Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘No. It was a verbal agreement.’

‘Well, I will have to turn you in.’

‘Do you know why Cecília gave you those receipts?’

‘No.’

‘Because she wants my ruin.’

‘Why?’ Mother, curious, leaning back in her chair with a questioning stance.

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Go ahead. We have time. Your plane leaves in the mid-afternoon.’

Mr Berenguer sat down. Mrs Ardèvol placed her elbows on the desk and held up her chin with both hands. She looked him in the eye, inviting him to speak.

‘Come on, Cecília, we don’t have time.’

Cecília made that lewd smile she did when no one was watching and she let Mr Ardèvol grab her by the hand and take her into his office, here.

‘Where is Berenguer?’

‘In Sarrià. Emptying out the Pericas-Sala flat.’

‘Didn’t you send Cortés?’

‘He doesn’t trust the heirs. They want to hide things.’

‘What sneaks. Take off your clothes.’

‘The door is open.’

‘More exciting. Take off your clothes.’

Cecília naked in the middle of the office, her eyes lowered and that innocent smile of hers. And I wasn’t emptying out the Pericas-Sala flat because the inventory was very specific and if even a drawing-pin were missing I would have demanded it back. The nasty girl, sitting on top of this desk, doing things to your husband.

‘You get better every day.’

‘Someone could come in.’

‘You just do your job. If someone comes in, I’ll deal with them. Can you imagine?’

They started laughing like crazy as they knocked things over and made a mess, the inkwell fell to the floor and you can still make out the stain, see?

‘I love you.’

‘Me too. You’ll come with me to Bordeaux.’

‘What about the shop?’

‘Mr Berenguer.’

‘But he doesn’t even know where the

‘Don’t stop what you’re doing. You’ll come to Bordeaux and we’ll have a party every night.’

Then the little bell on the door sounded and in came a customer who was very interested in buying a Japanese weapon he’d looked at the week before. While Fèlix helped him, Cecília did what she could to tidy up her appearance.

‘Can you help him, Cecília?’

‘One moment, Mr Ardèvol.’

Without underwear, trying to erase the trail of lipstick smudged all over her face, Cecília emerged from the office bright red and waved for the customer to follow her while Fèlix watched the scene with amusement.

‘And why are you telling me this, Mr Berenguer?’

‘So you know everything. It went on for years.’

‘I don’t believe a word.’

‘Well, there’s more. And we are all tired of the song and dance.’

‘Go ahead, I already told you, we’ve got time.’

‘You are a coward. No, no, let me speak: a coward. It’s been five years of the same old song and dance, yes, Cecília, next month I’ll tell her everything, I swear. Coward. Coward. Five years of excuses. Five years! I’m not a little girl. (…) No, no, no! I’m talking now: we will never live together because you don’t love me. No, you be quiet, it’s my turn to talk. I said be quiet! Well, you can stick your sweet words up your arse. It’s over. Do you hear me? What? (…) No. Don’t say a word. What? Because I’ll hang up when I’m good and ready. No, sir: quan a mi em roti.’

‘I already told you that I don’t believe a word. And I know of which I speak.’

‘As you wish. I suppose I’ll have to look for a new job.’

‘No. Each month you’ll pay me back a part of what you’ve stolen and you can continue working here.’

‘I’d rather leave.’

‘Then I will turn you in, Mr Berenguer.’

Mother pulled a sheet with some figures out of her briefcase.

‘Your salary, from now on. And here is the amount you won’t receive, as the repayment. I want you to give back every last red cent and from prison you won’t be able to do that. So what do you say, Mr Berenguer? Yes or yes?’

Mr Berenguer opened and closed his mouth like a fish. And he still had to feel Mrs Ardèvol’s breath on his face. She had sat up and leaned over the desk, to say, in a soft voice, if anything funny happens to me, you should know that I have all this information and instructions for the police in a notary’s safe in Barcelona, on the twenty-first of March of nineteen fifty-eight; signed, Carme Bosch d’Ardèvol. Notary xxx bore witness. And after another silence she repeated yes or yes, Mr Berenguer?

And while she was at it, seizing the momentum, she requested an appointment with Barcelona’s Civil Governor, the loathsome Acedo Colunga. In her role as General Moragues’s widow, Mrs Carme Bosch d’Ardèvol went before the Governor’s personal secretary and demanded justice.

‘Justice for what, madam?’

‘For my husband’s murder.’

‘I will have to look into it in order to know what you are referring to.’

‘The form they had me fill out explained the reason behind my request to be seen. In detail.’ Pause. ‘Have you read it?’

The Governor’s secretary looked at the papers he had in front of him. He read them carefully. The black widow, trying to even out her breathing, thought what am I doing here, wasting my breath over a man who ignored me from the very start and never loved me in his entire ffucking life.

‘Very well,’ said the secretary. ‘And what do you want?’

‘To speak with His Excellency the Civil Governor.’

‘You are already speaking with me, which is the same thing.’

‘I wish to speak with the Governor personally.’

‘That’s impossible. Forget about it.’

‘But …’

‘You cannot do that.’

And she could not do it. When she left the governor’s offices, her legs shaking with rage, she decided to let it go. Perhaps she was more worried about the miraculous apparition of my guardian angel than the disdain of the Francoist authorities. Or the maddening insistence of various parties that Fèlix was an impossibly compulsive fornicator. Or, who knows, maybe she’d finally arrived at the conclusion that it wasn’t worth her while demanding justice for a man who had been so unjust with her. Yes. Or no. Really I have no idea, because after Father, the biggest question mark in my life, before meeting you, has always been my mother. I can say that, only two days later, things shifted slightly and her plans changed, and that I can speak of first-hand without making any of it up.

‘Rrrrrrrrinnnnnnng.’

I opened the door. Mother had just arrived from wreaking havoc in the shop and I think she was in the bathroom. The first thing that entered the house was the stench of Commissioner Plasencia’s tobacco.

‘Mrs Ardèvol?’ He screwed up his face in what may have been an attempt at a smile. ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ he said.

Mother had the Commissioner and his stench enter the study. Her heart went boom, boom, boom and mine went bam, boom, bom because I urgently assembled Black Eagle and Carson, without his horse, to avoid making any noise. Little Lola was in the gallery with the window, so I had to do something desperate and I slipped, like a thief, behind the sofa just as Mother and the policeman were sitting down and making noise with their chairs. It was the last time I used the sofa as a base for spying: my legs were too long. Mother went out to tell Little Lola not to let anyone disturb her even if the shop is on fire, you hear me, Little Lola? And she turned around and closed the door with the five of us inside.

‘Commissioner.’

‘It seems you’ve tried to discredit me to His Excellency the Civil Governor.’

‘I’m not discrediting or criticising anyone. I am only demanding the information I am owed.’