The Man of Feeling

by Javier Marías

  But suddenly today it is Manur who touches her. He touches her thigh, naked, supple and firm (although her legs are no longer supernatural). She allows herself to be touched, although only in order to discover how, after all this time, she will receive this invitation or marital advance. Manur touches her with his right hand, which is both new and old, insistent and soft, a touch which is as recognizable as it is forgotten, which comes from a past in all other respects so similar to the present that it cannot even be viewed as the past. Manur slips his other hand beneath Natalia Manur’s pajama jacket and strokes her back. Gradually, surreptitiously, like a novice, he makes each caress move gradually closer to the side of Natalia Manur’s left breast, until, once it has reached and gone beyond lateral contact, the hand that pretends to be or actually has become inexperienced goes in search of full frontal contact (the hand emerging from the green sleeve). The whole room suddenly smells of him. Natalia Manur does not move, she does not know if she is excited, not even when it is her nipple that receives and acknowledges that touch (by growing hard). She would perhaps prefer not to know about it, she would like to fall asleep instantly and have Manur, her husband, use her as if she were a doll, according to his fancy, with no preamble, to enter her without her explicit consent, without her participation or her waking passivity, without her refusal or her acquiescence, without her knowledge, without her awareness, without her existence, in such a way that the following day they could behave as if that violation of the norm had never taken place. It is too late now for them to be able to talk about themselves the following day. Just as it is too late for them to feel embarrassed about not talking. Their life is such that it no longer allows for improvisation or change, everything was discussed and stipulated a long time ago. The only thing their life allows for is perpetuation or violent cancellation. But Natalia does not put up any opposition to the Flemish banker’s resuscitated attempt at foreplay, because it is at once familiar and remote—a remnant, a trace—because it does not frighten her and it is so utterly improbable and because, since she has been in Madrid, no one has touched her at all. She waits. She waits. Manur, however, must want a response; he gets bored, he desists: he was always an impatient man. His caresses become lethargic and clumsy, even his hand, grown weary, lies dead on her side, abandoning any frontal approach, contenting itself instead with the degree of lateral contact achieved. Having someone’s hand resting on your side is rather uncomfortable when you’re trying to get to sleep. Natalia Manur slides a bit further over to her side of the bed, the hand moves away, drops limply onto the white sheet like an anaesthetised limb (the hand in the green sleeve). Manur is the owner of Natalia Manur, but today he gives no orders nor issues any demands. He too turns over, as I used to when I saw that sleep had overwhelmed Berta, and I would turn to the wall, bare apart from the Italian calendar (aprile, giugno, settembre), and he falls asleep almost immediately. Natalia does not sleep, but she does not want to move for fear of re-establishing contact with her husband’s body. If she tries to turn out the light on his side of the bed, she will touch Manur, and he might wake up. And if he wakes up now, when he has only just fallen asleep, he will not get to sleep again. Natalia Manur’s left breast aches. Her husband’s smell is now dissipating, as if it were a smell he only gave off while awake, as if it were something exuded by his fierce eyes. His eyes are closed now. The lamp on the bedside table will remain on all night and will startle them awake in the early hours of the morning.

  NATALIA MANUR TOLD ME NOTHING during those few days, while I, on the other hand, less reserved than she was or with fewer resources for maintaining a dialogue day after day without resorting to the tale of my own biography (with less strength of mind to endure the silences), did tell her about myself—under the disinterested or slightly incredulous gaze of Dato, who, perhaps out of discretion or diplomacy, pretended to be thinking his own inscrutable thoughts whenever I talked about myself—the bare facts of my story or past or life until approximately a year before, that is, up to the moment when I had decided to live in Barcelona with Berta, whose existence I still had not even mentioned. I talked to Natalia Manur (and therefore to Dato) about my sad, solitary childhood; about my then unhealthy plumpness, which had brought me so much mockery and heartache (another view of the world); about my wretched and always abject relationship with my godfather, Señor Casaldáliga, who took me in on the death of my mother—his cousin—and of whom I have always suspected that he might be, as well as my godfather and second cousin, my ashamed and unconfessed father. I talked to Natalia Manur about the painful experience of being a poor relation, with no rights and no aspirations, with not even the possibility of complaining, obliged to live in a state of uncertainty that goes far beyond what might be deemed reasonable, never feeling that one had a home of one’s own. I explained to her how, as a child, I was permanently and painfully aware that I could be expelled at any moment from my room—which, purely by extension, I assumed to be also my home—by Señor Casaldáliga, a truly strange and terrifying man: wealthy (I found out afterwards that he was enormously rich), tortured, mean, devious, somber, sarcastic and authoritarian, a judge by profession and the owner of a bank (but this, like so many other things, I only found out when I was older and through third parties: I knew nothing about his activities when we lived under the same roof). I sensed that my being there—as with my schooling, my food and my clothes—depended entirely on his fancy, not on his affection or sense of responsibility or on his clemency, and nevertheless I felt obliged, not so much to gain his respect and to try to please him, as not to gain his disrespect and not be too much of a disappointment. (I haven’t seen him for a long time now: four years ago he was still living in Madrid, but it never occurred to me—not once—to go and visit him, although I did send him tickets to the opening night of Verdi’s Otello at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, to which he did not, as far as I know, come, at least he didn’t drop by my dressing room to congratulate me. He’s still alive now, having retired to the countryside, where he lives in a vast mansion in the province of Huelva, and we write to each other occasionally, a strange, belated father-son correspondence.) I explained to Natalia Manur how I had to ask permission to do anything: to move from one part of the house to another, from my room to the bathroom, from the dining room to the living room, from the kitchen to the bedroom, to say nothing of going outside and coming back in again. I never had my own keys. He always wanted to know exactly where I was, as if he were afraid I might come across him in a corner committing infamies that no one else should witness. Every move I made required his consent, and if my godfather wasn’t at home, then I simply had to (this was what he prescribed and what I did not do) wait for his return before I came out of my room: put up with my bursting bladder, put up with my thirst, put up with my hunger; or be farsighted in a way no child, however sensible, unhappy and reliable, could ever be. Anyway, for years I had to avoid the servants (who, distinctly lacking in charity—and not at all enamoured of this fat little boy—promptly informed him whenever I overstepped the mark) and had to be very careful not to leave clues behind of any unauthorized movement: the sponge used to refresh my face had to be left as dry as it was before and in exactly the same position; whenever I gave in to the irresistible temptation to use the telephone in order to discuss the day’s homework with my best friend, I had to remember to leave the handset exactly as he had left it, he being left-handed; I often had to walk around in my stockinged feet, like ne’er-do-wells in cartoons or silent films, in order to avoid leaving any telltale muddy stains on the carpet or the floor; any furtive sips of milk—my favorite drink—had to be minimal enough for any change in the level in the bottle to go unnoticed, as would any incursion into the kitchen in his absence; if I listened to the radio—my great passion as a child—I had to return the dial and the volume to the precise position in which they had been before my excited manipulations. I explained to Natalia Manur how, even when I was an adolescent and he could not keep quite such firm control
over me, I had to beg Señor Casaldáliga to give me money for really essential things, and how sometimes he would refuse me for days: money to buy soap when mine ran out (mine was cheap Lagarto, not Lux like his) or toothpaste (mine was cheap Licor, not Colgate like his), money to buy replacements for my almost threadbare undershirts or underpants, to go and get my hair cut, to pay for the bus or the tram to and from school. During my childhood and adolescence, Madrid was a hateful place, and the expression on my face was one of permanent abstraction and amazement, like those little children painted by Chardin, elegantly dressed and absorbed in their games—the shuttlecock, the penknife, the spinning top—with the difference that my clothes were tragically ill-made and, although my gaze was as absent as theirs, I had no absorbing toy to hold or to look at. Then one day, I learned how to read a score and began to acquire my own, and singing came to my rescue. But that isn’t what I want to talk about now.

  Natalia Manur would listen to me as attentively and compassionately as if she were being told of the misfortunes and privations of some Dickensian child, and she told me later, on more than one occasion, that she was, in part, attracted to me because of those stories and because she could relate her adult fate to that of mine as a child. Soon afterwards, I discovered that her history or past or life shared that same nineteenth-century quality. But, as I have said, prior to the performances of Verdi’s Otello at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, what I mainly came to realize was my own unthinking conviction: I wanted to destroy Manur and I had to destroy Berta in order to go on seeing Natalia Manur without impediment of any kind. We were in odor of cruelty. The second act of destruction was easy enough, since it depended entirely on a decision I had already taken: I knew everything about Berta, far more than was necessary. The destruction of Manur, on the other hand, was far more difficult knowing, as I did, almost nothing about him and nothing at all about his weak points, and having seen his manner and glimpsed his smug self-satisfaction, his confidence in himself and in his qualities, it seemed to me impossible to make a fool of him in any direct confrontation, whether dialectical in nature or otherwise. He was clearly stronger and more flexible than I was, as well as more commanding. After thinking it over very quickly in my room one night (the night before the first performance, I remember it well), I realized at once that the only way of putting into effect my improvised or unexpected plans was to invert the order in which I have just listed them: I had only to go on seeing Natalia Manur every day and the destruction of Manur would come about by itself. As for the destruction of Berta, which I did not want, I had, nevertheless, to take it for granted—to put my signature once and for all to a longstanding sentence—and try to ensure that the whole process was as brief as possible and did not interfere with what, from then on, I imagined to be a conquest or a game. But that same night I found myself plunged into doubt as to what method to use. Should I speak openly to Natalia Manur? Declare myself to her in proper operatic fashion, before there was any kind of intimate contact between us? Use Dato as mediator? Or should I try to get her on her own on some propitious occasion—perhaps in my dressing room—and act like a classic—that is, old-fashioned—seducer, at the risk of failing at the first attempt with no possibility of putting things right later on? The fact that I had formulated to myself the nature of my feelings (“I must be in love or under the unknown influence of some powerful fancy to think like this and to feel such desire,” I said to myself) suddenly seemed to be a terrible disadvantage that was forcing me to put into action a plan which was more or less premeditated (but which had still not got beyond the meditative stage) and which was forcing me, therefore, to act artificially, instead of letting things continue as they had until then, taking things, not passively exactly, but at least naturally, without forcing or directing anything, in a state of vague, unexpectant waiting. How tiring loving is, I thought. Striving, planning, longing, unable to content oneself with perseverance and immobility. How tiring the real world is, I thought, with its demands to be filled. And how tiring the as-yet-to-be is too. I have had to struggle so hard all my life to fulfill urgent needs: to grow up healthy and sane, to not be the object of other people’s mockery, to lose weight, to not give in to my godfather’s despotism, to remove myself from his house, to study music, to study singing, to study in Vienna, to leave Madrid, to enter the small, jealous circle of professional singers, to gain respect, to be an international star. So far I have triumphed in everything I have set out to do, and every morning, when I scrutinize myself long and hard in the mirror in order to spot any changes, I feel certain that triumph is written all over my face. I have an agent who looks after me and always tries to get me the best of everything, I travel the world (albeit alone), I make records and my name appears in third or fourth or fifth place on the album covers, I go to luxury hotels like this one (albeit alone), I have enough money and I know that soon I will have much more. I enjoy my profession, I like stepping out onto the stage in costume and transforming myself into many other people, and singing and acting and being applauded for my efforts and reading the ever longer and more glowing reviews in the newspapers of the world’s cities. I like the fact that impresarios and journalists from all over the globe call me up to engage me or to interview me in my house in Barcelona. There I live with Berta, whom I may not love, whom I doubtless do not love, as I realized a few months ago during a performance of Turandot when Liu’s famous pre-funeral arias moved me so much that I was filled by a sense of invincible love whose object was definitely not Berta, although neither was it anyone else, certainly not the singer playing the part of the enamoured, selfless slave (an excellent soprano, but a kind of German barrel, who has the unfortunate habit of spitting all over her fellow performers when she sings and whose name I will not give here because she is still working; indeed, nowadays she is, like me, a rising star). I don’t feel excited about Berta; when I get home, I don’t feel particularly glad to see her, nor do I feel any immediate need or desire to go to bed with her, I prefer to wait a few days, to watch a lot of television, to calm myself down, to get used to being back again and accustomed to a sedentary rhythm that doesn’t really exist, going out to buy the bread or to the newsstand, going to see Barcelona play at home. The fact is that I find it more exciting to have a luxury call girl come up to my luxury room during some of the lonelier nights of my musical travels. But that doesn’t make me unhappy, I mean the lack of excitement I feel about Berta. Relationships with other people have not, up until now, occupied an important place in my existence, perhaps because I have been too busy with the progress of my career, with my indispensable daily exercises, with perfecting my art and lavishing care on my voice, with my studies, the constant practicing and, yes, more studying. Now that I am beginning to reap the rewards and having to struggle less, I see that I have found my place in the wheel and that it will just be a question of that wheel continuing to turn as it should—with me on board—for glory and the plum roles (Calaf, Otello) to come my way. I have had a few love affairs, but none of them was very significant and none of them wrought any great changes in me. Berta is actually perfect. Organized, intelligent, discreet, affectionate and cheerful, mad about music, patient with my rehearsals, and most people find her very attractive, although for some time now (more or less since we began living together) I have not found her so (I am more attracted to the prostitutes whom, as I said, I occasionally summon, out of loneliness, curiosity or boredom). She is not odd or melancholy, like Natalia Manur, whom I nevertheless want to go on seeing every day. Why do I want to go on seeing her every day? Perhaps because I want to be like Liu or like Otello, because, at this particular moment in my history or pre-past or life, I need to try to destroy myself or to destroy someone else. Liu is a Chinese slave who is tortured and later kills herself with a dagger in order to save the life of Calaf, whom she loves and whose name the cruel Princess Turandot tries to drag out of her so that she, Turandot, will not have to marry him and can have him executed at dawn, as she has her previous suitor
s. Liu is a condemned woman, and that is how she sees herself from the start. Whatever option she chooses will bring her unhappiness. Either she dies and her beloved Calaf lives to marry Turandot, or else she confesses his name and lives, but then Calaf will die with the night. In neither case will her love be consummated, so it is a matter of choosing between one happiness (that of the beloved) and no happiness, or perhaps even between two happinesses and no happiness if we accept the idea that dying for the beloved can for the lover be a perfect form of happiness. Perhaps that is why for Liu the decision is clear. Otello’s story is even better known. Among his options, he does not even consider anyone else’s happiness, unless it were, in an impossible Otello, that of the supposed lovers, Desdemona and Cassio. It is unthinkable, Otello stepping aside to bring about the happiness of his wife and the man with whom, according to Iago, she has been unfaithful. If Otello had lacked, as Liu did, the notion of justice …(But the lack of that notion only became acceptable in our century.) Berta is perfect for my career and for my general well-being, but not only do I want to go on seeing Natalia Manur every day, tonight, I thought then, I very much want to go to bed with her, as much as I very much do not want to go to bed with Berta ever again. It was, like nearly every night during that stay in Madrid, a spring night. I had the balcony doors open and I could hear, from outside, the murmur of cars and the occasional abrupt, angry, drunken voice. I could hear noises from inside too, keys opening the doors to other rooms, fragments of foreign conversations in the corridors, a waiter with a tray or with a trolley, knocking on a door; at one point, I heard the climax of a loud argument and something crashing into the wall of the room next to mine, it sounded like an ashtray thrown by a woman at a man, rather than by a man at a woman (he said, in Spanish with a Cuban or possibly a Canary Islands accent: “Well, if you didn’t want to know, you know now!” and then she replied: “I’ll show you, you bastard!” and then came the bang). Natalia and Manur would never argue like that, it wasn’t their style, given their apparent sterility and coldness. Would I become the cause of an argument one day, soon, tomorrow, tonight, already? I tried to stop thinking these thoughts by rehearsing for the penultimate time—or, rather, recalling it, since I sang it to myself in my head—what would be one of my brief interventions the following day in the role of Cassio: Miracolo vago … Miracolo vago … and another immediately afterwards, alternating between the two: Non temo il ver … non temo il ver … I was murmuring or singing these words to myself over and over, as if, after the third or fourth time, they had stayed in my head against my will, and then everything suddenly happened very fast, just as it did in my dream this morning. The image of Natalia Manur at the supper we had shared, and which had ended only half an hour before, kept going round and round in my head. She was wearing a raw silk dress, slightly décolleté—a spring décolletage—that had made me notice her cleavage for the first time. It is always a serious moment when you notice for the first time one particular part of a woman’s body, because the discovery is so dazzling that it stops you looking away even for an instant; it distracts you from the conversation and the other people around, and when you have no option but to turn your gaze towards, for example, a waiter who is asking you something, your eyes, as they return, do not travel through space from one point to another, nor do they slowly take in the view, instead they alight once more, without pause, on the one thing that they want to see and at which they cannot stop staring. It is impossible to behave correctly. Thus I spent the whole supper without addressing a single word to Dato and listening to Natalia without hearing a word she said, responding mechanically and in complimentary tones to her remarks, with my servile eyes almost fixed on the beginning of that space between what seemed to me to be Natalia’s extraordinary breasts. It was a banal discovery, but then I am, in many ways, a banal man (sometimes I even do my best to appear vulgar). She must have noticed, and I must have seemed like a complete idiot, if not worse, but, looking on the bright side, any advances I made, now, tonight, would not come as a complete surprise. My desire was very strong that night, as desire always is when it makes its first identifiable or recognizable appearance in one’s consciousness. I picked up the phone and asked to be put through to Natalia Manur’s room. While I was waiting for the connection—it took, as it usually does, only a matter of seconds—I realized that I was also ringing Manur’s room and that it was already half past midnight. As usual, Dato, Natalia, and I had said our goodbyes to each other in the elevator less than half an hour before. She would still be awake and Manur might not yet have returned from his presumed business supper. But if Manur picked up the phone, I would hang up without saying anything, exactly as if I were one of the lovers that Natalia Manur did not have. Manur’s voice answered (“Allò?” it said two or three times in French, then corrected itself and said “Hello?” once) and I hung up, and it was for that reason and no other that I had a prostitute come up to my room that night. I realize that telling you this could make a very bad impression and lose me your sympathy, but the prostitute also appeared in this morning’s dream, which is, after all, what I am describing to you.