Berta Isla

by Javier Marías

  ‘How imminent?’ I felt superficially upset.

  ‘Within the week, we think. Ten days at most. But, apart from that, dear Berta, we have to say goodbye because you wouldn’t want to see us again anyway. Not after the other matter we’ve come about.’ He didn’t say this gravely, but continued to smile. He took out the black Zippo lighter he usually used. He didn’t even open it, but simply played with it. These lighters were still very fashionable at the time. American soldiers had used them during the Vietnam War, which had ended a year ago. It was said that they had used them to set fire to villages and settlements, that they were far more efficient than torches.

  Then I did begin to feel worried.

  ‘What other matter? Why wouldn’t I want to see you again?’

  Then he asked again about Tomás.

  ‘Tell me, are you quite sure that his work in London is what he tells you it is? Are you even sure that he’s in London? That he’s there right now?’

  ‘Well, I only know what he tells me. As I said, that isn’t very much, and he doesn’t go into details that are no concern of mine, and, to be honest, I don’t pay much attention.’ I paused for a second. ‘Besides, you can never necessarily trust what people tell you, can you? And although he’s the one who usually phones me, I have two numbers for him in London should an emergency arise. Why wouldn’t he be where he says he is?’

  ‘Is he always the one to answer the phone?’ asked Mary Kate, joining in the interrogation. ‘Are those numbers his home phone, his apartment, where he works, an office somewhere, or at the Foreign Office?’

  I found this insistence very odd on both their parts, but I still saw nothing very strange about their questions. They were always very curious, wanting to know all kinds of things.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’ve only used either of those numbers once at most, and on neither of those occasions did he pick up the phone himself, which is perfectly logical really, since one is his work number, where he spends more time than he does at home, and the other is an apartment block with a switchboard, near Gloucester Road. That’s where he lives, or rather sleeps. The two individuals who answered said they’d pass on my message, and he did phone me back shortly afterwards. I don’t know if he works at the Foreign Office itself or somewhere else. Why do you ask? What is all this about?’

  ‘We’ve received information that he doesn’t work for the Foreign Office at all, but for MI6.’ Seeing my look of puzzlement, Ruiz Kindelán thought it best to explain just in case, although my puzzlement had nothing to do with ignorance, I knew what MI6 and MI5 were, as anyone does who’s read spy novels or seen any of the James Bond films. ‘It’s the secret service for overseas operations.’ And when I said nothing (a silence provoked by the kind of amused astonishment you feel when you suspect someone of pulling your leg or not being entirely serious), he went on to explain, as if I were stupid or younger than I was: ‘In a word: spies.’

  I did laugh then, briefly, incredulously, in response to that unnecessary explanation, which seemed almost ingenuous.

  ‘He’s never said anything to me about that, but then if someone is a spy, working for the Secret Service, he’s hardly going to shout it from the rooftops,’ I joked. The couple were still smiling, still addressing me in the same friendly tone, although there was now a slightly harder edge to their questions. ‘And what if it’s true? I don’t much like the idea, but I suppose it’s not that difficult to move from the Foreign Office to MI6, occasionally anyway. Perhaps they call him in sometimes to interrogate some foreign agent, or to act as interpreter. He has a great gift for languages, he knows quite a few, most of which he speaks perfectly. If he could be of use to MI6, they’re hardly going to waste his talents.’

  ‘It’s not that easy. MI stands for “military intelligence”, in case you didn’t know. It’s a military organisation, not diplomatic or part of the civil service. It’s part of the army, it’s above the police and almost any other authority. Its agents are given ranks, part of a hierarchy, and are subject to army discipline. They belong, in short …’ He pulled a face and corrected himself. ‘They’re officers in an invading army.’

  ‘Invading? Invading what?’

  ‘Ireland, of course. Our country,’ Mary Kate was quick to say in her accented Spanish, and when she said this, her eyes fixed angrily on me, or so I thought. Her squint became even more marked, and again it provoked in me a faint, momentary flicker of fear, an irrational fear while it lasted, which was usually only for a matter of seconds. This time it lasted slightly longer. It took a while for those eyes to return to their more benign selves, and it was as if that simultaneously fixed and divergent gaze were bitterly reproaching me: ‘Do you know nothing, you stupid girl? Are you entirely ignorant of the world, entirely indifferent? An army intent on invading our country.’

  I looked away and down at Guillermo, doubtless seeking refuge in him. His gaze was gentle and inconstant, he didn’t yet fix it fully on people or objects, it zigzagged erratically, unable to focus properly on any one thing, unlike Mary Kate’s eyes. For some time, he had been quite calm, his eyes open, with not a trace of fever. He lay at our feet, gurgling distractedly.

  I bent down and stroked his cheek with one finger; there was my brand-new little boy, so soft and round, so fresh. Absurd though it may seem, the sight of him calmed me, as if, as long as I was by his side, nothing could happen to me and everything else vanished; as if we protected each other, and yet how could he, poor thing, protect me? The sound of the Zippo lighter made me look up. Ruiz Kindelán had finally raised the cigarette to his lips, flicked open the lighter cover with his thumb and tried to light it, but no flame appeared. He shook the lighter hard and tried again, but still no flame. I glanced down at his shoes, which were always slightly grubby or, rather, never exactly gleaming; he probably neglected them, feeling, as many men do, an invincible distaste for the brush, cloth and polish, and it occurred to me that this must explain the existence of shoeshines; his shoes were in marked contrast with his rather good-quality, well-kept suits, even though some were slightly shiny with wear. The raincoat that he usually carried draped over one arm even in June lay beside him on the sofa in an untidy heap.

  ‘Look, my dear Berta,’ he said, and as soon as he said this, he gave a rather inopportune laugh, as if wanting to lend a festive tone to the conversation. ‘We have received information that an individual working for MI6 is causing a lot of damage in Belfast or is about to be let loose either there or in some other place, whether he’s on his way or already in situ we don’t yet know.’ He pronounced the name of the city with the stress on the second syllable, as almost no Spaniard would, or not at least a Spaniard of unmixed race, and he had used the same form of words as before: ‘We have received information’, but who from? And who was that ‘we’? Just him and Mary Kate, or someone else? An organisation, a government, a country? ‘We’re not sure who he is or who he’s pretending to be, we don’t know what he looks like because he may have changed his appearance once already or even twice. He may have had fair hair before and now be dark, having been a redhead in between. He may once have had a thick thatch of hair, and now wear it almost shaved. He may be sporting a beard, whereas before he was clean-shaven and, in between times, might have grown long sideburns and a moustache, a moustache like Crosby’s and sideburns like Stills or Neil Young.’ At the time, the music of that supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young still echoed in the air. And yet I was surprised that someone like Ruiz Kindelán should know who they were. ‘He didn’t wear glasses before, but now he wears some as big as mine.’ He touched the bridge of his glasses, pushing them further up his nose with his middle finger, and taking the opportunity to smooth his curly hair. ‘It’s only natural that he should hide his real face, or try to present various faces so as to seem to be different people and put others off the track, to sow confusion.’ He laughed again, apparently spontaneously, as if this were all a game or a riddle. ‘We suspect he may be a fairly new agent, recently
trained, not burned out, not spent, probably deployed to act as a mole, an infiltrator, well, you know what I mean. And we suspect that he might be Thomas. How is Thomas’s Irish accent? Do you think he could pass for one of us? Apparently, he’s a real prodigy when it comes to imitating accents and voices and ways of speaking. Apparently, people almost split their sides laughing when they hear him. We haven’t yet had the opportunity ourselves to hear him in action, but people say he’s amazing.’ And he laughed for a third time, as if he were actually witnessing that prodigious display, then he picked up his raincoat and started carefully rummaging around in one of its many pockets, as he continued talking in an almost jocular tone, with not a trace of drama. ‘Not that we’re saying it is him, we don’t know, it’s very difficult to find out, of course; that’s the job of his superiors, to make finding out as difficult as possible. We’re not even sure he is employed by MI6. We hope not, we really do. We’d love this to be all a mistake. It would be very painful to learn that someone we’re so fond of is working to the detriment of Ireland; that would upset us greatly. The husband of someone we adore, imagine.’

  ‘And the father of this angel too, this little cherub,’ added Mary Kate, using her favourite word for the baby, and leaning forward to jingle her bracelets over him, a sound he always responded to, as if it were a substitute rattle.

  ‘But there are some ugly rumours going around,’ Ruiz Kindelán went on. ‘And rumours do sometimes turn out to be true, but let’s hope that’s not the case this time.’ He still had his cigarette between his lips, his lighter with the lid down in one hand, while with the other, he continued calmly, unhurriedly, casually feeling about in his raincoat, barely paying any heed to the task, as if he were sure that what he was looking for would turn up sooner or later. ‘It would be good to know, and rule out the possibility. The sooner the better, for us and for you. For everyone. I think you could do that, Berta, I think it’s up to you to find out and to talk to him about it. And if that ugly rumour proves true, to convince him to stop, he wouldn’t lie to you, would he, not about a grave matter that would affect you and the child, all three of you. At least as regards Ireland, I mean. He must keep out of Ireland, or we’ll all end up the losers, and then we’ll be in a real mess. Do you understand?’ And he finally removed from an inside pocket the object he’d been searching for: a small can of lighter fuel, also bearing the brand name Zippo, and black like the lighter but with a red plastic lid, on top of which was a kind of spout that you turned one way to close and the other way to open, allowing the fuel out through a tiny orifice when your lighter needed refilling. It wasn’t that the flint was worn out, for on the two occasions when he’d tried to light it, it had sounded perfectly normal and had produced a spark, but no flame, that rather showy and, initially, lively Zippo flame, apparently less controllable than others, which is perhaps why it wasn’t easily extinguished, not even by a slight breeze, which is also perhaps why the lighters are more efficient than torches when it comes to starting fires, to burning things down. It had run out of fuel and he had come prepared; in those days, everyone – well, certainly all smokers – knew how they worked: you extracted the lighter from its metal casing and injected the fuel through a small hole into the cotton or foam packing or whatever it was, until it was saturated and the lighter ready for use. ‘We’ll be in a fine pickle if he can’t be persuaded,’ he added, smiling his usual pleasant, attractive smile, and then I noticed that the spout on the can was open and not closed as it should have been, and when Ruiz Kindelán shook the can before using it, as if it were a carton of fruit juice, a few drops (or perhaps a dribble) of that inflammable liquid fell onto Guillermo’s cradle, onto his tiny sheets and tiny pyjamas. It all seemed entirely unintentional, a mistake, the can must already have been open when he took it out of his pocket, and it happened so quickly, from its first appearance to those few fallen drops onto the very worst of places (all it took was one slight movement of the arm), that I could do nothing to avoid this absurd accident. My first impulse was to snatch my child up in my arms and carry him off to the bathroom, where I could undress him, clean, wash and bathe him, and remove him from the presence of that couple who, in the briefest of times, had gone from inspiring me with confidence and offering me protection to provoking sheer terror. And it was terror that kept me from moving, because, before I could pick up the child, Ruiz Kindelán again flicked open the lighter with his thumb, as if wanting to try again to light his cigarette, even though he hadn’t yet injected any fuel into the foam packing; nor did he close the spout on the can, as anyone else would have done after making such a blunder. He still had the cigarette between his lips, the can of lighter fluid in one hand and, in the other, the open lighter. I froze, suddenly understanding what I had preferred not to understand, I froze and sat quite still in my armchair, afraid I might make matters worse, counterproductive and worse, irremediable and worse. ‘The flint obviously works,’ I thought rapidly, and, in my anxiety, I began to breathe very hard, what would nowadays be called hyperventilating, ‘and, if he tries again, it’s possible that this time it will light. And if it does, he could throw the lighter into the wicker cradle, onto the sheets and pyjamas, then it would take only a moment for the whole thing to go up in flames. Or he might accidentally drop the lighter and its inextinguishable flame.’ Difficult though this was, I remained quite still, when what I most wanted was to run away, to escape with my child, but I didn’t dare, I forced myself to remain in that paralysed state. I addressed him as if I had still understood nothing and as if the situation were perfectly normal. I pretended, I spoke with complete aplomb, almost casually, although my breathing and the panicky tremor in my voice must have given me away. I pretended I wasn’t begging, but I was:

  ‘Please, Miguel, put the thing away, you’re surely not going to light it now. You’ve spilled lighter fluid on the cradle. How could you even think of refilling your lighter with the baby right there in front of you. And close the spout on the can too. What on earth are you doing with it open anyway? It’ll have leaked into your raincoat pocket. You’ll stink of the stuff.’

  I could smell the fuel from where I was sitting, and Guillermo would be even more aware of it, breathing in those vapours would be bad for his little lungs, and he could do nothing about it. It occurred to me that with one swift, energetic gesture I might be able to rescue Guillermo from one of the two weapons or indeed both; anything can become a weapon, the inventive human mind is horribly quick in that respect. I noticed, however, that Ruiz Kindelán had both things firmly in his grasp, and, if I failed, the risk was still greater. ‘He can’t do anything,’ I thought, trying to convince myself and drive away my fear. ‘If he were to set fire to a child, he’d be put in prison, there’d be no escape, unless he set fire to me too. But what use would it be to me if they did send him to prison, because once the deed is done, it can’t be undone.’ Miguel raised his eyebrows as if nothing had happened, as if there were no danger at all and he was surprised at my fears. He laughed.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing bad is going to happen,’ he said, adding his usual supposedly reassuring laugh. He closed the spout on the can of lighter fluid, but not his lighter. ‘At least that’s one less threat,’ I thought, mentally thanking him, then I realised that this wasn’t true at all, the fuel had already fallen on the sheets, there was no need for any more to be spilled. ‘I wonder how long it takes to evaporate,’ I thought, because I had no idea. Fortunately, Guillermo still wasn’t crying or complaining, but lying with his little fists clenched and raised as he stared waveringly up at the ceiling, uttering a few guttural sounds and the occasional gurgle, despite the pungent smell, which might make him feel nauseous.

  I glanced at Mary Kate in search of help or support, perhaps some female solidarity, but she provided no consolation at all. She was looking fixedly, expectantly, at her husband seated to her left, as if she were waiting for him to do what he had to do or what they had agreed he would do. And it seemed to me now tha
t her squint-eyed gaze had taken on a fanatical, visionary gleam, as if her spectacularly blue eyes had been stripped not only of the ingenuousness or vulnerability they sometimes revealed when in movement, but also of all compassion, as if they were waiting for precisely what I did not want, the irremediable and the worst. I recalled that, for her, the children they hadn’t had were a couple of silly ducks swimming on a pond. And I remembered, too, that for him, they were filthy little beasts.

  ‘Nothing bad, dear Berta,’ echoed Mary Kate, barely averting her gaze from her husband, or only enough to take in my almost undisguised look of supplication. ‘No, nothing bad, given that it all depends on you, the very best of mothers. You betcha,’ she added, slipping suddenly into unusually colloquial Spanish (unusual for a foreigner): Si lo sabré yo. For some reason, I found myself staring at her massive, prominent bust, either simply so as to not to have to see her terrifying squint or to persuade myself that any woman with such a welcoming bosom could not possibly harm anyone, still less a baby. Or as if this were a way of appealing to the maternal instinct she had doubtless never felt. I was feeling increasingly bewildered and could find no comfort in optimistic thoughts: deep down, I was sure she was capable of harming absolutely anyone, if her cause demanded it, and I could guess what that cause, or country, was. Far too many people appoint themselves as sole interpreters of the needs of their country, whatever that country is, and tend to infect it with their own contagious fervour.