Your Face Tomorrow. Fever And Spear by Javier Marías Read Free Book Online Page A

during active waking hours; and the despotic, possessive one puts on an act at first, takes great care not to appear intrusive, waits to be encouraged and even when he is, declines the first invitations ('I don't want to complicate your life, I'd be putting you to a lot of trouble, and maybe you're not sure yet that you want to see me tomorrow, perhaps you should give it a bit of thought'), he appears deferential, respectful, even cautious, he tries not to reveal any invasive or expansionist tendencies, and he does not linger or dawdle in alien territory until a much later phase, precisely because he is planning to take the whole place over and cannot run the risk of arousing suspicion. He does not spend the night, even if begged to do so, not at first: he puts all his clothes back on despite the lateness of the hour, the exhaustion and the cold, and overcomes all inertia — having to put his socks back on — and postpones all eagerness, all haste — he does not mind if eagerness and haste are condensed into one; he gets in his car or calls a taxi and leaves noiselessly at dawn, in order that he can begin to be missed more quickly, as soon as he closes the door behind him and enters the lift and leaves the dishevelled, still-warm woman to return to her rumpled, unwelcoming bed, to her wrinkled sheets and to the still lingering smell. If that man is there, that devious guy who, later on, will not give her so much as a moment's breathing space and will isolate her totally, and who will not even have to bury me or dig me in any deeper because he will have suppressed my memory with the first terror and the first supplication and the first order; if he is her visitor tonight, then Luisa might put the phone back on the hook again once he has gone, as smartly dressed as when he arrived and even with his gloves on, and perhaps she will replace the phone when she hears the downstairs door bang and hears his steps in the street, noisy and confident and firm now, his progress towards it steady and sustained. So maybe I should keep ringing, or try again later, when I finally decide to go to bed in order to forget about her, it's almost eleven o'clock in Madrid and what am I doing here so far away, unable to go home to sleep, what am I doing in another country behaving like a nervous fiancé or, worse, like an insignificant lover or, worse, like a pathetic suitor who refuses to accept what he already knows, that he will always be rejected? That time is no more, it is not my time now, or, rather, my time has passed, I have had two children for a long while now and the person I am phoning is their mother, long enough for my thoughts never to forget about them and for them to be for me eternally children, why has my time been overturned or why has it been left hanging, what is the point of getting anxious on the pretext of fearing for the possible future that awaits all three of them depending on who replaces me, as far as I know there is no one on the way or travelling along that route, although if there was, Luisa would not necessarily tell me, still less about her occasional encounters that as yet have led to no inauguration, about who she sees or who she goes out with, not to mention who she goes to bed with and who she sees off at the front door, a dressing-gown thrown over her warm and, until only a moment ago, naked body, to whom she says goodbye with a long kiss as if storing it up until the next time, or perhaps she is pale after a long day, without a trace of makeup, all dishevelled, her hair grown childlike with the commotion of the day and the night, her tiredness apparent in the dark circles under her eyes and in her dull skin, when not even the momentary contentment of what has just happened can beautify a face that asks for and tolerates only repose and sleep, more sleep, and an end, at last, to thought. Neither have I told her about the three women who have spent the night here, not even one, which one, why would I, not