All Men Are Liars by Alberto Manguel Page B

center, a gloomy da capo, as unsettling as a shadow. The same people, the same words, but what had been happy excitement at the success of someone hitherto unknown was now replaced by the terrible sadness of his premature demise. I see them as clearly now as if I had photographed them. Berens and the other comrades from the flat in Prospe, faithful friends, standing beside a great broken urn; Quita and that young journalist, Ordóñez, on the threshold of a lugubrious mausoleum; my poor Andrea, as grief-stricken as one of those stone angels draped over the tombstones. The usual busybodies were there, too, anonymous people drawn by the lure, the pleasure and perversity of someone else’s grief. And among the unknown faces, a couple who looked vaguely familiar: he was short, rough-shaven, with dark glasses prominent beneath a black, broad-brimmed hat; she, tall with a big nose, sporting a green helmet, topped with a pheasant’s feather. I asked Quita, who was talking to Ordóñez, if she knew them.
    Only then did I realize that Quita had turned quite pale. I never would have guessed that Bevilacqua’s death could affect her so greatly. She looked at me as though she didn’t see me at all, distractedly searching among the tombs for the one person who was absent.
    â€œThey’re Cuban,” she said finally, with a sigh. “Recent arrivals. He writes, she reads.”
    A light drizzle began to fall.
Nice literary touch,
I thought to myself.
    I saw Andrea walk away amid a procession of umbrellas. I hurried to catch up with her.
    â€œIf you need anything . . .” I began to say.
    â€œIf I do, I’ll let you know,” she answered with an abruptness I put down to her sorrow. I squeezed her shoulder and let her go on her way.
    In the following weeks, I tried to see the Martín Fierro gang as little as possible. The time comes when these sorts of relationships—based to a degree on nostalgia and shared politics—draw to a close without us knowing how or why. Something in these exiled communities unravels or comes unstuck, people go their own way, and if I see you in the street, I may not even stop. I knew that my time in Madrid was coming to an end.
    I packed my suitcases, boxed up my books, and paid my outstanding bills. I spent my last morning in the city walking, indulging my nostalgia. As I crossed Calle del Pinar, I heard someone call me. It was Ordóñez. I told him that I was returning to France. Ordóñez made some joking remark about the virtues of French cuisine. We said good-bye cordially, and then he remembered something that he wanted to tell me.
    â€œHey, Manguel. Those people in the cemetery you were asking Quita about. The Cubans. Apparently they’re wanted by the police. I’m just telling you because you seemed interested.”
    Then I realized why those two had looked familiar, and I remembered that frightened description that Bevilacqua had given me. I began to understand that something, whether horrible or banal, which had bound the ghostly Argentinian to the fantastic Cuban, had come to an end now that one of them could no longer tell his version of events. It was another one of those stories that belong to the “archive of silence,” as we refer to that infamous period in my country’s history.
    The encounter with Ordóñez depressed me even more. I wandered off through the streets of the Prospe, with its ocher facades and broken paving stones. Almost without thinking, I arrived at the door of the Martín Fierro. I climbed the stairs. Quita was on her own, going through files at the reception desk, which had now been cleared of Andrea’s things, of her little plants, her toys, her framed photograph of Bevilacqua. I was shocked to see how tired she looked, her bronzed skin tinged by a whitish lichen, a lock of gray hair falling over her forehead. Quita, who felt about grooming the same way Poles feel about