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Authors: Javier Marías
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left, doubtless towards the bedroom where the child was. And when he moved away, I saw Janet there dead, strangled. In the struggle her skirt had ridden up and she had lost one of her high-heeled shoes. I saw the garters I had tried so hard not to think about during those last four years.
I was paralysed, but I managed to think: that man who is me, that man who has not moved from Chesham during all this time, is going to kill Martin as well or else the new baby, assuming that Janet and I have had another baby during my absence. I must break the glass and go in and kill that man before he kills Martin or his own newborn child. I must stop him. I must kill myself right now. Except that I am outside the window and the danger is inside.
While I was thinking all this, the child’s crying stopped, suddenly. There were none of the little whimpers you usually get as a child calms down, none of the progressive calm that overtakes children when you pick them up or rock them or sing to them. Before I went away, I used to sing Lord Rendall’s song to Martin and sometimes I managed to soothe him, to stop him crying, but it took a long time, I had to sing the song over and over. He would go on sobbing, but his sobs would gradually diminish, until at last he fell asleep. That child, on the other hand, had fallen silent abruptly, with no transitional phase. And in that new silence, without realising what I was doing, I stood up and started singing Lord Rendall’s song by the window, the song I used to sing to Martin and which begins: ‘Where have you been all the day, Rendall, my son?’ except I used to sing: ‘Where have you been all the day, Martin, my son?’ And then, when I began singing it there next to the window, I heard the voice of the man in our bedroom join me to sing the second verse: ‘Where have you been all the day, my pretty Tom?’ But the child, my child Martin or his child who bore my name, had stopped crying. And when the man and I stopped singing Lord Rendall’s song, I could not help wondering which of the two of us would be hanged.
(1989)
an epigram of fealty
For Montse Mateu
Mr James Lawson looked up. He had just that morning rearranged the window display of the bookstore of which he was manager, Bertram Rota Ltd, Long Acre, Covent Garden, one of the most prestigious and discriminating second-hand bookshops in London. He preferred not to overcrowd the window, displaying, at the most, ten carefully chosen books or manuscripts, each one of which was extremely valuable. They were the sort of editions guaranteed to attract his usual clientele which consisted exclusively of distinguished gentlemen and the occasional elegant lady bibliophile. That morning, with some pride, he had placed in the window works such as Salmagundi by William Faulkner, never reprinted after that first 1932 edition (of 525 numbered copies), and a first edition of Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, priced at £2,000. Although he himself set the prices according to the state of the market, he could still never get used to the fact that a book could be worth so much money. But those books were nothing compared with Beckett’s novel, Watt, typed and corrected by the author himself and priced at £50,000. He had had his doubts about putting such a valuable item in the window, but in the end, he had decided to go ahead. It was a source of great satisfaction to him and, after all, he would be there all morning and all afternoon, stationed at his desk, keeping guard over the window. Nonetheless, he felt uneasy and looked up from his desk whenever he noticed someone, some figure, standing on the other side of the glass. He even looked up when people walked past. This time, however, he kept his head raised, for before him, at the window, was a wild-looking beggar. His hair was rather long and he sported a few days’ growth of reddish beard. He was well-built and had a large, apparently broken nose. His clothes, like those of any mendicant,
I was paralysed, but I managed to think: that man who is me, that man who has not moved from Chesham during all this time, is going to kill Martin as well or else the new baby, assuming that Janet and I have had another baby during my absence. I must break the glass and go in and kill that man before he kills Martin or his own newborn child. I must stop him. I must kill myself right now. Except that I am outside the window and the danger is inside.
While I was thinking all this, the child’s crying stopped, suddenly. There were none of the little whimpers you usually get as a child calms down, none of the progressive calm that overtakes children when you pick them up or rock them or sing to them. Before I went away, I used to sing Lord Rendall’s song to Martin and sometimes I managed to soothe him, to stop him crying, but it took a long time, I had to sing the song over and over. He would go on sobbing, but his sobs would gradually diminish, until at last he fell asleep. That child, on the other hand, had fallen silent abruptly, with no transitional phase. And in that new silence, without realising what I was doing, I stood up and started singing Lord Rendall’s song by the window, the song I used to sing to Martin and which begins: ‘Where have you been all the day, Rendall, my son?’ except I used to sing: ‘Where have you been all the day, Martin, my son?’ And then, when I began singing it there next to the window, I heard the voice of the man in our bedroom join me to sing the second verse: ‘Where have you been all the day, my pretty Tom?’ But the child, my child Martin or his child who bore my name, had stopped crying. And when the man and I stopped singing Lord Rendall’s song, I could not help wondering which of the two of us would be hanged.
(1989)
an epigram of fealty
For Montse Mateu
Mr James Lawson looked up. He had just that morning rearranged the window display of the bookstore of which he was manager, Bertram Rota Ltd, Long Acre, Covent Garden, one of the most prestigious and discriminating second-hand bookshops in London. He preferred not to overcrowd the window, displaying, at the most, ten carefully chosen books or manuscripts, each one of which was extremely valuable. They were the sort of editions guaranteed to attract his usual clientele which consisted exclusively of distinguished gentlemen and the occasional elegant lady bibliophile. That morning, with some pride, he had placed in the window works such as Salmagundi by William Faulkner, never reprinted after that first 1932 edition (of 525 numbered copies), and a first edition of Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf, priced at £2,000. Although he himself set the prices according to the state of the market, he could still never get used to the fact that a book could be worth so much money. But those books were nothing compared with Beckett’s novel, Watt, typed and corrected by the author himself and priced at £50,000. He had had his doubts about putting such a valuable item in the window, but in the end, he had decided to go ahead. It was a source of great satisfaction to him and, after all, he would be there all morning and all afternoon, stationed at his desk, keeping guard over the window. Nonetheless, he felt uneasy and looked up from his desk whenever he noticed someone, some figure, standing on the other side of the glass. He even looked up when people walked past. This time, however, he kept his head raised, for before him, at the window, was a wild-looking beggar. His hair was rather long and he sported a few days’ growth of reddish beard. He was well-built and had a large, apparently broken nose. His clothes, like those of any mendicant,
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