Confessions

by Jaume Cabré

  ‘Who are these cowboys?’

  ‘Don’t touch them!’

  He didn’t dare to tell him that it was none of his business. That would have seemed unfair. He just said, nothing, I’ll get rid of them some other day.

  ‘How.’

  ‘What.’

  ‘You’re ashamed of us.’

  ‘I’m very busy right now.’

  I heard the Sheriff, from behind the Arapaho chief, spitting contemptuously onto the ground and choosing not to say anything.

  The three long hallways in the flat were devoted to literary prose, arranged by language. With some endless new shelving that he ordered from Planas. In the hallway to the bedroom, Romance languages. In the one beyond the front hall, Slavic and Nordic languages, and in the wide back hall, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon.

  ‘But how can you read in crazy language like this?’ asked Bernat suddenly, brandishing Пешчаниcat, by Danilo Kiš.

  ‘With patience. If you know Russian, Serbian isn’t that difficult.’

  ‘If you know Russian …’ grumbled Bernat, offended. He put the book in its place and muttered through his teeth, ‘Sure, then it’s a piece of cake.’

  ‘We can put literary essays and literature and art theory in the dining room.’

  ‘Either take out the glassware or take out the buffet.’ He pointed at the walls without mentioning the white stain above the buffet. Adrià lowered his eyes and said I’ll give all the glassware to the shop. They’ll sell it and be happy. That’ll give me three good walls. And he created the fish and the marine creatures and all the monsters of the sea. And the empty spot left on the wall by the absence of the monastery of Santa Maria de Gerri by Modest Urgell now had company: Wellek, Warren, Kayser, Berlin, Steiner, Eco, Benjamin, Indgarden, Grye, Canetti, Lewis, Fuster, Johnson, Calvino, Mira, Todorov, Magris and other joys.

  ‘How many languages do you know?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Doesn’t matter. Once you know a few, you can always read more than you think you can.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I was just about to say that,’ said Bernat, a bit peeved. After a little while, as they removed a piece of furniture, ‘You never told me you were studying Russian.’

  ‘You never told me you were practising Bartók’s second.’

  ‘And how do you know?’

  ‘Contacts. In the laundry room I’ll put

  ‘Don’t touch anything in the laundry room.’ Bernat, the voice of reason. ‘You’ll have to have someone come in to dust, iron and do things like that. And she’ll need her own space.’

  ‘I’ll do that myself.’

  ‘Bullshit. Hire someone.’

  ‘I know how to make omelettes, boiled rice, fried eggs, macaroni and other pastas and whatever I need. Potato frittata. Salads. Vegetables and potatoes.’

  ‘I’m talking about things of a higher order: ironing, sewing, cleaning. And making cannelloni and baked capon.’

  What a drag. But finally he listened to Bernat and hired a woman who was still young and active, named Caterina. She came on Mondays, stayed for lunch and did the whole house leaving no stone unturned. And she ironed. And sewed. A ray of sunshine in so much darkness.

  ‘It’s best if you don’t go into the study. All right?’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said, going in and giving it the once-over with her expert eye. ‘But I must say this place is a breeding ground for dust.’

  ‘Let’s not exaggerate …’

  ‘A breeding ground for dust filled with those little silver bugs that nest in books.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Little Lola.’

  ‘Caterina. I’ll just dust the old books.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘Well, then let me at least sweep and clean the floor,’ Caterina, trying to save some aspects of the negotiation.

  ‘Fine. But don’t touch anything on top of the table.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ she lied.

  Despite Adrià’s initial good intentions, he eventually took over the walls without wardrobes and Caterina ended up having to live with fine art books and encyclopedias. Visibly wrinkling her nose did her no good.

  ‘Can’t you see there’s no other space for them?’ begged Adrià.

  ‘Well, it’s not exactly a small flat. What do you want so many books for?’

  ‘To eat them.’

  ‘A waste of a lovely flat, you can’t even see the walls.’

  Caterina inspected the laundry room and said I’ll have to get used to working with books around.

  ‘Don’t worry, Little Lola. They stay still and quiet during the day.’

  ‘Caterina,’ said Caterina looking at him askance because she wasn’t sure if he was pulling her leg or if he was mad as a hatter.

  ‘And all this stuff you brought from Germany, what is it?’ asked Bernat one day, suspiciously opening the top of a cardboard box with his fingertips.

  ‘Basically, philology and philosophy. And some novels. Böll, Grass, Faulkner, Mann, Llor, Capmany, Roth and things like that.’

  ‘Where do you want to put them?’

  ‘Philosophy, in the front hall. With mathematics and astronomy. And philology and linguistics, in Little Lola’s room. The novels, each in the corresponding hallway.’

  ‘Well, let’s get to it.’

  ‘What orchestra do you want to play Bartók with?’

  ‘With mine. I want to ask for an audition.’

  ‘Wow, that’s great, don’t you think?’

  ‘We’ll see if they’ll listen to reason.’

  ‘If they’ll listen to the violin, you mean.’

  ‘Yes. You’re going to have to order more shelves.’

  He ordered them, and Planas was happy as a clam because Adrià’s orders showed no signs of letting up. And on the fourth day of creation Caterina won an important victory because she got permission from the Lord to dust all the books in the flat except for the ones in the study. And she decided that she would also come on Thursday mornings for a modest supplement, that way she could guarantee that once a year she’d have dusted all the books. And Adrià said as you wish, Little Lola: you know more about these things than I do.

  ‘Caterina.’

  ‘And since there is still space there, in the guest room, religion, theology, ethnology and the Greco-Roman world.’

  And it was the moment when the Lord parted the waters and let the earth dry and created the ocean seas.

  ‘You’ll have to … What do you like better, cats or dogs?’

  ‘No, no, neither.’ Curtly, ‘Neither.’

  ‘You don’t want them to shit on you. Right?’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, if you say so …’ Sarcastic tone from Bernat as he placed a pile of books on the floor. ‘But it would do you good to have a pet.’

  ‘I don’t want anything to die on me. Understood?’ he said as he filled up the second row in front of the bathroom with prose in Slavic languages. And the domestic animals were created and the wild animals populated the earth and he saw that it was good.

  And, seated on the dark floor of hallway one, they reviewed their melancholy: ‘Boy, Karl May. I have a lot of his, too.’

  ‘Look: Salgari. God, no: twelve Salgaris.’

  ‘And Verne. I had this one with engravings by Doré.’

  ‘Where is it now?’

  ‘Who knows.’

  ‘And Enid Blyton. Not the strongest prose. But I read them thirty times over.’

  ‘What are you going to do with the Tintins?’

  ‘I don’t want to throw anything out. But I don’t where to put it all.’

  ‘You still have a lot of room.’

  And the Lord said yes, I have a lot of room, but I want to keep buying books. And my problem is where do I put the karlmays and julesvernes, you know? And the other said I understand. And they saw that in the bathroom there was a space between the little closet and the ceiling, and Planas, enthused, made a sturdy do
uble shelf and all the books he had read as a kid went to rest there.

  ‘That’s not going to fall?’

  ‘If it falls, I will personally come and hold it up for the rest of time.’

  ‘Like Atlas.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like a caryatid.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. But I can assure you that it won’t fall down. You can shit with no worries. Pardon me. I mean, don’t worry, it won’t fall.’

  ‘And in the small toilet, the magazines.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Bernat as he moved twenty kilos of ancient history through the Romance prose hallway to Adrià’s childhood bedroom.

  ‘And in the kitchen, cookbooks.’

  ‘You need a bibliography to fry to an egg?’

  ‘They’re Mother’s books; I don’t want to throw them out.’

  And as he said I will make man in my image and likeness, he thought of Sara. Of Laura. No, Sara. No, Laura. I don’t know: but he thought of her.

  And on the seventh day, Adrià and Bernat rested and they invited Tecla over to see their creation and after the visit they sat in the armchairs in the study. Tecla, who was already pregnant with Llorenç, was impressed by all their work and said to her husband let’s see if some day you decide to tidy things up in our house. And they drank tea from Can Múrria that was delicious. And Bernat straightened up suddenly, as if he had been pricked with a pin: ‘Where’s the Storioni?’

  ‘In the safe.’

  ‘Take it out. It needs air. And you have to play it so its voice doesn’t fade out.’

  ‘I do play it. I’m trying to get my level back up. I play it obsessively and I’m starting to fall in love with that instrument.’

  ‘That Storioni is easy to love,’ said Bernat in a whisper.

  ‘Is it true you play the piano too?’ Tecla, curious.

  ‘At a very basic level.’ As if excusing himself: ‘If you live alone, you have a lot of time for yourself.’

  Seven two eight zero six five. Vial was the only occupant of the safe. When he pulled it out, it seemed it had grown pale from so long in the dungeon.

  ‘Poor thing. Why don’t you put it with the incunabula, in the cabinet?’

  ‘Good idea. But the insurers …’

  ‘Screw them.’

  ‘Who’s going to steal it?’

  Adrià passed it, with a gesture that strove for solemnity, to his friend. Play something, he said to him. And Bernat tuned it, the D string was slightly flat, and he played Beethoven’s two fantasies in such a way that we could sense the orchestra. I still think that he played extraordinarily, as if having lived far away from me had matured him, and I thought that when Tecla wasn’t there I would say kid, why don’t you stop writing about stuff you know nothing about and devote yourself to what you do so well, eh?

  ‘Don’t start,’ responded Bernat when I posed that question to him eight days later. And the Lord contemplated his work and said it was very good, because he had the universe at home and more or less in universal decimal classification. And he said to the books grow and multiply and go forth throughout the house.

  ‘I’ve never seen such a large flat,’ said Laura in admiration, still wearing her coat.

  ‘Here, take that off.’

  ‘Or such a dark one.’

  ‘I always forget to open the blinds. Wait.’

  He showed her the most presentable part of the flat and when they went into the study, he couldn’t help but do so with possessive pride.

  ‘Wow, is that a violin?’

  Adrià pulled it out of the cabinet and put it in her hands. It was obvious that she didn’t know what to do with it. Then he put it under the loupe and turned on the light.

  ‘Read what’s in here.’

  ‘Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis …’ with difficulty, but with longing, ‘me fecit seventeen sixty-four. Wow.’ She looked up, amazed. ‘It must have cost a shitload, I mean an arm and a leg.’

  ‘I guess. I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ With her mouth agape she gave him back the instrument, as if it were burning her hand.

  ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘You are strange, Adrià.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They were quiet for a little while, not knowing what to say to each other. I like that girl. But every time I court her, I think of you, Sara, and I wonder what made our eternal love suffer so many encumbrances. At that moment I still couldn’t understand it.

  ‘Do you play the violin?’

  ‘Yeah. A little.’

  ‘Come on, play me something.’

  ‘Uhh …’

  I supposed that Laura didn’t know much about music. In fact, I was wrong: she didn’t know a thing. But since I didn’t yet know that, I played for her, from memory and with some invention, the Meditation from Thaïs, which is very effective. With my eyes closed because I couldn’t remember all of the fingering and I needed all my concentration. And when Adrià opened his eyes, Laura was disconsolate, crying blue tears, and looking at me as if I were a god or a monster and I asked her what’s wrong, Laura, and she replied I don’t know, I think I got emotional because I felt something here and she made some circles with her hand on her stomach; and I answered that’s the sound of the violin, it’s magnificent. And then she couldn’t hold back a sob and until then I hadn’t realised that she wore a very discreet bit of makeup on her eyes because the mascara had smudged a little and she looked very, very sweet. But this time I hadn’t used her, like in Rome. She came because that morning I had said would you like to come to the inauguration of my flat? And she, who was just getting out of Greek class, I think, said you’ve moved? And I, no. And she, are you having a party? And I, no, but I’m inaugurating a new order in the house and …

  ‘Will there be many people?’

  ‘Tons.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, you and I.’

  And she came. And after the unrestrained sobbing, she was pensive for a while, sitting on the sofa behind which I had spent hours spying with Sheriff Carson and his valiant friend.

  Black Eagle kept watch from the bedside table in history and geography. When we went in there, she picked him up and looked at him; the valiant Arapaho chief didn’t complain and she turned to tell me something, but Adrià pretended he hadn’t realised and asked her some silly question. I kissed her. We kissed each other. It was tender. And then I walked her home, convinced that I was making a mistake with that girl and that, probably, I was hurting her. But I still didn’t know why.

  Or I did know. Because in Laura’s blue eyes I was searching for your fugitive dark eyes, and that is something that no woman can forgive.

  30

  The stairwell was narrow and dark. The further up he went the worse he felt. It seemed like a toy, like a dark doll’s house. Up to the first door on the third floor. The doorbell, imitating a bell tower, went ding and then dong. And after that there was silence. Children’s shouts were heard on the narrow, sunless street of that end of the Barceloneta. When he was already thinking he had made a mistake, he perceived a muffled sound on the other side of the door and it opened delicately, silently. I never told you this, Sara, but that was, surely, the most important day of my life. Holding onto the door, worse for the wear, older, but still just as neat and well-groomed as ever, she looked silently into my eyes for a few seconds, as if asking me what I was doing there. Finally she reacted, opening the door the rest of the way and moving aside to let me in. She waited until it was closed to say you’ll be bald soon.

  We went into a tiny area that was the dining room and the living room. On one wall, majestic, hung the Urgell of the Sant Maria de Gerri monastery, receiving the dusky light of a sun that was setting behind Trespui. Adrià, like someone apologising, said I knew you were sick and …

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘From a doctor friend. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Surprised to see you here.’

  ‘No, I mean h
ow is your health?’

  ‘I’m dying. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She disappeared down the hallway. The kitchen was right there. Adrià looked at the painting and had the feeling he was re-encountering an old friend who, despite the years, hadn’t aged a bit; he took in a breath and smelled the springtime aroma of that landscape; he could even make out the murmur of the river and the cold Ramon de Nolla felt when he arrived there in search of his victim. He stood there, observing it, until he felt Little Lola’s presence behind him. She was carrying a tray with two teacups. Adrià noticed the simplicity of that flat, which was so tiny that it could have fit quite easily inside his study.

  ‘Why didn’t you stay with me?’

  ‘I’m fine. This has been my house before and after living by your mother’s side. I have no complaints. Do you hear me? I have no complaints. I’m over seventy, older than your parents; and I’ve lived the life I wanted to live.’

  They sat down at the table. A slurp of tea. Adrià was comfortable in silence. After a short while: ‘It’s not true that I’m going bald.’