Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Àgata left the house when the scents of the first suppers were timidly rising in the stairwell. Her legs were still shaking. Out on the streets he was greeted by the stench of a bus. She went straight towards the metro. She had looked a killer in the eyes and it was quite an experience. That is if Mr Roig was a killer. He was. And when she was about to go down the stairs, the killer himself, with his eyes like daggers, came up beside her and said miss, please. She stopped, terrified. He gave her a shy smile, ran a hand through his hair and said, ‘What do you think, about my wife’s state?’

‘Not good.’ What else could she say?

‘Is it true that there is no hope of recovery?’

‘Unfortunately … Well, I …’

‘But the process of myoma is solvable, from what they’ve told me.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘So you also believe that it has a solution.’

‘Yes, sir. But I …’

‘If you’re a nurse, I’m the pope in Rome.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘What were you doing at my house?’

‘Look, I’m in a hurry right now.’

What does one do in such cases? What does the killer who realises that someone is sticking their nose in his business do? What does the victim who isn’t entirely sure if the killer is a killer do? They both hesitated for a few seconds like real dummies. Then it occurred to Àgata to say farewell and she took off down the stairs, and Professor Roig, planted there in the middle of the stairwell, didn’t really know what to do. Àgata went down to the platform. Just then a train arrived. Once she was inside it, she turned towards the door and looked: no, that madman hadn’t followed her. She didn’t breathe easily until the carriage doors closed.

At night, in the dark, so he wouldn’t have to bear her gaze. At night, as she pretended to be sleeping, Gertrud made out the shadow of cowardly Sandre and smelled the sofa cushion, which, when her life was alive, she would put behind her head to watch TV comfortably. And she even still had time to think Sandre chose the cushion, like Tiberius did to murder Augustus. It won’t take much because I’m already half dead, but you should know that you’re even more of a coward than you are a bastard. You haven’t even been able to look me in the eye and say goodbye. And Gertrud couldn’t think anything more because the spasm of the smothering was more intense than life itself and in an instant it transformed into death.

Dora put a hand on his back and said Mr Ardèvol, go rest. That’s an order.

Adrià woke up and turned, surprised. The light in the room was tenuous and Mignon’s gardenias gave off a magic brilliance. And Sara slept and slept and slept. Dora and a stranger kicked him out of the hospital. And Dora put a pill to help him sleep into his hand, and, mechanically, he got the metro at the Clínic stop while Professor Alexandre Roig, at the entrance to the Verdaguer metro stop, met up with a girl who could have been his daughter, who was surely a student, and the best detective of them all, Elm Gonzaga, hired by the three brave women, followed them ever so discreetly after having captured their kiss with a camera like Laura’s, digital or whatever they’re called, and all three waited on the platform until the train arrived and the happy couple entered the carriage along with the detective, and at Sagrada Família Friar Nicolau Eimeric and Aribert Voigt got on, chatting excitedly about the big ideas that were going through their heads, and seated in one corner, Doctor Müss or Budden was reading Kempis and looking out the window into the darkness of the tunnel, and at the other end of the carriage, dressed in the Benedictine habit, Brother Julià of Sant Pere del Burgal was dozing off. Standing beside him, Jachiam Mureda of Pardàc was looking, with wide eyes, at the new world around him, and surely he was thinking of all the Muredas and of poor Bettina, his little blind sister. And next to him was a frightened Lorenzo Storioni who didn’t understand what was going on and clung to the pole in the centre of the carriage to keep from falling. The train stopped at the Hospital de Sant Pau station, a few passengers got out and Guillaume-François Vial got on, decked out in his moth-eaten wig and chatting with Drago Gradnik, who was more corpulent than I ever could have imagined and had to duck his head to get into the carriage, and whose smile reminded me of Uncle Haïm’s serious expression, even though in the portrait Sara made of him he wasn’t smiling. And the train started up again. Then I realised that Matthias, Berta the Strong, Truu, the one with hair brown as wood from the forest, Amelietje with her jet-black hair, Juliet, the littlest, blonde like the sun, and brave Netje de Boeck, the mother-in-law with a chest cold, were talking, near the end of the carriage, with Bernat. With Bernat? Yes. And with me, who was also in the train carriage. And they were telling us about the last train trip they’d taken together, in a sealed carriage, and Amelietje was showing her the nape of her neck, wounded by the rifle blow, you see, you see? to Rudolf Höss, who was seated alone, looking at the platform, and wasn’t very interested in looking at her bump. And the girl’s lips already had the dark colour of death, but her parents didn’t seem to mind much. They were all young and fresh except for Matthias, who was old, with weepy eyes and slow reflexes. It seemed they were looking at him suspiciously, as if they had difficulty accepting or forgiving their father’s old age. Especially Berta the Strong’s gaze, which was sometimes reminiscent of Gertrud’s, or no, a bit different. And we reached Camp de l’Arpa, where Fèlix Morlin got on, chatting animatedly with Father: it had been so many years since I’d seen my father that I could barely make out his face, but I know that it was him. Behind him was Sheriff Carson accompanied by his loyal friend Black Eagle, both very silent, making an effort not to look at me. I saw that Carson was about to spit on the floor of the train carriage, but valiant Black Eagle stopped him with a brusque gesture. The train was stopped, I don’t know why, with the doors of every carriage open. Mr Berenguer and Tito still had time to enter leisurely, by the arm I think. Lothar Grübbe hesitated just as he was stepping inside the carriage, and Mother and Little Lola, who came up behind, helped him finally make up his mind. And as the doors started to close, Alí Bahr ran in, forcing them open slightly, all alone without infamous Amani. The doors closed completely, the train started off and when we’d already been in the tunnel towards La Sagrera for thirty seconds, Alí Bahr planted himself in the middle of the carriage and started shouting like a wild man, take away, Merciful Lord, all this carrion! He opened his jellabah, shrieked Allahu Akbar! and pulled on a cord that emerged from his clothes and everything became luminously white and none of us could see the immense ball of

Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes. It was Caterina, leaning over him.

‘Adrià! Can you hear me?’

It took him a few seconds to situate himself because his sleepiness came from very far away. She insisted: ‘Can you hear me, Adrià?’

‘Yes, what’s wrong?’

Instead of telling him that they’d just called from the hospital or that he had a call from the hospital or even that he had an urgent call, or perhaps even better, instead of saying the phone is for you and going off to iron, which was an unbeatable excuse, Caterina, always anxious to be in the front row, repeated Adrià, can you hear me, and I, yes, what’s wrong, and she, Saga woke up.

Then I did wake up completely and instead of thinking she’s awake, she’s awake, I thought and I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t there. Adrià got out of bed without realising that he was in the nude, and Caterina, with a quick glance, criticised his excessive belly but saved her comment for another occasion.