Ruibérriz de Torres again looked surprised or did a brilliant impression of looking surprised.
‘His wife? What do you mean? What kind of consolation are you talking about? Naturally, he’ll help her and console her as best he can, as he will the kids. She’s his friend’s widow, they’re his friend’s orphaned children.’
‘Javier has been in love with her for years. Or has insisted on being in love, which comes to the same thing. Getting rid of the husband has proved highly providential to him. They really loved each other, that couple. He wouldn’t have stood a chance with Deverne alive. Now he does stand a chance. Patiently, little by little. By staying close.’
Ruibérriz immediately, effortlessly, recovered his smile. It was a smile of commiseration, as if he felt sorry to see me so hopelessly barking up the wrong tree, to see how innocent I was and how little I understood the man who had been my lover.
‘What are you talking about?’ he answered scornfully. ‘He’s never said a single word to me about that, and I’ve certainly never noticed anything. Don’t delude yourself, don’t console yourself thinking that he’s finished with you because he loves someone else. That’s just ridiculous, Javier isn’t the kind to fall in love with anyone, no way. I’ve known him for years. Why do think he’s never married?’ – He gave a short laugh intended to be sarcastic. – ‘“Patiently,” you say. He doesn’t know what patience is, not at least when it comes to women. That, among other reasons, is why he’s still a bachelor.’ – He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. – ‘What rubbish. You have absolutely no idea.’ – Nevertheless he again remained silent for a while, thinking or searching his memory. How easy it is to introduce doubts into someone else’s mind.
It was likely that Díaz-Varela had never told him anything about that, especially if he had deceived him as to his motive. I remembered that when he mentioned Luisa in the conversation I overheard, he didn’t refer to her by name. In Ruibérriz’s presence, I had been ‘a bird’, but she, in turn, had been ‘the wife’, ‘la mujer’ in the sense not of ‘woman’ but of ‘wife’, someone else’s wife. As if she wasn’t someone who was dear to him. As if she were condemned to being just that, his friend’s wife. Ruibérriz had obviously never seen the two of them together, otherwise, he would have been as struck by this as I was the very first moment I met him, that evening at Luisa’s house. I imagined Professor Rico must have noticed too, although who knows, he seemed too absorbed in his own thoughts, too abstracted, to be aware of the outside world. I chose to say nothing more on the subject. Ruibérriz’s gaze was, once again, pensive, absorbed. There was nothing more to say. He had abandoned his courtship of me, which had, it seems, been genuine; he must have been very disappointed. I clearly wasn’t going to make any more sense of it all, and, besides, I really didn’t care. I had just washed my hands of the matter, at least until another day, or another century.
‘What happened to you in Mexico?’ I asked suddenly, intending to shake him out of his relative stupor, to cheer him up. I sensed that it would be fairly easy to grow to like him. Not that there would be an opportunity, I had no intention of ever seeing him again, and the same went for Díaz-Varela and for Luisa Alday and for the whole lot of them. I just hoped that the publishing house didn’t commission Professor Rico to write a book.
‘In Mexico? How do you know about that?’ – This question did take him very much by surprise, he had obviously forgotten. – ‘Not even Javier knows the whole story.’
‘I heard you mention it at Javier’s place, when I was listening from behind the door. You said you’d got into a bit of trouble there, that you were wanted by the police or had a record or something.’
‘Bloody hell, so you heard that too?’ – And he immediately added, as if he needed to explain something of which I was still unaware: ‘That wasn’t a murder either, not at all. It was pure self-defence, it was either him or me. And besides, I was only twenty-two …’ He stopped, realizing that he had said too much, that he