Jaume Cabré - Confessions

I was flabbergasted. As if, between Laura and Sara, there was some … I’m sorry to admit that I began to cry like a baby by Sara’s bed, who, by the way, was gorgeous with her short hair. I had never seen you with short hair before, Sara. Since she couldn’t run her hand over my head to console me, she just looked up at the fucking ceiling and waited for it to pass. I think Dora came in just then with her pills but, seeing the scene, she discreetly left again.

‘Adrià.’

‘Yes …’

‘Do you love me more than anyone?’

‘Yes, Sara. You know I love you.’

‘Then do what I say.’ And after a pause: ‘Adrià.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you love me more than anyone?’

‘Yes, Sara. You know I love you.’

‘Then do what I’m asking.’ And almost immediately: ‘My beloved Adrià.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you love me?’

And Adrià was sad that she was asking him that again because I would give my life for you and every time you ask me that all I can think is that …

‘Do you love me or not?’

‘You know everything and you know that I love you.’

‘Then help me die.’

Leaving the hospital gave me a pang of bad conscience. Walking through Universal Creation, looking halfheartedly at the spines of books without really seeing them. Just as at other times strolling through Romance Language Prose made me recall pleasurable readings; or entering Poetry meant, inevitably, pulling out a book and furtively reading a couple of poems at random or with every intention, as if Universal Creation were Paradise, and the poems, apples that had never been forbidden. Just as entering Essays made me identify with those who had one day tried to put order into their reflections, now I wandered looking at spines without seeing the titles on them, dejected, my eyes filled only with Sara’s pain. It was impossible to work. I would sit before a pile of manuscript papers, trying to reread where I had left off, but then you arose saying kill me if you love me, or you stock-still for years, patient, level-headed, and me having to leave your room every five minutes to scream with rage. I asked Dora if you’d saved the hair when you had it cut …

‘No.’

‘Damn! …’

‘She told us to throw it away.’

‘Shit, but …’

‘Yes, it’s a shame. I thought the same thing.’

‘Did you really do as she said?’

‘It’s impossible not to do what your wife says.’

And the nights were one long insomnia. To the point that I had to do strange things to get to sleep, like going over texts in Hebrew, which was the language I had most neglected because I had few opportunities to work with it. And I searched for texts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and contemporary texts and I was reminded of the venerable Assumpta Brotons with her pince-nez and a half smile that I at first took for kindly and later found out was a smirk. And the patience she had. And the patience I had to have.

‘Echad.’

‘Eshad.’

‘Echad.’

‘Ehad.’

‘Very good. Do you understand it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Schtayim.’

‘Shtaim.’

‘Very good. Do you understand it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Schalosh.’

‘Shalosh.’

‘Very good. Do you understand it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Arba.’

‘Arba.’

‘Khamesh.’

‘Kamesh.’

‘Yes, that’s it, very good!’

The letters danced before my eyes because nothing mattered to me, because all my desire remained by your side. I went to bed in the wee hours and at six in the morning I was still lying there with my eyes open. I barely slept a few minutes and was up before Little Lola arrived, shaved and showered and ready to return to the hospital if I didn’t have class, to witness some miracle for the love of God.

Until one night I felt so ashamed of myself that I decided to try to really put myself in Sara’s shoes in an attempt to understand her fully. And the next day Adrià contrived to bump into Dora alone, who wasn’t as scared as I was, but very reticent because it wasn’t a case of some irreversible disease that would sooner or later be life-threatening; she could spend years in that state; she … and I had to hear myself pleading in favour of Sara’s arguments, which could be summed up in one “do it because you love me”. Alone again. Alone before your request, your entreaty. But I didn’t feel capable of it. And one night I said to Sara that yes, that I would do it, and she smiled at me and she said if I could move I would get up and French kiss you right now. And I’d said it knowing I was lying, because I had no intention of carrying it out. In the end, Sara, I always lied to you; about that and about trying to return the violin, which according to my version was full steam ahead and I was about to get in touch with … The edifice of lies I constructed just to buy time was pathetic. Buy time from whom? Buy time from fear, thinking that each passing day was a victory, things like that. I spoke about it with Dalmau, who advised me not to involve Doctor Real.

‘You say it like it’s a crime.’

‘It is a crime. According to our current legislation.’

‘So why are you helping me?’

‘Because one thing is the law and another is the cases that the law doesn’t dare to legislate.’

‘In other words, you agree with me.’

‘What do you want? A signed declaration?’

‘No. Sorry. I … Anyway.’

He grabbed me, he had me sit down and, even though we were in his office and there was no one else home, he lowered his voice and, with the yellow Modigliani as a mute, shocked witness, gave me a speed course on assisted suicide for love. And I knew that I would never make use of that knowledge. I spent a couple of weeks relatively calm until one day Sara looked me in the eyes and said when, Adrià? I opened my mouth. I looked up at the fucking ceiling and I looked at her without knowing what to say. I said I talked to … I’m … eh?

The next day you died all on your own. I will always believe that you died on your own because you understood that I was a coward and you so wanted to die and I wasn’t brave enough to accompany you on the final stretch and make it easier on you. Doctor Real’s version was that you had another haemorrhage like the one that had caused the accident, despite the treatment they were giving you. And even though you were in hospital, there was nothing that could be done. You left with your exhibition of portraits still up. And Max, who came with Giorgio, crying, said what a shame, she didn’t know we were making the book for her; we should have told her.

That was how it all went, Sara. Since I was unable to help you, you had to go on your own, in a rush, secretly, without looking back, without being able to say goodbye. Do you understand my disquiet?

‘Adrià?’ Just hearing him say that I could tell that Max was upset.

‘Yes, what?’

‘I got the fax.’

‘Is it all right?’

‘No. It’s not.’

‘It’s just that, the fax … I must have hit the wrong key …’

‘Adrià.’

‘Yes.’

‘I received the fax perfectly. You pushed the right button and I got it.’

‘Very good. So then there’s no problem, yeah?’

‘No problem? Do you know what you sent me?’ His tone was like Trullols when she told me to do arpeggios in G major and I started them in D major.

‘Of course, Sara’s bio.’

‘Yes. What note did you start with?’ insisted Trullols.

‘Hey, what’s wrong with you?’

‘To put where?’ now it was Max.

‘At the end of the book of portraits. Are you pleased?’

‘No. Now I’ll read you what you sent me.’

It wasn’t a question: it was a warning. And I immediately heard him saying Sara Voltes-Epstein was born in Paris in nineteen fifty and when she was very young she met a stupid boy who fell in love with her and while he never intended any harm, he was never really able to make her happy.