Double

Hello, this is Antonio Claro, the voice said, Oh, hello, Perhaps I'm phoning too early, No, don't worry, I'm up and working, If I'm interrupting, I can always call later, What I was doing can easily wait for an hour, there's no danger of my losing the thread, Coming straight to the point, then, I've been having a serious think these last few days and I've reached the conclusion that we should meet, That's my view too, it doesn't make sense for two people in our situation not to, My wife had a few doubts about it, but I've managed to persuade her that things couldn't simply stay as they were, Good, The problem is that we can't possibly appear in public together, we would gain nothing by becoming a news item on TV and in the press, especially me, it would be prejudicial to my career if people knew I had a look-alike who even had the same voice as me, More than a look-alike, A twin, More than a twin, That's precisely what I want to confirm, although I confess I find it hard to believe that we are as identical as you say, It's in your power to find out, We'll have to meet, then, Yes, but where, Any ideas, One possibility would be to come to my apartment, but there's the problem of the neighbors, the lady who lives upstairs, for example, knows I haven't gone out, imagine how she would feel if she saw me walking into the building I'm already in, What if I disguise myself, How, With a mustache, No, a mustache wouldn't be enough, she would just ask you, that is, ask me, because she would assume she was talking to me, if I was now a fugitive from the police, She knows you that well, She does my cleaning for me, Ah, I see, no, it clearly wouldn't be very sensible, and then there are the other neighbors too, Exactly, In that case, I think we'll have to meet outside the city, in some deserted place in the country, where no one will see us and where we can talk freely, That sounds like a good idea, Actually, I know just the place, about thirty kilometers out of the city, In which direction, Explaining it over the phone would be impossible, look, I'll send you a sketch map today, giving all the directions, we can meet in, say, four days' time so that we can be sure the letter has arrived, Four days' time brings us to Sunday, As good a day as any, But why thirty kilometers away, You know how it is with cities, just getting out of them takes a while, where the streets end, the factories begin, and where the factories end, the shantytowns begin, not to mention the villages that have already become part of the city without even knowing it, You put it well, Thank you, anyway I'll phone you on Saturday to confirm the meeting, All right, There is one other thing I'd like you to know, What's that, Well, I'll be armed, Why, Because I don't know you and I don't know what other intentions you might have, If you're afraid I'll kidnap you, for example, or eliminate you so that I can be alone in the world with this face that we both have, I can tell you now that I won't have any weapons on me, not even a penknife, No, no, I don't suspect you of that, You'll still be armed though, Just a precaution, All I want to do is prove to you that I'm right, and as for what you say about not knowing me, allow me to object that we're in exactly the same position, it's true you've never seen me, but, up until now, I've only seen you pretending to be someone else, playing a part, so that makes us equal, Let's not argue, we should go to our meeting calmly, without any previous declarations of war, But I'm not the one who'll be armed, The gun won't be loaded, What's the point of taking it then, if it won't be loaded, Pretend that I'm playing another one of my roles, that of a person drawn into an ambush from which he knows he will emerge alive because someone has given him the script to read, in short, the movies, It's just the opposite in history, you only find out afterward, What an interesting idea, I'd never thought of that before, Nor had I, it only occurred to me now, So we're in agreement, then, we'll meet on Sunday, Yes, I'll await your call, Don't worry, I won't forget, it's been a pleasure talking to you, Same here, Good-bye, Good-bye, and give my regards to your wife. Like Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, Antonio Claro was alone at home. He had warned Helena that he was going to phone the history teacher, but had said he would prefer her not to be there and that he would tell her about the conversation afterward. She didn't try to stop him, she said she thought it a good idea, that she understood his desire to feel comfortable when embarking on a conversation that would clearly not be easy, but what he will never know is that Helena made two phone calls from the travel agency where she works, the first to her own number and the second to Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's, as fate would have it, she did so precisely when he and her husband were talking to each other, that way she could be sure that the matter was going ahead, but again she could not have said why she did this, it is becoming more and more evident that, after many more or less failed attempts, the only way to arrive at some proper explanation of our actions would be for us to say why we do the things about which we always say we don't know why we do them. A trusting and conciliatory spirit would presume that, had Tertuliano Maximo Afonso's number not been engaged, Antonio Claro's wife would have hung up without waiting for a reply, she would certainly not announce herself with, Hello, I'm Helena, Antonio Claro's wife, she wouldn't say, I was just phoning to see how you are, such words, in the current situation, would be in a way improper, if not downright indiscreet, given that these two people, even though they have spoken twice, are not on close enough terms for it to seem natural for either of them to inquire about the state of mind or health of the other, neither can we accept as an excuse for such an excess of familiarity the fact that these are perfectly normal, everyday expressions, the kind that, in principle, do not oblige or commit anyone to anything, unless, that is, we were to tune our auditory organ to the complex range of possible underlying subtones, as set out in the exhaustive explanation given elsewhere in this story for the enlightenment of those readers more interested in what lies hidden than in what is shown. As for Tertuliano Maximo Afonso, it was with evident relief that he leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath when the conversation with Antonio Claro came to an end. If asked which of the two, in his opinion, at the point we have now reached, was in charge of the game, he would feel inclined to reply, I am, although he was equally sure that the other man would think he had reason enough to give exactly the same answer if asked the same question. It did not worry him that the place chosen for the meeting was so far from the city, it did not trouble him that Antonio Claro was intending to go armed, even though he was convinced that, contrary to his assurances, the pistol, because it would in all probability be a pistol, would be loaded. In a way that he himself realized to be totally lacking in logic, rationality, and common sense, he believed that the false beard he would wear would protect him while he was wearing it, basing this absurd belief on the firm idea that he would not take it off when they first met, only later on, when the absolute identity of hands, eyes, eyebrows, forehead, ears, nose, hair, had been agreed to the satisfaction of both. He would take with him a mirror large enough so that, when he does finally remove his beard, their two faces, side by side, could be compared directly, so that their eyes could pass from the face to which they belonged to the face to which they could have belonged, a mirror that would state definitively, If what you can see is identical, then the rest must be too, I really don't think it's necessary for you to take all your clothes off in order to continue the comparison, this isn't a nudist beach or a weight-lifting contest. Calmly and confidently, as if this particular chess move had been foreseen from the start, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso resumed his work, thinking that, just as with his bold proposal for the study of history, people's lives could also be told from front to back, one could wait until they ended and then, gradually, follow the stream back to the source, identifying the tributaries on the way and sailing up them too, aware that each one, even the smallest and feeblest, was, in its time and in itself, a major river, and in this slow, deliberate way, alert to every scintillation on the surface of the water, every bubble risen from the bottom, every sudden downward flurry, every stagnant stillness, reach the end of the narrative and place after the first of all moments the final full stop, and to take the same amount of time that the lives thus told had actually lasted. Let's not hurry, we have so much to say when we fall silent, murmured Tertuliano Maximo Afonso and went back to his work. Halfway through the afternoon, he phoned Maria da Paz and asked if she would like to drop by when she finished work, she said she would but that she couldn't stay long because her mother wasn't well, and then he said not to bother, that family duties came first, and she said, No, I'd like to see you, and he agreed and said, Yes, it would be good to see each other, as if she were his beloved, and we know that she is not, or perhaps she is and he doesn't know it, or perhaps, he stopped at this word because he didn't know how to complete the sentence honestly, what lie or what pretend truth he would say to himself, it's true that his eyes had grown misty with emotion, she wanted to see him, yes, sometimes it's good to have someone who wants to see us and who tells us so, but the treacherous tear, already wiped away with the back of his hand, appeared only because he was alone and because solitude suddenly weighed on him more than in his darkest hours. Maria da Paz duly arrived, they kissed each other on both cheeks, then sat down to talk, he asked if her mother's illness was serious, she said no, fortunately not, just one of those problems that comes with old age, they come and go, go and come, and finally stay. He asked when her holidays began, she said in two weeks' time, but that they probably wouldn't be going away, it all depended on her mother's health. He asked how work was at the bank, and she said, oh, the usual, some days better than others. Then she asked if he didn't get terribly bored, now that the classes were over, and he said no, he didn't actually, the headmaster had set him a task, to draw up a proposal for the ministry on methods of teaching history. She said, How interesting, and then they fell silent, until she asked if he had anything to tell her, and he said no, it wasn't the right time yet, that she must be patient a little longer. She said she would wait as long as she had to, that the conversation they had had in the car after supper the other night, when he had admitted that he had lied, had been like a door opening only to close again at once, but that at least she had found out that the thing separating them was only a door and not a wall. He said nothing, merely nodded and thought to