Tupra grabbed Rafita by the lapels or, rather, by the shirt-front and did with him more or less what he had done with the mobile phone, that is, he slammed him against the wall, and one of the strange cylindrical bars attached to the wall, I noticed, thudded into his back. Fortunately, the bars did not have sharp edges, but even so it must have hurt him badly, Tupra's violence had not abated. After this, De la Garza collapsed, with a defeated, breathless howl. His shirt had come out of his trousers, and I discovered to my amazement – to my embarrassment and almost sorrow too – that the diplomat had a jewel encrusted in his navel, like a small diamond or perhaps a pearl, doubtless cheap imitations, fakes. 'Good grief," I thought, 'he's obviously really desperate to keep up with trends, and the gypsy earring and the hairnet just weren't enough, I wonder if he always wears it, even in the embassy, or only when he gets dressed up to go out on the town?' Tupra dragged him to his feet again, still gripping his shirt-front, pulled him close and then again flung him against the metal bar placed there for the disabled, the fixed bar, I had the sense this time that it caught him in the shoulder blades. De la Garza was a puppet, a sack, he was drenched and stained with blue, with gashes on his chin and forehead and a cut on his cheekbone, uno sfregio, his clothes all dishevelled and torn, and his cries very feeble now, only an irrepressible groan each time his back hit the bar, because Reresby continued in the same vein, repeatedly and rapidly: he would pull him to his feet, draw him a little away from the wall and then hurl him against that battering ram, he must have been breaking several of his ribs, if not causing more dangerous internal lesions, the attache's whole ribcage resounded and his insides crunched, and with every impact it was if his breath dried up in him. Reresby did this a total of five times, as if he were counting them, in a patient, disciplined way, like someone who has it all planned out. De la Garza did not defend himself at any point (he could not even shrink in on himself or cover his ears now), I suppose you know when there's nothing you can do, when the other person's strength and determination – or the sheer numbers if there are several of them, or the weapons if you yourself are unarmed – are so much greater that all you can hope is that they will grow tired or decide to finish you off; during these attacks, during the beating, Rafita would also be thinking of the sword with a mixture of fear and something like hope, as perhaps Emilio Mares would have done in the fields of Ronda once he saw them coming for him first with the banderillas and then with the lance: 'They're going to do it. They're really going to do it, the bastards, the brutes,' he must have thought then. 'They're going to bait me like a bull, it would be better if they just killed me now and did a good job of it, rather than give me the coup de grace with whatever they have to hand, because they're capable of doing it with a nail.’
When Tupra had finished, he turned to me and said: 'Jack, translate this, will you, I want him to understand and to be quite clear about what I'm saying.' And before he began, he added: 'Have you got a comb?’
De la Garza was slumped on the floor, he seemed incapable of movement and would not, in my presence, be hauled to his feet by Sir Blow or Sir Punishment or Sir Thrashing, well, at least he wasn't Sir Death. Reresby looked in the mirror while he was talking, he tucked in his shirt, tugged at his jacket, smoothed his waistcoat, otherwise he looked exactly as he always looked, even his hair had remained relatively unruffled. He straightened his tie, adjusted the knot, and did this without his sodden gloves, which he had deposited, with a grimace of disgust, next to the toilet. When he'd had the gloves on, he had not once used his fist or even the flat of his hand – or his foot either – every blow dealt had been made by another interposing object, the toilet bowl, the cylindrical bar and even the hairnet and the flushing water, he must have known all about what my father had told me years before, that a punch can shatter the hand of the person doing the punching. In Spain we have always known about these tricks of the trade as regards violence: in 1808 (to give but one example), during the Peninsular War or the War of Independence, Filangieri, the governor of La Coruna and, more suspiciously still, Italian by birth (and not 'a Spaniard of lightning and fire'), was judged by his troops to be a traitor because he delayed slightly before rallying to the cause of Independence (he lingered, he claimed, only out of strategic prudence, but, by then, it was too late); and so they stuck their bayonets in the ground, points uppermost (this happened apparently in Villafranca del Bierzo, although I've no idea what they were doing there), and threw their Captain-General onto the spikes a few times, until some vital organ was finally pierced and there was no point in continuing, thus saving the mutineers the energy and effort involved in sticking their bayonets into him themselves and leaving the not-yet-dead Filanghieri to do all the work for them. This was not apparently the first example of such idleness, and was started perhaps by the Carthaginians who deployed spears in a similar way against the Roman general Atilius Regulus in the third century bc; and an English traveller in Spain remarked that murdering the unjust, despotic, incompetent and generally appalling generals and leaders who have, on the whole, ruled over our Peninsula throughout history (good vassals, but bad lords) was 'an inveterate Iberian trait'. He also remarked: 'Help from Spain comes either late or never' – the person who would succeed Filanghieri did eventually come to his aid, but only long after the latter had been tested to destruction as a fakir and been found wanting, as I remembered when I bent down over De la Garza to enquire vaguely and ineffectually about his battered state, there was little I could do then, the fatuous fellow lay there crushed and half conscious, he might perhaps be crippled for some time to come, not for ever I hoped, otherwise he would have to grow used to frequenting toilets like this one. And I wondered, too, if the surname Tupra did not perhaps have its remote origins among certain ancient, idle compatriots of mine.
'A comb?' I replied, somewhat annoyed. It reminded me of Wheeler's comment about Latins, in his garden by the river, after the helicopter had had its little joke. A reputation for being vain. 'What makes you think I'd have a comb on me?’
'You Latins usually have one, don't you? See if he's got one.' And he jerked his head in the direction of the fallen man.
It made me squirm inside, it seemed outrageous to me that Reresby should use the comb that De la Garza was bound to have on him, assuming he had not lost it in that one-sided scrimmage or during the furious dancing beforehand. I felt ashamed at the very idea of frisking the beaten man, that all too easily defeated man. And so I took mine out, even though this meant admitting that Tupra had been right.