by Jaume Cabré
‘I don’t know what to call it. Maybe you could help me with that.’
‘Are you pleased with it?’ asked Bernat, picking up the pile.
‘It’s not about whether I’m pleased with it or not. Besides, it’s the first time that …’
‘This is a surprise.’
‘It was a surprise for me too; but I had to do it.’
Adrià leaned back in the armchair. Bernat continued leafing through the pile for a little while and then he placed it all on the small table.
‘Tell me how you are. Can I do anything to …’
‘No, thank you.’
‘But how are you?’
‘Right now, fine. But the process can’t be stopped. In a few months …’
Adrià, hesitating over whether he should speak or not, looked forward, towards the wall where there was a photo of the two friends with rucksacks on their backs, hair on their heads and no spare tires: in Bebenhausen, when they were young and still knew how to smile at the camera. And above it, in a place of honour, as if it were an altar, was the self-portrait. Then he spoke in a soft voice, ‘In a few months I might not even be able to recognise you.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yes.’
‘And how will you get along?’
‘I’ll tell you later, don’t worry.’
‘OK.’ Bernat tapped the bundle of paper with a finger: ‘And don’t you worry about this. I hope I’ll be able to understand your handwriting. Do you know what you want to do with it?’
Adrià rambled on for a while, almost without glancing at him. Bernat thought he looked like a penitent confessing. When he stopped speaking they were silent for some time, while the sky grew dark. Perhaps thinking about their lives, which hadn’t been tranquil. And thinking about the things they hadn’t said; and the insults and fights of the past; and the periods they’d gone without seeing each other. And thinking why does life always end with an unwanted death. And Bernat thinking I will do whatever you ask. And Adrià not knowing what he was thinking. And Bernat’s phone started vibrating in his pocket and, at that moment, he found the sound irreverent.
‘What is that?’
‘Nothing, my mobile phone. We humans use the computer a good friend gives us. And we have mobile phones.’
‘Fuck, then answer. Telephones are for answering.’
‘No, it’s probably Tecla. Let her wait.’
And they grew silent again, waiting for the vibration to stop, but it went on and on, becoming some sort of awkward guest in that silent conversation, and Bernat thought it has to be Tecla, what a nag. But finally the vibration died out. And their thoughts gradually returned, implanting themselves in the silence between the two men.
8
‘But we don’t have a single manuscript!’ exclaimed Bernat, as the two boys stood on the corner of Bruc and València Streets, in front of the conservatory before heading to one of their homes; which one would be decided along the way.
‘I know what I’m talking about.’
‘And our flat is small, compared to yours.’
‘Yeah, but what about that marvellous terrace you guys have, eh?’
‘What I want is a brother.’
‘Me too.’
They walked in silence, now returning to Bernat’s house before heading back towards Adrià’s for the second time so they could put off the moment of separation. In silence they pined for the brother they didn’t have and the mystery behind Roig, Rull, Soler and Pàmies having three, five or four or six siblings, while they had none.
‘Yeah, but Rull’s house is a huge mess, four in one room, with bunk beds. There’s always shouting.’
‘Fine, fine, that’s true. But it’s more fun.’
‘I don’t know. There is always some little kid pestering you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Or some bigger kid.’
‘Well, yeah.’
What Adrià was also trying to explain was that at Bernat’s house his parents weren’t so, I don’t know, they aren’t on top of you all day long.
‘They are. You haven’t practised your violin today, Bernat. And your homework? Don’t you have homework? And look at how you’ve ruined your shoes, what a disaster, you’re such an oaf. Like that, all day long.’
‘You should see my house.’
‘What.’
On the third trip between the two houses we came to the conclusion that it was impossible to decide which of the two boys was unhappier. But I knew that when I went over to Bernat’s house, his mother would open the door and smile at me, she’d say hello, Adrià, and she’d tousle my hair a bit. My mother didn’t even say how’d it go, Adrià, because it was always Little Lola who let me in and she’d just pinch my cheek, and the house was silent.
‘You see? Your mother sings while she darns socks.’
‘So?’
‘Mine doesn’t. There’s no singing allowed in my house.’
‘Come on.’
‘Practically. I’m hapless.’
‘Me too. But you get As and A+s.’
‘That’s no achievement. The classes are easy.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Well: I have trouble with the violin.’
‘I’m not talking about violin: I’m talking about school: grammar, geography, physics and chemistry, maths, natural sciences, boring old Latin; that’s what I’m talking about. The violin is easy.’
I can’t be sure of the dates, but you already know what I mean when I say we were very unhappy. Now as I listen to myself explaining it to you it sounds more like a teenage sadness than a childhood one. But I know I had that conversation with Bernat, walking along the streets that separated his house from mine, oblivious to the harsh traffic on València, Llúria, Bruc, Girona and Mallorca, the heart of the Eixample district, which was my world and, except for travels, has remained my world. I also know that Bernat had an electric train and I didn’t. And he studied violin because he wanted to. And, above all, his parents would say to him Bernat, what do you want to be when you grow up?, and he could say I don’t know yet.
‘Think about it,’ Mr Plensa would say, seeming like such a good egg.
‘Yes, Father.’
And that was all they said, can you imagine? They would ask him what do you want to be when you grow up and my father one day said to me listen hard because I won’t say it twice and now I’m going to tell you what you are going to be when you grow up. Father had planned my path to the tiniest detail of each curve. And Mother still had yet to put in her two penn’orth and I can’t tell you which was worse. And I’m not complaining to you: I’m just writing. But the rope grew so taut that I didn’t even feel comfortable talking to Bernat about it. Really. Because I hadn’t been able to finish all my German homework for a few classes because Trullols had asked me to practise for an hour and a half if I wanted to get past the first stumbling blocks of the double stop chords, and I hated the double stop chord because when you want to play a single note, you get three, and when you want to do a double stop all you get is one and after a while you just want to smash the violin against the wall, because the fingering is so complicated and you put on a record where people like Iossif Robertovich Heifetz do it so perfectly it makes you dizzy, and I wanted to be Heifetz for three reasons: first, because I was sure his Trulleviĉius didn’t say to him, no Jascha, the third finger has to slide with the hand, you can’t leave it there in the middle of the fingerboard, for the love of God, Jascha Ardèvol! Second, because he always did it well; third, because I was sure he didn’t have a father like mine, and fourth, because he believed that being a child prodigy was a serious illness he’d managed to survive and which I survived because I wasn’t really a child prodigy, no matter what my father said.
‘How.’
‘What, Black Eagle.’
‘You said three.’
‘Three what?’
‘Three reasons you wanted to be Jascha Heife
tz.’
Sometimes I get mixed up. And now, as I write this, each day I get more and more mixed up. I don’t know if I’ll make it to the end.
What was clear, in my murky childhood, was my father’s immense pedagogical ability. One day, when Little Lola wanted to stick up for me, he said but what the hell are you saying! German, violin and because of that he can’t do English? Is that it? What is he, a total milksop? And you, who are you to say … And why am I even talking about this with you?
Little Lola flew out of the study in a rage. It had all started when Father announced that I had to save Mondays for English classes with Mr Prats, a young man who really knew his stuff, and I was left with my mouth hanging open, because I didn’t know what to say, because I knew that I would love studying English but I didn’t want Father to … And I looked at Mother as I finished my boiled veg in silence and Little Lola took the empty plate to the kitchen. But Mother didn’t say a peep; she left me alone and then I said that I needed time for the violin because the double stops …
‘Excuses. The double stops … Look at how any normal violinist plays and don’t tell me you can’t be a normal violinist.’
‘I need more time.’
‘You’ll make the time, you’re young. Or quit the violin, what do you want me to say.’
The next day there was a discussion between Mother and Little Lola that I couldn’t follow because I had no spy base in the laundry room. And then, a few days later, Little Lola confronted Father. That was when she flew out of the study in a rage. But she was the only one in the house who could stand up to him without fear of too much repercussion. And, starting on the Monday before Christmas holidays, I could no longer wile away my time with Bernat, on the streets.
‘One.’
‘Wan.’
‘Two.’
‘Tu.’
‘Three.’
‘Thrii.’
‘Four.’
‘Foa.’
‘Four.’
‘Fuoa …’
‘Fffoouur.’
‘Fffoooa.’
‘It’s all right!’
I was fascinated by English pronunciation, which was never what I expected from looking at the written words. And I was amazed by its morphological simplicity. And its subtle lexical relationship to German. And Mr Prats was extremely timid, to the extent that he didn’t even look me in the eye when he had me read the first text, which I won’t name in deference to good taste. Just to give you an idea, the plot was about whether my pencil was on top of or under the table, and the unexpected plot twist consisted of discovering that it was in my pocket.
‘How are your English classes going?’ my father asked me, impatiently, ten minutes after the first English class, at supper time.
‘All right,’ I said, adopting a disinterested pose. And it drove me crazy because, deep down, in spite of Father, I was already dying to know how you said one, two, three, four in Aramaic.
‘Can I have two?’ asked Bernat, always asking for more.
‘Of course.’
Little Lola gave him two squares of chocolate; she hesitated for half a second and then gave me a second one, too. For the first time in my ffucking life, I didn’t have to swipe it.
‘And don’t get any on the floor.’
The two boys went towards the bedroom and on the way Bernat said tell me, what is it, eh?
‘A big secret.’
Once in the bedroom, I opened up my album of racing car collectors’ cards to the centre page and, without looking at the album, watched his face. He opened his eyes wide as saucers.
‘No!’
‘Yes.’
‘So, it exists.’
‘Yes.’
It was the triple of Fangio at the wheel of the Ferrari. You heard me right, my beloved: the Fangio triple.
‘Let me touch it.’
‘Carefully, OK?’
But that’s how Bernat was: when he liked something, he had to touch it. Like me. He was always that way. He still is. Like me. Adrià watched his friend’s envy with satisfaction, as Bernat placed his fingertips on the Fangio triple and the fastest red Ferrari of all time, except for the future.
‘We’d agreed it didn’t exist … How did you get it?’
‘Contacts.’
That’s how I was when I was little. I think I was trying to imitate Father. Or perhaps Mr Berenguer. In this case, the contacts were a very profitable Sunday morning at the second-hand stalls of the Sant Antoni market. You can find everything there; even quirks of fate; from Josephine Baker’s underwear to a volume of poems dedicated to Jeroni Zanné by Josep Maria López-Picó. And the Fangio triple collectors’ card that no other kid in Barcelona had, according to the rumours. When Father took me there, he always tried to keep me busy so he could exchange mysteries with a couple of men who always had a cigarette hanging from their lips, their hands in their pockets and a restless gaze. And he jotted down secrets in a little notebook that he then made vanish into a pocket.
After a heavy sigh, they closed the album. The two boys had to wait patiently, hidden away in the bedroom. They had to talk about something, and Bernat wanted to ask him about that thing he hadn’t been able to get out of his head, but he knew he shouldn’t because his parents had told him it’s better if you don’t go into that, Bernat. Still he ended up asking, ‘Why don’t you go to mass?’
‘I have permission.’
‘From who? From God?’
‘No: from Father Anglada.’
‘Wow. But why don’t you go?’
‘I’m not Christian.’
‘Wow! …’ Confused silence. ‘Can you be not Christian?’
‘I suppose so. I’m not.’
‘But what are you? Buddhist? Japanese? Communist? What?’
‘I’m nothing.’
‘Can you be nothing?’
I never knew how to answer that question when I was asked it as a child, because the wording troubled me. Can you be nothing? I will be nothing. Will I be like the zero that isn’t a natural number nor a whole number nor a rational number nor a real number nor a complex number, but the neutral element in the addition of whole numbers? Not even that, I’m afraid: when I am no longer, I will no longer be necessary, if I am now.
‘How. Now you’ve lost me.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘No, if it were up to me …’
‘Then keep quiet, Black Eagle.’
‘I believe in the Great Spirit of Manitou who covers the plains with bison, sends us rain and snow and moves the sun that warms us and makes it disappear so we can sleep, who blows the wind, guides the river along its bed, points the eagle’s eye towards its prey and gives the warrior the courage to die for his people.’
‘Hello? Where are you, Adrià?’
Adrià blinked and said here, with you, talking about God.
‘Sometimes you’re not here.’
‘Me?’
‘My parents say it’s because you are wise.’
‘Bollocks. I wish …’
‘Don’t even start.’
‘They love you.’
‘And yours don’t?’
‘No: they measure me. They calculate my IQ, they talk about sending me to a special school in Switzerland, they discuss making me do three school years in one.’
‘Wow, how cool!’ He looked at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘No?’
‘No. They argue over me, but they don’t love me.’
‘Bah. I don’t think kisses …’
When Mother said Little Lola, go and get the aprons from Rosita’s house, I knew that it was our time. Like two thieves, like the Lord when he comes for us, we went into the forbidden house. In strict silence, we slipped into Father’s study, listening for the rustle from the back room where Mother and Mrs Angeleta were mending clothes. It took us a few minutes to get used to the darkness and heavy atmosphere in the study.
‘I smell something strange,’ said Bernat.
‘Shhhh!’
I whispered, somewhat melodramatically, because my main goal was impressing Bernat, now that we had become friends. And I told him that it wasn’t a smell, it was the weight of the history the objects in the collection were laden with; he didn’t understand me; I’m sure I wasn’t entirely convinced that what I’d said was true, either.
When our eyes had grown used to the dark, the first thing Adrià did was look smugly at Bernat’s amazed face. Bernat no longer smelled anything but instead felt the weight of the history the objects around him were laden with. Two tables, one covered with manuscripts and with a very strange lamp that was also … What is that? Oh, a loupe. Wow … and a ton of old books. At the back, a bookshelf filled with even older books; to the left a stretch of wall filled with tiny pictures.
‘Are they valuable?’
‘And how!’
‘And how what?’
‘A sketch by Vayreda,’ Adrià proudly pointed at a small unfinished picture.
‘Ah.’
‘Do you know who Vayreda is?’
‘No. Is it worth a lot?’
‘A fortune. And this is an engraving by Rembrandt. It’s not unique, because otherwise …’
‘Aha.’
‘Do you know who Rembrandt is?’
‘No.’
‘And this tiny one …’
‘It’s very lovely.’
‘Yes. It is the most valuable one.’
Bernat moved closer to the pale yellow gardenias by Abraham Mignon, as if he wanted to smell them. Well, as if he wanted to smell their price tag.
‘How much is it worth?’
‘Thousands of pesetas.’
‘No!’ A few moments of meditation. ‘How many thousands?’
‘I don’t know: but a lot.’
Better to leave it vague. It was a good start and now I just had to finish it off. So I turned him towards the glass cabinet and suddenly he reacted and said blimey, what’s that?
‘A Bushi Kaiken dagger,’ said Adrià proudly.
Bernat opened the cabinet door, I nervously watched the door to the study; he grabbed the Bushi Kaiken dagger, like the one in the shop. He examined it very curiously and went over to the balcony to see it better, pulling it out of its sheath.