Confessions

by Jaume Cabré

  ‘How many languages do you speak?’

  ‘Don’t give up the violin.’

  ‘I’m about to.’

  ‘So why did you bring it with you?’

  ‘To do finger practice. On Sunday I’m playing at Tecla’s house.’

  ‘That’s good, right?’

  ‘Oh, sure. Thrilling. But I have to impress her parents.’

  ‘What are you going to play?’

  ‘César Franck.’

  For a minute, both of us, I’m sure of it, were reminiscing about the beginning of Franck’s sonata, that elegant dialogue between the two instruments that was merely the introduction to great pleasures.

  ‘I regret having given up the violin,’ I said.

  ‘Now you say it, you big poof.’

  ‘I say it because I don’t want you to be regretting it a few months from now and cursing my name because I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘I think I want to be a writer.’

  ‘I think it’s fine if you write. But you don’t have to give up

  ‘Do you mind not being so condescending, for fuck’s sake?’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘Have you heard anything from Sara?’

  We started to walk in silence to the end of the path, to the grave of Franz Grübbe. I was realising that I’d been wrong not to tell him about Kornelia and my suffering. In those days I was already concerned about the image others had of me.

  Bernat repeated his question with his eyes and didn’t insist. The cold was cutting and made my eyes water.

  ‘Why don’t we go back?’ I said.

  ‘Who is this Grübbe?’

  Adrià looked pensively at the thick cross. Franz Grübbe, 1918–1943. Lothar Grübbe, with a trembling, indignant hand, pushed away a bramble that someone had put there as an insult. The bramble scratched him and he couldn’t think of Schubert’s wild rose because his thoughts had been abducted by his ill fate for some time. Lovingly, he put a bouquet of roses on his grave, white like his son’s soul.

  ‘You are tempting fate,’ said Herta who, nevertheless, had wanted to accompany him. Those flowers are screaming.

  ‘I have nothing to lose.’ He stood up. ‘Just the opposite: I have won the prize of a heroic, brave martyr for a son.’

  He looked around him. His breath emerged in a thick cloud. He knew that the white roses, besides being a rebellious scream, would already be frozen come evening. But it had been almost a month since they had buried Franz, and he’d promised Anna he would bring him flowers on the sixteenth of each month until the day he could no longer walk. It was the least he could do for their son, the hero, the brave martyr.

  ‘Is he somebody important, this Grübbe?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Why did you stop here?’

  ‘Franz Grübbe, nineteen eighteen, nineteen forty-three.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Shit, it’s so cold. Is it always like this in Tübingen?’

  Lothar Grübbe had lived silent and sulking since Hitler had taken power and he showed his silent sulkiness to his neighbours, who pretended not to see Lothar Grübbe sulking as they said that man is looking for trouble; and he, sulking, spoke to his Anna as he strolled, alone, through the park, saying it’s not possible that no one is rebelling, it just can’t be. And when Franz went back to the university, where he wasted his time studying laws that would be abolished by the New Order, the world came crashing down around Lothar because his Franz, with his eyes bright with excitement, said Papa, following the indications and wishes of the Führer, I just asked to sign up with the SS and it’s very likely that they’ll accept me because I’ve been able to prove that we are unsullied for five or six generations. And Lothar, perplexed, disconcerted, said what have they done to you, my son, why …

  ‘Father: We are Entering a New Era Made of Power, Energy, Light and Future. Etcetera, Father. And I want you to be happy for me.’

  Lothar cried in front of his excited son, who scolded him for such weakness. That night he explained it to his Anna and he said forgive me, Anna, it’s my fault, it’s my fault for having let him study so far from home; they have infected him with fascism, my beloved Anna. And Lothar Grübbe had much time to cry because, one bad day, young Franz, who was again far from home, didn’t want to see his father’s reproachful gaze and so he just sent him an enthusiastic telegram that said The Third Company of the Waffen-SS of Who Knows Which One, Papa, Is Being Sent To The Southern Front, Stop. Finally I Can Offer My Life To My Führer, Stop. Don’t Cry For Me In That Case. Stop. I Will Have Eternal Life in Valhalla. Stop. And Lothar cried and decided that it had to be kept secret and that night he didn’t tell Anna that he had received a Telegram from Franz, Loaded With Detestable Capitals.

  Drago Gradnik had to lean his immense trunk forward in order to hear the anaemic little voice of the employee at the Jesenice post office, near the Sava Dolinka River, which was running very high due to the spring thaw.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘This letter will not reach its destination.’

  ‘Why?’ thundering voice.

  The little old man who worked in the post office put on his glasses and read out loud: Fèlix Ardèvol, 283 València ulica, Barcelona, Španija. And he held the letter out to the giant.

  ‘It will get lost along the way, captain. All the letters in this sack are going to Ljubljana and no further.’

  ‘I’m a sergeant.’

  ‘I don’t care: it will get lost anyway. We are at war. Or didn’t you know?’

  Gradnik, who didn’t usually do such things, pointed threateningly at the civil servant and, using the deepest and most unpleasant voice in his repertoire, said you lick a fifty-para stamp, stick it on the envelope, mark it, put the letter in the sack I’m taking and let it go. Do you understand me?

  Even though they were calling him from outside, Gradnik waited for the offended man to follow, in silence, that useless old partisan’s orders. And when he’d finished, he placed the envelope into the sack of scant correspondence headed to Ljubljana. The giant sergeant picked it up and went out onto the sunny street. Ten impatient men shouted at him from the lorry, which, seeing him come out, had turned on its engine. In the lorry’s trailer there were six or seven similar sacks and Vlado Vladić lying down, smoking and looking at his watch and saying, shit, all you had to do was pick up the sack, sergeant.

  The lorry with the postal sacks and some fifteen partisans didn’t get a chance to leave. A strange Citroën stopped in front of it and out came three partisans who explained the situation to their comrades: that Palm Sunday, the day that Croatia and Slovenia commemorate Jesus’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, three companies of the SS Division Reich decided to emulate the Son of God and triumphantly enter Slovenia but on wheels, while the Luftwaffe destroyed the centre of Belgrad and the royal government, with the king on the first line of fire, running as fast as his legs could carry him, comrades. It is time to give our lives for freedom. You will go to Kranjska Gora to halt the Waffen-SS division. And Drago Gradnik thought the hour of my death has come, blessed be the Lord. I will die in Kranjska Gora trying to halt an unstoppable division of the Waffen-SS. And, as had been the case throughout his entire life, he didn’t bemoan his fate. From the moment that he’d hung up his cassock and gone to see the local commando of partisans in order to offer himself to his country, he knew that he was making a mistake. But he couldn’t do anything else because there was evil right before him, be it Pavelić’s Ustaše or the devil’s SS, and theology had to be set aside for these sad emergencies. They reached Kranjska Gora without running into any devils and pretty much everyone was thinking that perhaps the information was erroneous; but when they went out on the Borovška highway, a commander with no stars, with a Croatian accent and a twenty-day beard, told them that the moment of truth had arrived; it is a battle to the death against Nazism: you are the army of partisans for freedom and a
gainst fascism. Show no mercy on the enemy just as no enemy has or ever will with us. Drago Gradnik wanted to add forever and ever amen. But he held himself back, because the commander without stars was clearly explaining how each defensive den had to act. Gradnik had time to think that, for the first time in his life, he would have to kill.

  ‘Come on, up into the hills, fast as you can. And good luck!’

  The bulk of the force, with machine guns, hand grenades and mortars, took the safe positions. The shooters had to go up to the peaks, like eagles. The dozen marksmen spread out nimbly – except for Father Gradnik who was wheezing like a whale – to the defence positions, each with his rifle and only thirteen magazines. And if you run out of bullets, use rocks; and if they get close to you, strangle them: but don’t let them get into the town. Good aim got you a Nagant with a telescopic sight. And it also meant watching, following, observing, relating to those you had to end up killing.

  When he was about to die, drowned in his own panting, a hand helped him up the last step. It was Vlado Vladić, who was already flat on the ground, aiming at the deserted bend in the highway and who said sergeant, we have to stay in shape. From the top of the hill they heard scared golden orioles flying over them, as if they wanted to reveal their location to the Germans. A few minutes passed in silence, as he caught his breath.

  ‘What did you do, before the war, sergeant?’ asked the Serbian partisan in terrible Slovenian.

  ‘I was a baker.’

  ‘That’s twaddle. You were a priest.’

  ‘Why’d you ask me, if you already knew?’

  ‘I want to confess, Father.’

  ‘We are at war. I am not a priest.’

  ‘Yes you are.’

  ‘No. I have sinned against hope. I am the one who should confess. I hung up my

  He was suddenly silent: around the deserted bend came a small tank followed by two, four, eight, ten, twelve, holy shit, my God. Twenty or thirty or a thousand armoured cars filled with soldiers. And behind them, at least three or four companies on foot. The golden orioles continued their racket, indifferent to the hatred and the fear.

  ‘When the fighting starts, Father, you go for the lieutenant on the right and I’ll go for the one on the left. Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  ‘The one that’s taller and thin?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Do what I do.’

  Which was court death, thought Gradnik, his heart tied up in knots.

  After the last vehicle, the young SS-Obersturmführer Franz Grübbe, at the head of his section, looked out at the hills to the left, over which flew some birds he had never seen before. He looked up, not so much to make out any enemies, but rather imagining the Moment Of Glory When All of Europe Will Be Led By Our Visionary Führer And Germany Becomes The Model Of Ideal Society That Inferior Races Must Strive To Imitate. And on the hill to the left, almost at the first houses of Kranjska Gora, one hundred partisans hidden in the landscape were waiting for the signal from their Croatian commander. And the signal was the first shot from the machine guns at the vehicles. And Drago Gradnik – born in Ljubljana on the thirtieth of August of eighteen ninety-five, who was a student at the Jesuit school in his city, who’d decided to devote his life to God and, inflamed with devotion, entered Vienna’s diocesan seminary and who, based on his intellectual ability, was chosen to study theology at the Pontificia Università Gregoriana and Biblical exegesis at the Pontifico Istituto Biblico, since he was destined to carry out great projects within the Holy Church – had that repulsive SS officer in his Nagant’s sight for a minute that stretched on forever while Grübbe looked up with victor’s pride and led that company?, section?, patrol? that had to be halted.

  And the fighting began. For a few moments it looked as if the soldiers were surprised to find a resistance outpost so far from Ljubljana. Gradnik coldly following the movements of his victim in his telescopic sight and thinking if you pull the trigger, Drago, you will no longer have the right to set foot in paradise. You are coexisting with the man you have to kill. Sweat tried to cloud his vision but he refused to be blinded. He was determined and he had to keep his victim in the sight. All the soldiers had their weapons loaded, but they didn’t know exactly where to aim. It was the armoured cars and their occupants that would get the worst of it.

  ‘Now, Father!’

  They both fired at once. Gradnik’s officer was facing him, with his rifle ready, still looking around unsure as to where to shoot. The SS officer leaned against the terraced wall behind him and, suddenly, dropped his rifle, immobile, indifferent to all that was going on around him, with his face abruptly red with blood. Young SS-Obersturmführer Franz Grübbe didn’t have time to think about The Glory Of Combat or The New Order or The Glorious Tomorrow that he was offering the survivors with his death, because they had blown off half of his head and he could no long think about strange birds or where the shots were coming from. Then Gradnik realised that he didn’t care if paradise was closed to him because he had to do what he was doing. He loaded the Nagant. With its telescopic sight he swept the enemy lines. An SS sergeant shouted at the soldiers to reorganise themselves. He aimed at his neck so he would stop shouting and he fired. And, coldly, without losing his nerve, he reloaded and took down some more lower-ranking officers.

  Before the sun set, the Waffen-SS column had withdrawn, leaving behind the dead and the destroyed vehicles. The partisans came down, like vultures, to rummage among the corpses. Every once in a while the icy crack of an ununiformed commander’s pistol sounded out, finishing off the wounded, a hardened curl on their lips.

  Following strict orders, all the surviving partisans had to examine the corpses and gather up weapons, ammunition, boots and leather jackets. Drago Gradnik, as if compelled by some mysterious force, went over to confront his first kill. He was a young man with a kind face and eyes covered in blood, who stared straight ahead, still leaning against the wall, his helmet destroyed and his face red. He hadn’t given him any choice. Forgive me, Son, he said to him. And then he saw Vlado Vladić, with two other comrades, collecting identification tags; they did that whenever they could to make it harder for the enemies to identify their dead. When Vladić got to Gradnik’s victim, he tore off his tag without a second thought. Gradnik suddenly sprang to life: ‘Wait! Give it to me!’

  ‘Father, we have to …’

  ‘I said give it to me!’

  Vladić shrugged and passed the tag to him.

  ‘Your first kill, eh?’

  And he continued his task. Drago Gradnik looked at the tag. Franz Grübbe. His first kill was named Franz Grübbe, and he was a young SS-Obersturmführer, probably blond with blue eyes. For a few moments he imagined visiting the dead man’s widow or parents, to comfort them and tell them, on his knees, it was me, I did it, confiteor. And he put the tag inside his pocket.

  I shrugged, still in front of the grave, and repeated let’s go back, it’s freezing. And Bernat, whatever you want, you’re in charge, you’ve always been the one in charge of my life.

  ‘Screw you.’

  Since we were stiff with cold, jumping over the cemetery fence and into the world earned me a rip in my trousers. And we left the dead alone and cold and in the dark with their never-ending stories.

  I didn’t read his story; Bernat fell asleep the minute his head hit the pillow because he was bone tired from his trip. I preferred to think about the culture clash during the decline of the Roman Empire as I waited to drift off to sleep, imagining whether that was possible in contemporary Europe. But suddenly Kornelia and Sara came into my happy thoughts and I felt deeply sad. And you don’t have the balls to explain it to your best friend.

  In the end the Bebenhausen option won out because Adrià was having a very historic day and

  ‘No: you have a historic life. Everything is history to you.’

  ‘Actually it’s more that the history of any thing explains the present state of that thing. And today I am having a historic day and we are going to Bebenhausen
because according to you I’ve always been the one in charge.’

  It was unbelievably cold. The trees on Wilhelmstrasse in front of the faculty – poor things, naked of leaves – put up with it patiently, knowing that better times would come.

  ‘I couldn’t live like this. My hands would freeze and I wouldn’t be able to play …’

  ‘Since you’re giving up the violin anyway, you can just stay here.’

  ‘Have I told you what Tecla’s like?’

  ‘Yes.’ He broke into a run. ‘Come on, that’s our bus.’

  Inside the bus was just as cold as outside, but people unbuttoned their coat collars. Bernat started to say she has dimples in her cheeks that look like—

  ‘That look like two navels, you already told me.’

  ‘Hey, if you don’t want me to …’

  ‘Do you have a photo?’

  ‘Oh, bother, no. I didn’t even think of that.’

  In fact, Bernat didn’t have any photo of Tecla because he hadn’t yet taken a photo of her, because he didn’t yet have a camera and because Tecla didn’t have one to lend him, but that’s all right because I never grow tired of describing her.

  ‘I, on the other hand, do grow tired.’

  ‘You’re so peevish, I don’t know why I even talk to you.’

  Adrià opened the briefcase that was his constant companion and pulled out a sheaf of papers and showed it to him.

  ‘Because I read your ravings.’

  ‘Wow, you’ve already read it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Adrià read the title and didn’t turn the page. Bernat was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Neither of them realised that the straight highway was entering a valley where the fir forests on both sides were dusted with snow. Two endless minutes passed during which Bernat thought that if it took him that long to read the title, then … Maybe it was evoking things for him; perhaps he’s transported like I was when I wrote the first page. But Adrià looked at the five words of the title and thought I don’t know why I can’t just go to Kornelia and tell her, let’s forget about this and it’s over. And you acted like a real slut, you know?, and from now on I’ll focus on missing Sara; and he knew that what he was thinking was a lie because when Kornelia was in front of him he melted, he would open his mouth and do whatever she told him to, even if it meant leaving because she was waiting for a new experience, my God, why am I so pussy-whipped?