Your Face Tomorrow

by Javier Marías

In fact, it didn’t really matter whether he saw my face or not; after all, I was going to talk to him about Luisa and as soon as I did, he would know without a shadow of a doubt who I was, and she would probably have told him about my sudden return to the city after so many months away, indeed, it was highly likely that he had already guessed it was her wretched imbecile of a husband who was pointing the gun at him, what a pain, what a cretin, what a madman, why hadn’t he just stayed put where he was? ‘Unless I’m the one who would rather not see his face and his eyes, his gaze,’ I thought, ‘nor say any more to him than I said at the front door, those were mere indifferent words, impersonal orders, not an exchange between two individuals. It’s always said that killers avoid looking their victim in the eye, that to do so would be the only thing that might sow a seed of doubt or stop them slitting their victim’s throat or firing a bullet or at least delay them long enough for the victim to say something or to try and defend himself, that’s the only thing that can sabotage their mission or make them miss their target, so perhaps it would be best to finish the thing here and now, in keeping with Tupra’s motto not to linger or delay, without giving any explanations or showing any curiosity, just as Reresby gave no explanations and showed no curiosity about De la Garza—without Custardoy even turning around, a bullet in the back of the neck and that would be that, goodbye Custardoy, out of the picture, guaranteed, and as with any deed once done, no going back, but if I speak to him and look him in the face, I’ll find it harder and I’ll start to get to know him and he’ll become “someone” for me just as he is for Luisa, because he’s important to her, someone for whom she probably feels a mixture of fear and devotion, so perhaps I should see him and hear him in order to imagine that, which is all I can aspire to, because I never will know how she looks at him, that’s my eternal curse…’

  The truth is I didn’t know what I should do to be certain, to ‘just deal with him and make sure he was out of the picture’ as a scornful Tupra had told me with a paternalistic laugh; if only he had been more explicit or if only I were bilingual and had understood him with total exactitude, or perhaps such insoluble ambiguities exist in all languages. ‘If you really don’t know how, Jack, that means you can’t do it,’ he had said. I didn’t know how, but I was in too deep by then. I couldn’t just shoot Custardoy in the back and leave him for dead, not without first getting into my angry mood, not without being absolutely certain: Luisa had denied to me and to her sister that he’d hurt her, and I hadn’t seen the act only the results, which, in a trial, wouldn’t have helped me prove anything against him. ‘But this isn’t a trial,’ I thought, ‘or anything like it, men like Tupra, like Incompara, like Manoia and so many others, like the people I saw in those videos, like the woman who appeared in one of them, with her skirt hitched up and wielding a hammer with which she was smashing a man’s skull, and who knows, perhaps like Pérez Nuix and like Wheeler and Rylands, they don’t hold trials or gather evidence, they simply solve problems or root them out or stop them ever happening or just deal with them, it’s enough that they know what they know because they’ve seen it from the start thanks to their gift or their curse, they’ve had the courage to look hard and to translate and to keep thinking beyond the necessary (“What else? You haven’t even started yet. Go on. Quickly, hurry, keep thinking,” my father used to say to me and my siblings when we were children, when we were young), and to guess what will happen if they don’t intervene; they don’t hate knowledge as do most of the pusillanimous people in this modern age, they confront it and anticipate it and absorb it and are, therefore, the sort who issue no warning, at least not always, the sort who take remote decisions for reasons that are barely identifiable to the one who suffers the consequences or is a chance witness, or without waiting for a link of cause and effect to establish itself between actions and motives, still less for any proof that such actions have been committed. Such men and women need no proof, on those arbitrary or well-founded occasions when, without the slightest warning or indication, they lash out with a saber; indeed, on such occasions, they don’t even require the actions or events or deeds to have occurred. Perhaps for them it’s enough that they know precisely what would happen in the world if no pressure or brake were imposed on what they perceive to be people’s certain capabilities, and they know, too, that if they don’t act with their full force, it’s only because someone—me, for example—prevents or impedes them, rather than because they lacked the desire or the guts; they take all that for granted. Perhaps for them to adopt the punitive measures they deem to be necessary, they simply have to convince themselves of what would happen in each case if they or other sentinels—the authorities or the law, instinct, crime, the moon, fear, the invisible watchers—did not put a stop to it. They are the sort who know and adopt and make theirs—like a second skin—the unreflecting, resolute stance (or one based perhaps on a single thought, the first) that also forms part of the way of the world and which remains unchanged throughout time and regardless of space, and so there is no reason to question it, just as there is no need to question wakefulness and sleep, or hearing and sight, or breathing and speech, or any of the other things about which one knows: “that’s how it is and always will be.”

  It was assumed that I was like them, one of them, that I possessed the same capacity to penetrate and interpret people, to know what their face would be like tomorrow and to describe what had not yet occurred, and as far as Custardoy was concerned I knew him inside out, I had no proof of anything, but I knew I was right: he was the dangerous, seductive, all-enveloping, violent type, capable of making someone dependent on the horrors he perpetrated and on his lack of scruples, his despotism and his scorn, and I mustn’t give him an opening, I mustn’t give him an opportunity to explain himself, to deny or refute or argue or persuade, not even to talk to me. Tupra was right: ‘I think you do know how,’ he had said to me before hanging up. ‘We all know, even if we’re not used to the idea or can’t imagine ourselves doing it. It’s a question of imagination.’ Perhaps it was just a question of me imagining myself as Sir Death for the first time, after all, I had the pistol in my hand and that was my hourglass or clepsydra, and I had my gloves on, and now all I needed was to cock the gun, move my forefinger from the guard to the trigger and then squeeze, it was all just a step away and there was so little physical difference between one thing and the other, between doing and not doing, so little spatial difference … I didn’t need certainties or proofs if I could convince myself that I was entirely, at least for that day, a member of Tupra’s school which was the way of many and perhaps of the world, because his attitude was not preventative, not exactly or exclusively, but, rather, and depending on the case and the person, punitive or compensatory, for Tupra saw and judged when dry, with no need to get himself wet—to use Don Quixote’s words when he announced to Sancho Panza the mad feats he would perform for Dulcinea’s sake even before being provoked into them by grief or jealousy, so just imagine what he would do if provoked. Or perhaps Tupra understood them—the various cases—even though they were pages as yet unwritten, and perhaps, for that very reason, forever blank. ‘But if I fire this pistol, my page will no longer be blank,’ I thought, ‘and if I don’t, it won’t be either, not entirely, after all the build-up and having thought about it and pointed the gun at him. We can never free ourselves from telling something, not even when we believe we have left our page blank. And even if there are things of which no one speaks, even if they do not in fact happen, they never stay still. It’s terrible,’ I said to myself. ‘There’s no escape. Even if no one speaks of them. And even if they never actually happen.’ I studied the old Llama pistol at the end of my arm much as Death looked at his hourglass in that painting by Baldung Grien, the only thing by which he was guided, not by the living people beside him, after all, why would he be guided by them when he can already see their faces tomorrow? ‘What does it matter then if things do happen? “You and I will be the kind who leave no mark,” Tupra had said to me o
nce, “so it won’t matter what we’ve done, no one will bother to recount or even to investigate it.” And besides,’ I went on, still talking to myself, ‘the day will come when everything is levelled out and life will be definitively untellable, and no one will care about anything.’ But that day had not yet arrived, and I felt both curious and afraid—‘And in short, I was afraid’—and had, above all, time to wonder as those familiar lines assured me I would: ‘And indeed there will be time to wonder,“Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair …’ Even time to ask the whole question that comes later in the poem—‘Do I dare disturb the universe?’—the question no one asks before acting or even before speaking because everyone dares to do just that, to disturb the universe and to trouble it, with their small quick tongues and their ill-intentioned steps, ‘So how should I presume?’ And that’s what kept my finger on the guard and my hand from cocking the gun, that is what happened, and besides I knew there would still be time to place my finger on the trigger and fire, having first cocked it with one simple gesture, as Miquelín had showed me.

  ‘Turn around and sit down over there,’ I said to Custardoy, pointing with my free hand at the sofa, a sofa on which he would probably often have sat or perhaps lain with Luisa. ‘Put your hands on the table where I can see them.’ In front of the sofa was a coffee table, as there is in most of the world’s living rooms. ‘Spread your fingers wide and don’t move a muscle.’

  Custardoy turned around as ordered and I finally saw his face full on and unimpeded, just as he did mine. He had a faint smile on his lips, which irritated me, and that long-toothed smile lit up his sharp-featured face and lent it a look almost of cordiality. He seemed quite calm, even amused in a way, despite that blow to his ribs, which must have hurt and frightened him. But, by then, he probably knew who I was, even if only by intuition or by a process of elimination, and relying perhaps on his own interpretative capacities, which were good enough for him to be sure that Luisa’s husband wasn’t going to shoot him, at least not yet, that is, without first speaking to him. (But then no one is ever totally convinced that someone is going to shoot him, not even with the gun barrel there before him.) His huge, dark, wide-set, almost lashless eyes really were most unpleasant and I immediately felt that grasping quality, how they quickly looked me over, with, how I can I put it, a kind of intimidatory intent, which, in the circumstances, was both strange and inappropriate. His half-smile, on the other hand, was perfectly affable, as if he were able to be two people at once. I couldn’t understand how Luisa could possibly like him, even if there was something cocky and common about him—crude and rough and cold—a quality which, as I’ve seen and know, a lot of women find attractive. Before sitting down, he stroked his mustache, repositioned his ponytail with a gesture that was unavoidably feminine, threw his hat down on the sofa and said:

  ‘May I light a cigarette? If I’m smoking, you’ll still be able to see my two hands.’ And then he sat down, taking care not to crease the tails of his raincoat. He had begun addressing me as ‘tú’ now, and that confirmed me in my suspicion that he had identified me.

  ‘Have one of mine,’ I replied, not wanting him to put his hand in his pocket. I offered him a Karelias and took another for myself. I lit both from the same flame and we inhaled the smoke at the same time, and for a moment we resembled old friends, taking that first puff in silence. We had both suffered a fright, and a cigarette was just what we needed. But the fright was not yet over, and his must have been far greater than mine, after all, I had merely frightened myself when I saw what I was doing, and that always supposes a lesser, more controlled fear, one you can bring to an end yourself. The conversation that followed moved very quickly.

  ‘What the fuck’s up with you?’ said Custardoy. ‘You’re Jaime, aren’t you?’ The use of a swearword denoted aplomb and a certain lack of respect, unless, of course, he always talked like that (after all, he had no reason to respect me and more than enough reason to be angry with me); regardless of whether such aplomb was feigned or real, it was clear, I thought, that I had not yet frightened him enough, and how was I to do that? I sat sideways on the arm of a chair, which meant that not only was I facing him, I was higher up as well.

  ‘Who said you could talk? I didn’t. I only said you could smoke. So smoke your cigarette and shut the fuck up.’ I flung the swearword back at him so as to place us on an equal footing and I waved the pistol about a bit. I hoped he wasn’t used to handling firearms or wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t. It’s not easy to frighten someone if you’re not in the habit of doing so. I knew I could do it (I had done so before on occasion), just as I knew or imagined that I would be capable, or at least not incapable, of killing; but to do both those things, I would—perhaps—need to be completely crazy, agitated or furious or gripped by a long-lasting thirst for revenge, and at that moment, I wasn’t, not sufficiently; perhaps I had relaxed once the first phase of my unplanned plan had passed without mishap, intercepting Custardoy, going to his apartment and shutting myself up with him there. I had too little hatred. I had too little knowledge. I was too lukewarm. I lacked the necessary heat. And, unlike Tupra, I wasn’t cold enough either.

  ‘OK, talk. I haven’t got all fucking day to waste over this kind of crazy nonsense. Why are you pointing that gun at me? Just what are you up to, pal?’ And he attempted another of those smiles that revealed long shiny teeth and which made him look almost pleasant and his profile less aggressive. He still reminded me of someone, but I didn’t have time just then to think who it might be.

  Custardoy was either brave or overconfident. Or perhaps he didn’t want to appear daunted despite the weapon pointed at his chest by this madman, or maybe he was convinced I wouldn’t use it. He had spoken scornfully, as if he wanted to diminish us, me and my gun. He had gone so far as to address me as ‘pal’ (and I hate people who use such terms), trying to belittle me and make me feel like some ridiculous child with my antiquated pistol in my hand. If he was over-confident, I wondered what more I would have to do to puncture his arrogance: I had already hit him and hurt him, and he must have registered that if I was capable of that, I was capable of worse things. If he continued in that vein, he ran the risk of getting me seriously riled or, as Custardoy might have put it, of getting on my tits. So it suited me that he should continue in that vein. Or perhaps not, he might just make me see myself in that situation as grotesque and puerile.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘From today on, you’re going to stop seeing Luisa Juárez. It’s over. No more beatings or cuts or black eyes. You never touch her again, right?’

  I thought he would immediately deny ever laying a finger on her and declare: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ or some such thing. But he didn’t, that wasn’t what upset him:

  ‘Oh, really? What? On your say-so? He’s got some nerve.’ The way he said this irritated me, as if he were not addressing me, but some invisible third party, some imaginary witness with whom he felt at liberty to mock me. ‘That’s up to her and me, don’t you think?’

  Yes, that was precisely what I thought. I had no right to involve myself in her affairs, she was free, she was an adult, she might even be very happy with him, she hadn’t asked me for my opinion or my protection, she hadn’t even deigned to tell me about her day-to-day life, that life no longer concerned me; of course I agreed. None of that, though, was relevant now—I had decided to involve myself and to use force and fear, and at that point you have to leave aside all arguments and principles, all respect and moral reservations and scruples because you have decided to do what you want to do and to impose that decision on others, to achieve your ends without further delay, and then, as with any war once it has begun, being right or wrong should neither intervene nor count. Once that line has been crossed, right or wrong no longer matter, it’s simply a matter of getting your own way, of winning and subjugating and prevailing. He had hit her and must be made to stop, that was all. ‘Just make sure he’s out of the pi
cture,’ I repeated to myself. I had to leave that apartment with Custardoy suppressed and erased like a bloodstain, that was all. And my determination grew.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘it should be up to the two of you to make that decision, but that isn’t how it’s going to be. You’re going to decide on your own. You’re going to give her up today. Which would you rather give up—her or the world. Be quite clear about one thing though: either way you’re going to give her up.’

  For the first time, I saw him hesitate, perhaps I even caught a glimmer of fear. I thought: ‘He’s realized that it’s not at all difficult to shoot someone, it’s just a question of not being yourself for two seconds or perhaps of being yourself—one moment you’re not a murderer and then suddenly you are and will be for all eternity—that anyone with a weapon in his hand might suddenly up and shoot you, all it takes is for him to forget for an instant the magnitude of the gesture, of a single simple gesture, or rather two, cocking the gun and squeezing the trigger, which might be almost simultaneous as it is in Westerns, cocking the hammer and pulling the trigger, put this finger here and that finger there, first one and then the other, up and back and there you are, it can happen to anyone, a slip of the hand or the finger, the hand that, in just one movement, puts the bullet into the barrel or the chamber and then the forefinger drawing back—this is a heavy pistol, quite hard to hold, but hand and finger act on their own as if no one were moving them, no consciousness or will, they caress and stroke and glide almost, you don’t even have to make the effort that a sword inevitably requires, with a sword you have to raise it up and then bring it down and both movements require the whole strength of one arm or even both, which is why neither children nor many women nor feeble old men can wield one, but on the other hand, the pistol can be used by the weakest, most fearful, most stupid and most worthless of people—the pistol democratizes killing far more than the dishonorable crossbow—and anyone can cause irreparable damage with one, you just have to let things happen. And if I were to cock the pistol now, Custardoy would be terrified.’