how alien the nocturnal realm may seem to us in the morning. For example, I have dreamed that I was singing Wagner, something I will never sing or, rather, should not sing because my voice isn’t suited to it and I lack the necessary training. However, I could sing Wagner in the broad light of day if I made myself; more than that, in the broad light of day, I can remember, perfectly, whole Wagnerian roles which I would not even attempt to hum to myself while I was shaving; but I can think them, even though I am not in a position to actually reproduce them, as, indeed, could any person who, though not a singer, has a memory, as indeed could a traveling salesman if he knew the roles. I do this with my waking senses, I sing and don’t sing just as I do and don’t sing when I dream I am singing Wagner. And last night I dreamed about what happened to me four years ago in the real world, if such a term serves any purpose or can usefully be contrasted with anything else. Of course there were differences, because although the facts and my vision of the story all correspond, I dreamed what happened in another order, in another tempo and with time apportioned and divided differently, in a concentrated, selective manner and—this is the decisive and incongruous part—knowing beforehand what had happened, knowing, for example,
Dato’s name, character and subsequent behavior before our first meeting took place in my dream. The strange thing is that, while in my mind there was synthesis, in my dream there was progression. It is true, on the other hand, that while I was dreaming, I could not know if my dream would depart at a given moment from what happened four years ago or if it would keep close to it until the end, as proved to be the case and as I now know and can say as the morning advances. But it is also true that now I do not know to what extent I am recounting what actually happened and to what extent I am describing what happened in my dream version of events, even though both things seem to me to be one and the same. I once read in a book by a German writer that people who choose not to eat breakfast are trying to avoid contact with the day so as not to enter fully into it because it is only through that second awakening, that of the stomach, that you can entirely leave behind you the darkness and the nocturnal realm, and it is only once you have arrived safe and sound on the other shore that you can allow yourself to recount what you dreamed without bringing down calamities upon yourself, since, if you do so before you have broken your fast, you are still under the sway of the dream and you betray it with your words, thus exposing yourself to its vengeance. And you tell it as if you were still asleep. Beneath its pretended intention of taking the dream very seriously indeed, this idea, which has unmistakably popular origins, conceals—as do those bandied about by psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and all the other usurpers of the word “psyche”—an infinite scorn for the dream, because it is based on the assumption that there are two separate worlds, that of dreaming and that of waking, or, even worse, two hostile, contrary worlds, fearful of each other, ready to hide their wealth and knowledge, and never to share them or combine them except through the violent capture, forced conversion, and invasive interpretation of one of the territories, with the peculiarity that the only world that feels this yearning for submission, the only one that achieves this spirit of conquest, is the diurnal world. But what prompted me to this confession is that, while I do not accept such an idea, I have chosen, just in case, not to have any breakfast this morning, in the hope that I will be able to tell both what happened and the dream of what happened, by dint of not distinguishing between them. That is why I have still not eaten anything, and who knows when I will.

  AND YET I FIND MYSELF RESISTING telling you everything. A poor tenor who is afraid of his own story and of his own dreams, as if using words instead of lyrics, words that have not been dictated, invented phrases rather than repetitive written texts, learned, and memorized, had paralyzed his powerful voice, which up until now has only known the recitative style. I find it hard to speak without a libretto.

  I was not an entirely free man then, and what I do not know and what I fear I will never know is why I lied about this to Dato that night in the hotel bar, when he enquired about my marital status. It wasn’t one of his first questions, but it makes no difference: I could not have imagined then what he was going to propose without actually saying that he was proposing something. And if I had told the truth, he might not have proposed anything.

  “Ah, so you’re a singer. I should have guessed as much from that great chest of yours, and those shoulders, those pectorals, that virile appearance; you know, you look exactly as everyone imagines a singer should look. Now I don’t know much about music, but I love it, all of it, I don’t mind what it is, I can happily listen to music whatever I’m doing, really, anywhere, any time. Yours must be a fascinating life.”

  Up until the moment when I lied about my situation, I was telling him the truth, although, from the start, I found Dato’s manner very hard to take and his comments utterly trivial, so much so that just as I was about to respond, I was seriously considering whether it was worth getting involved in a boring conversation of a kind I’d had thousands of times before and which was (as can be seen) tinged with the inevitable impertinence of the ignorant, and all for the sake of a little company in what had once been my own city. But, despite his manner and his opening remarks, the truth is there was something intriguing about the fellow (whom I no longer believed to be a traveling salesman: he was too relaxed, his voice and his gestures too languid, his clothes, on closer inspection, too expensive) and, at the same time, too, there was something about him that invited confidence. For all his worldly tone, his appearance and his expression still struck me as unreal or perhaps too real, like a Daumier caricature. He smiled constantly and easily, revealing those great, bulging gums that seemed about to burst at any moment, and gestured animatedly with his miniature hands.

  “Well, I don’t know about fascinating. It’s varied and interesting, and all the moving around certainly keeps you on your toes. But, although it might not seem like it, it’s a pretty hard, solitary existence. All that traveling is very unsettling.” And I spoke to him briefly (though vehemently) about my sorrows and my discontents, about my partial or latent despair, and then asked him the obligatory question: “And what do you do?”

  As I said earlier, by then, indeed as soon as I recognized him as being the same man who had been staring so intently out of the train window, I had rejected the idea of him being a traveling salesman, but apart from what I had thought at the time (without much conviction or insight, that he owned some medium-sized company), I had not stopped to think what he might do. Of course, I could never have guessed what his reply would be.

  “I’m a companion. Now, don’t look so surprised. That isn’t what it says on my passport, and I suppose that isn’t really my proper title, perhaps private secretary, financial adviser, Manur & Co.’s Iberian representative, whichever you prefer. I was a stockbroker once and that marks you, oh, yes, it leaves a mark, but what can you expect? Basically, though, I’m a companion. At my age there’s no point in trying to dress up the truth. And the truth is that I’m just a companion, albeit a well-paid one.”

  I was still trying to decide if I was interested in this conversation or not and so I did not reply at once, but in one gulp drank down my glass of milk which was still intact before me, and which gave rise to another of Dato’s inappropriate remarks:

  “I suppose you have to look after your throat and avoid cold drinks. Another whisky, please, barman.”

  “Yes,” I said mechanically. “You must never let your throat get cold, that’s absolutely fundamental. For example, I don’t usually take my scarf off until well into June, and even then that very much depends on the weather.”

  “Really? And when do you put it on again?”

  “Usually in early September. If you ever see a young man wearing a scarf around the end of June or the beginning of September, you can be sure that he’s a singer. As I say, it’s an unforgiving life, with a lot of obligations and duties. We can’t even allow ourselves an ordinary cold, which, as you can imagine, would be a complete disaster, because although you might recover soon enough from the cold, it takes four or five weeks before your voice is in perfect condition again. And meanwhile we’re in breach or semi-breach of our contract and we lose both money and reputation. But tell me,” and I led the conversation back to the one thing that had really struck me: I was struck by the fact that, in the solitude of what had once been my own city, the person now keeping me company claimed to be a professional companion, “What exactly does a companion do? Whom do you accompany? How do you do it? Are you for hire?”

  Dato smiled even more broadly than before (he was a nice man or at least that was his intention) and made a negative gesture with one of his delicate hands before picking up his fresh glass of whisky.

  “No, you’ve misunderstood me. I’m not what people call a lady’s companion, if that’s what you’re thinking: you know, one of those insipid, kindly, intransigent women you get in films, looking after some old duffer or an invalid. What I meant to say is that, despite my theoretical duties (as financial adviser, etc.) what I mostly do, my main function and use, is to keep my employers company. Didn’t you see them? Didn’t you notice? They
were traveling with me on the train.”

  Of course I had seen them and studied them, and analyzed and even defined them: an exploiter and a depressive, a tycoon and a melancholic, a man of ambition and a neurotic. That is how they had seemed to me then, and I had in fact thought about them occasionally since. Yes, I dreamed that at that moment in my conversation with Dato I remembered, or admitted having given them a few fleeting thoughts during the first three days of my stay in Madrid, while I was beginning rehearsals at the Teatro de la Zarzuela for my role as Cassio in Verdi’s Otello. Given her a few fleeting thoughts. Of course I had seen them, of course I had noticed, but, quite why, I don’t really know—or perhaps now I do know—I pretended to think hard for a few seconds.

  “Oh, yes, a couple, he seemed very imposing.” I hadn’t wanted to use the word “imposing,” which is so often used when speaking of someone’s physical appearance: I had wanted to use an adjective that would describe him morally, but at that moment I couldn’t think of any word that would not also prove offensive.

  “You’ve put your finger on it, that’s him, imposing. Señor Manur is very imposing. She, on the other hand, is in a terrible state. Not the way she looks, of course, I mean she’s very attractive and elegant, but she’s a lost soul, really, a most unhappy woman. And she’s the one, of course, whom I mainly accompany, both at home in Brussels (he’s Belgian, you see, we live in Brussels) and on the occasional trips we make, like on this one now. Especially on the trips. You see, she’s got nothing to look forward to and she gets bored. She suffers, she’s never happy, and you can see her point really. I’m supposed to distract her, to try to keep her boredom and suffering to a minimum, so that she doesn’t cause Señor Manur too many problems, so that she’s not quite so unhappy, and focuses on the present and doesn’t pine. I listen to her complaints and her confidences, I console her with reasoned arguments, I ask her to be patient for my sake and for Señor Manur’s sake too, I try to make her see the pros and the cons; I take her to the movies, to an exhibition, to the theater, to the opera, to a concert; she’s very fond of old books and old things in general, and so I consult or, rather, study huge catalogues from the most prestigious booksellers in Paris, London, and New York, and I order for her the most bizarre, most sought-after books, rare, expensive editions, anything that might interest her; and I go to auctions with her, where I do the bidding and raise my finger or make the agreed signal and where we buy not just paintings, but furniture, statuettes, vases, the occasional carpet, wall clocks, letter openers, little boxes, paperweights, engravings, frames, figurines, anything you can imagine, all of it first-rate, all of it very old and in the best possible taste. I do what I can, but, after all this time, I’m running out of ideas and, besides, I’m tired, very tired. I know all her ills, I know them by heart, and she knows by heart all my arguments, my remedies, all my persuasive techniques.”