Jaume Cabré: Winter Journey

Second variation: the knowlegeable members of the audience were exchanging even more worried glances, and a deep, clear voice from the thirteenth row could be heard saying, 1 don't know what this guy's playing, but it's bullshit.

Third variation: three people get up. Rows four and eight. They stand there for a few seconds to express their disapproval of this lack of respect for Schubert. This bold move prompts seven or eight other people to stand up, in various places in the hall. For a few seconds it looks as if the representatives of a majestic parliament are voting in the traditional way. But Pere Bros wasn't counting the votes because he was deeply involved with the fourth variation, a movement that imitated four voices, almost a minuet. And many of the representatives called for silence and asked the other members of the chamber to refrain from rowdiness and listen, because it was beautiful. It wasn't Schubert, true, but it was beautiful.

By the fifth variation, the board of the Auditori was meeting in room 2A of the lobby with Bros's agent to talk about what the hell you can do when these things happen. Thus they came to the seventh variation, fairly short, very pianistic, a recapitulation, very showy and, yes, it was something you just had to listen to.

"Does anybody know what this is?"

"No idea. But it's very nice."

"1 once heard something like this by Berio."

"No, come on. Ligeti. It's Ligeti, but 1 don't know what."

"Pardo, isn't there anything you can do about this?"

"What do you want me to do? Go out on stage and drag him off?"

"You think it's Ligeti?"

"Yeah, or somebody like that."

"I'm going to sue him. For breach of contract."

"Are you okay, Pardo? Here, hold him up… Call a doctor,

right away."

"Christ, what a day."

Ligeti or somebody like that, or whoever it was, went right from the last variation to a repetition of the theme, almost like a shy and delicate joke, and the story ended as it had begun. And at the end, the five notes of the theme, naked, sad, and silence.

Pere Bros got up, pale from audacity and exertion. But it was a thousand times easier to play something that wasn't Schubert in front of Schubert. Now he could look right at him. All of a sudden he realized that Schubert, in seat seven, was on his feet and applauding enthusiastically. The audience, though, was silent. Franz Schubert smiled while continuing to applaud and Bros noticed that he had a tooth missing. Still no sound from the audience. All of a sudden, from the back balcony, far away, there was amber clapping, energetic and sweet at the same time, as if that person, whoever it was, wanted to express sympathy with the invisible and silent Schubert, or with Fischer's daring, or perhaps with the mad painist. Little by little more applause broke out until, like a shower that turns into a downpour, the entire audince was on its feet. Pere Bros held up the book, with the name Fischer in big letters, made sure that Schubert was still applauding, and left the stage for the last time without looking back.

he blows of the mallet against the stone sounded extremely cruel. They hadn't had a headstone ready because nobody is ready for death. Especially not a healthy person like her. He was the one who was sick and had spent the last few months going from one doctor to another. He was the one who thought death was just around the corner, not Eulalia. Who for the last week had stumbled from one test to another with his head full of scary thoughts. How could he understand Eulalia's death, except as one of fate's unfortunate mistakes?

The undertakers finished their work and Agusti felt desperately alone among his children and his friends, without Eulalia who has filled my life, my hours, my desires, always with her welcoming smile, always willing to understand me, always by my side, my love, giving much and receiving little, my love. He was distracted by Amadeu moving away from the group and, attentive as usual, discreetly putting a folded bill into the hand of the man in charge, who murmured his thanks.

Agusti would have liked to say some closing words. He would have liked to explain to everyone present that Eulalia had been the light of his life, and that these words were an inadequate testimony to his desperate love. But no sooner did he open his mouth than his soul was filled with tears. Amadeu put his hand on his back, gently, perhaps to make him feel that he was not alone in his sorrow. Then he realized that all three of his children were around him, looking dazedly at the rough stone that would always hide the memory of the mother who had died suddenly at the age of fifty. All of them together. Agusti couldn't help thinking about the twentynine years of peaceful marriage, about the children who didn't come until, almost without warning, one arrived and was Amadeu… And after a long interlude, Carla was born. Not long after that they had their first real conflict, when he'd gotten carried away with a younger woman, very different from Eulalia; but things had settled down and, almost as a result, after Carla had turned five, Sergi came, his favorite. He looked at him now: at fifteen, he was the one with the fewest defenses against the death of his mother. He was letting his sister put her arm around him. Carla had always been a mystery to her father; she'd left home when she turned eighteen and lived for two years in Florence and in Munich, documented and connected by a total of six postcards, and now she'd been back for a few months, as if she'd returned for the express purpose of being on time for her mother's funeral. She said she'd come back to study art at the Autbnoma, but he was convinced that the real reason was a problem with some man. She wasn't coming back but running away. She'd grown beautiful in these two years. Carla had always been pretty; it was hard to believe she was his daughter. And Amadeu, now paying more attention to his wife's belly than to the tail end of the burial. With an efficiency that he'd always secretly envied, Amadeu had made sure that everything stayed on track to spare his father the hateful finality of bereavement, and, almost without realizing it, Agusti found himself on the way to the car, the gravel crunching beneath his feet, feeling strangely guilty for leaving Eulalia alone, abandoned, forgotten. Because now was the hard part: living without her, making Sergi believe that the two of them would get along fine without Mother.

"Come and eat with us," his daughter-in-law offered.

"No." And in justification, "We have to start getting used to it. Right, Sergi?"

"Bye, Dad." Carla and her quick kiss.

He was about to try and trick her into staying by telling her that he was sick, that in the afternoon he was going to find out the results of half of the tests, that he was really scared, that he wanted her with him now that Eulalia was gone, that…

"If you need anything, honey…"

"Me? No…" In her best style, "I'll call you, okay?" And, more energetically, messing her brother's hair with her hand, "Bye, Sergi."

At least he hadn't tried to trick her. But in the afternoon he had to go to the doctor, with Carla or without her; there was no getting around it.

He'd left home too early, impatient to hear the verdict, and he found himself outside the hospital an hour before his appointment with the doctor. He felt like an idiot for being obsessed with his own expiration date. With an hour to kill before the death sentence, he headed for the Cafe Vienna, thinking about Eulalia and how he'd like to have her come with him and distract him by talking about anything that wasn't health-related… How unfair. How terribly unfair to say that he needed her without thinking that she was the one living in the frozen realm. Then he walked by the Fundacio, read the banners about the exposition, and didn't think any more about the cafe or, for a few moments, even about sorrow.