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In fact I minded very much, a visit from Manur just before a first night or indeed at any other time was definitely not in my plans, but his resolute, naturally authoritarian tones, prevented me from saying so outright.

"Well, actually, I was just getting shaved before going down to breakfast with your wife and Dato, your secretary. Why don't we meet up with them in the dining room? What is it about exactly?" I made the stupid mistake of asking two questions at once because, in such cases, one question, usually the most important one, always remains unanswered.

And Manur (as I think I knew from the very first moment) was an intransigent (a tycoon, a man of ambition, a politician, an exploiter).

"No, I'd rather talk to you alone. If you want to finish shaving, I'll order two breakfasts to be brought to your room for us. What would you like, tea or coffee?"

"Coffee," I replied as automatically as I have always replied to that unvarying question in endless luxury hotels; and with that reply, I suppose, I agreed to receive Manur, for all he said was: "Fine, me too. See you soon then," and he hung up.

Manur did not give me the five minutes he had not so much announced to me as imposed, instead he gave me the ten minutes I so much hoped for.

I wasted at least the first of these minutes listening to the phone ringing vainly in Dato's room. I did not dare to ask for Natalia's room again, because Manur himself would still be there — always assuming that he was giving me the extra time I so craved. After some hesitation, I asked to be put through to the dining room, in the hope that my habitual companions would have already arrived. The person who answered took no fewer than three minutes between putting down the phone and locating Dato, at least that is the amount of time that passed before I heard Dato's voice at the other end.

"Hello," he said. "I've just come down."

"Listen, Dato, Señor Manur has just phoned to say that he wants to talk to me and he's coming to see me here in my room, so I won't be able to have breakfast with you and Natalia. Do you have any idea what he might want?"

There was a brief silence and then Dato said:

"Have you committed some error?" I was troubled more by the frankness of his response than by its actual content, that is, the impertinent words "commit" and "error."

"An error? What do you mean? What kind of error?"

Dato fell silent again, long enough for me to ask impatiently:

"Is Natalia with you?"

"She must be just about to come down. Do you want me to ask her to call you?"

"Yes, would you? No, wait; if I can, I'll call her again in a couple of minutes. That would be best."

Just as I hung up, someone knocked at the door, and I thought it would be Manur. It was the waitress bringing the two breakfasts (coffee and coffee): doubtless Manur had taken the liberty of ordering them before consulting me as to my preferences. While the waitress was placing the trays on the table, I again put a call through to the dining room and this time asked to speak to Señora Manur. I did not know what I was going to say to her, I had no idea. Before leaving, the room service waitress required my signature and — as waitresses always do in luxury hotels to remind the forgetful client of the need for a tip — she smiled rather too broadly: with the telephone in one hand and the cord stretched as far as it would go, I had to fumble for some coins in the pocket of a jacket hanging in the wardrobe. And what I imagine to have been the last of those ten minutes was squandered in useless waiting: when Manur knocked at my door, Natalia Manur had still not come to the phone and I had still not finished shaving. I hung up and went to the door feeling dirty (which I wasn't), ill-dressed (which I wasn't), nervous (which I was) and less than immaculate (which I also was, and you have no idea how it upsets me to be seen when I'm less than immaculate). Manur, on the other hand, was clean and as if new-minted, in his New England-style clothes and smelling of that cologne which might perhaps have aroused feelings of nostalgia in Natalia Manur's passive consciousness. He was carrying his green fedora in his hand, his bald head was impeccable, his moustache neat, and his eyes cold and watchful. He did not say that he had just twenty minutes to spare, nor did he look at his watch. And even before we had done any more than exchange greetings, when he had sat down at the table on which the breakfasts had been laid, when he had poured me a cup of coffee with a steady hand and proceeded to pour one for himself, circumstances conspired once more in his favor. The telephone rang. I picked it up after the first ring hoping it would be that fourth journalist I had erroneously anticipated — even though now it would be too late— and not Natalia Manur. But I was out of luck: what I heard was her voice saying: "Hello, we got cut off. What's wrong? Dato told me to phone you immediately." I had not, I thought, told Dato to tell Natalia Manur to phone me immediately, I had said that I would ring her. I did not know what to say and I had to say something. Manur, in his coffee-colored suit, was already sipping his coffee and, from behind his cup— with his eyes of an entirely different hue — he was watching me intently.

"I can't talk now," I said at last. "I'm sorry, I'll explain later." And I hung up.

"I don't know if that will be possible," Manur was quick to say.

"What do you mean? What won't be possible?"

Manur looked fleetingly at his nails, as I had seen him do before. Then he looked at my still unmade bed, on which lay my electric shaver and the hand mirror. Then he looked at my chin. I almost blushed.

"I see you didn't manage to finish shaving."

"No, you didn't give me enough time."

"Oh, I calculated ten minutes from the time I called you, and, if you don't mind my saying, you do not have a particularly heavy growth of beard." He paused and I thought two things simultaneously: "Manur knows expressions in my language that most foreigners don't" and "Should I ask him now if he's come to talk about my beard and am I supposed to answer to him as to whether or not I've shaved?", but before I had come to any decision, he glanced at the phone, pointed at it with his finger and added: "However, I see that you didn't manage to speak to my wife during those ten minutes either, and I don't know if it will be possible, as I have just told her, for you ever to do so again."

This time I did turn red, and there was no darkness to conceal my blushes.

"I don't understand," I said.

Manur finished his coffee and immediately poured himself another cup. Perhaps he was one of those obsessive drinkers of black coffee, I thought, a voluntary insomniac, a slave to coffee. I still hadn't even tried mine, that is, I still hadn't had any breakfast.

"Nor did you manage to speak to her last night."

I felt a second and much stronger wave of blushes. I thought, though, that perhaps my still unshaven beard might disguise this slightly (I momentarily blessed the fact that I had not finished shaving). I made an awkward attempt to shift my chair slightly so that I was sitting with the light behind me.

"Last night? Of course I spoke to her. I had supper with her and with your secretary, as you doubtless know. We've had supper together nearly every night. We have become good friends."

"That isn't what I meant. I was referring to your phone call to our room at just after half past midnight. Don't you remember? I picked up the phone, and you hung up without saying anything. That's not a nice thing to do at all."

"Ah. And how do you know it was me?"

"I don't want to play games with you. I immediately phoned reception and asked if that fleeting, anonymous call had come from outside or from another room in the hotel, and when they said it had come from another room, I asked them which one."