Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Find him.’

‘Enough blood,’ declaimed Father Morlin. ‘You do know that, even though Ardèvol is unpredictable and has harmed you, he is still my friend.’

‘I just want to get my violin back.’

‘Enough blood, I said. Or I personally will make you pay.’

‘I haven’t the slightest interest in harming a hair on his head. Gentleman’s promise.’

As if those words were a definitive assurance of good conduct, Father Morlin nodded and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his trousers pocket and passed it to Herr Zimmermann. He opened it up, drew near one of the candles, read it quickly, folded it again and made it disappear into his pocket.

‘At least the trip wasn’t in vain.’ He pulled out a handkerchief and ran it over his face as he said ffucking heat, I don’t know how people can live in these countries.

‘How have you earned a living, since you were released?’

‘As a psychiatrist, of course.’

‘Ah.’

‘And what do you do, in Damascus?’

‘Internal things for the order. At the end of the month I will go back to my monastery, Santa Sabina.’

He didn’t say that he was trying to revive the noble espionage institution that Monsignor Benigni had founded many years earlier and had had to shut down because of the blindness of the Vatican authorities, who didn’t realise that the only real danger was communism spreading throughout Europe. Nor did he say that the next day it would be forty-seven years since he had joined the Dominican order with the firm, holy intention of serving the church, offering up his life if necessary. Forty-seven years already, since he had asked to be admitted to the order’s monastery in Liège. Félix Morlin had been born during the winter of 1320 in the same city of Girona where he was raised in an atmosphere of fervour and piety in a family who gathered each day to pray after finishing their work. And no one was surprised by the young man’s decision to become a member of the fledgling Dominican order. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and, at twenty-one years of age, joined the Austrian National Socialist Party with the name Alí Bahr. He was preparing to begin the studies that would make him a good Qadi or a good mufti, since he had already modelled himself on the gifts of wisdom, deliberation and justice of his teachers and shortly afterward he joined the SS as member number 367,744. After serving on the battlefield of Buchenwald under the orders of Doctor Eisel, on 8 October, 1941, he was named chief medic on the dangerous battle front of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he worked selflessly for the good of humanity. Misunderstood, Doctor Voigt had to flee disguised with various names such as Zimmermann and Falegnami and he was willing to wait, among the chosen, for the moment to regain the Earth when it became flat again, when the sharia had spread all over the world and only the faithful would have the right to live there in the name of the Most Merciful. Then the end of the world would be a mysterious fog and we will be able to go back to managing this mystery and all the mysteries that derive from it. So be it.

Doctor Aribert Voigt instinctively patted his pockets. Father Morlin told him that it would be better if he took a train to Aleppo. And from there another train to Turkey. The Taurus Express.

‘Why?’

‘To avoid ports and airports. And if the train line is down, which can happen, rent a car with a chauffeur: dollars make miracles.’

‘I already know how to get around.’

‘I doubt that. You arrived in an aeroplane.’

‘But it was totally secure.’

‘It’s never totally secure. They held you there for a little while.’

‘You don’t think I was followed.’

‘My men made sure you weren’t. And you’ve never seen me in your life.’

‘Obviously I would never put you in any danger, Monsieur Duhamel. I am infinitely grateful to you.’

Up until then he hadn’t unbuttoned his trousers, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. On some sort of fabric belt he wore various small hidden objects. He pulled out a tiny black bag and gave it to Morlin, who loosened the string that closed it. Three large tears of a thousand faces were reflected, multiplied, in the light of the twelve candles. Morlin made the bag disappear among the mysteries of his jellabah while Doctor Voigt buttoned his trousers.

‘Good night, Mr Zimmermann. The first train for the north departs at six in the morning.’

‘Ffucking heat,’ said Mr Berenguer in response as he stood up and aimed the fan more directly onto himself.

Adrià, in a hushed voice — since he remembered how Mr Berenguer threatened Father when he was spying on them from behind the sofa — said, Mr Berenguer, I am the legitimate owner of the violin. And if they want to take this to court, they can, but I warn you that if they continue along this path, I will spill the beans and you’ll be left exposed.

‘As you wish. You have the same character as your mother.’

No one had ever told me that before. And I didn’t believe it when he did. Mostly I felt hatred for that man because he was the one who had caused Sara to fight with me. And he could say whatever balderdash he wanted to.

I stood up because I had to look tough if I wanted my words to be credible. By the time I’d stood up, I was already regretting everything I’d said and the way I was handling things. But Mr Berenguer’s amused expression made me decide to continue, albeit fearfully.

‘It’d be best if you don’t mention my mother. I understand she made you toe the line.’

I started to head back towards the door, thinking that I was a bit of an idiot: what had I got out of that visit? I hadn’t cleared up anything. I had merely made a unilateral declaration of war that I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to follow through on. But Mr Berenguer, walking behind me, lent me a hand: ‘Your mother was a horrid cunt who wanted to make my life miserable. The day she died I opened up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne.’ I felt Mr Berenguer’s breath on the nape of my neck as we walked towards the door. ‘I drink a sip each day. It’s gone flat, but it forces me to think about ffucking Mrs Ardèvol, the horrid cunt.’ He sighed. ‘When I drink the last drop, then I can die.’

They reached the entrance and Mr Berenguer overtook him. He mimed drinking: ‘Every day, glug, down the hatch. To celebrate that the witch is dead and I’m still alive. As you can imagine, Ardèvol, your wife isn’t going to change her mind. Jews are so sensitive about some things …’

He opened the door.

‘I could reason with your father and he gave me freedom of movement for the good of the business. Your mother was a nag. Like all women: but with particular malice … And I — glug! — one sip down the hatch each and every day.’

Adrià went out onto the landing of the stairwell and turned to say some worthy phrase like you’ll pay dearly for these insults or something like that. But instead of Mr Berenguer’s sly smile, he found the dark varnish of the door that Mr Berenguer was slamming in his face.

That evening, alone at home, I tried the sonatas and the partitas. I didn’t need the score despite the years; but I would have liked to have other fingers. And Adrià, as he played the second sonata, began to cry because he was sad about everything. Just then Sara came in off the street. When she saw that it was me and not Bernat, she left again without even saying hello.

My sister died fifteen days after my conversation with Mr Berenguer. I didn’t know she was ill, just like had happened with my mother. Her husband told me that neither she nor anyone else had known either. She had just turned seventy-one and, even though I hadn’t seen her in a long time, lying in the coffin she looked to me like an elegant woman. Adrià didn’t know what he felt: grief, distance, something strange. He didn’t know which feeling he was experiencing. He was more worried about Sara’s anger than about how he felt about Daniela Amato de Carbonell, as the funeral card read.