When I Was Mortal by Javier Marías Read Free Book Online

not just that, sometimes you have no option, sometimes you have to do things that disgust you, but you have to do them all the same, because it would be worse not to, hasn’t that ever happened to you?”
    “Yes, it has,” I said, “but never anything so drastic.” I glanced at the grandstand, a pointless gesture on my part. “If this is all true, why are you telling me?”
    “It really doesn’t make any difference. You’re not going to tell anyone else, even if you read about it in the paper tomorrow. Nobody likes getting involved in bother; if you go and tell somebody, you’ll get nothing but complications and a lot of trouble. And threats too probably. No one tells anyone anything unless they’re going to benefit in some way. Not even God helps thepolice, everyone thinks, oh, let them get on with it. And no one says anything. You’ll do the same. I don’t feel like having any secrets today.”
    I picked up the binoculars and looked again at the grandstand, with the lenses on full magnification. It was almost empty, everyone must have gone to the bar or to the paddock, it was still some minutes before the race was due to start. That gesture was all the more useless, because I didn’t even know his boss, although, if I saw him, I might guess who he was by his rich man’s face.
    “Is he there?” he asked me fearfully, looking at the track.
    “I don’t think so, there’s hardly anyone. You look.”
    “No, I prefer to wait. When the race is about to start, when they all come in. Will you tell me?”
    “Yes, I’ll tell you.”
    We fell silent. I glanced again at his boots (his feet were very close together now) and he was staring at the cufflinks on his shirt, his wine shirt, his cufflinks in the form of tobacco leaves. Suddenly I found myself hoping that a man was dead, that his boss was already dead. I found myself preferring that option, so that he wouldn’t have to kill him. We started to notice the stand filling up, people were pressing in on us, we had to get to our feet to make room.
    “You have the binoculars,” I said, “we agreed that you would watch the start of the race.” And I handed them to him.
    The bodyguard took them and raised them brusquely to his eyes, with the same gesture that had rendered mine unusable. I saw him focus them on the starting boxes and then, when the horses were under orders, he turned the binoculars towards the grandstand for a few seconds. I heard him counting:
    “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He hasn’t come,” he said.
    “They’re off,” I said.
    He looked again at the track and when the horses were taking the first bend, I heard him shouting:
    “Go on,
Charon
, go on! Come on,
Charon
, come on!”
    Despite his excitement and his joy, he was still clearheaded enough to pass me the binoculars when the horses were reaching the final bend. He was a considerate man, he kept his promise to let me watch the finish. I raised the binoculars to my eyes and I saw that
Charon
was winning by half a length over
Heart So White
in second place: the two horses that my companion had bet on that afternoon to win and to come second. I, on the other hand, would have to tear up my tickets once more and throw them to the ground.
    I lowered the binoculars and I was surprised not to hear him shouting and happy.
    “You won,” I said.
    But he obviously hadn’t followed the last part of the race, he obviously didn’t know. He was staring at the grandstand with his own eyes, without the help of binoculars. He was very still. He turned to me without looking at me, as if I were a stranger. I was a stranger. He buttoned up his jacket. His face had grown dark again, almost contorted.
    “There they are, they’ve arrived. They’ve arrived for the fifth race,” he said. “I’m sorry, I must go and join them, he’ll want to give me instructions.”
    He said nothing more, not even goodbye. He had pushed his way through the crowds in a matter of