Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Hello.’

‘Adrià?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Bernat.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘It’s a long story. Listen …’

I understood that Bernat’s hesitation was a bad portent.

‘What …’

‘Sara.’

Everything ended here, my beloved. Everything.

The all too brief days by your side, washing you, covering you up, airing you out, asking for your forgiveness. The days I devoted to lessening the pain I caused you. Those days of torment, particularly your torment and — forgive me, I mean no offence, but — also my torment, changed me. Before I had interests. Now I’ve been left without motivation and I spend the day thinking by your side, as you seem to sleep placidly. What were you doing, at the house? Had you come back to embrace me or to scold me? Were you looking for me or just wanting to get some more clothes to take to the huitième arrondissement? I called you, you must remember that, and Max told me that you didn’t want to speak with me. Yes, yes, forgive me: Laura, yes; it’s all so pitiful. You didn’t have to come back: you never should have gone because we should never have fought over a crappy violin. I swear I’ll give it back to its owner when I find out who that is. And I will do it in your name, my beloved. Do you hear me? Somewhere I have the piece of paper you gave me with his name.

‘Go home and get some rest, Mr Ardèvol,’ the nurse with the plastic-framed glasses, the one named Dora.

‘The doctor told me I should talk to her.’

‘You’ve been talking to her all day long. Poor Sara’s head must be throbbing.’

She examined the serum, regulated its flow and observed the monitor in silence. Without looking him in the eye: ‘What do you talk to her about?’

‘Everything.’

‘You’ve spent two days explaining thousands of stories.’

‘Haven’t you ever been sorry about the silences you had with the person you love?’

Dora glanced around and, holding his gaze, said do us both a favour: go home, get some rest and come back tomorrow.’

‘You haven’t answered me.’

‘I have no answer.’

Adrià Ardèvol looked at Sara: ‘And what if she wakes up when I’m not here?’

‘We’ll call you, don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere.’

He didn’t dare to say and what if she dies? because that was unthinkable, now that the exhibition of Sara Voltes-Epstein’s drawings would open in September.

And at home I kept talking to you, remembering the things I used to explain to you. And a few years later I am writing you, hurriedly, so that you won’t completely die when I am no longer here. Everything is a lie, you already know that. But everything is a great, deep truth that no one can ever deny. This is you and I. This is me with you, light of my life.

‘Max came today,’ said Adrià. And Sara didn’t respond, as if she didn’t care.

‘Hey, Adrià.’

He, absorbed in staring at her, turned towards the door. Max Voltes-Epstein, with an absurd bouquet of roses in his hand.

‘Hello, Max.’ About the roses: ‘You didn’t have to …’

‘She loves flowers.’

Thirteen years living with you without knowing that you loved flowers. I’m ashamed of myself. Thirteen years without realising that every week you changed the flowers in the vase in the hall. Carnations, gardenias, irises, roses, all different kinds. Now, suddenly, the image had exploded over me, like an accusation.

‘Leave them here, yes, thank you.’ I pointed vaguely outside: ‘I’ll ask for a vase.’

‘I can stay this afternoon. I’ve arranged things so that … If you want you can go rest …’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘You look … you look really bad. You should lie down for a few hours.’

Both men contemplated Sara for a good long while, each living his own history. Max thought why didn’t I go with her? she wouldn’t have been alone. And I, how could I know, what did I know? And Adrià again thinking obstinately that if I hadn’t been in bed with Laura, I would have been at home retouching Llull, Vico and Berlin and I would have heard rsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrs, I would have opened the door, you would have put down your travel bag and when you had the ffucking stroke, the bloody embolism, I would have picked you up off the floor, I would have taken you to bed and I would have called Dalmau, the Red Cross, the emergency room, Medicus Mundi, and they would have saved you, that was my fault, that when it happened I wasn’t with you and the neighbours say that you went out onto the landing of the staircase, because your bag was already inside, and when they went to pick you up you must have fallen three or four steps, and Doctor Real told me that the first thing they did was save your life and now they’ll see if you have any dislocation or any broken ribs, poor thing, but at least they saved your life because one day you will wake up and you’ll say I’d love a cup of coffee, like the first time you came back. After spending the first night with you at the hospital, with Laura’s scent still on me, when I went home I saw that your bag was in the hall and I checked that you had returned with everything you’d taken with you and from then on I like to think that you were coming back to stay. And I swear I heard your voice saying I’d love a cup of coffee. They tell me that when you wake up you won’t remember anything. Not even the fall you took on the stairs. The Mundós that live downstairs heard you and they gave the alarm, and I was fucking Laura and hearing a telephone I didn’t want to answer. And a thousand years later Adrià woke up.

‘Did she tell you she was coming to the house?’

A few seconds of silence. Was it hesitation or was it that he didn’t remember?

‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me anything. Suddenly she grabbed the bag and left.’

‘What was she doing, before?’

‘She’d been drawing. And strolling in the garden, looking at the sea, looking at the sea, looking at the sea …’

Max didn’t usually do that, repeat himself. He was shaken up.

‘Looking at the sea.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s just that I wanted to know if she had decided to come back or …’

‘What does that matter now?’

‘It matters a lot. To me. Because I think she was, coming home.’

Mea culpa.

Adrià spent a silent afternoon with a perplexed Max, who still didn’t quite understand what had happened. And the next day I went back to your side with your favourite flowers.

‘What’s that?’ asked Dora, wrinkling her nose, as soon as I arrived.

‘Yellow gardenias.’ Adrià hesitated. ‘They’re the ones she likes best.’

‘A lot of people come through here.’

‘They are the best flowers I can bring her. The ones that have kept her company while she worked over many years.’

Dora looked at the small painting carefully.

‘Who is it by?’ she said.

‘Abraham Mignon. Seventeenth century.’

‘It’s valuable, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, very. That’s why I brought it for her.’

‘It’s in danger here. Take it home.’

Instead of listening to her, Professor Roig put the bouquet of yellow gardenias into the vase and poured the bottle of water into it.

‘I told you I’ll take care of it.’

‘Your wife has to stay in the hospital. At least for a few months.’

‘I’ll come every day. I’ll spend the day here.’

‘You have to live. You can’t spend every day here.’

I couldn’t spend the whole day there, but I spent many hours and I understood how a silent gaze can hurt you more than a sharpened knife; what horror, Gertrud’s gaze. I fed her and she looked me in the eyes and swallowed, obediently, her soup. And she looked into my eyes and accused me without words.