Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Well. And you? It went really well in Germany, didn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I like La voluntat estètica better. Much better.’

Small sip of coffee. I liked that declaration of principles.

‘Me too, but don’t spread that around.’

Silence. Now I took a small sip of black coffee; now she took a small sip of her white coffee.

‘You are very good,’ she said after a little while.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me. You are very good.’

‘Thank you. I …’

‘No. Don’t ruin it. Devote yourself to thinking and writing a book occasionally. But don’t touch people. Just avoid them, you know?’

She finished her white coffee in one last sip. I really wanted to ask her for explanations, but I understood that it would be foolish to start that conversation. And especially when I still hadn’t told you anything about Laura. I hadn’t said anything even though I could have, easily. And now she, instead of going for my jugular, was praising me. And it had been a month since, with the renovations, she had chosen the desk in front of mine, now that I finally had one to myself. I had to get used to a new kind of relationship with Laura. I even thought that this would save me from ever having to tell you about her.

‘Thank you, Laura,’ I said.

She tapped her knuckles twice on the table and left. I had to wait a little while to avoid running into her on the stairs. But I thought it was better that Laura was done pouting over me. And Omedes had said Laura Baylina, you know that little blonde, so cute you just want to eat her up? Well, she’s a sensational teacher. She has all her students by the short hairs. And I thought, I’m glad. And I also thought that probably all the shitty things I did to her helped her to improve. To Omedes, I said I’ve heard that; every once in a while there has to be a good professor, doesn’t there?

Adrià Ardèvol got up and walked around his spacious study several times. He was thinking about what Laura had said to him that morning. He stopped in front of the incunabula and said to himself that he didn’t know why he studied and studied, to the exclusion of all else. To quench a strange thirst. To comprehend the world. To comprehend life. Who knows. And he didn’t think any more about it because he heard rsrsrsrsrsrsrsrs. He waited a little while, thinking that Little Lola would open the door, and he sat back down in front of his Lewis and read a few lines of the reflection he makes on realism in literature.

‘How.’

‘What.’

‘Caterina.’

‘Rsrsrsrsrsrsrsrs.’

He lifted his head. Caterina must have left. He checked the time. Seven-thirty in the evening. He grudgingly abandoned Lewis.

He opened the door and found Bernat with a sports bag in his hand, and he said hello, can I come in? and he entered before Adrià had a chance to say come in, of course, come in.

After a long hour Sara arrived, and from the hall said in a loud, happy voice two Grimm stories! closed the door and entered the study loaded down with drawings as she said didn’t you put the vegetables on?

‘Hey, hello, Bernat,’ she added. And she noticed his sports bag.

‘Uh, you see …’ said Adrià.

Sara understood everything and said to Bernat stay for dinner. She said it as if it were an order. And to Adrià: six drawings for each story. And she went out to unload the drawings and put the pot on the stove. Bernat looked timidly at Adrià.

‘We’ll set you up in the guest room,’ said Sara to break the silence, all of them before the monastery of Santa Maria de Gerri, which, even though it was night-time, was drenched in the sun coming from Trespui. The two men looked up from their plates of vegetables, surprised.

‘Well: I imagine you’ve come to stay for a few days, right?’

The truth is, Sara, that Bernat hadn’t asked me yet. I knew that he wanted to stay, but I was resistant, I don’t know why. Maybe because it annoyed me that he didn’t have the balls to ask.

‘If you don’t mind.’

I always wished I were like you, Sara, direct. But I am someone incapable of taking any bull by the horns. And this was my best friend. And now that we had cleared up the most important thing, the dinner continued, more relaxed. And Bernat felt obliged to explain that he didn’t want to separate, but every day we argue more and I feel bad for Llorenç, who …

‘How old is he?’

‘I don’t know. Seventeen or eighteen.’

‘He’s big, isn’t he?’ I said.

‘Big for what?’ said Bernat defensively.

‘For if you separate.’

‘What concerns me,’ said Sara, ‘is that you don’t know your son’s age.’

‘I said seventeen or eighteen.’

‘Is he seventeen or is he eighteen?’

‘Well …’

‘When is his birthday?’

Guilty silence. And you, when you feel you are in the right, no one can stop you, and you insisted, ‘Let’s see: what year was he born?’

After thinking it over for a while Bernat said 1977.

‘Summer, autumn, winter, spring?’

‘Summer.’

‘He’s seventeen. Voilà.’

You didn’t say it, but you surely had a few choice words for a man who doesn’t know his own son’s age and who, poor Tecla, with such a distracted guy, who’s always doing his own thing, as if we were all at his beck and call, you know? and stuff like that. But you just shook your head and kept all your comments to yourself. We finished our dinner in peace. Sara turned in early and left us alone, which was her way of encouraging me to get him to talk.

‘You should separate,’ I told him.

‘It’s my fault. I don’t know my own son’s age.’

‘Come on, seriously: separate and try to live a happy life.’

‘I won’t live a happy life. I’ll be eaten up by guilt.’

‘Guilty over what?’

‘Everything. What are you reading?’

‘Lewis.’

‘Who?’

‘Clive Staples Lewis. A wise man.’

‘Ah.’ Bernat paged through the book and left it on the table. He looked at Adrià and said the thing is I still love her.

‘And does she love you?’

‘I think so.’

‘All right. But you are hurting each other and hurting Llorenç.’

‘No. If I … It doesn’t matter.’

‘That’s why you’re running away from home, right?’

Bernat sat at the table, covered his face with his hands and began to cry, in irrepressible sobs. He was like that for a good long while and I didn’t know what to do, whether I should go over to him, whether I should hug him, whether I should tap him on his shoulder or tell him a joke. I didn’t do anything. Or I did. I moved aside the C.S. Lewis book so it wouldn’t get wet. Sometimes I hate myself.

Tecla answered the door and stood there for a good long while staring at me in silence. She had me come in and then closed the door.

‘How is he?’

‘Confused. Shattered. And you?’

‘Confused. Shattered. Have you come to act as an intermediary?’

Actually, Adrià never really had much to talk about with Tecla. She was too different, her gaze was too unsettling. And she was very pretty. Sometimes it seemed that she was sorry for being so pretty. Now she wore her hair pulled back in an improvised ponytail, and he would have gladly French kissed her. She folded her arms modestly and looked me in the eyes, as if inviting me to finally say something already; to say that Bernat was shattered and that he was down on his knees begging to come home; that he understands how unbearable he is and he will try his best to … and that yes, yes, I know he left with a slam of the door, that he’s the one who left and not you, that … But he is asking, begging on his knees to come back because he can’t live without you and …