Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Silence. Adrià was pressing hard on the mouse, which couldn’t complain. When he realised, he let it go. He had to breathe deeply to calm himself down: ‘And why don’t you tell him that you want to be a teacher?’

‘I already told him.’

‘And?’

‘A teacher? A teacher, you? My son, a teacher?’

‘What’s wrong? What do you have against teachers?’

‘Nothing: what do you think? But why can’t you be an engineer or an I don’t know what, eh?’

‘I want to teach reading and writing. And multiplying. It’s nice.’

‘I agree.’ Tecla, shooting her husband a defiant look.

‘I don’t.’ Bernat, serious, wiping his lips with a napkin. He places the napkin down on the table and, looking at the empty plate, says the life of a teacher is exhausting and filled with hardship. And they don’t make much. Shaking his head: ‘It’s not a good idea.’

‘But I like it.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Hey, it’s the boy who has to study it. Not you. You understand?’

‘Fine, fine … do what you want. You always do anyway …’

‘What do you mean, we always do anyway?’ Tecla, cross. ‘Huh?’

‘No, that … nothing.’

‘No, no, go ahead … Tell me, what is it that we always do and you don’t want us to?’

And then Llorenç stood up with his plate in his hand, brought it to the kitchen and went to his room and closed the door while Tecla and Bernat continued sharpening their axes because you said that I always do what I want and that’s not true! Not at all! Ever!

‘But you ended up enrolling in Architecture,’ remarked Adrià.

‘Why don’t we talk about something else?’

‘You’re right. Come on, what more can I do with this computer?’

‘You want to try writing a text?’

‘No. I think that, for today, I’ve …’

‘Write a sentence and we’ll save it as if it were a valuable document.’

‘All right. Do you know what I think? You’d make a good teacher.’

‘Tell that to my father.’

Adrià wrote Llorenç Plensa is teaching me how to work all this. Who will lose their patience first, him or me? Or perhaps the Mac?

‘Oof, that’s already a novel! Now you’ll see how we save it, so you can reopen it when you want.’

Adrià, guided by his patient Virgil, did all the steps to save a document for the first time in his life, then closed the folders, put everything away and turned off the computer. Meanwhile Llorenç said I think I’m going to move out.

‘Well … That’s something that …’

‘Don’t mention it to my father, eh?’

‘No, no. But first you have to find a place.’

‘I’ll share a flat.’

‘That must be a pain. And what will you do with the violin if you live with other people?’

‘Why?’

‘Because it could bother them.’

‘Well, then I won’t bring it with me.’

‘Hey, unless you’re living with a girl.’

‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’

‘I mention that because …’

Llorenç stands up, a bit peeved. Adrià tries to undo what he’s done: ‘Sorry … It’s none of my business, whether you have a girlfriend or not.’

‘I told you I don’t have a girlfriend, all right?’

‘I heard you.’

‘I have a boyfriend.’

A few seconds of awkwardness. Adrià was a bit too slow to react.

‘Great. Does your father know?’

‘Of course! That’s part of the problem. And if you tell my father that we talked about all this … He’ll kill me and he’ll kill you.’

‘Don’t worry. And you, you should do your own thing, trust me.’

Once Llorenç had wrapped up his first basic computer class — with a student who was hard to work with and particularly inept — and was heading down the stairs, Adrià thought how easy it was to give advice to other people’s children. And I was overwhelmed by a desire to have had a child with you, whom I could talk to about his life the way I had for a few minutes with Llorenç. How is it possible that Bernat and I spoke so little that I knew nothing about Llorenç?

They were in the dining room and the telephone wouldn’t stop ringing, and Adrià didn’t clutch his head in a fed-up gesture because Bernat was there explaining his idea. So he wouldn’t hear the telephone, he opened up the door to the balcony and a gust of traffic and noise entered, mixed with the shrieks of some children and the cooing of the dirty pigeons that puffed up on the balcony above. He went out onto the balcony and Bernat followed him. Inside, almost in penumbra, Santa Maria de Gerri received the western light from Trespui.

‘There’s no need for you to organise this! You’ve had a stable position as a professional musician for a dozen years now.’

‘I’m fifty-three years old. That’s no accomplishment.’

‘You play in the OBC.’

‘What?’

‘You play in the OBC!’ he raised his voice.

‘So what?’

‘And you are in a quartet with the Comas, for goodness sake!’

‘As second violin.’

‘You’re always comparing yourself to others.’

‘What?’

‘You’re always …’

‘Why don’t we go inside?’

Adrià went into the dining room and Bernat followed suit. The telephone was still ringing. They closed the door to the balcony and the street sounds became an easily ignorable backdrop.

‘What were you saying?’ said Bernat, a bit on edge because of the constantly ringing telephone.

Adrià thought now you’ll tell him to rethink his relationship with Llorenç. He’s suffering and you’re all suffering, right?

‘No, that you’re always comparing yourself to other people.’

‘I don’t think so. And if I do, so what?’

Your son is sad. You are using the same parenting style my father did with me and it’s hell.

‘I have the feeling that you want to keep from getting splashed with even the slightest drop of happiness.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘For example, if you organise this conference, you are setting yourself up for failure. And you’ll put yourself in an awful mood. And put everyone around you in an awful mood. There’s no need for you to do it.’

‘That’s for me to decide.’

‘As you wish.’

‘And why did you say it was a bad idea?’

‘You run the risk of no one attending.’

‘What a bastard.’ He looked at the traffic through the windowpane. ‘Listen, why don’t you answer the phone?’

‘Because right now I’m with you,’ lied Adrià.

He looked towards Santa Maria de Gerri without seeing it. He sat in an armchair and glanced at his friend. Now I will talk to him about Llorenç, he swore to himself.

‘Will you come, if I set it up?’ Bernat, back to his own thing.

‘Yes.’

‘And Tecla. And Llorenç, that’s already three in the audience.’

‘Yes: me, Tecla and Llorenç, three. And the scholar, four. And you, five. Bingo.’

‘Don’t be such a dickhead.’

‘How are you and Tecla?’

‘It’s no bed of roses, but we’re sticking it out.’

‘I’m glad. What’s Llorenç up to?’

‘Fine, fine.’ He thinks it over before continuing: ‘Tecla and I are in some sort of unstable stability.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘Well, for months she’s been insinuating the possibility of us separating.’

‘Shit …’

‘And Llorenç finds a thousand reasons not to be around much.’

‘I’m so sorry. How are things going for Llorenç?’

‘I’m walking on eggshells to keep from screwing things up, and Tecla tries her best to be patient despite her insinuations of throwing in the towel. That is an unstable stability.’

‘How are things going for Llorenç?’