Double

recent years, the first was a fairly old comedy entitled The Race Is to the Swift, and the last was The Goddess of the Stage, I've probably seen eight or maybe ten in all, Really, I must say I feel rather flattered, I had no idea that the kind of film that I was, for some years, obliged to appear in could be of such interest to a history teacher, although, needless to say, the roles I'm playing now are quite different, Well, I have a good reason for watching them, which is why I would like to talk to you in person, Why in person, It isn't only our voices that are identical, What do you mean, Anyone seeing us together would swear on their own life that we were twins, Twins, More than twins, identical, In what way identical, Identical, quite simply identical, My dear sir, I don't know you and I can't even be sure that your name is what you say it is or that you really are a historian, I'm not a historian, I'm just a history teacher, as for my name I've never had any other, we don't use pseudonyms in teaching, for better or worse, we teach with our faces uncovered, That hardly seems relevant, look, let's just stop the conversation right here, I have things to do, So you don't believe me, No, I don't believe in impossibilities, Do you have two moles on your right forearm, one above the other in a line, Yes, I do, So do I, That doesn't prove anything, Do you have a scar under your left kneecap, Yes, So do I, And how do you know all this if we have never met, For me it was easy, I saw you in a beach scene, I can't remember which film it was now, but there was a close-up, And how am I to know that you have the same moles as I do, the same scar, That depends on you, The impossibilities of a coincidence are infinite, The possibilities are too, it's true that our moles could have been there at birth or developed later, over time, but a scar is always the consequence of an accident that affected a particular part of the body, we both had that accident and, in all probability, on the same occasion, Even admitting that such an absolute likeness could exist, and notice I'm only admitting it as a hypothesis, I can see no reason for us to meet and I don't understand why you've phoned, Out of curiosity, nothing but curiosity, it isn't every day that you find two identical people, Look, I've lived my whole life without knowing it, and I haven't missed knowing it at all, But now you do know, Then I'll pretend I don't, The same thing will happen to you as to me, every time you look at yourself in the mirror you will never be sure whether you are seeing your own virtual image or my real image, Frankly, I'm starting to think I've been talking to a madman, Remember that scar, if I'm mad, then we probably both are, I'll call the police, Oh, I doubt very much if the police would be interested, all I've done is make two phone calls asking to speak to the actor Daniel Santa-Clara, whom I did not threaten or insult or harm in any way, what crime have I committed exactly, You've upset my wife and myself, anyway, that's enough, I'm going to hang up now, You're quite sure you don't want to meet me, you don't feel the slightest twinge of curiosity, No, I don't feel any curiosity and I don't want to meet you, That's your last word, The first and the last, In that case, I must apologize, I had no evil intentions, Promise me you won't phone again, I promise, We have a right to our peace of mind, to our privacy, Of course, Good, I'm glad you agree, There's just one thing I'm not quite clear about, if you'll allow me, What's that, If we're identical, then will we also die at the same moment, People who are not identical and don't live in the same city die at the same moment every day, That's just coincidence, simple, banal coincidence, This conversation has come to an end, we have nothing more to say, I just hope now you have the decency to keep your word, Look, I promised I wouldn't phone you again at home and I won't, Excellent, Once more, please accept my apology, Apology accepted, Good-bye, Good-bye. There is something strange about Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's calm demeanor, when the natural, logical, human reaction would be, in this order, to slam down the phone, thump the desk in justifiable irritation, and exclaim bitterly, All that work for nothing. Week after week spent drawing up strategies, developing tactics, weighing every new step, pondering the effects of the previous step, maneuvering the sails to take advantage of favorable winds, wherever they came from, and all this to arrive at the end and humbly beg forgiveness, promising, like a child caught red-handed in the pantry, that he will never do it again. Contrary to all reasonable expectations, however, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is pleased. Firstly, because he feels that during the conversation he coped with the situation well, he was never intimidated, he argued, and here the expression is appropriate, as equal to equal, and even, occasionally, leaped nimbly onto the offensive. Secondly, because he considers it simply unthinkable that things will stop here, doubtless a highly subjective view, but one backed up by countless actions which, despite the force of curiosity that should set them immediately in motion, are often delayed, to the point, in some cases, where they appear to have been forgotten for good. Even if the immediate effect of the revelation is not as momentous as it was for Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, it is impossible that Antonio Claro will not, one of these days, take steps, either openly or covertly, to compare one face with the other and one scar with the other. I don't know what to do, Antornio Claro said to his wife after adding to his part of the conversation that of the other man, which she had not been able to hear, he speaks with such confidence it makes me feel like finding out if his story is actually true, If I were you, I would just wipe the matter from my mind, I would repeat to myself a hundred times a day that there cannot possibly be two identical people in the world, until I had convinced myself and could forget all about it, And you wouldn't make any attempt to get in touch with him, No, I don't think so, Why not, I'm not sure really, out of fear I suppose, It's obviously not a very common situation, but I don't see why you should be afraid, The other day, I felt almost dizzy when I realized it wasn't you on the phone, Well, I can understand that, because listening to him is just like listening to me, What I thought, no, it wasn't a thought, it was more of a feeling, like a wave of panic closing over me, making my skin creep, and I felt that if the voice was the same, then everything else would be too, Not necessarily, we might not be completely identical, He says you are, We would have to prove it, And how would we do that, invite him over here so that you could undress and he could undress, and I, nominated judge by you both, could pronounce sentence, or not pronounce sentence at all, because it turned out that you actually were identical, and if I was to leave the room and come back in afterward, I wouldn't know who was one and who was the other, and if either of you was to go out, to leave this apartment, which one of you would I be left with afterward, tell me that, with you or with him, You'd be able to tell us apart by our clothes, Unless you had swapped, Look, don't worry, we're only talking, nothing like that will happen, Imagine it, though, having to make a decision based on what's outside rather than what's inside, Calm down, And I wonder now what he meant when he talked about how if you were identical, then you would both have to die at the same moment, He didn't state it as a fact, he was merely expressing a thought, a supposition, as if he were asking himself the question, Yes, but why mention it then, out of the blue, He probably did it to shock me, Who is this man, what does he want with us, You know as much as I do about who he is and what he wants, which is nothing, He said he was a history teacher, That must be true, he wouldn't invent that, and he did strike me as an educated man, as for him telephoning us, I would probably have done the same if, instead of him, I had been the one to discover the resemblance, And how are we going to feel now, with that ghostlike presence in the house, every time I look at you, it will be as if I were seeing him, We're still suffering the effects of the shock, the surprise, tomorrow it will all seem much simpler, one more oddity among many, after all, it's not like a cat with two heads or a calf with five legs, we're just a couple of Siamese twins who happen to have been born apart, A little while ago, I spoke of fear, panic, but I realize now that it's something else I'm feeling, What, Well, I'm not sure, a presentiment perhaps, Good or bad, It's just a presentiment, like a closed door behind another closed door, You're trembling, Yes, I am. Helena, for that is her name, although we did not know it until now, responded abstractedly to her husband's embrace, then sat huddled in one corner of the sofa and closed her eyes. Antonio Claro tried to distract her, to cheer her up with a joke, If I ever get top billing, this Tertuliano fellow can be my double, I'll have him do all the dangerous scenes or the boring bits, and I can stay at home, and no one will notice the difference. She opened her eyes, smiled wanly, and said, A history teacher playing someone's double would certainly be a sight to see, the only thing is that cinema doubles come when they're called, and this one has invaded our house, Look, try not to think about it, read a book, watch television, do something, No, I don't feel like reading, still less like watching TV, I'm going to lie down. When Antonio Claro went to bed an hour later, Helena appeared to be sleeping. He pretended to believe her and turned out the light, knowing beforehand that it would take him a while to get to sleep too. He remembered the disquieting dialogue he had had with the intruder, sifting his phrases and even his words for hidden meanings, until the words, which were as tired as he was, began to grow neutral, to lose their significance, as if they no longer had anything to do with the mental world of the man who was silently, desperately continuing to pronounce them, The infinite possibilities of a coincidence, Those who are identical die together, he had said, and, The virtual image of the person looking at himself in the mirror, The real image of the person looking out at him from the mirror, then the conversation with his wife, her presentiment, her fear, he made a purely private decision, for it was getting late, that the matter would have to be resolved for good or ill, whatever happened, and quickly too, I'll go and talk to him. The decision deceived his mind, tricked the tensions in his body, and sleep, finding the way clear, crept in and lay down. Worn out by an immobility against which every nerve in her body protested, Helena had also finally fallen asleep, and for two hours she managed to rest beside her husband, Antonio Claro, as if no other man had come between them, and she would probably have remained so until dawn if her dream had not startled her awake. She opened her eyes to find the room immersed in