I recounted all this to Berta, although without mentioning my idea that he might be the same man who'd made Miriam wait and incurred her wrath one evening in Havana, Miriam with her strong legs and her big bag and that grasping gesture, a married man with a sick or perhaps a healthy wife. Berta listened to all this with evident fascination and a look of modest triumph (the triumph was due more than anything to the fact that her idea that I should visit Kenmore Station had proved successful). I was incapable of lying to her and telling her that "Nick", "Jack" or "Bill" was a monster, he wasn't and I told her so. Nor could I tell her that he was weird, he wasn't and I told her that too, although I hadn't liked his ostentatious raincoat and his piercing, indecipherable eyes and his sharp up-and-down eyebrows like Sean Connery's and his neat moustache and his cleft chin and his voice like a saw. With that voice he would make deals and talk about Cuba like someone in the know. With that voice he'd seduced Berta. I didn't like him. I gave Berta the first bottle of Trussardi.
A few days went by without either Berta or myself mentioning him again (I said nothing, hoping to dissuade her, she was doubtless thinking things over), they were days of intense work at the United Nations: one morning I had to translate a speech by the same high-ranking politician from my own country whose words I'd altered the first time I met Luisa. I abstained from doing so on this occasion, we were, after all, at the Assembly, but whilst I translated his pompous Spanish and his rambling, ill-judged ideas into English and into the earpieces of the world, I recalled that first time and I remembered vividly what had been said on that occasion, through my mediation, while Luisa was breathing at my back (she was breathing near my ear like a whisper almost brushing me, almost brushing against me, her breast against my back). "People love one in large measure because they're obliged to," the Englishwoman had said. And then she'd added: "Any relationship between two people always brings with it a multitude of problems and coercions, as well as insults and humiliations." And a little later: "Everyone obliges everyone else, not so much to do something they don't want to do, but rather to do something they're not sure they want to do, because hardly anyone knows what they don't want, still less what they do want, there's no way of knowing that." And she'd continued, whilst our high- ranking politician kept silent, perhaps already weary of that speech or as if he were actually learning something: "Sometimes they're obliged by some external factor or by someone who's no longer in their lives, the past obliges them, their own discontent, their own history, their own wretched biography. Or even things they know nothing about or which are beyond their comprehension, the part of our inheritance we all carry within us and of which we're all ignorant, who knows when that whole process actually began." Lastly, she'd said: "Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better if we all just stayed very still, if we were dead, after all it's the only thing that, deep down, we all want, the one future idea we're gradually accustoming ourselves to, and about which there can be no doubts, no anticipated regrets." Our leader had remained silent and the Englishwoman who, by this time - it was autumn — had already lost her post and no longer attended the Assembly in New York, had blushed after her pseudo- soliloquy, when she heard the long silence that ensued, shaking her out of her emotional trance. I had again helped her out and put a suggestion of my own in her mouth: "Why don't we go and have a stroll in the gardens? It's a glorious day." (I'd invented this Anglicism - "un dia glorioso" - in order to lend verisimilitude to the phrase.) The four of us had gone out to walk in the gardens, on that most glorious of mornings when Luisa and I had first met.
Our high-ranking politician was still in his post, perhaps thanks to his pomposity and to his ideas which were as rambling and ill-judged as those of the British leader, but in her case they'd not been enough to keep her in her post (she was probably a depressive and, doubtless, thoughtful too and in politics that in itself is enough to dig one's own grave). After his speech I passed him in the corridor, surrounded by his entourage (my shift was over and he was busy receiving insincere congratulations on his peroration from various people) and, since I'd met him, I decided to greet him, holding out my hand and addressing him by the tide of his post preceded by the word "Senor". It was ingenuous of me. He didn't recognize me, despite the fact that I'd once twisted his words and made him say things he hadn't said and which it would never have occurred to him to say, and two bodyguards immediately grasped my extended hand and the hand I hadn't extended and pulled them behind my back, holding me with such violence (crushing my arms, bearing down on me) that for a moment I thought they'd handcuffed, or rather, manacled me. Fortunately, a top-flight United Nations civil servant, who'd noticed me and happened to be passing, immediately identified me as the interpreter and thus managed to free me from those protecting our high-ranking politician. The latter was already on his way down the corridor, borne along on a wave of false flattery and a jangling of keys (he had a mania about his keyring, which he jiggled about in his pocket). Watching him depart, I noticed that he too was wearing the national trousers which shared that famous and unmistakable Spanish cut. Anything else would have been wrong in a representative so thoroughly representative of our far-off country.
Later that night, back at home, I recounted this anecdote to Berta, but she didn't listen, as she usually did, with amusement or even amazement, still less with any show of vehemence, her mind fixed on what had been going round and round in it all day, or perhaps longer, a plan, doubtless to do with "Bill".
"Will you help me make the video?" she asked me the moment I'd finished telling her about my adventure.
"Help you? What video?"
"Come on, don't act the innocent. The video. I'm going to send it to him. 1've decided to send it to him. But I can't film a video like that by myself, it wouldn't come out right. Centring the shots, things like that, the camera can't be static, it has to move. Will you help me?" Her tone of voice was light, almost amused. I must have looked at her with an imbecilic expression on my face because she added (and her tone was no longer light) : "Don't just look at me with that imbecilic expression on your face, answer me. Will you help me? It's obvious that if we don't send it to him, he won't give any further signs of life."
I said (without thinking what I was saying): "What if he doesn't? Would that be so very bad? Who is he, after all? Think about it. Who is he? What possible importance can it have if we don't give him the video? We don't have to give it to him, he's still nobody, you haven't even seen his face."
She'd reverted to using the plural: "If we don't send it to him", she'd said, taking my participation for granted. Perhaps now she was more justified in using the plural, after my vigils at Kenmore Station and in other places, even by the canopied steps of the Plaza Hotel. I'd used it too, by assimilation, by contagion, "If we don't give it to him."
"We don't have to give it to him." I'd done so without realizing, "It's important to me, I'm serious about this."
I switched on the television, it was time for
Family Feud,
which was on every day, and I felt that the images might help to mitigate the growing atmosphere of irritation, might perhaps silence the words. It's impossible to resist looking at a television screen now and then, once it's on.
"Why don't you try to negotiate a meeting? Write to him again, he'll reply, even if you don't send him what he wants."
"I don't want to waste any more time. Are you going to help me or not?"
There was nothing light about her tone of voice now, it sounded almost commanding. I looked at the screen. I said:
"I'd rather not have to."
She was looking at the screen too. She said:
'There's no one else I can ask."
Then she remained silent for the rest of the evening, but she didn't spend it with me, she just passed me now and then on her way from the kitchen to her bedroom. When she passed I could smell the Trussardi cologne she was wearing.
Over the weekend we spent more time together at home, as we usually did. (It was the sixth weekend of my stay there, the time was coming for me to return to Madrid, to Luisa and our new home, I used to talk to her a couple of times a week, never about anything much, as tends to be the case with hurried, vaguely amorous conversations, especially long-distance ones), and on Saturday, Berta again asked me. "I have to make that video," she said, "you must help me." Her limp had seemed more pronounced over the last few days as if, unconsciously, she wanted to arouse my pity. It was absurd. I didn't answer and she went on: 'There's no one else I can ask. I've been thinking about it and the only person I'd trust is Julia, but she knows nothing about the whole affair, she knows about the agency and that I write to the personals and that from time to time I go out with someone and that it never works out, but she's no idea that I send and receive videos or that I end up in bed with some of these men. She knows nothing about 'Visible Arena'; you, on the other hand, have been in on it from the start, you've even seen his face, don't force me to tell it all to someone else, people always talk. I'd be so ashamed if my colleagues found out. You must help me." She paused and hesitated before speaking and then said (the will is always slower than the tongue): "After all, you have seen me naked before, that's another advantage."
"Any relationship between two people always brings with it a multitude of problems and coercions, as well as insults and humiliations," I thought. "Everyone obliges everyone else," I thought. 'That's what this guy Bill has done to Berta and now Berta's trying to do the same thing to me, Bill has tried coercion, he's also insulted and humiliated her even before meeting her, perhaps she doesn't realize that or perhaps she doesn't really care, she's too caught up in it all, Berta is trying to use coercion to persuade me, just as Miriam did with Guillermo to get him to marry her and just as Guillermo tried perhaps to coerce his Spanish wife into dying, into death. I coerced and obliged Luisa, or perhaps Luisa was the one who did it to me, it's not quite clear; who must my father have tried to coerce, who had he offended, who had he obliged, how was it that there'd been two deaths in his life, perhaps he'd coerced someone into dying, I don't want to know, the world seems so innocuous when you don't, wouldn't it be better if we all just stayed very still. But even if we were to do that, the problems and coercions and humiliations and insults continue, as do the obligations, sometimes we oblige ourselves, a sense of duty it's called, perhaps my duty is to help Berta do what she's asking me to do, you should give importance to the things that are important to your friends; if I refuse to help her I'll offend her, humiliate her, any refusal is also an offence, an act of coercion, and it's true that I have already seen her naked, but that was a long time ago, I know it happened, but I can't remember, fifteen years have passed since then and she's older now and lame, she was young then and hadn't had any accidents, didn't have one leg shorter than the other, why had she brought that up now, we never talked about our slender past together, which was both slender in itself and in comparison to the broad present, I was young then too, what happened between us both happened and didn't happen, it's the same with everything, why do or not do something, why say yes' or 'no', why worry yourself with a 'perhaps' or a 'maybe', why speak, why remain silent, why refuse, why know anything if nothing of what happens happens, because nothing happens without interruption, nothing lasts or endures or is ceaselessly remembered, what takes place is identical to what doesn't take place, what we dismiss or allow to slip by us is identical to what we accept and seize, what we experience identical to what we never try; we pour all our intelligence and our feelings and our enthusiasm into the task of discriminating between things that will all be made equal, if they haven't already been, and that's why we're so full of regrets and lost opportunities, of confirmations and reaffirmations and opportunities grasped, when the truth is that nothing is affirmed and everything is constantly in the process of being lost. Or perhaps there never was anything."
"All right, but let's do it fast, right now," I said to Berta. "Let's get it over with." I used the plural, this time with some justification.
"You'll do it?" she said with sudden undisguised gratitude and relief.
"Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it. But be quick, come on, get ready, the sooner we start the sooner we finish."
Berta came over to me and gave me a peck on the cheek. She left the living room to get her camera, but we went back into the room she'd brought it from, because she chose her bedroom and her unmade bed as the backdrop. We were in the middle of breakfast, it was still morning.
That body bore no resemblance to the one I remembered, or no longer remembered, although the truth is I only looked at it through the camera, to provide the framings and the closeups she suggested to me, as if seeing her in that indirect way was like not seeing her, every time we stopped filming for a few seconds to think up a new pose or to vary the shot (I did the varying, she did the thinking) I would stare at the floor or into the distance, at the wall or the pillow, at some point just beyond her, keeping my gaze opaque. To start with, Berta had sat at the foot of the bed, as "Bill" had done in his pale blue bathrobe and Berta had imitated him in that as well, she'd put on her own bathrobe (which was white), having first asked me to wait while she showered, then she emerged with her hair still damp and the bathrobe wrapped about her, she opened it a little afterwards, let it fall open a little to reveal her front, keeping the belt still knotted, I didn't remember those full breasts, perfected by the passing of time or perhaps by touch, I couldn't believe she'd had silicon implants, it was as if they'd been transformed or become more maternal since I'd last seen them, and for that reason I felt not only indiscreet, but also troubled (perhaps like a father who stopped seeing his daughter naked when that daughter stopped being a child and then sees her again as an adult, by accident or because of some misfortune). Her whole body, the body I saw through the lens, was more solid than the one I'd embraced in Madrid fifteen years ago, perhaps she'd taken up swimming or gymnastics during the twelve years she'd been in America, a country where they cosset and mould their bodies, but only their bodies. But as well as being more vigorous, it was older too, her skin had grown darker the way the skin on fruit grows dark when it begins to rot, there were creases at her armpits, around her waist, some areas were striated by that shadowy hatching you can only see from very close to (those almost-white lines that look as if they'd been painted on wood with a very fine brush), even those strong breasts were wider set than was ideal, the channel between them broadened, they wouldn't suit certain low- cut dresses. Berta had abandoned modesty, or so it seemed, I, on the other hand, had not and I tried to force myself to remember that I was filming it all for other eyes, the eyes of "Bill" or "Guillermo", for the piercing, indecipherable eyes of the man in the Plaza Hotel, his penetrating, opaque gaze would see what I was seeing, that was who it was intended for, not for my opaque but unpenetrating gaze, I wasn't seeing it, even though the angle I chose would be the one he would see, what he would see later on his screen depended on me (but also on Berta), nothing more, nothing less, only what we decided, what we chose to film for that briefest of posterities. Berta had let the bathrobe slide down to her waist, the belt still knotted, her legs covered by the rest of it, only her torso uncovered (but entirely uncovered now). I only filmed her face in passing, when the movement made by the camera required it, perhaps wanting to disassociate the familiar face (nose, eyes and mouth; chin, forehead and cheeks, the whole face) from the unfamiliar body, that body which was older, stronger or perhaps just forgotten. It wasn't like Luisa's body, which is the body I'm most used to, then and now, although I realized at that moment that I'd never observed Luisa's body in such detail, through a camera lens, Berta's body was like a piece of wet wood at which knives are thrown, Luisa's was like indiscreet marble on which every footstep echoes, younger and less worn- out, less expressive and more intact. We didn't talk while I was filming, the video picks up voices — Berta perhaps felt no sense of fun or relief now, I never had — voices debase what happens, any commentary clouds the facts, even recounting them does; we paused, I stopped filming, it all took very little time, I only had to record a few minutes, but we'd still not finished. I was looking more and more as if through "Bill's" eyes, the eyes that I had seen but Berta had not, they were not my eyes but his, no one could accuse me of having looked with that look, of having really looked, as I said before, because it wasn't me but him looking through my eyes, his eyes and my own opaque eyes, my eyes growing ever more penetrating. But she didn't know those eyes, we still hadn't quite finished. "Your cunt," I said to Berta, and I don't know how I managed to say it, how I dared to say it, but I did. "We haven't filmed your cunt yet," I said, and I used the plural in order to include myself or perhaps to soften what I was saying, just two words, then six, the two words repeated in the second phrase (perhaps I was speaking through "Bill's" mouth too). Berta didn't answer, she didn't say anything, I don't even know if she was looking at me, I wasn't looking at her (I wasn't filming at that point), but into the distance, at the wall and the pillow from which those who are ill and those who are married end up seeing the world, as lovers do too. She undid her bathrobe and opened it up to reveal her stomach, still keeping her legs covered, that is, you could see her inner thighs but not the front or lower down, the rest, the lower part of the bathrobe fell like a pale blue cascade (or, in this case, white) hiding her extremities, one longer and the other shorter, one shorter and the other longer, and I filmed her, going in closer, just a few video seconds, for that ephemeral posterity, Berta would take a copy, that's what she'd said. She wrapped her bathrobe around her as soon as I'd filmed what I needed of her crotch and I withdrew a little with the camera. I thought that her scar must be very purple now, I still wasn't looking at her, I still had something to say to her, we still hadn't finished, there was still something that "Bill", "Jack" or "Nick" had demanded of us, we still hadn't filmed her leg. I lit a cigarette and as I did so the spark fell on to the unmade bed, but it burned out on contact without singeing the sheet. Then I or "Bill" or Guillermo said to her in our saw-like voice: "Your leg," we said, I said. "We still haven't filmed your leg," we said, "remember, Bill said he wanted to see it."