my throat, he must have sensed my alarm, my tension, because he maintained that pressure on my shoulder or, as it seemed to me, increased it, he wanted to frighten me, to subjugate me, his right hand on my left shoulder, as if he were a father or a teacher and I were a child, a pupil – I felt very small, and that was doubtless his intention, to make me answer him honestly or, if not honestly, anxiously.
‘So you didn’t hear anything he said? You were asleep when he arrived, weren’t you? I came in to check before talking to him and you seemed to be deep asleep, you were asleep, weren’t you? What he had to tell me was very private, and he wouldn’t want anyone else to know about it. Even though you’re a complete stranger. There are some things one would feel ashamed to have anyone hear, it was hard enough for him to tell me, even though that’s why he came, and so he had no choice but to tell me if he wanted me to do him the favour he was asking. So you really didn’t hear anything? What woke you up then?’
So he had decided to ask me straight out, pointlessly, or perhaps not: he could work out or deduce whether or not I was lying by the way I answered, or so he thought. But that’s all it would be, a deduction, an imagination, a supposition, a conviction; it’s extraordinary how, after so many centuries of ceaseless talking, we still don’t know when people are telling us the truth. ‘Yes,’ they say, and that could always mean ‘No’. ‘No,’ they say, and that could always mean ‘Yes’. Not even science or all the infinite technological advances we have made can help us to know one way or the other, not with any certainty. And nevertheless, he could not resist asking me directly, what use was it to him if I answered ‘Yes’ or ‘No’? What use to Deverne had been the professions of affection over the years by one of his best friends, if not the best friend? The last thing you imagine is that your friend is going to kill you, even if from a distance and without being there to witness it, without intervening or soiling so much as a finger, in such a way that he can occasionally think afterwards, in his happy or exultant days: ‘I didn’t really do it, it was nothing to do with me.’
‘No, don’t worry, I didn’t hear anything. I slept really deeply, but not for long. Besides, you had closed the door, so I wouldn’t have been able to hear you anyway.’
The hand on my shoulder continued to squeeze, slightly harder I thought, almost imperceptibly so, as if, without my noticing, he wanted to drive me very slowly down into the floor. Or perhaps he wasn’t squeezing and it was just that, as the weight and pressure continued, so the feeling of oppression intensified. I gently lifted my shoulder, delicately, timidly, not brusquely at all, as though to indicate to him that I would prefer my shoulder to be free of that lump of meat, there was something vaguely humiliating about that unaccustomed contact: ‘Feel my strength,’ it seemed to be saying. Or ‘Imagine what I might be capable of.’ He ignored that slight movement – perhaps it was too slight – and returning to his last question, which I had not yet answered, asked again:
‘What woke you up then? If you thought I was the only person here, why did you put your bra on before coming out? You must have heard the sound of our voices, which means that you must have heard some of what we said.’
I had to keep calm and continue denying that I had heard anything. The more suspicious he was, the firmer I had to be in my denials. But I had to deny it without a hint of vehemence or emphasis. What did I care about some deal he was doing with a guy I’d never even heard him mention before, that was my main weapon if I was to convince him or at least fend off his certainty for a while longer; why would I spy on him, what did I care what happened outside that bedroom or indeed inside it when I wasn’t there, surely he must know that our relationship wasn’t only transient, it was confined to and circumscribed by those occasional