To experience a sense of relief after having watched as some cowed, unwitting, half-drunk person was roundly beaten and having myself lacked both the courage or the ability to stop it, after having believed that my colleague was about to slice someone's head off, was going to strangle him with a hairnet and drown him in the toilet bowl, was not at all reasonable nor, of course, noble. And yet that was how it was, Tupra had stopped, and I was pleased, he had removed a much greater weight than he had placed on me, and that was no small thing. De la Garza was no longer in danger, that was my main, grotesque thought, because danger had already taken a brutal toll on him. It had not, it's true, killed him, but it seemed ridiculous to be satisfied with that, with seeing him still alive, and even feeling glad, when the last thing I had imagined as I led him to the Disabled toilet was that he would leave it so badly injured, doubtless with, at the very least, several broken bones. If, that is, he did leave it, because while Reresby was readjusting his dress and trying to tame his dark hair, thicker and curlier than one normally finds in Britain (with the exception of Wales), and which was probably dyed, particularly at the temples where the curls were almost ringlets (he combed it through a few times and tidied it, although it didn't look much different afterwards), he again ordered me to translate the following: 'Translate this for him, Jack,' he said once more, 'I don't want there to be any misunderstandings, because he, not us, will suffer the consequences, make it quite clear, tell him, tell him what I've just told you.' And I did, I told De la Garza in my own language about those possible misunderstandings; his eyes were half closed and puffy, but he was doubtless able to hear me. 'Tell him that you and I are going to leave here quietly and that he is going to lie there, where he is, without moving, for another half an hour, no, make that forty minutes, that gives me a bit more leeway, I've still got some things to deal with out there. Tell him not even to think of leaving or of getting up. Tell him not to shout or call for help. Tell him he's to stay here during that time, the cold floor will do him good and it won't do him any harm to spend a bit of time lying still, until he gets his breath back. Tell him that.' And I did, including the part about the restoring coolness of the floor. 'There's his overcoat,' Reresby went on, pointing to the second coat he had brought with him, the dark one, which he had left hanging on one of the lower bars, and then I realised how carefully my transitory boss had planned it all: it wasn't my coat, but Rafita's, which he had gone to the trouble of fetching from the cloakroom before coming to the toilet, he presumably had some influence in that chic, idiotic place or else a talent for deception, they would have fetched it and handed it to him without asking any questions and even with a bow. 'With that on, no one will notice the state he or his clothes are in, he won't attract attention. If he finds walking difficult, people will just assume he's sloshed. He can always pretend, unless, of course, he really is still a bit pissed. When he leaves, he's to go straight out into the street without stopping in the club for any reason, he's to go straight home. And he must never come back here, ever. Go on, translate that for him.' - And I did so again, translating Tupra's English word 'sloshed' as 'mamado'. - Tell him not even to think of going to the police or kicking up a stink at his embassy, or making a complaint through them, of any kind: he knows what could happen to him. Tell him not to phone you to demand an explanation, but to leave you alone, to forget he ever knew you. Tell him to accept that there's no reason to demand an explanation, that there are no grounds for complaints or protest. Tell him not to talk to anyone, to keep quiet, not even to recount it later as some kind of adventure. But tell him always to remember.' - As I gave these instructions to De la Garza, I thought again: 'Keep quiet and don't say a word, not even to save yourself. Keep quiet, and save yourself.' - But Tupra added a few more, in quick succession, as if he were reciting a list or as if they were the known consequences of a plan successfully carried out, the known effects of a treatment. - 'Tell him he's probably got a couple of broken ribs, three or possibly four. They'll be very painful, but they'll heal, they'll mend eventually. And if he finds something worse wrong, then he should just think himself very lucky. He could have been left with no head, he came very close. But since he didn't lose it, tell him there's still time, another day, any day, we know where to find him. Tell him never to forget that, tell him the sword will always be there. If he has to go to hospital, then he should give them the same line drunks and debtors do - that the garage door fell on him. Tell him to wet his hair before he leaves, to clean himself up a bit, although I shouldn't think anybody would find that particular shade of blue out of place here. Actually, he looks less odd and less ridiculous than he did wearing that string bag he had on. Go on, tell him all that, then we can leave. Make sure he's understood everything. Oh, and here's your comb, thank you.'
He handed it back to me. Unlike Wheeler, he hadn't taken the precaution of holding it up to the light to see if it was clean when I gave it to him. I, however, did do so when it was returned to my hand, but there were no hairs caught on it. I translated that last list of orders to the attaché, but I left out the bit about the sword; that is, I mentioned his head and its possible, perhaps only postponed, loss, but not the sword. You cannot ask someone to translate everything, even insane, obscene or nasty remarks, even curses and calumnies, without their questioning or judging or rejecting some of it. Even if you are not the person doing the speaking or the saying, even though you are the mere transmitter or reproducer of someone else's words and sentences, the truth is that these do in large part become yours when you make them comprehensible and repeat them to another person, to a far greater degree than might at first seem likely. You hear them, understand them and sometimes have opinions about them; you find an immediate equivalent for them, give them a new form and let them go. It's as if you endorsed them. I had approved of nothing that had happened in that toilet, nor of anything that Tupra had done. Nor of my own passivity, or bewilderment, or was it cowardice or perhaps prudence, perhaps I had prevented worse calamities. I was even more displeased with Reresby's improper use of the plural, 'we know where to find him', it troubled and upset me that he should include me in that, without my consent and when he knew me so little. What he could not ask me to do was to play an active role and to threaten De la Garza with the weapon that arouses most fear, an atavistic fear, the weapon that has caused most deaths throughout most centuries, at close quarters and face to face with the person killed. And the one that I had feared so much while it was unsheathed and ready for use.
I finished, and added in Spanish on my own account: 'De la Garza, you'd better do everything he says, is that clear? I mean it. I honestly didn't think you were going to get out of here alive. I don't know him that well myself. I hope you recover. Good luck.'
De la Garza nodded, just a slight lift of the chin, his eyes dull, his gaze averted, he did not even want to look at us. He was not only in pain, he was, I think, still terrified, and the terror would not pass until we were out of his sight, and even then a remnant would always remain. He would be sure to obey, he would not dare to make enquiries or seek me out or phone me. He might not even phone Wheeler, his theoretical mentor in England, to have a moan about it. Nor his father in Spain, Peter's old friend. His name was Pablo, and he was, I recalled, a much better man than his son.
Tupra picked up his own pale coat, so stiff and respectable, and put it over his shoulders, there was no difference now between the man who was leaving the toilet and the man who had entered it. He picked up the sodden gloves and put them in one of his overcoat pockets, having first wrung them out and wrapped them each in several pieces of toilet paper. He removed the wedge from beneath the door and held the door open for me.
'Let's go, Jack,' he said.
He did not so much as glance at the fallen man. De la Garza was just that, one of the fallen, no longer of any concern to him, he had done his job. That was my impression, that he viewed him probably without hostility or pity. That must be how he saw everything: you did what you had to d
o, you took care of things, sorted them out, defused them, set fire to them or restored them to balance ('Don't linger or delay'); then they were forgotten, relegated to the past, and there was always something else waiting, as he had said, he still had some things to deal with out there and needed thirty or forty minutes; with all these interruptions, he wouldn't have had time to close the deals or agree the bribes or the blackmailing scams or the pacts with Mr Manoia. Or he would not have convinced or persuaded him, or he would not have had sufficient opportunity to allow Manoia to persuade or convince him about whatever it was. Nor did he give a farewell kick or flourish as he passed by De la Garza's fallen form. Tupra was certainly Sir Punishment, but he was not perhaps Sir Cruelty. Or maybe he simply never ever hit anyone directly with any part of his body. As he left, only the tail of his overcoat, which swirled like a matador's cape, brushed the face of the fallen man.
Before going through the second door, the one that gave onto the disco itself, another line from 'The Streets of Laredo' came into my mind, with its insistent, repetitive melody. I found the line unfortunate, because I couldn't be sure that I did not, at that moment, endorse it slightly, as one does when one translates or repeats an oath, or that Tupra could not adopt the line as his own that night, after what had, in his eyes, been my entirely unsatisfactory behaviour from start to finish: 'We all loved our comrade although he'd done wrong,' it said, 'Todos queríamos a nuestro camarada aunque hubiera hecho mal.' Although, of course, it could also be translated as 'aunque hubiera hecho daño - 'although he'd caused harm' - and perhaps that version was the more accurate one.
Reresby knew his timings, we spent thirty-five minutes at the table before the four of us left the disco, Mr and Mrs Manoia, him and me. We had left the couple alone for far less time than that, the business in the Disabled toilet, that is, Tupra's violent intervention, had lasted barely ten minutes, and before that he had first solicitously accompanied Flavia to the Ladies' toilet and then back to the table: he had neglected neither her nor, indeed, him, so there could be no great complaints about our absence. Manoia did not, therefore, seem particularly impatient or ill-humoured, or perhaps lo sfregio on his wife's face had so incensed him that this could only be followed by an abatement of the fever, a relative calming down, while we (I included myself in that plural now) were busy punishing the dickhead, possibly in Manoia's name and possibly on his orders.
Tupra, at any rate, did not return his overcoat to the cloakroom, he sat down with it over his shoulders, allowing it to hang straight, like a cloak, as he was obliged to do given the rigidity of the concealed weapon, he seemed used to doing so (the hem must have got dirty, since it was dragging on the floor). I wondered if Manoia had any idea as to what my boss had hidden about his person, he might not have liked it at all. It was not impossible either that the sword had not been there from the start, that Tupra had not always had it with him, that it had been handed to him in the cloakroom when he went to ask for his coat; that, at a signal from him, they had slipped it into the long pocket-cum-sheath, that it was held there for him, so to speak, and given to him whenever he needed it. He was probably a regular customer, a favoured client, and must have been so in all the places we went to, at least that is how he was treated, as a familiar figure, someone to be flattered, respected and even slightly feared, he was known as Reresby in some, Ure in others and Dundas in the rest. But not all of those places would keep a store of weapons to be handed over as and when. Long, sharp weapons.
During those thirty-five minutes he immersed himself in conversation with Manoia, having first made a gesture which I took to mean 'It's done' or 'You can consider yourself avenged' or 'Problem solved, I'm sorry it ever happened'. I heard them mention some of the same names that had cropped up earlier: Pollari, Letta, Saltamerenda, Vails, the Sismi, although I still had no idea what the latter was. Manoia did not so much as glance in my direction, he must have formed a very bad opinion of me and decided to avoid all contact, even visual. It again fell to me to keep Flavia amused, as if nothing had happened; but she seemed dejected, almost depressed, with little desire to talk, she kept glancing vaguely about her, as if she were bored and killing time, she tapped her foot to the music, languidly and discreetly, she had carefully applied more make-up to her cheek, but it still looked raw, there was still a visible mark, her hair had become dishevelled during the dance and, in her case, a comb, her own or someone else's, would not have been enough to restore order to a complex arrangement of what were doubtless various forms of false switches and plaits. She had aged a few years, she might even have wept a few artificial, childish tears, which is something that immediately accentuates the age of someone intent on delaying or concealing it (but only fake tears do this, not real ones). Then, after some moments had passed and while her husband was busily engaged in whispering into Tupra's ear, she asked me in Italian: 'And your friend?' She had suddenly reverted to the formal mode of address, a further indication of her low spirits.
I cast a sideways glance at those penetrating nipples, those brutali capezzoli, fancy arming yourself with such ice picks. They had been indirectly to blame for almost everything, notably my negligence.
'He's left,' I said. 'He got bored. Besides, it was getting late, he's a very early riser.' My second comment was spiteful, because I myself was feeling miserable and found her presence unbearable.
Then I looked round for the group of noisy Spaniards who had come with De la Garza; I couldn't hear them, so it was logical to think that I wouldn't be able to see them either, their table was empty. They had left or scattered, without waiting for him or going in search of him, they would have assumed that he was either in full or partial copulatory mode somewhere; there was, therefore, no need to worry about them, to worry that they might rescue their friend and prevent his complying with Reresby's implacable orders and deadlines.
I had more than enough time - contemplative or dead time - to become retrospectively angry. How could it have happened? I asked myself, and with every second it seemed more like a stupid, disturbing dream, of the sort that will not go away, but which lingers and waits. Why hadn't Tupra contented himself with merely giving De la Garza the slip, with all four of us leaving and making sure that he wasn't following us? Why was it so important to continue the conversation there, in that noisy, pretentious place, rather than somewhere else, where there would be no hold-ups or interruptions? The city was full of such places, there were several in Knightsbridge itself, and Tupra would have been perfectly at home in any of them; I couldn't understand the need for the thrashing either, still less the sword. And why hadn't I grabbed his arm? (When I thought he was about to bring the sword down on living flesh.) The answer to this last question came to me at once, and it was very simple: because he might have cut my head off instead, or sliced through one of my shoulders and punctured a lung. With a single two-handed blow. ('And in short, I was afraid.') And given that answer and what I had seen, I interrogated myself about Tupra as if Tupra were interrogating me in one of our sessions spent interpreting lives in the building with no name, and he might well have asked me questions such as these — almost impossible to answer at first, until you plunged in - the day after any meeting or outing, after any encounter or observation, about anyone with whom we had spoken, or even been with, or whom we had merely observed and heard: 'Do you think that man could kill, or that he's just a braggart, the sort who looks as if he's going to do something, but never dares? Why do you think he stopped short of decapitating him with the sword?'
And I could have replied: 'Perhaps we should start by asking why he took the sword out in the first place. It was melodramatic and unnecessary and, in the end, he didn't even use it, except to cut off the hairnet and frighten his victim half to death, and the witness too, of course. One has to ask oneself whether he brandished that sword purely so that I would see it and feel alarmed and shocked, as indeed I did, or, I don't know, so that I would believe he was capable of actually killing, without giving it a second though
t, in the most brutal manner and for no reason. Or perhaps he stopped short so that I would believe quite the opposite, that he wasn't capable of doing it despite having every opportunity to do so or, how can I put it, despite being already halfway there. Or perhaps he wanted to test me, to see my reaction, to find out whether or not I would back him up or if I would confront him over such a violent act. Well, he knows the answer to that last point. He knows that I wouldn't, not when unarmed. Not that this tells him very much: he would have got a clearer idea if I had been wielding a weapon as well.'
'So what do you actually believe? You haven't given me an answer, Jack, and the reason I ask you a question is because I'm interested in your answer; whether you're right or wrong doesn't really matter, because most of the time we'll never find out one way or another. Do you think this man Reresby could kill or would ever really kill? Don't just consider this one situation, think of the man as a whole.'
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