That very day, Álvaro invited the Casareses to dinner.
At nine on the dot they arrived at his door. They had dressed up for the occasion. She wore an old-fashioned violet-coloured dress, but her hairstyle was elegant and the shadow of make-up darkening her lips, eyelids and cheeks paradoxically enhanced the pallor of her face. He was stuffed into a tight suit, and his enormous belly only allowed one button of the jacket to be done up, leaving exposed the flowered front of an Asturian baptism shirt.
Álvaro was about to laugh to himself at the Casareses’ pathetic appearance, but he quickly realised that this dinner represented an important social occasion for them and he felt a sort of compassion towards the couple. This filled him with great self-confidence, and so, while they had the aperitif he’d prepared and listened to the records he’d recently acquired, he found topics of conversation that alleviated the relative initial awkwardness and relaxed the stiffness that gripped them. They talked about almost everything before sitting down at the table and Álvaro couldn’t help but notice that the woman nervously smoked one cigarette after another, but he refrained from making any comment.
During the meal, the man talked and laughed with a booming cheerfulness that seemed excessive to Álvaro and, in spite of her haggard appearance, the woman was visibly pleased at her husband’s contagious vitality. Álvaro, nevertheless, conscious of the respect he inspired, did not release the reins of the dialogue, and although he tended to be inhibited when faced with a personality more vigorous or excessive than his own, he succeeded in bringing the conversation on to his terrain. He talked of daily life in the neighbourhood, of the strange relationships that grew up between neighbours, invented some dubiously diverting discord among the concierges. Then he concentrated on his relationship with old man Montero: their long chess matches, the conversations that preceded and followed them, the taciturn initial mistrust only gradually mellowed by time and with difficulty. He also took his time enumerating the many details that made the man eccentric. Over coffee and cognac, he enquired discreetly about his neighbour’s employment situation. The couple turned gloomy. The husband said it was all still the same and he still didn’t know how to thank him for all the trouble he’d taken. Álvaro said he considered himself paid by the satisfaction he received from fulfilling an obligation as friend and neighbour. He said, for his part, he’d made enquiries within his limited sphere, but without results. In his view, the situation didn’t look set to improve, at least not in the short term. In any case, he would continue with his enquiries and, as soon as he heard of any job, tell him immediately.
They carried on chatting for a while, arranged to get together again on the following Tuesday and said goodnight.
IX
He threw himself into feverish activity that week. Now he also wrote at night: when he got home from the office he took a shower, ate a light supper and shut himself back up in his study. As the novel approached its end, the rhythm of his writing slowed down, but at the same time his certainty grew that the chosen path was the right one. In order not to waste the two mornings a week he went upstairs to the old man’s place, the previous evenings would find him in bed very early, so he could get up at five the next morning and have almost five working hours at his disposal before confronting the chessboard. The Casareses’ arguments were getting worse and it wasn’t difficult for him to detect, the next time they came to dinner at his place, that the hostility between them had increased. That day they didn’t arrive dressed as if for a religious celebration. This presupposed a greater level of trust, which not only allowed him to conduct and express himself more naturally, but also permitted the resentment the two of them had been harbouring lately to eventually rise to the surface. Álvaro again dominated the conversation and it hardly took any effort to centre it, now almost without pretence that it was merely a chance turn in the wanderings of the dialogue, on old man Montero. He again mentioned his eccentricities, explained in great detail the location of the wall safe, described its simple mechanism and assured them it contained a great fortune. Later, he spoke about the old man’s poor health and absolute isolation; he made a special point of emphasizing the almost mathematical exactitude of his comings and goings each day, the unwavering nature of his daily routine; lastly, he said that he only closed the safe when he was about to leave the house.
In vain he awaited a reaction from the couple. They would change the subject as soon as a silence opened in Álvaro’s monotonous obsessive talk. At first he thought it was just a matter of time but, as they dined together repeatedly and he gradually constrained the conversation to this single theme, the Casareses’ indifference turned into irritation and impatience. One day they jokingly begged him to talk of something else for once and Álvaro, smiling and annoyed, asked for their forgiveness: ‘It’s just that it strikes me as a fascinating subject,’ he said, sounding fascinated. Another time they alluded to the theme as his ‘persecution mania’ and he, feeling they were trying to ridicule him, replied harshly, as if repelling unexpected aggression. On another occasion, the couple took the liberty of inviting the journalist with the eruptive face to introduce an element of variation to their gettogethers, but Álvaro practically ignored her, and that day insisted on talking about the old man more than ever. As they left, the Casareses stood chatting with the journalist for a few minutes on the landing. They confessed they were worried about Álvaro. For a while now he hasn’t seemed well; so much solitude couldn’t be good for anybody.
‘Solitude borders on madness,’ said the man, as if repeating a sentence prepared in advance for that moment.
There was silence. The girl’s eyes — two blue, attentive apples — opened wide.
‘Something will end up happening to him,’ the woman added, with that fatalism that passes for wisdom among the humble.
Álvaro was worried, not only because the couple didn’t react as he’d expected, but also what really exasperated him was that their relationship had improved markedly: the fights had stopped, the dinners at his place seemed to reconcile them even further and their physical appearance had regained its lost vigour. But there was something worse: he was unable to find a fitting finale for his novel, and when he thought he had hit upon one, the difficulties of execution eventually discouraged him. He needed to find a solution.
But it was the solution that found him. He’d been trying to write all morning without any results. He went out for a walk in the autumn light and dry leaves. On his way back, he met the Casareses in the entrance hall, waiting for the lift. They were carrying several bags and, wrapped in brown paper, a long object that widened at its bottom end. Álvaro thought incongruously that it was an axe. A shiver ran down his spine. The Casareses greeted him with a cheerfulness that Álvaro judged incomprehensible or perhaps only artificial; they told him they were coming back from the city centre where they’d been doing some shopping; they commented on the nice weather and said goodbye on the landing.
After a brief tussle, he managed to unlock the door. Once inside he collapsed in an armchair in the living room and, with trembling hands, lit a cigarette. He had not the slightest doubt about what the Casares planned to use the axe for, but nor did he doubt — he thought with a start of euphoria — the ending he’d give to his novel. And then he wondered — perhaps due to that insidious intellectual habit that led one to consider every objective a deception once it’d been achieved — if finishing it was really worth the old man’s death and almost certainly the eventual imprisonment of the couple, because amateurs would commit errors that the police could not fail to notice. He felt a terrible pressure in his chest and throat. He thought he’d call the Casareses and persuade them to abandon their project; he’d convince them it was madness, that the idea hadn’t even come from them: only he, Álvaro, was responsible for these atrocious machinations. He’d convince them they were going to destroy their lives and those of their children because, even if the police didn’t find them out, how would they be able to live with themselves with the weight of this crime on their consciences, how could they look their children in the eye without shame? But perhaps it was already too late. They had made their decision. And he, had he not made his as well? Had he not decided to sacrifice everything to his Work? And if he had sacrificed himself, why should he not sacrifice others? Why be more generous to old man Montero and the Casareses than he was to himself?