What We Become

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “Perhaps they haven’t found out yet.”

  “I’m sure they have. I left enough evidence.”

  She stirred uneasily.

  “Did something go wrong?”

  “I overestimated my strength,” he said simply. “Which forced me to improvise.”

  He looked toward the main gates of the hotel, beyond the car and scooter headlights on Piazza Tasso. He imagined the Russians discovering what had happened, shocked at first, then angry. He took a few more sips of his drink to calm his nerves. It felt almost strange not to hear any police sirens.

  “I almost got trapped in the room,” he admitted after a few moments. “Like a fool. Imagine if the Russians had come back to find me sitting there, waiting.”

  “Can they identify you? You said you left evidence.”

  “I didn’t mean fingerprints or anything like that, only signs of a break-in: a broken window, a rope. . . . Even a blind man would know the moment he walked in. That’s why I say they must have found out by now.”

  He glanced about, uneasily. People had begun to leave, although a few of the tables were still occupied.

  “It worries me that there’s no movement,” he added. “No response, I mean. They could be watching you right now. And me.”

  She looked around, frowning.

  “There’s no reason why they should connect us to the theft,” she concluded after a moment’s reflection.

  “You know they’ll quickly put two and two together. And if they have found out about me, I’m in trouble.”

  He was resting one hand on the table: bony, spotted with age. There were traces of mercurochrome on his knuckles and fingers, on the scratches from when he climbed up to the roof and shinnied down the rope to Sokolov’s balcony. They still stung.

  “Perhaps I should leave the hotel,” he said after a moment. “Make myself scarce for a while.”

  “Do you know what, Max?” She ran her fingers gently over the red marks on his hands. “All this gives me a feeling of déjà vu. Of history repeating itself. Doesn’t it you?”

  Her tone was soft, infinitely tender. The lanterns on the terrace made her eyes shimmer. Max frowned, wistful.

  “It’s true,” he said. “At least in part.”

  “If we could travel back in time, perhaps things would have been . . . I don’t know. Different.”

  “Things are never different. They’re fated. The way they have to be.”

  He called over the waiter and paid the bill. Then he stood up, to pull Mecha’s chair out for her.

  “That time in Nice . . .” she had started to say.

  Max draped her jacket around her shoulders. As he withdrew his hands, he ran them over her arms for an instant, like a fleeting caress.

  “Please don’t talk about Nice,” he murmured to her in a way he hadn’t spoken to a woman for a long time. “Not tonight. Not now.”

  He was smiling as he spoke. And she smiled, too, as she turned to look at him.

  “This is going to hurt,” Mecha said.

  She poured a few drops of iodine tincture on the cut, and Max felt as if she had placed a red-hot iron on his thigh. It stung like hell.

  “That hurts,” he said.

  “I warned you.”

  She was sitting next to him, on the edge of a canvas-and-steel sofa in the villa at Antibes. She was barefoot and had on a long elegant robe, tied at the waist. A silk nightgown was visible where the robe fell open, revealing part of her naked legs. Her body gave off a pleasant odor, of recent slumber. She had been fast asleep when Max banged on the door, waking first the maid and then her. The maid was back in her room now, and he was lying on his back in a rather unbecoming position; trousers and underpants pulled down around his knees, exposing his manhood, and, at the top of his right thigh, the shallow gash a couple of inches long left by Mostaza’s knife.

  “Whoever did this, almost got you . . . Any deeper and you’d have bled to death.”

  “I know.”

  “Did he do that to your face, too?”

  “He did.”

  Max had studied himself in the mirror in his room at the Negresco (a black eye, a bloodied nose, and a broken lip) two hours earlier, when he stopped off there to clean up his wounds as best he could, take a couple Veramons, and pack in a hurry, before checking out and leaving a handsome tip. Then he had paused for a moment in the entrance, beneath the glass awning onto which the rain was still beating down, surveying the street apprehensively, on the lookout for any unusual movement beneath the street lamps illuminating the Promenade and the façades of the nearby hotels. Finally, calming himself, he put his luggage in the Peugeot, started the engine, and drove off into the night, the car’s headlights lighting up the white-painted pines along the road to La Garoupe and Cap d’Antibes.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “I don’t know. Or rather, I do . . . I needed time to rest. To think.”

  Yes, that was the idea. There was a lot for him to think about. Whether or not Mostaza was dead, for example. Also, had he been acting alone, or did he have people out searching for Max at that very moment? And that went for the Italians, too. Immediate and future consequences, none of which, however hard he looked, offered any pleasant prospects. Added to that, the natural curiosity of the authorities when two (possibly three) bodies were found in the apartment on Rue Droite: two foreign secret services and the French police wondering who else was mixed up in all that. And, as if that weren’t enough, how Tomás Ferriol would react when he discovered that Count Ciano’s letters had been stolen.

  “Why me?” asked Mecha. “Why come to my house?”

  “You’re the only person in Nice I can trust.”

  “Are you wanted by the police?”

  “No. Not for the moment, anyway. But the last thing on my mind tonight is the police.”

  She was looking at him intently. Suspicious.

  “What are they going to do to you? . . . And why?”

  “It’s not about that, it’s about what I’ve done, and what they might think I’ve done. . . . I need to rest for a few hours. Treat this wound. Then I’ll go. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  She points coldly at his wound, at the iodine and bloodstains on the towel she spread out on the sofa before making Max lie down.

  “You don’t call it trouble to show up at my house in the middle of the night with a knife wound in your leg, scaring my maid half to death?”

  “I’ve said I’ll leave. As soon as I am able to think straight and decide where I’m going.”

  “You haven’t changed, have you? And I’m still a fool. The moment I saw you at Suzi Ferriol’s house, I knew you were the same Max as in Buenos Aires. Whose pearl necklace have you stolen this time?”

  He put his hand on her arm. His facial expression, somewhere between sincere and helpless, was one of the most effective in his repertoire. Years of practice. Of success. With it he could have persuaded a hungry dog to part with a bone.

  “Sometimes we pay for things we haven’t done,” he said, holding her gaze.

  “Damn you.” She shook his hand off her arm in a flash of anger. “I’m sure you pay very little. And that you’ve done almost everything.”

  “One day I’ll tell you about it. I promise.”

  “There won’t be another day, if I can help it.”

  He held her wrist gently.

  “Mecha . . .”

  “Be quiet,” she said, freeing herself once more. “Let me finish doing this before I throw you out.”

  She laid a piece of gauze over the wound, and as she did so her fingers brushed his thigh. He felt her warm touch on his skin, and despite the wound, his body reacted to her flesh with its odor of recent slumber and still-warm sheets. Motionless, perched on the sofa, her expression as calm as if she were studying something unrel
ated to either of them, Mecha raised her eyes until they met those of Max.

  Then she untied her robe, lifted her silk nightgown, and sat astride him.

  “Mr. Costa?”

  A stranger is standing in the doorway to his room at the Hotel Vittoria. Another, out in the hall. The old alarm bells start ringing before he is able to assess the real danger. With the resignation of someone who has been in similar situations before, Max nods without uttering a word. He notices the man casually take a step forward to prevent him from closing the door again. And yet he has no intention of closing it. He knows that would be futile.

  “Are you alone?”

  A thick, foreign accent. He’s not a policeman. Or at least (Max swiftly considers the pros and cons) not an Italian policeman. The man in the doorway is no longer in the doorway, he is inside the room. He enters with ease, glancing about while the man in the corridor stays where he is. The man who has entered is tall, with lank, brown hair. He has large hands, and his nails are chewed and dirty. On his little finger he wears a thick gold ring.

  “What do you want?” asks Max at last.

  “We want you to come with us.”

  He has a Slavic accent. Almost certainly Russian. What else would it be. Max walks backward, toward the telephone on the night table. The lank-haired man watches him, expressionless.

  “It wouldn’t be wise to make a scene, sir.”

  “Get out.”

  Max points to the door, which remains open with the other man out in the corridor. He is short, his shoulders ominously broad, like those of a wrestler, bulging beneath a tight, black leather jacket. His arms hang loosely by his sides, ready to tackle any unexpected event. The man raises the hand with the ring, as if it were holding up an irrefutable argument.

  “If you’d prefer the Italian police, that’s no problem. It’s your choice. We just want to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “You know perfectly well what about.”

  Max thinks for five seconds, trying not to yield to panic. His heart is racing and his legs feel like jelly. He would slump onto the bed, except that this would be seen as a sign of surrender or guilt. An implicit confession. He curses himself silently for a moment. Staying at the hotel was a foolish, unforgivable mistake, like a mouse enjoying the cheese while the trap is springing shut. He never imagined they’d identify him so quickly.

  “Whatever this is about, we can discuss it here,” he ventures at last.

  “No. There are some gentlemen who’d like to speak to you at a different location.”

  “And where might that be?”

  “Not far. About five minutes’ drive.”

  As he says this, the man with lank hair taps with one finger the dial of his watch, as if it were proof of reliability and precision. Then he glances at the man in the corridor, who enters the room, closes the door quietly, and begins searching the room.

  “I refuse to go anywhere,” Max protests, with a determination he is far from feeling. “You have no right.”

  Unperturbed, as though his interest in Max were momentarily suspended, the man with lank hair allows his colleague to carry out his duty. The other one riffles through the chest of drawers and makes a thorough search of the wardrobe. Then he looks under the mattress and the bed. Finally, he shakes his head and says four words in a Slavic language, of which Max can only understand the Russian nichivó: nothing.

  “That no longer matters,” the man with lank hair says, resuming the interrupted conversation. “Rights or no rights . . . the choice is yours. Either you talk to the gentlemen I mentioned or to the police.”

  “I have nothing to hide from the police.”

  The two intruders are quiet and motionless now, staring at him coldly, and Max is more alarmed by their stillness than by their silence. After a moment, the man with lank hair scratches his nose. Thoughtful.

  “I tell you what we’ll do, Mr. Costa,” he says at last. “I’m going to take one of your arms, and my friend here will take the other, and together we’ll walk downstairs, through the foyer to the car we have waiting outside. You may or may not agree to come quietly. . . . If you don’t, there’ll be a scene, and the hotel will call the Sorrento police. In which case, you can acknowledge your responsibility and we’ll acknowledge ours. But if you come with us, everything will take place discreetly and without any violence. . . . Which do you prefer?”

  Max is trying to win time. To think. To list possible or impossible solutions, ways of escape.

  “Who are you? Who sent you?”

  The man with lank hair looks impatient.

  “We’ve been sent by some peace-loving chess enthusiasts, who want to discuss a couple of suspect moves with you.”

  “I know nothing about that. I have no interest in chess.”

  “Really? . . . You don’t give that impression. You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble for someone your age.”

  While he is speaking, the man with lank hair picks up Max’s jacket, which was on the chair, and hands it to him with an impatient, almost brusque gesture. As if his last reserves of courtesy are almost exhausted.

  The suitcase lay open on the bed, ready to be closed: shoes in flannel bags, undergarments, folded shirts, three suits doubled over in the lid. A fine leather travel bag, matching the suitcase. Max was getting ready to leave Mecha Inzunza’s house in Antibes for the railway station in Nice, where he had a seat reserved on the Blue Train. Count Ciano’s three letters were hidden in his suitcase, the lining of which he had unglued and carefully reglued back together. He hadn’t decided what to do with them, although keeping them in his possession was a risky business. He needed time to assess the significance of what had occurred the previous night at Susana Ferriol’s villa, and in the apartment on Rue Droite. And to weigh the possible consequences.

  He had just knotted his tie and was in his shirtsleeves, the buttons of his vest still undone, and was looking at himself in the bedroom mirror: his hair slick with pomade parted off center, his freshly shaven face smelling of Floïd cologne. Fortunately, he bore few marks of his struggle with Fito Mostaza: the swelling on his lip had gone down, and a little makeup (Max had used some of Mecha’s face powder) had covered the bruising under his eye.

  When he turned around, doing up all but the bottom button on his vest, she was standing in the doorway, dressed, holding a cup of coffee. He hadn’t heard her come in, and had no idea how long she’d been watching him.

  “What time does your train leave?” asked Mecha.

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “Are you sure you want to leave?”

  “Yes.”

  She took a sip, gazing pensively at the cup.

  “I still don’t know what happened last night. . . . Why did you come here?”

  Max spread his hands. Nothing to hide, his gesture said.

  “I already told you.”

  “You told me nothing. Only that you’d had a serious problem and couldn’t stay at the Negresco.”

  He nodded. He had been preparing for this conversation for a while. He knew she wouldn’t let him leave without asking questions, and it was true she deserved some answers. The memory of her flesh and her mouth, her naked body entwined with his, agitated him once more, throwing him for a moment. Mecha Inzunza was so beautiful that leaving her felt almost like an act of violence. For an instant, he reflected about the limitations of the words love and desire amid all this uncertainty, the doubts and the urgency of fear, with no guarantees about the future or the present. That dismal flight, to where and with what consequences he did not know, eclipsed everything else. Only after he had escaped could he ponder the effect Mecha had on his body and mind. It could have been love, of course. Max had never loved before, and so he didn’t know. Possibly love was that unbearable wrench, the emptiness at his looming departure, the overwhelming sadness that almost supplanted hi
s instinct to flee and survive. Perhaps she loved him as well, he thought suddenly. In her own way. Perhaps, he thought, too, they would never see each other again.

  “Yes,” he said, at last, “a serious problem. Or rather, a lethal one. Which ended in a rather nasty fight. Hence the need for me to disappear for a while.”

  She looked at him almost without blinking.

  “What about me?”

  “You’ll stay here, I imagine.” Max made a gesture with his hand that could have embraced that room or the whole of Nice. “I’ll know where to find you when things have calmed down.”

  Still fixed on him, Mecha’s eyes radiated a deadly seriousness.

  “Is that all?”

  “Listen,” Max said, slipping on his jacket. “Without wanting to be dramatic, my life could be at stake here. In fact, there’s no could about it. It is.”

  “Is someone looking for you? Who?”

  “It’d take too long to explain.”

  “I have time. I can listen to however much you care to tell me.”

  On the pretext of making sure his luggage was in order, Max avoided her eyes. He closed his suitcase and pulled the straps tight.

  “Then you’re lucky. I have neither the time nor the energy. I’m still confused. There are things I wasn’t expecting . . . matters I don’t know how to handle.”

  The distant sound of a telephone reached them from somewhere in the house. It rang four times and stopped suddenly, without Mecha taking any notice.

  “Are the police looking for you?”

  “Not that I know of.” Max held her gaze with sufficient composure. “I wouldn’t risk taking the train if they were. But things can change, and I don’t want to be around when that happens.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. What about me?”

  The maid appeared. Madam was wanted on the telephone. Mecha handed her the coffee cup and they disappeared down the corridor. Max put his suitcase on the floor, closed his travel bag, and placed it next to the suitcase. Then he went over to the dressing table to pick up the things he had left there: wristwatch, fountain pen, wallet, lighter, and cigarette case. He was fastening the Patek Philippe around his left wrist when Mecha came back. He glanced up and saw her leaning against the door frame, exactly as she had been before she went off, and he knew straightaway something was wrong. She had news, and it wasn’t good.