Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Look at how stupid you are.’

I looked at her, disarmed. Because with six words she had made me feel completely unpresentable. And then I attacked viciously, ‘You made me how I am. I want to study, whether it makes me happy or not.’

Adrià Ardèvol was that much of a smart arse. If I could start my life over again now, the first thing I would search for would be happiness; and I would try, if possible, to shield it and keep it close throughout my entire life, without any other aspirations. If a child of mine had answered me the way I answered my mother, he would have got a slap. But I have no children. All my life I’ve only ever been a son. Why, Sara, why didn’t you ever want to have children?

‘What you want is to get far away from me.’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘Why would I want that?’

‘What you want is to run away.’

‘Come now!’ I lied again. ‘Why would I want to run away?’

‘Why don’t you tell me?’

I would never tell her, even if I were drunk, about Sara, my desire to merge, to start afresh, to search Paris from top to bottom, about the two visits I had made to the Voltes-Epstein house until, on the third, her father and mother told me, very politely, that their daughter had, voluntarily, gone to Paris because, in her words, she wanted to get away from you, who were hurting her so much. So you can understand that you are not welcome in this house.

‘But I …’

‘Don’t insist, young man. We have nothing against you,’ he lied, ‘but you must understand that our duty is to defend our daughter.’

Desperate, I didn’t understand a thing. Mr Voltes got up and indicated for me to do the same. Slowly, I obeyed him. I couldn’t help the tears because I’m the crying type; they burned like drops of sulphuric acid cleaving my humiliated cheeks.

‘There must be some misunderstanding.’

‘It doesn’t seem that way,’ said Sara’s mother, in guttural Catalan. She was tall, with hair that had been dark and was now slightly greyed and dark eyes, as if she were a photo of Sara thirty years on. ‘Sara doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. Not a single thing.’

I started to leave the room, forced out by Mr Voltes’s gesture. I stopped, ‘She didn’t leave anything in writing, any note, for me?’

‘No.’

I left that house that I had visited secretly when Sara loved me, without saying goodbye to her ever-so-polite but ever-so-inflexible parents. I left stifling my sobs. The door closed silently behind me and for a few seconds I remained on the landing, as if that was somehow a way to be closer to Sara. Then I burst into unbridled tears.

‘I don’t want to run away, nor do I have any reason to.’ I paused to add emphasis. ‘Do you understand, Mother?’

I had lied to Mother for the third time and I swear I heard a rooster crow.

‘I understood you perfectly.’ Looking into my eyes: ‘Listen, Adrià.’

It was the first time she called me Adrià and not son. The first time in my life. The twelfth of April, nineteen sixty- or seventy-something.

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t have to work if you don’t want to. Devote your time to the violin and to reading your books. And when I’m dead, hire a manager for the shop.’

‘Don’t talk about dying. And I’m finished with the violin.’

‘Where do you say you want to go?’

‘To Tübingen.’

‘Where is that?’

‘In Germany.’

‘And what’s there that you’re missing out on?’

‘Coșeriu.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Don’t you spend all your time at the library, chasing girls? System, norm, speech.’

‘Come on, who is he?’

‘A Romanian linguist I want to study under.’

‘Now that you mention it, his name rings a bell.’

He grew silent, sulky. But he couldn’t help himself: ‘Aren’t you studying here? Aren’t you half finished, with A+s in everything, bloody hell?’

I didn’t mention my wanting to study under Nestle because when Bernat and I had met up at the university bar, surrounded by shouting, pushing, hurrying and white coffees, I already knew that Wilhelm Nestle had been dead for some time. It would have been like faking a quote in a footnote.

After two days and no news, he came over to the house to practise for his exam, as if I were his teacher. Adrià opened the door and Bernat pointed an accusatory finger in greeting: ‘Don’t you realise that in Tübingen they teach classes in German?’

‘Wenn du willst, kannst du mit dem Storioni spielen,’ replied Adrià with an icy smile, as he ushered him inside.

‘I don’t know what you just said, but all right.’

And as he put rosin on the bow, just a smidge, concentrating so as to not saturate the instrument, he grumbled that it would have been nice to have been consulted.

‘Why?’

‘Come on, we’re supposed to be friends.’

‘That’s why I told you now.’

‘Best friends, you twat! You could have told me that you were considering the crazy idea of spending a few weeks in Tübingen; what do you think, best pal of mine? Haven’t you ever heard of that?’

‘You would have told me to forget about it. And we’ve already had this conversation.’

‘Not exactly in these terms.’

‘You want to always have me around.’

Bernat, in response, left the scores on the table and started to play the first movement of the Beethoven concerto. Ignoring the introduction, I was his out of tune orchestra, following the piano reduction, even imitating the timbre of some instruments. I ended up exhausted, but thrilled and happy because Bernat had played impeccably, beyond perfect. As if he wanted to make it clear that he hadn’t liked my last comment. When he finished, I respected the silence that reigned.

‘What?’

‘Good.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Very good. Different.’

‘Different?’

‘Different. If I heard it right, you were inside the music.’

They grew silent. He sat down and wiped away the sweat. He looked me in the eye: ‘What you want is to run away. I don’t know from what, but you want to run away. I hope it’s not from me.’

I looked at the other scores he had with him.

‘I think it’s a good idea for you to play the Massià pieces. Who will accompany you on the piano?’

‘Haven’t you thought that you might get awfully bored studying those things you want to study, about ideas and all that?’

‘Massià deserves it. And they are lovely. The one I like best is Allegro spiritoso.’

‘And why study with a linguist, if what you want is cultural history?’

‘Watch it with the Ciaccona, it’s treacherous.’

‘Don’t go, you bastard.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘From Fine Arts.’

‘And what is it?’

The icy, distrusting figure of Mrs Voltes-Epstein terrified him. He swallowed hard and said she is missing some paperwork for the enrolment transfer and that’s why we need her address.

‘There is nothing missing.’

‘Yes there is. The recidivism policy.’

‘And what’s that?’ She sounded truly curious.

‘Nothing. A slight detail. But it has to be signed.’ He looked at the papers and casually let drop, ‘She has to sign it.’

‘Leave me the papers and …’

‘No, no. I’m not authorised to do that. Perhaps if you give me the name of the school in Paris where she has transferred her enrolment …’

‘No.’

‘They don’t have it in Fine Arts.’ He corrected himself. ‘We don’t have it.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Pardon?’

‘My daughter hasn’t transferred any enrolment. Who are you?’

‘And she slammed the door in my face. Bam!’

‘She saw right through you.’