by Jaume Cabré
‘I’d say yes,’ Bernat answered cautiously. ‘A woman’s beauty is an irrefutable fact. Isn’t it?’
‘Vivancos would say that’s a sexist approach.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Confused silence from Bernat. ‘Before it was a petit-bourgeois idea and now it’s sexist reasoning.’ In a softer voice so no judge would hear him: ‘But I like women. They are beautiful: that I know for sure.’
‘Yeah. But I don’t know if I should talk about it.’
‘By the way, who is that good-looking Laura you mentioned?’
‘Huh?’
‘The Laura that you cite.’
‘No, I was thinking of Petrarch.’
‘And that’s going to be a book?’ asked Bernat, pointing to the papers resting atop the manuscript table, as if they needed careful examination under Father’s loupe.
‘I don’t know. At this point it’s thirty pages and I’m enjoying feeling my way around in the dark.’
‘How is Sara?’
‘Well. She calms me.’
‘I’m asking how she is: not how she affects you.’
‘She’s very busy. Actes Sud commissioned her to illustrate a series of ten books.’
‘But how is she?’
‘Fine. Why?’
‘Sometimes she looks sad.’
‘There are some things that can’t be solved even with a bit of love.’
Ten or twelve days later the inevitable happened. I was talking to Parera and suddenly she said, listen, what is your wife’s name? And just then Laura came into the office, loaded down with dossiers and ideas, and she heard perfectly as Parera said listen, what is your wife’s name? And I lowered my eyes in resignation and said Sara, her name is Sara. Laura put the things down on her chaotic desk and sat down.
‘She’s pretty,’ continued Parera, as if twisting the knife into my heart. Or perhaps into Laura’s.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And have you been married long?’
‘No. In fact, we’re not …’
‘Yeah, I mean living together.’
‘No, not long.’
The interrogation ended there, not because the KGB inspector ran out of questions, but because she had to go to class. Eulaleyvna Parerova left the office, before closing the door, said take good care of her, these days things are …
And she closed it gently, not feeling the need to specify exactly how things are. And then Laura stood up, put a hand at one end of the dossiers, papers, books, notes and journals on her always cramped desk and slid everything onto the floor, in the middle of the office. A tremendous clamour. Adrià looked at her, contrite. She sat down without glancing at him. Then the office telephone rang. Laura didn’t pick it up, and, I swear, there is nothing that makes me more nervous than a telephone ringing with no one picking it up. I went over to my desk and answered it.
‘Hello. Yes, one moment. It’s for you, Laura.’
I stood there with the receiver in my hand; she staring out into the void without any intention of picking up the one on her desk. I brought it back to my ear.
‘She’s stepped out.’
Then Laura picked up the phone and said, yes, yes, go ahead. I hung up and she said hey, pretty lady, what are you up to! And she laughed with a crystal-clear laugh. I grabbed my papers on art and aesthetics that still had no title and I fled.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ said Doctor Budden, as he stood up and straightened his impeccable Obersturmführer uniform, ‘because tomorrow there are new units arriving.’ He looked at Oberlagerführer Höss and smiled and, knowing that he wouldn’t understand him, said, ‘Art is inexplicable.’ He pointed to his host: ‘At best, we can say that it is a display of love from the artist to humanity. Don’t you think?’
He left the Oberlagerführer’s house, knowing that he was still slowly digesting his words. From outside he heard, faintly, swaddled in the cold, the finale of the Trio opus 100 by angelic Schubert. Without that music, life would be terrible, he should have told his host.
Things began to sour for me when I had practically finished writing La voluntat estètica. The galleys, the translation to German that spurred me on to make additions to the original, Kamenek’s comments on my translation, which also inspired me to add nuance and rewrite, all of it left me considerably agitated. I was afraid that the book I was publishing would satisfy me. I’ve told you many times, Sara: it is the book of mine that I like best. And following the imperatives of my discontented soul, which has caused you such suffering, in those days when Sara brought serenity into my life and Laura pretended she didn’t even know me, Adrià Ardèvol’s obsession was devoting hours to his Storioni, as good a way as any to hide his anxiety. He revisited the most difficult moments with Trullols and the most unpleasant with Master Manlleu. And a few months later he invited Bernat to do the sonatas of Jean-Marie Leclair’s opus 3 and opus 4.
‘Why Leclair?’
‘I don’t know. I like him. And I’ve studied him.’
‘He’s not as easy as he seems.’
‘But do you want to give it a try, or not?’
During a couple of months, on Friday afternoons, the house filled with the music of the two friends’ violins. And during the week, Adrià, after writing, would study repertoire. As he did thirty years earlier.
‘Thirty?’
‘Or twenty. But there’s no way I can catch up to you now.’
‘I should hope not. It’s all I’ve been doing.’
‘I envy you.’
‘Don’t mock me.’
‘I envy you. I wish I could play the way you do.’
Deep down, Adrià wanted distance from La voluntat estètica. He wanted to return to the works of art that had provoked the book’s reflections.
‘Yes, but why Leclair? Why not Shostakovich?’
‘That’s beyond me. Why do you think I envy you?’
And both violins, now a Storioni and a Thouvenel, began to fill the house with longing, as if life could start anew, as if wanting to give them a fresh start. Mine would be having parents that were more parents, more different, more … And … I don’t know exactly. And you? Eh?
‘What?’ Bernat, with his bow too taut and trying to look the other way.
‘Are you happy?’
Bernat began sonata number 2 and I found myself forced to follow along. But when we finished (with three heinous errors on my part and only one rebuke from Bernat), I resumed my attack:
‘Hey.’
‘What.’
‘Are you happy?’
‘No. Are you?’
‘Nope.’
I played the second sonata, number 1, even worse. But we were able to reach the end without interruption.
‘How are things going with Tecla?’
‘Fine. And with Sara?’
‘Fine.’
Silence. After a long while:
‘Well … Tecla … I don’t know, but she’s always getting mad at me.’
‘Because you live in another world.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not married to Tecla.’
Then we tried some études-caprices by Wieniawski from his opus 18. Poor Bernat, as first violin, ended up drenched in sweat, and I felt pleased despite the three curt rebukes he gave me, as if he were me criticising his writing in Tübingen. And I envied him, a lot. And I couldn’t help but tell him that I would trade my writing for his musical ability.
‘And I accept the swap. I’m thrilled to accept it, eh?’
The most worrisome part of it was that we didn’t burst into laughter. We just looked at the clock because it was getting late.
The night was short as the doctor had predicted because the first units of material began arriving at seven in the morning, when it was still dark.
‘This one,’ said Budden to Oberscharführer Barabbas. ‘And those two.’ And he went back to the laboratory because he’d been given an exorbitant amount of work. Also for a darker re
ason, because deep down it angered him to see that line of women and children advancing in an orderly fashion, like sheep, without a shred of dignity that would lead them to revolt.
‘No, leave her be!’ said an older woman with a package in her arms, a violin case of some sort, as if it were an infant.
Doctor Budden washed his hands of the argument. As he headed off, he saw Doctor Voigt emerge from the officer’s canteen and head over to the scuffle. Konrad Budden didn’t even bother to conceal his disdainful look towards his superior officer, who was always attracted to conflict. He went into his office, still calm. He had time to hear the crack of a Luger firing.
‘Where are you from?’ he said in a harsh voice without looking up from the papers. Finally he had to lift his eyes because the mute little girl just stared at him in confusion. She was wringing a dirty napkin in her hands and Doctor Budden was starting to get nervous. He raised his voice, ‘Would you mind keeping still?’
The girl stopped, but her perplexed expression remained. The doctor sighed, took in a breath and gathered his patience. Just then the telephone on his desk rang.
‘Yes? / Yes, Heil Hitler. / Who?’ Confused. / ‘Put her on. (…)’ ‘Heil Hitler. Hallo.’ Impatient. ‘Ja, bitte? / What’s going on?’ Annoyed. / ‘Who is this Lothar?’ Peeved. / ‘Ah!’ Scandalised. ‘Abject Franz’s father? / And what do you want? / Who arrested him? / But why? / Girl … Here I really … / I’m very busy right now. You want to expose us all? / He must have done something. / Look, Herta: someone’s got to pay the piper.’
And he looked the girl with the dirty napkin up and down:
‘Holländisch?’ he asked her. And into the telephone: ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m working. I have too much work to waste time on such nonsense. Heil Hitler!’
And he hung up. He stared at the girl, waiting for a reply.
The girl nodded. As if holländisch was the first word she had understood. Doctor Budden, in a softer voice, so no one would see that he wasn’t using German, asked her in his cousins’ Dutch what town she was from and she answered Antwerp. She wanted to say that she was Flemish, that she lived on Arenberg Street, and where was her father, that he’d been taken away. But she stood there with her mouth hanging open, observing that man who was now smiling at her.
‘You just have to do what I tell you to.’
‘It hurts me here.’ And she pointed to the back of her neck.
‘That’s nothing. Now, listen to me.’
She looked at him, curious. The doctor insisted, ‘You have to do what I say. You understand?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Then I’ll have to rip off your nose. Did you understand me now?’
And he looked patiently at the horrified girl, who frantically nodded her head.
‘How old are you?’
‘Seven and a half,’ she replied, exaggerating to make herself seem older.
‘Name?’
‘Amelia Alpaerts. Twenty-two Arenberg Street, third apartment.’
‘Fine, fine.’
‘Antwerp.’
‘I said that’s fine!’ Irritated. ‘And stop messing with that damned handkerchief if you don’t want me to take it away from you.’
The girl lowered her gaze and instinctively put her hands behind her back, hiding the blue-and-white chequered napkin, perhaps to protect it. She couldn’t hold back a tear.
‘Mama,’ she implored, also in a soft voice.
Doctor Budden snapped his fingers and one of the twins who were holding up the back wall came forward and grabbed the girl brusquely.
‘Get her prepped,’ said the doctor.
‘Mama!’ shouted the girl.
‘Next!’ answered the doctor without looking up from the file he had on the desk.
‘Holländisch?’ heard the girl with the blue-and-white chequered napkin as they made her enter a room that smelled very strongly of medicine and I didn’t know what to do: I didn’t give any justification or explanation, because Laura didn’t demand one of me. She could have calmly said you are a fucking liar because you told me that there was no other woman; she could have said why didn’t you just tell me; she could have said you’re a coward; she could have said you never stopped using me; she could have said many things. But no: life went on like always in the office. For a few months I barely went in there. A couple of times we passed each other in the cloister or we saw each other in the bar. I had become a transparent person. It was hard to get used to. And forgive me, Sara, for not having told you any of this before.
Doctor Konrad Budden, after a very intense month, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted. When he heard a heel stomp in front of his desk he lifted his head. Oberscharführer Barabbas stood firm, rigid, always ready, awaiting orders. With a weary gesture, the doctor pointed to the stuffed file with the name of Doctor Aribert Voigt clearly visible, and the other man picked it up. When the subordinate stamped his heels hard, the doctor shook, as if he had stomped on his head. Barabbas left the office with the detailed report explaining that, unfortunately, the patellar tendon regeneration experiment, which consisted in exposing the tendon, slicing it, applying Doctor Bauer’s salve and observing whether it would regenerate without the aid of any suture, hadn’t succeeded as they had foreseen, neither in adults nor in children. They had expected it wouldn’t be effective on the elderly, but they’d hoped that in the case of growing organisms the regeneration following the application of the Bauer salve could be spectacular. That failure put an end to the possibility of triumphantly offering this miraculous medication to humanity. What a shame, because if it had worked, the benefits for Bauer, Voigt and him would have been, not only triumphant, but unimaginable.
It had never been so hard for him to finalise an experiment before. After months of seeing moaning little guinea pigs – like the boy with that dark skin, or the albino who said Tėve, Tėve, Tėve, cornered in his bed, refusing to get out of it until they finally had to finish him off right there, or that bloody girl with the dirty rag that was unable to stand up without crutches and, when they didn’t sedate her, bellowed with pain to fuck with all the staff as if they didn’t have enough with the responsibility of some of the experiments and brutal pressure of their blockhead superior, who it seems had friends in high places because not even Höss himself was able to get him sent off to some front so he would stop being such a nuisance – had to accept that it was useless to expect a more positive response on the cartilage treated with the Bauer salve. Twenty-six guinea pigs, boys and girls, and no restored tissue, revealed the conclusions he very reluctantly gave Professor Bauer. And one fine day Doctor Voigt left on a postal plane, without saying a word. That was very strange, because he hadn’t left any instructions for how to continue the experiments. Doctor Budden understood it later on that day, when he began to receive word of the alarming advance of the Red Army and the inefficiency of the German lines of defence. And as the primary medical authority in the camp, he decided that it was time to mop up everything with bleach. First, with the help of Barabbas, he spent five straight hours burning papers and photographs, destroying any documentary evidence that could lead to the suspicion that anyone at Birkenau had experimented on little girls who clung desperately to dirty rags. Not a trace of the pain inflicted because it was too impossible to be believed. All burned, Barabbas, and the simpleton still kept saying what a shame, so many hours and so much work going up in smoke. And neither of them thought of all the people who had also gone up in smoke, right there, two hundred metres from the laboratory. And the copies sent by the research department must be in some part of the Health Ministry, but who would go looking for them when the only important thing then was saving their hides.
Under the cover of night, his hands still blackened by smoke, he went into the guinea pigs’ bedroom with loyal Barabbas. Each child was in his or her bunk. He administered the injection into each of their hearts without any explanation. Except for that one boy who asked what the inje
ction was, and he told him it was to calm the pain in his knees. The others probably died knowing they were finally dying. The girl with the dark, dirty rag was the only one who received him wide awake, with those accusatory eyes. She also asked why. But she asked in a different way. She asked why and she looked him straight in the eye. Weeks of pain had stripped her of her fear and, sitting up in her bunk, she opened her shirt so Barabbas could find the perfect spot to inject her. But she stared at Doctor Budden and asked him why. This time it was he who, unwillingly, had to look away. Why. Waarom. She said it until her lips darkened, tinted by death. A seven-year-old girl who doesn’t despair in the face of death is a very desperate, very devastated girl. There is no other way to explain such composure. Waarom.
After leaving everything prepared to flee the Lager in the morning with several unassigned officers, for the first time in many months, Doctor Budden didn’t sleep well. It was the fault of the waarom. And those thin, darkening lips. And Oberscharführer Barabbas smiling and giving him an injection, without taking off his uniform, and smiling with his lips blackened by a death that never quite came because the dream continued.
In the morning, without making much noise and before Oberlagerführer Rudolf Höss realised, some twenty officers and subordinates, among them Budden and Barabbas, took off, headed anywhere that was far from Birkenau.
Both Barabbas and Doctor Budden were lucky because, taking advantage of the confusion, they were able to get far enough away from their work and the Red Army that they were able to pass themselves off to the British as soldiers coming from the Ukrainian front, anxious to see the war end so they could finally get home to their wives and children, if they were still alive. Doctor Budden had transformed into Tilbert Haensch, yes, from Stuttgart, Captain, and he had no documents to prove it because with the surrender, you know. I want to go back home, Captain.
‘Where do you live, Doctor Konrad Budden?’ asked the officer in charge of the interrogations, as soon as the other man had abandoned his claim.
