Double

...

THE FIRST TO WAKE IN THE MORNING WAS TERTULIANO MÁXimo Afonso. He was naked. The bedspread and the sheet had slipped onto the floor on his side of the bed, leaving one of Helena's breasts exposed. She appeared to be sleeping deeply. The morning light, barely tempered by the thick curtains, filled the whole room with a glittering penumbra. It must be hot outside. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso felt his penis grow hard, unsatisfied again. That was when he thought of Maria da Paz. He imagined another room, another bed, her prone body, of which he knew every inch, and António Claro's prone body, identical to his, and suddenly it seemed to him that he had reached the end of the road, that ahead of him, blocking the way, was a wall with a sign on it saying, STOP, abyss, and then he saw that he could not go back, that the road he had traveled had disappeared, and all that remained was the little space on which his feet were standing. He was dreaming and he did not know it. An anxiety that immediately became terror made him start violently awake just as the wall was shattering, and its arms, for worse things have been seen than a wall growing arms, were dragging him toward the precipice. Helena was clutching his hand, trying to calm him, It's all right, it was a nightmare, it's over, you're here now. He was panting, gasping for breath, as if the fall had suddenly emptied his lungs of air. That's it, calm down, said Helena again. She was leaning on one elbow, her breasts exposed, the thin bedspread outlining the curve of her waist, her thigh, and the words she was saying fell on the body of this suffering man like fine rain, the kind that touches the skin like a caress or a watery kiss. Gradually, like a cloud of steam flowing back to its place of origin, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's terrified spirit returned to his exhausted mind, and when Helena asked, So what was this bad dream about, tell me, this confused man, this builder of labyrinths in which he himself is lost, who is lying now beside a woman who, although known to him in the sexual sense, is otherwise entirely unknown, spoke of a road that had ceased to have a beginning, as if his own steps as they were taken had devoured the very substances, whatever they might be, that give or lend duration to time and dimension to space, of the wall, which in cutting across time, cut across both, of the place where his feet had stood, those two small islands, that minuscule human archipelago, one here, the other there, and of the sign on which was written stop, abyss, remember, who warns you is your enemy, as Hamlet could have said to his uncle and stepfather, Claudius. She had listened to him surprised, slightly perplexed, she was not used to hearing her husband express such thoughts, still less in the tone in which they had been spoken, as if each word were accompanied by its double, like an echo in an inhabited cave, in which it is impossible to know who is breathing, who has just spoken in a murmur, who has just sighed. She liked the idea that her feet were also two small islands, and that very close to hers rested another two, and that the four together could constitute, did constitute, had consti tuted a perfect archipelago, if there is such a thing as perfection in this world and if these sheets are the ocean where it chose to be anchored. Are you feeling calmer now, she asked, Yes, he said, I don't think there could be anything better than this, It's odd, last night you came to me as you never have before, you entered me with a tenderness that I thought afterward was mingled with desire and tears, and joy too, a moan of pain, a plea for forgiveness, Well, if that's what you felt, that's how it must have been, Unfortunately, some things happen and are never repeated, Others are repeated over and over, Do you think so, someone once said that if you give a person roses, then you can never again give them anything else but roses, Perhaps we should try, Now, Yes, seeing that we're naked, That's a good reason, Good enough, although probably not the best. The four islands joined together, the archipelago re-formed, the sea beat wildly against the cliffs, if there were shouts up above, they came from the mermaids riding the waves, if there were moans none were moans of pain, if someone asked forgiveness, may they be forgiven now and ever after. They rested briefly in each other's arms, then, with one last kiss, she slipped out of the bed, Don't get up, sleep for a while longer, I'll make breakfast.

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso did not sleep. He had to leave that apartment quickly, he couldn't risk António Claro coming home earlier than he had said, before midday had been his actual words, what if things at the house in the country had not gone as he expected and he was already racing back here, angry with himself, eager to bury his frustration in the peace of his own home, where he will tell his wife about his work, inventing, to justify his bad mood, setbacks that did not exist, arguments that did not take place, agreements that were not made. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's difficulty lies in not being able to leave just like that, he has to give Helena an excuse that will not arouse her distrust, remember that up until now she has had no reason to think that the man with whom she slept and took pleasure last night is not her husband, and where is he going to find the nerve to tell her now, having concealed the information until the last moment, that he has urgent business to deal with on a morning like this, a summer Saturday, when the logical thing, bearing in mind the sublime heights of harmony reached by this couple, and to which we were witness, would be to stay in bed to continue their interrupted conversation, along with anything more interesting that might occur. Helena will soon appear with the breakfast, it's been such an age since they had breakfast together like this, in the intimacy of a bed still redolent of love's particular fragrances, that it would be unforgivable to waste an opportunity that, in all probability, at least all the probabilities we know about, is clearly conspiring to be the last. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso thinks and thinks and thinks, and, as he thinks and thinks, because what we would term the paradoxical energy of the human soul can reach such extremes, the need to leave grows fainter and fainter, less urgent, and, at the same time, imprudently brushing aside all foreseeable risks, a wild desire to be an eyewitness to his definitive triumph over António Claro is growing in strength inside him. To be there in the flesh and prepared to face whatever the consequences might be. Let him come and find him here, let him rant, let him rage, let him use violence, whatever he does, nothing will be able to lessen the extent of his defeat. He knows that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso wields the ultimate weapon, it will be enough for that thousand-times-cursed history teacher to ask him where he has been and for Helena, finally, to know the sordid side of the prodigious ad venture of these two men identical down to the moles on their arms, the scars on their knees, and the size of their penises, and from this day forward, identical too in their couplings. An ambulance may have to come and collect Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's battered body, but his aggressor's wound, that will never heal. These base thoughts of revenge produced by the brain of this man lying in bed waiting for his breakfast might have gone no further, were it not for the aforementioned paradoxical energy of the human soul, or, to give it another name, the possible emergence of feelings of an unusual nobility, of a gentlemanly nature all-the-more-worthy of applause given their otherwise entirely deplorable personal antecedents. Incredible though it may seem, the man who, out of moral cowardice, out of fear that the truth would be revealed, allowed Maria da Paz to fall into the arms of António Claro, is the same man who not only is prepared to carry out the most difficult task of his entire life, but has also realized that it is his strict duty not to leave Helena alone in the delicate situation of having one husband by her side and seeing another walk in through the front door. The human soul is a box out of which a clown is always ready to spring, making faces and sticking out his tongue, but there are times when that same clown merely peers at us over the edge of the box, and if he sees that, by chance, we are behaving in a just and honest fashion, he merely nods approvingly and disappears, thinking that we are not yet an entirely lost cause. Thanks to the decision he has just made, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has removed from his record a few of his minor faults, but he will have to suffer greatly before the ink in which the others were written begins to fade from the brown paper of memory. People often say, Let time do its work, but what we always forget to ask is if there will ever be enough time. Helena came in carrying the breakfast just as Tertuliano Máximo Afonso was getting up, Don't you want to have breakfast in bed, she asked, and he said no, he would prefer to be seated comfortably on a chair rather than constantly having to keep one eye cocked for the slithering tray, the sliding cup, the smears left behind by the melting butter, and the crumbs that creep into the folds of the sheets and always end up in the skin's most delicate crevices. He tried to make this speech sound as comical and good-humored as he could, but its sole objective was to disguise Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's new and pressing preoccupation, which is this, that if António Claro does turn up, at least he won't find us in the marriage bed nibbling sinfully on scones and toast, that if António Claro does turn up, at least he will find his bed made and his room aired, that if Antonio Claro does turn up, at least he will find us properly washed, combed, and dressed, because as with appearances so it is with vice, since we're walking hand in hand with it, and there seems no way of avoiding this or any real advantage in doing so, we might as well make vice pay occasional homage to virtue, even if only in form, besides, it's highly unlikely it would be worth asking any more of it than that.

It's getting late, it's gone half past ten. Helena has left to do some shopping, she said, Bye, and gave him a kiss, a warm and still consoling remnant of the bonfire of passion that had, in recent hours, illicitly joined and inflamed this man and this woman. Now, sitting on the sofa, with the book about ancient Mesopotamian civilizations open on his lap, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is waiting for Antonio Claro to arrive, and, being someone whose imagination frequently throws off the fetters, he imagined that the said António Claro and his wife might have met in the street and come up the stairs to sort out this tangle once and for all, Helena protesting, You're not my husband, my husband's at home, that's him sitting over there, you're the history teacher who has been trying to ruin our lives, and António Claro assuring her, No, I'm your husband, he's the history teacher, look at the book he's reading, he's the biggest impostor in the world he is, and she, cutting and ironic, Oh, yes, so perhaps you can explain why it is that he's the one wearing the wedding ring and not you. Helena has just come back alone with the shopping and it's now eleven o'clock. In a while, she will ask, Are you worried about something, and he'll deny it, No, whatever gave you that idea, and she'll say, Well, in that case, I don't understand why you keep looking at the clock, and he will reply that he doesn't know why either, it's just a tic, perhaps he's nervous about something, If they gave me the role of King Hammurabi, my career as an actor would really take off. Half past eleven came, a quarter to twelve, and still no António Claro. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's heart is like a furious horse dealing kicks in every direction, panic tightens his throat and screams at him that there's still time, Look, while she's in the other room, seize your opportunity and make your escape, you've still got nearly ten minutes, but be careful, don't use the lift, take the stairs and look both ways before you set foot in the street. It's midday, the clock in the living room slowly counted out the beats as if wanting to give António Claro one last chance to appear, to keep his promise, even if he did so only at the very last second, although there's no point in Tertuliano Máximo Afonso trying to deceive himself, If he hasn't come now, he won't be coming at all. Anyone can be late, the car can break down, you can get a puncture, these are things that happen every day and from which no one is exempt. From now on, every minute will be an agony, then it will be the turn of puzzlement, perplexity, and, inevitably, the thought, All right, he's been delayed, seriously delayed, but what are phones for, why doesn't he phone to say that the differential has broken, or the gearbox, or the fan belt, which are all things that can happen to a worn-out old car like his. Another hour passed and not a sign of António Claro, and when Helena came to announce that lunch was on the table, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso said he wasn't hungry, she should eat alone, and, anyway, he needed to go out. She wanted to know why, and he could have retorted that they weren't married and that he was therefore under no obligation to tell her what he was or wasn't going to do, but the moment to place all his cards on the table and begin to play fairly had not yet arrived, and so he merely said that he would explain everything later, a promise that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso always has on the tip of his tongue and which he keeps, when he does keep it, only partially and late, ask his mother, ask Maria da Paz, from whom we also have no news. Helena asked if he thought perhaps he should change his clothes, and he said yes, what he was wearing really wasn't suitable for what he had to do, a suit, jacket, and trousers would be more appropriate, after all, I'm not a tourist and I'm not off to spend the summer in the country. Fifteen minutes later, he left, Helena accompanied him to the lift, in her eyes was the warning glimmer of tears to come, and before Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had even had time to reach the street, she was sobbing, repeating over and over that question as yet unanswered, What's wrong, what's wrong.

As Tertuliano Máximo Afonso climbed into the car, his first thought was to get away from there, to go and park in some quiet spot where he could reflect seriously on the situation, impose order on the confusion that has been jostling about in his mind for the last twenty-four hours, and decide what to do. He started the engine and only had to turn the corner to understand that he did not need to reflect at all, all he had to do was phone Maria da Paz, why on earth didn't I think of it before, presumably because I was shut up in that apartment and therefore unable to make a phone call. A couple hundred meters farther on he found a telephone booth. He stopped the car, hurriedly entered the booth, and dialed the number. It was suffocatingly hot inside. The female voice at the other end asking, Who is it, was not her familiar voice, I wanted to speak to Maria da Paz, he said, Yes, but who is it, I'm a colleague of hers, from the bank where she works, Maria da Paz is dead, she died this morning in a car accident, she was with her fiancé and they both died, it's a tragedy, a real tragedy. In an instant, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's whole body, from head to toe, was bathed in sweat. He babbled some words the woman could not understand, What did you say, yes, what had he said, a few words that he no longer remembers or ever will remember, that he has forgotten forever, and, without realizing what he was doing, like an automaton whose power supply has suddenly been turned off, he dropped the receiver. Standing utterly still inside the furnace of the telephone booth, he could hear one word, just one, echoing in his ears, Dead, but other words soon came to take its place, and these screamed, You killed her. António Claro didn't kill her with his reckless driving, always supposing that was the cause of the accident, he, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, killed her, his moral weakness killed her, the will that made him blind to everything but revenge killed her, it was said that one of them, either the actor or the history teacher, was superfluous in this world, but you weren't, you weren't superluous, there is no duplicate of you to come and replace you at your mother's side, you were unique, just as every ordinary person is unique, truly unique. They say you can hate someone only if you hate yourself, but the worst of all hatreds must be the hatred that cannot bear another person to be the same, worse still if that sameness should ever become total. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso staggered like a drunkard out of the booth, got into the car as if he were hurling himself inside, and sat there, staring blankly ahead, until he could stand it no longer and tears and sobs shook his chest. At this moment, he loves Maria da Paz as he had never loved her nor ever would love her in the future. The grief he feels is for her newborn absence, but an awareness of his guilt is creating a suppurating wound that will secrete pus and filth forever after. Some people looked at him with the gratuitous, impotent curiosity that does neither good nor ill in the world, but one person did come over and ask if he could help in any way, but he said no, thank you, and, having thanked him, wept still more bitterly, it was as if someone had come and placed a hand on his shoulder and said, Be patient, in time your sorrow will pass, it's true, in time everything does pass, but there are cases when time takes time to let the grief abate, and there have been and will be cases, fortunately few, in which the grief never abated and time did not pass. He sat on like this until he had no more tears to shed, until time decided to start moving again and to ask, And now what, where will you go, and it was then that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, in all probability transformed into António Claro for the rest of his life, realized that he had nowhere to go. In the first place, the apartment he used to call his own belonged to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is dead, in the second place, he can't drive from here to the apartment that was António Claro's and tell Helena that her husband is dead because, as far as she is concerned, he is Antonio Claro, and finally, there is Maria da Paz's apartment, to which he had never even been invited, he could go there only to offer his useless sympathies to a poor mother bereft of her daughter. The natural thing at this point would be for Tertuliano Máximo Afonso to think of another mother, who, already informed of the sad news, will likewise be weeping the inconsolable tears of maternal orphanhood, but the unshakable consciousness that, as far as he is concerned, he is and always will be Tertuliano Máximo Afonso and that he is, therefore, alive, must have temporarily blocked out what, in other circumstances, would certainly have been his first impulse. Meanwhile, he will still have to find an answer to the question that has been left hanging, And now what, where will you go, one of the easier difficulties to resolve in any city, whether a vast metropolis like this or not, with hotels and boardinghouses to suit all tastes and purses. That is where he will have to go, and not just for a few hours to find shelter from the heat and to be free to weep. It was one thing to have spent the previous night with Helena, when doing so was just a move in the game, if you're going to sleep with my wife, then I'll sleep with yours, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, as demanded by the law of talion, never applied more appropriately than in this case, for our present-day word "identical" means the same as the Latin etymon talis, from which the term "talion" comes, for not only were the crimes committed identical, those who committed them were identical too. It was one thing, then, if you will allow us to return to the beginning of the sentence, to have spent the night with Helena when no one could possibly have guessed that death was about to enter the game and declare checkmate, it would be quite another thing, knowing as he does that António Claro is dead, even if tomorrow's newspapers say that the dead man's name was Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, to spend a second night with her, thus compounding one deceit with a still-worse deceit. We human beings, although we are still animals, some of us more than others, do have a few decent feelings, sometimes even a remnant or a beginning of self-respect, and this Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, who, on so many occasions, has behaved in ways that justified our severest criticism, will not dare to take the step that, in our eyes, would condemn him forever. He will, therefore, go in search of a hotel and see what tomorrow brings. He started the car and drove toward the center, where he will have more choices, all he needs is a modest, two-star hotel, it's only for one night, And who can say that it will only be for one night, he thought, where will I sleep tomorrow, and after that, and after that, and after that, for the first time, the future seemed to him a place in which there will definitely still be a need for history teachers, but not this one, in which the actor Daniel Santa-Clara will have no option but to give up his promising career, and in which it will be necessary to find some point of equilibrium between having been and continuing to be, it is doubtless comforting to have our consciousness tell us, I know who you are, but our own consciousness might start to doubt both us and its own words if it were to notice, all around, people asking each other the awkward question, Who's he. The first person to have the opportunity to display this public curiosity was the clerk at the hotel reception when he asked Tertuliano Máximo Afonso for some proof of identity, thank heavens he didn't ask him his name first, because Tertuliano Máximo Afonso could easily have said, out of sheer force of habit, the name that has been his for the last thirty-eight years and which now belongs to a mangled corpse waiting in a cold morgue somewhere for the autopsy that no accident victim can escape. The identity card he handed to the clerk bears the name of An tónio Claro, the face in the photograph is the same as the face the receptionist has before him and which he would scrupulously examine were there any reason to go to such lengths. There isn't, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has signed the guest book, in these cases all that's required is a scrawl that bears some resemblance to the proper signature, he has the key to the room in his hand, he has already said that he has no luggage with him, and to support a truth that no one has asked him to justify, he explained how he had missed his plane and left his suitcases at the airport, which is why he is staying only one night. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso may have changed his name, but he continues to be the same person whom we accompanied to the video shop, who always talks more than is necessary, who does not know how to be natural, fortunately, the receptionist has other things to think about, the telephone ringing, a few foreigners who have just arrived weighed down with suitcases and travel bags. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso went up to his room, made himself comfortable, and went to the bathroom to relieve his bladder, apart from having missed his plane, as he had told the receptionist, he appeared to have no other worries, but that was before he lay down on the bed, intending to rest a little, for his imagination immediately placed before him a car reduced to a pile of scrap metal and, inside it, wretchedly bleeding, two mangled bodies. The tears returned, the sobs returned, and who knows how long he would have gone on like this if, suddenly, the shocking thought of his mother had not irrupted into his disoriented brain. He sat bolt upright, placed his hand on the phone, at the same time heaping insults on himself, I'm a fool, a half-wit, an idiot, an imbecile, an utter cretin, how could it not have occurred to me that the police were bound to go to my apartment, that they would ask the neighbors if I had any relatives, that my upstairs neighbor would give them my mother's address and telephone number, how could something so very obvious not have crossed my mind, how was it possible. No one answered. The telephone rang and rang, but no one came to ask, Who is it, so that Tertuliano Máximo Afonso could at last say, It's me, I'm alive, the police made a mistake, I'll explain later. His mother wasn't at home, and this fact, unusual in any other circumstances, could mean only one thing, that she was on her way to the city, that she had hired a taxi and was on her way, she might even have arrived, in which case, she would have gone to ask the upstairs neighbor for the key and will now be weeping out her grief, my poor mother, how right you were to warn me. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso dialed his own phone number, and again no one answered. He tried to think calmly, to clarify his muddled mind, even if the police had been exceptionally diligent, they would need time to carry out and conclude their investigations, one must remember that this city is a seething mass of five million restless inhabitants, that there are many accidents and even more victims of accidents, that it is necessary to identify them, to go in search of their families, no easy task when there are negligent people who go about the streets without so much as a piece of paper on them warning, In case of accident, call so-and-so. Fortunately, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is not such a person, nor, it would seem, was Maria da Paz, in their respective address books, on the page reserved for personal information, was everything necessary for a perfect identification, at least as regards any initial requirements, which almost always end up being the last requirements too. No one, apart from a criminal, would be wandering around with false documents or documents stolen from another person, and so it is legitimate to conclude, with respect to the present case, that what the po lice took to be the truth was the truth, and since there was no reason to doubt the identity of one of the victims, why on earth should there be any doubts about the other one. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso rang again, and again there was no reply. He is no longer thinking about Maria da Paz, now he just wants to know where Carolina Máximo is, taxis these days are powerful machines, not like the old clunkers of yesteryear, and, in a dramatic situation like this, there would be no need to bribe the driver with the promise of a tip if he put his foot down, in four hours she should be here, and given that it's a Saturday and everyone's away on holiday, with the traffic on the roads reduced to a minimum, she should have arrived at his apartment already, so that she could ease her son's disquiet. He rang again, and this time, unexpectedly, the answering machine came on, This is Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, please leave a message, it was a terrible shock, he had been in such a state of nerves before that he hadn't noticed the machine had not come on, and now it was as if he had suddenly heard a voice not his own, the voice of a dead stranger that, tomorrow, so as not to upset the sensitive, will have to be replaced by the voice of someone living, an operation of removal and replacement that happens every day in thousands and thousands of places all over the world, although we may prefer not to think about it. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso needed a few seconds to calm himself and recover his own voice, then, tremulously, he said, Mama, it's not true what they've told you, I'm alive and well, I'll tell you later what happened, but I repeat, I'm alive and well, I'm going to give you the name of the hotel I'm staying at, the room number, and the telephone number, call me as soon as you get there and don't cry anymore, don't cry, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso might have said these last words a third time, if he himself had not burst into tears, tears for his mother, for Maria da Paz, whose memory was back with him again, and tears of pity for himself too. Exhausted, he fell back on the bed, he felt weak, as helpless as a sick child, he remembered that he had not had any lunch, and the idea, instead of arousing his appetite, made him feel so violently sick that he had to get up and run to the bathroom, where his retchings summoned up from his stomach nothing but a little bitter foam. He went back into the room, sat down on the bed with his head in his hands, allowing his thoughts to drift like a small cork boat heading downstream and which, now and again, when it bumps against a rock, changes direction for a moment. It was thanks to this half-conscious daydreaming that he remembered something important he should have told his mother. He rang his own number, fearing that the machine would again play tricks on him and refuse to work, and he gave a great sigh of relief when the answering machine, after a few seconds' hesitation, whirred into life. He left only a short message, he said, Don't forget, the name is António Claro, and then, as if he had just discovered a weighty bit of evidence that would contribute to a definitive elucidation of the shifting, unstable identities under discussion, he added the following information, The dog's name is Tomarctus. When his mother arrives, he won't need to recite to her the names of his father and of his grandparents, of his aunts and uncles on both sides, he won't have to mention the arm he broke when he fell out of the fig tree, or his first girlfriend, or the bolt of lightning that demolished the chimney when he was ten years old. In order for Carolina Máximo Afonso to be absolutely sure that the child of her heart is there before her, there will be no need for that marvelous maternal instinct of hers or for any scientific, confirmatory DNA tests, the name of the dog will be enough.

It was nearly an hour before the phone rang. Startled, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso leaped up, hoping to hear his mother's voice, but the voice he heard was that of the clerk at the reception desk, Senhora Carolina Claro is here to speak to you, Oh, it's my mother, he stammered, I'll be right down, I'll be right down. He ran out of the room, at the same time telling himself, I must get a grip on myself, I mustn't be overly affectionate, the less fuss we make the better. The slowness of the lift helped to moderate the rush of emotions, and it was a fairly acceptable Tertuliano Máximo Afonso who appeared in the foyer and embraced the elderly lady, who, either instinctively or after long reflection in the taxi that had brought her there, prudently returned these displays of filial affection without any of the vulgar, passionate exuberance that finds expression in phrases such as, Oh, my sweet boy, although in the present drama, Oh, my poor boy would be more suited to the situation. The embraces, tears, and sobs had to wait until they got to the room, until the door had closed and the son risen from the dead could say, Mama, and she had no words to say other than those that managed to emerge from her grateful heart, It's you, it's you. This woman, however, is not the easily pleased type, for whom a hug is enough to make her forget an offense, an offense, in this case, not against her, but against reason, respect, and common sense too, lest it be said that we have forgotten how much the latter had tried to do to prevent the story of the duplicate men from ending in tragedy. Carolina Máximo will not use that term, she will say only, There are two people dead, now tell me from the beginning how all this happened, and without concealing anything, please, the time for half-truths is over, and that applies to half-lies too. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso drew up a chair for his mother to sit on, sat down on the edge of the bed, and began his story. From the beginning, as she had requested. She didn't interrrupt him, and only twice did she look shocked, once when António Claro was saying that he was going to take Maria da Paz to the house in the country in order to make love with her, and again when her son explained how and why he had gone to Helena's apartment and what had happened there. She moved her lips as if to say, Madness, but the word did not come out. Night had fallen, darkness covered the features of both. When Tertuliano Máximo Afonso stopped speaking, his mother asked the inevitable question, And now what, Now, Mama, the Tertuliano Máximo Afonso I was is dead, and the other one, if he wants to continue to be part of life, will have no option but to be António Claro, And why not just tell the truth, why not say what happened, why not put everything back in its rightful place, You've heard what happened, Yes, so, Do you really think, Mama, that those four people, the dead and the living, should be brought out into the public gaze for the pleasure and amusement of the world's fierce curiosity, and what would we gain with that, the dead wouldn't come back to life and the living would start to die there and then, So what shall we do, You will go to the funeral of the false Tertuliano Máximo Afonso and you'll mourn for him as if he were your son, and Helena will go too, but no one must know why she is there, And you, As I said, I'm António Claro, when I turn on the light, the face you will see will be his, not mine, But you're my son, Yes, I'm your son, but I won't be able to be your son in the town where I was born, as far as the people there are concerned, I'm dead, and when you and I want to meet, it will have to be in a place where no one even knows of the existence of a history teacher called Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, And Helena, Tomorrow I'll go and ask her forgiveness and give her back this watch and this wedding ring, And for this two people had to die, Yes, people I killed, and one of them an innocent victim, entirely innocent. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso got up and turned on the light. His mother was crying. For a few minutes they remained silent, avoiding each other's gaze. Then, dabbing at her eyes with a damp handkerchief, his mother murmured, Old Cassandra was right, you should never have let the wooden horse in, There's nothing to be done about it now, No, there's nothing to be done about it, and there'll be nothing to be done about it in the future either, we'll all be dead. After a brief silence, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso asked, Did the police give you any details about the accident, They said that the car left its lane and drove straight into a truck coming in the opposite direction, they also told me that they would have died instantly, That's odd, What is, Well, I had the impression he was a good driver, Something must have happened, They might have skidded, there could have been oil on the road, They didn't say anything about that, just that the car left its lane and drove straight into the truck. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso sat down again on the edge of the bed, looked at his watch, and said, I'm going to ask reception to get a room for you, we'll have supper and you can stay here tonight, No, I'd rather go back to your place, after we've eaten, you can call a taxi, But I can take you, no one will see me, And how are you going to take me when you have no car, I've got his car, his mother shook her head sadly and said, His car, his wife, all that's lacking now is for you to have his life too, Well, I'll have to find a better life for myself, but now, please, let's go and eat something, and let the tragedy rest for a while. He held out his hands to help her up, then he put his arms around her and said, Remember to erase the messages I left on the answering machine, we can't be too careful, not like cats that hide in a box but forget to put their tail in. When they had finished supper, his mother said again, Call me a taxi, No, I'll take you home, You can't risk being seen, besides, just the thought of getting in that car makes me shudder, All right, but I'll come with you in the taxi and then come back here, Look, I'm old enough to go alone, don't insist. When she left, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso said, Try to get some rest, Mama, you need it, Probably neither of us will be able to sleep, neither you nor I, she replied.

She was right. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, at least, did not close his eyes for hours and hours, he kept seeing the car leaving its lane and hurtling toward the truck's huge snout, Why, he asked himself, why did he lose control like that, perhaps a tire blew, no, that can't be it, the police would have mentioned it, true, the car has been in constant use for a good few years, but I took it in for a full service only three months ago and they found nothing wrong with it, either mechanical or electrical. He fell asleep toward dawn, but his sleep was short-lived, just after seven o'clock he was startled awake by the thought of something urgent he had to do, the visit to Helena presumably, but it was still too early for that, what could it be then, a light suddenly went on in his head, the newspaper, he needed to see what was in the newspaper, an accident like that, just outside the city, was news. He leaped out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and rushed down to reception. The night porter, not the receptionist who had attended him the previous day, eyed him suspiciously, and Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had to say, I'm just going to buy a newspaper, in case the man thought that this agitated guest was trying to leave without paying. He did not have to go far, there was a newspaper kiosk on the corner. He bought three papers, there must be something about the accident in one of them, and strode back to the hotel. He went up to his room and started leafing through them anxiously, looking for the section on road accidents. It was reported only in the third newspaper. There was a photograph showing the car's ruinous state. With his whole body shaking, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso read the article, skipping over the details to get to the essential facts, Yesterday, at around 9:30 A.M., on the outskirts of the city, there was a head-on collision between a car and a truck. The car's two occupants, So-and-So and So-and-So, immediately identifiable from the papers they had on them, were dead by the time the ambulance arrived. The driver of the truck suffered only minor injuries to his face and hands. Questioned by the police, who do not hold him in any way responsible for the accident, he stated that when the car was still some distance from him, before it left its lane, it had seemed to him that the two occupants were grappling with each other, although he could not be entirely sure because of the glare on the windscreen. Information acquired later on by our reporter revealed that the two unfortunate travelers were engaged to be married. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso read the item again, at the time that it happened, he thought, he was still in bed with Helena, and then, inevitably, he connected António Claro's early-morning drive back with what the truck driver had said. What went on between them, he wondered, what could have happened at the house in the country for them still to be arguing in the car, no, more than arguing, grappling, as the sole eyewitness to the accident had said with such vivid exactitude. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso looked at his watch. It was a few minutes to eight, Helena would already be up, Or perhaps not, she probably took a sleeping pill so as to be able to sleep, or, more accurately, to escape, poor Helena, as innocent as Maria da Paz had been, little does she know what awaits her. It was nine o'clock when Tertuliano Máximo Afonso left the hotel. He had asked reception to supply him with shaving equipment, he has had breakfast and is now on his way to say to Helena the word that is still needed for the incredible story of the duplicate men to come to an end once and for all and for normal life to resume its course, leaving, as usual, its victims behind it. If Tertuliano Máximo Afonso were fully aware of what he is about to do, of the blow he is about to deliver, he might well run away without a word of explanation or justification, perhaps leave things in their current state to rot, but his mind is somehow fogged, under the influence of a kind of anesthesia that dulls the pain and is now pushing him beyond his own will. He parked the car opposite the building, crossed the road, and got into the lift. He is carrying the newspaper rolled up under his arm, the bringer of tragic news, the voice and word of fate, he is the worst of Cassandras, the one whose sole duty is to say, It happened. He did not want to open the front door with the key he has in his pocket, there is no room now for vengeance, revenge, retribution. He rang the bell like that seller of books boasting of the sublime cultural virtues of the encyclopedia in which the habits of the monkfish are so minutely described, but what he wants now, with every fiber of his being, is for the person who opens the door to him to say, even if she's lying, No, thank you, I've already got one. The door opened and Helena appeared in the half dark of the corridor. She looked at him in astonishment, as if she had lost all hope of ever seeing him again, she showed him her poor, drawn face, the dark circles under her eyes, clearly the pill she had taken to escape from herself had failed. Where have you been, she stammered, what happened, I've been in utter torment since yesterday, since you left. She stepped forward into his arms, which did not open, but which, purely out of pity, did not repel her, and then they went in together, she still clinging to him, and he, awkward, gauche, like a clumsy puppet. He did not speak, he will not utter a word until she is sitting on the sofa, and what he has to say will appear to be the innocuous statement of someone who has gone out into the street to buy a newspaper and now, with no apparent hidden motive, says only, I've brought you the news, and he will show her the open page, will point out the place where the tragedy occurred, Here it is, and she will not notice his coldness, she will carefully read what is written, will look away from the photo of the crushed car and mutter sadly when she has done, How awful, but she said this only because she is a woman with a kind heart, the misfortune does not really touch her directly, indeed, in contradiction to the apparent solidarity of her words, there was something like relief, clearly involuntary, but to which the words spoken afterward give intelligible expression, That's terrible, it brings me no joy at all, on the contrary, but at least it puts an end to the confusion. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso had not sat down, he was standing before her, the way messengers always stand when still on duty, because there is more news to give, the very worst news. For Helena, the newspaper is already a thing of the past, the concrete present, the palpable present is this, her husband returned to her, António Claro is his name, he is going to tell her what he did yesterday afternoon and night, what important matters could have made him leave her without a word from him for so many hours. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso realizes that he cannot wait a minute longer, if he does, he will have to remain silent forever. He said, The man who died was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. She looked at him with troubled eyes, then uttered five words that would prove of little use to her, What, what did you say, and he said again, without looking at her, The man who died was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. Helena's disquiet was suddenly transformed into outright fear, Who was it then, Your husband. There was no other way of telling her, there was not a single preparatory speech in the world that would have helped, it was pointless and cruel trying to apply a bandage before there was a wound to bind up. Wild with despair, Helena was still trying to fend off the catastrophe breaking over her head, But the documents the newspaper mentioned belonged to that awful man, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso took his wallet out of his jacket pocket, opened it, removed António Claro's identity card and held it out to her. She took it, looked at the photograph, looked at the man in front of her, and understood everything. The evidence of the facts took shape in her mind like a rush of harsh light, the monstrousness of the situation overwhelmed her, for one brief moment she seemed about to lose consciousness. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso stepped forward, grasped her hands, and she, opening eyes that were like one vast teardrop, drew back abruptly, then, all strength gone, left them there, convulsive weeping saved her from fainting, sobs were now pitilessly shaking her chest, This is just how I cried, he thought, this is how we all cry when faced by a situation about which we can do nothing. Now what, she asked from the depths of the pool in which she was drowning, I'll disappear from your life forever, he said, you'll never see me again, I'd like to ask your forgiveness, but I daren't, it would be adding insult to injury, You weren't the only guilty one, No, but I bear most responsibility, I'm guilty of cowardice and because of that two people are dead, Was Maria da Paz really your fiancée, Yes, Did you love her, Yes, I cared about her deeply, we were going to be married, And yet you allowed her to go with him, As I said, out of cowardice, out of weakness, And you came here to have your revenge, Yes. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso straightened up and took a step back. Repeating the same movements that António Claro had performed forty-eight hours before, he took off the wristwatch, which he placed on the table, then he put the wedding ring down beside it. He said, I'll return the suit I'm wearing by post. Helena picked up the ring and looked at it as if for the first time. Distractedly, as though trying to remove the invisible mark left behind, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso rubbed the ring finger on his left hand with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. Neither of them thought, neither of them will ever think that the lack of that ring on António Claro's finger could have been the direct cause of two deaths, and yet that is how it was. Yesterday morning, at the house in the country, Antonio Claro was still asleep when Maria da Paz woke up. He was lying on his right side, with his left hand resting at eye level on her pillow. Maria da Paz's thoughts were confused, oscillating between a sense of languid physical well-being and a spiritual unease for which she could find no explanation. The light, steadily growing in intensity and seeping in through the gaps in the rustic window shutters, was gradually filling the room. Maria da Paz sighed and turned to look at Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. His left hand almost covered his face. On his ring finger was the round white mark that wedding rings leave on the skin after years of wear. Maria da Paz shuddered, her eyes must be deceiving her, or else she was having the worst of nightmares, this man identical to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has not worn a ring since his divorce, the mark on his finger has long since faded. The man is sleeping placidly. Maria da Paz slipped gingerly from the bed, picked up her scattered clothes, and left the room. She got dressed in the hallway, still too stunned to think clearly, incapable of coming up with an answer to the question going around and around in her head, Am I mad. The man who had brought her here and with whom she had spent the night was not Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, of that she was sure, but if it wasn't him, who could it be, and how could there possibly be two people in the world so exactly alike that they could be mistaken for each other, in their body, in their gestures, in their voice. Little by little, like someone looking for and finding the right pieces for a jigsaw puzzle, she began to relate events and actions, she remembered Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's equivocal words, his evasive answers, the letter from the production company, the promise he had made to her that, one day, he would tell her everything. She could go no further, she would still not know who this man was, unless he told her. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's voice came from the bedroom, Maria da Paz. She did not reply, and the voice insisted, insinuating, caressing, It's still early, come back to bed. She got up from the chair in which she had been slumped and went toward the bedroom. She went no farther than the door. He said, What's the idea of getting dressed, come on, take your clothes off and jump in, the party's not over yet, Who are you, asked Maria da Paz, and before he could reply, Where did you get that mark on your ring finger. Antonio Claro looked at his hand and said, Oh, that, Yes, that, you're not Tertuliano, No, I'm not, I'm not Tertuliano, Who are you then, For the moment, you'll have to make do with knowing who I'm not, but when you see your friend again, you can ask him, Oh, I will, I need to know just who I've been deceived by, By me, in the first place, but he helped, or, rather, the poor man had no option, your fiancé is not exactly a hero. António Claro got out of bed completely naked and came toward Maria da Paz, smiling, What does it matter which one I am, stop asking questions and come to bed. In despair, Maria da Paz screamed, You bastard, and fled into the living room. António Claro appeared shortly afterward, dressed and ready to leave. He said coolly, I've no patience with hysterical women, I'll drop you off at your house and that'll be that. Thirty minutes later, at high speed, the car collided with the truck. There was no oil on the road. The one eyewitness told the police that, although he couldn't be absolutely sure because of the glare on the windscreen, it seemed to him that the car's two occupants were grappling with each other.

At last, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso said, I hope there comes a time when you can forgive me, and Helena replied, Forgive is just a word, Words are all we have, Where are you going now, Somewhere or other, to pick up the pieces and try and hide the scars, As António Claro, Yes, the other one is dead. Helena said nothing, her right hand was resting on the newspaper, her wedding ring glinted on her left hand, the same hand that was still holding in the tips of its fingers the ring that had been her husband's. Then she said, There's one person who can still call you Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, Yes, my mother, Is she here in the city, Yes, There's another person too, Who, Me, You won't be able to, we'll never see each other again, That depends on you, Sorry, I don't understand, I'm telling you to stay with me, to take the place of my husband, to be for all intents and purposes António Claro, to continue his life, since you were the one who took it from him, You mean I should stay here, that we should live together, Yes, But we don't love each other, Possibly not, You might come to hate me, Possibly, Or I might come to hate you, It's a risk I'm willing to take, it would be another unique case in the world, a widow divorcing her husband, But your husband must have family, parents, siblings, how can I pretend to be him, That's all right, I'll help you, But he was an actor, I'm a history teacher, Those are some of the pieces you're going to have to put back together, but there's a time for everything, We might grow to love each other, Possibly, Because I don't think I could hate you, Nor I you. Helena got up and went over to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. It seemed that she was about to kiss him, but no, the very idea, a little respect, please, there is, after all, a time for everything. She took his left hand and slowly, very slowly, to allow time for time to arrive, she slipped the ring onto his finger. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso drew her gently to him and they stood like that, almost embracing, almost together, on the edge of time.