He continued firing flirtatious remarks at me and spoke of trivialities. His remarks were direct and unashamedly adulatory, but not in bad taste; he was trying to get off with me and appear witty – he was, in fact, wittier when he wasn’t trying so hard, his jokes were predictable, mediocre, slightly gauche – that was all. I grew impatient, my initial friendliness was wearing thin, I found it hard to laugh, I was beginning to feel the effects of a long day at work, and I hadn’t been sleeping very well since I said goodbye to Díaz-Varela, being tormented by nightmares and by troubled awakenings. I didn’t dislike Ruibérriz despite what I knew about him – well, perhaps he really had been repaying a favour or helping out a friend who had the terrible task of providing a swift death for another friend who should have died yesterday, far too early or at least before his natural or appointed time (before the second chance event in his life, which comes to the same thing) – but he didn’t interest me in the least, he was too smooth, I couldn’t even appreciate his gallant compliments. He was quite unaware that he was getting on a bit, closer to sixty than fifty, but he behaved like a thirty-year-old. Perhaps this was partly because he kept himself very fit, that much was undeniable, and at first sight, he looked about forty or so.
‘Why has Javier sent you?’ I asked suddenly, taking advantage of a moment of silence or a lull in the conversation: he either didn’t realize that his courtship was fast running out of steam, along with any chance of success, or else he was invincibly tenacious, once he put himself to the task.
‘Javier?’ He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Javier didn’t send me, I’m here on my own account, I had some business on this side of town. And even if that wasn’t the case, don’t underestimate yourself, I certainly wouldn’t need any encouragement to come and see you.’ He never missed a chance to flatter me, but got straight to the point. As I said before, he was acting on an urgent whim and had an equally urgent need to see if he could or couldn’t satisfy that whim. If he could, great. If not, on to the next thing; he certainly didn’t seem like a man who would bother trying twice or would linger over a hoped-for conquest. If something didn’t work out after his first and probably only attack, he wouldn’t waste time trying again, for, since he wasn’t particularly choosy, there was no shortage of candidates.
‘Really? But how did you know where I work? Don’t give me that stuff about how you just happened to be passing. I could see you’d been waiting a while. How long had you been there? It’s a cold day to be hanging about in the street, you’re going to an awful lot of trouble on your own account, and I’m not that special. When Javier introduced us, he didn’t even give you my surname. So how were you able to locate me with such precision if he didn’t send you? What does he want to know? If I believed his tale of friendship and sacrifice?’
Ruibérriz slowly interrupted one of his smiles, or, rather, his smile, because the truth is he never entirely stopped smiling, he doubtless considered his dazzling Vittorio Gassman-like teeth to be another of his assets, indeed his striking resemblance to that actor did contribute to making him more sympathetic. Or, rather, the interruption was not slow exactly, it was more as if his backward-folded upper lip became caught or stuck on his gums – which can happen when your mouth is dry – and he took longer than usual to liberate it. That must have been what happened, because he made some rather strange rodent-like movements with his lips.
‘No, he didn’t give me your surname then,’ he answered, as if perplexed by my reaction, ‘but we talked about you later on, over the phone, and he let slip enough information for me to be able to track you down in two ticks. Make no mistake, I’m a pretty good detective, and I’ve got contacts aplenty too, and nowadays, what with the Internet and Facebook and all that, almost no one can slip through the net once you know the odd detail about them. Is it so very hard for you to believe that I fancied you like mad the first time I saw you? Come on. I think you’re a knockout, María, that much must be obvious. I feel the same today, despite meeting you in very different circumstances and attire from that first occasion, but then one doesn’t always strike so lucky. That really was a mind-blower, though. God’s own truth, María, I haven’t been able to get that image out of my head for weeks.’ – And he nonchalantly regained his smile. He was quite happy to refer again and again to my half-naked state, it didn’t bother him that he might appear rude, for he clearly assumed that his arrival had interrupted Díaz-Varela and me in mid-shag, more or less. That hadn’t been the case, but almost. He said ‘knockout’ and ‘mind-blower’, words that already sounded old-fashioned, and the expression ‘slip through the net’ is on its way out as well: his vocabulary betrayed his age, more than his appearance did, for he did preserve a certain elegance.
‘You talked about me? But why? Our relationship wasn’t exactly public knowledge. On the contrary. He was most put out that you should see me, that we should meet, or didn’t you notice, that it really bugged him, I mean? I find it very odd that he should mention me to you later, I’d have thought he would want to forget all about that particular encounter …’ – I stopped talking, because then I remembered what I had thought afterwards, that Díaz-Varela would have tried to reconstruct with Ruibérriz the dialogue they’d had while I was listening from behind the door, to calculate precisely how much and what I might have heard, how much I would have pieced together; and that, after sifting through their words, Díaz-Varela would have reached the conclusion that it was best to meet me face to face and offer me an explanation, to invent a story or confess to what had happened, and, at the least, provide me with a better story than the one I had imagined, which was why he had phoned to summon me after those two weeks had elapsed. And so, yes, it was highly likely that they had talked about me, and that Javier would have told him enough for Ruibérriz to have come looking for me on his own account and, if I can put it like this, without permission. Although, he was clearly not the kind of guy to ask anyone for their permission before approaching ‘a bird’. He was the sort who neither respected his friends’ wives or girlfriends nor considered them off-limits; there are far more such men than you might think and they trample over everyone. Perhaps Díaz-Varela really didn’t know about this approach, this incursion. ‘Wait a minute,’ I added quickly. ‘He did speak to you about me, didn’t he? As being a problem, I mean. He was worried and told you that I’d overheard your conversation, that I could get you both into a lot of trouble if I decided to tell my story to someone, to Luisa or to the police. That’s why he spoke to you about me, isn’t it? And I presume the two of you then came up with that story about the melanoma or perhaps Vidal helped you out. Or maybe it was your idea, you’re a resourceful man. Or was it him? No, now that I think about it, it probably wasn’t you, but him; being a reader of novels, he’s sure to have a few stories up his sleeve.’
Ruibérriz lost his smile again, with no transitional phase this time, as if someone had wiped it from his face with a cloth. He grew serious, I caught a glint of alarm in his eyes, he immediately stopped playing the frivolous gallant and even moved his chair away from mine, having, earlier on, tried to move a little closer.
‘So you know about the illness? What else do you know?’
‘He told me the whole melodrama. About what you did to poor Canella, about the mobile phone and the knife. I hope he’s grateful, after all, you did the dirty work, while he stayed at home. Directing operations, like Rommel.’ – I couldn’t resist sliding into sarcasm, I had a grievance against Díaz-Varela.
‘You know what we did?’ – This was more a statement than a question. He hesitated before continuing, as if he had to digest this discovery, or so it seemed. He used his fingers to draw down his upper lip, a swift, furtive
gesture: it hadn’t got stuck again, but it was a little high up. Maybe he wanted to make sure that he was no longer smiling. What he had just heard worried him, he didn’t like it at all, unless, of course, he was pretending. Finally, he added in a disappointed tone of voice: ‘I thought he wasn’t going to tell you anything, that’s what he said. The prudent thing would be to leave things as they were and hope that you hadn’t heard too much or that you wouldn’t put two and two together, or that you would simply keep quiet about it. Oh, and he mentioned that he was going to break off his relationship with you. It wasn’t anything serious, he said, he could easily just let it die. It would simply be a matter of not getting in touch with you again or not returning any calls you made or else fobbing you off with some excuse. Not that he thought you would insist. “She’s very discreet,” he said, “she never expects anything.” Nor was he under any obligation to you. He would just hope that you would gradually forget what you might have heard of our conversation. Best not to give you any facts, he said, and in time you would start to doubt what you had heard. “It will end up seeming quite unreal to her, as if it had all been in her imagination, her auditory imagination.” Not a bad plan really. That’s why I assumed the way was open for me, with you, I mean. And that you’d know nothing about me, as regards that business.’ – He fell silent again. He seemed sunk in thought, so much so that what he said next sounded as if he were talking to himself, not to me: ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like the fact that he doesn’t keep me informed, that he thinks it’s perfectly acceptable not to tell me about something that directly affects me. He shouldn’t have told anyone that story, because it isn’t his alone, it’s more mine, in fact, than his. I’ve run more risks, and I’m more exposed. No one saw him. I don’t like it one bit that he should have changed his mind and told you, especially without telling me. You must have thought me a right fool, now, I mean, with you.’
He looked thoroughly fed up, his gaze abstracted or absorbed. His ardour for me had cooled. I waited a while before saying anything.
‘Yes, well, if you’re going to confess to a murder committed by various people,’ I said, ‘you really should consult the others first. That’s the least you can do.’ – I couldn’t resist getting a little dig in.
He sprang to his feet, outraged.
‘Now you watch what you say. It wasn’t a murder. It was a case of giving a friend a better, less painful death. All right, all right, there’s no such thing as a good death, and the gorrilla did get rather carried away with the stabbing, but that wasn’t something we could have foreseen, we didn’t even know for sure he would use the knife. But what awaited him otherwise was just awful, dreadful. Javier described the whole process to me. At least he died quickly, once and for all, and without having to go through various stages, involving terrible pain and deterioration, with his wife and kids watching him slowly turning into a monster. You can’t call what we did murder, come off it. It was something else entirely. An act of mercy is how Javier put it. A merciful homicide.’
He sounded convinced, he sounded sincere. And so I thought: ‘It could be one of three things: the melodrama is true and not an invention; Javier has lied to this guy about the illness as well; the guy is playing a part under orders from the man paying him. And if the latter is true, then I have to say he’s a very good actor.’ I remembered the photograph of Desvern that had appeared in the press and of which I had seen only a poor reproduction on the Internet: without a jacket or tie or even, almost, a shirt – where could his cufflinks have got to – full of tubes and surrounded by ambulance staff manipulating him, with his wounds on display, lying in the middle of the street in a pool of blood and on view to passers-by and drivers alike, unconscious and dishevelled and dying. He would have been horrified to see himself or to know that he had been so exposed. It’s true that the gorrilla did get carried away, but who could have foreseen that? It was a merciful homicide, and perhaps it was, maybe it was all true, and Ruibérriz and Díaz-Varela had acted in good faith, up to a point and bearing in mind the convoluted nature of their plan. And its recklessness. And as soon as I had admitted those three possibilities and recalled that image, I was overcome by a kind of dismay or perhaps surfeit. When you don’t know what to believe, when you’re not prepared to play the amateur detective, then you get tired and dismiss the entire business, you let it go, you stop thinking and wash your hands of the truth or of the whole tangled mess – which comes to the same thing. The truth is never clear, it’s always a tangled mess. Even when you get to the bottom of it. But in real life almost no one needs to find the truth or devote himself to investigating anything, that only happens in puerile novels. I made one last attempt, albeit a very reluctant one, because I could already imagine the answer.
‘I see. And what about Luisa, Deverne’s wife? Is it also an act of mercy for Javier to console her?’
Ruibérriz de Torres again looked surprised or did a brilliant impression of looking surprised.
‘His wife? What do you mean? What kind of consolation are you talking about? Naturally, he’ll help her and console her as best he can, as he will the kids. She’s his friend’s widow, they’re his friend’s orphaned children.’
‘Javier has been in love with her for years. Or has insisted on being in love, which comes to the same thing. Getting rid of the husband has proved highly providential to him. They really loved each other, that couple. He wouldn’t have stood a chance with Deverne alive. Now he does stand a chance. Patiently, little by little. By staying close.’
Ruibérriz immediately, effortlessly, recovered his smile. It was a smile of commiseration, as if he felt sorry to see me so hopelessly barking up the wrong tree, to see how innocent I was and how little I understood the man who had been my lover.
‘What are you talking about?’ he answered scornfully. ‘He’s never said a single word to me about that, and I’ve certainly never noticed anything. Don’t delude yourself, don’t console yourself thinking that he’s finished with you because he loves someone else. That’s just ridiculous, Javier isn’t the kind to fall in love with anyone, no way. I’ve known him for years. Why do think he’s never married?’ – He gave a short laugh intended to be sarcastic. – ‘“Patiently,” you say. He doesn’t know what patience is, not at least when it comes to women. That, among other reasons, is why he’s still a bachelor.’ – He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. – ‘What rubbish. You have absolutely no idea.’ – Nevertheless he again remained silent for a while, thinking or searching his memory. How easy it is to introduce doubts into someone else’s mind.
It was likely that Díaz-Varela had never told him anything about that, especially if he had deceived him as to his motive. I remembered that when he mentioned Luisa in the conversation I overheard, he didn’t refer to her by name. In Ruibérriz’s presence, I had been ‘a bird’, but she, in turn, had been ‘the wife’, ‘la mujer’ in the sense not of ‘woman’ but of ‘wife’, someone else’s wife. As if she wasn’t someone who was dear to him. As if she were condemned to being just that, his friend’s wife. Ruibérriz had obviously never seen the two of them together, otherwise, he would have been as struck by this as I was the very first moment I met him, that evening at Luisa’s house. I imagined Professor Rico must have noticed too, although who knows, he seemed too absorbed in his own thoughts, too abstracted, to be aware of the outside world. I chose to say nothing more on the subject. Ruibérriz’s gaze was, once again, pensive, absorbed. There was nothing more to say. He had abandoned his courtship of me, which had, it seems, been genuine; he must have been very disappointed. I clearly wasn’t going to make any more sense of it all, and, besides, I really didn’t care. I had just washed my
hands of the matter, at least until another day, or another century.
‘What happened to you in Mexico?’ I asked suddenly, intending to shake him out of his relative stupor, to cheer him up. I sensed that it would be fairly easy to grow to like him. Not that there would be an opportunity, I had no intention of ever seeing him again, and the same went for Díaz-Varela and for Luisa Alday and for the whole lot of them. I just hoped that the publishing house didn’t commission Professor Rico to write a book.
‘In Mexico? How do you know about that?’ – This question did take him very much by surprise, he had obviously forgotten. – ‘Not even Javier knows the whole story.’
‘I heard you mention it at Javier’s place, when I was listening from behind the door. You said you’d got into a bit of trouble there, that you were wanted by the police or had a record or something.’
‘Bloody hell, so you heard that too?’ – And he immediately added, as if he needed to explain something of which I was still unaware: ‘That wasn’t a murder either, not at all. It was pure self-defence, it was either him or me. And besides, I was only twenty-two …’ He stopped, realizing that he had said too much, that he was still remembering something or talking to himself, but doing so out loud and before a witness. The fact that I had referred to Desvern’s death as a murder had clearly touched a nerve.
I was startled. It had never occurred to me that he might have another corpse lurking in his past, whatever the circumstances of that first killing. He seemed to me an ordinary, straightforward crook, not really capable of violent crimes. I had seen the killing of Deverne as an exception, as something he felt obliged to do, and, when all was said and done, he hadn’t been the one to wield the weapon, he, too, had delegated, although to a lesser extent than Díaz-Varela.