Generally speaking, he wanted us to behave perfectly naturally in social situations, and only on special occasions did he give us any more precise instructions than to be studious and to remain fully alert, asking us, for example, to probe or delve into a certain area; but then he didn't usually take all four or more of us along, only the most appropriate people for the task, or even only one, me, Pérez Nuix, Mulryan or Rendel, I went out with him on my own a few times and even on a couple of trips abroad, but I imagine that happened to all of us from time to time. He might ask us to be especially solicitous towards, or to flatter and almost woo, one particular person, he would appoint Rendel or me for these toadying operations when it was women who showed signs of boredom or complaint (burdensome wives or flighty mistresses, Mulryan never perfomed very well with them), or Pérez Nuix or Jane Treves if what was required was to enliven the mood or gaze of one of those men who get depressed and even sulk when there is no female presence at the table or on the dance floor (I mean a female presence they have met already and with whom they are on familiar terms and before whom they can preen themselves).
Once, it fell to me to dance attendance on and to flatter an Italian lady who was bidding farewell to her youth only very slowly, not to say kicking and screaming, meanwhile nurturing a multitude of minor caprices, if she had any major ones it did not, fortunately, fall to me to witness them or to deny or satisfy them. She was the wife of a compatriot (of hers) called Manoia, with whom, as far as I could make out from what they were saving, Tupra was deep in conversation about politics and money. The truth is I felt so little curiosity that I rarely managed to take much interest in whatever matters my transitory boss had in hand; and so I hardly ever paid much attention motu proprio, and often discovered, when he did require my attention, that his possible intrigues, assignments, explorations or barterings left me completely cold. Perhaps, too, it was because I was never really that well informed, and it's hard to feel involved in things that are so piecemeal and hazy and outside our influence. (I noticed that young Pérez Nuix did keep a much closer eye on all these goings-on and their meanderings, and that she tried hard to do so; Mulryan had no option, since he was the one - at least this was my impression — who kept, how can I put it, the diary, accounts and inventory of all matters left unresolved, untamed or unfinished; as for Rendel, it would be difficult to say, for he tended to remain silent for long periods or else, when he was drinking or perhaps smoking - my cigarettes were not the only ones filling our office with smoke - he would suddenly start lecturing or telling a whole string of jokes which he himself would greet with loud guffaws, until he returned to his usual mute state, both modes of being framed by a kind of uneasy cloud or cumulus of smoke.) The only reason I took in anything on that particular night was because the English spoken by the Italian husband was rather less intelligible than he himself thought, and Tupra would call on me (asking for help with a rapid movement of his fingers or of those eyebrows like two black smudges) to help him out and translate a few phrases or some key word when he and Manoia got themselves into a prolonged tangle and ran the grave risk of understanding entirely the opposite of what they were reciprocally proposing or agreeing, or were prepared to accept.
The surname Manoia sounded southern to me, more by intuition than knowledge, as did the man's accent in Italian (he converted unvoiced consonants into voiced, so that what one heard him say was, in fact, ho gabido instead of ho capita), but he had more the look of a Roman - or, rather, Vatican - mafioso than of a Sicilian or Calabrian or Neapolitan one. The large glasses — the glasses of a rapist or a hard-working civil servant, or both, for they are not mutually exclusive types - which he kept pushing up with his thumb even when they had not slipped down, and his gaze, almost invisible due to reflected light and his incessantly shifting, lustreless eyes (the colour more or less of milky coffee), as if he found it hard to keep them still for more than a few seconds, or else could not stand people examining them. He spoke in a low, but doubtless powerful, voice, it would be strident if raised, which is perhaps why he moderated it, resting one hand on the other, but without leaning his elbows on the table, not even one, so that they remained there, unsupported, a position which, after a few minutes, must inevitably have caused some discomfort, or perhaps it was the small voluntary, commemorative mortification of a Catholic of the greatest integrity or, possibly, intensity, from the obscurest and most legionary wing of the Church. He seemed, in the first instance, mild and anodyne, apart from having too long a chin (not, however, to the point of prognathism) which would doubtless have led him to nurse stubborn feelings of resentment - that is, with no one target -during adolescence and perhaps childhood, even if that childhood had been only a moderately introverted or burdensome one; and in the way he had of drawing in that chin, of gnawing at the inside of his cheek, one sensed a mixture of deep-seated, never-banished embarrassment and a general readiness to take reprisals, which he probably did, I would guess, at the slightest provocation or on the least excuse or even with no need for either, as vengeful people - or at least the more subjective of them - do. An irascible man, then, although he would doubtless be considered, rather, as measured, because he would almost never give vent to that anger and would be the only person who knew about it and discussed it, if that verb can be applied to something that would take place only in his own overheated interior. The few occasions when his rage surfaced would doubtless be terrifying and best not witnessed.
His wife might possibly have done so, but she would certainly not have been its object, how else explain her impulsiveness or her ease: she must have known, in advance, that she had been granted a plenary indulgence or a full papal bull. And yet, for all that, she seemed so full of new insecurities - every age takes us by surprise; each one takes a long time to come into effect inside us, or, perhaps, to catch us up - that it was very hard not to feel affectionate towards her despite the fact that she required a great deal of work, especially from me, her entertainer and plaything for the evening. Her husband doubtless loved her, and that would be of some help, but as far as certain unstoppable advances or retreats are concerned there is no help. I had engaged her in inconsequential chatter throughout our supper at Vong's — a restaurant almost next door to the Berkeley Hotel - or, to be more precise, it was she who had engaged me in chatter; she was not a shy woman and very talkative, and thus little effort was required from me in that department; however, now and then, she would stop and fold her arms, thus providing a frame for her nautical neckline - by which I mean that she was wearing a top with a boat neck or, in her particular case, more of a Viking longship or canoe neck - and would sit looking at me, a friendly smile on her lips, and then, with a gesture not without charm - an imitation, shall we say, of a justified reproach - give voice to one of her favourite or more persistent requests: 'Mi dica qualcosa di tenero, va, su, signor Deza,' she would say, without any transitional phrase or preamble, even though in that exotic restaurant we hadn't yet danced together and were not even on familiar terms. (In fact, she called me 'Detsa', which is how she pronounced my name.) 'Su, signor Deza, no sia cosi serioso, cosi antipatico, cosi scontroso, cosi noioso, mi dica qualcosa di carino,' and this desire to be fussed over would last for a while. And thus she would put me in the awkward position of having to come up with something sweet or charming to say to her, without, however, being bold or offensive, something Tupra had earnestly warned against when he had described her to me and lectured me about her the day before in his office, with his retrospective, and also terrifyingly accurate, eye for the ladies. He had said very little about Manoia, or only obliquely, the odd key characteristic, but a great deal about his dear lady wife Flavia, because he, Reresby - the name Tupra was using that night, perhaps it was the one he normally used for Italy, or for the Vatican - was not going to be available to distract her and keep her happy.
'Grant her every whim, Jack, whatever she wants,' he had said. 'But be careful. From what I know and from what I've seen of her, she won't wan
t anything more than flattery. At her time of life, she needs that by the truckload, but a generous, skilfully applied dose of it will be enough for her to go to sleep feeling calmer and more contented than when she woke up, and it's the same for her every night and every morning; because after each nocturnal triumph she will wake with the same diurnal anxiety, thinking: "Last night, I was fine, but will I be all right today? I'm another day older." And if you had to keep her company for two evenings in a row (don't worry, I'm not expecting that to happen), you would have to start the compliments and the hard work all over again from zero, she's reached a time in her life which is insatiable but non-cumulative, you see, continually forgetting what has been gained. But be quite clear, she herself is insatiable only in that one respect, for endless blarney and sweet talk, for reinforcement, but nothing more. Not even if it seems to you crystal clear that she is asking you for more with every look and every gesture, by the way she touches you and turns to you and by what she says. You must not give way or be taken in. Theirs is a marriage . . . well, let's say it's a Catholic marriage, and doubtless very strict in that respect, although not in any other, I'm pretty sure they ignore all the other precepts, in fact, some I know they do ignore. Manoia wants her to be happy and that's what matters, at least, that's what matters to me tomorrow. But he would, I believe, despite his tepid appearance, be capable of stabbing anyone who went too far, even if only verbally. So keep your wits about you and, please, study the line - his, not yours — between good and bad taste very carefully, we don't want any stupid complications. You could misjudge her, you see. Well, don't. Heap attentions on her, but if in doubt, remember, less is definitely more, less we can do something about, but not more. That's why I'd rather take you than Rendel, although he's better suited to a jolly, fun-loving woman like Mrs Manoia. He doesn't always know when to apply the brakes.'
There was always something surprising to me about the way in which Tupra referred to the people he dealt with, studied, interpreted or investigated, perhaps he never merely 'dealt with' anyone. Even though there were so many of them and they came and went in rapid succession, for him they were all someone, he clearly never saw them as simple or interchangeable, mere types. Even though he would never see them again (or had never seen them in the flesh, if all we had was video footage), even if he formed and gave us a poor opinion of them, he did not reduce them to outline sketches or dismiss them as ordinary, as if he were always very conscious that even among the most commonplace of people, no two are alike. Another man might have summed Flavia Manoia up thus: 'She's your typical reluctantly menopausal woman, so just put up with all her boring chatter and make her believe that she can still knock men dead, including you, that's the way to win her over. Not that you'll find that so hard to believe, because she probably did knock them dead a few years ago — by the dozen. Take a good look at her legs, which she keeps in excellent shape and quite rightly shows off, and you'll see what I mean. She's even got a wiggle when she walks,' such a man would add, a man with only a very vague idea of where the line between good and bad taste lies.
Tupra, on the other hand - or was he already Reresby when we were on our way to the restaurant in the Aston Martin that he drove on nights when the aim was to make a good impression or to toady up to someone — went into long, complex disquisitions on the lady which went beyond her and her insignificant case (on the lips of the thoughtful Reresby she no longer seemed quite so insignificant). It was when I heard such subtleties from him that I saw the influence of Toby Rylands, of whom, according to Peter Wheeler, he had been a disciple, and then I would see again how linked their characters were, or was it merely that ability, or that shared gift which they also attributed to me (in all other respects, Tupra was completely different): 'Bear in mind that, deep down, what fills Mrs Manoia with horror,' he remarked as we waited at a red light, 'is not her own imminent physical decay, against which she is struggling as best she can, but the troubling intuition that her world is about to disappear and is already dying. Some of her oldest friends have died in recent years, a few very unexpectedly, it's been a bad time; in some cases, her friends have retired, in others, there are people who would like to speed them on their way to retirement. It's no longer easy for her to find companions to go out on the town with every night of the week, and nowhere will you find proper parties with hosts and everything on a daily basis, still less in Rome, which that killjoy Berlusconi and his maladroit ways have transformed into one long yawn' (I translated the rather literary word 'maladroit' to myself as mala sombra, it doesn't mean quite the same thing, but never mind, and 'killjoy', which I'd never heard before, I took to mean ceniza or, perhaps aguafiestas). 'I mean companions in the old sense, the traditional sense. There are some younger people following in their footsteps, they want to find favour with Manoia, because, in his field, he has no intention as yet of stepping aside.' Here I noticed the school of Sir Peter Wheeler: just as Wheeler had taken ages to explain to me what exactly Tupra's 'line of work' was, Tupra was now nonchalantly mentioning Manoia's 'field', in order not to have to say anything more about it. Not that I really cared. 'But she feels slightly lost among all these apprentices, too much of a veteran. That's the worst that can happen to someone who has been young for far too long, whether because she entered the adult world too soon, or because she made one too many pacts with the devil (that's just a manner of speaking, of course, such pacts are purely a matter of chance). Then, because she didn't have children, she continues to be the little girl of the house, and that brings with it a lot of bad habits, she pays dearly for the contrast as soon as she steps out into the street, and in any disco she finds to her horror that she is suddenly competing for the title of oldest person there; it's very corrosive to the soul, that moving between two worlds. She'd be better off at the casinos.'
I was surprised to hear not the slightest hint of irony in his use of the word 'soul', which is not to say that no irony was intended. The car started off again, but he kept talking. With him it was impossible to tell when he knew something for sure, with facts to back him up, and when he was offering a purely personal interpretation of what he saw, whether he was up to date on the Manoias' precise circumstances or was merely making conjectures - or, in his case, decisions - based on other occasions when he had met them (or perhaps, who knows, only the one occasion): 'Can you imagine a world in which you hardly know anyone any more and, even more humiliating, in which no one knows you, or only from hearsay? That is what she is beginning to see happening, without as yet admitting as much to herself, of course, without actually putting it into words, possibly without the slightest awareness that it is this, above all, that is making her feel more embittered and terrified with each day that passes. But now and then I've seen in her the same look of precariousness and surprise that enters the eyes of the old when they drag their feet and live longer than expected, outlive almost all their contemporaries and even the odd descendant, it's even happening to Peter Wheeler, and he's in the fortunate position of having his replacements ready, which is the privilege of people who are admired by those who are going to replace them and who do replace them, or of the great maestros. But what hope is there for a nice lady who was once very pretty and still is if you like, who is fond of parties and celebrations, and whose greatest merit was that she made life around her a little brighter, superficially at least?' Just as, in cars in England, I never got used to sitting in what was to me the driver's seat and not having the steering wheel in front of me, so I could never be quite certain what was intentional and what accidental - meaningful or superfluous - in each sentence spoken by Tupra: there was always a doubt in my mind as to whether I should simply listen to them or note them down with my retentive faculties at full power, paying close attention to every word and not taking a single syllable for granted. Sometimes I adopted the latter strategy and it was terribly exhausting being under such constant tension. 'Which is no small thing, of course, when you've been around some very unpleasant lives,' added Tupra or R
eresby and started instinctively looking for a parking place, only to realise at once or pretend to realise: 'Ah, the staff at the restaurant will park it for us.'
'When the time comes for finding replacements or spares, what hope is there for anyone,' I thought, as we got out of the Aston Martin, and Tupra gave the doorman the keys along with a list of detailed, not to say obsessive, instructions. 'Both the admired and the unadmired or the despised, the maestros and their followers, Tupra or me or that jolly lady, what aspirations can we have?' I said to myself, not listening to him now, since he wasn't speaking for my benefit. 'You content yourself with whatever comes your way and are even grateful that something or, above all, someone does come your way, even if they're only diluted versions of what has been suppressed or interrupted or of those you miss; it's hard, very hard indeed to replace the missing figures from our life, and you choose a few or none at all, it takes an effort of will to cover the vacancies, and how painful it is to accept any reduction in the cast of characters without whom we cannot survive, can barely sustain ourselves, and yet if we don't die or, at least, not very quickly, it is always reducing down, you don't even have to reach old age or maturity, all it takes is to have behind you some dead beloved person or some beloved person who ceased to be beloved and became instead a hated omission, our most loathed erasure, or for us to become that for someone else who turned against us or expelled us from their time, removed us from their side and suddenly refused to acknowledge us, a shrug of the shoulders when tomorrow they see our face or when they hear our name which, only the day before yesterday, their lips still softly whispered. Without actually saying as much, without formulating the idea in our minds, we understand how difficult this business of replacement is, just as, at the same time, we all offer ourselves up to occupy vicariously the empty places that others assign to us, because we understand and are part of the universal, continual, substitutional mechanism or movement of resignation and decline, or, sometimes, of mere caprice, and which, being everyone's lot, is also ours; and we accept our condition as poor imitations and accept that we live ever more surrounded by them ourselves. Who knows who is replacing us and whom we are replacing, we only know that we are someone's replacement and that we ourselves are always being replaced, at all times and in all circumstances and in any endeavour and everywhere, in love and in friendship, in work and in influence, in domination, and in the hatred that will also tire of us tomorrow, or the day after or the next or the next. All of you and all of us are just like snow on somebody's shoulders, slippery and docile, and the snow always stops. Neither you nor we are like a drop of blood or a bloodstain, with its resistant rim that sticks so obstinately to the porcelain or to the floor, making it harder for them to be denied or glossed over or forgotten; it's their inadequate, ingenuous way of saying "I was here" or "I'm still here, therefore I must have been here before". No, none of you, none of us, is like blood, besides, blood, too, ultimately loses its battle or its strength or its defiance, and, in the end, leaves no trace. It simply took longer to erase, and made the drive to annihilation work harder too.'