‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Why limit yourself to the beach? I doubt he needs an excuse to see her naked.’
‘I don’t think he films her because she’s naked, but all the time, perhaps even when she’s sleeping. It’s touching really, he obviously thinks only of her. But I don’t know that I would like it. Poor Inès. Not that she seems to mind.’
That night, when we got into our double bed at the hotel, both at once, each on our own side, I lay thinking about the things we had said and which I have just set down in writing, and, unable to sleep, I spent a long time watching Luisa sleeping, in the dark, with only the moon to light her. Poor Inès, she had said. Her breathing was very soft, but still audible in the silence of the room, the hotel and the island, and her body didn’t move, apart from her eyelids, beneath which her eyes were doubtless moving about, as if they couldn’t get used to not doing at night what they did during the day. Perhaps the fat man is awake too, I thought, filming the beautiful Inès’ perfectly still eyelids, or maybe he’ll lift the sheets off her and very carefully arrange her body in different positions so as to film her sleeping. With her nightgown pulled up perhaps or with her legs apart if she isn’t wearing a nightgown or pyjamas. Luisa didn’t wear a nightgown or pyjamas in summer, but she did wrap the sheet around her like a toga, clasping it to her with both hands, although one shoulder or the nape of her neck would sometimes come uncovered, and then, if I noticed, I would always cover her up. I sometimes had to struggle a little to make sure I had enough of the sheet on my side of the bed. But this only happened in summer.
I got up and went over to the balcony to kill time until sleep came, and from there, leaning on the balustrade, I looked up at the sky and then down, and that was when I thought I saw the fat man sitting alone by the swimming pool, in darkness now, the water reflecting only the stars. I didn’t recognise him at first because he wasn’t sporting the moustache I’d become used to seeing every day, as I had that very morning, and because our eyes have to accommodate themselves to seeing, fully clothed, someone we have been used to seeing undressed. His clothes were as ugly and ill-coordinated as his two-tone swimsuits. He was wearing a baggy shirt, which looked black from my balcony (from a distance) but was probably patterned, and a pair of light-coloured slacks that appeared to be a very pale blue, possibly a reflection from the near-invisible water, so close it would have splashed him had there been any waves. On his feet he wore a pair of red moccasins, and his socks (imagine wearing socks on the island) seemed to be the same colour as his trousers, but again that might have been the effect of the moon on the water. He was resting his head on one hand and the corresponding elbow on the arm of a floral-patterned sun lounger — there were two models available at the poolside, striped and floral. He didn’t have his camera with him. I hadn’t realised they were staying at our hotel, since we had only ever seen them at the nearby beach, to the north of Fornells, in the mornings. He was alone, as motionless as Inès, although now and then he changed that drowsy, laid-back pose of head and elbow and adopted another apparently contrary position, his face buried in his hands, his feet drawn in, as if he were exhausted or tense or possibly laughing to himself. At one point, he took off one shoe or accidentally lost it, but he didn’t immediately reach out his foot to retrieve it, but stayed like that, his stockinged foot on the grass, which gave him a helpless look, at least from my fourth-floor viewpoint. Luisa was sleeping, and Inès would be sleeping too; she probably needed at least ten hours’ sleep to maintain her immutable beauty. I got dressed in the dark, taking care not to make any noise, and checked that Luisa was well wrapped up in her sheet-cum-toga. Unaware that I wasn’t in the bed, she had yet somehow sensed it in her sleep, for she was lying diagonally now, invading my space with her legs. I went down in the lift, not having looked to see what time it was, past the night porter sleeping uncomfortably, head on the counter, like a future decapitee; I had left my watch upstairs, and everything lay in silence, apart from the slight noise made by my black moccasins (I wasn’t wearing socks). I slid open the glass door that led to the swimming pool and closed it again, once I was outside on the grass. The fat man raised his head, glanced over at the door and immediately noticed my presence, although he couldn’t make me out, I mean, couldn’t identify me in the dim light. For that reason, because he had spotted me at once, I spoke to him as I walked towards him and as the reflections of the moon in the water began to reveal me and change my colours as I approached.
‘You’ve shaved off your moustache,’ I said, running my index finger over the place where a moustache usually grows and not quite sure that I should make such a comment. By the time he could reply, I had reached his side and sat down on another sun lounger, next to him, a striped one. He had sat up, his hands on the arms of his sun lounger and was looking at me slightly nonplussed, but only slightly, and without a hint of suspicion, as if he wasn’t in the least surprised to see me — or, indeed, anyone — there. I think that was the first time I had seen him face on — without a camera to his eye and without a hat to mine — or simply from close up, and my sight was already accustomed to the dim light after the brief time I’d spent gazing out from the balcony. He had an affable face, alert eyes, and his features weren’t ugly, simply fat, and he struck me as one of those handsome bald men, like the actor Michel Piccoli or the pianist Richter. He looked younger without his moustache, or perhaps it was the red moccasins, one of which lay upturned on the grass. Yet he must have been at least fifty.
‘Oh, it’s you. I didn’t recognise you at first with your clothes on, we usually only see each other in our beach-wear.’ He had said exactly what I had thought earlier, when I was upstairs. We had spent nearly three weeks seeing each other every day, and it was impossible that his busy eyes would not at some point have lingered, despite everything, on me or on Luisa. ‘Can’t you sleep?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘The air-conditioning in the room doesn’t always help. You’re better off out here, I think. Do you mind if I join you for a while?’
‘No, of course not. My name’s Alberto Viana,’ and he shook my hand. ‘I’m from Barcelona.’
‘I’m from Madrid,’ I said and told him my name. Then there was a silence, and I wondered whether I should make some trivial remark about the island or about vacations or some other almost equally trivial remark about the activities we had observed on the beach. It was my curiosity about those activities that had led me to his side by the pool, well, that and my insomnia, although I could have continued to struggle with that upstairs or even woken Luisa, but I hadn’t. I was speaking almost in a whisper. It was unlikely anyone could hear us, but the sight of Luisa, and of the night porter, sound asleep, had given me the feeling that if I raised my voice I would disturb their slumbers, and my hushed tones had immediately infected or influenced the way Viana spoke.
‘I’ve noticed that you’re very keen on video cameras,’ I said after that pause, that hesitation.
‘Video cameras?’ he said, slightly surprised or as if to gain time. ‘Ah, I see. No, not really, I’m not a collector. It isn’t the camera itself that interests me, although I do use it a lot, it’s my girlfriend, whom you’ve seen, I’m sure. I only film her, nothing else, I don’t experiment with it at all. That’s fairly obvious, I suppose. You’ve probably noticed.’ And he gave a short laugh, half-amused, half-embarrassed.
‘Yes, of course, my wife and I have both noticed. I think she feels slightly envious of the attention you lavish on your girlfriend. It’s very unusual. I don’t even have a regular camera. But then we’ve been married for some time.’