by Jaume Cabré
‘Break the lock.’
‘How, commander?’
‘Use your imagination.’ Suddenly startled: ‘But don’t shoot it!’
The assistant opened it with a non-standard issue knife, a detail which Voigt wrote down in his ‘just in case’ notebook. He waved him off and, somewhat excited, opened the violin case. There was an instrument inside, yes; but at first glance he could already see it was nothing … No, wait a minute. He picked it up and read the label inside: Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis me fecit 1764. Would you look at that.
Höss, that idiot clodhopper, had him come in at three, wrinkled his nose and dared to tell him that, as a temporary guest to the Lager, you have no right to make a scene by executing a unit in the reception and selection area, Doctor Voigt.
‘She refused to obey me.’
‘What was she carrying?’
‘A violin.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘It’s nothing valuable, Obersturmbannführer.’
‘Doesn’t matter, but I still want to see it.’
‘Trust me, it’s of no interest.’
‘That’s an order.’
Doctor Voigt opened the door to the pharmacy’s cabinet and said, with a soft voice and a fawning smile, ‘As you wish, Obersturmbannführer.’
As he examined it and checked its scars, Rudolf Höss said I don’t know any musician who can tell me what it’s worth.
‘Must I remind you that I am the one who found it, Obersturmbannführer?’
Rudolf Höss lifted his head, surprised by Doctor Voigt’s excessively curt tone. He let a few seconds pass so the other man would have a chance to realise that he had realised what there was to realise, although he wasn’t altogether sure what that was.
‘Didn’t you say it wasn’t worth anything?’
‘It’s not. But I like it.’
‘Well, I’m going to keep it, Doctor Voigt. In compensation for …’
He didn’t know in compensation for what. So he let it trail off with a dot dot dot as he put the instrument back in its case and closed it.
‘How disgusting.’ He extended his arms to look at it. ‘That’s blood, right?’
He leaned back against the wall.
‘Because of your little whim, I’ll have to change the case.’
‘I’ll do it, because I’m keeping it.’
‘You are mistaken, my friend: I’m keeping it.’
‘You are not keeping it, Obersturmbannführer.’
Rudolf Höss grabbed the case by the handle, as if he was preparing to come to blows. Now he clearly saw that the instrument was valuable. From the Doctor Commander’s boldness, it must be very valuable. He smiled, but he had to stop smiling when he heard the words of Doctor Voigt, who brought his breath and his thickset nose close to Höss’s face: ‘You can’t keep it because I will report you.’
‘On what grounds?’ Höss, perplexed.
‘Six hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight.’
‘What?’
‘Elisaveta Meireva.’
‘What?’
‘Unit number six hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight. Six, one, five, four, two, eight, Elisaveta Meireva. Your maid. Reichsführer Himmler will condemn you to death when he finds out you’ve had sexual relations with a Jewess.’
Red as a tomato, Höss put the violin down on the desk with a thud.
‘All your talk about confessional secrets, you bastard.’
‘I’m no priest.’
The violin remained with Doctor Voigt, who was just passing through Auschwitz, supervising with an iron hand the experiments of Doctor Budden, that stuck-up Obersturmführer who must have swallowed a broomstick one day and had yet to shit it out. And also the experiments of three more deputy doctors; what he had conceived as the most in-depth investigation ever attempted on the limits of pain. As for Höss, he spent a few days nervously clenching his arse cheeks together, wondering whether that artful poof of a bandit, Aribert Voigt, was, in addition to being an artful poof of a pirate, also a blabbermouth.
‘Five thousand dollars, Mr Falegnami.’
The man with the frightened, increasingly glassy eyes stared into Fèlix Ardèvol’s.
‘Are you pulling my leg?’
‘No. Look, you know what? I’ll take it for three thousand, Mr Zimmermann.’
‘You’ve gone mad.’
‘No. Either you give it to me for that price or … Well, the authorities will be very interested in knowing that Doctor Aribert Voigt, Sturmbannführer Voigt, is alive, hidden a kilometre away from the Vatican City, probably with the complicity of someone high up in the Vatican. And that he’s trying to sell a violin nicked from Auschwitz.’
Mr Falegnami had pulled out a feminine little parlour gun and aimed it at him nervously. Fèlix Ardèvol didn’t even flinch. He pretending to be stifling a smile and shook his head as if he were very displeased, ‘You are alone. How will you get rid of my corpse?’
‘It will be a pleasure to face that challenge.’
‘You’ll still be left with an even bigger one: if I don’t walk out of here on my own two feet, the people waiting for me on the street already have their instructions.’ He pointed to the gun, sternly. ‘And now I’ll take it for two thousand. Don’t you know that you are one of the Allies’ ten most wanted?’ He improvised that part in the tone of someone scolding an unruly child.
Doctor Voigt watched as Ardèvol pulled out a wad of notes and put them on the table. He lowered the gun, with his eyes wide, incredulous: ‘That’s not even fifteen hundred!’
‘Don’t make me lose my patience, Sturmbannführer Voigt.’
That was Fèlix Ardèvol’s doctorate in buying and selling. A half an hour later he was out on the street with the violin, striding quickly with his heart beating fast and the satisfaction of a job well done.
‘You just broke with the most sacred of diplomatic relations.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You acted like an elephant in a Bohemian glassware shop.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about?’
Friar Fèlix Morlin, with indignation in his face and voice, spat out, ‘I’m in no position to judge people. Mr Falegnami was under my protection.’
‘But he is a savage son of a bitch.’
‘He was under my protection!’
‘Why do you protect murderers?’
Félix Morlin closed the door in the face of Fèlix Ardèvol, who didn’t really understand his reaction.
As he left Santa Sabina, he put on his hat and raised the lapels of his coat. He didn’t know that he would never again see that Dominican who was full of surprises.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘There are more things I can tell you about our father.’
It was already dark. They had to walk along dark streets and be careful not to trip on the hardened wheel tracks sculpted in the road’s mud. Daniela gave him kiss on the forehead in front of Can Ges and for a few seconds Adrià was reminded of the angel she’d once been, now without wings or any special aura. Then he realised that all the shops were closed and Aunt Leo wouldn’t be getting any little gift.
20
It was a face filled with tragic wrinkles. But I was impressed by his clear direct gaze, which made me feel as if he were accusing me of something. Or, depending on how you looked at it, as if he were begging for my forgiveness. I sensed many misfortunes in it before Sara told me anything. And all the misfortunes were contained in strokes made in charcoal on thick white paper.
‘This is the drawing that most impressed me,’ I told her. ‘I would have liked to meet him.’
I realised that Sara hadn’t said anything; she just stood in front of the charcoal of the Cadaqués landscape. We contemplated it in silence. The entire house was silent. Sara’s huge flat, which we had entered furtively, today my parents aren’t here and neither is anyone else. A rich home. Like mine. Like a thief, like the d
ay of the Lord, I will come like a thief in the night.
I didn’t dare to ask her why we had to go there on a day when no one was home. Adrià was thrilled to see the surroundings of that girl who got deeper into his bones with each passing day, with her melancholy smile and delicate gestures he’d never seen before in anyone else. And Sara’s room was larger than mine, twice as large. And very pretty: with wallpaper with geese and a farmhouse that wasn’t like Can Ges in Tona: it was prettier, neater, without flies or odours; more like a picture book; the wallpaper of a little girl who hadn’t changed it even now that she was … I don’t know how old you are, Sara.
‘Nineteen. And you are twenty-three.’
‘How do you know that I’m twenty-three?’
‘I can tell by your face.’
And she put a new drawing on top of the one of Cadaqués.
‘You draw really well. Let me see that portrait again.’
She put the drawing of Uncle Haïm on top of the pile. His gaze, his wrinkles, his sad aura.
‘Did you say it was your uncle?’
‘Yes. He’s dead now.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Actually, he’s my mother’s uncle. I didn’t get to know him. Well, I was very young when …’
‘And how …’
‘A photo.’
‘Why did you draw his portrait?’
‘To keep his story alive.’
They queued up to enter the showers. Gavriloff, who during the entire trajectory in the cattle wagon had warmed two girls who had no one to hold their hands, turned towards Doctor Epstein and said they are taking us to our death, and Doctor Epstein answered, in a murmur so other people wouldn’t hear, that that was impossible, that he was crazy.
‘No, they’re the ones who are crazy, Doctor. When will you see!’
‘Everyone inside. That’s it, men on this side. Of course the children can go with the women.’
‘No, no; leave your clothes neatly folded and remember the number of the hook, for when you get out of the shower, all right?’
‘Where are you from?’ asked Uncle Haïm looking into the eyes of the man giving the instructions.
‘We’re not allowed to speak to you.’
‘Who are you? You are Jews, too, aren’t you?’
‘We aren’t allowed, for fuck’s sake. Don’t make things difficult for me.’ And shouting, ‘Remember your hook number!’
When all the naked men were advancing slowly towards the showers, where there were already a group of naked women, an SS officer with a pencil moustache and a dry cough entered the dressing room and said is there a doctor in here? Doctor Haïm Epstein took a step towards the showers, but Gavriloff, beside him, said don’t be an idiot, Doctor; that gives you a chance.
‘Shut up.’
Then Gavriloff turned and pointed to Haïm Epstein’s pale back and said er ist ein Arzt, mein Oberleutnant; and Herr Epstein cursed his companion in misfortune, who continued towards the showers with his eyes slightly happy and softly whistling a csárdás by Rózsavölgyi.
‘Are you a doctor?’ asked the officer, planted before Epstein.
‘Yes,’ he said, resigned and, most of all, tired. And he was only fifty years old.
‘Get dressed.’
Epstein dressed slowly while the rest of the men went into the showers, shepherded by prisoners with grey, worn gazes.
The officer paced impatiently while that Jew put on his clothes. And he began to cough, perhaps to cover up the muffled screams of horror that emerged from the shower area.
‘What is that? What’s going on?’
‘Come on, that’s enough,’ the officer said nervously, when he saw the other pulling up his trousers over his open shirt.
He took him outside, into the inclement cold of Oświęcim, and he had him go inside a guard post, pulling out the two sentries who were loitering there.
‘Listen to my chest,’ he ordered, putting a stethoscope in his hands.
Epstein was slow to understand what he wanted. The other man was already unbuttoning his shirt. He unhurriedly put the stethoscope in his ears and felt, for the first time since Drancy, invested with some sort of authority.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered, now a doctor.
The officer sat down on the guard post stool. Haïm listened to his torso carefully and, from what he heard, he imagined the depleted cavities secreting mucous. He had him change position and listened to his chest and his back. He had him stand up again, just for the fun of ordering around an SS officer. For a few moments he thought that while he was listening to his chest they wouldn’t send him to those showers with the horrifying screams. Gavriloff had been right.
He wasn’t able to completely hide his satisfaction as he looked into his patient’s eyes and told him that he would have to undergo a more thorough examination.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Genital exploration, tactile examination of the kidney area.’
‘Fine, fine, fine …’
‘Do you feel unexplained pains here?’ he asked pressing hard on his kidney with fingers of steel.
‘Watch it, fuck!’
Doctor Epstein shook his head, pretending he was concerned.
‘What is it?’
‘You have tuberculosis.’
‘Are you positive?’
‘Without a shadow of a doubt. The illness is quite far along.’
‘Well, they’ve been ignoring me here. Is it serious?’
‘Very much so.’
‘What do I have to do?’ he said, ripping the stethoscope from his hands.
‘I would have you sent to a sanatorium. It’s the only thing that can be done.’ And pointing to his yellow fingers, ‘And no more tobacco, for God’s sake.’
The officer called the sentries and told them to take that man to the showers, but one of the sentries gave him the sign that they’d finished for the day, that that had been the last turn. Then he put on his coat and shouted, as he went down to the buildings accompanied by his persistent cough, ‘Take him to barracks twenty-six.’
And that saved his life. But he’d often said that saving his life was a worse punishment than death.
‘I never imagined it was so horrific.’
‘Well, you haven’t heard it all.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Come on.’
‘Come here, I’ll show you the paintings in the parlour.’
Sara showed him the paintings in the parlour, she showed him family photos, she responded patiently about who each person was, but when it was time to think about leaving because someone might be coming home, she said you’ll have to go. You know what? I’ll walk you part of the way.
And that was how I didn’t meet your family.
21
No art was cultivated and developed by the Sophists as systematically as rhetoric. Sara. In rhetoric, the Sophists saw a perfect instrument to control men. Sara, why didn’t you want to have children? Thanks to the Sophists and their rhetoric, public speeches became literary, since man began to see them as works of art worthy of being preserved in writing. Sara. From that point on, oratory training became essential to the career of a statesman, but the rhetoric included, in its realm of influence, all prose and particularly historiography. Sara, you are a mystery to me. Thus man can understand that in the fourth century the dominant position in literature was held by prose and not poetry. Strange. But logical.
‘Where have you been, man, I can never find you anywhere.’
Adrià looked up from the Nestle opened to chapter fifteen, to Isocrates and new education, where he was immersed. As if he had trouble focusing his eyes, he took a few seconds to recognise the face that entered the cone of light given off by the green lampshade in the university library. Someone hushed them and Bernat had to lower his voice as he sat in the chair in front of him and said Adrià hasn’t been here for a month; no, he’s out; I don’t know where he went; Adrià? He spends the
whole day out. Really, man … Not even in your own house does anyone know where you are!
‘Here I am, studying.’
‘That’s twaddle; I spend hours here.’
‘You?’
‘Yes. Making friends with pretty girls.’
It was hard to emerge from the fourth century before Christ, especially if Bernat was there to scold him.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Who’s this girl that they say’s been stuck to you like a leech?’
‘Who says that?’
‘Everyone. Gensana described her to me and everything: dark, straight hair, thin, dark eyes, an art student.’
‘Well, then you already know everything …’
‘Is it the one from the Palau de la Música? The one who called you Adrià Ican’trememberwhat?’
‘You should be happy for me, shouldn’t you?’
‘Bloody hell, now you’re in love.’
‘Will you please be quiet!?’
‘Sorry.’ To Bernat: ‘Should we leave?’
They strolled through the cloister and Adrià told someone for the first time that he was definitively, absolutely, devotedly, unconditionally in love with you, Sara. And don’t say a word about it at my house.
‘Oh, so it’s even a secret from Little Lola.’
‘I hope so.’
‘But some day …’
‘We’ll see about that when that day comes.’
‘In such circumstances, it’s hard for me to imagine that you could do a favour for your former best friend who’s now been demoted to mere acquaintance because your world revolves around that luscious girl named … what was her name?’
‘Mireia.’
‘Liar. Her name is Saga Voltes-Epstein.’
‘Then why did you ask? And her name is Sara.’
‘So why do you have to lie to me? And hide from me? Huh? It’s me, Bernat, what the hell?’
‘Don’t get like that, for god’s sake’
‘I get like this because it seems like you don’t care a whit about your life before Sara.’
