Authors: Jaume Cabré
‘Who is this Anna?’ wondered aloud one of the twins.
‘Doesn’t matter now,’ said the other.
T
he Sagarra Room at the Athenaeum, at seven forty-five on that dark, cloudy Tuesday had the fifty-something available chairs filled with young people who seemed to be spellbound listening to the extremely saccharine background music. An older man, who seemed disorientated, hesitated endlessly before choosing a seat at the back, as if he were afraid that, when it was over, they would ask him what the lesson was. Two elderly women – clearly disappointed because they hadn’t seen any sign of cheese and biscuits afterwards – shared confidences in the front row, propelled by their fluttering fans. On a side table were the five books that comprised the complete work of Bernat Plensa, displayed. Tecla was there, in the front row, which Adrià was surprised to see. Tecla was looking back, as if monitoring who came in. Adrià approached her and gave her a kiss, and she smiled at him for the first time since the last argument in which he’d intervened, in vain, to make peace. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other.
‘Good, right?’ said Adrià, lifting his eyebrows to refer to the room.
‘I wasn’t expecting this. And, young people, even.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘How’s it going with Llorenç?’
‘Great. I already know how to make word documents and save them on a disk.’ Adrià thought for a few moments: ‘But I’m still unable to write anything directly onto the computer. I’m a paper man.’
‘All in good time.’
‘Or not.’
Then the telephone rang and no one paid any attention to it. Adrià raised his head and his eyebrows. No one paid it any heed, as if it weren’t even ringing.
Bernat’s five published books were also on the speakers’ table, placed so that people could see the covers. The extremely saccharine background music stopped, but the telephone, not as loud, kept ringing and Bernat appeared, accompanied by Carlota Garriga. Adrià was surprised to see him without the violin in his hands and he smiled at the idea. Author and speaker sat down. Bernat winked at me and smiled with satisfaction at the room. Carlota Garriga began by saying that she had always admired the literature of Bernat Plensa, and he winked at me again and for a few moments I imagined that he had set up that whole fandango just for me. So I decided to listen carefully to what Doctor Garriga was saying.
Quotidian worlds, with mostly unhappy characters, who can’t make up their minds to love or leave, all served up with considerable stylistic skill, and that is part of another feature that I will touch on later.
After half an hour, when Garriga had already touched on every subject, even the subject of influences, Adrià raised his hand and asked if he could query the author as to why the characters in his first four books all had so many physical and psychological resemblances, and he immediately regretted the question. Bernat, after a few seconds of reflection, stated yes, yes, the gentleman is right. It is on purpose. A way to affirm that these characters are the precursors to the ones who will appear in the novel I am writing now.
‘You’re writing a novel?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Yes. It’s still a long way off, but yes.’
A hand in the back: it was the girl with the huge plait who asked if he could explain his process for inventing the stories, and Bernat snorted in satisfaction and said oof, the question. I don’t know if I can answer it. But he spent five minutes talking about how he invented the stories. And then the boy with the Quaker beard was inspired to ask about his literary role models. Then I looked back at the audience with satisfaction, and I was shocked to see Laura entering the room just then. It had been a few months since I’d last seen her because she had returned to somewhere in Sweden. I didn’t even know she was back. She looked pretty, yes. But no. What was she
doing there? And later, the blond boy with the two admirers got up and said that he or Mrs …
‘Doctor Garriga,’ said Bernat.
‘Yeah, that,’ corroborated the young man with the two admirers. ‘Well, she said in passing that you were a musician and I didn’t understand why you write if you are musician. I mean, can you do a lot of different arts at the same time? Like, maybe you also paint in secret or make sculpture.’
The admirers laughed at the cleverness of the subject of their admiration and Bernat responded that all art springs from the deep dissatisfaction of man’s soul. And then his eyes met Tecla’s and I noticed an oh so slight hesitation, and Bernat quickly added what I mean is that art is born from dissatisfaction; no one makes art with their belly full, they just take a nap. And some of the spectators smiled.
When the event was finished, Adrià went to greet Bernat and he said you see?, full house, and Adrià said yeah, congratulations. Tecla gave Adrià a kiss: she seemed more calm, as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and before Garriga joined them she said I wasn’t expecting so many people to come, will you look at that? And Adrià didn’t dare to ask why didn’t my friend Llorenç come? And Garriga joined the group and wanted to meet Doctor Ardèvol and Bernat suggested why don’t we all have dinner together?
‘Oh, I can’t. I’m so sorry. Really. Go celebrate, you’ve earned it.’
When they left, the room was already empty. In the hall, Laura pretended she was looking at the information on upcoming events and turned as soon as she heard Adrià’s footsteps: ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘Let’s have dinner. My treat,’ she said, serious.
‘I can’t.’
‘Come on …’
‘I can’t, really. I have to go to the doctor.’
Laura was left with her mouth hanging open, as if her words had got stuck in her throat. She looked at her watch, but didn’t say anything. Somewhat offended, she said all
right, fine, sure, no problem. And with a forced smile: are you all right?
‘No. And you?’
‘Me neither. I might stay in Uppsala.’
‘Wow. If that’s the best thing for you …’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can we talk some other time?’ said Adrià, lifting his wrist that held his watch as an excuse.
‘Go ahead, go to your appointment.’
Adrià gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and left quickly, without looking back. He could still make out Bernat’s relaxed laughter and I felt very good, truly, because Bernat deserved it all. Outside, it was starting to rain and, with his glasses splattered with drops, he searched for an impossible taxi.
‘S
orry.’ He wiped his soaked shoes on the mat in the hall.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He had him come to the left, straight towards the examining room. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about me.’
On the right side of the flat you could hear the murmur of dishes and silverware, of everyday life. Doctor Dalmau had him enter and closed the door without locking it. He went for the white coat he had hanging, but changed his mind. They both sat down, one on each side of the desk. They looked at each other in silence. Behind the doctor there was a Modigliani reproduction filled with yellows. Outside, a smattering of spring rain.
‘Come on, what’s wrong?’
Adrià raised a hand to get attention.
‘Do you hear it?’
‘What?’
‘The telephone.’
‘Yes. They’ll answer it soon. I bet it’s for my daughter and she’ll have the line tied up for a couple of hours.’
‘Ah.’
Indeed, the telephone at the other end of the flat stopped ringing and a female voice was heard saying hello? Yeah, it’s me; who’d you expect?
‘What else?’ asked Doctor Dalmau.
‘Just that: the telephone. I’m always hearing the telephone ring.’
‘Let’s see if you can explain yourself a little better.’
‘I keep hearing the telephone ringing, a ringing that blames me and eats away at me inside and I can’t get it out of my head.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Two long years. Almost three. Since the fourteenth of July, nineteen ninety-six.’
‘Quatorze juillet.’
‘Oui. The phone has been ringing since the fourteenth of July, nineteen ninety-six. It rang on Laura’s bedside table, in a disorganised room with half-packed suitcases. They looked at each other, as if wanting to ask, in some sort of guilty silence, whether they were expecting any call. Laura didn’t move, with her head on Adrià’s chest, and they both heard how the telephone, monotonously, insisted, insisted, insisted. Adrià stared at Laura’s hair, expecting her to reach for it. Nothing. The telephone kept ringing. And, finally, like a miracle, silence was re-established. Adrià relaxed; then he realised that while it was ringing, he had stiffened up. He ran his fingers through Laura’s hair. He stopped abruptly because the telephone started ringing again.
‘Damn, they don’t give up, do they,’ she said, curling up more towards Adrià.
It rang for another good long while.
‘Answer it,’ he said.
‘I’m not here. I’m with you.’
‘Answer it.’
Laura sat up grudgingly, picked up the receiver and said yes with a very subdued voice. A few seconds of silence. She turned and passed the receiver to him, hiding her shock very well.
‘It’s for you.’
Impossible, thought Adrià. But he took the receiver. He realised, with admiration, that the telephone was cordless. It must have been the first time he’d used a cordless phone. And
he was surprised to be thinking that and to be remembering it now in front of Doctor Dalmau almost three full years later.
‘Hello.’
‘Adrià?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Bernat.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘It’s a long story. Listen …’
I understood that Bernat’s hesitation was a bad portent.
‘What …’
‘Sara.’
Everything ended here, my beloved. Everything.
T
he all too brief days by your side, washing you, covering you up, airing you out, asking for your forgiveness. The days I devoted to lessening the pain I caused you. Those days of torment, particularly your torment and – forgive me, I mean no offence, but – also my torment, changed me. Before I had interests. Now I’ve been left without motivation and I spend the day thinking by your side, as you seem to sleep placidly. What were you doing, at the house? Had you come back to embrace me or to scold me? Were you looking for me or just wanting to get some more clothes to take to the huitième arrondissement? I called you, you must remember that, and Max told me that you didn’t want to speak with me. Yes, yes, forgive me: Laura, yes; it’s all so pitiful. You didn’t have to come back: you never should have gone because we should never have fought over a crappy violin. I swear I’ll give it back to its owner when I find out who that is. And I will do it in your name, my beloved. Do you hear me? Somewhere I have the piece of paper you gave me with his name.
‘Go home and get some rest, Mr Ardèvol,’ the nurse with the plastic-framed glasses, the one named Dora.
‘The doctor told me I should talk to her.’
‘You’ve been talking to her all day long. Poor Sara’s head must be throbbing.’
She examined the serum, regulated its flow and observed the monitor in silence. Without looking him in the eye: ‘What do you talk to her about?’
‘Everything.’
‘You’ve spent two days explaining thousands of stories.’
‘Haven’t you ever been sorry about the silences you had with the person you love?’
Dora glanced around and, holding his gaze, said do us both
a favour: go home, get some rest and come back tomorrow.’
‘You haven’t answered me.’
‘I have no answer.’
Adrià Ardèvol looked at Sara: ‘And what if she wakes up when I’m not here?’
‘We’ll call you, don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere.’
He didn’t dare to say and what if she dies?, because that was unthinkable, now that the exhibition of Sara Voltes-Epstein’s drawings would open in September.
And at home I kept talking to you, remembering the things I used to explain to you. And a few years later I am writing you, hurriedly, so that you won’t completely die when I am no longer here. Everything is a lie, you already know that. But everything is a great, deep truth that no one can ever deny. This is you and I. This is me with you, light of my life.
‘Max came today,’ said Adrià. And Sara didn’t respond, as if she didn’t care.
‘Hey, Adrià.’
He, absorbed in staring at her, turned towards the door. Max Voltes-Epstein, with an absurd bouquet of roses in his hand.
‘Hello, Max.’ About the roses: ‘You didn’t have to …’
‘She loves flowers.’
Thirteen years living with you without knowing that you loved flowers. I’m ashamed of myself. Thirteen years without realising that every week you changed the flowers in the vase in the hall. Carnations, gardenias, irises, roses, all different kinds. Now, suddenly, the image had exploded over me, like an accusation.
‘Leave them here, yes, thank you.’ I pointed vaguely outside: ‘I’ll ask for a vase.’
‘I can stay this afternoon. I’ve arranged things so that … If you want you can go rest …’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘You look … you look really bad. You should lie down for a few hours.’
Both men contemplated Sara for a good long while, each living his own history. Max thought why didn’t I go with
her?, she wouldn’t have been alone. And I, how could I know, what did I know? And Adrià again thinking obstinately that if I hadn’t been in bed with Laura, I would have been at home retouching Llull, Vico and Berlin and I would have heard rsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrsrs, I would have opened the door, you would have put down your travel bag and when you had the ffucking stroke, the bloody embolism, I would have picked you up off the floor, I would have taken you to bed and I would have called Dalmau, the Red Cross, the emergency room, Medicus Mundi, and they would have saved you, that was my fault, that when it happened I wasn’t with you and the neighbours say that you went out onto the landing of the staircase, because your bag was already inside, and when they went to pick you up you must have fallen three or four steps, and Doctor Real told me that the first thing they did was save your life and now they’ll see if you have any dislocation or any broken ribs, poor thing, but at least they saved your life because one day you will wake up and you’ll say I’d love a cup of coffee, like the first time you came back. After spending the first night with you at the hospital, with Laura’s scent still on me, when I went home I saw that your bag was in the hall and I checked that you had returned with everything you’d taken with you and from then on I like to think that you were coming back to stay. And I swear I heard your voice saying I’d love a cup of coffee. They tell me that when you wake up you won’t remember anything. Not even the fall you took on the stairs. The Mundós that live downstairs heard you and they gave the alarm, and I was fucking Laura and hearing a telephone I didn’t want to answer. And a thousand years later Adrià woke up.
‘Did she tell you she was coming to the house?’
A few seconds of silence. Was it hesitation or was it that he didn’t remember?
‘I don’t know. She didn’t tell me anything. Suddenly she grabbed the bag and left.’
‘What was she doing, before?’
‘She’d been drawing. And strolling in the garden, looking at the sea, looking at the sea, looking at the sea …’
Max didn’t usually do that, repeat himself. He was shaken up.
‘Looking at the sea.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s just that I wanted to know if she had decided to come back or …’
‘What does that matter now?’
‘It matters a lot. To me. Because I think she was, coming home.’
Mea culpa.
Adrià spent a silent afternoon with a perplexed Max, who still didn’t quite understand what had happened. And the next day I went back to your side with your favourite flowers.
‘What’s that?’ asked Dora, wrinkling her nose, as soon as I arrived.
‘Yellow gardenias.’ Adrià hesitated. ‘They’re the ones she likes best.’
‘A lot of people come through here.’
‘They are the best flowers I can bring her. The ones that have kept her company while she worked over many years.’
Dora looked at the small painting carefully.
‘Who is it by?’ she said.
‘Abraham Mignon. Seventeenth century.’
‘It’s valuable, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, very. That’s why I brought it for her.’
‘It’s in danger here. Take it home.’
Instead of listening to her, Professor Roig put the bouquet of yellow gardenias into the vase and poured the bottle of water into it.
‘I told you I’ll take care of it.’
‘Your wife has to stay in the hospital. At least for a few months.’
‘I’ll come every day. I’ll spend the day here.’
‘You have to live. You can’t spend every day here.’
I couldn’t spend the whole day there, but I spent many hours and I understood how a silent gaze can hurt you more than a sharpened knife; what horror, Gertrud’s gaze. I fed her and she looked me in the eyes and swallowed, obediently, her
soup. And she looked into my eyes and accused me without words.
The worst is the uncertainty; what’s horrible is not knowing if. She looks at you and you can’t decipher her gaze. Is she accusing me? Does she want to talk about her vast grief and cannot? Does she want to explain that she hates me? Or perhaps she wants to tell me that she loves me and that I should save her? Poor Gertrud is in a well and I can’t rescue her.
Every day Alexandre Roig went to see her and spent long periods of time there, looking at her, letting himself be wounded by her gaze, wiping the sweat off her forehead, without daring to say anything to her, to avoid making the situation worse. And she, after an eternity, was starting to hear the shouts of Tiberium in Tiberim, Tiberium in Tiberim, which was the last thing she had read before the darkness. And she was starting to see a face, two or three faces that said things to her, that put a spoon in her mouth, that wiped away her sweat, and she wondered what is going on, where am I, why don’t you say anything to me?, and then she saw herself far, far away, at night, and at first she didn’t understand a thing, or she didn’t want to understand it and, filled with confusion, she again took shelter in Suetoni and said morte eius ita laetatus est populus, ut ad primum nuntium discurrentes pars: ‘Tiberium in Tiberim!’ clamitarent. They shouted it, but all of Suetonius crowded together in her head and it seems no one could hear her. Perhaps because she was speaking Latin and … No. Yes. And then it took her centuries to remember who the face was that she constantly had in front of her, telling her I don’t know what that I couldn’t make out. And one day she understood what it was that she was remembering about that night and she began to tie the loose ends together and she was horrified from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. And, as best she could, she started shrieking in fear. And Alexandre Roig didn’t know what was worse, tolerating the intolerable silence or facing the consequences of his actions once and for all. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, but one day: ‘Doctor, why doesn’t she speak?’
‘She does speak.’
‘Pardon me, but my wife hasn’t spoken since she came out of the coma.’
‘Your wife speaks, Mr Roig. She has been for a few days now; didn’t they tell you? We can’t understand a thing because she speaks in some weird language and we don’t … But she speaks. Boy does she ever.’
‘In Latin?’
‘Latin? No. I don’t think so. Well, I, languages aren’t my …’
Gertrud was speaking and reserved her silence just for him. That scared him more than the knife-like gaze.
‘Why don’t you say anything to me, Gertrud?’ he said, before giving her that bloody semolina soup; it seemed they had no other menu options at this hospital.
But the woman just looked at him with the same intensity as ever.
‘Do you hear me? Can you hear me now?’
He repeated it in Estonian and, in honour of his grandfather, in Italian. Gertrud remained silent and opened her mouth to receive the semolina soup each day, as if she hadn’t the slightest interest in conversation.
‘What are you telling the others?’
More soup. Alexandre Roig had the feeling that Gertrud was holding back an ironic smile and his hands started to sweat. He fed her the soup in silence, trying to keep his eyes from meeting his wife’s. When he’d finished, he moved very close to her, almost able to smell her thoughts, but he didn’t kiss her. Right into her ear he said what are you telling them, Gertrud, that you can’t tell me? And he repeated it in Estonian.
S
he had come out of the coma two weeks earlier; it had been two weeks since they’d told him Professor Roig, as we feared, your wife has been left quadriplegic from the traumas suffered. There isn’t anything we can do for her now, but who knows, in a few years we can imagine hope for alleviating and even curing this type of injury, and I was speechless because many things that were too big were happening to me and I didn’t realise the true dimensions of my misfortune. My
entire life was in a stir. And now the anguish over finding out what Gertrud was saying.
‘No, no, no. It’s normal for the patient to have a slight regression: it’s normal for them to speak whatever language they spoke as children. Swedish?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, but here, among the staff …’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘What’s strange is that she doesn’t speak to you.’
Fucking bitch. Poor thing.
O
nly two weeks passed before Professor Alexandre Roig finally managed to bring his wife home. He left the technical aspects to Dora, a vast expert in palliative treatments who’d been recommended by the hospital, and he devoted himself to feeding Gertrud her soup, and avoiding her eyes and thinking what do you know and what do you think about what I know and I don’t know if you know and no one better hear you.
‘What’s strange is that she doesn’t speak to you,’ repeated Dora.
More than strange, it was worrisome.
‘And she gets more chatty with each passing day, Mr Roig, as soon as I get close to her she starts saying things in Norwegian, isn’t it, as if … You should hide so you can see it.’
And he did, with the complicity of that matron with the nurse’s wimple who had taken Gertrud as something personal and every day she said to her today you are prettier than ever, Gertrud, and when Gertrud spoke she clasped her unfeeling hand and she told her what are you saying, I can’t understand you, sweetie, can’t you see I don’t understand Icelandic, much as I’d like to. And Professor Alexandre Roig, who should have been locked up in his study at that time of the day, waited in the next room for as long as it took Gertrud to start speaking again, and in the mid-afternoon, that drowsy time after lunch, when the complicit nurse approached her to carry out the ritual changing of position, Gertrud said exactly what I was fearing and I began to tremble like a birch leaf.
Heaven forbid, it wasn’t something he sought out although
in the blackest depths of his soul it was a desire that nestled unconfessed. It was his drowsiness, after two long hours on the dark highway, Gertrud napping intermittently in the passenger seat and I driving and thinking desperately of how to tell Gertrud that I wanted to leave, that I was very sorry, very, but that I had made up my mind, and that was that, that life sometimes has these things and that I didn’t care what the family or my co-workers might say, or the neighbours, because everyone has the right to a second chance and now I have that. I am so deeply in love, Gertrud.
And then the unexpected bend and the decision that he made without making it, since everything was dark so it seemed simpler, and he opened the door and he took off his seat belt and he leapt onto the asphalt and the car continued, without anyone to step on the brake, and the last thing he heard from Gertrud was a scream that said what’s going on, what’s going on, Saaaaaandreee … and something else that he couldn’t catch and the void swallowed up the car, Gertrud and her frightened shriek, and since then, nothing more, the knife-sharp gaze and that was it. And I at home, alone, when Dora had kicked me out of the hospital, thinking about you, thinking what had I done wrong and searching desperately for the slip of paper where you had written the name of the owner of the violin and dreaming of travelling to Ghent or to Brussels with Vial in its blood-stained case, arriving at a well-to-do home, ringing a doorbell that first made a noble clonk and then an elegant clank, and a maid with a starched cap opening the door and asking me what I had come for.