Josep Pla - Life Embitters

“Please don’t go on, you’re so kind, but please be so good as to …”

“It’s true, mademoiselle, completely true, it’s vital for me, given the endeavors I am pursuing, to be in conversation with someone who completely embraces my vision of life.”

“Don’t persist, professor … I’m very grateful for your offer, but I cannot accept …”

Marta had changed tack. She was backtracking on the only thing that interested the old man and, at the same time, was unleashing all her powers of personal appeal that were considerable, especially after a good lunch.

“Mademoiselle, I do understand,” pleaded the professor, “I’ve been flippant in our conversation and repeatedly indiscreet. I’ve told you how I like the ladies and have given you to believe that I think you are an angel. Perhaps in this matter I’ve taken the change in my life to ridiculous extremes …”

Marta couldn’t contain herself and started to chuckle.

“The professor is most serious about what he is saying!” I interjected wanting to blot out the rude noises Marta was making.

“Yes, absolutely. I’m speaking with utmost seriousness and would like to finish saying what’s on my mind, because I consider it to be indispensible. If I was at all indiscreet when detailing my — might we say? — my deepest longings, I’d ask you not to give my words more weight than they deserve. They are something strictly private and should in no way affect our collaboration on a specific project. At the end of the day, the only thing of any value is this collaboration I’m proposing …”

Marta didn’t reply. She opened her purse — at the time people still carried purses — took out a small mirror and slowly put her face opposite it. Her casual manner disturbed the professor. I was astonished by Marta’s aplomb, coolness, and guile.

“Mademoiselle, won’t you give me an answer?” Dr Busch asked timidly.

“I’m shocked by how stubborn one can be about something so absurd …” said the young lady, putting her lips to the professor’s ear.

“But it isn’t in the least absurd …” the professor whined dejectedly.

“Oh, yes, it is …”

“Oh, no, it isn’t …”

“Oh, yes, it most certainly is …” retorted Marta, laughing in his face.

“I tell you … it isn’t …” said Busch like a stubborn little boy.

I stood up. The exchange was entering its last phase and I thought it best to leave them a free range so everything could settle into place. I used the excuse that I had to go to the poste restante and said goodbye. My impression was that Marta was grateful, because, as I left, she gave me an adorable smile — a lovely smile, with half-closed eyes full of malice and glistening teeth.

We met that evening and she told me what had ensued. As the effects of lunch began to surface, the professor became intolerably insistent. It seems that he mainly pursued the emotional argument, the need for a collaborator-companion, and even shed a few tears — “Tears that weren’t my responsibility,” said the mademoiselle, “because they could equally be the result of the port he’d drunk before lunch.” Given the professor’s unbearable whimpers, Marta had no choice but to accept. It could be said, without of fear of being gainsaid, that at that particular moment in time Marta was Dr Busch’s secretary.

“It was what he was trying to propose …” I told her.

“Of course, but when things become too easy, they can soon pall …”

“That’s a curious observation, but there’s no denying that it’s true enough.”

“When we left the restaurant, we took a taxi to his house. He lives on the Boulevard Leopold, past the circular canal, in a new house, in a flat that could be wonderful if it were tidied up. But the flat is almost empty, except for the things that are indispensable for a man who lives alone and merely goes there to sleep. But there are a huge number of papers, and that’s what I’m most interested in. I could let him keep everything else. What’s really amazing is the way he has decided to trust me. I’m literally shocked by the speed at which things have happened and the peculiar way it’s all come together. I’ve really made the most of your friendship with your old professor from Louvaine … It wouldn’t have been so easy, if I’d just been acting on my own account.”

“Don’t you worry about that! It’s not even worth mentioning … So how do you see things going now, Marta?”

“We start tomorrow. I gave him my word.”

“But this an express train …”

“Absolutely. My first idea was to go back to Calais; I’ve brought so few things that I believe, in principle, I really should. Now, as things stand, I don’t believe it’s necessary. One has to make the most of one’s opportunities.”

“So you’re staying in Bruges …”

“I’m sorry … but I’m staying … It’s indispensible and inevitable …”

“Do you reckon you’ll be here long?”

“It’s rather risky to make prophesies … but unless there’s an unforeseeable mishap, I imagine it will be a short stay. In any case, I’ll do everything possible to make it as short as possible. Things look extremely good.”

I hadn’t done a thing that day and was tired. I told her I was going to lie down. But Marta said there was bell-ringing festival that night in Bruges and begged me to accompany her.

“Are you missing your old professor?” I asked, jokingly.

“Not likely … This is an opportunity one must grasp. But I don’t think there’s much danger. He’s drunk a lot of alcohol and he must be sleeping it off somewhere.”

After dinner we settled down on the terrace of a small café on the Rue du Sablon. The bells in the belfries rang out — most soothingly the bare bones of melodies of fugues, generally by Bach. Passersby in the street stopped to listen. The people on the terrace smoked and listened contentedly, sipping their beer from time to time. A deep silence fell, broken only by the spasmodic, distant, though jarring whistle of a train. A great calm spread over Bruges, the kind that forms over vast expanses of plain — the static, calm atmosphere that seems to sleep above the earth … But we were unlucky. All of a sudden it started to rain — a languid, drowsy drizzle that creates the permanent silt one finds all over Belgium. People scattered. In the damp air, the ringing bells seemed to deaden and fracture. We returned to our hotel.

I was intending — now the weekend was well and truly over — to go back to London using the usual transport, that is, via Ostend. I said goodbye to Marta.

“I wish you lots of luck …” I said, shaking her hand.

“So why are you going? Stay here …!” she exclaimed in a flirtatious, sorrowful tone that could have been heartfelt — or feigned. “We came to Bruges together and should leave once the task is completed. I promise …”

“What do you promise, mademoiselle?”

“I promise … that we’ll go to see the Memlings in the Hôpital …?”

“You’ve work to do and so have I. I only ask one thing of you. As far as you are concerned, the professor is simply a detail in your professional life; for me, he is a man, despite the crazy twist to his life. I beg you not to go at it too boldly.”

“My God, you’re such a softie!” exclaimed Marta, with a chilling chuckle. “And I thought people from your country were so violent and cold-blooded and that we were drowned in syrupy sentiments!”

“It’s on the late side to talk of such things … We’ll meet up some time, in Calais.”

“If there’s no alternative …”

“No, there is no alternative.”

Eight or nine days later I opened the Manchester Guardian , a newspaper I like because of the coverage it gives to events on the continent, and found this report from its correspondent in Brussels.