Fever and Spear

by Javier Marías

  I was getting tired standing up, I felt uncomfortable and was not a little unsteady on my feet, so I decided to take the copy of From Russia with Love downstairs with me so that I could read it quietly in the study — I carried it down, clutched to me as if it were a treasure — and it was as I was going down, and as I was turning out the lights I had switched on in order to go up the stairs without stumbling, that I discovered a large drop of blood at the top of the first flight of stairs. I mean it wasn't a small drop: it was on the wood, not the carpet, and was circular, about four or five centimetres in diameter or about an inch and a half or two, it was more like a stain than a drop (luckily it hadn't reached the dimensions of a pool), and I couldn't understand what it was doing there when I saw it initially or, perhaps, afterwards either. The first thing I thought, when I finally thought using my thinking faculties (which I hadn't initially), was that it belonged to me, that perhaps it had come from me without my noticing as I climbed the stairs; that I had hit or scratched myself or scraped against something and had not even noticed — it happens to everyone — absorbed as I was in my bookish snooping, not to mention being rather drunk. I looked back and up, at the next flight of stairs, where I once more turned on the light, I looked at the stairs below as well, but there were no other drops and that was odd, because when you drip blood, you always leave several drops, what's called a trail or a trace, unless you notice it as soon as the first drop falls and immediately staunch the wound — the gaping wound, but then there would be no staunching that — so as not to cause further stains. And in that case you always take care to clean up the drop you saw on the floor, once you have stopped the haemorrhage, of course. I felt myself, I looked at myself, I touched my hands, my arms, my elbows — I had taken off my jacket and rolled up my shirt-sleeves during my furious researches — I could see nothing, not on my fingers either, which bleed profusely at the slightest prick or scratch or cut, even a paper cut, I touched my nose with my thumb and index finger, sometimes your nose can bleed for no apparent reason, I remembered a friend whose nose had bled for a very good reason, he had taken rather too much cocaine over a number of years and had dealt in it as well, albeit in small quantities, and, once, having successfully smuggled a modest consignment through the Italian customs (the cocaine had been perfumed with cologne to put the dogs off the track, that is, the packaging had been perfumed) and just as he was about to leave the area, a slow dribble of blood began to emerge from one nostril, so slow that he didn't even feel it: there's nothing unusual about that, certainly not in a customs shed, but this small detail was enough for a keen-eyed border guard to stop him and carry out a thorough search with all the dogs on hand to help, that drop of blood cost him a long spell in a Palermo jail, until Spanish diplomacy managed to obtain his release, that particular slammer turned out to be a hellhole, a hornet's nest, it brought him suffering and scars, but it also furnished him with contacts and important alliances and a way of continuing his disreputable life indefinitely and, I suppose, of extending it, the last I heard he was leading a wealthy and respectable existence as a building magnate in New York and Miami, having started in the business in Havana, renovating hotels, although he had never done anything in that line before. It's amazing how a single drop of blood that didn't even fall — it only appeared — can betray someone and change his life, simply because of the place where it appeared, for no other reason, chance is never very discerning.

  I looked at my shirt, at my trousers, from waist to ankle, it's terrifying to think how many places one can bleed from, any or all of them probably, this skin of ours is so unresisting, so useless, everything wounds it, even a fingernail can breach it, a knife can tear it and a spear can rip it open (it can also pierce the flesh). I even raised the back of my hand to my lips and spat on it, to see if the blood came from my gums or from further back or further down and the blood had been spat up by a cough I had forgotten about or simply failed to register, I stroked my throat and my face, I sometimes cut myself when I'm shaving and a nick which I thought had healed over could have reopened. But there was not a trace of blood on my body, it was apparently closed, without a single fissure, the drop of blood was not mine, therefore it was perhaps Peter's, he had turned to the left when he went up to bed, I looked over there but in the brief distance between the stairs and his bedroom door I saw no other stains, perhaps, then, it had come from a guest, someone who had come up to the first floor during the buffet supper in search of a second toilet, when the one downstairs was occupied, or else accompanied and in search of a handy room. It could also belong to Mrs Berry, I thought, to that utterly opaque and silent figure, of whom for years, on and off, I had caught glimpses, so discreet she was almost a ghost, serving first Toby Rylands and then Wheeler who had employed her or taken her on, I had never given her any thought at all, she was just taken for granted, reliable, ever since I had known her, she had attended satisfactorily to the provisioning and to the needs of those two single and already retired professors, first one and then the other, but I could know nothing about her needs, or her problems, or her health, her anxieties, any family she might have, her origins or her past, about a probable and probably late Mr Berry, that was the first time I had thought about that, about a Mr Berry by whom she had been widowed or perhaps divorced and with whom, who knows, she still remained in touch, there are people who we assume were always destined for their jobs, who were born for what they do or for what we now see them doing, when no one was born for anything, there is no such thing as destiny and nothing is assured, not even for those who were born princes or very rich, for they can lose everything, not even for the very poor or slaves, who can gain everything, although this rarely happens and almost never without recourse to plunder or larceny or fraud, without tricks or treachery or deceit, without conspiracy, deposition, usurpation or blood.

  I thought that I should, anyway, clean it up, that stain at the top of the first flight of stairs, it's odd — irritating — how responsible we feel for whatever we find or discover, even though it's nothing to do with us, how we feel that we should concern ourselves with or remedy something which, at the time, exists only for us, and about which only we know, or so we believe, even though it's nothing to do with us and we have had no part in it: an accident, a difficult situation, an injustice, an abuse, an abandoned baby, and, of course, a dead body or someone who could easily become one, someone badly injured, something of the kind had happened to that friend of mine who dealt a bit in drugs — a schoolfriend, Comendador his name was and still is if he hasn't changed it to something else in America or wherever it is he has gone, he spent years and years sitting immediately in front of me when the register was called, if it was his turn to answer or to be punished, I knew that I was next, he was my straw in the wind throughout my childhood — and he had both run away and not run away: he had gone to pick up a package from the house of the dealer who usually supplied him and also sent him on the occasional assignment, like the one that got him banged up in that Palermo pen; he rang the doorbell several times without success, which was strange because he had told the man that he was coming round, then, at last, the door opened, but the man wasn't in, he had had to go out unexpectedly, at least that is what he gleaned from the woman who answered the door, the dealer's girlfriend of the moment, he, like Comendador, changed girlfriends every few weeks, he didn't want them to get suspicious, and sometimes they even swapped girlfriends, a form of amortisation. The young woman seemed completely out of it, she could barely speak and only just managed to recognise my friend ('Ah, yes, I've seen you at the Joy, haven't I?') and she staggered towards the bedroom where her partner of only a few days had left the package ready for her to hand over, she knowing nothing of its contents, but two seconds later and before she had even reached the bedroom, she and Comendador having exchanged only a few disconnected phrases ('What's wrong, what have you taken?' he asked, 'Ah, yes, now I recognise you,' she replied), he watched her trip and apparently rush headlong down the corridor,
two or three running steps under the wild impetus of that stumble, and run straight into the wall, with a thump ('A sharp sound, like wood being chopped') then drop to the floor, unconscious. He immediately noticed a small gash, the young woman was dressed only in a long T-shirt that reached- her thighs and which she had probably put on in response to the insistent ringing of the doorbell and a vague awareness of a duty to be performed, but she had nothing on underneath, as Comendador observed the moment after that fall, that death, that faint. He also saw a spot of blood on the floor, perhaps similar to the one I had before my eyes now, but fresher, as if it really had come from the girl, from between her legs, maybe she was menstruating and, in her dreamy, absent state, drugged perhaps, she had not noticed, or perhaps she had wounded herself on something pointed or sharp when she fell, something on the floor, a splinter, but that was unlikely. The most worrying thing was not that or the gash, but her air of derangement and confusion following her loss of consciousness, which had happened at the same time as the blow, but was clearly not due to that or, at least, not solely, but to whatever the girl had been taking shortly before or, who knows, for some hours already, she might well have combined a whole morning of excesses with a compulsory previous night of partying. Comendador crouched down and carefully sat her up, she appeared completely lifeless, he propped her against the wall, on the wooden floor, did his best to cover her bottom, the tail of her T-shirt was all spotted with red, tried to bring her round, slapped her face, shook her by the shoulders, saw that her eyes were half-closed or, rather, half-open, and yet as if frosted over, veiled, lacking focus, vision or life, she looked like a dead woman and he did, in fact, think she was dead, inexorably and permanently dead, right there in front of him, and he was the only one who knew. He stopped trying to revive her. He realised that the apartment door had been left open, he heard footsteps on the stairs and once they had gone, he walked back to the door and closed it, returned to the corridor, saw from there the small package he had come to pick up, it was on the bedside table in the adjacent bedroom, towards which the young woman had been heading in her somnambular state before she stumbled and slammed her head against the wall. The bed in that room was unmade, there was a bloodstain on the sheets too, not that big, perhaps her period had started while she was dozing or dying without realising what was happening, she had not noticed or had lacked the will or the strength to check the flow, although I'm not quite sure that is the right expression. Comendador pondered various possibilities, but not carefully, very quickly, slightly panic-stricken, it would be best to take the package anyway, because if, by some misfortune, nurses or policemen arrived before the dealer got back, it would be really bad news for him if they saw it. He didn't think twice, he stepped over the legs of the sullied, seated girl, went into the bedroom, grabbed the goods, stuffed the package in his pocket, stepped over her legs again and made his way to the front door without a backward glance. He opened the door, made sure there was no one around, discreetly closed it behind him and in four bounds and three strides he was down the stairs and out into the street.

  He fled and did not flee, because it was precisely then that he realised that he had no way of going back to the apartment or of getting in if he wanted to, nor of helping the young woman if she was still alive, and that was when he raced madly to a phone booth and tried to get the dealer on his mobile, to warn him about what had happened and to tell him what he knew. The dealer's voice-mail answered, so Comendador left a brief, confused message, then it occurred to him that the man must be at his shop, or that he would at least find the shop assistants, whom he knew, and who could then take action, the dealer owned a shop selling expensive designer-label Italian clothes, a franchise or whatever they're called, and was putting more and more of his energies into that, everyone tends towards respectability as soon as they see a chance and are allowed to or able to, both those who break the law and those who aspire to subvert order, both criminals and revolutionaries, the latter often only behind closed doors, they conceal the tendency when they have to live off their appearance. Comendador and I have known a few like that. Comendador didn't know the phone number of the shop, but it wasn't far away, so he started running, and he ran and ran and ran through the streets as he had not done since childhood, or since university perhaps, during the demonstrations that marked the end of the Franco era, fleeing the always much slower guards bundled up in their greatcoats. And as he ran, he went over in his mind what was still so very recently the past that he found it hard to believe it wasn't still the present and that he could do nothing to change it, and thinking: 'I didn't do anything, I didn't even try, I didn't even find out or make sure, I didn't take her pulse or try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or heart massage, I've never done it and don't know how to, apart from having seen it done in ten thousand films, not that that's any use, but I could at least have tried, who knows, I might have saved her and now it's too late, every minute that passes is a minute later, a minute that condemns us, me and the girl, but especially her, perhaps she isn't dead yet, instead she'll die while I'm running or when I finally get to the boutique and talk to the assistants and tell them what's happened, or while they look for Cuesta, or for Navascués, his partner, who will probably have a key to the apartment and could then let them in, or let us in if I decide to go back there with them, although I'd better not, I've still got the stuff on me, but meanwhile that silly girl could well die because of all the time I'm wasting or, rather, have wasted, time I should have used taking whatever desperate measures I could take or else calling an ambulance, I could have moistened her temples, the back of her neck, her face, I could have given her a whiff of cognac or alcohol or cologne, I could at least have cleaned up the blood, I'm as selfish, mean and cowardly as I always thought I was, but knowing that is not the same as being brought face to face with it, and seeing that it has its consequences.' He entered the shop like a horse at full gallop and there they all were, the dealer Cuesta, Navascues his partner, and the shop assistants, Cuesta had turned off his mobile, he was serving some customers, who looked quite taken aback, hadn't he got the message, Comendador asked, and gave a garbled account of what had happened, Cuesta took him into his office at the back of the shop, calmed him down, picked up the phone, quickly dialled his own number, but without any great panic, and a few seconds later, Comendador heard him speaking to his girlfriend in the apartment that he had just left like a shot, without so much as a backwards glance. 'What happened,' he heard him ask her, 'Comendador tells me that you hit your head and fainted. Ah, I see. It's just that when you didn't come round, he didn't know what to think. But don't you always have them with you? You should watch that, you know, you can't afford to skip one. Are you sure you're all right, you don't want me to come over? Sure? Fine. Dab some alcohol on that cut and put a plaster on it, there's nothing you can do about the bump, but you'd better disinfect it, don't just leave it, will you? OK. Fine. Yes, yes, you obviously frightened the life out of him, he came charging over here, he's in my office now all out of breath. Yes, he said you gave it to him before you passed out, yeah, well, you probably wouldn't remember. All right, I'll tell him. See you later, then. 'Bye, take care.' Cuesta explained briefly that the girl suffered from diabetes, and these episodes happened sometimes when she drank too much and then, to make matters worse, forgot to take her medication, the two things usually went together and happened, to be honest, far too often, she was silly about it, a child really. She had recovered now and was feeling better, she had taken her medication, and about time too, and the cut was nothing, a nasty bump and bit of blood. She was really sorry to have frightened Comendador like that, she sent him her love and hoped he would forgive her for having put him through it, and thanked him for having taken so much trouble over her, he was an angel, Comendador was an angel.

  I remembered this episode as I was going to the bathroom on the ground floor, where I picked up a packet of cotton wool and a bottle of alcohol and then returned to the top of the first flight of stai
rs to clean up that inexplicable stain that was not my responsibility, it was lucky it was on the wooden floor and not on the carpet. When he gave his rapid, flustered account in the shop, Comendador had not mentioned to Cuesta anything about the bloodstains that had clearly come from his girlfriend, about those on the floor and those on the sheets and the spots on her T-shirt, and she herself had not apparently mentioned them over the phone, after all, what was the point — it might, indeed, have seemed indiscreet, tactless. The girl might have felt embarrassed and preferred to pretend that they had never existed and that no one could, therefore, have seen them: perhaps — without actually saying so — she was asking his forgiveness for that. And so Comendador never knew for certain where they came from or what had caused them, but decided to content himself with the explanation of an unexpected period or one which, out of perfectly understandable carelessness, had not been intercepted in time, and, after a few days had passed, he even began to doubt he had seen them at all, those bloodstains, that's what happens sometimes with those things that we deny or keep silent about, that we hide away and bury, they inevitably start to fade and blur, and we come to believe that they never actually existed or happened, we tend to be incredibly distrustful of our own perceptions once they have passed and find no outside confirmation or ratification, we sometimes renounce our memory and end up telling ourselves inexact versions of what we witnessed, we do not trust ourselves as witnesses, indeed, we do not trust ourselves at all, we submit everything to a process of translation, we translate our own crystal-clear actions and those translations are not always faithful, thus our actions begin to grow unclear, and ultimately we surrender and give ourselves over to a process of perpetual interpretation, applied even to those things we know to be absolute fact, so that everything drifts, unstable, imprecise, and nothing is ever fixed or definite and everything oscillates before us until the end of time, perhaps it's because we cannot really stand certainty, not even certainties that suit us and comfort us, and certainly not those that displease or unsettle or hurt us, no one wants to be transformed into that, into their own fever and spear and pain. 'Perhaps I was frightened by the cut on the girl's forehead, I mean, she hit her head with such a thud, and, who knows, seeing a little blood appear possibly made me think that a dark stain on the wooden floorboards was also blood, it was pretty hard to see in that corridor,' Comendador had said to me when he told me about the incident some days later. 'And what about the stains on the sheets, the drops of blood?' I said. 'Oh, I don't know, they could have been something else, wine perhaps, or even brandy, she had probably been swigging it straight from the bottle in the corridor and in bed and then, when she felt ill, had spilled it and not even noticed, I mean, she was completely out of it, either that or feeling in a really bad way by the time she did finally manage to drag herself out of bed and come and open the door to me.' 'Are you telling me that while you're absolutely sure that you saw drops of blood in several places, at the same time you also think it's perfectly possible that you didn't see them or that they might not even have been there, that it was just a product of your imagination or your fear?' 'Yes, I suppose I am, I suppose that's possible,' replied Comendador, perplexed.