The Book of Evidence Read Online Free PDF Page A

to howl. I was agitated, I had not meant to kick the creature. Senor Aguirre frowned, and shouted something over his shoulder. A door behind him opened and an enormously fat, angry-looking young woman put in her head and grunted at him. She wore a black, sleeveless dress with a crooked hem, and a glossy black wig as high as a beehive, with false eyelashes to match. She waddled forward, and with an effort bent and picked up the infant and smacked it hard across the face. It started in surprise, and, swallowing a mighty sob, fixed its round eyes solemnly on me. The woman glared at me too, and took the wooden spoon and threw it on the table in front of me with a clatter. Then, planting the child firmly on one tremendous hip, she stumped out of the room and slammed the door behind her. Seiior Aguirre gave a slight, apologetic shrug.
    He smiled again, twinkling. What was my opinion of the island women? I hesitated. C o m e come, he said gaily, surely I had an opinion on such an important matter. I said they were lovely, quite lovely, quite the loveliest of their species I had ever encountered. He nodded happily, it was what he had expected me to say. N o , he said, no, too 22

    dark, too dark all over, even in those places never exposed to the son. And he leaned forward with his crinkled, silvery smile and tapped a finger lightly on my wrist.
    Northern w o m e n , n o w , ah, those pale northern w o m e n .
    Such white skin! So delicate! So fragile! Y o u r wife, for instance, he said. There was another, breathless silence. I could hear faintly the brazen strains of music f r o m a radio in the bar downstairs. Bullfight music. My chair made a crackling noise under me, like a muttered warning. Senor Aguirre joined his El Greco hands and looked at me over the spire of his fingertips. Y o u r whife, he said, breathing on the word, your beautiful whife, you will come back quickly to her? It was not really a question. What could I say to him, what could I do? These are not really questions either.
    I told Daphne as little as possible. She seemed to understands She m a d e no difficulties. That has always been the great thing about Daphne: she makes no difficulties.
    It was a long trip home. T h e steamer landed in Valencia harbour at dusk. I hate Spain, a brutish, boring country.
    T h e city smelled of sex and chlorine. I took the night train, j a m m e d in a third-class compartment with half a dozen reeking peasants in cheap suits. I could not sleep. I was hot, my head ached. I could feel the engine labouring up the long slope to the plateau, the wheels d r u m m i n g their one phrase over and over. A washed-blue dawn was breaking in Madrid. I stopped outside the station and watched a flock of birds wheeling and tumbling at an immense height, and, the strangest thing, a gust of euphoria, or something like euphoria, swept through me, making me tremble, and bringing tears to my eyes. It was from lack of sleep, I suppose, and the effect of the high, thin air. W h y , I 23

    wonder, do I remember so clearly standing there, the colour of the sky, those birds, that shiver of fevered optimism? I was at a turning point, you will tell me, just there the future forked for me, and I took the w r o n g path without noticing — that's what you'll tell me, isn't it, you, w h o must have meaning in everything, w h o lust after meaning, your palms sticky and your faces on fire! B u t calm, Frederick, calm. Forgive me this outburst, your honour. It is just that I do not believe such moments mean anything — or any other moments, for that matter. T h e y have significance, apparently. T h e y m a y even have value of s o m e sort. B u t they do not mean anything.
    There n o w , I have declared my faith.
    Where was I? In Madrid. On my w a y out of Madrid. I took another train, travelling north. We stopped at every station on the way, I thought I would never get out of that terrible country. O n c e we halted for an hour in the middle of nowhere. I