Double

coffee and went to see. Crossing the room, he cast a worried glance at the video boxes scattered about, at the impassive line of videos on the floor at the foot of the bookshelf, waiting their turns, his upstairs neighbor, always assuming it was her, wouldn't be at all pleased to see the deplorable mess he had made of the place she had taken such pains to tidy up yesterday. It doesn't matter, she doesn't have to come in, he thought, and opened the door. It wasn't his upstairs neighbor standing there before him, it wasn't a young saleswoman bearing encyclopedias and telling him that, at last, he had within his grasp the enormous privilege of knowing everything there was to know about the habits of the monkfish, it was a woman who has not yet appeared in person but whose name we already know, Maria da Paz, bank employee. Oh, it's you, exclaimed Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, and then, trying to hide his perturbation, his confusion, Hello, this is a surprise. He should have asked her in, Come in, come in, I was just having a cup of coffee, or, How nice of you to drop by, just make yourself comfortable while I shave and have a shower, but it was only with an effort that he stood to one side and let her pass, ah, if only he could say to her, Just wait right here while I hide some videos I don't want you to see, ah, if only he could say, Sorry, but you've come at a bad time, I can't really talk to you right now, come back tomorrow, ah, if only he could say something, but it's too late now, he should have thought of this before, it's all his fault, the prudent man should always be on his guard, alert, he should foresee all eventualities, he should, above all, never forget that the best way to proceed is always the simplest, for example, not ingenuously to open the door just because the bell rings, haste always brings complications in its wake, no doubt about it. Maria da Paz entered the apartment with the ease of someone who knows every corner, and asked, How have you been, and then, I got your message and I agree, we need to talk, I hope I haven't come at a bad moment, No, of course not, said Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, you must forgive me for receiving you like this, hair uncombed, face unshaven, and looking as if I'd just got out of bed, When I've seen you like this on other occasions, you've never felt the need to apologize, Today is different, In what way, You know what I mean, I've never opened the door to you dressed like this, in pajamas and a dressing gown, It has a certain novelty, and there's not much of that between you and me anymore. She was only three steps from the living room, her astonishment would soon become apparent, What the hell's all this, what are you doing with all these videos, but Maria da Paz pauses to ask, Aren't you going to kiss me, Of course, was Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's unfortunate and embarrassed response, as he made to kiss her on the cheek. This masculine modesty, if that's what it was, proved vain, Maria da Paz's mouth had come to meet his and was now sucking, pressing, devouring it, while her body glued itself to his from head to toe, as if there were no clothes separating them. Maria da Paz was the first to draw back and murmur, panting, a sentence she never managed to finish, Even if I regret what I've just done, even if I'm ashamed of having done it, Don't be silly, said Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, improvising furiously to gain time, what nonsense, regret, shame, why on earth should anyone regret and feel ashamed of expressing their feelings, You know perfectly well what I mean, so don't pretend you don't, You came in, we kissed, what could be more normal, more natural, We didn't kiss, I kissed you, Yes, but I kissed you back, Only because you had no option, You're exaggerating as usual, dramatizing, You're right, I do exaggerate and I do dramatize, I exaggerated in coming to your apartment, I dramatized by embracing a man who no longer loves me, I should leave this very instant, regretful and ashamed, despite all those charitable phrases about how it really doesn't matter. The possibility that she might leave, although obviously a remote one, sent a ray of hopeful light into the tortuous crannies of Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's mind, but the words that emerged from his mouth, some might say escaped against his will, expressed a very different sentiment, Honestly, I don't know where you've got this peculiar idea that I don't care about you, You expressed yourself pretty clearly on the subject the last time we met, But I never said I didn't care about you, I never said that, In matters of the heart, about which you know so little, even the most obtuse of intelligences can understand what wasn't said. To imagine that those words of Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's, currently under analysis, escaped against his will would be to forget that the skein of the human spirit has many and various ends, and that the function of some of its threads, while seeming to lead the interlocutor to a knowledge of what lies inside, is to give false directions, to suggest detours that will end up in culs-de-sac, to distract from the fundamental subject, or, as in the case that concerns us now, to lessen, in anticipation, the shock of what is to come. In affirming that he had never said he didn't care about Maria da Paz, thus letting it be understood that he really did care about her, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's intention was, if you'll forgive the banality of the images, to wrap her in cotton wool, to surround her with muffling pillows, to bind her to him with loving feelings when it was no longer possible to detain her further outside the living-room door. Which is what is happening now. Maria da Paz has just taken the necessary three steps, she goes in, she doesn't want to think about the sweet nightingale song that lightly brushed her ears, but she can think of nothing else, she would even be prepared to recognize, contritely, that her ironic allusion to obtuse intelligences had been not merely impertinent but unjust too, and with a smile on her lips she turns to Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, ready to fall into his arms and determined to forget all about grievances and complaints. Chance, however, chose, although it would be more exact to say that it was inevitable, since alluring concepts like fate, fortune, and destiny really have no place in this narrative, that the arc described by Maria da Paz's eyes would pass, first, the television set, turned on, then the videos that had not yet resumed their appointed positions, and, finally, the row of videos itself, an unheard-of, inexplicable presence to anyone, like her, who had an intimate knowledge of this place and of the occupier's tastes and habits. What's all this, what are all these videos doing here, she asked, It's material for some work I'm engaged in at the moment, replied Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, looking away, Unless I'm very much mistaken, your work, for as long as I've known you, has involved teaching history, said Maria da Paz, and this thing, she was studying the video with curious eyes, called The Parallel of Terror, doesn't look to me as if it has very much to do with your speciality, There's no law that says I can only study history for the rest of my life, No, of course not, but it's only natural that I should find it odd to see you surrounded by videos, as if you had suddenly developed a passion for the cinema, when, before, you weren't really interested at all, As I said, I'm engaged in a piece of work, a sociological study, if you like, Look, I may be an ordinary clerk, a bank employee, but even my rather dim intelligence can sense you're not telling the truth, Not telling the truth, exclaimed Tertuliano Maximo Afonso indignantly, not telling the truth, that really is the limit, There's no point getting angry, I'm just saying how it seems to me, Now I know I'm not perfect, but dishonesty is not one of my faults, you should know me better than that, Forgive me, That's all right, you're forgiven, we won't mention the matter again. That is what he said, but he would in fact have preferred to continue talking about it, if only to avoid talking about the other subject he was much more afraid to broach. Maria da Paz sat down in the armchair in front of the television set and said, I came to talk to you, I'm not interested in your videos. The nightingale's song had got lost in the stratospheric regions of the ceiling, it was already, as they used to say in days gone by, but a sweet memory, and Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, who cut a deplorable figure in his dressing gown and slippers, his face unshaven, all of which put him in a position of clear inferiority, was aware that an acerbic conversation, even though the angry words he might use would suit what we know to be his final aim, that is, to end his relationship with Maria da Paz, would be difficult to conduct and doubtless even harder to bring to a close. So he sat down on the sofa, covered his legs with his dressing gown, and began in a conciliatory tone of voice, My idea, What are you talking about, broke in Maria da Paz, us or your videos, We'll talk about us afterward, for the moment I just want to explain to you the kind of work I'm involved in, If you must, replied Maria da Paz, reining in her impatience. Tertuliano Maximo Afonso prolonged the ensuing silence for as long as possible, he racked his brain for the words he had used to put the assistant in the video shop off the track, and he experienced a strange and contradictory feeling. Although he knows he is going to lie, he thinks, nevertheless, that this lie will be a kind of warped version of the truth, that is, although the explanation may be completely false, the mere fact of repeating it will, in a way, make it plausible, and all the more plausible if Tertuliano Maximo Afonso does not stop at this first attempt. At last, feeling himself master of his material, he began, My interest in looking at a number of films by this production company, chosen at random, for, as you will see, they are all made by the same company, was born out of an idea I had some time ago, that of making a study of the tendencies, inclinations, intentions, and messages, explicit, implicit, and subliminal, in short, the ideological signals disseminated among its consumers, image by image, by a particular film company, And how did it come about this sudden interest, or as you call it, this idea, what has it got to do with your work as a history teacher, asked Maria da Paz, completely unaware that she had just handed to Tertuliano Maximo Afonso on a plate the very answer which, in his hour of dialectical need, he might not have been capable of finding for himself, It's very simple, he replied with a look of relief on his face that could easily have been mistaken for the virtuous satisfaction experienced by any good teacher taking delight in the act of transmitting his knowledge to the class, It's very simple, he said again, just as the history that we write, study, or teach penetrates every line, every word, and even every date, what I termed ideological signals, inherent not just in the interpretation of facts, but also in the language we use to express those facts, not forgetting the various types and degrees of in-tentionality in our