Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘And what sense does it make to grab the case, open it up, leave the violin in the safe, close it, ask your son for his student violin and put that into the good one’s case? Huh?’

He looked around. He focused on me, who was on the threshold trying to conceal my fearful trembling. Le tremblement de la panique. For a few seconds his gaze indicated that he had guessed the why behind the mystery. I was already imagining myself speaking French for my entire ffucking life.

I don’t know what happened, I don’t know what my father wanted. I don’t know why, if he had to go to the Athenaeum, they found him on the Arrabassada. I only know that I pushed him to his death and today, fifty years later, I still think the same thing.

And one day Mother ascended from the nadir and began to observe things with her eyes again. I noticed because at dinnertime — she, Little Lola and I — she looked at me for an instant and I thought she was going to say something and I was trembling all over because I was convinced she was about to say I know everything, I know it’s your fault Father died and now I’m going to turn you in to the police, murderer, and I, but Mother, I just, I didn’t mean to do it, I didn’t … and Little Lola trying to keep the peace, because she was the one in charge of keeping the peace in a house where little was said and she did it with few words and measured gestures. Little Lola, I should have kept you by my side my entire life.

And Mother kept looking at me and I didn’t know what to do. I think that my mother hated me since my father’s death. Before his death she wasn’t overly fond of me. It’s strange: why have we always been so cold with each other in my family? I imagine, today, that it all comes from the way my father set up our lives. At that time, at dinner, it must have been April or May, Mother looked at me and didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what was worse: a mother who doesn’t even look at you or a mother who accuses you. And then she launched her terrible accusation:

‘How are your violin classes going?’

The truth is I didn’t know how to answer; but I do remember that I was sweating on the inside.

‘Fine. Same as ever.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Now her eyes drilled into me. ‘Are you happy, with Miss Trullols?’

‘Yes. Very much so.’

‘And with your new violin?’

‘Come now …’

‘What does come now mean? Are you happy or not?’

‘Well, sure.’

‘Well, sure or yes?’

‘Yes.’

Silence. I looked down and Little Lola chose that moment to take away the empty bowl of green beans and acted as if she had a lot of work to do in the kitchen, the big coward.

‘Adrià.’

I looked at her with bulging eyes. She observed me the way she used to in the past and said are you OK?

‘Well, sure.’

‘You’re sad.’

‘Well, sure.’

Now she would finish me off with a finger pointing at my black soul.

‘I haven’t been there for you, lately.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does matter.’

Little Lola returned with a dish of fried mackerel, which was the food I detested most in the world, and Mother, seeing it, sketched a sort of meagre smile and said how nice, mackerel.

And that was the end of the conversation and the accusation. That night I ate all the mackerel that was put on my plate, and afterward, the glass of milk, and when I was on my way to bed, I saw that Mother was rummaging around in Father’s study and I think it was the first time she’d done that since his death. And I couldn’t help sneaking a glance, because for me any excuse was a good one to have a look around in there. I brought Carson with me just in case. Mother was kneeling and looking through the safe. Now she knew the combination. Vial was leaning, outside of the safe. And she pulled out the bunch of papers and gave them an apathetic glance and started to pile them up neatly on the floor.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Papers. From the store. From Tona.’

‘I’ll help you, if you’d like.’

‘No, because I don’t know what I’m looking for.’

And I was very pleased because Mother and I had started up a conversation; it was brief, but a conversation. And I had the evil thought of how nice that Father had died because now Mother and I could talk. I didn’t want to think that, it just came into my mind. But it was true that Mother’s eyes had begun to shine from that day on.

And then she pulled out three or four small boxes and put them on top of the table. I came closer. She opened one: there was a gold fountain pen with a gold nib.

‘Wow,’ I said, in admiration.

Mother closed the little box.

‘Is it gold?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose so.’

‘I’ve never seen it before.’

‘Neither have I.’

Immediately, she chewed on her lips. She put away the box with the gold pen that she hadn’t known was there and opened the other box, smaller and green. With trembling fingers, she pulled aside the pink cotton.

Over the years I have come to understand that my mother’s life wasn’t easy. That it must not have been a great idea to marry Father, despite the fact that he removed his hat so elegantly to greet her and said how are you, beautiful. That surely she would have been happier with another man who occasionally wasn’t right, or made mistakes, or started laughing just because. All of us, in that house, were marked by Father’s incorruptible seriousness, with its slight covering of acrimony. And, even though I spent the day observing and I was quite a clever lad, I have to admit that really the lights were on but no one was home. So, as a colophon to that night that I found extraordinary because I had got my mother back, I said can I study with Vial, Mother? And Mother froze in her tracks. For a few moments she stared at the wall and I thought here we go again, she’s never going to look at me again. But she gave me a shy smile and said let me think it over. I think that that was when I realised that maybe things were starting to change. They changed, obviously, but not the way I would have liked. Of course, if that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have met you.

Have you noticed that life is an inscrutable accident? Out of Father’s millions of spermatazoa, only one fertilises the egg it reaches. That you were born; that I was born, those are vast random accidents. We could have been born millions of different beings who wouldn’t have been either you or me. That we both like Brahms is also a coincidence. That your family has had so many deaths and so few survivors. All random. If the itinerary of our genes and then our lives had shifted along another of the millions of possible forks in the road, none of this would have been written and who knows who would read it. It’s mind blowing.

After that night, things began to change. Mother spent many hours locked in the study, as if she were Father but without a loupe, combing through all the documents in the safe now that six one five four two eight was in the public domain. She had so little regard for Father’s way of doing things that she didn’t even change the combination to the safe, which I liked even though I couldn’t say why. And she spent even more hours going through the papers and speaking to strange men, with eyeglasses that they would put on or take off depending on whether they were reading papers or looking at Mother, always speaking in a soft tone, everyone very serious, and neither I nor Carson nor even silent Black Eagle could catch much of anything. After a few weeks of murmuring, advice given almost in a whisper, recommendations, eyebrow raising and brief, convincing comments, Mother put away the whole lot of papers into the safe, six one five four two eight, and she put a few papers into a dark folder. And in that precise moment, she changed the combination to the safe. Then she put on her black coat over a black dress, she took in a deep breath, she picked up the dark folder and she showed up unexpectedly at the shop and Cecília said good day, Mrs Ardèvol. And she went directly to the office of Mr Ardèvol, she went in without asking for permission, she placed her hand, delicately, on the interrupter of the telephone that a startled Mr Berenguer was using and she cut off his call.