Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘How did you know?’

‘From a doctor friend. How are you feeling?’

‘Surprised to see you here.’

‘No, I mean how is your health?’

‘I’m dying. Would you like some tea?’

‘Yes.’

She disappeared down the hallway. The kitchen was right there. Adrià looked at the painting and had the feeling he was re-encountering an old friend who, despite the years, hadn’t aged a bit; he took in a breath and smelled the springtime aroma of that landscape; he could even make out the murmur of the river and the cold Ramon de Nolla felt when he arrived there in search of his victim. He stood there, observing it, until he felt Little Lola’s presence behind him. She was carrying a tray with two teacups. Adrià noticed the simplicity of that flat, which was so tiny that it could have fit quite easily inside his study.

‘Why didn’t you stay with me?’

‘I’m fine. This has been my house before and after living by your mother’s side. I have no complaints. Do you hear me? I have no complaints. I’m over seventy, older than your parents; and I’ve lived the life I wanted to live.’

They sat down at the table. A slurp of tea. Adrià was comfortable in silence. After a short while: ‘It’s not true that I’m going bald.’

‘You can’t see yourself from the back. You look like a Franciscan friar.’

Adrià smiled. She was the same old Little Lola. And she was still the only person in the world he had never seen wrinkle her nose in displeasure.

‘This tea is very nice.’

‘I got your book. It’s slow going.’

‘I know, but I wanted you to have it.’

‘What have you been doing, besides writing and reading?’

‘Playing the violin. Hours and hours, and days and months.’

‘Of all things! Why did you give it up, then?’

‘I was drowning. I had to choose between the violin or me. And I chose me.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘No. Are you?’

‘Yes. Quite. Not entirely.’

‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘Yes. Why are you so anxious?’

‘It’s that … I can’t stop thinking that if you sold the painting you could buy a larger flat.’

‘You don’t understand anything, boy.’

They were silent. She looked at the Urgell with a gaze that was obviously used to contemplating that landscape and to feeling, without realising it, the cold that had got into the bones of fleeing Friar Miquel de Susqueda as he searched along the road from Burgal for a refuge from the threat of divine justice. They were silent for perhaps five minutes, drinking tea, each of them remembering moments in their lives. And finally Adrià Ardèvol looked into her eyes and he said Little Lola, I love you very much; you are a very good person. She finished her last sip of tea, bowed her head, remained quiet for a long time and then began to explain that what he’d just said wasn’t true because your mother told me Little Lola, you have to help me.

‘What do you need, Carme?’ a bit frightened by the other woman’s tone.

‘Do you know this girl?’

She put a photo of a pretty girl, with dark eyes and hair, on the kitchen table in front of her. ‘Have you ever seen her?’

‘No. Who is she?’

‘A girl who’s trying to dupe Adrià.’

Carme sat beside Little Lola and took her hand.

‘You have to do me a favour,’ she said.

She asked me to follow you, you and Sara, to confirm what the private investigator she had hired had told her. Yes: you were holding hands at the 47 stop on the Gran Via.

‘They love each other, Carme,’ she told her.

‘That’s dangerous,’ insisted Carme.

‘Your mother knew that girl wanted to hoodwink you.’

‘My God,’ said Adrià. ‘What does hoodwink me even mean?’

Perplexed, Little Lola looked at Carme and repeated the question, ‘What do you mean by she wants to hoodwink him? Can’t you see that they love each other? Don’t you see, Carme?’

Now they were in Mr Ardèvol’s study, standing, and Carme said I’ve looked into that girl’s family: her last name is Voltes-Epstein.’

‘And?’

‘They’re Jews.’

‘Ah.’ Pause. ‘So?’

‘I don’t have anything against the Jews, it’s not that. But Fèlix … Ay, girl, I don’t how to explain it …’

‘Try.’

Carme took a few steps, opened the door to make sure that Adrià hadn’t arrived yet, when she knew perfectly well he hadn’t, closed the door and said, in a softer voice, that Fèlix had some dealings with some of their relatives and …

‘And what?’

‘Well, they ended badly. Let’s just say they ended very badly.’

‘Fèlix is dead, Carme.’

‘This girl has wormed her way into our life to make a mess of things. I’m convinced she’s after the shop.’ Almost in a murmur: ‘Adrià couldn’t care less.’

‘Carme …’

‘He’s very vulnerable. Since he lives in the clouds, it’s easy for her to get him to do what she wants.’

‘I’m sure that girl doesn’t even know the shop exists.’

‘Believe it. They’ve been sizing us up.’

‘You can’t know that for sure.’

‘Yes. A few weeks ago she was in there with a woman who I suppose is her mother.’

Before making up her mind to ask, they glanced around, as many customers did, but leisurely, as if they wanted to evaluate the whole place, the whole business. Carme spotted them from the office and immediately recognised the girl who was secretly dating Adrià: then the pieces fell into place and she understood that all that secrecy was a subterfuge for the girl’s murky intentions. Cecília waited on them; Carme, later, found out that they were foreigners, probably French, judging by the way they said humbrella stand and mihrohr, because they had asked for a humbrella stand and two mihrohrs, because it seemed that none of the objects in particular had caught their eye, as if they were just having a look around the shop. Do you understand me, Mrs Ardèvol? That same night Carme Bosch called the Espelleta Agency, asked for the owner and gave him a new assignment because she wasn’t willing to let them use her son’s feelings for unconfessable interests. Yes, if possible, with the same detective.

‘But how … Mother … Sara and I saw each other in secret!’

‘Well, um …’ Little Lola, lowering her head and looking at the oilcloth that covered the table.

‘How did she come to suspect that …’

‘Master Manlleu. When you told him that you were giving up the violin.’

‘What did you say?’ Unkempt, bushy white eyebrows like storm clouds over the bulging eyes of appalled, indignant Master Manlleu.

‘When this term ends, I will take my exam and give up the violin. Forever.’

‘This is that lassie who’s filling your head up with nonsense.’

‘What lassie?’

‘Don’t play dumb. Have you ever seen two people holding hands through the entire Bruckner’s fourth? Have you?’

‘Well, but …’

‘You can see it a mile away, you two idiots, there in the stalls, all lovey-dovey like two sugary-sweet negroid lovebirds.’

‘That doesn’t have anything to do with my decision to

‘It has a lot to do with your decision to. This shrew is a bad influence. And you have to nip it in the bud.’

And since I stood there, shocked stiff by his audacity, he took the chance to drive his point home: ‘You must marry the violin.’

‘Excuse me, Master. It’s my life.’

‘Whatever you say, know-it-all. But I warn you that you will not give up the violin.’

Adrià Ardèvol closed his violin case more noisily than necessary. He stood up and looked the genius in the face. He was now a few inches taller than him.

‘I’m giving up the violin, Master Manlleu; whether you like it or not. And I’m telling Mother today too.’