One of those female friends was related to Muriel by marriage, being the widow of an older brother, who had died in a car crash near Ávila, on a snowy day in deepest winter and in circumstances that were not at all flattering to her: the police found two bodies, his and that of a pretty, blonde Frenchwoman, much younger than him and unknown to the family — Muriel included — or so they all said. However, she didn’t look like a professional prostitute, given the quality of the clothes she was wearing (unless she was a very high-class whore with excellent taste) and which barely covered her: her elegant jacket was unbuttoned — revealing a skimpy bra — and her skirt was up to her navel, despite the low temperatures; this could have been caused by the impact when they hit a truck coming towards them in the opposite lane, into which the couple had strayed while making a foolish, reckless attempt to overtake, but it was rather too much of a coincidence that the brother had his flies open — a buttoned fly as it happened not a zip. One could not help thinking that the laborious business of unbuttoning had been the main cause of the crash, especially if they had each been responsible for undoing the other’s buttons, which would inevitably be highly distracting and might well create the illusion — the pressing prospect of future pleasure — of invulnerability. Muriel told me all this later on, when we were chatting one day — he revealed various details of his life unthinkingly and liberally, as if he didn’t care or it didn’t matter, and yet, on the other hand, was very reserved and guarded when asked a direct question, as happened when I inquired about his eyepatch — to explain why his sister-in-law Gloria disliked him so much.
She had remained calm during the period of mourning, then carried out her own investigation, doubtless with the help of an under-employed detective, and discovered that the Frenchwoman had played a few minor roles in films made in France, in 99 Women by the omnipresent Franco and Towers (they can’t have been very fussy about who they picked, assuming the content matched the title) as well as in a few Spaghetti Westerns shot in Spain, and had auditioned for a larger part in one of Muriel’s projects. And although the woman hadn’t been chosen, Gloria insisted on suspecting that her brother-in-law, contrary to what he said, knew who she was and, not only that, had probably introduced her to his brother, or perhaps offered or leased her to him. Or, at the very least, had told him where and when the auditions for attractive young supporting actresses would be taking place, so that he could cast an eye over all the candidates and then make his own arrangements. Muriel swore he had no memory of the woman (‘How can I possibly remember the faces of all the women who audition for a part and are rejected?’) nor if, by ill luck, his brother Roberto had come to see him at the studio on that particular day and met the poor and now deceased and almost bare-breasted actress. The fact is that Gloria blamed him totally for both misfortunes (and it wasn’t at all clear which she most regretted or which most tormented her), for her husband’s infidelity — fleeting or permanent, there was no way of knowing — as well as for the accident and her loss. ‘You and your films and your actresses,’ she had said reproachfully to him on more than one occasion. ‘Roberto was so envious, he would have thought he’d died and gone to heaven if he’d had your job, and now, of course, he has died, and died making a complete fool of himself.’ Muriel did not respond, so as not to get drawn in, however irritating he found her accusations. He was just grateful that Gloria refrained from giving expression, at least in his presence, to the tormenting sense of her own absurdity that must have assailed her on many nights, for, like so many elegant, frivolous, fairly cultivated ladies, behind her undeniably worldly appearance lay a woman of basic religious beliefs, because even now in Spain one continues to come across such surprises; she made no public display of her beliefs, aware that they belonged in the most private of domains, but she probably thought with horror that, as well as making a complete fool of himself, Roberto had died in mortal sin (or almost). Muriel was convinced that she must often wonder how far the couple had got before the crash, and it must have comforted her to know that he would not have had time to ejaculate while still at the wheel. Or so Muriel would say with a bitter laugh. Or perhaps someone had informed him of his sister-in-law’s casuistic-cum-spiritual preoccupations.
There was something else that only increased her resentment: his treatment of Beatriz — which had been going on for who knows how long: ‘I didn’t bore you then, and our relationship wasn’t exactly languishing’ — Gloria probably saw in this a prolongation or repetition or variant of what her husband had perhaps dished out to her in the latter years of his life. This led her to feel or, rather, display an ostentatious, delighted solidarity with her sister-in-law and friend — although this was possibly more lip-service than anything, because, as I said, Beatriz’s curvaceous, vigorous appearance elicited little solidarity from her own sex or compassion from the opposite sex — and to take every jibe or repudiation from Muriel — about which she was doubtless instantly informed — or every suspected or rumoured flirtation on his part, as a personal insult and betrayal; and even to see the evil or cruelty of those two brothers as genetic. That is how Muriel interpreted it, and the truth is that when I overheard snippets of conversation between the two women (or three if her other great friend, Marcela, was there), while my boss was out and I was working on those chronological lists of authors, searching out and filling in dates of birth and death, or on the English translation of a script or a synopsis, or checking facts or whatever, what I heard were seditious, provocative words and phrases, intended to incite Beatriz to revolt, things like ‘I don’t know how you let him get away with it’, ‘All that sarcasm is just intended to humiliate and denigrate you’, ‘I can’t understand why you didn’t just slap him there and then’ or ‘Threaten him with divorce, because it’s sure to be made legal soon, although they’re certainly taking their time.’ I remember once hearing Beatriz’s response to that last remark and, feeling curious and in order to hear better, I looked up from my work. I was in my or Muriel’s area, and they were in Beatriz’s, with the doors open as if I didn’t exist or didn’t count, the sound of the typewriter a guarantee of my indifference, I suppose. I sometimes felt like an old-fashioned servant, the kind who would see everything and say nothing, as though they were statues in the trusting imaginations of their masters, who got some very nasty surprises later on, when they discovered that the statues had tongues.
‘Yes, it’s been about to be made legal since 1977, but it never happens, thanks to those priests of yours and their political allies determined to keep it off the statute book. Besides, what kind of threat would that be, when it’s clearly what he most wants. As soon as it does become law, I’ll be preparing myself to be left alone with the children and to lose him for ever. That’s what will happen. And then there’ll be no hope.’