by Jaume Cabré
‘What question?’
Bernat watched as Xènia turned on the recorder again and placed it gently on the little table.
‘How does it feel to be a musician writing literature?’ she repeated.
‘I don’t know. It all happens gradually. Inevitably.’
‘You already said that.’
It’s just that it happens so bloody slowly and yet his anxiety arrives all at once because Bernat had been writing for so many years and Adrià had been saying for so many years that what he wrote was of no interest, it was grey, predictable, unessential; it was definitely Adrià’s fault.
‘I am about to break off all ties with you. I don’t like unbearable people. That’s your first and last warning.’
For the first time since he had met her, he looked into her eyes and held Xènia’s black gaze of serene night.
‘I can’t bear being unbearable. Forgive me.’
‘Can we get back to work?’
‘Go ahead. And thanks for the warning.’
‘First and last.’
I love you, he thought. So he had to be perfect if he wanted to have those lovely eyes with him for a few more hours. I love you, he repeated.
‘How does it feel to be a musician making literature?’
I am falling in love with your obstinacy.
‘It feels … I feel … in two worlds … and it bothers me that I don’t know which is more important to me.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I don’t know. The thing is …’
That evening they didn’t call a cab. But two days later Bernat Plensa screwed up his courage and went to visit his friend. Caterina, with her coat already on and about to leave, opened the door for him and, before he could open his mouth, said in a low voice he’s not well.
‘Why?’
‘I had to hide yesterday’s newspaper from him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if I don’t notice, he reads the same paper three times.’
‘Boy …’
‘He’s such a hard worker, I hate to see him wasting his time rereading the newspaper, you know?’
‘You did the right thing.’
‘What are you two conspiring about?’
They turned. Adrià had just come out of his study and caught them speaking in low voices.
‘Rrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngggg.’
Caterina opened the door for Plàcida instead of answering, while Adrià had Bernat enter his study. The two women discussed their shift switch quietly and Caterina said loudly see you tomorrow, Adrià!
‘How’s it going?’ asked Adrià.
‘I’ve been typing it up when I have a moment. Slowly.’
‘Do you understand everything?’
‘Yeah,’ he answered falteringly. ‘I like it a lot.’
‘Why do you say yeah like that?’
‘Because you have the handwriting of a doctor, and it’s tiny. I have to read every paragraph a couple of times to get it right.’
‘Oh. Sorry …’
‘No, no, no … I’m happy to do it. But I don’t work on it every day, obviously.’
‘I’m making a lot of work for you, aren’t I?’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘Good evening, Adrià,’ said a young woman, a smiling stranger, sticking her head into the study.
‘Hello, good evening.’
‘Who’s that?’ Bernat asked in a surprised whisper when the woman had left the study.
‘Whatshername. Now they don’t leave me alone for a second.’
‘Whoa.’
‘Yeah, you have no idea. This place is like the Ramblas with all the coming and going.’
‘It’s better that you’re not alone, right?’
‘Yes. And thank goodness for Little Lola, she takes care of organising everything.’
‘Caterina.’
‘What?’
‘No, nothing.’
They were silent for a little while. Then Bernat asked him about what he was studying and he looked around him, touched the book on his reading table and made a vague expression that Bernat was unable to interpret. He got up and grabbed the book.
‘Hey, poetry!’
‘Huh?’
Bernat waved the book. ‘You’re reading poetry.’
‘I always have.’
‘Really? Not me.’
‘And look how things turned out for you.’
Bernat laughed because it was impossible to get angry at Adrià now that he was ill. And then he repeated I can’t do any more, I can’t go any faster with your papers.
‘Fine …’
‘Do you want me to hire someone?’
‘No!’ Now the life came back into his appearance, his face and the colour of his hair. ‘Definitely not! This can only be done by a friend. And I don’t want …. I don’t know … It’s very personal and … Maybe once it’s typed up I won’t want it published.’
‘Didn’t you say I should give it to Bauça?’
‘When the time comes, we’ll discuss it.’
Silence came over the room. Someone was going through doors or making noise with something in some part of the house. Perhaps in the kitchen.
‘Plàcida, that’s it! Her name is Plàcida, this one.’ Pleased with himself. ‘You see? Despite what they say, I still have a good memory.’
‘Ah!’ said Bernat, remembering something. ‘The backside of your manuscript pages, what you wrote in black ink, you know?, it’s really interesting too.’
For a moment, Adrià hesitated.
‘What is it?’ he said, a bit frightened.
‘A reflection on evil. Well: a study of the history of evil, I’d say. You called it ‘The Problem of Evil’.’
‘Oh, no. I’d forgotten. No: that’s very … I don’t know: soulless.’
‘No. I think you should publish it too. If you want, I can type it up as well.’
‘Poor thing. That’s my failure as a thinker.’ He was quiet for a few very long seconds. ‘I didn’t know how to say even half of what I had in my head.’
He grabbed the volume of poems. He opened and closed it, uncomfortable. He put it back down on the table and finally said that’s why I wrote on the other side, to kill it.
‘Why didn’t you throw it away?’
‘I never throw away any papers.’
And a slow silence, as long as a Sunday afternoon, hovered over the study and the two friends. A silence almost devoid of meaning.
17
Finishing secondary school was a relief. Bernat had already graduated the year before and he’d thrown his heart and soul into playing the violin while half-heartedly studying Liberal Arts. Adrià entered university thinking that everything would be easier from that point on. But he found many cracks and prickly bushes. And even just the low level of the students, who were frightened by Virgil and panicked over Ovid. And the policemen in the assembly rooms. And the revolution in the classrooms. For a while I was friends with a guy named Gensana who was very interested in literature but when he asked me what I wanted to devote myself to and I answered to the history of ideas and culture, he dropped his jaw in shock.
‘Come on, Ardèvol, nobody says they want to be an historian of ideas.’
‘I do.’
‘You’re the first I’ve ever heard. Jesus. The history of ideas and culture.’ He looked at me suspiciously. ‘You’re having a laugh, right?’
‘No: I want to know everything. What is known now and what was known before. And why it’s known and why it’s not yet known. Do you understand?’
‘No.’
‘And what do you want to be?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Gensana. He fluttered his hand vaguely over his forehead. ‘I’m all batty. But I’ll figure out something to do, you’ll see.’
Three pretty laughing girls passed by them on the way to Greek class. Adrià looked at his watch and waved goodbye to Gensana, who was still trying to digest the bit about being an historian
of ideas and culture. I followed the pretty laughing girls. Before entering the classroom I turned around. Gensana was still pondering Ardèvol’s future. And a few months later, during a very cold autumn, Bernat, who was in his eighth year of violin, asked me to go with him to the Palau de la Música to hear Jascha Heifetz. Which was a one-of-a-kind opportunity and Master Massià had explained that despite Heifetz’s reluctance to play in a fascist country, Master Toldrà’s had finally managed to convince him. Adrià, who in most arenas had yet to lose his virginity, discussed it with Master Manlleu at the end of an exhausting lesson devoted to unison. After some seconds of reflection, Manlleu said that he had never known a colder, more arrogant, abominable, stupid, stuck-up, repulsive, detestable and haughty violinist than Jascha Heifetz.
‘But does he play well, sir?’
Master Manlleu was looking at the score without seeing it. Violin in hand, he played an involuntary pizzicato and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. After a very long pause: ‘He plays to perfection.’
Perhaps he realised that what he’d said had come from too deep inside and wanted to temper it, ‘Besides me, he is the best violinist alive.’ Tap of the bow on the music stand. ‘Come now, let’s get back to it.’
Applause filled the hall. And it was warmer than usual, which was very noticeable because, in a dictatorship, people get used to saying things between the lines and between the applause, with indirect gestures, glancing at the man in the mackintosh with the pencil moustache who was most likely a secret agent, careful, look how he’s barely clapping. And people had grown accustomed to understanding that language which, from fear, strove to fight against fear. I only sensed that, because I had no father, and Mother was absorbed by the shop and only turned her loupe on my violin progress, and Little Lola didn’t want to talk about such things because during the war they had killed an anarchist cousin of hers and she refused to get into the thorny territory of street politics. They began to dim the lights, people clapped and Master Toldrà came out on stage and leisurely walked over to his music stand. In the penumbra, I saw Sara writing something in her programme and passing it to me and asking for my programme so she wouldn’t be left without one. Some digits. A telephone number! I handed her mine, like an idiot, without jotting down my own phone number. The applause ended. I noticed that Bernat, wordless, in the seat to my other side, was observing my every move. Silence fell over the hall.
Toldrà played a Coriolano that I’d never heard before and really enjoyed. Then, when he came back out on stage, he brought Jascha Heifetz by the hand, probably to show his support or something like that. Heifetz made a cold, arrogant, abominable, stupid, stuck-up, repulsive, detestable and haughty nod of his head. He didn’t have any interest in concealing his irritated, severe expression. He gave himself three long minutes to shake off his indignation while Master Toldrà stood, looking to either side, patiently waiting for the other man to say let’s begin. And they began. I remember that my mouth hung open throughout the entire concert. And that I cried without the slightest embarrassment during the andante assai, compelled by the physical pleasure of the binary rhythm of the violin set on top of the triplets of the orchestral backdrop. And how the piece was left in the hands of the orchestra and, at the end, the horn and a humble pizzicato. True beauty. And Heifetz was a warm, humble, kind man devoted to the service of the beauty that captivated me. And Adrià thought he saw Heifetz’s eyes gleaming suspiciously. Bernat, I know, held back a deep sob. And at intermission he rose and said I have to go meet him.
‘They won’t let you backstage.’
‘I’m going to try.’
‘Wait,’ she said.
Sara got up and gestured for them to follow her. Bernat and I looked at each other quizzically. We went up the small stairs on the side and through a door. The guard inside gave us the sign for vade retro, but Sara, with a smile, pointed to Master Toldrà, who was talking to one of the musicians, and he, as if he had caught Sara’s gesture, turned, saw us and said hello, princess, how are you? How’s your mother?
And he came over to give her a kiss. He didn’t even see us. Master Toldrà explained that Heifetz was deeply offended by the graffiti that it seems was everywhere around the Palau and that he was cancelling his performance tomorrow and leaving the country. It’s not the best moment to bother him, you understand?
When the concert was over and we were out on the street, we saw that it was true, that the tarred graffiti on the sign and on the walls, all over, suggested, in Spanish, that the Jews leave.
‘If I were him, I would have done the concert tomorrow,’ said Adrià, future historian of ideas, without knowing anything about the history of humanity. Sara whispered in his ear that she was in a rush and she also said call me, and Adrià barely reacted because his head was still filled with Heifetz and all he said was yes, yes, and thanks.
‘I’m giving up the violin,’ I said before the profaned sign, before an incredulous Bernat and before myself. All my life I’ve remembered myself saying I’m giving up the violin, at the exit, before the profaned sign before an incredulous Bernat and before myself, all my life I’ve remembered myself saying I’m giving up the violin.
‘But … but …’ Bernat pointed to the Palau as if he wanted to say what better argument cou
‘I’m giving up the violin. I’ll never be able to play like that.’
‘Practise.’
‘Bullshit. I’m giving it up. It’s impossible. I’ll finish seventh, take the exam and that’s it. Enough. Assez. Schluss. Basta.’
‘Who was that girl?’
‘Which one?’
‘That one!’ He pointed at Sara’s aura, which still lingered. ‘The one who led us to Master Toldrà like Ariadna, that one! The one who said Adrià Ican’trememberwhat, my pet. The one who said call me …’
Adrià looked at his friend with his mouth hanging open.
‘What have I done to you this time?’
‘What have you done to me? You’re threatening to give up the violin.’
‘Yes. It’s final. But I’m not giving you up: I’m giving up the violin.’
When Heifetz finished the Prokofiev concert, he was transformed, to the point that he seemed taller and more powerful. And he played, I would almost say arrogantly, three Jewish dances and then I found him even taller and with an even more powerful aura. Then he gathered himself and gave us the gift of the Ciaccona of the Partita for Violin No. 2, which, apart from our attempts, I had only heard on a shellac 78 played by Ysaÿe. They were minutes of perfection. I have been to many concerts. But for me this was the foundation, the concert that opened up the path to beauty for me, the concert that closed the door to the violin for me, the concert that put an end to my brief career as a musician.
‘You’re a lousy bum,’ was Bernat’s opinion, who saw that he would have to face his eighth year all on his own, without my presence one year behind him. All alone with Master Massià. ‘A lousy stinking bum.’
‘Not if I learn how to be happy. I’ve seen the light: no more suffering and I’ll enjoy music played by those who know how.’
‘A lousy bum, and a coward to boot.’
‘Yes. Probably. Now I can devote myself to my studies without added pressures.’
Right there in the street, as we walked home, the pedestrians caught in the cold wind coming down Jonqueres Street were witnesses to one of the three times I’ve seen my friend Bernat explode. It was terrible. He began to shout and to say German, English, Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, Latin, counting on his fingers. You’re nineteen and you can read one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight languages, and you’re afraid of eighth-year violin, idiot? If I had your brain, for fuck’s sake!
Then silent snowflakes started to fall. I had never seen it snow in Barcelona; I had never seen Bernat so indignant. I had never seen Bernat so helpless. I don’t know if it was snowing for him or for me.
‘Look,’ I said.
‘I don’t give a shit about the
snow. You’re making a mistake.’
‘You’re afraid to face up to Massià without me.’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘You have what it takes to be a violinist. I don’t.’
Bernat lowered his voice and said don’t think that, I’m always at my limit. I smile when I play, but not because I’m happy. It’s to ward off panic. But the violin is as treacherous as the horn: you can play a false note at any moment. Even still, I don’t give up like you, like a little shit. I want to get to tenth and then I’ll see whether I go on or not. Give it up after tenth.
‘There will come a day when you’ll smile with pleasure while you play the violin, Bernat.’
I realised I came off sounding like Jesus Christ with that prophecy, and if we examine how things turned out … well, look, I don’t know what to say.
‘Give it up after tenth.’
‘No. After the exams in June. For appearances. Because if you really make me angry, I’ll stop right now and fuck appearances.’
And the snow continued to fall. We walked to my house in silence. He left me in front of the dark wooden door without even a good night or any slight gesture of affection.
I’ve fought with Bernat a few times in my life. This was the first serious fight, the first one that left scars. Christmas break that year took place in an unusually snowy landscape. At home, Mother was silent, Little Lola attentive to everything, and I was spending more and more hours in Father’s study each day. I had earned the right to with the outstanding honours I’d received at the end of term, and the space drew me irresistibly further and further in. The day after Boxing Day I went for a walk along the white streets and I saw Bernat, who was living at the top of Bruc Street, skiing down Bruc with his violin on his back. He saw me but said nothing. I confess that I was overcome with jealousy because I immediately thought whose house is he going to go play at, the bastard, without saying anything to me. Nineteen- or twenty-year-old Adrià, in the throes of a fit of jealousy, started to chase after him, but he couldn’t catch up to the skis and soon Bernat was just a tiny crèche figure, probably already at the Gran Via. How ridiculous, panting, exhaling through his scarf, watching his friend leave. I never found out where he went that day and I would give … I was about to say I would give half my life, but today that expression makes no sense. But what the hell, still today I would give half my life to know whose house he went to play at on that day during Christmas break when Barcelona was enveloped in several feet of unexpected snow.
