Confessions (62 page)

‘Good night, Mr Zimmermann. The first train for the north departs at six in the morning.’

‘Ffucking heat,’ said Mr Berenguer in response as he stood up and aimed the fan more directly onto himself.

Adrià, in a hushed voice – since he remembered how Mr Berenguer threatened Father when he was spying on them from behind the sofa – said, Mr Berenguer, I am the legitimate owner of the violin. And if they want to take this to court, they can, but I warn you that if they continue along this path, I will spill the beans and you’ll be left exposed.

‘As you wish. You have the same character as your mother.’

No one had ever told me that before. And I didn’t believe it when he did. Mostly I felt hatred for that man because he was the one who had caused Sara to fight with me. And he could say whatever balderdash he wanted to.

I stood up because I had to look tough if I wanted my words to be credible. By the time I’d stood up, I was already regretting everything I’d said and the way I was handling things. But Mr Berenguer’s amused expression made me decide to continue, albeit fearfully.

‘It’d be best if you don’t mention my mother. I understand she made you toe the line.’

I started to head back towards the door, thinking that I was a bit of an idiot: what had I got out of that visit? I hadn’t cleared up anything. I had merely made a unilateral declaration of war that I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to follow through on. But Mr Berenguer, walking behind me, lent me a hand: ‘Your mother was a horrid cunt who wanted to make my life
miserable. The day she died I opened up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne.’ I felt Mr Berenguer’s breath on the nape of my neck as we walked towards the door. ‘I drink a sip each day. It’s gone flat, but it forces me to think about ffucking Mrs Ardèvol, the horrid cunt.’ He sighed. ‘When I drink the last drop, then I can die.’

They reached the entrance and Mr Berenguer overtook him. He mimed drinking: ‘Every day, glug, down the hatch. To celebrate that the witch is dead and I’m still alive. As you can imagine, Ardèvol, your wife isn’t going to change her mind. Jews are so sensitive about some things …’

He opened the door.

‘I could reason with your father and he gave me freedom of movement for the good of the business. Your mother was a nag. Like all women: but with particular malice … And I – glug! – one sip down the hatch each and every day.’

Adrià went out onto the landing of the stairwell and turned to say some worthy phrase like you’ll pay dearly for these insults or something like that. But instead of Mr Berenguer’s sly smile, he found the dark varnish of the door that Mr Berenguer was slamming in his face.

That evening, alone at home, I tried the sonatas and the partitas. I didn’t need the score despite the years; but I would have liked to have other fingers. And Adrià, as he played the second sonata, began to cry because he was sad about everything. Just then Sara came in off the street. When she saw that it was me and not Bernat, she left again without even saying hello.

M
y sister died fifteen days after my conversation with Mr Berenguer. I didn’t know she was ill, just like had happened with my mother. Her husband told me that neither she nor anyone else had known either. She had just turned seventy-one and, even though I hadn’t seen her in a long time, lying in the coffin she looked to me like an elegant woman. Adrià didn’t know what he felt: grief, distance, something strange. He didn’t know which feeling he was experiencing. He was more worried about Sara’s anger than about how he felt about Daniela Amato de Carbonell, as the funeral card read.

I didn’t say Sara, my sister died. When Tito Carbonell called me to tell me that his mother had died, I was so focused on him possibly mentioning the violin that at first I didn’t understand what he was saying, and it was as simple as she is at the Les Corts funeral home, if you want to go, and we’re burying her tomorrow, and I hung up and I didn’t say Sara, my sister died because I think you would have said you have a sister? Or you wouldn’t have said anything, because in those days you and I weren’t on speaking terms.

In the funeral home, there were quite a few people. At the Montjuïc cemetery we were about twenty. Daniela Amato’s niche has a wonderful view of the sea. Not that it will do her any good, I heard someone say behind me, while the workers sealed up the niche. Cecília hadn’t shown up or she hadn’t been told or she was already dead. Mr Berenguer pretended he hadn’t seen me the entire time. And Tito Carbonell stood beside him as if he wanted to mark his territory. The only person who seemed perplexed and sad over her death was Albert Carbonell, who was debuting as a widower without having had time to get used to the idea of so much unexpected solitude. Adrià had only seen him a couple of times in
his life, but he felt some grief over the desolation of that man who had aged considerably. As we went down the long paths of the cemetery, Albert Carbonell approached me, took me by the arm and said thank you for coming.

‘It’s the least I could do. I’m so sad.’

‘Thank you. You might be the only one. The others are crunching numbers.’

We grew silent; the sound of the group’s footsteps on the dirt path, broken by whispers, by the occasional curse against Barcelona’s mugginess, by the odd cough that couldn’t be stifled, lasted until we reached where we had left our cars. And meanwhile, almost into my ear, as if he wanted to take advantage of the proximity, Albert Carbonell said watch it with that nosy parker Berenguer.

‘Did he work with Daniela in the shop?’

‘For two months. And Daniela threw him out on his ear. Since then they’ve hated each other and never missed the chance to show it.’

He paused, as if he were having trouble speaking and walking at the same time. I vaguely recalled that he was asthmatic. Or maybe I made that part up. Anyway, he continued, saying Berenguer is a crafty devil; he’s sick.

‘In what sense?’

‘There’s only one possible sense. He’s not right in the head. And he hates all women. He can’t accept that a woman is more intelligent than him. Or that she makes the decisions instead of him. That pains him and eats him up inside. Be careful that he doesn’t hurt you.’

‘Do you mean that he could?’

‘You never know with Berenguer.’

We said goodbye in front of Tito’s car. We shook hands and he said take care of yourself; Daniela spoke affectionately of you. It’s a shame you didn’t spend more time together.

‘As a boy I was in love with her for one whole day.’

I said it as he was getting into the car and I don’t know if he heard me. He waved vaguely from inside. I never saw him again. I don’t know if he’s still alive.

It wasn’t until I was right in the middle of the dense traffic
around the statue of Columbus covered in tourists taking photos of themselves, on my way home and wondering whether I should speak to you about it or not, that I realised that Albert Carbonell was the first person who didn’t call Mr Berenguer Mr Berenguer.

W
hen I opened the door, Sara could have asked me where are you coming from, and I, from burying my sister; and she, you have a sister? And I, yes, a half-sister. And she, well, you could have told me; and I, you never asked, we barely ever saw each other, you know. Why didn’t you tell me now, that she’d died? Because I would have had to tell you about your friend Tito Carbonell, who wants to steal the violin from me, and we would’ve had another argument. But when I opened the door to the house, you didn’t ask me where are you coming from and I didn’t respond from burying my sister and you couldn’t respond you have a sister? And then I realised that your suitcase was in the entryway. Adrià looked at it, surprised.

‘I’m going to Cadaqués,’ replied Sara.

‘I’ll come.’

‘No.’

She left without any explanation. It happened so fast that I wasn’t aware of the importance it would have for us both. When Sara was gone, Adrià, still disorientated, with his heart heavy and restless, opened Sara’s wardrobe and suddenly felt relieved: her clothes were still there. I thought that you must have just taken a few outfits.

S
ince he didn’t know what to do, Adrià didn’t do anything. He had been abandoned by Sara again; but now he knew why. And it was only a momentary escape. Momentary? To keep from thinking about it too much, he threw himself into his work, but he had trouble concentrating on what would be the definitive version of
Llull, Vico, Berlin, tres organitzadors de les idees,
a book with a dense title. He felt personally compelled to write it in order to distance himself from his
Història del pensament europeu,
which was weighing on him perhaps because he had dedicated many years to it, perhaps because he had much hope placed in it, perhaps because people he admired had made mention of it … The unity, one of the unities of the book, was created by the historical narrative. And he rewrote the three essays entirely. He had been working on that for months. I had begun, my beloved, the day when I saw on television the horrifying images of the building in Oklahoma City gutted by a bomb placed by Timothy McVeigh. I didn’t say anything to you about it because it’s better to do these things and then later, if necessary, talk about them. I got to work on it because I’ve always believed that those who kill in the name of something have no right to sully history. One hundred and sixty-eight deaths, caused by Timothy McVeigh. And much more grief and suffering not reflected in the statistics. In the name of what intransigence, Timothy? And, I don’t know how, I imagined another intransigent, of another sort of intransigence, asking him the question, why, Timothy, why such destruction when God is Love?

‘The American government can shove it up their ass.’

‘Timothy, son: what religion do you practise?’ interjected Vico.

‘Sticking it to the people who are screwing up the country.’

‘There is no such religion,’ Ramon Llull, patient. ‘There are three known religions, Timothy: namely, Judaism, which is a terrible error with apologies to Mr Berlin; Islam, which is the mistaken belief system of the infidel enemies of the church, and Christianity, which is the only just and true religion, because it is the religion of the Good God, who is Love.’

‘I don’t understand you, old man. I kill the government.’

‘And the forty children you killed are the government?’ Berlin, wiping his glasses with a handkerchief.

‘Collateral damage.’

‘Now I don’t understand.’

‘1:1’

‘What?’

‘One to one.’

‘The colonel who doesn’t stop the massacre of women and children,’ states Vico, ‘must go to jail.’

‘But not if he kills men?’ Berlin, mockingly, to his colleague, putting on his glasses.

‘Why don’t you three just all shove it up your ass, huh?’

‘This boy has a strange verbal obsession with the posterior,’ observed Llull, very perplexed.

‘All those who live by the sword, die by the sword, Timothy,’ Vico reminded him just in case. And he was going to say which verse of Matthew it was, but he couldn’t remember because it had all been too long ago.

‘Would you doddering old fogies mind fucking leaving me alone?’

‘They are going to kill you tomorrow, Tim,’ Llull pointed out.

‘168:1.’

And he began to fade out.

‘What did he say? Did you understand anything?’

‘Yes. One hundred and sixty-eight, colon, one.’

‘It sounds cabbalistic.’

‘No. This kid has never heard of the cabbala.’

‘One hundred and sixty-eight to one.’

Llull, Vico, Berlin
was a feverish book, written quickly, but it left me exhausted because each day, when I got up and when
I went to sleep, I opened Sara’s wardrobe and her clothes were still there. Writing under such circumstances is very difficult. And one day I finished writing it, which doesn’t mean that it was finished. And Adrià was overcome with a desire to throw all the pages off the balcony. But he just said Sara, ubi es? And then, after a few minutes in silence, instead of going out on the balcony, he made a pile of all the pages, put them on one corner of the table, said I’m going out, Little Lola, without realising that Caterina wasn’t there, and he headed to the university, as if it were the ideal place to distract himself.

‘What are you doing?’

Laura turned around. From the way she was walking, it looked as if she were taking measurements of the cloister.

‘Thinking. And you?’

‘Trying to distract myself.’

‘How’s the book?’

‘I just finished it.’

‘Wow,’ she said, pleased.

She took both of his hands in hers, but immediately pulled them away as if she’d been burned.

‘But I’m not at all convinced. It’s impossible to bring together three such strong personalities.’

‘Have you finished it or not?’

‘Well, yes. But now I have to read it all the way through and I’ll come up against many obstacles.’

‘So it’s not finished.’

‘No. It’s written. Now I just have to finish it. And I don’t know if it’s publishable, honestly.’

‘Don’t give in, coward.’

Laura smiled at him with that gaze that disconcerted him. Especially when she called him a coward because she was right.

Ten days later, in mid-July, it was Todó, with his deliberateness, who said hey, Ardèvol, are you going ahead with the book in the end or what. They were both looking out from the first floor of the sunny, half-empty cloister.

I have trouble writing because Sara is not around.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shit: if
you
don’t know …’

She’s not around: we aren’t speaking because of a damn violin.

‘I’m having trouble bringing together personalities that are so … so …’

‘Such strong personalities, yes: that’s the official version that everyone knows,’ interrupted Todó.

Why don’t you all just leave me alone, for fuck’s sake?

‘Official version? And how do people know, that I’m writing …’

‘You’re the star, mate.’

Bloody hell.

They were in silence for a long while. Ardèvol’s lengthy conversations were filled with silences, according to reliable sources.

‘Llull, Vico, Berlin,’ recited Todó, his voice arriving from a distance.

‘Yes.’

‘Shit. Vico and Llull, all right: but Berlin?’

No, no, please, leave me alone, you annoying fuck.

‘The desire to organise the world through scholarship: that is what unites them.’

‘Hey, that could be interesting.’

That’s why I wrote it, you bloody idiot, you’re making me swear and everything.

‘But I think it’s still going to take me some time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish it: you can consider that the official version.’

Todó leaned on the stone railing.

‘Do you know what?’ he said after a long pause. ‘I really hope you work it out.’ He looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘It’d do me good to read something like that.’

He patted him on the arm in a show of support and went towards his office, in the corner of the cloister. Below, a couple walked through the cloister holding hands, uninterested in the rest of the word, and Adrià envied them. He knew that when Todó had told him that it would do him good to read something like that, it wasn’t to butter him up and even less
because it would do his spirit good to read a book where the unlinkable was linked and he struggled to show that the great thinkers were doing the same thing as Tolstoy but with ideas. Todó’s spirit was featherweight and if he was yearning for a book that didn’t yet exist it was because he had been obsessed for years now with undermining Doctor Bassas’s position in their department and in the university, and the best way to do that was by creating new idols, in whatever discipline. If not for you, I would have even felt flattered to be used in other people’s power struggles. The violin belongs to my family, Sara. I can’t do that, because of my father. He died over this violin and now you want me to just give it away to some stranger who claims it’s his? And if you can’t understand that it’s because when it comes to Jewish matters, you don’t listen to reason. And you let yourself be hoodwinked by gangsters like Tito and Mr Berenguer. Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani.

In the deserted office, it suddenly came to him. Or, to put it better, he came to a decision all of a sudden. It must have been the euphoria of the half-finished book. He dialed a number and waited patiently as he thought please let her be there, let her be there, let her be there because otherwise … He looked at his watch: almost one. They must be having lunch.

‘Hello.’

‘Max, it’s Adrià.’

‘Hey.’

‘Can you put her on?’

Slight hesitation.

‘Let’s see. One sec.’

That meant she was there! She hadn’t run off to Paris, to the huitième arrondissement, and she hadn’t gone to Israel. My Sara was still in Cadaqués. My Sara hadn’t wanted to flee too far … On the other side of the line, still silence. I couldn’t even hear footsteps or any murmur of conversation. I don’t know how many eternal seconds passed. When a voice came on it was Max again: ‘Listen, she says that … I’m really sorry … She says to ask you if you’ve returned the violin.’

‘No: I want to talk to her.’

‘It’s that … Then she says … she says she doesn’t want to talk to you.’

Adrià gripped the phone very tightly. Suddenly, his throat was dry. He couldn’t find the words. As if Max had guessed that, he said I’m really sorry, Adrià. Really.

‘Thank you, Max.’

And he hung up as the office door opened. Laura looked surprised to find him there. In silence, she went over to her desk and shuffled through the drawers for a few minutes. Adrià had barely changed position, looking into the void, hearing Sara’s brother’s delicate words as if they were a death sentence. After a little while he sighed loudly and looked over at Laura.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked as she gathered some very thick folders, the kind she was always carrying around everywhere.

‘Of course. I’ll buy you lunch.’

I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t out of any sort of revenge. I think it was because I wanted to show Laura and the whole world that nothing was wrong, that everything was under control.

S
eated before Laura’s blue eyes and perfect skin, Adrià left half of his pasta on his plate. They had barely spoken. Laura filled his water glass and he made an appreciative gesture.

‘So, how’s everything going?’ said Adrià, putting on a friendly face as if they had lifted the conversation ban.

‘Well. I’m going to the Algarve for fifteen days.’

‘How nice. Todò is a bit loony, yeah?’

‘Why?’

They reached, after a few minutes, the conclusion that yes, a bit loony; and that it was best if you didn’t tell him anything about my book that doesn’t yet exist because there is nothing more unpleasant than writing knowing that everyone is on the edge of their seats wondering whether you will be able to tie together Vico and Llull and all that.

‘I talk too much, I know.’

And to prove it, she explained that she had met some really nice people and they were meeting up in the Algarve because they were bicycling all over the Iberian peninsula and

‘Are you a biker, too?’

‘I’m too old. I’m going to lie on a beach chair. To disconnect from the dramas in the department.’

‘And flirt a bit.’

She didn’t answer. She glanced at him to convey that I was going too far, because women have an ability to understand things that I’ve always envied.

W
hat do I know, Sara? But this is how it went. In Laura’s flat, which was tiny but always spick and span, there was a controlled disorder that was particularly concentrated in the bedroom. A disorder that wasn’t chaotic in the least, the disorder of someone about to go on a trip. Clothing in piles, shoes lined up, a couple of tourist guides and a camera. Like a cat and a dog, they carefully watched each other’s moves.

‘Is it one of the electronic ones?’ said Adrià, picking up the camera suspiciously.

‘Uh-huh. Digital.’

‘You’re always into the latest thing.’

Laura took off her shoes, standing, and put on some sort of flip-flops that were very flattering.

‘And you must use a Leica.’

‘I don’t have a camera. I never have.’

‘And your memories?’

‘Here.’ Adrià pointed to his head. ‘They never break down. And they’re always here when I need them.’

I said it without irony because I can’t predict anyone’s future.

‘I can take two hundred photos, with this.’ She took the camera from him with a gesture that strove to conceal her impatience and put it down on the night table, beside the telephone.

‘Bravo,’ he said, uninterested.

‘And then I can put them into my computer. I look at them more there than in an album.’

‘Bravissimo. But for that you need a computer.’

Laura stood before him, defiant.

‘What?’ she said, her hands on her hips. ‘Now you want a lecture on the quality of digital photos?’

Adrià looked into those oh so blue eyes and embraced her. They held each other for a long time and I cried a little bit. Luckily, she didn’t notice.

‘Why are you crying?’

‘I’m not crying.’

‘Liar. Why are you crying?’

B
y mid afternoon they had turned the bedroom’s disorder into chaos. And they spent close to an hour lying down, looking at the ceiling. Laura studied Adrià’s medallion.

‘Why do you always wear it?’

‘Just because.’

‘But you don’t believe in …’

‘It’s a reminder.’

‘A reminder of what?’

‘I don’t know.’

Then the telephone rang. It rang on the bedside table next to Laura’s side of the bed. They looked at each other, as if wanting to ask, in some sort of guilty silence, whether they were expecting any call. Laura didn’t move, with her head on Adrià’s chest, and they both heard how the telephone, monotonously, insisted, insisted, insisted. Adrià stared at Laura’s hair, expecting her to reach for it. Nothing. The telephone kept ringing.