The Man of Feeling by Javier Marías

always in that order, to make our choice of one course, another course, and later on, of dessert and coffee. He showed great insight and good taste when suggesting plans and proposing places to visit, clearly accustomed to having to use his imagination in the accomplishment of his more practical obligations. What he did not do, though, was to pay for what we consumed. I usually did that, although on the few occasions when Natalia Manur insisted, in order, I presume, to show me her gratitude, and when, therefore, I did not pay, I could not help observing that she deposited the money on the small tray along with the bill, and that Dato, having first taken charge of deciding how much tip to leave, blithely picked up any change and put it in his wallet, and Natalia Manur seemed neither surprised nor even to notice. In those two gestures, that of the long, gnarled hand placing notes on the table and that of the tiny, greedy hand removing them, I thought I saw, on those two or three occasions (though possibly more often), the sign of a more important transaction, the emblematic form in which the most secret and unmentionable relationships need, now and then, to be rewarded for their stealth and to be made manifest. Natalia Manur, I thought, was buying or at least maintaining the uncertain nature of Dato's loyalty by paying him considerable sums out of her own pocket; but in that stipulated, periodic payment, the greatest contact between the two of them would possibly be a monthly signature, perhaps not even that. The commercial relationship might be so firmly established—a regular bank transfer made impersonal by habit—that it could almost be forgotten, and those two gestures might well provide a reminder of that link, whereby, for an instant, Dato became the desired one and Natalia Manur the desirer, she became the determinee and he the determinant. Yes, it was obviously a sign, possibly agreed, possibly demanded by Dato: evidence, momentary but repeated, blatant but deniable, of the true nature of their relationship. That was the only possible interpretation one could place on the permitted pillage of (at most) a few thousand pesetas carried out by that man through the indifferent mediation of a waiter's hand. But it is precisely such actions and such details, sometimes even less perceptible and significant, sometimes in marked contradiction to what they reveal, sometimes deliberate and sometimes involuntary, that allow us to understand, albeit without any proof, the real bias of the relationship between two people, for example, the short, sharp greeting, the fumbled handshake (by hands accustomed to less formal contact), the exchange of excessively opaque glances (painfully censored) between two illicit lovers who happen to coincide at a party accompanied by their respective spouses; or the fearful affability and solicitude (the hand that does not risk bestowing an affectionate squeeze, but instead rests lightly on the other person's arm to usher them past, the ill-timed smile that both regrets and accepts the impossibility of recovering trust or of softening an insult) with which one treats a person whom one has, though without ill intent, nonetheless harmed; like the hands that suddenly clench, the steps that hesitate and then immediately press determinedly forward, when those who either hate or cannot forget one another pass in the street; like Manur's forefinger, which stood erect and still for a few seconds before he gave me his hand on the day that we met, when Dato, always master of the situation, took it upon himself to introduce us: it was a warning forefinger that Manur tried to pass off as a moment's unlikely consideration of my name, which he knew, he said, having seen it in print once or twice ("Once a name has passed before my eyes, I never forget it," he said, "which is not to say, of course, that I can remember to whom that name belongs, only that I can remember having seen it"), he did not know now whether it