As I walked along, I couldn't help touching and even grasping the pistol, as if I were drawn to it or needed to get used to its weight and to feel and hold it in my hand, sometimes lifting it up slightly, still inside my pocket, and whenever I did grip it properly, I always took great care to keep my finger resting on the guard and not on the trigger, as Miquelin had recommended me to do even when the pistol wasn't cocked. 'How easy it must be to use it,' I was thinking, 'once you've got one. Or, rather, how difficult not to use it, even if only to point it at someone and threaten them and just to be seen with it. Firing the thing would be harder, of course, but, on the other hand, it cries out to be brandished about and it would seem impossible not to satisfy that plea. Perhaps women would find it easier to resist, but for a man it's like having a tempting toy, guns should never be given to men, and yet most of those that are made or inherited or that exist will end up in our hands and not in the more cautious hands of women.' I also had a proud feeling of invulnerability, as if, as I walked past other people in the street, I were thinking: 'I'm more dangerous than they are right now and they don't know it, and if someone got cocky with me or tried to mug me he'd get a nasty fright; if I got out the pistol, he'd probably back off or throw down his knife or run away' and I remembered the momentary feeling of pride that had assailed me on seeing the fear I unwittingly inspired in De la Garza when I went into his office ('You should feel very pleased with yourself: you had him scared shitless,' Professor Rico had said to me afterwords, neither mincing his words nor resorting to onomatopoeia). And I recalled, too, that immediately afterwards it had filled me with disgust that I could possibly feel flattered by such a thing, I had judged it unworthy of me, of the person I was or had been, of my face past and present, and which were both perhaps changing with the tomorrow that had now arrived. 'Presume not that I am the thing I was,' I quoted to myself as I walked. 'I have turn'd away my former self. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast. Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, not to come near our person by ten mile . . .' These were the words of King Henry V immediately after being crowned and many years before the night when he disguised himself to go among his soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, with everything pitched against him and at great risk of being misjudged, or, as one of his soldiers says to him, not realizing it's the King he's talking to, if the cause be not good, the king himself will have a heavy reckoning to make. Such words were unexpected coming from the man who, until only a short time before, had been Prince Hal, dissolute, reveler and bad son, especially when addressed to his still recent companion in revels, the now old Falstaff whom he was denying: I know thee not, old man,' for all it takes is a few words to abjure everything one has experienced, the excesses and the lack of scruples, the outrageous behavior and the arguments, the whorehouses and the taverns and the inseparable friends, even if those same friends say pleadingly to you, 'My sweet boy,' as Falstaff does to his beloved Prince Hal when the latter has just abandoned that name to become forever, with no possible way back, the rigid King Henry. Such words serve not only to mend one's ways and to leave behind the life of a debauchee or a roué avant la lettre, of a rake and an idler, but to announce that one is setting off along new paths, in new directions, or to announce a metamorphosis: I, too, could say mentally to Luisa and to Custardoy and to myself as I walked along: 'Presume not that I am the thing I was. I have turn'd away my former self. I am carrying a pistol and I am dangerous, I am no longer the man who never knowingly frightened anyone; like Iago, I am not what I am, at least I am beginning not to be.'
And so I stationed myself exactly where I had waited two days before, at the top of the short double flight of steps leading up to the monstrous cathedral, behind the papal statue that seemed always about to join the dance, and once there I paced back and forth between that point and a point nearby, behind the railings and to the left of that shop incomprehensibly selling souvenirs of the monstrosity; it was only a few steps between those two points and from both I could see the four corners formed by Calle Mayor and Calle de Bailen, as well as the ornate wooden door that was immediately opposite the shop, albeit lower down, and so whichever direction he came from I would be sure to see Custardoy arrive, although I was convinced he would take the same route as when I had followed him, if, that is, he had gone back to the Prado, though it was quite possible that he hadn't yet finished his note-taking or his sketches of the four faces painted by Parmigianino, each of them looking in a different direction, or that, on another occasion, he would have to study the portrait of the husband and father, in which the Count stands alone and isolated, like me, or that he would have to study other paintings for some other commission or project. And if he hadn't gone out that morning, it was likely that, just before lunch, he would stroll over to El Anciano Rey de los Vinos to enjoy his usual couple of beers and some patatas bravas (it was hardly surprising that, despite being thin, he had a bit of a belly on him), so I would be able to observe him there too if he went and took his usual seat. I would, at any rate, see him enter or leave his house, whenever he did that, and I would have time to go down the steps, cross the road—there wasn't much traffic along that stretch—and meet him at the front door as he was opening it. At first, I was surprised to see that, for the first time, the door stood open, and I deduced that there must be a doorman, but that could present me with a problem, a witness. However, after a few minutes, I saw the man come out and shut the door (he obviously lunched early) and this reassured me, because the seconds it would take Custardoy to put his key in and turn it and push or pull the door open and then give it a shove from inside or a tug from outside could prove vital, my idea being that he would complete neither action. I was trusting that he would not arrive or leave with anyone else, certainly not with Luisa. 'You'll never see her again,' I thought, 'unless she happens to be with you today,' it's odd how we address our thoughts to anyone we have it in for or whom we're preparing to harm in some way, addressing them familiarly as 'tu', as if what we were about to do to them were incompatible with any form of respect or as if any show of respect would, in view of our plans for them, seem utterly cynical.
I waited and waited and waited. I paced from one side to the other and back again, between steps and railings, looking down on each of the four corners and the eight stretches of sidewalk, Custardoy might come from the direction of the viaduct or pass beneath my eyes, staying close to the Cathedral or to the wall, or he might come from the direction of the Istituto Italiano or walk up Cuesta de la Vega from the Parque de Atenas; I kept a tight grip on the pistol hidden in my pocket and sometimes felt overwhelmed by nerves, I had a clear view of the whole scene, but there were too many fronts to keep watch over simultaneously and I constantly had to change my vantage point, I noticed that a few devotees were starting to eye me with interest—they didn't look Spanish, they were perhaps Lithuanians or possibly Poles, like their former boss—and, even worse, they were starting to copy me in my pacing back and forth as if they feared they might be missing out if they didn't do the same—people's tendency to imitate others' behavior is becoming an international plague—I felt slightly beleaguered and longed to be able to leave. And that was when I saw him in the distance, the unmistakable figure of Custardoy walking along Calle Mayor, on the same side as the Capitania General and the Consejo de Estado, that is, on the same side as his apartment or workshop or studio. I stayed where I was, I didn't move, I waited until he had reached the traffic light, just in case he crossed over to take his usual seat outside the bar, but it was a cloudy day and not really warm enough for that. He was wearing a raincoat too, a good quality one, black and very long, almost like a dustcoat, and that, together with the hat he had chosen to wear that day, a kind of Stetson, but broader brimmed and cream or white in color like the hat Tom Mix used to wear in those ancient silent movies (the man really was a fool), gave him the appearance of a character out of the Wild West; he and his friend, the female Daniel Boone or
Jim Bowie, would have made a fine pair. Fortunately, though, he was alone, striding along, the tails of his coat, and doubtless his ponytail too, beating the air (he was still a follower of fashion even at his age, with enough energy to try and keep up), walking as resolutely as I had done a short while before, but then I'd had a pistol in my pocket. 'He won't be easy to bring to heel,' I thought, 'he won't be easy to intimidate or even kill. Besides, he has the kind of strength that comes from pure energy and impatience and a desire to be many, this man accustomed to spending hours alone with his brushes, focused and still, concentrating on tiny details and staring at one canvas in order to make an exact copy of it on another canvas, and when he stops and finally gets up and opens the door and goes out into the street, he'll be filled by a vast amount of accumulated tension and be ready to explode. No, he won't be the kind to beg, he'll put up a fight, he isn't timid or easily scared, so one thing is sure, I have to instill him with fear, more fear than he might try to instill in me, he's not going to freeze and draw in his neck and close his eyes as De la Garza did, nor am I Tupra, who seems to instill fear whenever he wants to, quite naturally, nor am I the two Kray brothers Tupra told me about and who taught him the value of the sword, and to whom a cellmate had, according to Reresby, given a very condensed lesson in how to get what you want: "Now these people, they don't like getting hurt. Not them or their property. Now these people out there who don't like to be hurt, pay other people not to hurt them. You know what I'm saying. Course you do. When you get out, you keep your eyes open. Watch out for the people who don't want to be hurt. Because you scare the shit out of me, boys. Wonderful," that's what Tupra had said,' I thought and remembered, 'in a fake accent which was perhaps his real accent, as he sat to the right of me in his swift silent car, in the lunar light of the streetlamps, with his hands still resting on the motionless steering wheel, squeezing or strangling it, he wasn't wearing gloves by then, but I've been wearing mine since I left the hotel and won't take them off until I return, having removed Custardoy from the picture, having done the deed.' 'That's the thing, Jack. Fear,' Tupra had added before urging me to go to his house to watch those videos that weren't just for anyone's eyes, and, after showing them to me, had asked again: 'Tell me now, why, according to you, one can't go around beating people up and killing them? You've seen how much of it goes on, everywhere, and sometimes with an utter lack of concern. So explain to me why one can't.' And it had taken me a long time to give him an answer, one that turned out to be no answer at all.
I hurried down the steps and very nearly collided with or, rather, almost flattened a devotee, Custardoy wasn't going to the bar, but to his studio, he had kept straight on and stopped at the traffic light on Calle de Bailen, and I knew that when the light turned green, it was only forty-nine steps from there to the door of his house, which was where we had to meet, not before he arrived and definitely not after, because afterwards the door would be closed again, with him inside and me outside. I decided to cross the road, taking advantage of the fact that the stoplight was in my favor; now we were on the same side of the street, I saw him set off when the cars stopped, one, two, three, four, five, I lurked for a few seconds behind a tree, not a very wide tree, hoping that he wouldn't see me before putting his key in the door, a matter of only a few moments, it would be best if he didn't notice me while he was putting the key in the door either, it would be best if I remained behind him for as long as possible and for him to feel as frightened as possible because he wouldn't know who it was threatening him, because he wouldn't be able to see his assailant's face, my face, and would wonder whether this was going to be a quick doorstep mugging or a slow ransacking of his whole apartment or a swift and then eternal kidnapping Mexican-style, or whether I was alone or there were several of us, whether we were white, copper-colored or black (although our blacks don't go in much for mugging), or an unexpected settling of accounts, a tardy act of revenge on behalf of someone he didn't even recall, which, in a way, was the case with me, he probably didn't even remember that Luisa had, or once had, a husband, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight and forty-nine, and just as he put the key in the lock and the door opened, I stuck the pistol in his back without taking it out of my pocket (that way he wouldn't know if it was cocked or not, even if he spun round, which he wouldn't, not that it was cocked of course, and my finger was resting on the guard, I was very careful about that), but pressing the barrel of the gun hard against his spine, so that he would haven't any doubt that it was a gun and would feel it.
'Get inside, and don't say a word,' I whispered into the back of his neck with its stupid affected ponytail hanging there and which, at such close quarters, I found quite disgusting.
The door was half-open and he went in, we both went in, our bodies glued together, I slammed it shut with my free hand. Now he knew that there was only one of me.
'What bullshit is this?' he asked. 'Is this some kind of joke?' He still wasn't frightened, perhaps he hadn't had time to feel frightened or perhaps it wasn't in his nature. He sounded slightly cocky or at most uppity, but certainly not alarmed. 'It's going to be difficult to make him take me seriously, he's not the sort to lose his cool,' I thought at once. 'A bad beginning.'
'No, it's no joke, so be quiet. Let's go up to your apartment. We'll take the stairs. If we meet one of your neighbors, we're together. Take off your hat and hold it with your two hands. And don't drop your keys, you've got hands enough for both.' He didn't have his briefcase with him that day, so perhaps he hadn't been to the Prado. I was still talking into the back of his neck, perhaps Luisa had kissed that neck, I could smell his hair, it smelled of something, but nothing bad, he obviously washed it every day. He obeyed and took off his ridiculous hat. He would know now that I was a local, and not from Eastern Europe or the Maghreb or from South America, that mv accent wasn't Albanian or Ukrainian or Arab or Colombian or Ecuadorian, it hadn't even occurred to me to put on a different accent or to disguise my own and I had said enough to make it clear that I was unequivocally Spanish, so he would know, too, that I was white, things remain hidden for such a short time, nor had I thought of addressing him in English, for example, a language I was used to speaking. 'You don't want a bullet lodged in your spine, do you? Well, get moving then.' Now he would know that I was a reasonably educated person too, because 'lodged' wasn't a word that would spring to everyone's lips.
'Look, if it's cash you want, we can talk and come to some agreement. We don't have to go upstairs and you don't have to keep that gun stuck in my back all the time. And there's no need to take that tone with me.'
He sounded less uppity now, but not afraid. He was addressing me as 'usted,' not out of respect, but as a way of maintaining a distance. I was addressing him as 'tu,' and his not doing the same to me was an attempt to appear superior despite his evidently inferior position, I was holding the pistol, I was holding the hourglass, like Death in the painting. I wasn't tugging at him, like the semi-skeleton of Sir Death, linking arms with the old woman, instead I was behind him and pushing him, which came to the same thing, I was the master of time and was propelling him up the stairs, he was trying to stop the flow of sand or water by talking, as have so many others, hoping to postpone events and save themselves, rather than remaining silent. He hadn't entirely lost his haughty manner, as indicated by the last words he spoke before I interrupted him. It was as if he had said to me: 'Don't you raise your voice to me,' except that wouldn't have made any sense because I was speaking in a whisper.
Then I took the gun out of my pocket for a moment and struck him hard on his right side with the barrel, as if I were slapping him except that I was striking him in the ribs and with the pistol, not across the face and with my hand, it made much less noise because he was, of course, wearing a raincoat. He staggered a little, but didn't fall. He didn't drop his hat either, but he did drop his keys.
i've told you already, be quiet. Pick up your keys and get going.' I said this in the same calm whisper, which was, I thought, more f
rightening than a shout. I was surprised how easy it had been for me to deal him that blow and that it hadn't worried me to do so with a loaded weapon; usually, people who aren't used to carrying a gun are always afraid it will go off, however careful they are. My main concern was to frighten him, I suppose, or perhaps his last words had bothered me, either that or his use of the word 'bullshit' before, or perhaps I had remembered Luisa's black eye with its thousand slowly changing colors, an image I summoned up every now and then because I needed to, it filled me with reason and cold fury and strengthened my resolve. It seemed quite right that Custardoy should experience pain, some pain, he instinctively raised his hand to his side and rubbed it, but I told him at once: 'Keep your hands on your hat.' I realized, too, that everyone likes to give orders that must be obeyed. One part of my mind didn't like the fact that I liked that, but I wasn't in the mood to listen to it then, the rest of my mind was fully occupied, I had more than enough to occupy me, it wasn't possible now to leave half-done what I had already started.