Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Sara smiled politely and Bernat lifted his eyebrows to make clear that the question was still hanging in the air imprudently.

‘I haven’t read it,’ replied Sara, holding his gaze. And, making a concession that surprised me, added: ‘Yet.’

Bernat was left with his mouth agape. You will never learn, Bernat, thought Adrià. And that day he understood that Bernat was hopeless and would trip on the same rock as many times as necessary over the course of his entire life. Meanwhile, Bernat, without realising what he was doing, drank half a glass of a marvellous Ribera del Duero.

‘I swear I’m going to give up writing,’ he proclaimed, putting the glass to one side, and I am convinced he said it with the hopes of making Sara feel guilty of neglect.

‘Focus on your music,’ you said with that smile that still captivates me. ‘You’ll be better off.’

And you took a swig from the long spout of the wine flagon. Drinking Ribera del Duero from a flagon. Bernat watched you, mouth agape, but said nothing. He was too depressed. Surely the only reason he didn’t start crying was because Adrià was there. One can cry more easily in front of a woman, even if she is drinking good wine from a flagon. In front of a man, it’s not as appealing. But that evening he had his first big fight with Tecla: Llorenç, with his eyes wide, from the bed, was witness to his father’s outbursts and felt like the unhappiest boy in the world.

‘I’m not asking for that much, bloody hell!’ reflected Bernat. ‘Just that you deign to read me. That’s all I’m asking for.’ Raising his voice, too much: ‘Is that too much to ask? Is it? Is it?’

Then came the attack from behind. Llorenç, furious, barefoot, in pyjamas, came into the dining room and leapt on his father just as he was saying I don’t feel that you are with me on my artistic journey. Tecla was looking at the wall as if she were watching her own piano career that had slipped through her fingers because of the pregnancy while she felt totally offended, you understand? Totally and deeply offended, as if the only thing we have to do in life is adore you. And then the attack from behind: Llorenç let his fists fly on his father, turning Bernat’s back into a veritable punching bag.

‘Bloody hell. Cut it out!’

‘Don’t scold my mother.’

‘Go to bed,’ ordered Tecla, with a head gesture that, according to her, was supportive. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

Llorenç let loose a couple more punches. Bernat opened his eyes and thought everyone is against me; no one wants me to write.

‘Don’t mix things up,’ said Adrià when he told him about it as they headed down Llúria, Bernat to rehearsal with his violin, and he to a History of Ideas II class.

‘What am I mixing up! Not even my son will let me complain!’

Sara, my beloved: I am talking about many years ago, the period in which you filled my life. We have all grown older and you have left me alone for a second time. If you could hear me, I’m sure you would shake your head, worried to hear that Bernat is still the same, writing things of no interest to anyone. Sometimes it makes me cross that a musician with the ability to evoke that sound from his instrument and to create dense atmospheres is unable, not to write genius prose, but to realise that the characters and stories he writes don’t interest us at all. In short, for us, what Bernat writes also had no repercussion, not a single review, not a single sale. And that’s enough talk about Bernat, I’ll end up embittered and I have other headaches to deal with before my time comes.

Around that same time … I think I said it not long ago. What importance does exact chronology have after all the chaos I’ve shown up to this point? Anyway, Little Lola started to grumble about every little thing and to complain that the Indian ink, the charcoal and the colours that Saga used were soiling everything.

‘Her name is Sara.’

‘She says Saga.’

‘Well, her name is Sara. Besides, the charcoal and all the rest are in her studio.’

‘Trust me. The other day she was copying the painting in the dining room, not that I can understand the point of painting things without any colour. And of course, leaving the rags for me to try and get clean again.’

‘Little Lola.’

‘Caterina. And the bathroom towels. Since her hands are always black … It must be some Frog custom.’

‘Caterina.’

‘What.’

‘You have to let artists do their thing, that’s all.’

‘You give them an inch,’ she said, making a gesture with her fingers; but I interrupted her before she got to the mile.

‘Sara is the lady of the house and she is in charge.’

I know that I offended her with that declaration. But I let her and her indignation leave the study in silence, leaving me alone with those intuitions that would one day begin to shed some light on the grievance that would eventually become La voluntat estètica, the essay I am most pleased with having written.

‘Did you draw the Urgell in the dining room?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘I haven’t …’

‘Let me see it.’

You hesitated but finally gave in. I can still see you, a bit nervous, opening that huge folder where you kept your hesitations, which you carried around with you everywhere. You put the drawing on the table. The sun wasn’t hiding behind Trespui, but the three-story gable on the bell tower of Santa Maria de Gerri seemed to come alive with just the strokes of Sara’s charcoal. You were able to sense the wrinkles of age and the years with all their scars. You draw so well, my beloved, that there were centuries of history in the white, black and thousands of greys smudged by your fingertips. The landscape and the church, and the beginning of the bank of the Noguera. It was all so enchanting that I didn’t miss the dark, sad, magical colours Modest Urgell had used.

‘Do you like it?’

‘A lot .’

‘A lott?’

‘A loottt.’

‘It’s yours,’ she said in satisfaction.

‘Really?’

‘You spend so many hours looking at the Urgell …’

‘Me? Really?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I don’t know … I hadn’t even realised.’

‘This is a homage to your hours of observation. What are you searching for in it?’

‘I don’t really know. I do it instinctively. I like to.’

‘I didn’t ask what you found there, I asked you what you’re searching for.’

‘I think about the monastery of Santa Maria de Gerri. But mostly I think about the little monastery of Sant Pere del Burgal, which is nearby and I’ve never visited. Do you remember that parchment by Abbot Deligat that I showed you? It was the founding charter of the monastery in Burgal, from so many years ago that I feel the thrill of history when I touch the parchment. And I think about the monks pacing through it over the centuries. And praying to a God who doesn’t exist for centuries. And the salt mines of Gerri. And the mysteries enshrined way up at Burgal. And the peasants dying of hunger and illness, and the days passing slowly but implacably, and the months and the years, and it thrills me.’

‘I’ve never heard you string that many words together.’

‘I love you.’

‘What else are you searching for in it?’

‘I don’t know; I really don’t know what I look for in it. It’s hard to put into words.’

‘Well, then what do you find in it?’

‘Strange stories. Strange people. The desire to live and see things.’

‘Why don’t we go see it in the flesh?’

We went to Gerri de la Sal in the Six Hundred, which threw in the towel at the port of Comiols. A very chatty mechanic from Isona changed some part of the cylinder head, can’t remember which, and insinuated that we should get a new car soon to avoid problems. We lost a day with those mundane misfortunes and we reached Gerri at night. The next day, from the inn, I saw the painting by Urgell in the flesh and I almost choked with emotion. And we spent the day looking at it, taking photographs of it, drawing it and watching the ghosts go in and out, ghosts of monks, peasants and salt miners until I sensed the two spirits of the monks who went to Sant Pere del Burgal to collect the key to close up that isolated, small monastery after hundreds of years of uninterrupted monastic life.