The Impostor

by Javier Cercas

  ME: Long ago now, someone who respects you said to me: “Enric must have suffered a lot as a boy. An awful lot. And if there’s one thing he needs it’s for people to love him. It’s a ferocious need. And all the things he made up, all his lies, are simply a means to get people to love him, to admire him and to love him.” What do you think?

  MARCO (shrugging his shoulders): I don’t know. I’ve suffered so much I don’t even remember any more. When I think that I was born in an asylum, that I had no mother, actually it was worse than not having a mother, I had one, but she was insane. When I think that I barely had a father, and I was bounced around from one house to another, from one family to another. Did I ever tell you that one of my aunts combed my hair with the part on the right, another with the part on the left, and another with a centre part? You can’t imagine how angry it made me…Do you remember what your father’s hand felt like when you were little? I don’t. I don’t remember my father ever holding my hand, I don’t remember him ever helping with my homework, or teaching me the things he knew, how to play the accordion or the bandurria for example, I don’t remember ever going anywhere with him, or doing anything with him…I don’t know, I think that, without realising he was an orphan, Enric Marco suffered a lot.

  ME: And that’s why you so desperately needed to be loved, to be admired.

  MARCO: I suppose so, but what I was trying to say is that I have no memory of having suffered. I assume I suffered, but I’m not aware of it. It’s strange, isn’t it? I remember when I would run out of my father’s house, run away from my stepmother, screaming: “This is all happening because I don’t have a mother!” When I did that, I was trying to say something, wasn’t I? I was trying to say that I needed a mother, that I needed a father too, I was trying to say that I was suffering, wasn’t I?

  ME: And you must have suffered during the war, and after the war. You must have been very afraid.

  MARCO: Very. But it wasn’t just my fear: it was everyone’s, it was a general fear. During the war for obvious reasons; and after the war too. A lot of people were very afraid: the country was imprisoned, it was a country of informers, of bribe-takers, of prostitutes. There was everything, none of it good. And all because of this fear. In order to survive. In order to carry on living whatever the cost.

  ME: You didn’t talk much about this to the kids, did you? In your school talks, I mean. Maybe it would have been good if you had.

  MARCO: What for? To show them how vile we can become? What would they have learned from that? No, what I told those kids is that life can be very tough, but a single dignified act can redeem you. (Here, suddenly, Marco puts on his mask again and, mustering his energy, he launches into an anecdote pulled at random from his repertoire of glorious adventures, as though he weren’t talking to me but to a vast auditorium crammed with people. When he’s finished telling it, he seems once again overcome by exhaustion and once again takes off the mask. After a silence, he continues.) I had a terrible life. I never had any luck.

  ME: Your luck wasn’t so bad, Enric. I’m talking about later, during the post-war period, Francoism and all that. Your life wasn’t so bad, you had a job, a family, you were living much the same life as everyone else, no?

  MARCO: Yes. I suppose so, yes.

  ME: Until Franco died and freedom came. At that point, you must have been thinking “Fucking hell, this is the life!”

  MARCO (sitting up in the armchair and recovering his energy but without putting on the mask, smiling with a curious enthusiasm, his eyes shining, his mouth open, making a strange gesture with his arms, fast, furious, festive as he leans back): We drank everything there was! We even drank mineral water! It was joyous! It was amazing!

  ME: And at this point you began to invent a past for yourself.

  MARCO: Well yes, I suppose so, yes. I felt almost obligated, the people around me, all those kids from rich families, obliged me to…

  ME: You’re referring to Salsas and Boada and Ignasi de Gispert.

  MARCO: Of course.

  ME: I understand. They forced you. They admired you. They saw you as a hero.

  MARCO: Exactly. I didn’t want to be a hero, but, as you say, I did want them to like me. Wanted them to love me and admire me. And they did love me and admire me, I think. Girls fell head over heels for me. Even much later, when I was at the Amical and more than eighty years old, there were girls of seventeen who told me they were in love with me, they more or less pestered me. And yes, I had a need…

  ME: To be loved and to be admired.

  MARCO: Yes.

  ME: And creating a past for yourself as a hero was the way to be admired.

  MARCO: Possibly. Probably. Yes, maybe I cast myself as a hero. Alright yes, I did. And then all this happened and I paid very dearly.

  ME: You’re talking about the scandal.

  MARCO: Yes. And I feel very bad for Dani. (Marco’s expression changes and he suddenly gives a curt laugh.) Did you know the French government were going to give me the Légion d’Honneur?

  ME: No.

  MARCO: They were just about to give it to me: they had even written the citation. Just as well they didn’t give it to me! But Dani, being French, she would have been impressed, and she would have admired me all the more…But it was not to be: I wasn’t able to give her that. I’ve given her many things, everything I could, you know that, but I haven’t made my peace.

  ME: You haven’t made your peace?

  MARCO: I don’t think so.

  ME: With her?

  MARCO: That’s right. I’m not saying she’s not happy; what I’m saying is that this stuff about me must have hurt her terribly.

  ME: And your daughters.

  MARCO: More or less.

  ME: You see how lucky you’ve been, Enric? At least in some respects. With your wife and your daughters, for example, you’ve been very lucky.

  MARCO: Yes. Although I haven’t made my peace with them.

  ME: And with yourself.

  MARCO: No. That’s why we’re sitting here talking, right? But, well, I suppose I’ve been a strange character, haven’t I? I’ve led a strange life. So many things have happened to me…

  (Here there is a long silence. Marco isn’t looking at me or at the camera but at a point in front of him. He looks distracted, as though he were about to discover or remember something crucial, something that would completely change or might completely change my opinion of him, or as though he has suddenly lost interest in the conversation. In the end, I am the one to speak.)

  ME: Enric, tell me something: the first time you noticed that people admired you for your past was in the late Seventies, when you met Salsas and Boada and De Gispert and started hanging out with university students who were more or less anti-Franco, right?

  MARCO: Yes, they were my first admirers.

  ME: And later, when Franco died and freedom came and anarchism was the fad of the moment and you were an anarchist leader, and you found yourself surrounded by all those young anarchists…Well, they must have admired you even more, the boys and girls who were all for free love and endless partying must have really loved you, surely this was the moment when you triumphed totally.

  MARCO: Totally.

  ME: At this point you realise they love you for your past, that a past as an anti-Franco activist, a clandestine resistance fighter, a Republican soldier and a victim of the Nazis made all these kids wild about you.

  MARCO: Of course, the thing is I’m older than most of them, I’m the veteran anarchist even though I’m still young, I’m the former Republican fighter, the soldier who fought in the Civil War, but I’m also one of them…I’m all these things.

  ME: And they’re enthralled by that. They love you for it, for your past. Even your wife loves you for your past, she is impressed by your past.

>   MARCO: Well, I don’t know. She knows me, so…

  ME: I don’t mean now, I’m talking about back then. Didn’t Dani love you for your past? Didn’t you woo her with your past? Wasn’t that part of your appeal for her? Didn’t you say that she admired you? I got my wife to fall in love with me convincing her I was a writer and eventually I had to become a writer so she’d stay with me.

  MARCO: Yes, maybe. Maybe for Dani it wasn’t just one more thing, maybe for her it was important: she was a radical girl, left-wing, anti-Franco, her mother had been in the French resistance.

  ME: For her, you were a hero too. That’s why she fell in love with you.

  MARCO: Yes, maybe…I can see where you’re heading, and you’re probably right. Probably. (There is another silence, though shorter than the previous one; he seems to be trying to work out where to go next, or how to stop me continuing down this path.) Look, I was, I won’t say an exception, but I was different. No worse, no better: different and in any chapter of my life there are things I’m proud of and things I’m not proud of, and even things I’m ashamed of. It’s the same with everyone, isn’t it? Especially when you get to my age. At times, I’ve tried to balance things out, you know, the good on one side of the scales, the bad on the other. And when I do it, the scales tip in my favour, on the good side, not the bad side, because the good weighs more than the bad. There are things I’m ashamed of: I’m ashamed of having abandoned my mother in an asylum, I’m ashamed of the way I treated my first family. I’m ashamed of my lie…

  ME: You’re ashamed?

  MARCO: Of course. I regret what I did; I had no reason to do it, I don’t know why I did it.

  ME: You did it so people would love you. So they would admire you.

  MARCO: Yes, but I didn’t have to do it. And by the time Bermejo exposed me, I was tired of doing it; that’s why I came clean: I was tired of lying. When Bermejo found out that I had been in Germany as a volunteer worker, I could have said, yes, that’s true, but prove that I wasn’t in a concentration camp, prove I wasn’t in Flossenbürg. Bermejo couldn’t have done it, nobody could. But I didn’t. I was tired of all the lies and I wanted to tell the truth. That’s why I came clean. You believe me, don’t you?

  ME: I don’t know.

  MARCO: Well, believe me, for once you have to believe me. Although at this stage I don’t really care. What I’m telling you is that in my life I’ve done some bad things, but the rest is good, or pretty good, and it makes up for all the rest.

  ME: Enric.

  MARCO: What?

  ME: Can I say something?

  MARCO: Sure.

  ME: You remember the first time we talked about this book, the book I’m writing about you now? Remember what I said to you? I said that I didn’t want to rehabilitate you or exonerate you or condemn you, that that’s neither my job nor the job of a writer as I understand it. You know what my job is? To understand you. (At this point, a huge smile lights up Marco’s face, and, relieved, drawing out the “o” he whispers “Good.”) Don’t misunderstand me, Enric: understanding you does not mean vindicating you; it means understanding you, nothing more. (Marco nods several times, slowly.) But, you know what? I think I am starting to understand you.

  MARCO (sitting up slightly in the armchair and raising his arms, still nodding): Look, I need to tell you something: if your goal is to understand me, mine is to make myself understood. And we have to take it slow, because I still have a lot of things to tell you. We can’t rush.

  ME: We’re not going to rush. We’re in no hurry. Or at least I’m not.

  MARCO: Me neither. My biography is very complicated. I should probably write it myself. My daughters say to me “Don’t go and see Cercas any more. Write your memoirs yourself.”

  ME: Your daughters don’t want you to talk to me?

  MARCO: No. Nor does Dani. But that’s because they don’t know you. I’m getting to know you. Before, I only knew you through your books and your articles. I’ve read them all, you know! And I agree with you on some things and not on others. But I always read your articles, I even cut them out.

  (Here Marco puts on the charmer’s mask again and launches into a spiel about my articles and my books, trying to flatter me. I interrupt him.)

  ME: Hey, Enric.

  MARCO: What?

  ME: Your daughters are right. I can’t write your biography, nor do I want to. You are the only person who can write your biography. All that I want, as I’ve said, is to write a book in which people understand you, or in which at least I understand you. Besides, what interests me about you isn’t just about you, but what applies to everyone, including me; what is particular to you, you should write, Enric. Your daughters are right.

  MARCO (folding his arms, but still smiling): And…

  ME: And nothing. It’s getting late and you should probably go, your wife will be waiting for you. I just wanted to say this: I’m starting to understand you. And that makes me happy.

  MARCO. Good, good. I’m happy too.

  ME: Are your daughters scared?

  MARCO: No. It’s just that they’ve noticed when I come home after seeing you, after one of these sessions, I’m out of sorts, and that worries them. But it won’t be like that today; today will be different because you’ve said you’re starting to understand me. And that makes me very happy. And I’ll tell Dani as soon as I get home. I’ll say to her: “Dani, I’ve just been with Javier and I felt completely at ease. I’m not afraid any more.”

  At this point Marco bursts out laughing, and then, apropos of nothing, goes back to talking about my books and my articles. I turn off the camera.

  3

  Did Cervantes truly save Alonso Quixano in Don Quixote? Am I really doing my utmost in this book to save Marco? Have I gone insane too?

  Towards the end of Don Quixote, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, disguised as the Knight of the White Moon, defeats Don Quixote in single combat on the beach at Barcelona and demands that he return to his village. Obligated by the chivalric code, Quixote obeys and, a few days after, returns to his house “vanquished by the arm of another,” as Sancho Panza says, but “victor over himself.” Shortly afterwards, sick with melancholy, the knight recovers his sanity and, serene and reconciled to reality after so much fiction, with friends and family around his deathbed, knows himself or recognises himself for who he is (“I am no longer Don Quixote de la Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose ways have earned me fame as ‘Good’ ”), and he abjures stories of knight-errantry. “Truly Alonso Quixano the Good is dying, and truly he is in his right mind,” his friend the priest then says, as Marco himself might, and immediately afterwards, like Narcissus when he has seen his true face in the waters of the pool, Don Quixote dies.

  Do I truly want to save Marco? Is it truly possible to save him? Do I truly believe that if literature cannot save a man, regardless of the mistakes he may have made, it serves no purpose? And when did I start believing this twaddle? When did I start thinking that it wasn’t enough to try to understand Marco, that it wasn’t enough to discover why he lied, why he invented for himself and lived out a fictitious life rather than be content living his true life? When did I start telling myself that the goal of all books isn’t good enough for this book and that in the end reality might save Marco who has spent almost his whole life being saved by fiction? Am I trying to save myself by saving Marco?

  I don’t know. I wonder. I wonder whether, at a certain point—as I gradually became engrossed in this true story, this non-fiction novel suffused with fiction that for years I hadn’t wanted to write—I might have started behaving like a sort of bachelor Samson Carrasco, determined to defeat Marco with the truth and force him to return home vanquished by the arm of another but victor over himself, whether I might have sought to compel him to recover his sanity, reconcile himself to reality, know himself or recognise him
self for who he is so that, just as Cervantes transformed his book into the great disseminator of the definitive truth about Alonso Quixano, I might transform this book into the great disseminator of the definitive truth about Enric Marco (“For me alone was Enric Marco born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine to write; we two together make but one”), into a declaration that would reveal to all that Enric no longer is and no longer claims to be the man he said he was, that he abjures his fictitious heroic past as Don Quixote abjured tales of knight-errantry, that he is no longer Enric Marco, the anti-Franco, anti-fascist hero and champion or rock star of so-called historical memory, but simply Enrique the mechanic, a man as good as Alonso Quixano the Good who one day lost his mind and wanted to live more, or more than was his allotted span, who wanted to live all that he’d never lived and lied and deceived in order to do so, so that people would love him and admire him. I also wonder whether, from the moment I conceived this nonsensical goal, I might have thought or sensed that, when Marco finally recognises himself for who he is in the shimmering waters of this book, he may die like Narcissus, but he will die sane and serene and reconciled, like Alonso Quixano. And this book will then take on its full meaning.