Jaume Cabré - Winter Journey

"1 have to check the drinks. I thought nobody was here."

"Entrez, entrez," he said, resigned. And he pointed to the little bottles of whisky and held up three fingers, even though he was Two.

The maid didn't protest, strangely enough, put three little bottles on the table, filled the minibar with other drinks, showed her nice solid ass and left right away with one last golden smile for Two. It was only a few seconds later when there was another knock at the door.

It was a tall woman with black hair and… He'd seen her and couldn't remember where. Oh, yeah.

"Come on in."

Now he remembered. He'd seen her last night in the dining room. So basically she worked this hotel. She was really very pretty.

He sat up in bed, put out the cigarrette and helped her out of the tiny jacket she was wearing. Without asking her if she wanted a drink, he made two whiskies on the rocks and thought of her nude. He smiled happily.

"What's your name?"

"Katty."

"Here."

She took the glass obediently, took a sip for his benefit and smiled. She obviously wanted to get down to work. But he wasn't in any hurry. So, he pointed to her purse:

"Hey, do you have any cigarettes?"

"I don't smoke."

"Well, it doesn't matter."

Two was very sure of himself with a pistol in his hand. But other times he was all thumbs. He had a good time anyway, didn't want to know how it was for her, and afterwards they lay there for a while, nude, quiet, remembering and dreaming. Then Two couldn't stand it any more and said, Wait, I'll be right back.

"Now where are you going?"

"For cigarettes. It'll just take a minute. 1 saw a machine right out…"

But he was already out of the room, barefoot, wearing only his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, with a handful of change. Katty, from the bed, made a face to show how she felt about people who just had to smoke. Two didn't see it because he was at the other end of the hall fumbling with the coins, because he never knew which was which. Okay, how about some of these light American ones, since they don't have anything else that… That's cutting it close. Hard to believe that the change he'd grabbed was exactly enough. When he'd put in the last coin, and before he pressed the button to make the pack drop, something threw him against the machine. A few seconds later he heard a deafening noise. He looked over his shoulder, afraid, but could see only smoke, though he understood exactly what had happened. Two ran away, down the stairs, and when he realized what he was doing, he was already out on the street in a city he didn't know, wearing pajama bottoms, barefoot, and with no cigarrettes. The explosion that had destroyed his future, the refrigerator, the room and Katty, hadn't gone poc but boom.

'd never felt so desolate as at that very important moment in my life when the subway train had racketed down the tunnel and the passengers had made for the exit like nervous ants, and 1 was alone on the platform in Majorstuen station with nobody around me, and 1 started to hear somebody whistling. At first 1 didn't catch it, but pretty soon 1 recognized one of the themes from Finlandia, by Sibelius. Sibelius in the subway? Whistled? 1 took the first exit, the ant one. Nothing, completely empty. Just those white tiles, like in a bathroom, in a pointlessly lighted tunnel. Where was the music coming from? I took a few steps, completely forgetting that I had an appointment in ten minutes for the interview that was supposed to get my life on track, if that was possible. Three years ago 1'd run away from home when 1 realized that if 1 didn't do something about it, in a week 1 was going to marry a woman who didn't give a shit about me. 1 got on a train, holding my breath, without looking back, without even thinking about my mother, and when 1 let out my breath I was in Copenhagen feeling envious of how organized those people were and learning first-hand all about the high cost of living. Maybe that's why 1 took the ferry to Norway, 1 don't know. 1 had to get away, friends, far away from complaints and curses from the family and from Sonia. Norway. The first taste was Oslo. 1 got off the ferry, found a very expensive and crummy hostel in the center of town, and have stayed there ever since. It's not easy to arrive in Oslo without knowing a word of Norwegian, or Danish, or Swedish, or English. You feel like retreating into your shell. In other words, 1 had to live off charming smiles and a kind of Latin-lover thing that a lot of women seem to like. And a lot of men. Two months washing dishes in a Pizza Hut and then three months as a cook's helper in a sort of Italian restaurant. I didn't do it for the money. I did it to keep from retreating into my shell. After those jobs I spoke really bad Norwegian, which made the natives like me even more.

Norwegians are really something, friends. They're innocent in this kind of charming way. They think everybody's like them. They believe that nobody would ever invade anybody else's privacy, or harm his neighbor. They hadn't met me. It's not that I'm dishonest, but if 1 see thirty purses lying around in the entrance to the Munch museet, full of wallets and IDs and keys just crying out to change hands, first 1 think, Don't do it, Quiquin. And 1 don't. But, come on, you see the purses every day, and every day you think, Don't do it, until finally you've had enough and one day 1 did it and found out that stealing, in Norway, is a piece of cake. 1 didn't steal for the money; let's say 1 did it for art's sake, to get inside those Norwegian heads, where their brains are half frozen from living so far up north.

And, hey, how about the day that Pere Bros, that ass kisser, came to the Universitetets Aula, just before he packed it in? He did the Spring (saccharine), the Kreutzer (self-indulgent) and the Franck (perfect), with that idiot Gidon Kremer on the violin, and I made out like a bandit. Literally, friends. Because the Norwegians are so Norwegian that instead of a cloakroom, the Universitetets Aula just has some hooks in the hall. I'm not kidding, friends. So they can't complain, because when Kremer and Bros were working their way through the andante of the opus 24, 1 said to myself, Quiquin, go take a piss because this is getting boring. So 1 go out and there's all these coats saying, Come on, Quiquin, do it. 1 went back in the middle of the Kreutzer happy, because when it comes to providing employment to thieves, the Norwegians are real professionals.

1 didn't spend a single night, friends, thinking about home. Despite the fact that my mother would still send me money every month, on the sly. Mother love. Even my father didn't know 1 was in Oslo. One day 1 called home when 1 knew my mother would be alone, and described as much of my life as 1 could and asked for my allowance, as if 1 were still in Barcelona. I said 1 had to go to concerts and live, 1 don't know, like an educated person. Pretending to cry when she asked me why I'd left Sonia when the Quadras were such nice people was probably a bit much. But what was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to say, Mother, l don't want to marry somebody who laughs at me because my thing is too little? Was 1 supposed to say, Mother, I don't want to marry a pig who says she doesn't like the Stones or Jethro Tull or Monteverdi or any kind of music? Crying was the best option. Well done, Quiquin, because since we had that awful conversation, Mother puts out every month. Result: 1 allow myself, once in a while, to think about my mother. And only about my mother. Because if 1 start remembering Sonia or my father or the rest of the family, if they show up in my head all by themselves, 1 just look north, as if threatening to go to Lapland or even the North Pole to freeze out those family memories forever. This tunnel had a bend at the end where maybe… No: at the end the same antiseptic white tiles all lined up with nobody there. Brad Pitt was looking scornfully down from a billboard and refusing to tell me where the mysterious music was coming from, but Sibelius sounded the same, neither closer nor farther away, down there in the subway. Next to Brad Pitt, a picture of a beach that could've been Salou informed the citizens of Oslo that Israel was the perfect place for a vacation, with personal safety absolutely guaranteed by the trademark Israeli efficiency. 1 took a good look, because it really did look like Salou. You could practically see the Segarra tower! Can you imagine passing Salou off as Israel? According to those swindlers, Salou was a charming Israeli tourist town called Dor, with little boats, nets, happy fishermen, starfish and a casino. Beautiful scenery, beaches, a port where the environment and its traditional fisheries and gastronomy strill thrive. Discover the friendly face of Israel. You'll love it. 1 turned away from this fraud and found myself on the same platform where 1'd gotten off. Finlandia was still bouncing off the tiles, almost mockingly. Until the arrival of another train covered up all the melodies in the world, and the doors opened to vomit out a hundred imprisoned citizens who, probably, couldn't care less about Sibelius. it isn't that 1 was particularly interested in Sibelius; it's that 1 have a musical gift that's a pain in the ass: l hear any kind of music and 1 absolutely have to listen to it. And I memorize it and remember it forever and ever. There's too much music inside of me, and I try to keep it confined to my stomach. But when it decides to play inside my head, there's nothing 1 can do except go crazy. So 1 waited until the station emptied out, but then the enfuriating thing was that the music was gone. It seemed like, I'm not completely sure, but it seemed like in some rugged corner of that labyrinth somebody, like the Phantom of the Opera, was stifling a snicker. My mind was so far away with that shadowy apparition that 1 wasn't even shocked when 1 looked at my watch: 1 was already shamelessly late for my interview with Dr. Werenskiold, friends, and there 1 was thinking about Sibelius deep underground. Half confused, half embarrassed by the snicker but not by being late, 1 headed for the exit and the government building where 1 was supposed to find the solution to all of my material and spititual problems. I'm not kidding, friends, 1 felt like strangling that snickerer.