be so stupid, so inept, why they can’t control their men when the fighting begins and they lose sight of them, but he never himself feels guilty about what is going on thousands of kilometres away, without him actually taking part or witnessing events: he has instantly forgotten that it was his decision, that he gave the order to advance. It’s the same with the capo who unleashes his thugs: he reads or is told that they have overstepped the mark, that they didn’t confine themselves, in accordance with his wishes, to bumping off a few people, but went on to cut off heads and balls, stuffing the latter in their victims’ mouths; he shudders slightly when he imagines this and thinks what sadists his henchmen are, forgetting that he left them free to use their imaginations and their hands as they wished, saying: “We want to terrify people, to teach them a lesson and spread panic.”’
Díaz-Varela stopped, as if this long enumeration had left him momentarily drained. He poured himself another drink and took a long, thirsty draught of it. He lit another cigarette. He sat for a while staring at the floor, absorbed in thought. For a few seconds, he looked the very image of the dejected, weary man, possibly full of remorse, even repentant. But none of this had been apparent up until then, either in this latest account or in his other digressions. On the contrary. ‘Why does he associate himself with such individuals?’ I wondered. ‘Why does he summon them up for me, rather than shooing them away? What does he gain by showing me his actions in such a repellent light? You can always find some way of embellishing the most heinous crime, of finding some minimal justification for it, a not entirely sinister reason that at least allows one to understand it without feeling sick. “That’s how it works, as I’ve found out for myself,” he said, including himself in the list. I can see the connection with divorced men or bullfighters, but not with cynical politicians or professional criminals. It’s as if, far from looking for palliatives, he wanted to drip-feed me with horror. Perhaps he’s just setting me up so that I’ll embrace any excuse, the excuses that he’ll start offering me at any moment, they’re sure to come along sooner or later, he can’t possibly be owning up to me so frankly about his egotism and his baseness, his treachery, his lack of scruples, he hasn’t even insisted overmuch on his love for Luisa, his passionate need for her, he hasn’t stooped so low as to utter the ridiculous words that nonetheless touch and soften the listener, such as “I can’t live without her, you see. I just couldn’t stand it any more, she’s the air that I breathe, and I was suffocating with no hope of ever making her mine, whereas now I do have some hope. I didn’t wish Miguel ill at all, on the contrary, he was my best friend, but he was, unfortunately, standing in the way of my one life, the only life I want, and if something or someone is stopping you from living, then he has to be removed.” People accept the excesses of those in love, not all excesses, of course, but there are occasions when it’s enough to say that someone is or was very much in love to make all other reasons irrelevant. “I loved her so much,” someone says, “that I didn’t know what I was doing,” and people nod sagely, as if he or she were talking about feelings familiar to everyone. “She lived entirely for him and through him, he was the only man in the world as far as she was concerned, she would have sacrificed everything, nothing else mattered to her,” and this is taken as an excuse for all kinds of vile, ignoble acts and even as a reason to forgive. Why doesn’t Javier lay more stress on his morbid obsession, saying that it could happen to anyone? Why doesn’t he take refuge in that? He takes it for granted, but doesn’t place much emphasis on it, he doesn’t put it first, instead he associates himself with these cold, despicable characters. Yes, perhaps that’s what it is: the more he shocks me and fills me with panic, and the more I feel the pull of vertigo, the more likely I will be to cling to any extenuating circumstance. And if that is what he