And so I said unnecessarily, partly because I could not resist the minor or venial vice of making an impromptu joke, raising my voice as if I were some person in authority, police or governmental or lay, and addressing myself to the eight users of the cubicles, whose feet had something choreographic about them, as if they had paused momentarily in mid-dance, and as soon as they heard my incongruous, male voice, I saw seven pairs of legs instinctively and simultaneously press together or close, I mean each pair on its own account, the only legs that did not change position being the bare-legged pair with the ankles unencumbered by any item of clothing, their owner must be foreign and, possibly, given their perfectly depilated state, a compatriot of mine. There was a slight, not very penetrating odour of secretions and humours in that place (not, curiously and fortunately, of urine), doubtless sexual and, to me, unusual, mixed up with various female colognes and perfumes, women tending to be cleaner than men, although not always (and then they are as slovenly and dirty as the SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb, luckily she was only a fictitious character and so poor Nin would not, in reality, have been able to take her as his lover), and I found the whole scene not at all unpleasing. And so I said this, which was completely irrelevant to the search I was engaged upon, and I acknowledge that I said it purely in jest and for fun: 'Forgive the intrusion, my dear ladies,' it seemed to me that addressing them thus would calm them down, despite the fright I had given them; 'but we're hoping to apprehend a particularly skilful pickpocket.' 'A particularly skilful pickpocket', those were the ludicrous words I came out with, and as soon as I said them, I was struck by how antiquated they sounded, like something out of the 1930’s or even Dickens (a pickpocket), but any mention of a maniac or a terrorist (still less of a hidden bomb) would have sown panic and the women would have rushed out, without pulling up their tights or trousers and would have risked staining them with some drop, and I had no desire to put them in such a humiliating position or to cause them any public embarrassment, even if they and I were the only witnesses. 'I'm sure he's not here,' I added with as much circumspection and neutrality as I could muster, films are invaluable to those of us who, from the moment we first sat down in that darkened auditorium, used them as a kind of apprenticeship, 'but I would just ask you to confirm to me that there is, in fact, no man hidden in any of the cubicles. I can see two pairs of trousers from here and the legs wearing them are not entirely…' I did not continue, for I was, I'm afraid, about to say something like 'unequivocal'. 'I would be extremely grateful if you would be so kind as to answer me, one by one, and I will then leave at once.’
I imagine that a real policeman would have waited until they came out to make certain, but I, of course, was not a real policeman, nor was I, in fact, in pursuit of a pickpocket. I heard one or two involuntary titters behind me, in the area by the mirrors, women, generally speaking, are more prepared to see the funny side of things that have a funny side, especially if they are matters that can be taken lightly and as if they were already done and dusted and can thus be retold without fear of incurring any further consequences (not, at least, as regards the original events, of course, but retelling anything almost always brings consequences of its own). After a couple of seconds of what was, doubtless, some bewilderment, the female voices gradually responded from behind their doors, some more submissively than others, and only one angrily; but given that people now meekly allow themselves to be frisked at any airport or public building, and obediently take off their shoes or even get undressed at the orders of some grim-faced customs officer, it is little wonder that they should accept importunate demands and interruptions and impertinent questions even while engaged in the most private of occupations. 'No', 'Of course not', 'Are you mad? Get out of here', 'No, sir, there's no one else in here', came the answers, and only one departed from the norm of these simple denials: the woman who was apparently wearing neither tights nor knickers, the one who had not pressed her legs together when she heard my male voice, slowly pushed open the door, which emitted a feint creak, and, looking straight at me from where she sat, said: 'You come and see.' That's what she said. (English doesn't distinguish between formal and informal 'you', between
'usted’ and 'tu’, but in her mind she must have been using the latter.) The phrase was too short and too unproblematic for me to be able to tell whether or not she had an accent, the 'k' sound of ‘come' was perhaps not sufficiently aspirated, which would mean, therefore, that she was a stranger to England and even to the Commonwealth or to any of the other former British colonies, but I couldn't really pay close enough attention, I was in no state to make fine phonetic judgements, for I found the sight of her distinctly troubling, which was why the scene lasted almost as short a time as the phrase itself, I myself hurriedly closed the door, although not as hurriedly as, on that other morning, I had opened the door to the office shared by Perez Nuix and Mulryan and found Perez Nuix bare from the waist up and drying herself, I did not close it with brio or with gusto, I closed it rather as I had my colleague's door, after only a few seconds' delay, in one resolute movement, but nevertheless still looking and memorising the image, it lasted twelve seconds, seconds which I counted only later in my memory, the scene in the Ladies' toilet did not, I think, last even that long, for I promptly pushed the door shut as I stammered – although it was probably not my voice that stammered, but my thoughts: 'I can see well enough, thank you very much'; and it was true, I could see well enough that she was there alone and seated, she was not one of those prissy women who avoid sitting down on the actual seat and who urinate hovering above it so to speak -only a short distance above, but nonetheless poised in the air – any contact with the seats in public toilets fills them with disgust or revulsion, after all, they don't know who might have been there before them and there are all kinds of grubby, slovenly, dirty people in the world, not to say poisonous ones too, indeed, however chic a place may be, there is contagion everywhere and a great deal of grime. This woman was evidently not the prudent sort, given that she clearly didn't even bother with underwear: her knickers had not remained at garter level or barely been pulled down at all, there simply were no knickers, as I confirmed or discovered when she revealed her whole figure to my now elevated eyes, her thighs were as unencumbered with clothes as were her ankles, her tight skirt pulled up to groin- and hip-level and, therefore, wrinkled (not that there was a great deal of fabric, it would doubtless be on the short side), a straight white tube skirt, her shoes, with their slender but sturdy heels, were the same colour, like the summer shoes women wore in the 1950’s, which was, generally speaking, the best and prettiest decade for female fashion, but they, like the skirt, were unexpected in London and worn outside of the season to which they were best suited, I saw, too, a yellow shape or smudge beneath which there was no bra, a blouse with a rounded neck and almost imaginary sleeves – sleeves like stumps, the upper part would cover only the tops of her arms, and the lower part, or so I deduced, would barely cover her armpits – most troubling of all were her strong, sturdy and very – very – bare thighs, not heavy, but compact and dense, as if the whole surface were filled to bursting, with not an ounce of excess fat, but making the most of every millimetre of skin, which was as taut as a tight wrapping, thighs which quite properly grew wider as they advanced up to her hips and groin and towards the dark triangle that I could see (at least I think I could), they looked vaguely Central American those hips or perhaps they, too, were reminiscent of the 1950’s when curves were fashionable, or perhaps it was her mass of curly hair and the enormous earrings – huge hoop earrings – that lent her a tropical air which need not necessarily have been authentic, despite the golden colour of her bare skin – it could never have been British skin, nor from many places in the Commonwealth – it might just be a choice she had made, a disguise chosen for a long night at the disco, just as De la Garza imagined he had got himself up as a black rapper, but had succeeded only in looking like some kind of alternative bullfighter or some absurd Goya torero.