by Jaume Cabré
‘Very well: look at me. Adrià, look at me, for God’s sake.’
Adrià stopped scratching and looked at him, a bit frightened; he gave him an apologetic smile, as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
‘I just finished typing up your papers. I liked them very much. Very much. And the flipside of the pages, I plan on having them published. Your friend Kamenek says I should.’
He looked him in the eyes. Adrià, disorientated, kept scratching at the itchy stain on the arm of the chair.
‘You aren’t Wilson.’
‘Adrià. I’m talking to you about what you wrote.’
‘Forgive me.’
‘I don’t have anything to forgive you for.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘I really like what you wrote. I don’t know if it’s very good, but I really, really like it. You’ve no right, you son of a bitch.’
Adrià looked at his interlocutor, scratched at the stain, opened his mouth and closed it again. He lifted up his arms, perplexed: ‘Now what do I do?’
‘Listen to me. All my life. Sorry: all my ffucking life trying to write something decent, something that would affect and move the reader, and you, a total novice, the first day you put pen to paper you rub salt into the most sensitive wounds of the soul. At least, of my soul. You’ve no right, damn it.’
Adrià Ardèvol didn’t know whether to scratch at the stain or look at his interlocutor. He chose to look at the wall, worried: ‘I think you’re making some mistake. I haven’t done anything.’
‘You have no right.’
Two large tears began to roll down Adrià’s face. He couldn’t look at the other man. He wrung his hands.
‘What can I do?’ he implored.
Bernat, absorbed, didn’t respond. Then Adrià looked at him and begged, ‘Listen, sir.’
‘Don’t call me sir. I’m Bernat and I’m your friend.’
‘Bernat, listen.’
‘No: you listen. Because now I know what you think of me. I’m not complaining; you’ve revealed me and I deserve it; but I still have secrets you’ll never be able to even suspect.’
‘I’m very sorry.’
They grew quiet. And then Wilson came in and said everything OK, sweetie? And he lifted up Adrià’s chin to examine his face, as if he were a boy. He wiped away his tears with a tissue and gave him a little pill and a half-full glass that Adrià drank up eagerly, with an eagerness that Bernat had never seen in him before. Wilson said is everything OK, looking at Bernat, who made an expression that said fantastic, man, and Wilson glanced at the semolina all over the floor. With a paper napkin he picked up some of it, displeased, and left the room with the empty glass, whistling some strange music in six by eight time.
‘I’m so envious that …’
Ten minutes passed in silence.
‘Tomorrow I’ll bring the papers to Bauçà. All right? All the ones written in green ink. I’ve sent the ones in black ink to Johannes Kamenek and a colleague of yours at the university named Parera. Both sides. All right? Your memoir and your reflection. All right, Adrià?’
‘I have an itch here,’ said Adrià pointing to the wall. He looked at his friend. ‘How can I have an itch on the wall?’
‘I’ll keep you posted.’
‘My nose itches too. And I’m very tired. I can’t read because the ideas get mixed up in my head. I already don’t remember what you said.’
‘I admire you,’ said Bernat, looking him in the eyes.
‘I won’t do it again. I promise.’
Bernat didn’t even laugh. He stared at him in silence. He took him by the hand that was still sporadically battling the rebellious stain and he kissed it like you would a father or an uncle. He looked into his eyes. Adrià held his gaze for a few seconds.
‘You know who I am,’ Bernat declared, almost. ‘Right?’
Adrià stared at him. He nodded as he traced a faint smile.
‘Who am I?’ A hint of frightened hope in Bernat.
‘Yes, of course … Mr … whatshisname. Right?’
Bernat got up, serious.
‘No?’ said Adrià, worried. He looked at the other man, who was standing. ‘But I know it. What’s his name. That guy. I can’t quite come up with the name. I don’t know yours, but there is that other one, yeah. One named … right now I can’t remember, but I know it. I take very good care of myself. Very. My name is … now I don’t remember my name, but yes, it’s him.’
And after a heartrending pause: ‘Isn’t that right, sir?’
Something vibrated in Bernat’s pocket. He pulled out his mobile phone. An SMS: ‘Where are you hiding?’ He leaned over and kissed the sick man’s forehead.
‘Goodbye, Adrià.’
‘Take care. Come back whenever you’d like …’
‘My name is Bernat.’
‘Bernat.’
‘Yes, Bernat. And forgive me.’
Bernat went out into the hallway and headed off; he wiped away a runaway tear. He looked furtively from side to side and made a phone call.
‘Where in God’s name are you?’ Xènia’s voice, a bit upset.
‘Hey, no, sorry.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Nowhere. Work.’
‘I thought you didn’t have rehearsal.’
‘No; it’s just that some things came up.’
‘Come on, come over, I want to screw.’
‘It’ll take me about an hour.’
‘Are you still at the tax office?’
‘Yes. I have to go now, all right? Bye.’
He hung up before Xènia could ask for more explanations. A cleaning lady passed by him with a cart filled with supplies and gave him a severe look because he had a mobile in his hands. She reminded him of Trullols. A lot. The woman grumbled as she headed down the corridor.
Doctor Valls brought his hands together, in a prayer pose, and shook his head: ‘Today’s medicine can’t do anything more for him.’
‘But he’s wise! He’s intelligent. Gifted!’ He had a feeling of déjà vu, as if he were Quico Ardèvol from Tona. ‘He knows something like ten or fifteen languages!’
‘All that is in the past. And we’ve talked about it many times. If they cut off an athlete’s leg, he can’t break any more records. Do you understand that? Well, this is similar.’
‘He wrote five emblematic studies in the field of cultural history.’
‘We know … But the illness doesn’t give a fig about that. That’s just how it is, Mr Plensa.’
‘There’s no possible improvement?’
‘No.’
Doctor Valls checked his watch, not obviously, but making sure Bernat noticed. Still, he was slow to react.
‘Does anyone else come, to see him?’
‘The truth is that …’
‘He has some cousins in Tona.’
‘They come sometimes. It’s hard.’
‘There’s no one else who …’
‘Some colleagues from the university. A few others, but … he spends a lot of time alone.’
‘Poor thing.’
‘From what we know, that doesn’t worry him much.’
‘He can live on the memories.’
‘Not really. He doesn’t remember anything. He lives in the moment. And he forgets it very quickly.’
‘You mean that now he doesn’t remember that I came to see him?’
‘Not only doesn’t he remember that you came to see him, but I don’t think he really has any idea who you are.’
‘He doesn’t seem to be clear on it. If we took him to his house, maybe that would spark something for him.’
‘Mr Plensa: this disease consists of the formation of intraneuronal fibres …’
The doctor is quiet and thinks briefly.
‘How can I say this to you? …’ He thought for a few more seconds and added, ‘It’s the conversion of the neurons into coarse, knot-shaped fibres …’ He looked from side to side as if asking for h
elp. ‘To give you an idea, it’s as if the brain were being invaded by cement, irreversibly. If you took Mr Ardèvol home he wouldn’t recognise it or remember anything. Your friend’s brain is permanently destroyed.’
‘So,’ insisted Bernat, ‘he doesn’t even know who I am.’
‘He’s polite about it because he’s a polite person. He is starting not to know who anyone is, and I think he doesn’t even know who he is.’
‘He still reads.’
‘Not for long. He’ll soon forget. He reads and he can’t remember the paragraph he’s read; and he has to reread it, do you understand? And he’s made no progress. Except for tiring himself out.’
‘So then he’s not suffering since he doesn’t remember anything?’
‘I can’t tell you that for sure. Apparently, he’s not. And soon, the deterioration will spread to his other vital functions.’
Bernat stood up with his eyes weepy; an era was ending forever. Forever. And he was dying a little bit with his friend’s slow death.
Trullols went into cinquantaquattro with the cleaning cart. She pushed Adrià’s wheelchair into one corner so he wasn’t in the way.
‘Hello, sweetie.’ Examining the floor of the room: ‘Where’s the disaster?’
‘Hello, Wilson.’
‘What a mess you’ve made!’
The woman started scrubbing the area laid waste by the semolina and said looks like we’re going to have to teach you not to be such a piglet, and Adrià looked at her, scared. With her cleaning cloth, Trullols approaches the chair where Adrià is observing her, about to pout over her scolding. Then she undoes the top button on his shirt and looks at his thin chain with the medallion, the way Daniela had forty years earlier.
‘It’s pretty.’
‘Yes. It’s mine.’
‘No: it’s mine.’
‘Ah.’ A bit disorientated, with no comeback at the ready.
‘You’ll give it back to me, won’t you?’
Adrià Ardèvol looked at the woman, unsure as to what to do. She glanced at the door and then, gently, picked up the chain and lifted it over Adrià’s head. She gazed at it for a quick second and then stuck it into the pocket of her smock.
‘Thanks, kid,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome.’
47
He opened the door himself. Older, just as thin, with the same penetrating gaze. Adrià got an intense whiff of the air inside, and wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. For a few seconds, Mr Berenguer stood with the door open, as if he were having trouble placing the visitor. He wiped a few drops of sweat from his brow with a carefully folded white handkerchief. Finally he said, ‘Goodness gracious. Ardèvol.’
‘May I come in?’ asked Ardèvol.
A few seconds of hesitation. In the end, he let him in. Inside it was hotter than outside. By the entrance was a relatively large, neat, polished room with a splendid Pedrell coat-rack from eighteen seventy that must have cost a fortune, with an umbrella stand, mirror and a lot of mouldings. And a definitive Chippendale console table with a bouquet of dried flowers on it. He led him into a room where a Utrillo and a Rusiñol hung on the same stretch of wall. The sofa, by Torrijos Hermanos, was a unique piece, surely the only one that had survived the historic workshop fire. And on another stretch of wall was a double manuscript page, very carefully framed. He didn’t dare go over to see what it was. There, from a distance, it looked like a text from the sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Adrià couldn’t say why, but it seemed that all of that impeccable, undisputable order lacked a woman’s touch. Everything was too emphatic, too professional to live in. He couldn’t help looking around the entire room, with a lovely Chippendale confident sofa in one corner. Mr Berenguer let him look, surely with a hint of pride. They sat down. The fan, which uselessly tried to lessen the mugginess, seemed like an anachronism in poor taste.
‘Goodness gracious,’ repeated Mr Berenguer.
Adrià looked into his eyes. Now he understood what the intense scent mixed with the heat was: it was the smell of the shop, the same smell of every time he had visited there, under the watchful eye of Father, Cecília or Mr Berenguer himself. A home with the scent and atmosphere of a business. At seventy-five, Mr Berenguer obviously hadn’t retired.
‘What is all this about the violin?’ I said, too abruptly.
‘These things happen.’ And he looked at me, not trying to conceal his satisfaction.
What things happen? spat out Sheriff Carson.
‘What things happen?’
‘Well, the owner has shown up.’
‘He’s right in front of you: me.’
‘No. He is a gentleman from Antwerp who is quite elderly. The Nazis took the violin from him when he got to Auschwitz. He had acquired it in nineteen thirty-eight. If you want more details, you’ll have to ask the gentleman.’
‘And how can he prove that?’
Mr Berenguer smiled and said nothing.
‘You must be getting a good commission.’
Mr Berenguer ran his handkerchief over his forehead, still smiling and saying nothing.
‘My father acquired it legally.’
‘Your father stole it in exchange for a fistful of dollars.’
‘And how do you know that?’
‘Because I was there. Your father was a bandit who took advantage of whomever he could: first the Jews fleeing any which way they could and then the Nazis, fleeing in an orderly, organised fashion. And always, anyone who was skint and needed money desperately.’
‘That surely is part of the business. And surely you took part in it.’
‘Your father was a man without scruples. He made an ownership title that was inside the violin disappear.’
‘You know what? I don’t believe you and I don’t trust you. I know what you are capable of. I would like to know where you got that Torrijos and the Pedrell in the entryway.’
‘Everything is in order, don’t worry. I have the ownership papers for each and every one of my things. I’m not a blabbermouth like your father. In the end he chose the end he met with.’
‘What?’ Silence. Mr Berenguer looked at me with a poorly concealed cunning smile. Surely to gain a bit of time to think, Carson had me say did I understand you correctly, Mr Berenguer?
Signor Falegnami had pulled out a feminine little parlour gun and aimed it at him nervously. Fèlix Ardèvol didn’t even flinch. He pretending to be stifling a smile and shook his head as if he were very displeased, ‘You are alone. How will you get rid of my corpse?’
‘It will be a pleasure to face that challenge.’
‘You’ll still be left with an even bigger one: if I don’t walk out of here on my own two feet, the people waiting for me on the street already have their instructions.’ He pointed to the gun, sternly. ‘And now I’ll take it for two thousand. Don’t you know that you are one of the Allies’ ten most wanted?’ He improvised that part in the tone of someone scolding an unruly child.
Doctor Voigt watched as Ardèvol pulled out a wad of notes and put them on the table. He lowered the gun, with his eyes wide, incredulous: ‘That’s not even fifteen hundred!’
‘Don’t make me lose my patience, Sturmbannführer Voigt.’
That was Fèlix Ardèvol’s doctorate in buying and selling. A half an hour later he was out on the street with the violin, striding quickly with his heart beating fast and the satisfaction of a job well done. No one was waiting for him downstairs to do what they had to do if he didn’t emerge, and he was proud of his shrewdness. But he had underestimated Falegnami’s little notebook. And he hadn’t even noticed his hate-filled gaze. And that afternoon, without telling anyone, without entrusting himself to God, or the devil, or Mr Berenguer, or Father Morlin, Fèlix Ardèvol turned in that Doctor Aribert Voigt, officer of the Waffen-SS, who was hiding at the Ufficio della Giustizia e della Pace disguised as a harmless, fat, bald consierge with a lost stare and a puffy nose. Fèlix was unaware of his medical activities. Just as there had been no
way to tie Doctor Budden to Auschwitz-Birkenau, there was no way to tie Doctor Voigt to the camp either. Someone must have burned the specific papers and all the inquisitorial gazes were focused on the vanished Doctor Mengele and those around him while the enterprising investigators assigned to other Lager had time to destroy compromising evidence. And if we add to that the general confusion, the numerous lists of the accused, the incompetence of Sergeant-Major O’Rourke, who opened the file and who, it must be said, was overwhelmed by the task, all of it colluded to obscure the true personality and activities of Doctor Voigt, who was sentenced to five years of prison as an officer of the Waffen-SS, and about whom there was no record of participation in any act of war or annihilation in the cruel style of most of the SS units.
A few years later, on the street of the Sun, which was filled with people wearing jellabah coming out of the majestic Umayyad Mosque and commenting on some of the reflections of that Friday’s sura, or perhaps only mentioning, shocked, the rise in the prices of shoes, tea or vegetables. But there were also many people who didn’t look as if they’d ever set foot in a mosque and were smoking their hookahs on the narrow rows of outdoor tables at the Concord Café or the Café of the Scissors, trying not to think about whether there would be another coup d’état that year.
Two minutes from there, lost in the labyrinth of backstreets, sitting on a rock of the Deer Fountain, two silent men looked at the ground, lost in thought, as if they were keeping an eye on the sun as it headed west, along Bab al-Jabiyah, towards the Mediterranean. More than one distracted observer must have thought that those individuals were fervent men waiting for the sun to set and the shadows to begin their reign, for the magical moment when it was impossible to distinguish a white thread from a black thread and Mawlid began and the name of the Prophet was forever remembered and venerated. And the moment came when the human eye couldn’t distinguish a white thread from a black thread and, despite the soldiers paying little attention, the entire city of Damascus entered into Mawlid. The two men didn’t move from the rock until they heard some rather hesitant footsteps. A Western person, from the gait, the excessive noise, the panting. They looked at each other in silence and stood up. From the corner of the street of the mosques came a fat man, with a big nose, who was wiping his brow with a handkerchief, as if that Mawlid was a hot night. He went straight over to the two men.