Read Online Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me by Javier Marías - Free Book Online Page A

with the surname that counted, the first, rather unusual one, there would be no need to spell it because I would ask for Mr Dean which is how the hotel would know him or recognize him, in spite of the accent on the “a”, which the English would ignore. If I phoned, what would I say, I wouldn’t give my name just the news, I would force him to take charge of the situation now, since he hadn’t saved us before, and then I could wash my hands of the affair, I could simply leave and start to forget, a piece of bad luck, I could start to hone the memory and reduce it to just that, a piece of bad luck, perhaps an anecdote or, more dignified, a story, one I could tell to close friends, not now, but one day, when it had acquired the necessary degree of unreality that would make it all more benevolent and bearable, that particular businessman had spent far too long not worrying about his family (you have to worry ceaselessly about those closest to you), no, that wasn’t true, he had phoned after his supper at the Indian restaurant, but Marta Téllez was not my wife but his, and the boy, Eugenio Déan by name, was not my son, Déan, the father and the husband, would have to take responsibility sooner or later, why not now, why not from London. I looked at the clock for the first time in ages, it was nearly three, but on the island it would be an hour earlier, almost two o’clock, not particularly late for a native of Madrid even if he had things to do the following day, and besides, in England, people don’t get up particularly early. While I was dialling, I thought (one’s dialling finger bypasses one’s will, bypasses any decision one has taken, acting without knowing,deciding without knowing): “It doesn’t matter what time it is, if I’m going to give him such news anonymously, it’s irrelevant what time it is or if I wake him up, he’ll wake up quickly enough once he’s heard it, he’ll think it must be a joke in the worst possible taste or the product of some enemy’s incomprehensible grudge, he’ll call back at once and no one will pick up the phone; then he’ll call someone else, a sister-in-law, a sister, a friend, and ask them to come over and find out what’s going on, but by the time they arrive, I will have gone.”
    The English voice took a while to answer, five rings, the porter had probably dropped off to sleep, it was a Tuesday night in winter, and before returning to consciousness, he would have imagined that he was dreaming he could hear a phone ringing, his head perhaps resting on the counter like a future decapitee, his ankles wrapped around the legs of the chair, one arm hanging limply down.
    “Wilbraham Hotel, good morning,” that voice said in English, rather indistinctly, but in keeping with the clock.
    “May I speak to Mr Dean, please?” I said.
    “What room number, sir?” replied the voice, which had recovered its harsh, neutral, professional tone, the voice of a factotum.
    “I don’t know his room number, his name’s Eduardo Dean.”
    “One moment, please.” I waited a few seconds during which I heard the porter whistling quietly, rather odd in an English person who has just been woken up in what, for him, would be the middle of the night, the small hours. The next thing I would hear, when the whistling stopped, would be the hoarse voice of Marta’s husband startled awake. I prepared myself, prepared myself mentally rather than the precise, gabbled words I would have to say before hanging up, without a goodbye. But that isn’t what happened, instead the English voice came on again and said: “Hello, I’m afraid there’s no Mr Dean in the hotel, sir. Is it spelled D-E-A-N, sir?”
    “D-E-A-N, that’s right,” I repeated. In the end, I had had to spell it out. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, sir, there’s no Mr Dean in the hotel tonight, sir. When is he supposed to have arrived?”
    “Today. He should have arrived today.”
    “You mean yesterday, Tuesday, isn’t that