Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Before the dinner with the organising committee to thank him, Adrià wanted to do two things in Tübingen, since he didn’t have to fly back until the next day. Alone, please. Really, Johannes. I want to do them alone.

Bebenhausen. It had been fully restored. They still gave guided tours, but no one asked the guide what secularised meant. And he thought distantly of Bernat and his books. More than twenty years had passed and nothing had changed: not Bebenhausen and not Bernat. And when it began to get dark, he went into the Tübingen cemetery and strolled, as he had done so many times, alone, with Bernat, with Sara … He heard the sound of his footsteps, a hard, curt sound on the compressed earth paving. Without meaning to, his stroll led him to the empty tomb of Franz Grübbe, at the end. In front of it, Lothar Grübbe and his niece Herta Landau, from Bebenhausen, the one who was kind enough to take a photo of him and Bernat, were still placing some white roses there, white as the soul of their heroic son and nephew. Hearing his footsteps, Herta Landau turned and concealed her fear at seeing him.

‘Lothar …’ she said in a choked voice, completely terrified.

Lothar Grübbe turned. The SS officer had stopped in front of him and for the moment was mutely waiting for them to explain themselves.

‘I’m cleaning all these graves,’ Lothar Grübbe finally said.

‘Identification,’ said the SS-Obersturmführer Adrian Hartbold-Bosch, planted before the old man and the younger woman. Herta, very frightened, couldn’t manage to open her purse. Lothar was so panicked that he began to act as if he were covered in a veil of indifference, as if he were already finally dead by your side, Anna, and beside brave Franz.

‘Oh …’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ve left it at home.’

‘I’ve left it at home, Obersturmführer!’ scolded SS-Obersturmführer Hartbold-Bosch.’

‘I’ve left it at home, Obersturmführer!’ shouted Lothar, looking into the officer’s eyes, imperceptibly martial. The lieutenant pointed to the grave.

‘What are you doing here, at the grave of a traitor. Eh?’

‘He is my son, Obersturmführer,’ said Lothar. And pointing to Herta, rigid and horrified: ‘I don’t even know this young woman.’

‘Come with me.’

The interrogation was led by Obersturmführer Adrian Hartbold-Bosch himself. To ensure that, despite his age, Lothar had no contact with abject Herbert Baum’s group. But he’s an old man! (Friar Miquel). Old men and babies are equally dangerous to the safety of the Reich. At your orders (Friar Miquel). Make him vomit all the information. Using any means at my disposal? Using any means at your disposal. Torture the soles of his feet, to start with. How long? The length of three well prayed hailmaries. And then continue with the rack for the length of a credoinunumdeum. Yes, Your Excellency.

It took Herta Landau, who was miraculously not arrested, a desperate half hour to establish phone contact with Berlin, where she was given advice on how to speak with Auschwitz and, miraculously, after a long hour, was able to hear Konrad’s voice: ‘Heil Hitler. Hallo.’ Impatient. ‘Ja, bitte?’

‘Konrad, this is Herta.’

‘Who?’

‘Herta Landau, your cousin. That is if you still have family.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘They’ve arrested Lothar.’

‘Who is this Lothar?’ Peeved.

‘Lothar Grübbe, your uncle. Who do you think.’

‘Ah! Abject Franz’s father?’

‘Franz’s father, yes.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘Intercede, have compassion on him. They could torture him and they’ll end up killing him.’

‘Who arrested him?’

‘The SS.’

‘But why?’

‘For putting flowers on Franz’s grave. Do something.’

‘Girl … Here I really …’

‘For the love of God!’

‘I’m very busy right now. You want to expose us all?’

‘He’s your uncle!’

‘He must have done something.’

‘Don’t say that, Konrad!’

‘Look, Herta: someone’s got to pay the piper.’

‘Holländisch?’ Berta heard Konrad saying. And then, into the telephone: ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m working. I have too much work to waste time on such nonsense. Heil Hitler!’

And she heard Konrad Budden — that bastard — hang up the phone, condemning Lothar. Then she cried inconsolably.

Lothar Grübbe, sixty-two years of age, was not a dangerous individual. But his death could serve as an example: the father of an abject traitor putting flowers on a grave as if it were a monument to the domestic resistance? A grave that …

Obersturmführer Hartbold-Bosch remained with his mouth open, thinking. Of course! To the twins who were holding up the wall: ‘Have the traitor’s grave dug up!’

The tomb of the cowardly abject traitor Franz Grübbe was empty. Lothar the Elder had mocked the authorities by secretly putting flowers somewhere where there was nothing. An empty grave is more dangerous than one with a bag of bones inside: the emptiness makes it universal and converts it into a monument.

‘What do we do with the prisoner, Your Excellency?’

Adrian Hartbold-Bosch took a deep breath. With his eyes closed he said in a low, trembling voice, hang him from a butcher’s hook, the punishment for traitors to the Reich.

‘You mean … isn’t that too cruel? He’s an old man.’

‘Friar Miquel …’ said the Obersturmführer’s threatening voice. Realising the silence, he looked at his subordinates, who had their heads bowed. Then he added, shouting, vomiting: ‘Take away this carrion!’

Lothar Grübbe, horrified by the death that awaited him, was taken to the punishment cell. They no longer punished a traitor every day, they had to set up the mechanism to hang the hook, which they’d first had to carefully sharpen. As they were hoisting him up with a rope, he was sweating and choking on panicked vomit. He had time to say relax, Anna, it’s all right. He died of fear half a second before being skewered with the rage necessary to impale traitors.

‘Who is this Anna?’ wondered aloud one of the twins.

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ said the other.

The Sagarra Room at the Athenaeum, at seven forty-five on that dark, cloudy Tuesday had the fifty-something available chairs filled with young people who seemed to be spellbound listening to the extremely saccharine background music. An older man, who seemed disorientated, hesitated endlessly before choosing a seat at the back, as if he were afraid that, when it was over, they would ask him what the lesson was. Two elderly women — clearly disappointed because they hadn’t seen any sign of cheese and biscuits afterwards — shared confidences in the front row, propelled by their fluttering fans. On a side table were the five books that comprised the complete work of Bernat Plensa, displayed. Tecla was there, in the front row, which Adrià was surprised to see. Tecla was looking back, as if monitoring who came in. Adrià approached her and gave her a kiss, and she smiled at him for the first time since the last argument in which he’d intervened, in vain, to make peace. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other.

‘Good, right?’ said Adrià, lifting his eyebrows to refer to the room.

‘I wasn’t expecting this. And, young people, even.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘How’s it going with Llorenç?’

‘Great. I already know how to make word documents and save them on a disk.’ Adrià thought for a few moments: ‘But I’m still unable to write anything directly onto the computer. I’m a paper man.’

‘All in good time.’

‘Or not.’

Then the telephone rang and no one paid any attention to it. Adrià raised his head and his eyebrows. No one paid it any heed, as if it weren’t even ringing.