The Man of Feeling (14 page)

A
ND
IT
IS
ALL
OF
THIS
,
WHAT
happened four years ago in reality and in this morning's true and ordered dream, which I am still able to recall and which I cannot now stop myself recalling, because not enough time has passed as yet. What else happened? Or what else did I dream, as the dream grows more distant and more diffuse as I write? Ah, yes, I dreamed that I was kissing Natalia Manur for the first time, almost without knowing I was, in that other (non-luxury) hotel room to which we went on the afternoon following the first night of Verdi's
Otello
in the Teatro de la Zarzuela, when Manur's prohibition order was already in force and when Manur had already been abandoned by Natalia, although he did not know it then. Nor did I: most of the time one does not know when one has been taken up and when one has been abandoned, not just because this always happens behind one's back, but because it is impossible to pinpoint the moment when such upheavals happen, just as one never knows if the fact of being taken up has to do with one's own merits or virtues, one's own unrepeatable existence, one's own decisive intervention or, rather, merely to one's casual insertion into another person's life. I have never had any real sense, in all this time (in the interval between exclaiming "Now is my time!" and saying "Our time is over!"—the interval taken up by these last four years), of having played a personal, unequivocal, vital part in Natalia Manur's decision—after fifteen years of acceptance of and submission to an enforced situation, after fifteen years of a coexistence built on routine, on certain agreed conditions, on an economic pact, on a fear of reprisals and on the abolition of her previous life, on waiting and perhaps, too, on a mutual love that went unrecognized, in every sense of the word—to put an end to that situation and to that coexistence one afternoon in the middle of May and to go on to create a substitute based on far less solid and binding things: freedom of choice, a persuasive argument, the adulation of love, a few ardent kisses, defiance, expectation and perhaps, too, a passion as recognizable as it was primitive. I don't know if the determining factor was that I was the fifth or tenth or fifteenth of the suitors who had been tyrannically and abusively driven away by her husband (the suitor whom it was ordained would provoke a cry of "Enough!") or if it was the absence from Madrid of Roberto Monte—experienced for the first time—that made her lose all patience and forget all about her fears for her brother and for herself and to perceive what remained of her future as blacker now than she had ever known it when she still had so much future left: five, ten or even fifteen more years, since the beginning of her marriage. I only know that at the end of the long-awaited first night of Verdi's
Otello,
and contrary to what Manur himself had said, neither he nor she nor Dato came to my dressing-room to congratulate me and later celebrate my success with me. Claudina the prostitute did not come either, or her sponsor, Cespedes: they were, after all, some of the very few people whom I knew in Madrid at the time, even though it had been the city of my adolescence, but, as I have said, I neglected, alas, to invite them. As I have also said, my godfather, Señor Casaldáliga, to whom I sent two tickets by motorcycle messenger, did not come either. I gave the rest of my quota to the Heldentenor Otello, who—for he was still pretending to possible rivals that everything was perfectly normal—had asked me more than once if, by any chance, I had tickets to spare, so numerous were his social commitments. No one knocked at my dressing-room door, that is, no one who should have knocked as opposed to those who knocked spontaneously, and I was not, therefore, able to spend that night with the people who had—one might say— unceasingly kept me company in Madrid. When it was confirmed to me that everyone in the audience had left the theater, I found myself dragged off by my colleagues and by the impresarios (always eager to be seen with the stars, and I was on my way to becoming a star) to a late supper in a noisy restaurant and then to one of those tumultuous cafe terraces where, as soon as the good weather arrives, the natives of Madrid love to linger after one of their many walks. My most vivid memory of that evening is the continual passing— as happens anywhere in Madrid and at any time after sunset—of the scrupulous garbage trucks: every few moments, a terrible racket and the stink of rubbish would ruin both one's conversation and the taste of one's drink. I think now that I only put up with being in those places and with those people for so long because it comforted me not to know what had happened between the Manurs (that blissful state of uncertainty) and because I was afraid I would find out if I went back to the hotel, where, perhaps, I might be told what I already suspected and what I definitely did not want to hear: that they had vanished without trace. It was a ghastly night. Desdemona or the lovely Priés had brought with her the clumsy and ill-favored (Spanish) first violin from the orchestra and—doubtless feeling bolder and more empowered after her clamorous triumph on stage—she brazenly showered him with wet kisses and absentmindedly stroked his hairy chest. Fortunately, Iago or the fatuous Volte, left fairly early, because, although the next day was one of complete rest, he was hoping to spend the morning perfecting (that's the word he used—"perfezionare") certain aspects of his interpretation; however, before leaving, he pontificated for ten minutes on the limitations of my performance. Otello or Hörbiger got slightly drunk, told mischievous anecdotes and more or less demanded to be listened to by everyone present at that large table (fifteen or twenty people, of whom almost no one understood German, the only language he could speak coherently and fluently when in that state): now and then—so I was told—he would bawl out in his own language from the head of the table: "Listen, listen, everyone, this is really funny!"; his worst enemy, however, was not linguistic incomprehension, but the city's obsessive and tyrannical rubbish collection system and its ubiquitous trucks which kept drowning out everything. It was after one such pestilential blast, immediately followed by the usual hideous grinding noises, that, quite without warning, I was sick on the sandy ground of the cafe terrace. Now vomiting, but more especially retching, is disastrous for a singer. There was a moment of general alarm, and nearly everyone—either out of disgust or fear that they themselves might feel sick—turned their back on me. I cleaned myself up as best I could with my own handkerchief and with another that someone lent me, and, when I was feeling slightly better, I took a taxi back to the hotel, where a message awaited me, presented in person by Cespedes (who was clearly on permanent night duty) along with my key. I saw that he had noticed my stained jacket, but he made no comment about this or about my waste, the previous night, of his staff masseuse, about which I assume he knew. He merely asked, in his professional tones, if I needed anything before going to bed.

The note was from Dato, who asked me to go to his room without fail, as soon as I got back to the hotel, regardless of the lateness of the hour. It was half past two and I was utterly exhausted, and the benefits of uncertainty had run their course: now I needed to know, and so I went up to Dato's room. I have rarely seen a man in such a state of contained anxiety as Dato, the former stockbroker with the eighteenth-century hands, in the early hours of that morning. He had been smoking while he waited for me—the ashtray was overflowing— and he was wearing a burgundy red silk dressing gown, although underneath he still had on his shirt and trousers; he had shoes on too, brown shoes (with laces). He looked me up and down several times, doubtless because I was looking absolutely terrible. But it was also as if he were looking at me for the first time and with new eyes, perhaps as I imagine I would have looked at Noguera four years ago if he had been introduced to me then as the future husband of my girlfriend Berta.

"I trust you will turn up in a more presentable state for the rendezvous I have been asked to make for you tomorrow morning. Would you like something to drink?" And with that, he placed one hand on the handle of the small fridge or minibar in his room. He didn't even give me time to shake my head. "No, I suspect not, given your condition. Some mishap?"

I looked down at my jacket.

"I didn't have a chance to change, but it was nothing very serious. What's wrong?"

"You probably know that better than I do. It looks as if you're going to relieve me completely of my role as companion, perhaps deprive me of a job as well." The man speaking was no longer the indispensable and circumspect Dato, the silent presence at our suppers and conversations and walks and shopping expeditions, he was once again the man I had met on his own in the hotel bar: lively, frivolous, disrespectful, although now he was not smiling (he was simultaneously vivacious and somber).

"What do you mean? What are you talking about? Why weren't you all there at the theater?"

Dato lit another cigarette and immediately tapped it with one finger to get rid of some as yet nonexistent ash. He was agitated, but, as I said, still very contained.

"I don't know, not that it matters. I have no idea what's going on, for the first time in many years, I simply don't know. But don't concern yourself on my account, there's no real danger of my losing my job. On the contrary, I will probably prove to be even more essential, now I'll just have the other half to take care of. As I told you once before, dealing with a married couple is like dealing with one very contradictory and forgetful person. Now it will be different, perhaps easier, a man alone and without contradictions," and he said again: "a man alone."

I said nothing. Dato was smoking. Suddenly, his face lit up (slightly) and his protuberant gums appeared:

"Unless, of course, I am wrong to assume that I know what your intentions are. If tomorrow, when you go to your rendezvous, you merely have a bit of fun, enjoy yourself and then leave things as they are, as they have always been...that, if you will allow me, is what I would recommend. It would be for the best, not perhaps for Natalia or for you, but certainly for me and for Señor Manur. And probably for the two of you as well, although I doubt that you'll believe me."

"What appointment are you talking about? Can you just tell me what you're talking about? Where's Natalia?"

On this occasion, despite once again making the mistake of asking more than one question at a time, Dato answered all of them.

"Natalia is in her room, sleeping with Señor Manur. The reason I asked you to come and see me is to give you a message from her. She told me to reserve a room in this hotel," as he spoke, he picked up a card from the table with two fingers and handed it to me, "and she wants you to go there with her at five o'clock tomorrow afternoon. She won't be able to see you before, I mean, at breakfast and everything. I presume it is a romantic assignation," and he did not make the slightest pause between this comment and what he went on to say, as if he wanted his first comment to be heard, but to go unnoticed. "She also told me to congratulate you on your performance tonight. She is sure, she says, that it was a great success. She is very sorry that she could not be there."

I looked at the name and address of the hotel. It was in the same street, almost opposite I seemed to remember—a modest place, as if it had been the first one that Natalia Manur had seen when she walked out of our hotel.

"Thank you," I said. Then I hesitated: "Listen, Dato, I assume Señor Manur doesn't know anything about this."

Dato stubbed out his cigarette without finishing it, with an air of irritation and with a despair that was still new.

"What do you think? You spoke to him this morning, you met him, didn't you? That had never happened before."

"What had never happened before?"

"I told you that Natalia Manur had no lovers."

Before Dato I was incapable of blushing.

"You told me that you only kept Señor Manur informed of what you knew and nothing else, and that you didn't know if she had or had ever had any lovers. Tomorrow, on the other hand," I still did not blush, "tomorrow she might have a lover, about whom you will be informed. I don't know if you intend telling Manur, but it seems to me that, with a man like him, there is a great difference between telling him before and telling him afterwards."

Dato took his pack of cigarettes out of his dressing gown pocket and, with those slenderest of fingers, which looked as flammable as the paper or the match, he lit another one.

"My dear sir, you don't seem to understand, or perhaps you are actually going to do what I have advised you to do, but which I am assuming you won't. If Natalia Manur goes to that rendezvous tomorrow and you go too, if you do not restrict yourself, as I have suggested, to having a bit of fun and being more or less satisfied with that, then there will be no need for me to say anything that night to Señor Manur. She won't come back and he will know that she won't come back. I don't know at what point in the small hours he will give in and admit it (that is when he will come to me), but he will have understood before day breaks. It is only right that this time, when it is for real, that she should not have to put up with his scenes. I will do that." He fell silent for a moment and breathed the smoke from his cigarette out through his nostrils, as if he were trying to disguise a sigh. Then he said: "Don't you see? You have been chosen."

I have heard nothing more of Dato since that stay in Madrid, I have not even been able to imagine his face during the four years that have passed between the events I am recounting and this morning. Today I can see him clearly again, although I know that, over the next few days, his mysterious, ageless features will inevitably fade again. I can clearly see his curly hair and his bulging eyes, his tiny hands and his rubbery gums, his lace-up shoes and his burgundy red silk dressing gown (I can see especially those minute hands that will no longer pick up the change from bills paid for by his mistress, and, who knows, perhaps it was the very disinterestedness of that gesture that tipped the balance in her favor at that point). I can see too his scornful expression when, as I was leaving the room and turned to ask him why he did not try to stop that rendezvous, that inauguration, why he favored Natalia Manur over her husband, he replied in a hoarse, rusty voice, half-concealed by a mouthful of unexhaled smoke: