by Jaume Cabré
Sara, last night I found your slip of paper with the name. Matthias Alpaerts, it says. And he lives in Antwerp. But do you know what? I don’t trust your source, not in the least. It is a source corrupted by Mr Berenguer and Tito’s resentment. Mr Berenguer is a thief who only wants revenge on my father, my mother and me. And he’s used you for his ends. Let me think it over. I have to know … I’m not sure; I promise you, I’m doing what I can, Sara.
I know you want to kill me, Sandre, even though you call me dear and you buy me noodles. I know what you did because I dreamt it. They told me that I was in a coma for five days. For me, those five days were a crystal-clear, slow-motion vision of the accident: I was looking at you in the dark because you’d been very strange for several days, a bit elusive, nervous, always lost in thought. The first thing that a woman thinks when her husband is like that is that there’s another woman he’s thinking of; the ghost of the other woman. Yes, that’s the first thing you think; but I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine you cheating on me. And the first day I said out loud help, I think my husband wants to kill me; help, I think he wants to kill me because he made a strange face in the car and he took off his seat belt and he said that’s it, and I Saandreeee, son of a biiiiiiitccccccccccch, and after a slow dream that repeated everything until, it seems, five days had passed. I no longer know what I’m saying. Yes, that’s the first time I dared to say out loud that I think you want to kill me, no one paid me any mind, as if they didn’t believe me. But then they looked at me, and this Dora told me what are you saying, I can’t understand you; when it was clear as day that I was saying I think my husband wants to kill me, now shamelessly, and panicking over another fear: that no one believed me or paid me any mind. It is like being buried alive. It’s terrible, Sandre, this. I look into your eyes and you don’t hold my gaze: what must you be planning? Why don’t you tell me what you say to the others that you won’t tell me? What do you want? For me to tell you to your face that I think you wanted to kill me, that I think you want to kill me? That I tell you, holding your gaze, that I believe you want to kill me, because I am in the way of your life and it’s easier to just get rid of me like snuffing out a candle than to have to explain? At this point, Sandre … I don’t think I need any explanations; but don’t blow out my flame: I don’t want to die. I am stock-still and buried in this shell and all I have left is a weak flame. Don’t take that from me. Go, divorce me, but don’t snuff out my flame.
Àgata left the house when the scents of the first suppers were timidly rising in the stairwell. Her legs were still shaking. Out on the streets he was greeted by the stench of a bus. She went straight towards the metro. She had looked a killer in the eyes and it was quite an experience. That is if Mr Roig was a killer. He was. And when she was about to go down the stairs, the killer himself, with his eyes like daggers, came up beside her and said miss, please. She stopped, terrified. He gave her a shy smile, ran a hand through his hair and said, ‘What do you think, about my wife’s state?’
‘Not good.’ What else could she say?
‘Is it true that there is no hope of recovery?’
‘Unfortunately … Well, I …’
‘But the process of myoma is solvable, from what they’ve told me.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So you also believe that it has a solution.’
‘Yes, sir. But I …’
‘If you’re a nurse, I’m the pope in Rome.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘What were you doing at my house?’
‘Look, I’m in a hurry right now.’
What does one do in such cases? What does the killer who realises that someone is sticking their nose in his business do? What does the victim who isn’t entirely sure if the killer is a killer do? They both hesitated for a few seconds like real dummies. Then it occurred to Àgata to say farewell and she took off down the stairs, and Professor Roig, planted there in the middle of the stairwell, didn’t really know what to do. Àgata went down to the platform. Just then a train arrived. Once she was inside it, she turned towards the door and looked: no, that madman hadn’t followed her. She didn’t breathe easily until the carriage doors closed.
At night, in the dark, so he wouldn’t have to bear her gaze. At night, as she pretended to be sleeping, Gertrud made out the shadow of cowardly Sandre and smelled the sofa cushion, which, when her life was alive, she would put behind her head to watch TV comfortably. And she even still had time to think Sandre chose the cushion, like Tiberius did to murder Augustus. It won’t take much because I’m already half dead, but you should know that you’re even more of a coward than you are a bastard. You haven’t even been able to look me in the eye and say goodbye. And Gertrud couldn’t think anything more because the spasm of the smothering was more intense than life itself and in an instant it transformed into death.
Dora put a hand on his back and said Mr Ardèvol, go rest. That’s an order.
Adrià woke up and turned, surprised. The light in the room was tenuous and Mignon’s gardenias gave off a magic brilliance. And Sara slept and slept and slept. Dora and a stranger kicked him out of the hospital. And Dora put a pill to help him sleep into his hand, and, mechanically, he got the metro at the Clínic stop while Professor Alexandre Roig, at the entrance to the Verdaguer metro stop, met up with a girl who could have been his daughter, who was surely a student, and the best detective of them all, Elm Gonzaga, hired by the three brave women, followed them ever so discreetly after having captured their kiss with a camera like Laura’s, digital or whatever they’re called, and all three waited on the platform until the train arrived and the happy couple entered the carriage along with the detective, and at Sagrada Família Friar Nicolau Eimeric and Aribert Voigt got on, chatting excitedly about the big ideas that were going through their heads, and seated in one corner, Doctor Müss or Budden was reading Kempis and looking out the window into the darkness of the tunnel, and at the other end of the carriage, dressed in the Benedictine habit, Brother Julià of Sant Pere del Burgal was dozing off. Standing beside him, Jachiam Mureda of Pardàc was looking, with wide eyes, at the new world around him, and surely he was thinking of all the Muredas and of poor Bettina, his little blind sister. And next to him was a frightened Lorenzo Storioni who didn’t understand what was going on and clung to the pole in the centre of the carriage to keep from falling. The train stopped at the Hospital de Sant Pau station, a few passengers got out and Guillaume-François Vial got on, decked out in his moth-eaten wig and chatting with Drago Gradnik, who was more corpulent than I ever could have imagined and had to duck his head to get into the carriage, and whose smile reminded me of Uncle Haïm’s serious expression, even though in the portrait Sara made of him he wasn’t smiling. And the train started up again. Then I realised that Matthias, Berta the Strong, Truu, the one with hair brown as wood from the forest, Amelietje with her jet-black hair, Juliet, the littlest, blonde like the sun, and brave Netje de Boeck, the mother-in-law with a chest cold, were talking, near the end of the carriage, with Bernat. With Bernat? Yes. And with me, who was also in the train carriage. And they were telling us about the last train trip they’d taken together, in a sealed carriage, and Amelietje was showing her the nape of her neck, wounded by the rifle blow, you see, you see?, to Rudolf Höss, who was seated alone, looking at the platform, and wasn’t very interested in looking at her bump. And the girl’s lips already had the dark colour of death, but her parents didn’t seem to mind much. They were all young and fresh except for Matthias, who was old, with weepy eyes and slow reflexes. It seemed they were looking at him suspiciously, as if they had difficulty accepting or forgiving their father’s old age. Especially Berta the Strong’s gaze, which was sometimes reminiscent of Gertrud’s, or no, a bit different. And we reached Camp de l’Arpa, where Fèlix Morlin got on, chatting animatedly with Father: it had been so many years since I’d seen my father that I could barely make out his face, but I know that it was him. Behind him was Sheriff Carson accom
panied by his loyal friend Black Eagle, both very silent, making an effort not to look at me. I saw that Carson was about to spit on the floor of the train carriage, but valiant Black Eagle stopped him with a brusque gesture. The train was stopped, I don’t know why, with the doors of every carriage open. Mr Berenguer and Tito still had time to enter leisurely, by the arm I think. Lothar Grübbe hesitated just as he was stepping inside the carriage, and Mother and Little Lola, who came up behind, helped him finally make up his mind. And as the doors started to close, Alí Bahr ran in, forcing them open slightly, all alone without infamous Amani. The doors closed completely, the train started off and when we’d already been in the tunnel towards La Sagrera for thirty seconds, Alí Bahr planted himself in the middle of the carriage and started shouting like a wild man, take away, Merciful Lord, all this carrion! He opened his jellabah, shrieked Allahu Akbar! and pulled on a cord that emerged from his clothes and everything became luminously white and none of us could see the immense ball of
Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes. It was Caterina, leaning over him.
‘Adrià! Can you hear me?’
It took him a few seconds to situate himself because his sleepiness came from very far away. She insisted: ‘Can you hear me, Adrià?’
‘Yes, what’s wrong?’
Instead of telling him that they’d just called from the hospital or that he had a call from the hospital or even that he had an urgent call, or perhaps even better, instead of saying the phone is for you and going off to iron, which was an unbeatable excuse, Caterina, always anxious to be in the front row, repeated Adrià, can you hear me, and I, yes, what’s wrong, and she, Saga woke up.
Then I did wake up completely and instead of thinking she’s awake, she’s awake, I thought and I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t there. Adrià got out of bed without realising that he was in the nude, and Caterina, with a quick glance, criticised his excessive belly but saved her comment for another occasion.
‘Where?’ I said, disorientated.
‘On the telephone.’
Adrià picked up the receiver in his study: it was Doctor Real herself, who said she’s opened her eyes and begun to speak.
‘In what language?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Can you understand her?’ and without waiting for a reply: ‘I’ll be right there.’
‘We need to speak before you see her.’
‘Fine. I’ll be right there.’
If not for Caterina, who stood square in front of the door to the stairwell, I would have gone to the hospital in the buff, because I hadn’t even realised the incidental circumstances, totally overcome by happiness as I was. Adrià showered, crying, dressed crying and laughing, and went to the hospital laughing, and Caterina locked the apartment when she had finished with the laundry and said this man cries when he should cry and laughs when he should cry.
The skinny doctor with a slightly wrinkled face had him come into some sort of an office.
‘Hey, I just want to say hello to her.’
‘One moment, Mr Ardèvol.’
She had him sit down. She sat down in her spot and looked at him in silence.
‘What’s wrong?’ Adrià grew frightened. ‘She’s all right, yeah?’
Then the doctor said what he had been so fearing; she said I don’t know if you are a believer or not, but there’s been a miracle here; the Lord has listened to your prayers.
‘I’m not a believer,’ I said. ‘And I don’t pray,’ I lied.
‘Your wife is not going to die. Although, the injuries …’
‘My God.’
‘Yes.’
‘On one hand we have to wait and see how the stroke has affected her.’
‘Yeah.’
‘The problem is that there are other problems.’
‘What problems?’
‘We’ve been noticing, in the last few days, some flaccid paralysis, do you understand me?’
‘No.’
‘Yes. And the neurologist ordered a CAT scan and we found a fracture of the sixth cervical vertebra.’
‘What does that all mean?’
Doctor Real leaned imperceptibly and changed the inflection of her voice: ‘That Sara has a serious spinal cord injury.’
‘Does that mean that she’s paralytic?’
‘Yes.’ After a brief silence, in a lower voice: ‘Quadriplegic.’
With the prefix ‘quadri-’, which means ‘four’, and the suffix ‘-plegic’, from the word plēgē, which means ‘blow’ and also ‘affliction’, they had described Sara’s state. My Sara is afflicted by four blows. What would we do without Greek? We would be unable to take in or understand the great tragedies of humankind.
I couldn’t turn my back on God because I didn’t believe in God. I couldn’t punch Doctor Real in the face because it wasn’t her fault. I could only cry out to the heavens saying I wasn’t there and I could have saved her; if I had been there, she wouldn’t have gone out into the stairwell, she would have fallen on the floor and just got a cut on her head and that’s it. And I was fucking Laura.
They let him see Sara. She was quite sedated and could barely open her eyes. He thought she was smiling at him. He told her that he loved her very, very, very much, and she half-opened her mouth but said nothing. Four or five days passed. Mignon’s gardenias were his loyal companions as they slowly woke her up. Until one Friday, the psychologist and the neurologist, with Doctor Real, refused to let me in with them and they spent a long hour in Sara’s room, with Dora keeping watch like Cerberus the hellhound. And I cried in some sort of waiting room and when they came out they didn’t let me go in to give her a kiss until not a trace of my tears remained on my face. And as soon as she saw me she didn’t say I’d love a cup of coffee, she said I want to die, Adrià. And I felt like a stupid idiot, with that bouquet of white roses in my hand and a smile frozen on my face.
‘My Sara,’ I ended up saying.
She looked at me, serious, without saying anything.
‘Forgive me.’
Nothing. I think she swallowed some saliva with difficulty. But she didn’t say anything. Like Gertrud.
‘I’ll give back the violin. I have the name.’
‘I can’t move.’
‘Well, listen. That’s now. We’ll have to see if …’
‘They’ve already told me. Never again.’
‘What do they know?’
Despite everything, she gave a hint of a resigned smile when she heard my response.
‘I won’t ever be able to draw again.’
‘But can’t you move one finger?’
‘Yes, this one. And that’s it.’
‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’
She didn’t dignify my question with an answer. To dispel the uncomfortable silence, Adrià continued, in a falsely cheerful tone: ‘First we have to talk to all the doctors. Isn’t that right, Doctor?’
Adrià turned towards Doctor Real who had just come into the room, he still with the bouquet of flowers in his hand, as if he wanted to offer them to the newcomer.
‘Yes, of course,’ said the doctor.
And she took the bouquet, as if it were for her. Sara closed her eyes as if she were infinitely weary.
54
Bernat and Tecla were the first to visit her. Flummoxed, they didn’t know what to say. Sara wasn’t up for smiling or joking. She said thank you for coming and didn’t open her mouth again. I kept saying as soon as we can we’ll go back home and we’ll set it up so she’ll be real comfortable; but she looked up at the ceiling, flat on her back, and didn’t even bother to smile. And Bernat, exaggerating his excitement, said you know what, Sara?, I was in Paris with the quartet and I played in the same Pleyel chamber hall, the medium-sized one, where Adrià played a million years ago.
‘Oh, really?’ Adrià, surprised.
‘Yeah.’
‘And how’d you know I played there?’
‘You told me.’
Should we have
told him that that was where you and I met? Because of Master Castells and your auntie, whose name escapes me now? Or should we keep it to ourselves?
‘You could say that that was where we met, Sara and I.’
‘Oh, really? That’s lovely,’ pointing to Mignon’s gardenias.
Tecla, meanwhile, approached Sara and put a hand on her cheek. For a long while she caressed her, in silence, as Bernat and I tried to pretend that everything was going swimmingly. Stupid, stupid Adrià hadn’t even realised; if he wanted her to, if he wanted Sara to, if he wanted her to feel him, he had to touch her face and not her dead hands. They aren’t dead. Well, then sleeping.
Later, when they were alone, Adrià put a hand on her cheek and she rebuffed him with a very brusque gesture, filled with silence.
‘You’re angry with me.’
‘I have bigger problems than being angry with you.’
‘Sorry.’
They were silent. Our life was beginning to have broken glass all over the floor and we could get hurt.
At night, at home, with the balconies open because of the heat, Adrià wandered like a ghost, not knowing what he had to do and indignant with himself because, after so much grief, deep down he had the feeling that he was the victim. It was very hard for me to get that there was only one victim: you. So, two or three days later, I sat by your side, I took your hand, I noticed its lack of sensitivity, I delicately put it back where it was, I placed my fingertips on your cheek and I said Sara, I am working on returning the violin to its owners. She didn’t respond to my half-truth, but she didn’t rebuff my fingers. After five infinite minutes of silence, and from deep inside, she said thank you in a thin voice and I felt the tears about to stream from my eyes, but I stifled them in time because I knew that, in that hospital room, I had no right to cry.
