by Jaume Cabré
‘Don’t torture yourself.’
‘I was thirty-one years old. I could fight.’
‘They would have cracked your skull and your family would have died anyway. Now they live on in your memory.’
‘Nonsense. This is torment. That ridiculous protest was the only act of rebellion that I allowed myself.’
‘I understand you saying that: you must not be able to get it out of your head; that is what I believed about Alpaerts: his pain. Which will lead him to his death today or tomorrow or the day after. That was what pained him, that and having moved to one side when he should have taken a blow that ended up killing a child. Or not giving a bread crumb to someone: his great sins ate away at his soul.’
‘Like Primo Levi?’
It was that first time in the whole afternoon that Bernat wasn’t insulting me. I looked at him with my mouth open in surprise and he finished his thought: I mean how he committed suicide when he was already old. He could have done it before then, the moment he emerged from the horror. Or Paul Celan, who waited for years and years.
‘They committed suicide not because they’d lived through the horror, but because they had written about it.’
‘Now I don’t follow you.’
‘They had already written it down; now they could die. That’s how I see it. But they also realised that writing is reliving, and spending years reliving the hell is unbearable: they died for having written about the horror they had already lived through. And in the end, so much pain and panic reduced to a thousand pages or to two thousand verses; making so much pain fit into a stack of paper almost seemed like sarcasm.’
‘Or on a disk like this,’ said Bernat, pulling one out of a case. ‘An entire life of horrors here inside.’
By then I had already realised that, when he’d departed, Matthias Alpaerts had left the filthy cloth on the table in the study. Or he had abandoned it. Or he had given it to me. I had realised but I hadn’t dared to touch it. An entire life of horror inside the filthy rag as if it were a computer disk. Or as if it were a book of poems written after Auschwitz.
‘Yes. Listen … about that, Bernat.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m not up for computers right now.’
‘Typical. You get discouraged just seeing the screen.’
Bernat sat down, dejected, and rubbed his face with his hands, a gesture that I considered mine and mine alone. Then the telephone started ringing and a shiver went through Adrià.
51
‘Horace said it: Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi / finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios / temptaris numeros.’
Silence. Some looked out of the window. Others kept their gaze down.
‘And what does that mean, Prof?’ the daring girl with the huge plait.
‘Haven’t you studied Latin?’ Adrià, surprised.
‘Man …’
‘And you?’ to the boy looking out the window.
‘Me, weelll …’
Silence. Alarmed, Adrià Ardèvol addresses the entire class: ‘Has anyone studied Latin? Is there a single student of aesthetics and its history who has ever taken a Latin class?’
After a laborious push and pull, it turned out that only one girl had: the one with the green ribbon in her hair. Adrià took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.
‘But, Prof, what does that mean, what Horace said?’
‘It’s talking about what’s said in Acts, in Peter’s second epistle and in Revelations.’
An even thicker silence. Until someone with more criteria said and what does it say in Acts and all that?
‘In Acts and all that it says that the Lord will come like a thief in the night.’
‘What lord?’
‘Has anyone here ever read the Bible, even once?’
Since he couldn’t tolerate another ominous silence, he said you know what? Let’s just drop it. Or no: on Friday bring me a phrase taken from a literary work that speaks on this topos.
‘What’s a topos, Prof?’
‘And between now and Friday you all have to read a poem. And go to the theatre. I will expect a full account.’
Then, before the disorientated faces of his students, he woke up, with wide eyes. And when he remembered that it wasn’t a dream but rather a memory of his last class, he felt like crying. Just then he realised that he had awoken from his nightmare because the telephone was ringing. Always the damn telephone.
A computer was turned on, atop the table in the study. He never would have thought it possible. The light from the screen made Llorenç and Adrià’s faces look pale, as they both observed it attentively.
‘Do you see?’
Llorenç moved the mouse and the cursor shifted on the screen.
‘Now you do it.’
And Adrià, sticking out the tip of his tongue, made the cursor move.
‘Are you left-handed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait. I’ll get on your other side.’
‘Hey, wait, I don’t have enough pad. It’s really small.’
Llorenç kept his laughter to himself, but Adrià still perceived it.
‘Don’t mock me: it’s true; it’s too small.’
Once he had overcome that obstacle with some practice motions, Adrià Ardèvol was initiated into the mysteries of the creation of a text document, which was, more or less, an infinite, extraordinary, magical spool. And the telephone started ringing, but it went into one of Adrià’s ears and right out the other.
‘No, I can already see that …’
‘That what?’
‘That it must be very practical; but ugh, what a drag.’
‘And next you need to learn how to write an email.’
‘Oh, no. No, no … I have work to do.’
‘It’s super easy. And email is basic.’
‘I already know how to write letters and I have a letter box downstairs. I also have a telephone.’
‘My dad told me that you don’t want a mobile.’ Incredulous silence: ‘Is that true?’
The telephone grew tired of its useless shouting and was silent.
‘I don’t need one. I have a lovely telephone here at home.’
‘But you don’t even answer it when it rings!’
‘No,’ Adrià cut him off. ‘You are wasting your time. Show me how to write with this thing and … How old are you?’
‘Twenty.’ Pointing to the dialogue box: ‘Here it tells you how to save the text so you don’t lose what you’ve written.’
‘Now you’re scaring me … You see? You can’t lose paper.’
‘Yeah, you can lose paper. And it can burn.’
‘Do you know I remember when you were two days old, in the hospital?’
‘Yeah, really?’
‘Your father was wild with joy. He was unbearable.’
‘He still is.’
‘Well, I meant …’
‘You see?’ Llorenç pointed to the screen. ‘That’s how you save the document.’
‘I didn’t see how you did it.’
‘Like this, see?’
‘You’re going too fast.’
‘Look: grab the mouse.’
Adrià grabbed it fearfully, as if the little beast could bite him.
‘Get a good hold of it. Like this. Put the little arrow there where it says document.’
‘Why do you say he’s unbearable?’
‘Who?’
‘Your father.’
‘Pfff … It’s just that …’ Stopping his hand on the mouse. ‘No, no, to the left.’
‘It doesn’t want to go there.’
‘Drag it along the mouse pad.’
‘Damn, this is harder than it looks.’
‘This is nothing. A few minutes of practice. Now click.’
‘What do you mean click?’
‘Make a click on the mouse. Like this.’
‘Whoa! How did I do that? Oh, it disappeared!’
‘All right … let’s
try again.’
‘Why is your father unbearable?’ Pause, moving the cursor with serious difficulties. ‘Do you hear me, Llorenç?’
‘Look, just things.’
‘He makes you study violin against your will.’
‘No, it’s not that …’
‘No?’
‘Well, that’s part of it.’
‘You don’t like the violin.’
‘I do like it.’
‘What year are you in?’
‘In the old plan it would be seventh.’
‘Wow.’
‘According to my Dad, I should be doing virtuosity.’
‘Everyone has their own pace.’
‘According to my Dad, I don’t put enough interest into it.’
‘And is he right?’
‘Pfff … No. He’d like me to … Should we get back to the lesson?’
‘What would Bernat like?’
‘Me to be a Perlman.’
‘And who are you?’
‘Llorenç Plensa. And I don’t think my Dad gets that.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She does.’
‘Your father is a very good man.’
‘I know. You two are very good friends.’
‘Despite that, he’s a good man.’
‘Well, yeah. But he’s a pain.’
‘What are you studying? Just violin?’
‘Oh, no! … I’m enrolled in architecture.’
‘That’s good, right?’
‘No.’
‘So why are you studying it?’
‘I didn’t say I’m studying architecture. I said I’m enrolled in it.’
‘And why aren’t you studying it?’
‘I’d like to be a teacher.’
‘That’s great, right?’
‘Oh, really? Tell that to my father.’
‘He doesn’t like the idea?’
‘It’s not enough for his son. He wants me to be the best violinist in the world, the best architect or the best whatever in the world. And that’s exhausting.’
Silence. Adrià was pressing hard on the mouse, which couldn’t complain. When he realised, he let it go. He had to breathe deeply to calm himself down: ‘And why don’t you tell him that you want to be a teacher?’
‘I already told him.’
‘And?’
‘A teacher? A teacher, you? My son, a teacher?’
‘What’s wrong? What do you have against teachers?’
‘Nothing: what do you think? But why can’t you be an engineer or an I don’t know what, eh?’
‘I want to teach reading and writing. And multiplying. It’s nice.’
‘I agree.’ Tecla, shooting her husband a defiant look.
‘I don’t.’ Bernat, serious, wiping his lips with a napkin. He places the napkin down on the table and, looking at the empty plate, says the life of a teacher is exhausting and filled with hardship. And they don’t make much. Shaking his head: ‘It’s not a good idea.’
‘But I like it.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Hey, it’s the boy who has to study it. Not you. You understand?’
‘Fine, fine … do what you want. You always do anyway …’
‘What do you mean, we always do anyway?’ Tecla, cross. ‘Huh?’
‘No, that … nothing.’
‘No, no, go ahead … Tell me, what is it that we always do and you don’t want us to?’
And then Llorenç stood up with his plate in his hand, brought it to the kitchen and went to his room and closed the door while Tecla and Bernat continued sharpening their axes because you said that I always do what I want and that’s not true! Not at all! Ever!
‘But you ended up enrolling in Architecture,’ remarked Adrià.
‘Why don’t we talk about something else?’
‘You’re right. Come on, what more can I do with this computer?’
‘You want to try writing a text?’
‘No. I think that, for today, I’ve …’
‘Write a sentence and we’ll save it as if it were a valuable document.’
‘All right. Do you know what I think? You’d make a good teacher.’
‘Tell that to my father.’
Adrià wrote Llorenç Plensa is teaching me how to work all this. Who will lose their patience first, him or me? Or perhaps the Mac?
‘Oof, that’s already a novel! Now you’ll see how we save it, so you can reopen it when you want.’
Adrià, guided by his patient Virgil, did all the steps to save a document for the first time in his life, then closed the folders, put everything away and turned off the computer. Meanwhile Llorenç said I think I’m going to move out.
‘Well … That’s something that …’
‘Don’t mention it to my father, eh?’
‘No, no. But first you have to find a place.’
‘I’ll share a flat.’
‘That must be a pain. And what will you do with the violin if you live with other people?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it could bother them.’
‘Well, then I won’t bring it with me.’
‘Hey, unless you’re living with a girl.’
‘I don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘I mention that because …’
Llorenç stands up, a bit peeved. Adrià tries to undo what he’s done: ‘Sorry … It’s none of my business, whether you have a girlfriend or not.’
‘I told you I don’t have a girlfriend, all right?’
‘I heard you.’
‘I have a boyfriend.’
A few seconds of awkwardness. Adrià was a bit too slow to react.
‘Great. Does your father know?’
‘Of course! That’s part of the problem. And if you tell my father that we talked about all this … He’ll kill me and he’ll kill you.’
‘Don’t worry. And you, you should do your own thing, trust me.’
Once Llorenç had wrapped up his first basic computer class – with a student who was hard to work with and particularly inept – and was heading down the stairs, Adrià thought how easy it was to give advice to other people’s children. And I was overwhelmed by a desire to have had a child with you, whom I could talk to about his life the way I had for a few minutes with Llorenç. How is it possible that Bernat and I spoke so little that I knew nothing about Llorenç?
They were in the dining room and the telephone wouldn’t stop ringing, and Adrià didn’t clutch his head in a fed-up gesture because Bernat was there explaining his idea. So he wouldn’t hear the telephone, he opened up the door to the balcony and a gust of traffic and noise entered, mixed with the shrieks of some children and the cooing of the dirty pigeons that puffed up on the balcony above. He went out onto the balcony and Bernat followed him. Inside, almost in penumbra, Santa Maria de Gerri received the western light from Trespui.
‘There’s no need for you to organise this! You’ve had a stable position as a professional musician for a dozen years now.’
‘I’m fifty-three years old. That’s no accomplishment.’
‘You play in the OBC.’
‘What?’
‘You play in the OBC!’ he raised his voice.
‘So what?’
‘And you are in a quartet with the Comas, for goodness sake!’
‘As second violin.’
‘You’re always comparing yourself to others.’
‘What?’
‘You’re always …’
‘Why don’t we go inside?’
Adrià went into the dining room and Bernat followed suit. The telephone was still ringing. They closed the door to the balcony and the street sounds became an easily ignorable backdrop.
‘What were you saying?’ said Bernat, a bit on edge because of the constantly ringing telephone.
Adrià thought now you’ll tell him to rethink his relationship with Llorenç. He’s suffering and you’re all suffering, right?
‘No, that you�
�re always comparing yourself to other people.’
‘I don’t think so. And if I do, so what?’
Your son is sad. You are using the same parenting style my father did with me and it’s hell.
‘I have the feeling that you want to keep from getting splashed with even the slightest drop of happiness.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘For example, if you organise this conference, you are setting yourself up for failure. And you’ll put yourself in an awful mood. And put everyone around you in an awful mood. There’s no need for you to do it.’
‘That’s for me to decide.’
‘As you wish.’
‘And why did you say it was a bad idea?’
‘You run the risk of no one attending.’
‘What a bastard.’ He looked at the traffic through the windowpane. ‘Listen, why don’t you answer the phone?’
‘Because right now I’m with you,’ lied Adrià.
He looked towards Santa Maria de Gerri without seeing it. He sat in an armchair and glanced at his friend. Now I will talk to him about Llorenç, he swore to himself.
‘Will you come, if I set it up?’ Bernat, back to his own thing.