Jaume Cabré - Winter Journey

The second time he took his name off the emigration list, he realized he would never be able to leave Israel, because of the memory of the deaths he'd caused. And then, the day after his birthday, he looked for a long time at the Mediterranean, his adoptive sea, and decided that now he could visit the crypt of the memory of the camps. He chose the day when there was the least traffic, and for two hours he stared at the flame of Yad va-Shem that was the life of his family, broken by him. The name of Treblinka carved in the ground made his head hurt because of that cough, the cough that gave them away, and it was his fault. And he'd been able to carry out only one part of the pact; he'd stayed in Israel. But he had no children; he'd never married; he hadn't had the energy to make his loved ones live on in his children. And he knew that now it was too late to think about such a thing. His soul wept looking at the flame, and not once did his mind turn to the merciful Lord, because he and God hadn't talked for forty years. After he went back to Dor, good citizen ltshak Lodzer looked at the sea from his balcony, picked up the regulation army pistol and, convinced that at his age he could speculate about nothingness, lay down on the bed, waited patiently for the compassionate darkness to cover everything with its discretion, and put the gun in his mouth, as he remembered his father doing. But he didn't smile, because he had no son to deceive. If he was incapable of honoring the whole pact, at least he could join them. Maybe because the metal was cold or because he was afraid of his own act, a cough betrayed him, he had an irresistible attack of coughing. But now he didn't have the body of his mother to press against so Hell wouldn't hear him. Some strange scruple made him wait until the coughing stopped and the silence of great moments was restored. And he fired, forty years after the first cough, with the hope that sorrow could no longer hurt him.

orresco referens, said Saint John before the Seventh Seal, and 1 say the same, friends, now that, after a period of intense training, I am at home in the Truth, the Here and Now, the best site, the right place at the right time, surrounded by bird shit and stink, which the Lord has provided expressly for me, the Returnee. The Lord has given me shelter and put me right up front, with a generous no-man's-land and lots of noisy traffic between me and them. And a nice breeze to make up for how sticky and hot it's been.

I'm going to go back, friends, only a few weeks. The whole thing started when Miqui told me it was a piece of cake. That's what he told me: a piece of cake, Quiquin. If 1'd known then how 1 was going to suffer, 1 would've gone looking for Miqui at his Israeli beach house in Salou and hauled him by the balls into the Here and Now, so he could see what I'm going through. He'd shit in his pants because he's a person who's scared to death of death. So the whole thing began when 1 spent an entire afternoon and evening building myself up, as patiently as that masochist Job. And pumping yourself up is a bad idea. A hell of a bad idea. Inside you're reciting the prayer that says, I'll show you guys how to make plans, you assholes. But the damage is done. And it's so bad you have no other choice.

it's easy to pick up girls, that jerk Miqui told me. So 1 thought, okay, and 1 went into the Cafe de la Mirada looking around, ready to party, 1 mean with good intentions, to get some, you know. The first one 1 saw was pudgy, with a very short skirt, and she really knew how to handle that tray full of stuff, and amazingly she knew how to keep from tripping on the steps, because the place is all up and down.

I sniff Crimson, Lord, and that's the greatest pleasure that Life in the Here and Now can bring. 1 sniff Crimson through my blessed Hearing and everybody, thanks to the Walkman, is absent lovers and everybody is Kerouac and Cassidy driving around in Paris. Life is beautiful and so I want to tip my hat to Fate: the girl is right for me. Come on, Quiqu1n, don't screw up, get off to a good start; keep your hand steady; perfect, she's mine, she's mine. Bingo. BINGO, Quiquin. She's perfect. I'm in the right place. Miqui, Mom, if you could only see me.

1 did trip, on the first stair, because there's no light in the place, which 1 think they do to save money. She walked past me saying to herself, three Cokes, a SevenUp, two drafts, as if it were a litany, three stuffed olives, ora pro nobis, an order of anchovies, ora pro nobis, turris eburnea, four beers. She didn't even look at me. 1 didn't like that. That pushes my buttons, but 1 was being patient, see. 1 didn't even do anything, l just damned Miqui to hell. That's all 1 did then. But it really gets to me when they act like I'm not even there.

1 sat down at the first empty table I saw and I was already pissed off because the illegal immigrant in charge of ambience had put on shitty Heroin like this was the Factory and those assholes were inviting everybody to Direct Intravenous Perdition. Hearing Velvet makes me want to throw up. It was a bad beginning, friends, way too seventies. It was time to get out of there. But I stayed. That's why the whole thing started, because 1 stayed. With Velvet boring into my ears. Why the hell did 1 have to go through all that if all 1 wanted was to pick up a girl? And on top of everything else, the socalled music was too loud. 1 hate it loud because then you have to pay attention to the music and you can't get into the pickup thing. If it were up to me, 1'd burn down all the discos with the Communists, teenagers, street people, disc jockeys and Bosnians inside. All of them. If 1 have to spend so many hours there, they should turn down the volume, right? Or turn it off, for God's sake, before 1 lose it because 1 have sensitive ears and all those decibels just drill their way into my brain as if 1'd spent the whole day on a cell phone. That's why I'm so sensitive to background music and 1 turn right around and get off the elevator if it's playing Mozart and 1 refuse to get on planes. Well, I've only been on a plane in the Return to the Promised Land episode. And when they'd had enough of the Velvet Underground, because it was going on and on, he goes for contrast and puts on Finlandia by Sibelius, which is even more retro. Like we were in the metro, and this was the perfect time and place to listen to that drivel. I felt like killing the person in charge of ambience, of choosing the music, right there. If there is somebody responsible, because sometimes things just happen, for no reason, just because. Thinking about that just wears me out. It irritates me, it wounds my sensibility that they don't know that what gives a place style, especially if it's new, like the Cafe de la Mirada, is something like King Crimson. And people weren't even paying attention, as if they couldn't even hear the music. People are really something, you play the soundtrack of their lives and nothing, they don't give a shit. For a minute 1 felt like killing all of them. But then 1 got myself under control. 1'd only been in the place for four minutes and thirteen seconds and things were going downhill fast. It was very hard to control myself because the place was full of old people, Bosnians, hippies, Norwegians and homeless, nobody normal like me. That's when she appeared. Slender, wearing just enough eye makeupyou have to describe everything-blondish, with a smile on her lips and gum between her teeth lighting up her mouth, which I would have planted a kiss on then and there, but 1 just held on, like Saint George before the Dragon of Temptation… because when I'm good I'm very, very good. She still didn't know that I was beginning to pump myself up. The girl, with a tray in one hand and a cloth in the other, goes and leans over and lets me see her promising cleavage, and then 1 thought, Hey, Miqui, you're right, it is fucking easy, and 1 picked up on her smile and said, What's up, and she winked at me and said, What'll you have, sir?