Thus Bad Begins

by Javier Marías

  That is how I explained my own behaviour: pure curiosity, I was intrigued and I did feel somewhat anxious about Beatriz’s fate and the company she was keeping; or perhaps, despite my youth and the general freedom of the times, I found her visits quite frankly exciting, visits of which Muriel would know nothing. Not that he would have cared, he might even have been pleased had he known. She was much older than me, and yet my attitude towards her was tinged with a strange, respectful desire to protect her, even if only as an unseen companion and invisible witness, tinged too with an incongruous paternalism, as if she were a fictional character, for when a character captures our imagination, we observe her with unease and fear, indeed, in the field of fiction, it’s not unusual for a child to watch out for an adult, from his seat in the dark or from his startled eyes as he turns the pages with bated breath. In the land of fiction, there are no adults and children, there are no ages. We worry about those who are stronger, wiser, cleverer, older and more experienced than us, and the child, who, in his elemental state, can still not see this clearly, aches or struggles to warn someone that he’s being tricked or is in grave danger, even though that someone cannot hear; he can see what’s happening, because he is the chosen witness (absorbed in contemplation or in reading, the child really believes he is the sole witness). And Beatriz did seem disoriented and helpless, although not in any obvious or self-pitying way, as I said, I liked her and felt sorry for her – ‘poor unhappy woman, sad and affectionate; poor soul, poor wretch’ – not that she intentionally sought my pity. Had I thought this was her way of getting through life, a tactic intended to attract kindness and gain advantages, I would never have worried about her in that passive, distant, silent manner – although ‘worried’ is not perhaps the right verb – it would, instead, have provoked a certain irritation and suspicion in me. I don’t like victims who are too keenly aware of their victimhood.

  It was only days after Muriel’s return from that absence that he finally gave me my orders. One morning, when there was no one else in the apartment, we went into the living room next to the office and he closed the door, something he didn’t normally do. Then he lay down full length on the floor, as he had on other occasions, with his forearm cushioning his head: I came to think this was his way of avoiding looking directly at me, of keeping his lost eye trained on the ceiling, or on the highest shelf in the library, or on the painting by Casanova’s brother, a way of saying things without really saying them, of seeming to be talking to himself or of allowing me to pluck his words – his indications, digressions, confidences, his mildly spoken orders – out of the air and not directly from his one eye or from his lips. It seemed to me that he was directing his gaze at the oil painting, which depicted an exotic horseman with a drooping moustache and an unusual plumed cap or hat, who was half-turning, so that his right eye, and only that eye, was fixed for ever on Catherine the Great of Russia or on some other viewer, the left almost hidden or perhaps sightless – from what one could see, it appeared to be defective, half-closed or perhaps simply clumsily painted – he could have been one-eyed like Muriel, having lost his eye in battle, for, unlike Muriel, he was a soldier. I sometimes suspected that Muriel wore his patch so as to resemble John Ford, Raoul Walsh, André de Toth, Nicholas Ray or possibly Fritz Lang, a strange plague among individuals whose work depended in large measure on their sight. But in the background could be seen another six horsemen, all riding away on their horses, all with their backs to us and wearing less unusual hats with broad brims – they looked vaguely Velázquezian – whereas the red figure in the foreground had paused, looking over his shoulder, as if wishing to retain, before he rode off, the image of the deaths he had caused, as if he were the only one listening to the dumb plea of the dead, who, in all wars, seem to send out a murmur from their bodies that lie as still as figures in a painting: ‘Remember us. Or at least, remember me.’

  Muriel took out his compass-pillbox and studied the north-pointing needle.

  ‘Do you remember what I told you about Dr Van Vechten?’ he asked.

  I think I blushed – although only very briefly, just for a moment, he wouldn’t have noticed – when I heard him mention that name which, only months before, I hadn’t even understood. Now it was different. I not only knew Van Vechten and had spoken to him at meetings and suppers and over card games, with other people present, I had also found out something about his personal life which, to put it more delicately this time, deeply affected Beatriz. Ever since that partially seen episode in the Darmstadt Sanctuary, I had been dreading Muriel mentioning the Doctor again. I didn’t know whether I should tell him about what I had witnessed while up a tree or if I should keep silent; it depended on what he asked or requested, I would decide then, I told myself, all the while hoping not to have to decide anything.

  ‘Yes, I do. Well, you didn’t really tell me anything, you were, you remember, reluctant. You announced it rather than telling me. You explained your doubts. And you also warned me that you might ask me to forget the conversation entirely, or forget what you had skirted round or announced. And that, more or less, is what I’ve done up until now.’ I reminded him of this possibility in the hope that he would choose that option, although he clearly wasn’t going to. Ever since that afternoon, I found everything to do with Van Vechten troubling, and thought that when I next saw him, I would try to avoid him. ‘But yes, of course, I remember. One can’t simply forget at will.’

  ‘Well, Juan, I told you that I might want you to do something for me,’ he went on, still staring up at the ceiling or at the painting. ‘And what I want you to do is to make friends with Van Vechten. More than that, I want you to make him one of your drinking companions, to involve him as much as you can in your nocturnal excursions and sorties. You often go out at night, don’t you? To discos, concerts, bars, the celebrated Madrid movida. Invite him to join you. He may be a lot older, but I can assure you, he’ll jump at the chance. He’ll be pleased to have a guide. Introduce him to your girlfriends or to your female acquaintances, to women young and old, I don’t care what age they are, and observe how he behaves with them, with women in general. Gain his confidence. Talk to him about your sex life. Tell him all about your promiscuity, your conquests (you’ve had a few, haven’t you?), and any other adventures in that field, and if they’re nothing to write home about, then invent some. Show off. Boast. Make him green with envy. Things were far more difficult when he was young, there were far fewer opportunities. When he sees how easy things are now, he’ll wish he’d been born two decades later. Don’t worry about seeming vulgar or even disrespectful when talking about women, be as vulgar and disrespectful as you like, exaggerate. Draw him out and, above all, observe him. I want you to encourage him to confide in you, about what he gets up to now and about his past exploits, his glory days. He always was a womanizer and, as you’ve probably noticed, still is. And he’s had quite a few successes too. But in his day, women played hard to get, here more than in most countries. Most were so armour-plated and bulletproof you had to resort to promises and tricks. See if you can get him talking about the past, because that’s what interests me most. There’s nothing like boasting about your own exploits to get others to tell you theirs, however ancient; it never fails. Make a note of any chat-up lines, watch him in action, see if he tries to get off with anyone, and he’ll try often, believe you me. Things will be more difficult for him now, but see how far he gets. Reveal yourself as vile and unscrupulous and watch his response, whether he approves or is of a like mind, whether he urges you on or censures you. Let me know what he tells you and what impression he makes on you. Let me know what you find out.’

  ‘But find out what, Eduardo? I don’t understand. It’s as plain as day that he’s the sort who’ll try it on with anyone, with the slightest encouragement and even without. He’s always looking to see how the land lies, with any woman worth pursuing that is, because he never gives the ugly or the asexual a second glance, which is not to say that he isn’t open to offers.
Anyone can tell he’s a man with his eye on the main chance, and if there were no witnesses about, he’d be quite likely to overstep the mark. Compared to him, Professor Rico – to mention another friend of yours with very keen antennae – is a respectful, delicate herbivore. A contemplative. But you must know this better than I, given that you’ve known the Doctor most of your life. What is it that you want me to discover or coax from him? It’s hard to draw someone out if you don’t know what he’s got to tell you. Could you give me a bit more guidance, tell me more precisely what it is you’re looking for?’

  Muriel drummed his nails on his bulky Bakelite or whatever eyepatch, cric cric cric, a pleasant sound, which I longed to imitate with my own fingers. Then he suddenly turned his one intense, dark blue eye on me with all the intimidating penetration of which he was sometimes capable, as if he were compensating for the immutable opacity of the other eye. He hadn’t looked at me until then. He seemed to ponder his answer for a few seconds, tempted to grant my wish. In the end, he let out a long sigh, perhaps frustrated that he must deny me any further information or help, or perhaps irritated by my faulty memory.

  ‘No, I mustn’t. As I said before, if I start voicing my suspicions, if I start revealing the story I’ve been told and which might or might not be true, I could be doing him an irreparable injustice. The Doctor is a great friend of mine, remember, whom I wouldn’t wish to harm without good reason. Or at least without a hint of certainty, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms; without more proof. As I explained, he would never tell me about something so very shameful; he’s told me other things, that is, I know a few things that he definitely wouldn’t want to be proclaimed to the four winds, but not this. Because he’d be ashamed if I knew. He knows me well and knows that I’m the very opposite of a puritan and not at all strait-laced, but that there are certain indecencies I cannot tolerate.’ (I remembered he had used the corresponding adjective when he had spoken more explicitly before: ‘According to what I’ve been told,’ he had said, ‘the Doctor behaved in an indecent manner towards a woman or possibly more than one.’ And he had, to my astonishment, concluded: ‘That, to me, is unforgivable, the lowest of the low. Do you understand? That’s as low as one can go.’) ‘With you it would be different, if you gave him the chance. He could tell you, because he hardly knows you.’ He fell silent. He looked at me still more intensely and with something bordering on curiosity, as if he were suddenly seeing me for the first time, or had just realized the truth of what he went on to say: ‘Even I don’t really know you.’ Then he averted his eye and fixed it once more on the ceiling or on the painting, and, still lying flat on the floor, started stroking his chin with that silver pillbox. What he said next was spoken in an indolent tone, as though it were almost too obvious to be put into words. ‘But then neither do you. You’re not quite fully formed.’

  To him this was an obvious thing to say, but to me it was a surprise and even rather troubling. Probably no one ever is quite fully formed, still less the young, and that’s how we adults tend to see them, incomplete, indecisive, confused, like an unfinished painting or a half-written or half-read novel – there’s not a great deal of difference – in which anything could happen, well, not perhaps anything – but too many things – one or more characters could die or none at all; and one of them might kill someone and then he would be both formed and finished, or so it would seem in the eyes of a stern author or reader; what we are told in a book could be totally gripping or not at all, in which case the passage from page to page becomes a torment and the finger turning the page grows weary and stops, it doesn’t wait until the final page, after which there is nothing, even if, on the contrary, the finger wants to remain indefinitely in that world and with those invented people. It’s the same with people’s lives; some, however filled with troubles and vicissitudes, arouse in us so little curiosity that we can barely stand to hear about them, yet other lives, for some reason, prove hypnotic, even though there appears to be nothing very special about them, or the best part remains hidden and is mere supposition.

  But each individual believes he is fully formed in each and every phase of his existence, that he has a specific character subject only to minor variations, and considers himself to be prone to certain actions and immune to others, when the truth is that, as children or youths, most of us have not been tested, we have not yet found ourselves at a crossroads or faced with a dilemma. Maybe we never are fully formed, but begin unwittingly to configure and forge ourselves from the moment we first hove into view as a tiny dot on the ocean, one that gradually grows in size until we form a definite shape to be either avoided or approached, and as the years pass and events enfold us, we accept or reject the options offered to us or allow others to do so on our behalf (or is it just the air itself?). It doesn’t matter who makes the decision, everything is horribly irreversible and, in that sense, everything evens out: the deliberate and the involuntary, the accidental and the planned, the impulsive and the premeditated, and, ultimately, who cares about the whys, still less about the wherefores?

  When I look at my own daughters, they don’t seem very formed to me, but, given their young age, that’s only natural; on the other hand, they doubtless consider themselves to be fully formed, as almost fixed entities, just as I did when I was twenty-three and before that too, I suppose; we pay so little attention to the changes that take place in us that we forget how they happened and forget them entirely once we’ve been through them. I had finished my degree with good marks and without any mishaps; and even though it was entirely thanks to my parents and their long friendship with Muriel that I had instantly found employment with a remarkable person, whom I admired almost unreservedly and whose approval and trust contributed to my seeing myself in a highly favourable light, I couldn’t help but feel proud as well, convinced that my boss must have seen something in me, that he had, at the very least, taken a liking to me, given that he had employed me and kept me on; I sometimes even had the flattering sense that he occasionally forgot about my family connections and about how he had come to give me the job, that I was the son of those old friends from his youth, the De Veres, of whom he remained very fond, even though they were now more often in touch by letter or only very infrequently, since my parents were usually living in some far-flung place and I was seldom with them. After all, I was very well read, had seen a lot of paintings and even more films; I had a considerable store of knowledge and was doubtless a pedantic young man, although I kept my pedantry to myself when it was inappropriate, for example, when I went out at night with my friends or with girls; I was fluent in one foreign language and spoke another reasonably well, and I knew that in my own language I had access to a wide vocabulary, far wider than that of most of my contemporaries, which meant I could comfortably take part in the conversations held by Muriel and his circle, who were older and wiser than me (at least in theory), although on those occasions I tended to listen and not intervene too much, and their talk often descended from the heights and meandered about in some very low territory, accompanied by loud guffaws; I had spent time abroad, whenever my parents included me in their prolonged and varied diplomatic postings, although they usually preferred me to stay in Madrid and to continue my education at the same school, wanting me to put down some deeper roots, at least that was the excuse they used for leaving me here in term-time, and even when there were no more terms, in the care of my aunt and uncle, Julia and Luis; they were happy for me to grow up alongside my cousins Luis and Julia, who have been like half-siblings to me, since I have no siblings of my own. No one has ever kept a very close watch on me, and for the most part – except when my parents were visiting or during the vacations, although they didn’t always come even then, often taking the opportunity to travel on their own – I was left alone in the family home under the negligent eye of various nursemaids or housekeepers or whatever you might call them, who never stayed long enough to become attached to me or to wield any real authority over me. From adolescence on, I w
as accustomed to never really having to answer to anyone very much, to returning home at odd hours and choosing where I slept, in my parents’ apartment or at my aunt and uncle’s place or, on some nights, at neither: this was in my early youth, from the time, let’s say, when I became an undergraduate at seventeen.

  When I was twenty-three, I was still living like that, or possibly even more autonomously: alone in my parents’ apartment, with a backdrop of ever-changing daily helps, who would leave me food in the fridge and do the cleaning, who saw very little of me and of whom I saw even less. My parents were not so much wealthy – although they had no financial worries, they lived pretty much from day to day – as superficial and casual. Despite my father’s vague aspirations to originality or greatness, his diplomatic career had not been particularly dazzling, his main achievement being his appointment to the consulate in Frankfurt, which happened rather late; however, he retained the kind of deep-seated youthful optimism typical of the frivolously minded, an optimism he shared with my mother. I often had the feeling that I was slightly superfluous to their lives, or not superfluous exactly, more as if I were an old acquaintance over whom they watched from a distance, with no great enthusiasm or concern, but with undeniable affection; they behaved like a childless couple or as if they were my aunt and uncle or my godparents; I never had any cause for complaint, for they were charming if inconstant companions, or is it simply that we accept as normal whatever world or situation we’re born into? At any rate, I couldn’t rely on receiving much in the way of an inheritance (although they did own their apartment), and so, despite the privileges I’d enjoyed in childhood and adolescence, I was aware from early on that I would have to earn my own living like everyone else; that was why I was so delighted to have a job and an income, however temporary, and even though I had no idea what I would do when Muriel eventually dispensed with my services, as was bound to happen at some point. At the time, I felt no need to gain my independence, since I’d been living entirely independently for a long time, perhaps from too young an age, which is possibly why I began spending more and more hours at Muriel’s apartment, where there was, at least, a family, people companionably coming and going, entering and leaving, and some nights I even slept in that isolated bedroom, beyond the kitchen, which was, up to a point, mine, for habitual use makes us tacit owners as long as that habit or use is not taken away from us or expressly forbidden; so many people arrive at some temporary stopping-place from which there’s no uprooting them and where they end up spending half their lives. You should never allow anyone to stay, not even for a day, unless you’re prepared for them to stay for ever.