Thus Bad Begins

by Javier Marías

  Beatriz returned home, and Muriel set off to Barcelona with Towers, who was still alarmed, suspicious and fearful for his project – with Lom and the other actors, troubled by what had happened to their director, but more than anything bewildered, wondering if he would be in a fit state to continue filming when his suicidal wife was some six hundred kilometres away, for they knew nothing about his normal treatment of her, about the constant rebuffs and occasional insults. ‘Lard, pure lard, that’s all you are to me,’ ‘I don’t think I can stand her any longer, I’ve got to close the door on her, I must,’ and the door had been kept firmly shut for a long time, after he had made the mistake of loving her all those years, with all his heart, as long, that is, as he had known nothing, and despite her not being the love of his life, ‘as people say’; or, according to her, having done the right thing: ‘You’ve probably never done anything better.’ To which he had responded oddly, gently, regretfully: ‘I’ll grant you that.’ He had, of course, added: ‘All the more reason for me to feel I’ve thrown away my life. A part of my life. That’s why I can’t forgive you.’ But perhaps that old love during all those years partially explained Muriel’s terrified reaction when he thought Beatriz might have been successful in her third attempt, carried out, deliberately one assumes, so close to home in the Hotel Wellington and on a night when they had invited guests to supper. It’s also frightening to lose the witness to the good things one has done, even if you’ve long since ceased to do good and have instead done things, which, to that same witness, have seemed evil and harmful.

  Or perhaps they had been brought much closer when their firstborn died, because such events have one of two results: either one partner irrationally blames the other for not sensing the danger and failing to protect and save the child, with husband and wife becoming increasingly isolated, cut off, to the point where they can hardly bear to speak to or look at one another, or else they stand by each other and serve as both mirror and support: seeing their partner’s grief, the wife, say, takes pity on her husband and often takes his hand or suddenly caresses or embraces him when they pass in the gloomy corridor along which small, quick steps no longer run, children only being capable of moving from one place to another hurriedly, precipitately, because the child they were left with, Susana, could not yet walk. If she was fifteen or more now, that was how long it had been since the disappearance of the brother with whom she had coincided only briefly in the world and whom she never knew.

  I had always felt sympathetic towards Beatriz Noguera, had always liked her; when I found out about the death of her child, I inevitably felt even more sympathy as well as something approaching respect; it’s impossible not to feel both things for someone who has suffered the loss of a child, who, however small, was already walking and babbling and asking a few elementary questions because he understood so little of the world around him. We also view with more interest someone who we know has had to overcome terrible grief and who never talks about it, mentions it or uses it to gain our pity. And so when Beatriz came home, looking thinner, but otherwise very well, with barely any visible signs that she had attempted to end her own life, she found me even more disposed to help and watch over her, to distract her and keep her company, as Muriel had instructed. He had, in effect, given me a reason to get closer to her, to talk to her, which I had always held back from doing before, out of a mixture of distance and shyness, fearing she might notice my theoretical feelings of embarrassment, of vague sexual admiration, something like the illusory desire aroused by a painting that I described earlier, but nothing more than that.

  Rather than being released from hospital, it was as though she had returned from a sleep cure, her skin smooth and firm, her eyes bright, albeit quiet and slightly dreamy, even walking more lightly, more delicately, less determinedly, and nearly always wearing her high heels as if wanting to appear as attractive as possible for as long as possible or as if she were about to set off to one of her rendezvous, except that, during that time, she didn’t go out at all, apart from with Rico, who claimed he had stayed in Madrid in order to help, but was probably there in order to carry out some worldly manoeuvrings of vital importance to him alone, and who would turn up at the apartment to persuade her to go shopping or to a lecture or to a late-afternoon screening, even making impertinent jokes about her recent desperate action and about which she may have preferred not to talk.

  ‘When are you going to show me those cuts of yours, Beatriz? Don’t let them heal up without giving me a look at them while they’re still red raw,’ he would say tactlessly, being of the school that believes there is no better therapy than shock therapy, no better cure than making a mockery or a parody of any deep mental wound; and he would point at the bandages she had on her wrists, the only obvious sign of her recent hotel mishap or adventure. ‘I want to know how you did it, whether vertically or horizontally, methodically or just any old how, in the form of an X or a cross, with minimal artistic intent or like a barber suffering from Parkinson’s; in your place, I think I might have idled away the time playing noughts and crosses with the razor. Urfe, tirsto, érbadasz.’ He had days when he was more than usually given to uttering his unintelligible semi-onomatopoeia and would sometimes come out with three on the trot. Fortunately, he wasn’t living in the Middle Ages that he so worshipped or in his beloved Renaissance, because people then would have taken these for some diabolical language or oaths addressed to Beelzebub, and the Professor would have ended up being burned; I couldn’t resist imagining him tied to the stake, with his glasses on and (naturally) a cigarette between his lips, proudly declaiming exquisite speeches before being devoured by the flames.

  Beatriz didn’t seem to mind, she may even have been grateful for his frank, frivolous humour. She laughed enough to make one think that the Professor was perhaps right to treat the whole episode with such healthy disrespect, and she promised him she would show him her wounds one day, before they had completely blended in with her natural skin colour.

  ‘But that will take a long time, Professor. Besides, I’ll always have the scars, so your curiosity is sure to be satisfied sooner or later.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Beatriz. These days, plastic surgery can erase anything. I know what you women are like. If you don’t resort to surgery, then you’ll cover your wrists with bracelets as big as hitching rings and there’ll be nothing to see. Don’t underestimate your future embarrassment, because it will come.’

  ‘I’m not lying to you, Professor. The next time they change my bandages, I’ll give you a call. Just don’t expect any artistry,’ said Beatriz, more seriously this time, as if she had just succumbed to an early attack of that predicted embarrassment or were reliving the moment when one liquid invaded another, the first drops of blood clouding the water, the signal for her to begin dying, to pine palely away. In fact, her voice faltered slightly when she spoke her next words. Rico was busy meticulously refilling his cigarette case, but even he noticed, looked up and listened with understanding and sorrow, a sorrow I shared. I felt a youthful desire to get up and embrace Beatriz and whisper softly: ‘There, there, it’s all right.’ I did not, however, give in to that inappropriate impulse. ‘It’s hard enough to get up the courage to cut yourself, and I preferred not to look. The foam from the bubble bath helped though.’

  Something similar to an embrace happened shortly afterwards.

  Dr Van Vechten used to drop by later in the morning to see how the wounds were healing and to change the bandages. He didn’t linger, it was more of a professional visit than a social one, and in my presence there was never any indication that what I knew to have happened between them ever did actually happen and perhaps it no longer did (in other people’s relationships, you never know when something begins or ends), they were both well practised at pretending; or perhaps, if they shared no strong feelings, no grand passions, they didn’t need to pretend. One day, I accompanied him to the front door (‘You stay where you are, Beatriz, I’ll see the Doctor out’), and on the l
anding, with the front door closed so that we couldn’t be heard, I seized the opportunity and asked:

  ‘Why doesn’t she go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist?’ And I gestured with my head towards the apartment. ‘I thought that was obligatory after any suicide attempt. Or at least advisable.’

  He arched his eyebrows and took a deep breath in, his nostrils dilated. Then, breathing out again like someone summoning up all his patience, he said:

  ‘She has in the past. This time, we managed to keep her name out of the records at the clinic, so the psychiatric staff haven’t intervened, and it’s better like that. I don’t think she wants to go through all that again, having to repeat herself and listen to long silences and the occasional platitude. I’m afraid it would be of no benefit, no help to her. In her case, there’s really very little to know or find out. She’s not a happy woman, as I’m sure you’re aware by now, given how many hours you spend here. Sometimes she copes and sometimes she doesn’t. Let’s just hope many more years pass before she stops coping again.’ This must have struck him as too simplistic, because he immediately added: ‘Or, if you prefer, most of the time she lacks the necessary determination and only very occasionally doesn’t. We can only hope those few occasions take a long time to recur.’ He had basically said the same thing twice, but perhaps thought this second explanation more complex.

  I presumed he didn’t know about Beatriz’s nocturnal incursions. The fact that she made these meant that she occasionally still had hopes, however vain, of changing Muriel’s mind, and so it wasn’t just that she lacked the determination to put an end to her life.

  ‘Eduardo hinted that there had been other attempts.’ Out of a kind of discretion, I didn’t want to admit that he had told me this openly and graphically.

  ‘Yes, and unless she accepts her situation or grows tired of trying or unless fear gets the better of her, then the normal thing would be for her to try again, sooner or later, and on one of those occasions, we won’t arrive in time.’

  ‘But knowing that, what can we do?’

  ‘Not much. Nothing really. If someone wants to kill herself, there’s no way you can stop her. It’s the same when someone decides to murder another person and isn’t concerned about eluding punishment or saving his own skin. If he really wants to do it, then he will, an opportunity will always present itself, even with the most protected and most alert of victims. How else explain the assassination of prominent figures? There’s no escape: if someone gets it into his head to kill you, he’ll do it regardless of what precautions you take. Doubt and a lack of resolve are the only reasons a murderer or a suicide, however inept or clumsy, will fail. With Beatriz, we were lucky, that’s all. Until the next time. If she keeps trying, then one day she’ll succeed.’

  ‘Do you think she lost her resolve on this last occasion?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. The cuts weren’t very deep, but that doesn’t mean much. It isn’t easy to cut your own flesh with a razor, the hand instinctively withdraws, stiffens, shrinks back. It’s nothing to do with willpower. The head may want to kill itself, but the hand resists inflicting harm. The truth is that if you hadn’t seen her going into the hotel, it would have taken a while, but even with those few cuts, she would have ended up bleeding to death. It was just luck. I’m sure she didn’t count on you seeing her go into the hotel and reporting back.’

  ‘But I saw her hours before supper. She would have had plenty of time to die if she’d been more diligent.’ I came out with that cold adjective, infected by Van Vechten’s use of language. I added: ‘If you know what I mean.’

  The Doctor pulled a bored face, as if he were weary of telling me what to him was obvious, with his far greater experience of such matters.

  ‘These things take time when they’re premeditated, when they’re not a response to an impulse or a moment of blind emotion; and it’s perfectly normal that the person should keep putting it off, you know, just a little longer. Or perhaps she was afraid that if she got into the water too soon, she might get stomach cramps or something. It may seem ridiculous, but that’s how it is. Someone prepared to kill herself may, on the other hand, worry about suffering stomach cramps. I’ve known individuals decide not to jump from a window when they noticed how cold it was outside or how hard it was raining. They were more bothered about getting cold or wet as they fell than about hitting the ground. Who knows what might turn someone off at that point, what they might tell themselves or what might go through their mind.’ He did not include himself, even hypothetically, as most of us would; he could never imagine himself in such a situation. ‘Anyway, I have things to do.’

  Yes, I had bored him with my questions. He didn’t seem deeply affected by Beatriz’s suicide attempt. It was more as if he’d decided that it was none of his business and that, if she tried again, we had no option but to let her, to wait and see. He had raced down Calle Velázquez and, at the hotel, had worked furiously, done everything he could; he had probably saved her life, which was why Muriel was so grateful to him. He was a responsible doctor, who would do his duty whenever anyone was in danger or sick. However, it was not up to him to take precautions or to stop someone doing what they wanted to do. Or else he simply knew it was pointless, or so he said. And yet I found his resignation, no, his bland acceptance, chilling. It seemed to me that no one was utterly devoted to Beatriz, that she wasn’t vital to anyone’s existence and was doubtless one of the many people about whom no one thinks passionately: ‘She doesn’t deserve to die. Ever.’

  As I said, Rico would come by in the afternoons – on those first afternoons when we were all treading very carefully – and would take her out or chat to her, cheer her up and make her laugh with his calculatedly condescending or fatuous remarks, and Roy came too to keep her company or simply to be there, more timidly and less enjoyably perhaps, but nonetheless eager to help. Flavia kept silent watch from her domain, and Beatriz’s daughters, who tried to be around more than usual and not shut themselves away in their rooms as much, seemed slightly saddened or anxious about their mother – especially the older girl – although not exaggeratedly so, more as if they already knew about those occasional suicide attempts or about the appalling risks she took, and had assimilated them, insofar as such things can be assimilated. The boy knew nothing, he was still too young. Beatriz was left alone as little as possible, and Muriel phoned from Barcelona every day, once or twice, depending on how busy he was, as if he were a caring husband. (If he had really cared, he would have cancelled everything and not gone away at all; but given his usual rough treatment of her, it was enough that he should take an apparently sincere interest from a distance. It was as though, this time, he felt that Beatriz had come perilously close to dying. Even though this wasn’t a new experience, it must have frightened him each time it happened. He doubtless preferred her as a muted, almost obscure presence in his life, but he certainly didn’t want her to disappear entirely; indeed, he would probably have found that unbearable.) If I picked up the phone, he would ask: ‘How is she?’ and I would say: ‘She seems quite normal, her usual self.’ Then I would pass the phone to her, and they would talk for a while, not long (it wasn’t easy to find things to say), and I would leave them alone, but I did once hear Beatriz’s side of the conversation: ‘No, don’t worry, I’m fine … Hmm … No, Jorge says the cuts are healing nicely … Yes, there’ll be scarring, but what does that matter now … I’ll worry about that later … No, I don’t feel weak at all. It’s as if I’d never lost a drop of blood … Everyone says how well I look and I don’t think they’re just saying that either, because even I think I look pretty healthy, and I’ve never been one for admiring myself in the mirror, on the contrary … Thank you.’ At that point, I wondered if Muriel had actually paid her a compliment, but rejected the idea as unlikely, I’d heard him make too many cruel insults about her physical appearance, but who knows, perhaps he had offered her a kind or encouraging compliment. ‘Yes, they’re being very good and attentive, they think I d
on’t notice, but they’re so transparent … It amuses me to see them trying to pretend that they’re not … No, really, you get on with things there, work comes first … Has Towers calmed down now? … Anyway, I’m sorry to have caused you so much upset, you don’t think at the time, you only think later, and I’m thinking more clearly now … Right, and the trouble is, he’s lost confidence in you … Jesús? No, certainly not; he’s too busy, no, you have to finish the film …’ I guessed that Muriel was having trouble focusing on the job in hand and had got badly behind, that Towers was getting impatient and even considering the possibility of replacing him with that whirlwind of activity, Jess Frank. ‘Tell him it will be all right, convince him … Me? You mean he’s worried about me? No, tell him from me there’s no need to worry, that I have no intention of interrupting your filming ever again … Of course I won’t, I haven’t the slightest intention … Eduardo, what happens happens when it happens, but that doesn’t mean it will go on happening. Like I say, what happened happened …’ After they had exchanged a few more words, this time of farewell, I heard her replace the receiver and I then went back into the living room. Oddly, once she had hung up, she stood there for a while, her hand still on the phone, gazing at it with a kind of dreamy fixity, as if, in that visual, tactile way, she wanted to prolong her contact with Muriel or to hold on for a moment to some of the words she had heard, perhaps that possible compliment. Or as if she had lied about something and was waiting to be found out and for him to call back and voice his suspicions, before she could lay down the instrument of her deception. Like someone waiting for the gun she has just used to stop smoking and grow cold in her hand.