Double

NOT EVEN TERTULIANO MÁXIMO AFONSO HIMSELF COULD have said whether sleep once more opened her merciful arms to him after what, to him, had been the terrifying revelation of the existence, possibly in that same city, of a man who, to judge by his face and by his general appearance, was his very image. After a careful comparison of the photograph from five years ago with the close-up of the clerk in the film, and after finding no difference, however tiny, between the two, not even the smallest line present in one and absent in the other, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso fell onto the sofa, not into the armchair, which was not large enough to contain the physical and moral collapse of his body, and there, head in hands, nerves exhausted, stomach churning, he struggled to put his thoughts in order, untangling them from the chaos of emotions that had accumulated since the moment when memory, watching without his knowledge from behind the closed curtain of his eyelids, had woken him with a start from his initial and only sleep. What troubles me most, he finally managed to think, isn't so much the fact that the guy resembles me, is a copy, you might say, a duplicate of me, that's not so very unusual, there are twins, for example, there are look-alikes, species do repeat themselves, the human being repeats itself, head, trunk, arms, legs, and it could happen, although I can't be sure, it's just a hypothesis, that some unforeseen change in a particular genetic group could result in the creation of a being similar to one generated by another entirely unrelated genetic group, that doesn't trouble me as much as knowing that five years ago I was the same as he was then, I mean, both of us even had mustaches, and more than that, the possibility, or, rather, the probability that five years on, that is, now, right now, at this precise hour in the morning, that sameness continues, as if a change in me would occasion the same change in him, or worse still, that one of us changes not because the other one changes, but because any change is simultaneous, that's enough to send you stark staring mad, yes, all right, I mustn't make this into a tragedy, we know that everything that can happen will happen, but, first, there was the chance event that made us the same, then there was the chance event of my seeing a film I'd never even heard of, I could have lived out the rest of my life never imagining that a phenomenon like this would choose to manifest itself in an ordinary teacher of history, a man who only a few hours earlier was correcting his students' mistakes and who now doesn't know what to do with the mistake into which he himself, from one moment to the next, has seen himself transformed. Am I really a mistake, he wondered, and supposing I am, what significance, what consequences does it have for a human being to know that he's a mistake. A shiver of fear ran down his spine and he thought that some things were better left just as they are, to be what they are, because otherwise there is the danger that other people will notice and, even worse, that we too will begin to see through their eyes the hidden blunder that corrupted us at birth and which waits, impatiently chew ing its nails, for the day when it can show itself and say, Here I am. The excessive weight of such deep thought, centered as it was on the possibility of the existence of absolute doubles, albeit intuited in brief flashes rather than put into words, made his head slowly droop and, eventually, sleep, a sleep that, in its own way, would continue the mental labors carried out up until then by wakefulness, overwhelmed his weary body and helped it make itself comfortable on the sofa cushions. Not that it was a rest that merited and justified that sweet name, for after a few moments, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso suddenly opened his eyes, like a talking doll whose mechanism has gone wrong, and repeated, in different words this time, the question he had just asked, What does it mean, being a mistake. He shrugged, as if the question had abruptly ceased to interest him. Whether this indifference was the understandable effect of extreme tiredness or, on the contrary, the beneficent consequence of that brief sleep, it is, nonetheless, both disconcerting and unacceptable because, as we well know, and he better than anyone, the problem was not resolved, it's still there untouched, waiting inside the VCR, having put into words that no one heard but which were there beneath the surface of the scripted dialogue, One of us is a mistake, that was what the clerk at the reception desk actually said to Tertuliano Máximo Afonso when, addressing the actress playing Inés de Castro, he informed her that the room reserved for her was number twelve-eighteen. How many unknown factors are there in this equation, the history teacher asked the mathematics teacher as he was once more crossing the threshold of sleep. His numerate colleague did not answer his question, he merely looked at him pityingly and said, We'll talk about it later, rest now, try to get some sleep, you need it. Sleep was indeed what Tertuliano Máximo Afonso most wanted at that moment, but the attempt failed. Soon afterward, he was awake again, full of the brilliant idea that had suddenly occurred to him, which was to ask his colleague in mathematics to tell him why he had suggested watching The Race Is to the Swift,

when it was a film of little merit, weighed down by five years of what had doubtless been a troubled existence, which in the case of any run-of-the-mill, low-budget movie is a surefire reason for being retired early on the grounds of disability or for meeting an inglorious end briefly postponed by the curiosity of a handful of eccentric viewers who, having heard talk of cult movies, erroneously thought that this was one. In this tangled equation, the first unknown factor he would have to resolve was whether his colleague had noticed the resemblance when he first saw the film and, if so, why he had not warned him when he suggested renting the video, even by jokily threatening him with, Prepare yourself, you're in for a shock. Although he does not really believe in Fate, distinguished from any lesser destiny by that respectful initial capital letter, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso cannot shake off the idea that so many chance events and coincidences coming all together could very well correspond to a plan, as yet unrevealed, but whose development and denouement are doubtless already to be found on the tablets on which that same Destiny, always assuming it does exist and does govern our lives, set down, at the very beginning of time, the date on which the first hair would fall from our head and the last smile die on our lips. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso has ceased lying on the sofa like an empty, crumpled suit, he has just stood up as steadily as he can manage after a night that, for violent emotions, has had no equal in his entire life, and, feeling that his head was not quite in its right place, he went over to the window to look out at the sky. The night was still clinging to the city's rooftops, the streetlamps were still lit, but the first, subtle wash of early-morning light was beginning to lend a certain transparency to the upper atmosphere. This was how he knew that the world would not end today, for it would be an unforgivable waste to make the sun rise in vain, merely to have the very entity that first gave life to everything witness the beginning of the void, and so, although the link between one thing and the other was not at all clear and certainly far from obvious, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso's common sense finally turned up to give the advice that had been noticeable by its absence ever since the clerk at the reception desk first appeared on the television screen, and this advice was as follows, If you feel you must ask your colleague for an explanation, then do so at once, that would be infinitely better than walking around with all kinds of questions and queries stuck in your throat, but I would recommend that you don't open your mouth too much, that you watch what you say, you're holding a very hot potato, so put it down before you get burned, take the video back to the shop today, that way you can draw a line under the whole business and put an end to the mystery before it begins to bring out things you would rather not know or see or do, besides, if there is another person who is a copy of you, or of whom you are the copy, as apparently there is, you're under no obligation to go looking for him, he exists and you knew nothing about him, you exist and he knows nothing about you, you've never seen each other, you've never passed in the street, the best thing you can do is, But what if one day I do meet him, what if I do pass him in the street, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso broke in, You just look the other way, as if to say, I haven't seen you and I don't know you, And what if he speaks to me, If he has even a grain of good sense, he'll do exactly the same, You can't expect everyone to be sensible, That's why the world's in the state it is, You didn't answer my question, Which one, What do I do if he speaks to me, You say, well, what an extraordinary, fantastic, strange coincidence, whatever seems appropriate, but emphasizing that it is just a coincidence, then you walk away, Just like that, Just like that, That would be rude, ill-mannered, Sometimes that's all you can do if you want to avoid the worst, if you don't, you know what will happen, one word will lead to another, after that first meeting there'll be a second and a third, and in no time at all, you'll be telling your life story to a complete stranger, and you've been around long enough to have learned that you can't be too careful with strangers when it comes to personal matters, and frankly, I can't imagine anything more personal, or more intimate, than the mess you seem about to step into, It's hard to think of someone identical to me as a stranger, Just let him continue to be what he has been up until now, someone you don't know, Yes, but he'll never be a stranger, We're all strangers, even us, Who do you mean, You and me, your common sense and you, we hardly ever meet to talk, only very occasionally, and, to be perfectly honest, it's hardly ever been worthwhile, That's my fault I suppose, No, it's my fault too, we are obliged by our nature and our condition to follow parallel roads, but the distance that separates or divides us is so great that mostly we don't hear each other, Yes, but I can hear you now, It was an emergency and emergencies bring people together, What will be, will be, Oh, I know that philosophy, it's what people call predestination, fatalism, fate, but what it really means is that, as usual, you'll do whatever you choose to do, It means that I'll do what I have to do, neither more nor less, For some people what they did is the same as what they thought they would have to do, Contrary to what you, common sense, may think, the things of the will are never simple, indecision, uncertainty, irresolution are simple, Who would have thought it, Don't be so surprised, there are always new things to learn, Well, my mission is at an end, you're obviously going to do exactly what you like, Precisely, Good-bye, then, see you next time, take care, See you at the next emergency, If I manage to get there in time. The streetlamps had been switched off, the traffic was growing thicker by the minute, the blue was gaining color in the sky. We all know that each day that dawns is the first for some and will be the last for others, and that for most people it will be just another day. For the history teacher Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, this day in which we find ourselves, in which we continue to exist, since there is no reason to believe it will be our last, will not be just another day. One might say that it appeared in the world with the possibility of being another first day, another beginning, and indicating, therefore, another destiny. Everything depends on what steps Tertuliano Máximo Afonso takes today. However, the procession, as people used to say in times gone by, is just about to leave the church. Let's follow it.