While the Women are Sleeping (4 page)

Viana buried his face in his hands, as I’d seen him do from above, from the balcony, but not from down here, by the pool. And I saw then that this gesture had nothing to do with suppressed laughter, but with a kind of panic that nevertheless failed to negate a certain serenity. Perhaps he had to make that gesture precisely in order to cling on to his serenity. I again glanced up at my balcony and at the other balconies, but all still lay in silence, dark and empty, as if beyond the balconies, beyond the windows and net curtains, inside the repeated and identical rooms, no one was sleeping, no Luisa, no Inès, no one. But I knew they were sleeping and that the world was sleeping, its weak wheel stopped. Viana and I were merely the product of its inertia for as long as we were speaking. He went on speaking, his face still covered:

‘That’s why time offers no solution,’ he said. ‘Rather than allow my adoration to die, I would rather kill her, you understand; and rather than allow her to leave me, rather than allow my adoration to continue, without its object, I would also rather kill her. That, from my point of view, is perfectly logical. That’s why I know what I will have to do one day, possibly far off in the future, I’ll delay it for as long as possible, but it’s only a matter of time. Just in case, though, you see, I video her every day.’

‘Haven’t you ever considered killing yourself?’ I blurted out. I had been listening to him not because I wanted to, but because I had the feeling there was nothing else I could do and that the best way of not taking part in the conversation was to say nothing, to behave as if I were the mere repository of his confidences, without offering any objections or advice, without refuting or agreeing or being shocked. But it seemed to me harder and harder to bring this conversation to a close, the path it had taken was interminable, or so it seemed. My eyes felt itchy. I wished Luisa’s sheets would slide off and wake her up, that she would notice my absence and, like me, go out onto the balcony. That she would see me down below, by the swimming pool, in the feeble glow cast by the moon on the water, and summon me upstairs, that she would say my name and rescue me from this conversation with Viana; all she had to do was call. What a drag, I thought, as I sat listening to him, I’ll have to read the newspapers closely from now on and each time there’s a headline about a woman who has died at the hands of a man I’ll have to read the whole article until I find their names, now I’ll always fear that Inès could be the dead woman and Viana the man who killed her. Although it might all be lies, here on this island, while the women are sleeping.

‘Kill myself? That wouldn’t be right,’ answered Viana, removing his hands from his face. He looked at me with an expression more of amusement than surprise, and the corners of his mouth almost lifted in a smile, or so it seemed to me in the darkness.

‘It would be much less right—if I’ve understood you correctly—for you to kill her just so that you can continue to adore her on tape once she’s dead.’

‘No, you don’t understand: it would be right for me to kill her for the reasons I’ve explained, no one willingly gives up his way of life if he has a fairly good idea of how he wants to live it, and I do, which is unusual. And, how can I put it, murder is a very male practice, just as execution is, but not suicide, which is as common among women as it is among men. Earlier, I mentioned that she had a glimmering of what lies beyond me, but the fact is that beyond me there is nothing. As far as she’s concerned, there is nothing; she may not realise that, but she should. And if I were to kill myself, then that wouldn’t be the case—and really beyond me there must be nothing, don’t you see?’

Viana’s foot appeared to have dried off, but, hanging on the back of the lounger, the sock was still dripping rapidly onto the grass. I felt as if I could feel its dampness on my own shod feet, I could imagine what it would be like to put that wet sock on. I took off my left shoe so as to scratch the sole of that foot with my black moccasin, the one on my right foot.

‘Why are you telling me all this? Aren’t you afraid I’ll report you? Or talk to Inès in the morning?’

Viana interlaced his fingers behind his neck and leaned back on his lounger, and his bald head touched the wet sock. He reacted at once and sat up again, as one does when a fly brushes one’s skin. He put on the red moccasin he had taken off some time before, when I was still standing on our balcony, and this somehow dissipated any air of helplessness he might have had, and it occurred to me suddenly that the conversation might end.

‘You can’t report intentions,’ he said. ‘We leave for Barcelona tomorrow, you and I will never see each other again, we leave early, there’ll be no time to go to the beach. Tomorrow, you’ll have forgotten all about this, you won’t want to remember, you won’t take it seriously or remember me or this moment, you won’t try to find out anything. You won’t ask about us at the hotel, to check that Inès and I left together, that we paid the bill, that nothing happened in the night, when you were the only person awake, talking to me. You won’t even tell your wife what we talked about, why trouble her with it, because deep down you don’t want to believe me, you’ll manage, don’t worry.’ Viana hesitated for a moment, then went on: ‘You may not think so, but if you were to warn Inès, you would simply accelerate the process, and I would have to kill her tomorrow, do you understand?’

He hesitated again, paused, looked up at the sky, at the moon, and down at the water, then repeated that gesture of panic, covering his face, and continued speaking. ‘And who’s to say that you’d be able to speak to her tomorrow, who’s to say that I haven’t already killed her, tonight, a while ago, before I came down here, who’s to say that she isn’t already dead and that’s why I’m talking to you now, anyone can die at any moment, they taught us that at school, we’ve all known it ever since we were children, we all have our place in the order of dying, you yourself left your own wife sleeping, but how do you know she hasn’t died while you’ve been down here talking to me, perhaps she’s dying at this very moment, you wouldn’t have time to reach her, not even if you ran. How do you know it’s not Inès who has died at my hands, and that’s why I shaved off my moustache, a while ago, before you came down, before I came down? Or Inès
and
your wife? How do you know that both of them haven’t died, while they were sleeping?’

I didn’t believe him. Inès’ ideal beauty would be resting, her eight rings on the bedside table, her voluminous breasts safely under the sheets, her breathing regular, her identical lips half-open like a child’s, her hairless pubis leaving a slight stain, that strange nocturnal secretion women make. Luisa was asleep, I had seen her, her fine-featured, open, and as yet unlined face, her restless eyes moving beneath her eyelids, as if they couldn’t get used to not doing at night what they did during the day, unlike Inès’ eyes, which would probably be quite still now, during the sleep she needed to maintain her immutable beauty. Both were sleeping, that’s why they didn’t wake up or come out onto the balcony, Luisa hadn’t died in my absence, however long that had been—I’d forgotten my watch. Instinctively, I glanced up towards the rooms, towards my balcony, towards all the balconies, and on one of them, I saw a figure wrapped in a sheet toga and heard it call to me twice, saying my name, as mothers say their children’s names. I stood up. On Inès’ balcony, though, whichever it was, there was no one.

(1990)

gualta

Until I was thirty years old, I lived quietly and virtuously and in accordance, as it were, with my biography, and it had never occurred to me that forgotten characters from books read during adolescence might resurface in my life, or even in other people’s lives. Of course, I had heard people speak of momentary identity crises provoked by a coincidence of names uncovered in youth (for example, my friend Rafa Zarza doubted his own existence when he was introduced to
another
Rafa Zarza). But I never expected to find myself transformed into a bloodless William Wilson, or a portrait of Dorian Gray minus the drama, or a Jekyll whose Hyde was merely another Jekyll.

His name was Xavier de Gualta
—
a Catalan, as his name indicates—and he worked in the Barcelona office of the same company I worked for. His (highly) responsible position was similar to mine in Madrid where we met at a supper intended for the dual purpose of business and fraternisation, which is why we both arrived accompanied by our respective wives. Only our first names were interchangeable (my name is Javier Sant
í
n), but we coincided in absolutely everything else. I still remember the look of stupefaction on Gualta’s face (which was doubtless also on mine), when the head waiter who brought him to our table stood to one side, allowing him to see my face for the first time. Gualta and I were physically identical, like twins in the cinema, but it wasn’t just that: we even made the same gestures at the same time and used the same words (we took the words out of each other’s mouths, as the saying goes), and our hands would reach for the bottle of (Rhine) wine or the mineral water (still), or our forehead, or the sugar spoon, or the bread, or the fork beneath the fondue dish, in perfect unison, simultaneously. We narrowly missed colliding. It was as if our heads, which were identical outside, were also thinking the same thing at the same time. It was like dining opposite a mirror made flesh. Needless to say, we agreed about everything and, although I tried not to ask too many questions, such was my disgust, my sense of vertigo, our lives, both professional and personal, had run along parallel lines. This extraordinary similarity was, of course, noted and commented on by our wives and by us (’It’s extraordinary,’ they said. ‘Yes, extraordinary,’ we said), yet, after our first initial amazement, the four of us, somewhat taken aback by this entirely anomalous situation and conscious that we had to think of the good of the company that had brought us together for that supper, ignored the remarkable fact and did our best to behave naturally. We tended to concentrate more on business than on fraternisation. The only thing about us that was not the same were our wives (but they are not in fact part of us, just as we are not part of them). Mine, if I may be so vulgar, is a real stunner, whilst Gualta’s wife, though distinguished-looking, was a complete nonentity, temporarily embellished and emboldened by the success of her go-getting spouse.

The worst thing, though, was not the resemblance itself (after all, other people have learned to live with it). Until then, I had never seen myself. I mean, a photo immobilises us, and in the mirror we always see ourselves the other way round (for example, I always part my hair on the right, like Cary Grant, but in the mirror, I am someone who parts his hair on the left, like Clark Gable); and, since I am not famous and have never been interested in movie cameras, I had never seen myself on television or on video either. In Gualta, therefore, I saw myself for the first time, talking, moving, gesticulating, pausing, laughing, in profile, wiping my mouth with my napkin, and scratching my nose. It was my first real experience of myself as object, something which is normally enjoyed only by the famous or by those who play around with video cameras.

And I hated myself. That is, I hated Gualta, who was identical to me. That smooth Catalan not only struck me as entirely lacking in charm (although my wife—who is gorgeous—said to me later at home, I imagine merely to flatter me, that she had found him attractive), he seemed affected, prissy, overbearing in his views, mannered in his gestures, full of his own charisma (commercial charisma, I mean), openly right-wing in his views (we both, of course, voted for the same party), pretentious in his choice of words and unscrupulous in matters of business. We were even official supporters of the most conservative soccer clubs in our respective cities: he of Espanol and I of Adético. I saw myself in Gualta and in Gualta I saw an utterly repellent individual, capable of anything, potential firing squad material. As I say, I unhesitatingly hated myself.

And it was from that night, without even informing my wife of my intentions, that I began to change. Not only had I discovered that in the city of Barcelona there existed a being identical to myself whom I detested, I was afraid too that, in each and every sphere of life, at each and every moment of the day, that being would think, do and say everything exactly the same as me. I knew that we kept the same office hours, that he lived alone, without children, with his wife, exactly like me. There was nothing to stop him living my life. I thought: ‘Everything I do, every step I take, every hand I shake, every word I say, every letter I dictate, every thought I have, every kiss I give my wife, will be being done, taken, shaken, said, dictated, thought, given to
his
wife by Gualta. This can’t go on.’

After that unfortunate encounter, I knew that we would meet again four months later, at the big party being given to celebrate the fifth anniversary of our company, American in origin, and now being set up in Spain. And during that time, I applied myself to the task of modifying my appearance: I cultivated a moustache, which took a long while to grow; sometimes, instead of a tie, I would wear an elegant cravat; I started smoking (English cigarettes); and I even tried to disguise my receding hairline with a discreet Japanese hair implant (the kind of self-conscious, effeminate thing that neither Gualta nor my former self would ever have allowed himself to do). As for my behaviour, I spoke more robustly, I avoided expressions such as ‘horizontal integration or ‘deal dynamics’ once so dear to Gualta and to myself; I stopped pouring wine for ladies during supper; I stopped helping them on with their coats; I would even occasionally swear.

Four months later, at that Barcelona celebration, I met a Gualta who was sporting a stunted moustache and who appeared to have more hair than I remembered; he was chainsmoking John Players and instead of a tie, he was wearing a bow tie; he kept slapping his thighs when he laughed, digging people with his elbow, and exclaiming frequently: ‘fucking hell!’ I found him just as hateful as before. That night, I too was wearing a bow tie.