Jaume Cabré - Confessions

This narration is for you, because you are alive somewhere, even if it is just in my story. It’s not for me, who won’t make it to tomorrow. I feel like Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius, who was born in Rome around four hundred seventy-five, and received many honours for his life devoted to the study of the philosophy of the classics; I earned my doctorate in nineteen seventy-six at the University of Tübingen and then I taught at the University of Barcelona, a fifteen-minute walk from my home. I have published several works, the fruit of my reflections out loud in class. I was appointed to political posts, which brought me fame and then disgrace, and imprisoned at the Ager Calventianus in Pavia before it was called Pavia; I await the judges’ verdict, which I already know will be my death sentence. Which is why I stop time by writing De consolatione philosophiae while I wait for the end to come, writing these memories to you, which can be called by no other name than their own. My death will be slow, not like Boethius’s. My murderous emperor is not named Theodoric, but rather Alzheimer the Great.

Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault, they taught me at school, I who am not even baptised, I don’t think. And they spiced it up with an incredible story about original sin. I am guilty of everything; if need be, of all the earthquakes, fires and floods in history. I don’t know where God is. Not mine, not yours, not the God of the Epsteins. The sensation of loneliness is excruciating, my beloved, my dearest beloved.

There is no redemption for the sinner. At most, forgiveness from the victim. But often one can’t live with the forgiveness either. Müss decided on reparation, without waiting for forgiveness from anyone, not even God. I feel guilty of many things and I’ve tried to go on living. Confiteor. I write with much difficulty, wearily, bewildered because I’ve started to have worrisome lapses. From what the doctor tells me, when these pages are printed, my beloved, I will already be a vegetable unable to ask for anyone’s help — not out of love but out of compassion — to give up on living.

Bernat looked at his friend, who returned his gaze in silence. For a few moments, he was afraid because it looked like Gertrud’s gaze. Despite everything, he kept reading I wrote all of this in a desperate attempt to hold onto you. I descended to the infernos of memory and the gods allowed me to rescue you with one, impossible condition. Now I understand Lot’s wife, who also turned at the wrong moment. I swear that I turned to make sure you wouldn’t trip on the staircase’s uneven step. The implacable gods of Hades took you back to the inferno of death. I didn’t know how to resuscitate you, beloved Eurydice.

‘Eu rydice.’

‘What.’

‘No, nothing, sorry.’

Bernat was silent for a few minutes. Cold sweat. Fear.

‘Do you understand me?’

‘Huh?’

‘Do you know what this is, that I’m reading?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’

‘Boooy!’

‘One moment,’ said Bernat, making up his mind. ‘I’ll be right back.’ Without the slightest irony: ‘Don’t move. And don’t call for Wilson, I’ll be back in a second.’

‘Wilson!’

With his heart about to leap out of his chest, Bernat burst into the doctor’s office and blurted out Doctor Valls, he corrected my pronunciation.

The doctor looked up from the document he was reading. It took him a few seconds to process the information, as if his patients’ slowness was contagious: ‘A reflex.’ He looked at his papers and then at Bernat. ‘Mr Ardèvol cannot remember anything. Not at this point. Just a coincidence. Unfortunately for all of us.’

‘But he said Eu rydice when I said Eurydice.’

‘Random chance. I assure you it’s just a coincidence.’

Bernat returned to his friend’s side, in the corner with the wisteria, and he said forgive me, Adrià: I’m very anxious because …

Adrià looked at him somewhat askance.

‘Is that good or bad?’ he replied, slightly scared.

Bernat thought my poor friend, all his life spent reasoning and reflecting and now he can only formulate one question about morality. Is that good or bad? As if life could be summed up as doing evil or not doing it. Maybe he’s right. I don’t know.

They remained in silence for a while longer until Bernat, in a loud, clear voice, continued his reading with now I’ve finally reached the end. It has been several months of intense writing, of reviewing my life; I was able to reach the end, but I no longer have the strength to order it as the canons dictate. The doctor explained that my light will gradually fade out, at a speed they can’t predict because every case is different. We have decided, that as long as I’m still me, that what’s her name, uh … that she will work full-time because they say I need someone to keep an eye on me. And soon we’ll have to hire two more people to complete the cycle … You see how I’m spending the money from the sale of the shop? I decided that while I still have a shred of consciousness I don’t want to be separated from my books. When I’ve lost that, I’m afraid I won’t care about anything any more. Since you aren’t here to take care of me; since Little Lola left hastily many years ago now … I had to make the preparations myself. In the nursing home in Collserola, close to my beloved Barcelona, they will take care of my body when I’ve passed over to another world, which may or may not be one of shadows. They assure me that I won’t miss my reading. It’s ironic that I spent my entire life trying to be aware of the steps I took; my entire life lugging around my many guilts, and the guilts of humanity, and in the end I will leave without knowing that I’m leaving. Farewell, Adrià. I’ll say it now, just in case. I look around me, the study where I’ve spent so many hours. ‘But one moment still, let us gaze together on these familiar shores, on these objects which doubtless we shall not see again … Let us try, if we can, to enter into death with open eyes …’ says Emperor Adrià before dying. Small soul. Supple, gentle, wandering soul, Sara, my body’s companion: you went first to the pale, frozen, naked places. Bugger. I pick up the telephone and stop writing. I dial my friend’s mobile number: it’s been months since I’ve spoken with him, locked up here, writing to you.

‘Hey! It’s Adrià. How are you? Oh, were you already sleeping? No: what time is it? What? Four in the mor …? Ohh, sorry! … Yikes … listen, I want to ask you for a favour and explain a couple of things to you. Yes. Yes. No, you can come over tomorrow: well, today. Yeah, it’s best if you come here. Any time that’s good for you, of course. I’m not going anywhere. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.’

I just explained the hic et nunc of what I’m living through. I had to write that last part in the present, which is very distressing. I am almost at the end of my text. Outside, the rosy fingers of dawn paint the still-dark sky. My hands are stiff with cold. I move the pages I’ve written, the inkwell and the writing implements and I look out the window. What cold, what loneliness. The brothers from Gerri will climb the path that I’ll glimpse when dawn wins the battle. I look at the Sacred Chest and I think that there’s nothing sadder than having to give up a monastery that has never stopped singing God’s praises. I can’t stop feeling guilty over this disaster, my beloved. Yes, I know. We all end up dying … But you, thanks to the generosity of my friend, who has been patient enough to be my friend all these years, you will continue living in these lines every time someone reads these pages. And one day, they tell me, my body will also decompose. Forgive me, but, like Orpheus, I was unable to go beyond. Resurrection is only for the gods. Confiteor, my beloved. L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim. Now is the following day.