Jaume Cabré - Confessions

He took the instrument from me delicately and said to himself, as if in dreams, with this I’m happy. That’s why I like … He gestured with his head around the study, at all the miracles contained therein. And he carefully placed Vial into its case, and that into the dungeon of the safe.

Just then Trullols’s classroom door opened. Bernat said, in a low voice the teacher couldn’t hear, ‘What claptrap: I don’t belong to the violin. It’s mine: my father bought it for me at Casa Parramon’s. For a hundred and seventy-five pesetas.’

And he closed the case. I found it very unfriendly. So young and already mystery made him uncomfortable. There was no way he could be my friend. Ruled out. Kaputt. Then it turned out he also went to Casp, a year ahead of me. And his name was Bernat Plensa i Punsoda. I may have said that already. And he was so uptight, as if they’d bathed him in a vat of hair spray and forgot to rinse him off. And I had to admit, after sixteen minutes, that that unfriendly boy who refused to accept mystery, who would never be my friend, and who was named Bernat Plensa i Punsoda, had something about him that made a violin bought for one hundred and seventy-five pesetas at Casa Parramon sound with a delicacy I had never been able to achieve. And Trullols looked at him with satisfaction and I thought what a piece of shit my violin was. That was when I swore that I would make him shut up forever, him, the violin dedicated to Madame d’Angoulême and the hair spray he’d bathed in; and I think that it would have been much better for everyone if I’d never had that thought. For the moment, all I did was let it gradually ripen. It’s hard to believe that the most unthinkable tragedies can be born of the most innocent things.

Bernat, halfway up the stairs, felt his pocket and pulled out the vibrating mobile phone. Tecla. He hesitated for a few seconds, not sure whether to answer or not. He moved aside to let a hurrying neighbour get past him. He stood there like an idiot looking at the lit-up screen, as if he could see Tecla in it, cursing his name, and that gave him a guilty pleasure. He put the mobile back into his pocket and after a moment he could feel that it had stopped vibrating. Tecla must have been negotiating the last loose end with the voice mail operator. Maybe she was saying, and we each get the house in Llançà for six months a year. And the operator, who do you think you are, you’ve never set foot in there and when you have it was with that peeved face you are so fond of pulling just to make poor Bernat’s life difficult! Who do you think you are? Bravo for the Orange operator, thought Bernat. He caught his breath at the landing on the main floor and, once he had, he rang the bell.

‘Rrrrrrrrrrinnnnnng.’

It took so long for him to hear any reaction from inside the flat that he had time to think about Tecla, about Llorenç and about the very unpleasant conversation they’d had the night before. The murmur of dragging footsteps, the sudden clamour of the lock and the door began to move. Adrià, looking at him over narrow reading glasses, finished opening the door and turned on the light in the hallway. Its gleam reflected off his bald head.

‘The bulb in the landing blew again,’ he said in greeting.

Bernat hugged him and Adrià didn’t hug him back. He took off his eyeglasses and said thank you for coming, as he waved him in.

‘How are you?’

‘Terrible. And you?’

‘Terrible.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t drink any more.’

‘We don’t drink any more, we don’t fuck any more, we don’t overeat any more, we don’t go to the cinema any more, we don’t ever like a book any more, now every woman is too young, we can’t get it up any more, we don’t believe those who say they’ll save the country any more.’

‘Quite a list.’

‘How’s Tecla doing?’

He had him enter the study. Bernat looked around with open admiration, as he did every time he went in there. For a few seconds his gaze stopped on the self-portrait, but he refrained from any comment.

‘What did you ask me?’ he said.

‘How’s Tecla?’

‘Very well. Fabulous.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘Adrià.’

‘What.’

‘Come on, don’t make fun.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I told you two days ago that we’re separating, that we’re at each other’s throats …’

‘Oh, Christ …’

‘Don’t you remember?’

‘No. I’m very absorbed and …’

‘You’re an absent-minded scholar.’

Adrià grew quiet and, to break the silence, Bernat said we’re separating; at our age, and we’re separating.

‘I’m so sorry. But you’re doing the right thing.’

‘To tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less. I’m tired of everything.’

When he sat down, Bernat tapped his knees and, in a falsely cheery tone, said come on, what was all the rush and urgency about?

Adrià stared at him for a very long minute. Bernat held his gaze until he realised that, even though he was looking at him, Adrià was far, far away.

‘What’s wrong?’ He paused. The other man was in the clouds. ‘Adrià?’ A hint of panic. ‘What’s going on with you?’

Adrià swallowed hard and looked, somewhat anxiously, towards his friend. Then he looked away. ‘I’m ill.’

‘Oh.’

Silence. Your whole life, our whole lives, thought Bernat, passing before your eyes when a loved one tells you they are ill. And Adrià was only half there. Bernat tried to forget for a few moments about Tecla, that bitch who was ruining his day, his week and his month, that shrew, and he said but what do you mean? What do you have?

‘An expiration date.’

Silence. More long seconds of silence.

‘But what is going on, for Christ’s sake, are you dying, is it serious, is there anything I can do, I don’t know, explain yourself, will you?’

If he hadn’t been separated from Tecla, he never would have had that reaction. And Bernat was infinitely sorry for what he’d said but, on the other hand, from what he could see, it hadn’t had much of an effect on Adrià because his response was a smile.

‘Yes, there is something you can do for me. A favour.’

‘Of course. But how are you? What do you have?’

‘It’s hard for me to explain. They have to put me in assisted living or something like that.’

‘Shit, but you’re fine. Look at you, all hale and hearty.’

‘You have to do me a favour.’

He got up and disappeared into the flat. What patience I need lately, thought Bernat. First Tecla, and now Adrià, with his endless mysteries and his hypochondria.

Adrià came back with his hypochondria and a mystery in the shape of a large bundle of papers. He put it down on the little table, in front of Bernat.

‘You need to make sure this doesn’t get lost.’

‘Let’s see, let’s see … How long have you been ill?’

‘A while.’

‘I didn’t know anything about this.’

‘I didn’t know you and Tecla were separating either, even though I’ve suggested it to you more than once. And I always wanted to think that you’d worked it out. Can I continue?’

Men who are soulmates know how to fight and make up, and they know not to tell each other everything, just in case the other could lend a helping hand. Adrià had told him that thirty-five years ago and Bernat remembered it perfectly. And he cursed life, which gives us so many deaths.