While the Women Are Sleeping

by Javier Marías

  There were three reasons, or, rather, feelings, that drove him to carry out his investigations in secret: suspicion, the lure of the clandestine, and the sheer challenge of the thing. He made good use of Mr Bayo’s generous account of events and of the lessons to be learned from his failure, but, at the same time, he felt that if he was to fulfil his desire to solve the mystery, he had to experience for himself at least some of the setbacks that this same ambition had inflicted on his superior in the past. He also found in those long periods of waiting the pleasure one always gets from experiencing anything that is forbidden or unknown to the rest of humanity. And finally, he savoured in advance the moment when his endeavours would be crowned with victory, which consisted not only in securing and forever possessing the longed-for truth, but also in enjoying the inner satisfaction—from which vanity definitely derives the most pleasure—implicit in any triumph over a more important and more knowledgeable opponent.

  And in the months that followed, the last of the school year, young Lilburn suffered the same setbacks as the old history teacher had in his youth. He tried without success to speak to Señor de Santiesteban; he waited patiently, again and again, for the letter to appear on the bulletin board, but sooner or later, being obliged as he was to remain for hours with his eyes fixed on one point, sleep almost always overcame him; and on the two or three occasions when he did manage to keep his eyes open until the next morning, the letter did not appear.

  Time passed rapidly and he was left with ever fewer opportunities to attain his objective. Dissatisfied with the abominable behaviour of his Spanish students and with his work, which had brought him few chances to improve his short-term prospects, he had resolved not to renew his contract for another year and to return to London and to his job at the Polytechnic as soon as the term was over. However, as the end of school activities drew nearer, Lilburn came to regret more and more having made that choice. Now that he had his ticket home, he could not go back on his decision, and he repeatedly berated himself for his precipitate behaviour when, in a sudden, irrational rush of confidence, he had thought that success was only a matter of weeks away. He could see the day approaching when he would have to leave, doubtless never to return, and he ceaselessly cursed his excessive optimism and the cold indifference of Señor de Santiesteban, who treated him as haughtily as he had Mr Bayo, and—even more woundingly—other mere mortals as well. In his madness and while he was listening for the nth time to the sound of the footsteps on the wooden floor, he would try to grab the ghost or shout at him, calling him a vain, cowardly, heartless fraud—in short, heaping him with insults.

  However, on just such an occasion, he came up with a possible remedy for his despair, a solution to his ignorance. A moment before, he had been through one of those stormy episodes provoked by the ghost’s disdain for him and, feeling desolate and in the grip of the hysterical rage induced by situations of prolonged impotence, he had lain face down on the sofa in the corridor. It was eight forty-seven. And suddenly, in the midst of his anguish, he seemed to hear the door to Mr Bayo’s office flung open and Señor de Santiesteban again take his invariable fifteen steps before once more closing the door, as he always did. Surprised, he sat up and smoothed his dishevelled hair. He looked at the door and then at the bulletin board. And that was when he realised that he hadn’t actually heard anything the second time, but that, like a piece of music on a record one has played and replayed throughout the day, the footsteps (their rhythm and intensity) had lodged in his brain and were being repeated inside him, unwittingly, involuntarily, like an obsessive, particularly complicated passage that one remembers perfectly and yet cannot reproduce. He knew them by heart, and although it was, of course, impossible to imitate them with his voice, he could with his own feet. Buoyed up by new hope and enthusiasm, he left the building. And on that Saturday in June, for the first time in many weekends, he slept in his apartment in Calle de Orellana.

  He suddenly felt like an actor who has spent several months performing in the same play with considerable success and who, knowing that the audience will reward his performance with a warm round of applause, is in no hurry to appear on stage to play his part, but rather allows himself the luxury of lingering in the wings and making his entrance a few seconds late so as to create a sense of expectation among the audience and slight alarm among his fellow actors. Lilburn, then, felt so confident of his success that, instead of putting his plan into action right away, he devoted himself—although not without having to struggle against his own pressing feelings of uncertainty—to revelling in the good fortune that destiny, he sensed, was about to bestow on him. He spent only one more typical night at the Institute, on the eve of his encounter with Sefior de Santiesteban and of his departure. Indeed, he decided to wait until all the classes and exams were over before carrying out his experiment, and he felt that his last full day would be the most appropriate date to choose, for the following reason: if anything happened to him, anything out of the ordinary, no one would miss him or, in consequence, make any awkward or compromising investigations, given that everyone, including Mr Bayo, would imagine that he was in London and so would find nothing odd about his absence. And although that night, between eight and half past nine, the students would be putting on their traditional end-of-term theatrical production, which would mean that on that particular Saturday he would be far from alone in the building, he felt that this would, in fact, only work in his favour (on the one hand, no one would trouble him, because at a quarter to nine, parents, teachers, students and cleaning ladies would all be in the auditorium, and, on the other hand, if anyone did surprise him in the act, his presence at that hour in the Institute would be more than justified): all these factors only increased his determination. Just in case, though, he left nothing to chance: he found it easy enough to persuade Mr Bayo to lend him his office key and to have a copy made; he synchronised his watch with the Institute clock and checked that neither was running slow or fast; and, as I mentioned before, he spent the whole of the previous night rehearsing, until he had an absolutely perfect imitation down.

  The day came. Lilburn made his appearance shortly before eight o’clock and was greatly praised for having turned up at the Institute to see the performance even though he was due to fly to London that very night at half past eleven. He took advantage of this circumstance to warn that, precisely because he had a plane to catch, he would, most regrettably, have to leave halfway through the production, adding that he was nevertheless very glad to be able to see at least a good part of it before leaving. Just as the performance was about to begin, he said goodbye to his colleagues and to Mr Bayo, to whom he said: ‘You’ll be hearing from me.’

  That year, the students were putting on a shortened version of Julius Caesar. Both the acting and the diction were appalling, but Lilburn barely noticed, immersed as he was in his own thoughts. And at twenty-two minutes to nine, at the beginning of the third act, he stood up and, trying not to make too much noise, left the auditorium and walked up to the second floor. He unlocked Mr Bayo’s office door and went in.

  There he waited for a few more minutes and then, when it was exactly eight forty-five by his watch and he could hear in the distance the voice of a boy saying ‘I know not, gentlemen, what you intend, who else must be let blood, who else is rank’, young Derek Lilburn flung open the door, making the glass panes rattle, took seven determined steps over to the noticeboard, pinned up a sheet of ordinary paper with one thumb tack, took another eight steps in the opposite direction, went back into the office and closed the door gently behind him.

  Over the summer, old Fabián Jaunedes lost his sight completely, and Mr Bayo and the director of the Institute had no option but to hire a new porter. When the new incumbent arrived on 1 September to take up his post, Mr Bayo told him about Señor de Santiesteban and about the letter of resignation. As he usually did—feeling fearful, moreover, on this occasion that the new arrival might take fright and decide not to accept the post—he tried to pla
y it down and provide as few details as possible. The new porter, who, as well as having impeccable references, had excellent manners and knew his place, merely nodded respectfully and assured Mr Bayo that he would remember to remove the letter from the bulletin board each morning. The old history teacher breathed a sigh of relief and told himself that acquiring the services of such a man had been a real coup. However, imagine his surprise the next morning, when the new porter came into his office and said:

  I’ve taken the letter down from the bulletin board, sir, but I just wanted to say that the information you gave me yesterday wasn’t quite accurate. Last night, exactly as you warned me I would, I heard the door opening and a few footsteps, but I also clearly heard the voices of two people talking animatedly. This morning, I took down the letter as requested, and I hope you’ll forgive me, sir, but purely out of curiosity, I read the letter and I have to say that not only is it not written by just one ghost, as you gave me to understand yesterday, it is signed by two people. See for yourself.’

  Mr Bayo took the letter and read it. And while he read, his face assumed an expression similar to that of the teacher who discovers one day that his pupil has outdone him, and—filled by a strange mixture of envy, pride and fear—can only wonder in confusion whether, in the future, he will find himself humbled or praised by the person who will, from now on, be the one wielding the power.

  (1975)

  the life and death of marcelino iturriaga

  November 22 1957 was very overcast. A dense, inert, impenetrable mass of cloud filled the horizon, and a storm was threatening.

  The day was of particular significance to me. A year ago exactly, I had left my loved ones, never to return. It was the first anniversary of my death. In the morning, my wife, Esperancita, had brought a bouquet of flowers, which she very carefully placed on top of me. I rather wished she hadn’t because the flowers blocked my view, but the twenty-second of each month was her day for bringing me fresh flowers and, on alternate months, the two boys came as well.

  It was their month to visit, but it being the first anniversary, I imagine Esperancita preferred to come alone. For this same reason, the bunch of carnations was larger than usual and so blocked my view even more. I was able to get a good look at Esperancita though. She was a little plumper than last month and clearly no longer the slender, graceful, agile girl to whom I had once felt so attracted. She moved rather awkwardly and clumsily, and the black mourning clothes she was still wearing really didn’t suit her at all. Dressed like that, she reminded me very much of my mother-in-law, for Esperancita’s hair was no longer jet black, but was beginning to go white around her forehead and temples. I remembered how she had looked the last time I saw her with my eyes open, and along with that scene, which had taken place a year ago in my apartment in Calle Barquillo, my whole life rose up before me too.

  II

  I was born in Madrid in 1921, in a small apartment on Calle de Narváez. My father owned the pharmacy downstairs, above which hung a sign saying: ITURRIAGA. PHARMACIST, and just below that in smaller letters: ‘We also sell Sweets’, which was why my brother and I spent a large part of the day in the store. The rest of the time we were stuck in a dirty old classroom in the local school, where one teacher taught fourteen of us boys all the subjects then on the curriculum. The classes were dull in the extreme, and we either dozed or flicked little balls of paper at each other.

  My mother was a plump, placid woman, who always helped my brother and me whenever we had a problem or when my father, after a day of poor sales, vented his frustration on us.

  My father was a most irascible man, especially when he was in a bad mood, and I always thought he would have been far better suited to being a butcher or something, rather than a pharmacist.

  I stayed at that school in Calle de Narváez until I was fifteen, and then the Civil War broke out, but that passed me by as just another of life’s events. It brought neither me nor my family any great losses. My brother fought at the front, but survived unscathed and returned home full of a patriotism and a pride in the right-wing Nationalist victory that I never shared. Then I began a degree in economics, which took me eight years to complete, much to the displeasure of my father, who disapproved of all those delays and repeated courses. Despite everything, though, I think my time as a student was the happiest and liveliest of my brief life. I had fun, studied very little and met Esperancita. She was rather shy with boys, but was nonetheless affectionate and obliging. We used to go to the cinema or the circus or for a walk, and ended up spending nearly every afternoon or evening together. Two years after finishing my degree, I asked Esperancita to marry me. She said ‘Yes,’ and two years later, my first son, Miguel, was born, and two years after that, Gregorito, a name I never liked, but which I had to accept at the insistence of my mother-in-law, who was called Gregoria. Besides, I always thought the name ‘Gregorito Iturriaga Aguirre’ was too long and had too many rs.

  Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I married Esperancita for love, but because I thought she would be a real help to me in my work at the bank. As it turned out, however, she wasn’t much help at all, because she took bringing up the children far too seriously and spent all day with them. I wasn’t particularly happy with her, but I wouldn’t say I was particularly unhappy either.

  Living with us were my mother-in-law and my father, who couldn’t stand the sight of each other, but since they had to, and given that the apartment was fairly small, they spent all day fighting and arguing over stupid things about which they couldn’t—or, rather, shouldn’t—have argued, because they knew almost nothing about them. This, along with Esperancita shouting at Manuela the maid and the children crying, made home unbearable, and the bank seemed to me a paradise. With seven mouths to feed, I was always glad to work overtime, but I did so largely because it gave me more quiet time to myself.

  My mother died four years after the war ended, and she was, I believe, the only person I was ever really fond of. I was much more upset by her death than by that of my father, for whom I had never felt any real filial affection.

  III

  My death came as pretty much of a shock to everyone. In August 1956, I began to experience intense stabbing pains in my chest. Alarmed, I consulted my brother, who was a doctor. He reassured me, saying that it was probably just the after-effects of a bad cold or a sore throat.

  He wrote me out a prescription for some pills, and the pain went away until 16 November, when it attacked with even more fury than in August. I started taking the pills again, but this time they brought me no relief, and the 21st found me in bed with a high temperature, lung cancer and no hope of surviving.

  That was an extremely distressing day. The pain was terrible and no one could do anything to relieve it. I could vaguely make out Esperancita, who was kneeling by my bed, weeping, while my mother-in-law, Dona Gregoria, patted her fondly and consolingly on the back. The children barely moved at all, unable to understand what was going on. My brother and his wife were sitting down as if waiting for me to die so that they could make their exit from that tedious, melodramatic scene. My boss and some of my colleagues were standing in the doorway, watching me pityingly, and whenever they saw that I was looking at them, they would give very forced friendly smiles. At six o’clock on the evening of the 22nd, when the fever intensified, I tried to get out of bed, but fell back against the pillow, dead. At the moment of death, I felt all my pain and suffering vanish and I wanted to tell my family and friends that I was no longer in pain, that I was alive and well, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak or move or open my eyes, even though I could see and hear everything going on around me. My mother-in-law said:

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘May he rest in peace,’ chorused the others.

  I saw how my brother and his wife immediately withdrew, once they had told Esperancita that they would take care of the funeral, due to take place the following day. Gradually, everyone else went too, and I was left alone. I didn’t know
what to do. I could think, see and hear, therefore I existed, therefore I was alive, and the next day they were going to bury me. I tried desperately to move, but couldn’t. Then I realised that I was dead, that beyond death there was nothing, and all that remained for me was to lie in my grave forever, not breathing, but alive; without eyes, but able to see; without ears, but able to hear.

  The next day, they put me in a black coffin and then in the hearse that took me to the cemetery. Not many people turned up. After the brief service, everyone left and I was alone. At first, I didn’t like it here at all, but I’m used to it now, and I enjoy the silence. I see Esperancita once a month, and the boys every other month, and that’s all: this is my life and my death, where there is nothing.

  (1968)

  isaac’s journey

  He devoted his whole life to trying to resolve an enigma.

  When his best friend’s father, Isaac Custardoy by name, was still a young man, a threat, a curse or a malediction was put on him. He lived in Havana and was a landowner and a soldier; he would boast about his career and his reputation as a ladies’ man and had no plans to marry, at least not until he was fifty or so. When he was out riding one morning, he passed a mulatto beggar, whose request for alms he refused. Just as he was about to ride off and had dug in his spurs, the beggar grabbed the reins of his horse and said: ‘You and your eldest son and the eldest son of your eldest son will all die when you are far from your own country; you will never reach fifty and you will receive no burial.’ His friend’s father paid little heed; when he returned home from his ride, he told the story over lunch and promptly forgot all about it. This happened in 1873, when his friend’s father was only twenty-five.