free.” But Luisa isn’t like that. She is fully installed and settled in our marriage and can conceive of no other life than the one she has chosen to live. She only wants more of the same, with no changes. One identical day after another, with nothing added or subtracted. So much so that what crosses my mind would never cross hers, that is, our possible death, mine or hers, that simply isn’t on her horizon, there’s no room for it. I feel the same about her death, I can hardly bear to think of it and barely consider it as a possibility. But I do consider my own death sometimes, now and then, well, we each have to struggle with our own vulnerability, not with that of other people, however much we love them. I don’t know quite how to put it, but there are times when I can very easily imagine the world without me. So if something were to happen to me one day, Javier, something final, you must be there as a back-up. I know that’s a very pragmatic, rather undignified word, but it’s the right one. Don’t misunderstand me, don’t be alarmed. I’m not, of course, asking you to marry her or anything. You have your bachelor lifestyle and your many women, which you wouldn’t give up for the world, still less to do a posthumous favour for a friend who can no longer call you to account or reproach you, who will be safely silent in the unprotesting past. But, please, stay close to her if ever I’m not here. Don’t withdraw because of my absence, on the contrary: keep her company, offer her support and conversation and consolation, go and spend a little time with her every day and call her as often as you can even if there’s no need to, but so that it becomes a natural part of her day-to-day life. Be a kind of unhusbandly husband, an extension of me. I don’t think Luisa could cope without some daily contact like that, without someone to share her thoughts with and talk to about her day, without a replacement for what she has with me now, at least in some respects. She’s known you for ages, and she wouldn’t feel as inhibited as she would with a stranger. You could even entertain her by telling her about your adventures and allow her to experience vicariously what it will seem to her impossible ever to experience again on her own account. I know it’s a lot to ask, and you wouldn’t get much out of it, it would be more of a burden really, but Luisa could, in turn, be a partial replacement for me, she could be an extension of me, as far as you’re concerned, I mean. Our loved ones are always extensions of us in a way, and they recognize each other and come together through the dead person, as if their past contact with him made them members of a brotherhood or a caste. That way you wouldn’t lose me completely, a little of me would be preserved in her. You’re always surrounded by your various women, but you don’t have that many male friends. You would miss me, you know. And, for example, she and I share the same sense of humour. And you and I have been joking around with each other on a daily basis for years now.’
Díaz-Varela would probably have laughed, perhaps to take the edge off his friend’s ominous tone, but also because this extravagant, unexpected request made him laugh despite himself.
‘You’re asking me to replace you if you die,’ he would have said, halfway between a statement and a question. ‘For me to become Luisa’s non-husband and a sort of live-out dad. Why think of such things, I mean, why think that you could leave their lives at any moment, if, as you say, you’re in good health and there’s no real reason to believe that anything bad might happen to you? Are you sure you’re all right? No diseases? You’re not mixed up in some mess I know nothing about, are you? You haven’t run up a lot of unpayable debts or debts that can’t be paid off in cash? No one has threatened you, have they? You’re not thinking of skipping off, are you, doing a runner?’
‘No, really, I’m not hiding anything from you. It’s exactly as I said, that sometimes I start thinking about what the world would