Confessions

by Jaume Cabré

  IV

  PALIMPSESTUS

  There isn’t a single organisation that can protect itself from a grain of sand.

  Michel Tournier

  24

  Long ago, when the earth was flat and those reckless travellers who reached the end of the world hit up against the cold fog or hurled themselves off a dark cliff, there was a holy man who decided to devote his life to the Lord Our God. He was a Catalan named Nicolau Eimeric, and he became a well-known professor of Sacred Theology for the Order of Preachers at the monastery of Girona. His religious zeal led him to firmly command the Inquisition against evil heresy in the lands of Catalonia and the kingdoms of Valencia. Nicolau Eimeric had been born in Baden-Baden on 25 November, 1900; he had been promoted rapidly to SS Obersturmbannführer and, after a glorious first period as Oberlagerführer of Auschwitz, in 1944 he again took up the reins on the Hungarian problem. In a legal document, he condemned as perversely heretical the book Philosophica amoris by the obstinate Ramon Llull, a Catalan native from the kingdom of the Majorcas. He likewise declared perversely heretical all those in Valencia, Alcoi, Barcelona or Saragossa, Alcanyís, Montpeller or any other location who read, disseminated, taught, copied or thought about the pestiferous heretical doctrine of Ramon Llull, which came not from Christ but from the devil. And thus he signed it this day, 13 July, 1367, in the city of Girona.

  ‘Proceed. I am beginning to have a fever and I don’t want to go to bed until …’

  ‘You can go untroubled, Your Excellency.’

  Friar Nicolau wiped the sweat from his brow, half from the heat and half from fever, and watched Friar Miquel de Susqueda, his young secretary, finish the condemning document in his neat hand. Then he went out onto the street scorched by a blazing sun, barely catching his breath before he immersed himself in the slightly less hot shade of the chapel of Santa Àgueda. He got down on his knees in the middle of the room and, humbly bowing his head before the divine sacrarium, said oh, Lord, give me strength, don’t let my human feebleness weaken me; don’t let the calumnies, rumours, envy and lies unsettle my courage. Now it is the King himself who dares to criticise my proceedings to benefit the true and only faith, Lord. Give me strength to never stop serving you in my mission of strict vigilance over the truth. After saying an amen that was almost a fleeting thought, he remained kneeling to allow the strangely scorching sun to sink until it caressed the western mountains; with his mind blank, in prayer position, in direct communication with the Lord of the Truth.

  When the light entering through the window began to wane, Friar Nicolau left the chapel with the same energy he’d entered with. Outside, he eagerly breathed in the scent of thyme and dried grass that emanated from the earth, still warm from the hottest day in the memory of several generations. He again wiped the sweat from his brow, which was now burning, and he headed towards the grey stone building at the end of the narrow street. At the entrance, he had to control his impatience because just then a woman, always the same one, accompanied by the Wall-eyed Man of Salt, who acted as her husband, walked slowly into the palace, loaded down with a sack of turnips bigger than she was.

  ‘Must you use this door?’ said Friar Miquel in irritation, as he came out to receive her.

  ‘The garden entrance is flooded, Your Excellency.’

  In a curt voice, Friar Nicolau Eimeric asked if everything was prepared and, continuing his long strides towards the room, thought oh, Lord, all my energies, day and night, are focused on the defence of Your Truth. Give me strength, for at the end of the light it will be you who shall judge me and not men.

  I am a dead man, thought Josep Xarom. He hadn’t been able to hold the black gaze of the Inquisitor devil who had swept into the room, formulated his question in shouts and now waited impatiently for an answer.

  ‘What hosts?’ said Doctor Xarom after a long pause, his voice drowned in panic.

  The Inquisitor got up, wiped the sweat from his brow for the third time since he’d entered the interrogation room and repeated the question of how much did you pay Jaume Malla for the consecrated hosts that he gave you.

  ‘I know nothing about this. I have never met any Jaume Malla. I do not know what hosts are.’

  ‘That means that you consider yourself a Jew.’

  ‘Well … I am Jewish, yes, Your Excellency. You already know that. My family and all the families in the Jewish Quarter are under the King’s protection.’

  ‘In these four walls, the only protection is God’s. Never forget that.’

  Most High Adonai, where are you now, thought the venerable Doctor Josep Xarom, knowing that it was a sin to distrust the Most High.

  During an hour that dragged on, Friar Nicolau, with the patience of a saint, ignoring his headache and the heating up of his internal humours, tried to discover the secret of the nefarious crime this abominable creature had committed with the consecrated hosts, which was detailed in the meticulous and providential report, but Josep Xarom just kept repeating things he’d already said: that he was named Josep Xarom, that he had been born in the Jewish Quarter, where he had lived all this time, that he had learned the arts of medicine, that he helped babies into the world both in and out of the Jewish Quarter and that his life was the practice of that profession and nothing more.

  ‘And attending synagogue on your Sabbath day.’

  ‘The King has not forbidden that.’

  ‘The King cannot speak of the foundations of the soul. You are accused of practising nefarious crimes with consecrated hosts. What can you say in your defence?’

  ‘Who is my accuser?’

  ‘There is no need for you to know that.’

  ‘Yes, there is. This is a calumny and, depending on its source, I can demonstrate the reasons that would move someone to

  ‘Are you insinuating that a good Christian could lie?’ shocked, astounded, Friar Nicolau.

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency. Undoubtedly.’

  ‘That worsens your situation because if you insult a Christian you insult the Lord God Jesus Christ whose blood is on your hands.’

  My Highest and Most Merciful Lord, you are the one and only God, Adonai.

  Inquisitor General Nicolau Eimeric, without even looking at him – such was the disdain he provoked in him – ran his palm over his forehead with concern and told the men holding the stubborn man to torture him and bring him to me here in an hour with the declaration signed.

  ‘Which torture, Your Excellency?’ asked Friar Miquel.

  ‘The rack, for one credo in unum deum. And hooks if need be, for a couple of ourfathers.’

  ‘Your Excellency …’

  ‘And if that doesn’t refresh his memory, repeat as necessary.’

  He approached Friar Miquel de Susqueda, who had lowered his gaze some time earlier, and almost in a whisper ordered him to let this Jaume Malla know that if he sells or gives hosts to any Jew, he will hear from me.

  ‘We don’t know who he is, this Jaume Malla.’ Taking a deep breath. ‘He may not even exist.’

  But the holy man did not hear him because he was focused on his terrible headache and offering it up to God as penance.

  Doctor Josep Xarom of Girona – on the rack and with butcher’s hooks in his flesh, ripping tendons – confessed that yes, yes, yes, for Almighty God, I did it, I bought them from this man you say, yes, yes, but stop, for the love of God.

  ‘And what did you do with them?’ Friar Miquel de Susqueda, sitting before the rack, trying not to look at the blood that dripped from it.

  ‘I don’t know. Whatever you say but, please, don’t turn it any more, I …’

  ‘Watch out, if he faints on us, the declaration is over.’

  ‘So? He’s already confessed.’

  ‘Very well: then you talk to Friar Nicolau, yes, you, the redhead, and you tell him that the prisoner merely slept through the torture, and I can assure you that he himself will put us on the rack, accused of putting sticks in the wheels of divine justice. Both of us.’ Exasperated: ‘
Don’t you know His Excellency?’

  ‘Sir, but if we …’

  ‘Yes. And I’ll be the notary for the record of your torture. Look lively, come now.’

  ‘Let’s see: grab him by the hair, like this. All right, let’s have it: what did you do with the consecrated hosts? Do you hear me? Hey! Xarom, fucking hell!’

  ‘I will not tolerate such language in a building of the Holy Inquisition,’ said Friar Miquel, indignant. ‘Behave like good Christians.’

  The light had completely disappeared and the room was now lit by a torch whose flame trembled like Xarom’s soul, as he listened, in a semi-conscious state, to the conclusions of the high tribunal read by the powerful voice of Nicolau Eimeric, condemning him, in the presence of the attendant witnesses, to death purified by flame, on the eve of Saint James the Apostle’s Day, since he refused to repent with a conversion that would have saved him, if not from the death of his body, at least from the death of his soul. Friar Nicolau, after signing the sentence, warned Friar Miquel: ‘You must cut out the prisoner’s tongue first. Remember that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a gag be sufficient, Your Excellency?’

  ‘You must cut out the prisoner’s tongue first,’ insisted Friar Nicolau with saintly patience. ‘And I will not tolerate any leniency.’

  ‘But Your Excellency …’

  ‘They know all the tricks, they bite the gag, they … And I want the heretics to be mute from the moment they are brought to the bonfire. Even before it’s lit because, if they still have the ability to speak, their blasphemies and vituperation can gravely wound the piety of those who attend the event.’

  ‘That has never happened here …’

  ‘It has in Lleida. And while I hold this post, I will not allow it.’ He looked at him with eyes so black they hurt, and in a softer voice; ‘Never, I will never allow it.’ Raising his tone: ‘Look me in the eyes when I speak to you, Friar Miquel! Never.’

  He stood up and left the room quickly without looking at the secretaries, or the prisoner or the rest of those in attendance because he was invited for dinner at the episcopal palace, he was running late and was terribly uncomfortable in the intense heat of the day, what with his headache and fevers.

  Outside, the extreme cold had turned the downpour into a profuse, silent snowfall. Inside, as he looked into the iridescent colour of the wine in his raised glass, he said, I was born into a wealthy and very religious family, and the moral rectitude of my upbringing has helped me to assume the difficult task, by direct order from the Führer via the explicit instructions from Reichsführer Himmler, of becoming a stalwart defence against the enemy inside out fatherland. This wine is excellent, Doctor.

  ‘Thank you. It is an honour for me to be able to taste it here, in my improvised home.’

  ‘Improvised but comfortable.’

  A second little sip. Outside, the snow was already covering the earth’s unmentionables with a modest thick sheet of cold. The wine was warming. Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Höss, who had been born in Girona during the rainy autumn of 1320, in that remote period when the earth was flat and reckless travellers’ eyes grew wide when they insisted, enflamed by curiosity and fantasy, on seeing the end of the world, was especially proud to be sharing that wine in a tête à tête with the prestigious and well-situated Doctor Voigt and he was anxious to mention it, oh so casually, to one of his colleagues. And life is beautiful. Especially now that the earth is flat again and that they, with the help of the Führer’s serene gaze, were showing humanity who held the strength, power, truth and the future and teaching humanity how the unfailing attainment of the ideal was incompatible with any form of compassion. The strength of the Reich was limitless and turned the actions of all the Eimerics in history into child’s play. With the wine’s assistance, he came up with a sublime phrase: ‘For me, orders are sacred, no matter how difficult they may seem, since as an SS I must be willing to completely sacrifice my personality in the fulfilment of my duty to the fatherland. That is why, in 1334, when I turned fourteen, I entered the monastery of the Dominican friar preachers in my city of Girona and I have devoted my entire life to making the Truth shine. They call me cruel, King Pedro hates me, envies me and would like to annihilate me, but I remain impassive because against the faith I defend neither my king nor my father. I do not recognise my mother and I do not respect my lineage since above all I serve only the Truth. You will only ever find the Truth coming from my mouth, Your Grace.’

  The Bishop himself filled Friar Nicolau’s glass. He took a taste without realising what he was drinking because, enraged, he continued his speech and said I have suffered exile, I was deposed from my post as Inquisitor by order of King Pedro, I was chosen Vicar General of the Dominican order here in Girona, but what you don’t know is that the accursed king pressured Holy Father Urbà, who ended up not accepting my appointment.

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  The Bishop, seated in a comfortable chair but with his back very straight and his entire being alert, silently contemplated how the Inquisitor General wiped the sweat from his brow with his habit sleeve. After two good ourfathers: ‘Are you feeling well, Your Excellency?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Bishop was silent and took a sip of wine.

  ‘Nevertheless, Your Excellency, you are now Vicar General again.’

  ‘My constancy and faith in God and his holy mercy made them restore my post and dignity as Inquisitor General.’

  ‘All for the good.’

  ‘Yes, but now the King threatens me with new exile and I’ve been warned that he wants to have me killed.’

  The Bishop thought it over for quite some time. In the end, His Grace lifted a timid finger and said King Pedro maintains that your obsession with condemning the work of Llull …

  ‘Llull?’ shouted Eimeric. ‘Have you read anything by Llull, Your Grace?’

  ‘Well, I … Well … ummm, yes.’

  ‘And?’

  Eimeric stared with that black gaze of his, the one that penetrated souls. His Grace swallowed hard: ‘I don’t know what to say. I … What I read … Anyway, I didn’t know that …’ He ended up capitulating: ‘I’m no theologian.’

  ‘I’m no engineer, but I’ve managed to get the crematoria in Birkenau to function twenty-four hours a day without breaking down. And I’ve got my men who supervise the Sonderkommando’s rat squads not to go mad.’

  ‘How did you do it, dear Oberlagerführer Höss?’

  ‘I don’t know. By preaching the Truth. Showing all the hungry souls that there is only one evangelical doctrine, and that my sacred mission is to keep errors and evil from rotting the essence of the church. Therefore I work to eliminate all heresies and the most efficient way to do so is by eliminating the heretics, both the new and the relapsed.’

  ‘Nevertheless, the King …’

  ‘The Inquisitor General Major and the Vicar of the Order, when he came from Rome, understood it very well. He knew of King Pedro’s animosity towards my personage and he appreciated that, despite everything, I continued in my condemnation of the entire works, book by book, of the abominable and dangerous Ramon Llull. He didn’t argue with any of the procedures we’d begun during these years and, in an emotive celebration of the holy mass, when it came time for the sermon, he put forth my humble personage as an example of conduct for all, from the first to the last Oberlagerführer. Whatever the King of Valencia and Catalonia and Aragon and the Majorcas may say. And then I considered myself a happy man because I was faithful to the most sacred of vows that I had taken and could take in my life. The problem, however, was that woman.’

  ‘There is something that …’ The Bishop, after hesitating, lifted a finger cautiously. ‘Careful: I am not saying that they don’t deserve to die.’ He looked at the colour of the wine in his glass and it seemed red as a flame. ‘Can’t we …’

  ‘Can’t we what?’ Eimeric, impatient.

  ‘Must they necessarily die by fire?’

  ‘General prac
tice throughout the Christian church confirms that yes, they must die by fire, Your Grace.’

  ‘It’s a horrific death.’

  ‘I’m being eaten up by fevers right now and don’t complain, as I continue to work ceaselessly for the good of the Blessed Mother Church.’

  ‘I insist that death by fire is horrific.’

  ‘But deserved!’ exploded His Excellency. ‘More horrific is the blasphemy and stubbornness in error. Or don’t you agree, Your Grace?’ – as I looked at the empty cloister, lost in my thoughts. And I realised that I was alone. I looked around me. Where had Kornelia gone?

  The group of tourists waited, patient and disciplined, in a corner of the Bebenhausen cloister, except for Kornelia who … Now I saw her: she was strolling contemplatively, alone, right through the middle of the cloister, always unpredictable. I watched her with a certain gluttony and it seemed she knew my eyes were upon her. She stopped, her back to me, and turned towards the group who were waiting for there to be enough people to begin the visit. I waved to her, but she either didn’t notice or pretended not to see me. Kornelia. A chaffinch stopped at the fountain before me, drank a sip of water and gave a lovely trill. Adrià shivered.

  On the eve of Saint James’s Day, at dusk, Josep Xarom’s only consolation was being spared Friar Nicolau’s gaze, as the defender of the Church lay in his bed burning up with a stubborn fever. Yet the relative tepidness of Friar Miquel de Susqueda, notary and assistant to the Inquisitor General, didn’t spare him any pain, any suffering, any horror. In the languidly encroaching dusk of Saint James’s Day Eve, scorched by days of inclement sun, two women and a man led three mules loaded down with pack saddles and hampers filled with memories and five children sleeping on top. They fled the Jewish Quarter and headed to the bank of the River Ter, on the heels of the two families who’d left the previous day. They left behind sixteen generations of Xaroms and Meirs in their beloved Girona, that noble and ungrateful city. The smoke of the iniquity that had devoured poor Josep still rose, Josep who was victim of a fit of envy by an anonymous informer. Dolça Xarom, the only child who awoke in time to have a last look at the proud walls of the cathedral silhouetted against the stars, cried silently, on muleback, over the death of so many things in one single night. A spark of confidence awaited the group at Estartit, in the form of a boat rented by poor Josep Xarom and Massot Bonsenyor a few days earlier, when they saw trouble brewing, when they sensed it without knowing exactly where it would come from, or how and when it would drop on them.