Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Bravo, Herr Obersturmführer. I suspected that you were a sensitive soul.’

Doctor Budden took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled a thin column of smoke as he went over the beginning of opus 100 in his head and then sang it with incredible precision.

‘I wish I had your ear, Herr Obersturmführer.’

‘It’s not much of an achievement. I studied piano.’

‘I envy you.’

‘You shouldn’t. Between all the hours devoted to studying medicine and music, I feel like I missed out on many things in life.’

‘Now you’ll make them up, wholesale, if you’ll allow me the expression,’ said Oberlagerführer Höss waving his open arms. ‘And you’re in the prime of your life.’

‘Yes, of course. Perhaps too suddenly.’

Silence from both men, as if they were keeping tabs on each other. Until the doctor made up his mind and, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and leaning over the desk, said in a lower voice: ‘Why did you want to see me, Obersturmbannführer?’

Then Oberlagerführer Höss, in the same low tone, as if he distrusted the walls of his own house, said I wanted to talk to you about your superior.

‘Voigt?’

‘Uh-huh.’

Silence. They must have been calculating risks. Höss ventured a what do you think of him, between us.

‘Well, I …’

‘I require … I demand sincerity. That is an order, dear Obersturmführer.’

‘Well, between us … he’s a blockhead.’

Hearing that, Rudolf Höss leaned back smugly in his chair. Staring into his eyes, he told Doctor Budden that he was laying the groundwork for Voigt the blockhead to be sent to some front.

‘And who would run the …’

‘You, naturally.’

Wait a second. That’s … And why not me?

Everything had been said. A new alliance without intermediaries between God and his people. The Schubert trio still played beneath the conversation. To break the awkwardness, Doctor Budden said did you know that Schubert composed this marvellous piece just months before he died?

‘Write about it. Really, Adrià.’

But it was all left momentarily up in the air because Laura returned from Uppsala and life at the university and particularly in the department office became somewhat uncomfortable again. She came back with a happier gaze, he said are you well? And Laura smiled and headed to classroom fifteen without answering. Adrià took that as a yes, that she was well. And pretty: she had come back prettier. Sitting at the sublet desk — that semester, from Parera — Adrià had trouble getting back to those papers that dealt with the subject of beauty. He didn’t know why, but they distracted him and they’d made him late for class for the first time in his life. Laura’s beauty, Sara’s beauty, Tecla’s beauty … did they enter into these ruminations? Hmm, did they?

‘I’d say yes,’ Bernat answered cautiously. ‘A woman’s beauty is an irrefutable fact. Isn’t it?’

‘Vivancos would say that’s a sexist approach.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Confused silence from Bernat. ‘Before it was a petit-bourgeois idea and now it’s sexist reasoning.’ In a softer voice so no judge would hear him: ‘But I like women. They are beautiful: that I know for sure.’

‘Yeah. But I don’t know if I should talk about it.’

‘By the way, who is that good-looking Laura you mentioned?’

‘Huh?’

‘The Laura that you cite.’

‘No, I was thinking of Petrarch.’

‘And that’s going to be a book?’ asked Bernat, pointing to the papers resting atop the manuscript table, as if they needed careful examination under Father’s loupe.

‘I don’t know. At this point it’s thirty pages and I’m enjoying feeling my way around in the dark.’

‘How is Sara?’

‘Well. She calms me.’

‘I’m asking how she is: not how she affects you.’

‘She’s very busy. Actes Sud commissioned her to illustrate a series of ten books.’

‘But how is she?’

‘Fine. Why?’

‘Sometimes she looks sad.’

‘There are some things that can’t be solved even with a bit of love.’

Ten or twelve days later the inevitable happened. I was talking to Parera and suddenly she said, listen, what is your wife’s name? And just then Laura came into the office, loaded down with dossiers and ideas, and she heard perfectly as Parera said listen, what is your wife’s name? And I lowered my eyes in resignation and said Sara, her name is Sara. Laura put the things down on her chaotic desk and sat down.

‘She’s pretty,’ continued Parera, as if twisting the knife into my heart. Or perhaps into Laura’s.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And have you been married long?’

‘No. In fact, we’re not …’

‘Yeah, I mean living together.’

‘No, not long.’

The interrogation ended there, not because the KGB inspector ran out of questions, but because she had to go to class. Eulaleyvna Parerova left the office, before closing the door, said take good care of her, these days things are …

And she closed it gently, not feeling the need to specify exactly how things are. And then Laura stood up, put a hand at one end of the dossiers, papers, books, notes and journals on her always cramped desk and slid everything onto the floor, in the middle of the office. A tremendous clamour. Adrià looked at her, contrite. She sat down without glancing at him. Then the office telephone rang. Laura didn’t pick it up, and, I swear, there is nothing that makes me more nervous than a telephone ringing with no one picking it up. I went over to my desk and answered it.

‘Hello. Yes, one moment. It’s for you, Laura.’

I stood there with the receiver in my hand; she staring out into the void without any intention of picking up the one on her desk. I brought it back to my ear.

‘She’s stepped out.’

Then Laura picked up the phone and said, yes, yes, go ahead. I hung up and she said hey, pretty lady, what are you up to! And she laughed with a crystal-clear laugh. I grabbed my papers on art and aesthetics that still had no title and I fled.

‘I’ll have to think about it,’ said Doctor Budden, as he stood up and straightened his impeccable Obersturmführer uniform, ‘because tomorrow there are new units arriving.’ He looked at Oberlagerführer Höss and smiled and, knowing that he wouldn’t understand him, said, ‘Art is inexplicable.’ He pointed to his host: ‘At best, we can say that it is a display of love from the artist to humanity. Don’t you think?’

He left the Oberlagerführer’s house, knowing that he was still slowly digesting his words. From outside he heard, faintly, swaddled in the cold, the finale of the Trio opus 100 by angelic Schubert. Without that music, life would be terrible, he should have told his host.

Things began to sour for me when I had practically finished writing La voluntat estètica. The galleys, the translation to German that spurred me on to make additions to the original, Kamenek’s comments on my translation, which also inspired me to add nuance and rewrite, all of it left me considerably agitated. I was afraid that the book I was publishing would satisfy me. I’ve told you many times, Sara: it is the book of mine that I like best. And following the imperatives of my discontented soul, which has caused you such suffering, in those days when Sara brought serenity into my life and Laura pretended she didn’t even know me, Adrià Ardèvol’s obsession was devoting hours to his Storioni, as good a way as any to hide his anxiety. He revisited the most difficult moments with Trullols and the most unpleasant with Master Manlleu. And a few months later he invited Bernat to do the sonatas of Jean-Marie Leclair’s opus 3 and opus 4.