I definitely had that feeling as regards Tupra, that Wheeler wanted me to meet him or see him, because he could easily just have phoned and said: 'A few friends and acquaintances are coming here for a buffet supper two weeks on Saturday; why don't you come too, I know how alone you are in London.' He didn't know if I was a little or very much alone or even suffering from an excess of company, but he tended to attribute to others his own situation, needs and even neglect, a trick of his, for if he got in first, no one was likely to point out the same thing in him or to return the favour, for it would have shown a lack of originality on their part – or mere childishness. But although that is more or less what he said, he remained on the line for a few seconds more, even when I had already accepted the invitation with pleasure and made a note of the date and the hour, and then he added with feigned hesitancy (but without concealing the fact that it was feigned): 'Anyway, that fellow Bertram Tupra will be there, a former pupil of Toby's.' (He used the word 'fellow', which is perhaps less disparaging than the Spanish 'individuo': for we were speaking in both Spanish and English, or sometimes each of us in our own language.) And before I could make any comment on that unlikely surname, he anticipated me and spelled it out, agreeing: 'Yes, I know, it sounds like an invented name, doesn't it, and it might well be, though it's more likely that the Bertram is false and not the Tupra, a name like that has to be genuine, Russian or Czech in origin, I don't know, or Finnish perhaps, or maybe that's just because it sounds a bit like "tundra"… Anyway, it's glaringly obvious that he isn't English, but all too frankly foreign, possibly Armenian or Turkish, so the man must have thought it prudent to compensate with a first name worthy of our English theatres, you know the sort of thing, Cyril, Basil, Reginald, Eustace, Bertram, they turn up in all the old comedies. Perhaps that's why he changed it, he couldn't have gone around here without arousing suspicion if he was called, oh, I don't know, Vladimir Tupra or Vaslav Tupra or Pirkka Tupra, can you imagine how unfortunate that would have been up until a few years ago, the only job he could have got then would have been in the ballet or the circus, certainly not in his present line of work…' Wheeler gave a short, scornful laugh, as if he had had a sudden vision of Tupra, whose appearance he was familiar with, got up in dark tights and a top with a low or plunging neckline, leaping about on stage, displaying his sturdy thighs and bulging, veiny calves; or in the leotard and brief, phosphorescent cape of a trapeze artiste. He even paused before continuing, as if he were expecting some kind of encouragement from me or was wondering whether to explain exactly what Tupra's 'line of work' was. I said nothing, and he hesitated further, I noticed that he wasn't really paying attention to what he went on to say, it seemed to me he was just playing for time and was merely improvising until he came to some decision: 'I wonder if perhaps he drew his inspiration from that legendary bookseller near Covent Garden, Bertram Rota, you know the shop, I think his full name was Cyril Bertram Rota, I hadn't realised until now what an unusual surname he had for someone with a business in Long Acre or wherever, it's probably Spanish in origin, I should think. Do you know any other Rotas in Spain, apart from the venal ecclesiastical tribunal of course? Then again, Bertram could well be his real name, Tupra's I mean, and it was perhaps his father, assuming he was the one who emigrated here from the tundra or the steppe, who had the idea of Britishising his son at birth in order to mitigate the barbarous, almost accusatory effect of Tupra, in Spain he would have had to drop it entirely, don't you think, it sounds far too much like "estupro", and he would doubtless have been the butt of endless cruel puns about rape. And these silly tricks work, Rota is a case in point, the penny hadn't dropped until now, after all these years of frittering my fortune on expensive books from his catalogue; I'll have to ask his son Anthony, who is still alive I think…' Wheeler stopped again, he was weighing up the situation while he talked, did he or did he not want to tell me or forewarn me or ask me about something. 'Besides,' he went on, 'being called Bertram would mean that he, Tupra, could be called Bertie in private, which would make him feel as if he had stepped straight out of a P. G. Wodehouse story, when he's amongst friends or with his girlfriend, I mean, oh, by the way, she'll be coming too, a new girlfriend whom he insists on introducing to us, though it's bound to be her physique he's proud of rather than her probable wisdom…' He paused one last time, but since I was either not in a very communicative mood or had nothing to add, he resorted to another digression in order to conclude in style, a digression that proved far more intriguing to me than all the others: 'Of course, he speaks English like a native, half-educated South Londoner, I'd say. In fact, when I think about it, he's possibly more English than I am, after all, I was born in New Zealand and didn't come here until I was sixteen, and I'd changed my surname too, for different reasons obviously, nothing to do with patriotic euphony or with the steppes. But then you know all that, and it's hardly relevant, besides I'm taking up far too much of your time. I'll expect you on that Saturday, then.' And he said goodbye in his fondest tones, which rendered imperceptible his ever-present irony: 'I await your arrival with the greatest impatience. You're so alone in London. Don't let me down now.' That last phrase he said in my language: 'No te me rajes.'
That is how Sir Peter Wheeler was and still is – that simulacrum of an old man, by which I mean that his venerable, docile appearance often conceals certain energetic, almost acrobatic machinations, and his absent-minded digressions an observant, analytical, anticipatory, interpretative mind, which is constantly judging. For several interminable minutes he had directed my attention towards Bertram Tupra, on whom I would find myself obliged to focus during the buffet supper, which had doubtless been Wheeler's main aim, that I should focus on him I mean. But he had not, in the end, explained why, nor had he actually uttered a single descriptive or informative word about the individual or fellow in question, only that he had been a pupil of Toby Rylands's and that he had a new girlfriend, the rest had been nothing but idle disquisitions on and conjectures about his absurd name. He had not even been able to bring himself, after all those unexpressed vacillations, to specify what his 'line of work' was, the one in which he would never have prospered had he been called Pavel or Mikka or Jukka. Finally, he had even diverted me from any possible interest I might have had about that by referring for the first time in my presence to his own New Zealand roots, to his rather late transplantation to England and to his changed or apocryphal surname, and had, at the same time, prevented me from asking him about this by adding immediately 'But then you know all that, and it's hardly relevant', when the truth was that I had known nothing at all about it until that very moment.