Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘I don’t know. We were fine until now. I don’t know. The accident …’ Àgata turned a page in the notebook and continued deciphering her bad, hasty handwriting … I think the accident … How come he didn’t … She lifted her head, devastated: ‘Poor woman, she went on, saying incoherent things.’

‘Do you believe her?’ Dora, sweating, distressed.

‘What do I know!?’

They looked at the third woman, the silent one. As if they had asked her the question, she spoke for the first time.

‘I believe her. Where is Kunda?’

‘On the northern coast. On the Gulf of Finland.’

‘And how is it that you know Estonian and you know …’ Dora, impressed.

‘Look …’

Which meant that I met Aadu Müür, yes, that oh so handsome young man, six foot two, kind smile … you can imagine. I met him eight years ago and I fell head over heels in love; I fell in love with Aadu Müür the watchmaker, and I went to live in Tallinn by his side and I would have gone to the ends of the earth, there where the contours of the mountains end and the horrific precipice begins, which leads you straight to hell, if you slip, for having thought, at any point, that the Earth was round. I would have gone there if Aadu had asked me to. And in Tallinn I worked in a hair salon and then I sold ice creams in a place where at night they allowed alcohol and the time came when I spoke Estonian so well that they didn’t know if my accent was because I was from Saaremaa Island or what, and when I told them I was Catalan, they couldn’t believe it. Because they say that the Estonians are cold like ice, but it’s a lie because with vodka in their bodies they turn warm and talkative. And Aadu disappeared one awful day and I’ve never heard from him again; well, yes, but it hurts me to remember it and I came back because I had nothing to do there, in the middle of the ice, without Aadu the watchmaker, selling ice creams to Estonians who were about to get drunk. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock and Helena called me and said let’s see if we get lucky, you know Estonian, right? And I, yes, why? And she, well, I have a friend who’s a nurse, Dora, and she has a problem that … She’s frightened and … it could be something really serious … And I’m still willing to sign up for anything that could help me forget about all six foot two of Aadu and that hesitant sweet soul that one fine day stopped being hesitant and sweet, and I said sure, I speak Estonian: where do we go, what needs to be done?

‘No, no … I mean … How do you know it so well? Because it took me forever to figure out that she was speaking Estonian. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before, you know? Until she said something, can’t remember what and I, after saying Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, I said Estonian and it seemed that her eyes gleamed a bit differently. That was my only clue, yeah. And I hit the nail on the head.’

‘The funny thing is that we don’t know if her husband is a serial killer or if she’s lost her marbles. If we are in danger or not, you know what I mean?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever,’ — Helena’s second contribution to the conversation — ‘seen a woman so afraid. From now on we’d better be on our guard.’

‘We have to ask her more things.’

‘Do you want me to talk to her again?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what if the husband shows up … Hmm?’

Alexandre Roig, after having paid his beloved a brief but passionate visit, had come to a final decision. I’m sorry, Gertrud, but I have no choice: you are forcing me to it. Now it’s my turn to live. He climbed the metro stairs mechanically and said to himself tonight’s the night.

Meanwhile, Gertrud was saying more and more things in Estonian and Àgata, dressed as a nurse — she who fainted at the first sight of blood — with her heart in her throat, translated them for Dora, and she said I was watching him in the dark, I was watching his profile. Yes, because he had been strange, very strange, for several days and I don’t know what’s happening with him, and he went like this, tightening his jaw and poor Gertrud wanted to lift an arm to show what like this was, but she was realising she could only move her thoughts and then she said it seemed like he was showing me his soul, that he was loathing me just for existing. And he said that’s it, to hell with everything; yes, yes; that’s it, to hell with everything.

‘He said it in Estonian?’

‘What?’

‘Did he say it in Estonian?’

‘What do I know? … That was when I saw him struggling with his seat belt and the car started flying and I said Saaaandreeee son of a biiiiiitcccch … And nothing more; nothing more … Until I woke up and he was there before me and he said it wasn’t my fault, Gertrud, it was an accident.’

‘Your husband doesn’t speak Estonian.’

‘No. But he understands it. Or yes, he does speak it.’

‘And couldn’t you speak in Catalan?’

‘What am I speaking now?’

Then they heard the sound of a key in the lock and the three women’s blood froze in their veins.

‘Put the thermometer in her mouth. No, rub her legs!’

‘How?’

‘Rubbing, for god’s sake. He shouldn’t be here.’

‘Oh, is there a guest?’ he said, hiding his surprise.

‘Good evening, Mr Roig.’

He looked at the two of them. The three of them. A quick, suspicious glance. He opened his mouth. He saw how the strange nurse was rubbing Gertrud’s right foot as if she were playing with modelling clay.

‘Uh … She came to help me.’

‘How is she?’ referring to Gertrud.

‘The same. No change.’ Referring to Àgata: ‘She is a colleague who …’

Professor Roig came all the way into the room, looked at Gertrud, gave her a kiss on the forehead, pinched her cheek and said I’ll be right back, dear, I forgot to buy noodles. And he went out, without giving the other women any explanation. When they were alone again, the two of them looked at each other. The three of them.

Sara, last night I found your slip of paper with the name. Matthias Alpaerts, it says. And he lives in Antwerp. But do you know what? I don’t trust your source, not in the least. It is a source corrupted by Mr Berenguer and Tito’s resentment. Mr Berenguer is a thief who only wants revenge on my father, my mother and me. And he’s used you for his ends. Let me think it over. I have to know … I’m not sure; I promise you, I’m doing what I can, Sara.

I know you want to kill me, Sandre, even though you call me dear and you buy me noodles. I know what you did because I dreamt it. They told me that I was in a coma for five days. For me, those five days were a crystal-clear, slow-motion vision of the accident: I was looking at you in the dark because you’d been very strange for several days, a bit elusive, nervous, always lost in thought. The first thing that a woman thinks when her husband is like that is that there’s another woman he’s thinking of; the ghost of the other woman. Yes, that’s the first thing you think; but I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine you cheating on me. And the first day I said out loud help, I think my husband wants to kill me; help, I think he wants to kill me because he made a strange face in the car and he took off his seat belt and he said that’s it, and I Saandreeee, son of a biiiiiiitccccccccccch, and after a slow dream that repeated everything until, it seems, five days had passed. I no longer know what I’m saying. Yes, that’s the first time I dared to say out loud that I think you want to kill me, no one paid me any mind, as if they didn’t believe me. But then they looked at me, and this Dora told me what are you saying, I can’t understand you; when it was clear as day that I was saying I think my husband wants to kill me, now shamelessly, and panicking over another fear: that no one believed me or paid me any mind. It is like being buried alive. It’s terrible, Sandre, this. I look into your eyes and you don’t hold my gaze: what must you be planning? Why don’t you tell me what you say to the others that you won’t tell me? What do you want? For me to tell you to your face that I think you wanted to kill me, that I think you want to kill me? That I tell you, holding your gaze, that I believe you want to kill me, because I am in the way of your life and it’s easier to just get rid of me like snuffing out a candle than to have to explain? At this point, Sandre … I don’t think I need any explanations; but don’t blow out my flame: I don’t want to die. I am stock-still and buried in this shell and all I have left is a weak flame. Don’t take that from me. Go, divorce me, but don’t snuff out my flame.