'Could you find out for me if it is botulinum toxin?' 'I suppose so. Maria is sure to know, or else Isabel Una will, she's involved in things like that too, I can ask them. But why this interest of yours in Botox? Are you thinking of turning yourself into a Berlusconi or is that careless girlfriend of yours considering Botox? You don't need it, you haven't got a single wrinkle, it's not fair really.' She hadn't forgotten my first question about the drop of blood, she was still thinking that someone might have stained my floor, some chance or not-so-chance visitor. The prospect of Luisa carrying out a bit of research for me cheered my innocent heart. It was the first time in ages that we had shared something in common, something new (not the children or money or practical matters), even if it was a trifle. And it would mean that we would phone each other again soon, that she would phone me or I her, to share the information she had gathered. There were matters pending between us, and that, now, was a novelty.
'Thank you, you're very youthful-looking yourself,' I replied with equal parts of humour and gallantry, and added: 'No, it's just curiosity. Someone mentioned it to me, and I'd like to know if it's the same substance that was used in 1942 to kill a Nazi bigwig Wheeler told me about. Do you know what effect it has? The process I mean.’
'I think it paralyses the muscles in the injected area and so smoothes the skin out and plumps it up, don't ask me why or how. Apparently the people who have the injections look a bit expressionless afterwards, although I haven't noticed that with Maria or with Isabel, who are the two women I know who've tried it. Although, of course, I may just not have seen them when they were under its first effects, I think it lasts for a few months and then after a break they have it done again, but the breaks get shorter and shorter. Although now that I come to; think of it, they did look a bit stiff and somehow tauter, more compact… It's odd this obsession,' and she sounded more thoughtful now, 'it's not just prevalent among rich people, nor, as I said, only among women. We'll all be at it soon. You've no idea the things people do to themselves nowadays, the putting in and taking out that goes on, the injecting and slicing, and all the other tortures they submit themselves to. It would make your hair stand on end if you knew the details. But you wait, we'll all end up the same way, and those of us who won't join in will be told: "How can you bear to go around looking like that," they'll say, "with all that flab and those folds of skin and those bags under your eyes; with those lines and that fat and that • sagging flesh, how can you stand to go around looking so neglected?" Some people compare it to going to the dentist. "After all, we go to the dentist when we have a chipped tooth, and because it looks unsightly we have it capped. Well, all these other things are just the same." As if growing old were a defect or a vice we tolerated, the result of negligence on our part. As if you could choose and were guilty of allowing yourself to grow old. Or, of course, as if you were poor, with no means to conceal the fact. That's what looking old will mean eventually, that you're a pariah. It will be another division, another difference, as if there weren't enough already. It will be equivalent to walking around in threadbare clothes. I hope we don't live to see it.’
And then she fell silent, as if she were suddenly considering her own case. I had never noticed in her the slightest concern or temptation in that regard: I used to hear her talk about the female acquaintances and friends who were most preoccupied with the passing of time, she would laugh indulgently at their extravagances and their experiments, she didn't really give it much importance, or else thought it a good thing if her friends were then happy with their supposedly improved appearance, even if it were only borrowed or false or bought, or were, sometimes, downright monstrous. She had never been like that.
But Luisa was no longer so very young and she had never before mentioned my lack of wrinkles – on a par with Tupra's firm skin; a family legacy – as a comparative reproach, not even in the joking tone she had used now. 'Perhaps she's starting to worry, under the effect or influence of everyone else,' I thought. 'She certainly has no reason to, not judging by the last time I saw her; although my criterion would be of little use to her if she's invented reasons (no one is safe from that) or someone has instilled them into her (no one is safe from that either), she thinks I look at her with too kindly an eye.’
'You're not considering resorting to such things yourself, are you?' I asked. 'You certainly don't need to.’
She laughed for a moment, thus emerging from her brief brooding silence.
'I might not need them today, but tomorrow, rather than the day after tomorrow, I certainly will,' she said. 'Not that I'll be able to afford it, I'll be one of the pariahs, one of the threadbare ones.' And she laughed again, it had amused her to say this. 'Even though you are sending us an awful lot of money since you've been in that job of yours that you keep so quiet about,' she added. 'I'd like to thank you, Deza; we're living in the lap of luxury here – or very nearly. There's really no need to send us quite so much.' It was as if she wanted to apologise for accepting it; that is why she called me Deza and not Jaime, she wasn't trying to worm anything out of me nor was she angry with me.
'You thank me every time I send a bank transfer. I only send you what's fair, after all, you've got the kids to take care of, and, besides, I'm earning good money now and don't have that many expenses. I'll only send less if my expenses go up.’
'Yes, but you could be putting some aside. The kids have been asking when you'll be coming to see them.’
'Not in the immediate future I shouldn't think. I've got a trip with my boss coming up, but I don't know exactly when yet, it might be in a week's time or in a month or later, so I'm tied up until then. Perhaps I'll make it over after that, on a bank holiday weekend.' That is what public holidays are called in England, they usually fall on a Monday, apart from Christmas and New Year. 'Anyway, I've still got enough to put some aside. And I'm buying some really good antiquarian books, better and more expensive than ever.’
'Well, hang on to that job. Who knows, perhaps you'll tell me about it one day, what you're doing, I mean.' I didn't think she was really interested, it was just a way of being friendly. She had shown no interest in it in other conversations. Or was it just that those conversations had always been much shorter?
'There's not much to tell,' I said and here I lied, especially considering what had happened two nights previously. 'Diplomatic and commercial translation is pretty routine stuff, although you do get to meet some interesting people now and then. But, as you know, I won't hang on to the job if I get bored with it.’
She waited a couple of seconds before replying: 'Yes, I know. And, as you know, that's fine with me too.’
I saw her smile when she said this, with the wide-awake eyes of my mind. She was in another city, in another country. But I could see her very clearly from London.
16
I thanked her and said goodnight, we said goodbye, I put the phone down. But not so my thoughts. I glanced up, got out of my chair, went over to the sash window and opened it to air the room, I'd been smoking while I was talking. It wasn't raining, nor was it cold, or so it seemed to me at first, and it could have been an early-spring night, except that it wasn't very late, not even for England, and yet it had got dark some hours before, outside I could see the pale darkness of the square, barely lit by those white street-lamps that imitate the always thrifty light of the moon, and a little further off, the lights of the elegant hotel and of the houses that shelter families or men and women on their own, each enclosed in their own protective yellow rectangle, as was I for anyone watching me. I also thought I could hear faint music, so faint that any movement I made covered or smothered it, and so I stood quite still – another cigarette in my hand – and tried in vain to hear and identify it, but it was so tenuous that I couldn't even make out what kind of music it was or even its rhythm. Then, as I usually did, I looked across beyond the trees and the statue to the other side of the square, in search of my carefree, dancing neighbour.