Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Adrià let Kornelia go off down Wilhelmstrasse without asking for any explanation because, deep down, he had his secrets from Kornelia: he still hadn’t told her anything about Sara, for example. That was all very well and good in theory, but two minutes later he was sorry he’d let her go without raising any objections. He didn’t see her in Greek or in Philosophy of the Experience. Nor in the open seminar in Moral Philosophy that she’d said she didn’t want to miss. And very ashamed of myself, I headed towards Jakobsgasse and I stood, slightly hidden and even more ashamed of myself, on the corner with Schmiedtorstrasse, as if I were waiting for the 12. And after ten or twelve 12s had passed, I was still standing there, so cold my feet were like ice about to crack, trying to find out what Kornelia’s secret was.

At five in the afternoon, when I was frozen from the heart down, Kornelia appeared with her secret. She was wearing the same coat as always, so pretty, so Kornelia. The secret was a tall, blond, handsome, laughing boy whom she’d met in the cloister at Bebenhausen and who was now kissing her before they both entered the building. He kissed her much better than I knew how to. That’s where the problems began. Not because I had spied on her, but because she realised it when she drew the curtain in the living room and saw Adrià on the corner in front of her house, frozen, looking at her incredulously, with his eyes wide, waiting for the 12. That night I cried on the street and when I got home I found a letter from Bernat; it had been months since I’d heard from him and in the letter he assured me that he was bursting with happiness, that her name was Tecla and that he was coming to see me whether I liked it or not.

Since I’d been in Tübingen, my relationship with Bernat had cooled somewhat. I don’t write letters: well, I didn’t when I was young. The first sign of life from him was a suicidal postcard sent from Palma, with the text in full view of the Francoist military censors, which said I am playing the cornet for the colonel of the regiment and playing with myself when they don’t let us go out or playing on everyone’s nerves when I practise the violin. I hate life, soldiers, the regime and the rock they all crawled out from under. And how are you? There was no indication as to where he could send a reply and Adrià wrote back to Bernat’s parents’ house. I think I told him about Kornelia but very sketchily. But that summer I travelled down to Barcelona and, with the money that Mother had put in my own account, I paid a small fortune to Toti Dalmau, who was already a doctor, and he sent me for a few check-ups at the Military Hospital and I came out of them with a certificate stating that I had serious cardio-respiratory problems that kept me from serving my homeland. Adrià, for a cause he considered just, had moved the strings of corruption. And I don’t regret it. No dictatorship has the right to demand a year and a half or two of my life, amen.

He wanted to bring Tecla. I told him that I only had one bed in my flat and blah, blah, blah, which was ridiculous because they could have easily gone to a hostel. And then it turned out that Tecla couldn’t come because she had too much work, which, he later confessed to me, meant that Tecla’s parents wouldn’t allow her to go on such a long trip with that boyfriend of hers, who was too tall, with hair too long and a gaze too melancholy. I was glad he didn’t show up with her because otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to really talk, which meant that Adrià would have felt so envious that he wouldn’t have been able to breathe and he would have said what are you doing with a woman, you should always put friends first; you know what I mean, loser? Friends! And I would have said that out of ffucking envy and desperation at seeing my cardiac problems with Kornelia take the same path as the ones I had with you, my love. With one advantage: I knew Kornelia’s secret. Her secrets. And yet … I was still asking myself why you had run away to Paris. So he came alone, with a student violin, and with a lot of things he wanted to talk about. It seemed he had grown a bit. He was now a good half a head taller than me. And he was starting to look at the world with a little less impatience. Sometimes he even smiled for no reason, just because, just because of life.

‘Are you in love?’

Then his smile widened. Yes, he was in love. Hopelessly in love. Unlike me, who was hopelessly confused by Kornelia, who went off with some other guy the minute I turned my back because she was at that age, the age of experiences. I envied Bernat’s serene smile. But there was a detail that worried me. When he set himself up in my room, on the foldout bed, he opened his violin case. Serious violinists don’t just carry a violin in their cases; they have half their lives in there: two or three bows, rosin for the strings, a photo or two, scores in a side pocket, sets of strings and their only review, from some local magazine. Bernat had his student violin, a bow and that’s it. And a folder. And the first thing he opened was the folder. There was a clumsily stapled text inside, which he held out to me. Here, read.

‘What is it?’

‘A short story. I’m a writer.’

The way he said I’m a writer bothered me. In fact, it’s bothered me all my life. With his usual lack of tact, he wanted me to read it right then and there. I took it, looked at the title and the length, and said I’ll have to read it leisurely.

‘Of course, of course. I’ll go out and take a walk.’

‘No. I’ll read it tonight, when I usually read. Tell me about Tecla.’

He told me that she was like this and like that, that she had delicious dimples in her cheeks, that he’d met her at the conservatory of the Liceu; she played the piano and he was the concertmaster for the Schumann quintet.

‘The funny thing is that she plays the piano and her name is Tecla.’ Tecla means key.

‘She’ll get over it. Does she play well?’

Since if it were up to him we would stay there all day, I grabbed my anorak and said follow me and I took him to the Deutsches Haus, which was full as always, and I checked out of the corner of my eye for Kornelia and one of her experiences, which meant I wasn’t entirely attentive to the conversation with Bernat, who, after ordering the same thing I had, just in case, started to say I miss you but I don’t want to study abroad in Europe and …

‘You’re making a mistake.’

‘I prefer to make an inner voyage. That’s why I’ve started writing.’

‘That’s balderdash. You have to travel. Find teachers who will invigorate you, get your blood flowing.’

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘No: it’s Sauerkraut.’

‘What?’

‘Pickled cabbage. You get used to it.’

No sign of Kornelia, yet. Halfway into my sausage I was more calm, and barely thinking about her at all.

‘I want to pack in the violin,’ he said, I think to provoke me.

‘I forbid you.’

‘Are you expecting someone?’

‘No, why?’

‘No, it’s just that you’re … Well, it looks like you’re expecting someone.’

‘Why do you say you want to give up the violin?’

‘Why did you give it up?’

‘You already know that. I don’t know how to play.’

‘Neither do I. I don’t know if you remember: I lack soul.’

‘You’ll find it studying abroad. Study under Kremer, or that kid, Perlman. Or have Stern hear you play. Hell, Europe is filled with great teachers that we’ve never even heard of. Light a fire under yourself, burn the candle at both ends. Or go to America.’

‘I don’t have a future as a soloist.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Shut up, you don’t understand. I can’t do more than I’m doing.’