Your Face Tomorrow. Fever And Spear (32 page)

I had been carrying out my duties for several months, almost on a daily basis, hardly a day went by without my being summoned to the building with no name, even if only briefly in order to report back on what I had analysed and picked up, or what I had decided earlier at home. I had travelled a fair way along the path typically followed by all audacities (if it wasn't, in fact, mere insolence). You begin by prefacing everything with 'I don't know', 'I'm not sure'; or by qualifying and modifying as much as possible: 'It could be,' 'I would say that. . .', 'I can't be sure, but . . .', 'It seems likely to me that . . .', 'Possibly,' 'Possibly not,' 'This may be going too far, but. . .', 'This is pure supposition, but nevertheless . . .', 'Perhaps,' 'It might well be,' the archaic 'Methinks,' the American 'I daresay,' there are all kinds of shadings in both languages. Yes, you avoid affirmations in your speech and banish certainties from your mind, knowing full well that the former brings with it the latter just as the latter brings with it the former, almost simultaneously, with no noticeable difference, it's alarming how easily thought and speech contaminate each other. That is how it is at the beginning. But you soon grow more confident: you sense a commendation or a reproach in an oblique look or a chance remark, directed apparently at no one in particular and uttered in a neutral tone which you know, none the less, is intended for you, that it applies to you. You notice that 'I don't know' does not please, that inhibition is little appreciated, and that ambiguities are met with disappointment and niceties fall on stony ground; that the overly uncertain and cautious does not count and is not taken up, that the doubtful does not even persuade that there might be some reason for doubt, and reservations are almost a let-down; that 'Perhaps' and 'Maybe' are tolerated for the good of the enterprise and of the group, who, for all their audacity, do not wish to commit suicide, but they never arouse enthusiasm or passion, or even approval, they come across as faint-hearted and meek. And the bolder you get, the more questions they ask and the more skills they attribute to you, the bounds of what is knowable are always within a hair's-breadth of being lost, and one day you find that they are expecting you to see the indiscernible and to know the un-verifiable, to have an answer not just for the probable and even the merely possible, but for the unknown and unfathomable.

The most striking and most dangerous thing about this whole business is that you, too, begin to believe yourself capable of seeing and fathoming, of finding out and knowing, and, therefore, of hazarding an answer. Boldness never rests, it waxes or wanes, it burgeons or shrivels, it slips away or subjugates, and may disappear altogether after some major setback. But boldness, if it exists, is always on the move, it is never stable and never satisfied, it is the very opposite of stationary. And its main tendency is towards limitless increase, unless kept in check or brought up brutally short, or else systematically forced to retreat. In its expansive phase, perceptions become excitable or intoxicated, and arbitrariness, for example, ceases to seem arbitrary to you, believing, as you do, that your judgements and insights, however subjective, are based on solid criteria (a lesser evil, but what can you do); and there comes a point when it doesn't much matter whether you get things right, especially since in my work this was rarely verifiable, or if it was, they certainly never told me. From my continuance there, from the fact that they continued to request my services — somewhat bureaucratically and absurdly — and did not get rid of me, I inferred that my success rate must be quite high, but I also wondered occasionally if such a thing could be determined, and if it was, if anyone would bother to do so. I gave my opinions and verdicts, my prejudices and judgements: they were read or listened to; they asked me concrete questions: I gave them my answers, expanding on them and making comments and observations, identifying and summarising, inevitably going too far. I didn't know what they did with it all afterwards, if it had any consequences, if it was useful and had any practical effect or was merely fodder for the files, if it ever actually worked for or against someone; normally nothing was said, they never said anything to me afterwards, everything — for me at least — came down to that first act dominated by my ideas and a brief interrogation or dialogue; and the fact that, as far as I could see, there was no second or third or fourth act meant that the whole business (in day-to-day life, which is what matters most) seemed to me a rather silly game, or a series of hypothetical wagers, exercises in invention and perspicacity. And so, for a long time, I never had the feeling or the idea that I could be harming anyone.

When the
coup d'état
against Hugo Chavez took place in Venezuela, I couldn't help wondering if we had had some indirect influence on it; first on its apparent initial success, then on its grotesque failure (there seems to have been a lack of resolve); and on its chaotic end. I watched the television intently in case General Ponderosa, or whatever his real name was, should suddenly appear, but I never saw him, perhaps he hadn't been part of it at all. Perhaps the coup had failed because Tupra had advised against any financial aid and support, who knows. With Tupra I couldn't remain entirely silent about it:

'Have you seen what's been going on in Venezuela?' I asked him one morning, as soon as I went into his office.

'Yes, I have,' he replied, in the same tone of voice with which he had confirmed to the Venezuelan civilian soldier that he did not have our telephone number, but we had his. It was his conclusive tone of voice, or perhaps I should say concluding. And when he noticed that I was hesitating as to whether or not to pursue the matter, he added: 'Anything else, Jack?'

'No, nothing else, Mr Tupra.'

No, they didn't usually tell me when I had been right and when I had been wrong.

'I might be going out on a limb here, but . . .' 'I could be wrong, but nevertheless . . .' That 'but' and that 'nevertheless' are the cracks that end up flinging all the doors wide open, and soon the actual verbal formulae we use betray our insolence: 'I bet you anything you like that he'd change sides as soon as things got even slightly difficult, and change back again as many times as he needed to, his biggest problem being that neither side would want him because he's such a manifest coward,' one says of a functionary face — gleaming bald head, smeared glasses — seen for the first time half an hour ago and whom one is observing now through the false window or false oval mirror in a state of mind that is a mixture of superiority and defencelessness (the defencelessness of believing that others are always out to deceive you, the superiority of looking while unseen, of seeing everything without risking one's own eyes).

'The woman is desperate for attention, she'd invent the craziest fantasies just to be noticed, she has a need to show off to anything that moves, in any situation, not just to people with whom it might be worth the effort and who might do her some good, but to the hairdresser and the greengrocer and even the cat. She isn't even capable of curbing her enthusiasm or selecting her audience: she just can't distinguish, she wouldn't be much use to anyone,' says Tupra of a famous actress — with beautiful long hair but a very tense chin, hard as stone; bewitched by her own vanity — on seeing her in a video, and we all know that he's right, that he is, as always, spot-on, although there isn't a shred of — how can I put it — credible judgement to support his assertions.

'The guy has principles and would definitely never succumb to a bribe, I'd stake my life on it. Or rather, it's not even a matter of principles, it's more that he aspires to so little and is so dismissive of everything that neither flattery nor reward would lead him to adopt views he didn't find persuasive or, at the very least, amusing. The only way you could get at him would be by threatening him, because he might be susceptible to fear, physical fear I mean, he's never had his ears boxed in his life, well, not since he left school. He would go to pieces at the first hint of pain. He would be completely taken aback. He would crumble at the first scratch, the first pinch. He could be useful in some cases, as long as he didn't have to run that kind of risk,' says Rendel of a pleasant, youthful-looking, fifty-something writer — with sharp, elfin features, a slow way of talking, a slight Hampshire accent, according to Mulryan, round-rimmed spectacles, an unaffected way of speaking — on seeing and hearing an interview filmed almost entirely in close-up, we didn't see his hands once; and it seems to us that Rendel is right, that the novelist is a valiant man in his attitudes and his words, but that he would flinch from the merest threat of violence because he cannot even imagine it in his daily reality: he is capable of talking about it, but only because he sees it as an abstraction. As in the videotape, he would have no hands with which to defend himself.

'I wouldn't even cross the street with this man, he might push me under the wheels of a car if the mood took him, in a fit of rage. He's impetuous and impatient, it's hard to understand how he can exercise authority over anyone, or how he's managed to build up a business, still less a prosperous one, let alone an empire. His natural bent is for mugging passers-by at dusk or beating the living daylights out of someone, a hired killer on the rampage. He's a bundle of nerves, he can't wait, doesn't listen, takes no interest in what other people tell him, can't bear to spend even five minutes alone, but not because he wants company, just an audience. He probably has a really nasty temper, too, it wouldn't take much to make him blow his top, and then there's his voice, he must spend all day and night bellowing at his employees, at his children, at his two ex-wives and his six lovers (or possibly seven, there's some doubt about that). It's a complete mystery how he ever came to be a businessman or the head of anything, apart perhaps from some Soho dive threatened with closure on a daily basis. The only possible explanation is that he must instil a great sense of panic in people, and his hyperactivity reaches such heights that some, at least, of his innumerable plans and sordid deals must inevitably turn up trumps: probably, and by sheer chance, the most profitable ones. He may also have a nose for it, although that doesn't really fit well with his general recklessness: since the former takes persistence and calm, and he doesn't know the meaning of the words: he just abandons anything that resists him or proves difficult, that's his way of gaining time. God knows what he'll get up to if he goes into politics, as he assures us he will. Apart from outrages and abuses, of course, aimed at the electorate, I mean, because he would insult any potential voters at the first hint of criticism, the slightest slip and he'd heap insults on them,' says Mulryan of a multimillionaire who can be seen smiling in almost every shot taken at various events, sporting, charitable and monarchical, about to climb into a hot-air balloon, at the Ascot races and the Epsom Derby, suitably and grotesquely attired for each, signing a contract with a record company, or with another American movie-cum-fairground company, at the University of Oxford in some exotic ceremony involving colourful robes (a one-off occasion perhaps, I certainly never saw anything like it), shaking the hand of the Prime Minister and of various secondary figures and that of some spouse ennobled precisely by his or her conjugal status, at premieres, inaugurations, concerts, ballets, at vaguely aristocratic gatherings, encouraging talent in all the most eye-catching arts, those that bring with them audiences, performances and applause; and although he's always smiling and contented in the television report or documentary — a receding hairline that nevertheless fails to make his forehead appear any higher, instead it appears horizontal, elongated; very strong, invasive, almost equine teeth; an anomalous tan; a tempting suggestion of curls hovering above his collar and even slightly below it as a vestige of his plebeian roots; the right clothes for every occasion, but which always look usurped or even hired; his body imprisoned, toned and furious, as if at odds with itself — we all believe that Mulryan is quite right, and we have no difficulty imagining this wealthy man slapping members of his entourage (and, needless to say, bawling at his subordinates) as soon as he could be quite sure that he wasn't being filmed.

'That woman knows a lot or has seen a lot and has decided not to talk about it, I'm sure of that. Her problem or, more than that, her torment is that it is there before her all the time, the terrible things she has witnessed or that she knows about and her personal vow to say nothing. It's not as if she had one day made a resolution which had subsequently brought her peace, however dear that resolution cost her. It's not as if from then on she has been able to live with the acceptable tranquility of at least knowing what she wants — or, rather, doesn't want — to happen; that she has been able to stow those facts or that knowledge away in one corner of her mind, to deaden them, and gradually give them the consistency and configuration of dreams, which is what allows many people to live with the memory of atrocities and disappointments: by doubting, at least, from time to time, that they ever existed; by blurring them, wrapping them in the smoke of the accumulated years, and thus devaluing them. On the contrary, this woman thinks about it constantly, intensely, not only about what happened and has been proved to have happened, but about the fact that she must or chooses to keep silent. It's not that she's tempted to go back on her word (she would only say this inwardly, to herself); it isn't that she feels the decision she took is permanently provisional, it isn't that she's considering reneging on that decision and spends sleepless nights going over and over it. I would say that it's irrevocable, indeed, if you pressed me, I'd say more than irrevocable, because it has nothing to do with a commitment made. It's always as if she had taken the decision only yesterday. As if she were under the troubling influence of something eternally new and that never grows old, when it's likely that now it's all very remote, both what happened and her initial desire that it would never become public knowledge, or not, at least, because of her. I'm not referring to events relating to her profession, although there will be some such events that are equally safe, but to her private life: events that affected her and affect her every day, or that wound and infect her and provoke a fever in her every night, when she goes to bed. "No one will find out anything about it from me, not from me," she must think all the time, as if those previous experiences were there pulsating beneath her skin. As if they were still the nucleus of her existence and as if they still required her maximum attention, they will be the first thing to greet her when she wakes, the last thing she says good night to when she falls asleep. Don't get me wrong, though, there's nothing obsessive about this, her daily life is light and energetic; she's very open, not embittered at all. It's something quite different: a kind of loyalty to her own story. Such a woman would be of great service to many people, she's a perfect receptacle for secrets and therefore perfect for administering or distributing them too, she's completely reliable in that respect, precisely because she remains alert all the time and because, for her, everything is always alive and present. However remote in time her secret becomes, it never grows dim, and it would be the same with any secrets transmitted. She doesn't miss a single detail. Once the roles have been distributed, she would never forget who knows what and who doesn't. And I'm sure she remembers every face and every name that has passed before her bench,' says the young Pérez Nuix of a female judge of a certain age and with a bright, placid face, whom we are observing together from our hiding-place while Tupra and Mulryan ask respectful, devious questions, ladies are always offered tea in the afternoon, if, given their position and poise, they really are ladies, but not the gentlemen, unless they're bigwigs or could be influential in a particular matter, at most a cigarette (although never of the Pharaonic variety), and, exceptionally, an aperitif or a beer if it's that time of day and things are dragging on (there's a minibar concealed amongst the bookshelves); and despite her serene appearance and jovial expression — the warm smile; the very white but healthy complexion; the quick, bright, albeit very pale blue eyes; the dark shadows under her eyes, so deep and so becoming she must have had them since childhood; her ready, generous laughter, with just a hint of politeness, which, while it in no way impedes spontaneity, banishes any suggestion of flattery, of which there is not a trace; her amused awareness that Tupra feels for her a degree of desire, despite the unpropitious age-difference (a theoretical desire perhaps, or else retrospective or imaginary), because he can still see the young woman she was, or can sense it, and this is seen in turn by the woman who is no longer young, and it pleases and rejuvenates her — when I listen to young Nuix everything she says and describes seems plausible, because I, too, can see in that judge something akin to the excitement or vitality which comes from knowing an important secret that you have sworn never to divulge.