Double

Having replaced the receiver on the rest, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He had got what he wanted and had more than enough reason to be pleased with himself, but the fact was that their long, difficult conversation had always been dictated by her even when it appeared not to be, subjecting him to a kind of continual humiliation that never found explicit expression in the words spoken by either of them, and yet those words, one by one, left an increasingly bitter taste in his mouth, which is precisely how people often describe the taste of defeat. He knew he had won, but he was aware too that his victory was in part illusory, as if each advance he had made had been only the mechanical consequence of a tactical withdrawal by the enemy, golden bridges skilfully placed to draw him on, with flags flying and drums and bugles sounding, until there came a point perhaps when he would find himself hopelessly encircled. In order to gain his objectives, he had thrown around Maria da Paz a net of sly, calculating speeches, but the knots with which he thought he was binding her had merely ended up limiting his own freedom of movement. During the six months they had known each other, he had deliberately kept Maria da Paz on the margins of his private life, so as not to let himself become too involved, and now that he had decided to end the relationship, and was only waiting for the right moment to do so, he found himself obliged not only to ask for her help, but to make her an accomplice in actions of whose origins and causes, as well as whose final end, she knew nothing. Common sense would call him an unscrupulous exploiter, but he would reply that the situation he was living through was unique in the world, that there were no antecedents by which to establish the guidelines for socially acceptable behavior, that no law had foreseen the extraordinary circumstance of a person being duplicated, and so, he, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, had to invent, at every turn, the procedures, correct or incorrect, that would lead him to his objective. The letter was just one of those procedures, and if, to write it, he had been obliged to abuse the trust of a woman who said she loved him, it wasn't such a very grave crime, other people had done far worse things and no one was marking them out for public condemnation.

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso put a sheet of paper in the typewriter and paused to think. The letter would have to look as if it came from an admirer, it would have to be enthusiastic, but not too enthusiastic, after all, the actor Daniel Santa-Clara was not exactly a star capable of provoking hysterical outbursts of feeling, the letter should go through the ritual of asking for a signed photograph, even though what Tertuliano Máximo Afonso really wants to know is where the actor lives, as well as his real name, if, as everything seems to indicate, Daniel Santa-Clara is the pseudonym of a man who may, who knows, also be called Tertuliano. Once the letter has been sent, there are two possible hypotheses as to what will happen next, the production company will either respond directly, giving the information requested, or say that it is not authorized to do so, in which case they will probably send the letter on to the person to whom it is really addressed. Is that what will happen, wondered Tertuliano Máximo Afonso. A moment's brief reflection made him see that the last hypothesis was the least likely because it would show a complete lack of professionalism and even less consideration on the part of the company in burdening its actors with the task and with the expense of replying to letters and sending out photographs. Let's hope so, he muttered, the whole thing will fall apart if he sends Maria da Paz a personal reply. For a moment, he seemed to see before him the thunderous collapse of the house of cards that, for a week now, he has been so painstakingly building, but administrative logic and an awareness that there was no other possible route helped him, gradually, to restore his shaken spirits. Writing the letter did not prove easy, which explains why his upstairs neighbor heard the hammering of the typewriter for over an hour. At one point, the phone rang, rang insistently, but Tertuliano Máximo Afonso did not pick it up. It was probably Maria da Paz.

...