Design of the non

by Javier Marías

  "Secrets? What are you talking about?" I said.

  Ranz blushed a little, or so it seemed to me, the culmination and conclusion of his momentary helplessness; but he immediately banished the colour from his cheeks — older people rarely allow themselves to blush - and with it his smiling, somewhat foolish expression of grief or fear or both. He got up, we're now both about the same height, and again placed his large hand on my shoulder, but he did so from in front this time and looked at me from very close to, intensely but with no particular intent, his hand on my shoulder felt almost like the flat of a sword knighting someone who was no knight: he'd opted for the middle path, for insinuation, he'd reached no resolution, or perhaps it was just a postponement. He spoke calmly and seriously, no longer smiling, his few words were uttered without the smile that played almost constantly on his plump lips so similar to mine, a smile which, once the words were spoken, instantly returned. Then he took out another slim cigarette from his old- fashioned cigarette case and opened the door. The noise from the party rushed in and in the distance I saw Luisa talking to two girlfriends and to an old boyfriend of hers whom I disliked, but she was looking at the door which until then had been closed. Ranz made a gesture with his hand, a gesture of farewell or warning or encouragement (as if he were saying "See you later" or "Cheer up" or "Take care") and he left the room ahead of me. I saw how he immediately took up his frivolous persona again and started making jokes and laughing uproariously with a woman I didn't know, doubtless someone from Luisa's half of the guest list, the half of the guests at my own wedding whom I'd never seen before and would doubtless never see again. Or perhaps, now that I think about it, it was someone my father himself had invited: he's always cultivated strange friendships, or friendships I know almost nothing about.

  This was the whispered advice that Ranz gave me: "I'll just say one thing," he said. "If you ever do have any secrets or if you already have, don't tell her." And smiling again, he added: "Good luck."

  The witnesses' signatures remained in the room and I've no idea if anyone picked them up or not or where they are now. Perhaps they were thrown out with the rubbish along with the empty trays and the leftovers from the party. And I, of course, didn't pick them up from the table on which I'd been leaning for a while, all dressed up in my bridegroom's clothes, just as I was supposed to be that day.

  YESTERDAY, I was surprised to hear coming up from the street the sound of a barrel organ, there are hardly any left now, they're a relic of the past. I looked up immediately as I used to do when I was a child, it was too loud and was keeping me from my work, the noise was too evocative for me to be able to concentrate on anything else. I got up and looked out of the window to see who was playing, but I could see neither musician nor instrument, they were farther round the corner, hidden by the building opposite which, however, since it's a low building, doesn't block my light. It doubtless only just concealed them, since, on the corner itself, I could see a middle-aged woman, her hair caught back in a gypsy plait but otherwise dressed in an unfolkloric manner (she was wearing ordinary clothes), who was standing side on to me and holding in her hand a tiny plastic saucer, almost the size of a coaster, that wouldn't hold many coins before it had to be emptied again, its contents slipped into her pocket or a bag, though there were a few coins, for money calls to money. I listened for quite a while, first to a chotis, then to some unrecognizable Andalusian air, then a paso doble, before going out on to the balcony to see if I could spot the organ- grinder from where the plantpots were, I went out knowing that I wouldn't be able to, for although the balcony — which, like all balconies, projects slightly - brought me a little closer to the street, it was in fact situated to the right of my window, that is, it offered even less of a view of what was hidden round the corner, since I was looking towards my left. There weren't many passers-by, so the woman with the plait kept shaking her plastic saucer in vain, rattling the few coins in it, coins she'd perhaps placed there herself, because money calls to money. I went back to my desk and tried to ignore the music coming up from the street but I couldn't, so I put on a jacket and went downstairs with the intention of putting a stop to the music. I crossed the pavement and, at last, saw the swarthy-complexioned man: he was wearing an old hat and had a neat, white moustache, leathery skin and a friendly face with large, smiling eyes that seemed slightly dreamy or absorbed as he turned the handle of the barrel organ with his right hand and kept time on the pavement with the opposite foot, his left foot, both feet shod in weavework shoes, brown with a white instep, almost swamped by his rather long, baggy trousers. He was standing on the corner near my building playing a paso doble. I took a banknote out of my pocket and, holding it out to him, said:

  "I'll give you this if you'll move to the next corner along. I live over there and I'm working at home today. There's no way I can work with the music playing. Would you mind?"

  The man's smile broadened and he nodded, at the same time gesturing to the woman with the plaits, although that wasn't in fact necessary: she'd come over to us with her half-empty saucer the moment she'd seen the note in my hand. She held the saucer out to me and on it I placed the green note, it remained there for less than a second, leaving the saucer almost empty again and the note in her pocket. In Madrid money never passes from hand to hand.

  'Thanks," I said. "You'll move down to the next corner, right?"

  The man again nodded and I returned to my apartment. When I got to my room on the fifth floor I looked a little distrustfully out of the window, but, although the music was still audible, it was quieter now, farther off, and would no longer disturb my concentration. Nevertheless, I leaned out to see with my own eyes that they had indeed left my corner. "Yes, sir, right away," the gypsy woman had said obediently, and she'd been as good as her word.

  Today I realized two things: the first and less important of these is that I shouldn't have insisted once they'd accepted the money and the deal, I shouldn't have said: "You'll move down to the next corner, right?", already placing in doubt that they'd do what we agreed. The worst thing was that offensive "right?". The second point is more serious, and that is this: because I have money, I was able to decide the movements of two people yesterday morning. I didn't want them to stay on a certain corner (my corner) and I sent them off to another which they hadn't chosen; they'd chosen mine, perhaps by chance, but also perhaps for some other reason, perhaps they had a good reason for being on my corner and not on the other, and yet that didn't concern me at all and I didn't bother to find out, I simply made them move on a block, to stand where they hadn't chosen to stand of their own free will. I didn't force them, it's true, it was a transaction, a pact, it was worth my while spending the money in order to be able to work in peace (I'd earn more money while I worked) and it couldn't have been of vital importance to them to be on my corner, they doubtless preferred moving somewhere farther off and keeping my money to staying on my corner without the money and that's why they accepted and moved on. It might also be considered to have been easy money, it could have taken them hours to earn that much from the loose change that the scarce and stingy passers-by might have given them. It's not a serious matter, just a minor incident, insignificant, not harmful to anyone, indeed everyone gained from it. And yet it does strike me as a serious matter that, because I had money and could afford to spend it, I could decide where the man with the swarthy complexion could play his barrel organ and where the woman with the plait could hold out her saucer. Yesterday morning I purchased their steps, I bought their pitch, I also, for a moment, bought their power of choice. I could have asked them to do it as a favour, I could have explained the situation to him and left it up to him to decide, for they were working too. It felt safer to offer him money and place a condition on him getting it: "I'll give you this" I said to him, "if you'll move to the next corner along." Then I provided him with explanations, which were, in fact, unnecessary, I could easily not have done so after offering him the money, to him it was a lot and to me it was nothi
ng, I was sure he'd take it, the result would have been the same if, instead of going on, as I did, to mention my work, I'd said to him: "Because I'd like you to move on." That is, in fact, how it was, although I wouldn't have said so, I sent him off to stand on another corner because I felt like it. He was a very pleasant chap that organ-grinder, there aren't many like him now, a relic of the past and of my childhood, I should have treated him with more respect. The worst thing is that he would probably prefer that things were as they were and not as I now think they should have been, that is, he would have preferred my money to my respect. I could have explained the situation to him and then asked him if he'd move and given him the money afterwards if he proved agreeable and understanding, a tip rather than a bribe, "For any inconvenience caused" instead of "Clear off"; but there's no real difference between the two, both cases involve an "if", and it little matters whether it's explicit or implicit, whether it comes afterwards or before. In a way, what I did was clearer and cleaner, with no hypocrisy or false sentiment, it suited us both and that's that. However, there's still no denying that I did purchase and determine his steps, and on that other comer to which I sent him he could have been knocked down by a delivery van that went out of control and ploughed on to the pavement, it would never have run him over if the man had stayed on the first corner he'd chosen. No more chotis, his hat fallen to the ground and his short moustache all bloodied. The reverse could have happened too, of course, and then, I suppose, I would have saved his life by moving him on.

  But all this is pure conjecture and hypothesis, yet there are times when the lives of others, of another (the configuration of a life, its continuation, not a few mere steps), do depend on our decisions and vacillations, on our cowardice or daring, on our words and on our hands, and sometimes on the fact that we have money and they do not. Near Ranz's house, that is, near the house where I lived during my childhood and adolescence, there's a stationer's. The owner's daughter, a girl almost my own age, slightly younger, began working there when she was thirteen or fourteen years old. It was a modest, old-fashioned establishment, one of those places that progress forgets and leaves on one side in order to highlight its totalitarian achievements, and for many years it remained almost entirely unrenovated, although latterly some work has been done on it, it's improved since the father died, they've modernized it somewhat and will doubtless make more money as a consequence. But then, when I was fourteen or fifteen, they probably made very little and that was why, at least in those days, the girl worked there in the afternoons. She was very pretty, I really liked her and I used to go to the stationer's almost every day just to see her. Instead of buying what I wanted all in one go, I'd buy a pencil one day and a notebook the next, an eraser one afternoon and the following day an inkwell. I invented needs I didn't have, I spent a lot of pocket money in that stationer's. And I would linger before leaving the shop and whistle while I waited to be attended to, the way boys of my age did at the time, I'd do my best to make sure that she was the one who served me (I'd watch to see when she was free before opening my mouth) rather than her father or her mother, I'd take much longer than was necessary and I'd feel happy for the rest of the afternoon if I got a smile from her or a look that was friendly or at least interpretable, but above all, I'd leave contentedly thinking about the abstract future, there was time enough for everything, she was in the shop afternoon after afternoon, always in the same place, and there was no reason why the future should ever become concrete, should ever stop being future. I didn't stay the age I was then, nor did the girl, who grew and continued to be lovely for several years, she was there in the mornings too by then, from the time she was sixteen years old or so she was there all day, she served in the shop all the time, while I went to university, she no longer studied. I didn't talk to her when we were both at school and I didn't talk to her later on either, at first because I didn't dare to and later because the time for it had passed; that's the worst thing about the abstract future when it remains just that: although I used to look at her, my mind was on other things, concerned with the variable present, and I used to visit the stationer's less often. I never said a word to her other than to ask her for paper and pencils, files and erasers and to say thank you. So I've no idea what she's like, what kind of person she is or what she likes doing, if she's pleasant to talk to, if she's good-tempered or moody, her opinions on any particular topic, if she laughs, how she kisses. All I know is that when I was fifteen years old I loved her the way one does love then or the way one loves things that haven't yet begun, that is, believing that it will last forever. But I'd go further and say that her way of looking and smiling (the way she had then) deserved to be loved forever and that was nothing to do with my being fifteen years old, but with what I'm saying now. Her name was and is Nieves. Another fifteen years or more have passed since I lived in Ranz's house, but sometimes, when I go there or when I've been to visit him or to pick him up before going out to lunch together at La Trainera or to some other restaurant further off, I've gone into the stationer's before going up to his apartment, out of a habit, which I still haven't entirely lost, of always buying something there, and every time, during all these years, I've found that girl who is now no longer a girl, I've seen her at twenty-three, at twenty-six, at twenty-nine and at thirty-three or thirty-four, which is the age she must be now. I saw her one day shortly before getting married to Luisa. She's still a young woman, she must be, because I've always known her age, more or less, and she was only a little younger than me. She must be but she doesn't look it, she's no longer lovely and I don't understand why, since she's still at an age when she could be. She's probably spent too many years stuck in that stationer's morning and afternoon (although not at night or on Sundays or on Saturdays after midday, but that's of no account), serving her goods to children who won't now see her as their equal or their beloved but, for some time now, as a grown-up. Not one of those children will admire her, perhaps no one admires her, not even I do, now I'm no longer a child, or perhaps she has a husband who does, some chap from the neighbourhood, who will have spent too many years stuck in some other shop morning and afternoon, selling medicines or in a garage changing tyres. I don't know, perhaps there's no husband either. All I know is that this young woman, who no longer seems like a young woman, has dressed the same way for far too long, in jerseys and round-necked blouses, in pleated skirts and pale stockings, has spent too long going up and down her ladder in search of typewriter ribbons, with her broken, inkstained nails, her slim figure going to fat, the breasts, which I watched blossom, becoming flaccid, the bored look in her eyes and the ever darker shadows beneath them, the puffy eyelids from lack of sleep hiding eyes that were once so lovely; or maybe they're puffy because of the future she's had to look forward to ever since she was a child. The last time I was there and I saw her, shortly before my planned wedding, before going up to get my father in order to go out together for a jolly lunch, I had a vain thought of which I'm rather ashamed and which, nevertheless, I can't entirely dismiss, or rather, it comes back to me occasionally like something we've forgotten a thousand times already and recalled another thousand times and are still too lazy to do anything about, and so we prefer it to remain alternately forgotten and recalled in equal measure so that it never is completely forgotten. It occurred to me that Nieves, the girl in the shop, would be a different person, a better person, if I'd loved her and not only from afar, if once adolescence was past I'd spoken to her and got to know her and she'd wanted to kiss me, which is something I'll never know, if she'd have wanted to or not I mean. I know that I know nothing about her, she's probably not restless or ambitious or curious enough, but I'm sure of at least two things: she wouldn't dress the way she does now and she'd no longer work at the stationer's, I'd have made sure of that. She might still be lovely and still look young, I know that's putting it strongly, but the mere possibility that it could have been that way is enough to make me feel indignant, not with myself because I never spoke to her about anythi
ng other than pencils, but with the simple fact or, again, the possibility, that the apparent age and appearance of a person can depend on whoever happened to take an interest in them and on having money. Money means that the stationer's could, without hesitation, have been sold and thus attracted more money, money reduces fear and buys new clothes every season, money means that a smile and a look can be loved as they deserve and may last longer than they otherwise would. Probably other people in Nieves' situation would have left already, they'd have managed to escape from the cosy abstract future and from the open space slowly closing in on them; however, I'm not talking about hypothetical people, but about that particular girl whose never very concrete figure sustained my nights when I was fifteen years old. That's why my rather vain thought wasn't just a presumptuous, pathetic variant on stories about princes and pretty peasants, about professors and flower-sellers, about gentlemen and chorus girls, although there was something presumptuous about it, perhaps it was provoked by my imminent wedding and because, for a moment, I felt treacherous and superior and saved, superior and treacherous towards Nieves and saved from being like her. I wasn't thinking about myself but about the path her life would take, about how it would go on, thinking for a second that I might have been capable of changing it, even that I still had time to do so, much as, yesterday morning, I changed the steps of the friendly organ-grinder from my past and of the woman with the plait and moved them on. I know that the girl in the stationer's would have seen other things and other countries and not just in the month of August, I know that she would have met different people from those she meets and mixes with now, I know that she'd have more money and wouldn't have been buried beneath pencil shavings and eraser rubbings. What I don't know is how I dared to think all that, how today I still don't just banish that vain thought definitively but allow it to return, how I could simply assume that a life with me would have been better for her, better generally. There is, I believe, no such thing as "generally", and I thought only about what kind of person she'd have become, not recognizing that I wouldn't be the same person either and that I might have spent my days in the stationer's with her.