WHILE I REHEARSED MY ROLE as Cassio in Verdi's Otello, they were both nearly always there before me, sitting—like the other invited guests—in rows ten or twelve in the stalls, so as not to distract us too much by their presence. Whenever there was a pause and I was listening to the director's advice (pure tokenism really, since, in the end, every singer sings the way he or she thinks best and takes not the least bit of notice), I would look at them, especially at Natalia Manur. I asked myself over and over how they could bear these long, repetitive sessions which I myself would have found tedious if they had not been there, if she had not been there. Moreover, the role of Cassio, although an important one, is not a very large part, and very often they were not listening to me (which had been the initial reason for them coming), but to the great but now ageing Gustav Hörbiger playing Otello or to the ghastly, ambitious Volte playing Iago, or to the pair of them in one of their interminable dialogues. If I had to remain on stage, I would just switch off from what was going on there and gaze, fascinated, at those two accidental devotees who had appeared out of the blue in the city of Madrid. Dato, who clearly had absolutely no interest in or even liking for music, seemed, nevertheless, to be permanently absorbed in what was happening on stage, leaning forward, his hands resting on the back of the seat in front and his eyes fixed perhaps on me: as fixed as his eyes had been in the train in protracted contemplation of either the landscape or his own face. Natalia, more relaxed, leaned back (probably with her legs crossed), following our actions with close attention when I was on stage acting and with curiosity—but, I would venture, no more than that—when I was not involved. And when my presence was not required up there, I would come down and join them for however many minutes I had at my disposal. Dato would then almost invariably get up and, so he said, go out to smoke a cigarette, and Natalia Manur, in my opinion—and even though there was no real evidence to substantiate this—would forget all about the illustrious Hörbiger, the grotesque Volte and the lovely Priés (who was playing Desdemona) as completely as I did. I do not know nor did I ever know if Dato took advantage of those moments when I kept Natalia Manur company in order to take a rest from his obsessive duties as companion or if, in his unacknowledged role as Pandarus, he was using that excuse to leave us alone so that we could each gradually become accustomed to the silent breathing of the other or to the way our sleeves occasionally and very lightly touched, so that we could each get used to the faint odour of the other. For the former to be true, he must have smoked three or four cigarettes in succession. However long my break lasted, he never came back until I had rejoined my colleagues on stage: he was probably watching—one swift, bulging eye glancing every few seconds through the crack—hidden behind the curtains that opened onto the auditorium, for Natalia Manur was never left alone for even half a minute: as soon as I resumed my rehearsal, he, with rapid steps and hands behind his back as if still concealing in his fingers the butt of his everlasting cigarette, would return to his seat, and would again, apparently, bestow on me his undivided attention.

Those were extraordinary days. For the first time in my operatic career I did not feel sad and solitary in the big city. On the contrary, in a very short space of time (perhaps only a couple of days) we achieved that wonderfully beneficent state of being in which two or three people take it so much for granted that they will meet up each day that the first question of the morning tends to be "So what shall we do, then?" not "What are you going to do today?" That state, proper to adolescents and to the newly in love, is not without its demands, and one of these, however contradictory it may seem, given one's acceptance of another person or persons as extensions of one's own self and therefore of one's freedom too, consists in the immediate establishment of the strictest possible routine, which leaves no room for any disconcerting improvisations and allows for no catastrophic gaps that might cast doubt on that union and allow room for thinking. Thinking, thinking. Now that I'm telling you this dream and this story, I realize that I have abstained from thinking for the past four years. The "I" that existed before meeting Dato and the Manure has been absent or damped down during all that time, and I would go so far as to say that it had died, were it not for the fact that this morning, which is advancing as I write, I seem to recognize that "I." In these pages that I have been filling (without yet having had any breakfast) I recognize a cold, invulnerable voice, the voice of the pessimist, who, just as he sees no reason to live, likewise sees no reason to kill himself or to die, no reason to feel afraid, no reason to wait, no reason to think; and yet he does nothing but those last three things: feeling afraid, waiting, and thinking, endlessly thinking. That was what my mind was like (cold and invulnerable, and perhaps it will go back to being that from now on) before that trip to Madrid. I felt afraid and waited and thought during rehearsals, in hotel rooms, on my walks around cities, in trains and in the few planes I traveled on, in foyers and in bars, as I read scores and studied roles, and (sometimes) during performances, indeed, I remember how, during one performance of Turandot in Cleveland, even when I myself was involved and was singing in that unmistakable voice of mine which was already beginning to make a big impression, heralding that final blossoming in Naples that provided me with my sobriquet, I was thinking intently about Berta and me and about how I didn't love her. I used to think so much that I even made my few conversations, especially with Berta but also with other people, a mere verbal extension of my thoughts when I was alone; I used to think so much that I grew bored with myself. It was, moreover, an unreflecting form of thought, unguided, fluctuating, with no goal, no starting point, unbearable; and I had been finding it totally unbearable for some time—and that is not just one more characteristic of the pessimist, it is the main characteristic: being unable to bear that for which there is no remedy or, rather, being unable to bear the only thing that is possible—when I found the salvation and miracle of that unexpected Madrid friendship, which very soon—indeed, at once—was not restricted to the hours I will term "musical": it spread out to fill all the hours of the day, from the leisurely, not too early breakfast taken in the hotel dining room, to the quick or not so quick lunch in some restaurant near the Teatro de la Zarzuela, to the walks, visits, and shopping expeditions around the city, even to several suppers stolen from Señor Manur or, rather—it would be more accurate to say—indifferently yielded up to us. Dato, Natalia Manur and me. We became an inseparable threesome, without the principle of inseparability or the principle of cohesion becoming in any way visible or capable of being put into words, without the profound attraction that Natalia Manur had for me and I for her even aspiring to be so. For the curious thing about those days was that Dato, the apparently indispensable conduit, turned out, in reality—the reality was those breakfasts, lunches, walks, visits, shopping trips and suppers—to be entirely dispensable and neutral: a continuous presence, not just taken for granted but perhaps necessary, yet somehow barely noticeable. With Natalia Manur (or more likely with her and me), Dato was entirely different from the way he had shown himself to be in the hotel bar, as if—again that same suspicion—he were taking advantage of my enthusiasm and my initiative to give his own a rest, or perhaps he remained scrupulously in the background in order to allow me to shine, to let me make myself known. Sometimes, as we were walking along the suffocating, filthy, chattering streets, he would walk a few paces ahead or hang back on the old excuse of tying his shoe lace or looking in a shop window that would be of no interest to Natalia and me (a shop selling buttons, an ironmonger's, not even a tobacconist's or a grocer's), but we usually caught up with him or waited for him to catch up with us, as if not just the fluency of our conversations, but also our very existence there before each other, the possibility of seeing each other, depended on or required the impetus of that small figure who had brought us together. When we were sitting at a table, as we so very often were, he tended to keep silent as if he really were just an extra or part of our retinue, and he barely passed any comment at all except on the wine and the food. He also (as befits both a subaltern and a gentleman) dealt with the waiters. He was the one who asked for or chose a table, the one who offered us the menu when we were absorbed in talk, the one who, in the presence of the man taking note, would invite Natalia Manur and me, 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 had been in the review of an opera, on a record or even—which would have meant that he had actually been to see one of my performances—in some theater program ("But, on the other hand, most faces mean nothing to me; and besides, you performers are always so heavily disguised as to be unrecognizable," he said). That forefinger was clearly a threatening gesture, masked only by its fleeting nature; but threats never go unnoticed by those being threatened, especially if when they become aware of the threat they realize (as was my case) that they are in turn threatening the threatener.

The three of us were coming into the hotel as he was going out, but he decided to retrace his steps and even suggested having an aperitif with us in one of the reception rooms ("I have precisely twenty minutes before my luncheon appointment," he said. He had removed his fedora. He looked at his watch). He spoke irritatingly perfect Spanish, with barely a trace of an accent and devoid of any syntactical or grammatical errors (although he did perhaps say "yo" too much). Now and then he stammered over a word, seeking confirmation, but he gave the impression that this was just a childish form of coquetry that merely emphasized the difficulty of the achievement and which is a ploy often used by those who set out to impress. He did not translate from his language or languages ("I'm Flemish and I learned French as I learned Spanish, only when I was much younger, of course; I'm used to learning," he said. He rejected with a glance one of my cigarettes, and took one of his own). He thought in my language as quickly or more quickly than I. He was pedantic, correct, sententious—possibly unintentionally. He sat down on a sofa, beside his wife, and I remained—stiff and uncertain, hoping that he would be with us for precisely twenty minutes and no more—in an armchair next to him. While he addressed himself mainly to me in my condition as novelty (as one does with foreigners, although he was, in fact, the foreigner), he stroked Natalia Manur's left hand with his right hand. Sitting together like that (how was it possible that I hadn't realized this in the train, I thought during those precisely twenty minutes, and I kept thinking this morning in my dream) it was patently obvious that they were married and had been for a long time. Manur, the Belgian banker, was one of those people, and there are many like him among those who invite me to sing (that is, among impresarios), who mitigate their intrinsic coldness with a perfect knowledge of the formal details that can transform a proud, unfeeling individual into someone attentive and seductive. It was not just that it occurred to him to order the slightly exotic drink for which everyone else immediately opted too (it was, I think, Natalia Manur who blurted out: "Oh, what a good idea") nor that his movements revealed not only the absorbing activity from which he had just emerged and which still awaited him, but also the spirit of insouciance that he had resolved to allot to that precise period of twenty minutes, nor that his smile, calculated to the millimetre, varied depending on whether he was raising his glass to Dato (just enough of a smile to be polite and magnanimous, just enough to underscore his position), to Natalia Manur (just enough of a smile to be ardent and masterful, just enough to underscore her position) or to me (just enough of a smile to be admiring, distrustful and paternal, just enough to underscore my position as clown). It was above all his skill in giving importance to everything that was mentioned in his presence and that was going on around him ("What a useless waiter, doesn't he know that one should pick up a glass by the stem not the bowl," he said; "That's a very bold tie you're wearing, Dato, tell me where you bought it," he said. He speared a pitted olive and ate it. "You might not think so now, but it's time they had these sofas reupholstered: you'll see, in a couple of months' time they'll be starting to look worn," he said. "The human voice is the most extraordinary and complex of musical instruments, in which, contrary to what most people think, the actual quality of the instrument is far less important than the intelligence—the musical intelligence, I mean—of the person using it," he said. He cast a furtive glance at the nails on one hand), all of which revealed how very difficult it was for him to give real importance to anything. Or perhaps only to Natalia Manur, I thought, for during the precisely twenty minutes he afforded us, he made not the slightest reference to her nor to how she was dressed nor to the delicate glow in her cheeks that day nor to her expression which had grown even more melancholy than usual the moment she spotted Manur in the lobby. He limited himself (but to define it as a limitation might be an attempt at attenuation or a mere inexactitude) to looking at her occasionally with unsettling devotion and to stroking her hand gently but doggedly, a gesture whose very lack of ostentation only made it appear all the more possessive; and she, who formed part of that rambling conversation and who had undergone only the change I have just referred to when she came through the door and saw, advancing towards her, his robust figure crowned by that unequivocally un-Spanish fedora, allowed herself to be touched by that Belgian banker with his rough features and studied manners (a tycoon, a man of ambition, a politician, an exploiter) for precisely twenty minutes. For five or six days, Natalia Manur—despite the married name she had when I met her and with which I will always identify her—had been my companion, and in turn brought along her own innocuous companion, the diligent, indispensable, perfumed Dato. And now, suddenly, despite there having been no misunderstanding between us, despite the fact that the implied promise or idea we had been in the process of becoming had not been denied or suffered a sudden deterioration or been overshadowed by some breach of faith, despite our not having changed city or hotel, there I was, watching her allowing herself to be touched by a charming, bald, moustachioed authoritarian, who, like her, was called Manur. Up until then, Manur's existence had been only a fact, assimilated and filed away; or, if you like, had also been a face, interpreted and forgotten. I remember that when we said goodbye, and all four of us got to our feet, Manur kissed his wife on the corner of her mouth, shot his secretary a sideways glance, and shook my hand for the second time, with a distinct lack of cordiality. Then he raised that threatening forefinger again and repeated my name, to indicate that from now on he would know exactly who I was ("I'll think of you the next time I go to the opera," he said. "Although that might not be for a few years: the truth is that I have very little time to myself." He put on his fedora. He looked at his watch.)

That was the second of only three occasions on which I saw Manur, although, shortly after that, I took his place, and since then I have not ceased to see him in my dreams, as always happens in cases of supplantation. It was that raised, rather plump forefinger that made me realize that what I wanted above all else was to destroy that man and to continue seeing Natalia Manur every day: not just in Madrid, not just with Dato, not just while I was rehearsing Verdi's Otello in the Teatro de la Zarzuela in what had once been my own city.