“Thanks, Marta, thanks …”
“Don’t think it was as easy as it seemed initially. When I went to the professor’s house, the following morning, I found a man constantly wrestling with the scruples of his conscience. He told me that he had rushed things, had gone a bit too far. He asked after you. He demanded to know what kind of relationship I had with you … I don’t need to tell you that I called on your friendship in every shape and form. Given that there was a possibility he might escape me, I had no choice but to use the last resort … you know … feminine wiles, as they describe it in novels. The professor’s emotions were my salvation. I imagine it would have been much more difficult if he’d been ten years younger. Mentally, men can rethink things; sensuality, on the other hand, remains inflexible. The professor wanted a different style of life, a more open style, we might say, and that was what betrayed him.”
“Did you ransack his papers?”
“A suitcase full. The crucial thing was to get into his safe, and after a couple of days his keys were in my hands. Port came in very useful. I opened the safe, when the professor was asleep, feeling really excited. Pure childishness, you’ll probably say.”
“No, not childishness at all, mademoiselle …”
“Whatever! I found several things in the safe, in particular the code to the most recent messages. That will be highly useful, will save us time. In the meantime, I tried to pick up a suitcase. I didn’t want one that was too new or high quality, because suitcases can attract attention, you know, depending on who is carrying them. I found one in an antiquarian’s, that was strong, if well-worn, and that’s where I put my booty. I took the night train to Calais — the same day I opened the safe. Everything ran very smoothly and as normal.”
“Did you find anything really serious?”
“I think there were papers to do with the Navy, I think … from Plymouth, to be precise.”
“But you know, papers can come in all shapes and sizes.”
“I heard he was only starting out as a secret agent. He had begun in the classic way for this kind of agent: through politics. In fact, he’d been seduced as a result of his political inclinations. He was an old man who was out of his mind and out-of-kilter.”
“This all explains why the poor man doesn’t find himself behind bars.”
“Yes. What I just said explains it and also because I described the professor exactly as he was. From the human point of view, he was no enemy. He was simply unhappy in himself.”
“So how can you explain his involvement in activities that were so little in keeping with the way he is?”
“If such activities were perfectly executed, they’d be invincible,” replied Marta, casually. “Everything in life has its flaws.”
“I’m sure that all this has left you, how should I put this, with a bitter aftertaste, perhaps …”
“Yes, but don’t think I dwell much on the past. Besides, that’s life … What can we do about it?”
As darkness fell, we talked about a few other matters. Marta was very lethargic. Just after five Mr Panaiotis put in an appearance with friends who looked like Naval officers. The aperitif crowd arrived soon after. The room was filled with the aroma of anisette. That was when Georges came over bringing us both a plate of escargots à la bourguignonne. He said they were a present from Mr Panaiotis. Marta looked at them wistfully, but the snails were delicious.
The Boarding House on Cambridge Street
The person who recommended it sounded both serious and sure: “It’s a lovely house, I tell you! An excellent place!”
And a moment later he energetically underlined how sure he was: “What’s more, it’s downright puritan!”
As I had some experience of the level of puritanism a boarding house in Kensington needs to start to be entertaining, I decided there and then. Within two days I’d been given the right to occupy a first-floor room in a brick house with a wrought-iron fence in that famous neighborhood.
A few hours later I met two compatriots at supper in the dining room: one was a Tàpies and the other a Niubó. I’ve had a fair amount of contact with them ever since. I thought they were two excellent lads, two perfect friends. They had been living in London for several years. They had adapted perfectly, but had occasional bouts of nostalgia. Every now and then, for some reason or other, they had severe attacks of nostalgia. It was Catalan-style nostalgia: emotional, visible, and weepy. That was when they were unbearable.
Tàpies sported a trim mustache and his ideal was to save. I never knew and still don’t know what paths had led him to such a conclusion or what mechanism had brought him to profess such an ideal. He was a good saver, in the sense that he saved prompted by his own unconscious, I mean he never had to think about it. When giving him a kick in the butt — at the moment when his physical combustion started, as the materialists would say — the Eternal Father probably wagged a stern finger at him and said: “Save, Tàpies!” The excellent friend began to roam the streets and squares of this world as naturally as could be. He still roams and saves abiding by the agreement imposed by the mysterious law that regulates the inner lives of human beings.
At the time, he was a tall, thin lad, who sported, as I said, a trim, blandly colored mustache, and wispy hair that didn’t quite make for a baldpate, whose features would have been completely normal and easily forgotten, if he hadn’t possessed a small, perfectly delineated mouth, one of those mouths that the previous generation, the ladies of a previous generation, believed was really lovely. He spoke Catalan with a Barcelona accent and thus said “aixinss …” rather that “així.” The word seemed to flow through his mouth like a wave.
Niubó was quite a different character. It was he who, on the day we met, introduced me to Mr Morton, a retired colonel with a stoop and an impressive military record, a thin, pinkish man with a huge head of white hair. The most important thing fellow boarders knew about Mr Morton was that he drank a dozen bottles of Scotch — White Horse to be precise — every week without ever creating a fuss or doing anything out of the ordinary. He seemed to have only a passing interest in anything else. If someone he acknowledged said, “You drink a lot, Mr Morton …”
He would reply, “Yes, sir, absolutely …”
If, on the other hand, someone said, “Mr Morton, you don’t seem to drink that much …”
He would answer, “Yes, sir, quite right.”
Mr Morton was an honorable English gentleman who had spent almost all his life in distant lands and seemed to be weary as a result. He appeared altogether resigned and indifferent in his reactions. At any rate, he had the rare merit of knowing how to express his opinions as if they were completely unimportant. His only wish — apparently — was to adapt, as best he could, to the needs of the person asking him questions. In that sense, his interests seemed to coincide admirably with those of humanity in general. He was a remarkably altruistic individual.
What was my friend Niubó’s ideal in life? I find it a hard question to answer. He probably had no thought through ideal and simply voiced routine ones. What he most certainly did like was to live with his friend Tàpies. Both were bachelors, but were very different in character, apart from this common denominator. One always had a pile of money stashed away, which gave him security. The other never had a cent and that meant he tended to drift. However, they in fact complimented each other. It was as difficult to work out why Tàpies had emerged as such a saver as it was to discover why Niubó was almost continually flat-broke. They led the same lives, lived in the same boarding house, both worked in the City, for the same bank, one was really — to the point that they almost always went everywhere together — the shadow of the other. They earned the same money: four pounds a week. Nonetheless, there was nothing anyone could do: the outcomes were totally opposed.