Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (12 page)

To his right was the woman who was, doubtless, his daughter-in-law, María Fernández Vera by name, she
was
wearing dark glasses and a look of social piety on her face, a look, that is, not so much of grief as of irritation, not so much of contagious fear as of annoyance at having her daily routine disrupted and her family diminished, shorn of one of its members, and her husband, therefore, plunged into gloom, for who knows how intolerably long; the person holding her arm as if begging her forgiveness or pleading for help – as if asking her to have pity on him – must be Guillermo, Luisa and Marta’s only brother and slightly less than a brother to the child Gloria, whom he would not have known and about whom perhaps he might never even have enquired. He too was wearing dark glasses, his face was pale and gaunt and his shoulders slumped, he looked very young – perhaps he was only recently married – despite his visibly receding hair which he would not have inherited from his father but from the men on his mother’s side of the family, the crania of uncles or older cousins who might, in fact, be there in the second row. I couldn’t see any
similarity with Marta nor for that matter with Luisa, as if parents always put less attention and effort into the engendering of their youngest children and grew more negligent when it came to transmitting family likenesses, leaving the task in the hands of some capricious ancestor who, spotting a chance to perpetuate his features on earth, intervenes and bestows them on the, as yet, unborn child, or, even better, at the very moment the child is being conceived. He seemed a pusillanimous young man, but it’s foolish to say such a thing having seen someone only at the moment when their sister is being buried and when they have their eyes cast down; and yet he did seem lost, he really did seem frightened by the sudden revelation of his own death, doubtless for the first time in his life, clinging to the arm of his erect and more powerful wife the way little boys hang on to their mother’s arm when they are crossing the road, and while the symbolic earth fell upon his dead female relatives, she did not squeeze his hand consolingly, she distantly, impatiently tolerated it – one elbow sticking out – perhaps she was simply bored. The newlywed’s shoes were bespattered with mud, he must have stepped in a puddle in the cemetery.

And there too was Deán, whose memorable face I recognized at once, even though he no longer had a moustache as he had on his wedding day and even though the passing years had left their mark on him and had given him character and strength. He had his hands thrust in the pockets of the pale blue raincoat he had neglected to take with him to London and which I had seen hanging up in his house: it was a good-quality raincoat, but he must be cold. He wasn’t wearing dark glasses, he wasn’t crying and his eyes were not staring in astonishment. He was a very tall, thin man – or perhaps not, perhaps he just looked as if he were – with a long face in keeping with his height and the energetic jawline of a comic-strip hero or of some cleft-chinned actor, Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum or even Fred MacMurray, although Deán’s face was anything but foolish, and he was utterly unlike either the prince of laughter or the prince of unadulterated evil, Grant and Mitchum. He had thin lips, visible albeit colourless, or of the same colour as his skin, his face marked with lines and threads which would, in time, become wrinkles – or perhaps they
already had – like superficial cuts in a lump of wood (one day his face would be like the scarred surface of a school desk). His very straight brown hair was carefully parted on the left, perhaps simply combed through with water the way children did in days gone by, a child of his time which must have been more or less my time too, habits that are never lost and which remain unaffected by our age or by the years. At that moment – although I would have sworn it would be the same at any moment – it was a grave, meditative, serene face, that is, one of those all-accepting faces, a face from which one could expect anything, any transformation or contortion, as if his face were in a constant state of expectation and indecision, one moment expressing cruelty and the next pity, then derision and later melancholy, followed up by anger, yet without ever really expressing any of those emotions fully, the sort of face which, in normal circumstances, seems potent and enigmatic, due perhaps to the contradictory nature of the features rather than to any actual intention: raised, mocking eyebrows, candid eyes that indicate rectitude and good faith and a certain degree of introversion; a large, straight nose as if it were pure bone from bridge to tip, but with dilated nostrils suggesting vehemence, or even perhaps inclemency; the thin, tense mouth of the tireless plotter, of the anticipator – his lips like taut ribbons – but denoting also slowness and a capacity for surprise and an infinite capacity for understanding; his insubordinate chin now cast down, an edgeless sword; slightly pointed ears as if they were on permanent alert, tuned to hear what was left unspoken in the distance. They had picked up nothing from London, not the rustle of those sheets which I had not touched or the clatter of plates during our supper at home or the clink of glasses filled with Chateau Malartic, not the rattle of death or the boom of anxiety, the creak of malaise or depression or the buzz of fear and regret, or the sing-song hum of weary and much-maligned death, once known and encountered. Perhaps his ears had been filled by other London noises, by the rustle of sheets and the clatter of plates and the clink of glasses, by the shrillness of the traffic and the boom of the tall buses, the screech of the night-time bustle and the reverberating chatter in various languages at the Indian restaurant, by the echo of other, possibly mortal, sing-song voices. “I never sought it, I never
wanted it,” I said to him, though addressing only myself from my 1914 grave, and at that point, Deán glanced up for a moment and looked across at me standing there with my cigarette, watching him. Although he looked straight at me, his thoughtful expression remained unchanged, and I could see his eyes, the colour of beer, their gaze candid, but almond-shaped like a Tartar’s eyes. I don’t think he actually saw me then, his eyes looked at me, but did not rest on me, it was as if they merely skirted round or passed over me, and immediately returned to the grave or hole or abyss with what I judged to be anxiety, as if Deán, with his long, strange face, was feeling both serious and somewhat uncomfortable, as if he had landed up at a party that had nothing whatever to do with him because it was a purely female occasion, a necessary intruder but, ultimately, mere decoration, the husband of the new arrival in whose honour – or rather in whose memory, since he was the widower – everyone there was gathered together, no more than thirty, we do not, in fact, know that many people. Deán was someone who would remain for ever outside that tomb of blood relations, someone who would probably remarry and, then, those five years of marriage and cohabitation would be represented and recalled, above all, by the existence of the boy Eugenio, both now and later, when, with the passing of time, he was no longer a child, and less so by Marta Téllez, who would gradually diminish in importance and grow shadowy in her swift journey towards dissolution (how little remains of each individual, how little is recorded, and how much of that little is never talked about). Deán was so like the photo I had seen of him, he even began to bite his lower lip as he had on that nuptial occasion in black and white, when he looked at the camera. And while the symbolic earth fell upon his wife Marta Téllez, I saw him suddenly take his hands out of his raincoat pockets and raise them to his temples – his poor temples; his legs buckled and he seemed about to fall flat on his face, and he would have fallen – he staggered, skidded towards the grave for a moment – if several hands and the sound of alarmed voices had not sustained him: someone grabbed him by the back of his neck – the back of his neck – someone else plucked at his good-quality raincoat, and the woman by his side gripped his arm while he remained for a moment with one knee on the ground,
all that remained of his equilibrium, his knee like a knife loosely impaled in a piece of wood and his hands clutching his temples, incapable of reaching out in order to break his fall had he fallen face forwards: “Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow; and fall thy edgeless sword.” He was helped to his feet, he brushed down his raincoat, rubbed his knee, smoothed back his hair a little with one hand, put his hands in his pockets again, and recovered his thoughtful expression which, now, seemed more like a look of bereavement or perhaps embarrassment. Seeing him falter, the gravedigger had paused with his spade in the air, already laden with earth, and for those few seconds during which the recent widower interrupted the silence of the ceremony, that figure remained there, paralysed, as if he were the statue of a worker or perhaps a miner, his spade aloft, his wide trousers, his short boots, a scarf round his neck and an old-fashioned cap on his head. He could have been mistaken for a stoker, although no one stokes boilers any more, his thick white socks had slipped down into his boots. And when Deán had recovered, the gravedigger finally tossed the spadeful of earth into the hole. But he had lost direction and rhythm during that moment of suspense and a few specks from that spadeful of earth besmirched Deán – his raincoat – who, since getting to his feet, was standing somewhat nearer the edge of the abyss and felt its touch. Juan Téllez gave a sideways glance, a look of evident annoyance, though whether it was directed at Deán or at the gravedigger, I don’t know.

And that was when I also saw – or recognized, or noticed – the woman who had grasped Deán’s arm with her beige glove, the neighbour whom I had seen twice already, once, when I was leaving the block of flats in Conde de la Cimera while she was arguing or kissing in the early hours of the morning and, again, when I was standing next to my taxi while she drove off, wearing her pearl necklace and tossing her handbag into the back of the car, and at that moment, I turned round in an impulse of pointless fear, since, if she had seen me and recognized me, it was too late (that was the third time I had seen her in three days). After those few seconds of reflex fear, I turned round again (after all, I had my dark glasses on, and it wasn’t yet night) and although I felt observed and even scrutinized by her, as if she wanted to
make sure that it really was me – no one – I saw in her brown eyes no trace of suspicion or fear or even bewilderment, possibly quite the opposite – perhaps she imagined that I too was a neighbour or a friend of the family, an old, distant or discreet friend – a friend, perhaps, of the dead woman only – who was attending the funeral but keeping his distance. That is what she must have thought, because when the gravestone was drawn up to cover the grave, just as I had covered Marta with the bedspread and the sheets, and everyone began to move away – although they only moved a short distance, too busy greeting each other or milling around and exchanging comments, as if they were not quite ready to abandon the place where their more or less beloved Marta would now remain – the young woman said hello to me with a sad half-smile as she passed me by, heading for the cars, and I responded using the same word and possibly the same smile, as I watched her pass and continue on by with her graceful, centrifugal gait (again I noticed her calves), accompanied, it seemed to me, by a woman friend or sister and a lady. That insignificant contact gave me the courage to leave my adopted grave (“and they bring me salvation”) and to mingle with them, with the people in the funeral procession, not blatantly, but as if I too were on my way out. I saw that Marta’s father had not yet left: he was standing with one foot resting on a nearby grave, he had noticed the untied lace on his shoe and he was pointing at it with his index finger as if in accusation, but saying nothing; the excellent man was too unsteady on his feet and too heavy to bend or crouch down, and his daughter Luisa, one knee resting on the ground beside him (she wasn’t crying now, she had something to occupy herself with), was tying it up for him as if he were a child and she his mother. Three or four other people had stayed behind to wait for them. And then I heard a voice behind me, the electric voice, it was saying: “Oh, bloody hell, don’t tell me you haven’t brought the car,
now
what are we going to do? Antonio gave me a lift here, but I told him not to wait because I assumed that you would come in your car.” I didn’t turn around, but I slowed my steps so that they could catch me up, the electric-shaver voice with its hidden knives and that of a woman who replied at once: “All right, it doesn’t matter, we’ll get a lift with someone else, and if not, there’ll be taxis outside I
expect.” “What do you mean, taxis, for God’s sake?” he said as he drew alongside and his profile came into view, he had a rather snub nose, or perhaps that was just the effect of his rather large dark glasses; “There aren’t going to be any bloody taxis at the cemetery; what do you think this is, the Royal Palace? Only
you
would think of coming without your car.” “I thought you would bring yours,” she said as they overtook me. “Did I say I was going to bring it? Did I say that? Well then …” he replied threateningly, thus putting an end to the dispute. He was a man of medium height, but well built, the kind who frequents gymnasiums or swimming pools, doubtless rude and tyrannical. He obviously wasn’t aware of funeral etiquette either, or else he didn’t care, since he was wearing a light-coloured overcoat (not that Deán was wearing black either). He had long teeth like the chap, two nights before, who had stood behind me at the restaurant waiting for me to hang up, it wasn’t the same man, just the same type: conventionally wealthy, conventionally dressed and with a wilfully plebeian vocabulary, there are thousands of them in Madrid, veritable waves of provincial self-made men who have been allowed to take over the city, a perpetual, centuries-old plague, and not one of them capable of pronouncing the final soft “d” in Madrid. He was about forty years old, and had fleshy lips, a firm jaw and a village complexion that betrayed his origins, an origin not so much remote as forgotten or, rather, erased. He used lacquer on his hair and wore it combed back as if he were a dandy, but talking like that, he was obviously not the genuine article. “Have they found out who the bloke was yet?” I heard him say in a quieter voice – he mumbled the question, and then his voice sounded like a hairdryer – while I walked a little behind them. And his wife, Ines, the magistrate or pharmacist or nurse, lowered her voice in turn and replied: “No, not yet, but they’ve only just started looking, but apparently Eduardo is determined to find him. But listen, Vicente, they don’t want anyone to know, so would you please, just for once, be discreet and not go telling everyone about it.” “So he’s a loudmouth,” I thought, “that’s why he’s always got some story to tell. For the moment, Vicente, I’ve done you an enormous favour, removing that tape from the answering machine. What a bit of luck for you that I was there with her.”
“Everybody knows about it anyway,” replied Vicente scornfully, “people like to talk; there’s no such thing as discretion any more, it’s died out, it isn’t even considered a virtue. Poor Marta. They might manage to keep it from her father, but as for the others … They’ll forget about it anyway, nothing lasts, that’s the only form of discretion there is nowadays, I mean, everything’s so quickly forgotten. Look, go and see who we can get a lift with, go and ask some people if they’ve got room for us,” and with a swift shrug of the shoulders he readjusted his overcoat and stretched his neck. He probably used similar gestures to adjust his tackle when he felt uncomfortable. The people from the funeral had nearly reached their cars and I was there with them. Inés left Vicente’s side to find out who could give them a lift to the centre, I hadn’t got such a good look at her because she had been concealed by him while they were walking along, she had an unhurried gait, and her legs were rather on the muscular side, like those of a sportswoman or an American, the kind of calf that looks as if it’s about to explode at any moment, some men find them a real turn-on, I’m not so keen myself. She was wearing high heels and she shouldn’t. I imagined that she was probably a magistrate, rather than a policewoman or a pharmacist or a nurse. Perhaps hers was the infantalized, tearful voice on the answering machine and what she was asking Marta (“Please … please …”) was for her to leave her husband alone. In that case, her wishes had been granted, how that death gladdens me, saddens me, pleases me. The man stood waiting with his arms folded, nodding from afar to people he knew as they got into their cars and whistling, not realizing that he was doing so and forgetting that he was still in a cemetery, he didn’t seem either very affected or very worried, he had doubtless already heard about the disappearance of that tape on which he had described as “stupid” the person he was now calling “poor Marta”. “I’ve got you,” I thought, “I’ve got you, although that would also mean having to reveal myself. I would have to stop being no one.” I saw that Inés, standing next to the door of a car, was gesturing repeatedly to him, beckoning him to join her, the magistrate had found a lift. I looked around then for Téllez and Deán and Luisa: the father and the sister had not yet arrived, they were walking along together, arm-in-arm, with
some difficulty, he with his shoelaces now tied, Maria Fernandez Vera and Guillermo following close behind them, ready in case the robust old man should suddenly stumble or fall, or else watching out for more puddles. Deán, however, had already reached the cars, he had opened the door of his own and was standing next to it, waiting, he was watching his in-laws who were advancing slowly towards him, advancing towards the tomb. He was actually looking back in the direction of the sealed grave and when his brother-in-law and his sister-in-law finally arrived, along with his brother-in-law’s wife and his father-in-law, the four of them got into another car with Guillermo at the wheel, while Deán, on the other hand, remained a few seconds longer with his hand resting on the door, apparently not waiting for anyone, thoughtfully watching whatever it was he was watching, a haunted look. Then he got into his car, closed the door and started the engine. He was going home alone, he had plenty of room, he wasn’t carrying any passengers, Inés and Vicente could easily have fitted in. “He could have given me a lift,” I thought after a while, when they had all already driven off and I was getting set to leave, knowing all too well that this was not the Royal Palace. And then another thought occurred to me: “But then, if he’d given me a lift,” I thought, “I would’ve had to stop being no one.”