Confessions (26 page)

‘You are not keeping it, Obersturmbannführer.’

Rudolf Höss grabbed the case by the handle, as if he was preparing to come to blows. Now he clearly saw that the instrument was valuable. From the Doctor Commander’s boldness, it must be very valuable. He smiled, but he had to stop smiling when he heard the words of Doctor Voigt, who brought his breath and his thickset nose close to Höss’s face: ‘You can’t keep it because I will report you.’

‘On what grounds?’ Höss, perplexed.

‘Six hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight.’

‘What?’

‘Elisaveta Meireva.’

‘What?’

‘Unit number six hundred and fifteen thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight. Six, one, five, four, two, eight, Elisaveta Meireva. Your maid. Reichsführer Himmler will condemn you to death when he finds out you’ve had sexual relations with a Jewess.’

Red as a tomato, Höss put the violin down on the desk with a thud.

‘All your talk about confessional secrets, you bastard.’

‘I’m no priest.’

The violin remained with Doctor Voigt, who was just passing through Auschwitz, supervising with an iron hand
the experiments of Doctor Budden, that stuck-up Obersturmführer who must have swallowed a broomstick one day and had yet to shit it out. And also the experiments of three more deputy doctors; what he had conceived as the most in-depth investigation ever attempted on the limits of pain. As for Höss, he spent a few days nervously clenching his arse cheeks together, wondering whether that artful poof of a bandit, Aribert Voigt, was, in addition to being an artful poof of a pirate, also a blabbermouth.

‘Five thousand dollars, Mr Falegnami.’

The man with the frightened, increasingly glassy eyes stared into Fèlix Ardèvol’s.

‘Are you pulling my leg?’

‘No. Look, you know what? I’ll take it for three thousand, Mr Zimmermann.’

‘You’ve gone mad.’

‘No. Either you give it to me for that price or … Well, the authorities will be very interested in knowing that Doctor Aribert Voigt, Sturmbannführer Voigt, is alive, hidden a kilometre away from the Vatican City, probably with the complicity of someone high up in the Vatican. And that he’s trying to sell a violin nicked from Auschwitz.’

Mr 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.

‘Y
ou just broke with the most sacred of diplomatic relations.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You acted like an elephant in a Bohemian glassware shop.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about?’

Friar Fèlix Morlin, with indignation in his face and voice, spat out, ‘I’m in no position to judge people. Mr Falegnami was under my protection.’

‘But he is a savage son of a bitch.’

‘He was under my protection!’

‘Why do you protect murderers?’

Félix Morlin closed the door in the face of Fèlix Ardèvol, who didn’t really understand his reaction.

As he left Santa Sabina, he put on his hat and raised the lapels of his coat. He didn’t know that he would never again see that Dominican who was full of surprises.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘There are more things I can tell you about our father.’

It was already dark. They had to walk along dark streets and be careful not to trip on the hardened wheel tracks sculpted in the road’s mud. Daniela gave him kiss on the forehead in front of Can Ges and for a few seconds Adrià was reminded of the angel she’d once been, now without wings or any special aura. Then he realised that all the shops were closed and Aunt Leo wouldn’t be getting any little gift.

I
t was a face filled with tragic wrinkles. But I was impressed by his clear direct gaze, which made me feel as if he were accusing me of something. Or, depending on how you looked at it, as if he were begging for my forgiveness. I sensed many misfortunes in it before Sara told me anything. And all the misfortunes were contained in strokes made in charcoal on thick white paper.

‘This is the drawing that most impressed me,’ I told her. ‘I would have liked to meet him.’

I realised that Sara hadn’t said anything; she just stood in front of the charcoal of the Cadaqués landscape. We contemplated it in silence. The entire house was silent. Sara’s huge flat, which we had entered furtively, today my parents aren’t here and neither is anyone else. A rich home. Like mine. Like a thief, like the day of the Lord, I will come like a thief in the night.

I didn’t dare to ask her why we had to go there on a day when no one was home. Adrià was thrilled to see the surroundings of that girl who got deeper into his bones with each passing day, with her melancholy smile and delicate gestures he’d never seen before in anyone else. And Sara’s room was larger than mine, twice as large. And very pretty: with wallpaper with geese and a farmhouse that wasn’t like Can Ges in Tona: it was prettier, neater, without flies or odours; more like a picture book; the wallpaper of a little girl who hadn’t changed it even now that she was … I don’t know how old you are, Sara.

‘Nineteen. And you are twenty-three.’

‘How do you know that I’m twenty-three?’

‘I can tell by your face.’

And she put a new drawing on top of the one of Cadaqués.

‘You draw really well. Let me see that portrait again.’

She put the drawing of Uncle Haïm on top of the pile. His gaze, his wrinkles, his sad aura.

‘Did you say it was your uncle?’

‘Yes. He’s dead now.’

‘When did he die?’

‘Actually, he’s my mother’s uncle. I didn’t get to know him. Well, I was very young when …’

‘And how …’

‘A photo.’

‘Why did you draw his portrait?’

‘To keep his story alive.’

They queued up to enter the showers. Gavriloff, who during the entire trajectory in the cattle wagon had warmed two girls who had no one to hold their hands, turned towards Doctor Epstein and said they are taking us to our death, and Doctor Epstein answered, in a murmur so other people wouldn’t hear, that that was impossible, that he was crazy.

‘No, they’re the ones who are crazy, Doctor. When will you see!’

‘Everyone inside. That’s it, men on this side. Of course the children can go with the women.’

‘No, no; leave your clothes neatly folded and remember the number of the hook, for when you get out of the shower, all right?’

‘Where are you from?’ asked Uncle Haïm looking into the eyes of the man giving the instructions.

‘We’re not allowed to speak to you.’

‘Who are you? You are Jews, too, aren’t you?’

‘We aren’t allowed, for fuck’s sake. Don’t make things difficult for me.’ And shouting, ‘Remember your hook number!’

When all the naked men were advancing slowly towards the showers, where there were already a group of naked women, an SS officer with a pencil moustache and a dry cough entered the dressing room and said is there a doctor in here? Doctor Haïm Epstein took a step towards the showers, but Gavriloff, beside him, said don’t be an idiot, Doctor; that gives you a chance.

‘Shut up.’

Then Gavriloff turned and pointed to Haïm Epstein’s pale
back and said er ist ein Arzt, mein Oberleutnant; and Herr Epstein cursed his companion in misfortune, who continued towards the showers with his eyes slightly happy and softly whistling a csárdás by Rózsavölgyi.

‘Are you a doctor?’ asked the officer, planted before Epstein.

‘Yes,’ he said, resigned and, most of all, tired. And he was only fifty years old.

‘Get dressed.’

Epstein dressed slowly while the rest of the men went into the showers, shepherded by prisoners with grey, worn gazes.

The officer paced impatiently while that Jew put on his clothes. And he began to cough, perhaps to cover up the muffled screams of horror that emerged from the shower area.

‘What is that? What’s going on?’

‘Come on, that’s enough,’ the officer said nervously, when he saw the other pulling up his trousers over his open shirt.

He took him outside, into the inclement cold of O
ś
wi
ę
cim, and he had him go inside a guard post, pulling out the two sentries who were loitering there.

‘Listen to my chest,’ he ordered, putting a stethoscope in his hands.

Epstein was slow to understand what he wanted. The other man was already unbuttoning his shirt. He unhurriedly put the stethoscope in his ears and felt, for the first time since Drancy, invested with some sort of authority.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered, now a doctor.

The officer sat down on the guard post stool. Haïm listened to his torso carefully and, from what he heard, he imagined the depleted cavities secreting mucous. He had him change position and listened to his chest and his back. He had him stand up again, just for the fun of ordering around an SS officer. For a few moments he thought that while he was listening to his chest they wouldn’t send him to those showers with the horrifying screams. Gavriloff had been right.

He wasn’t able to completely hide his satisfaction as he looked into his patient’s eyes and told him that he would have to undergo a more thorough examination.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Genital exploration, tactile examination of the kidney area.’

‘Fine, fine, fine …’

‘Do you feel unexplained pains here?’ he asked pressing hard on his kidney with fingers of steel.

‘Watch it, fuck!’

Doctor Epstein shook his head, pretending he was concerned.

‘What is it?’

‘You have tuberculosis.’

‘Are you positive?’

‘Without a shadow of a doubt. The illness is quite far along.’

‘Well, they’ve been ignoring me here. Is it serious?’

‘Very much so.’

‘What do I have to do?’ he said, ripping the stethoscope from his hands.

‘I would have you sent to a sanatorium. It’s the only thing that can be done.’ And pointing to his yellow fingers, ‘And no more tobacco, for God’s sake.’

The officer called the sentries and told them to take that man to the showers, but one of the sentries gave him the sign that they’d finished for the day, that that had been the last turn. Then he put on his coat and shouted, as he went down to the buildings accompanied by his persistent cough, ‘Take him to barracks twenty-six.’

And that saved his life. But he’d often said that saving his life was a worse punishment than death.

‘I never imagined it was so horrific.’

‘Well, you haven’t heard it all.’

‘Tell me.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘Come on.’

‘Come here, I’ll show you the paintings in the parlour.’

Sara showed him the paintings in the parlour, she showed him family photos, she responded patiently about who each person was, but when it was time to think about leaving because someone might be coming home, she said you’ll have to go. You know what? I’ll walk you part of the way.

And that was how I didn’t meet your family.

N
o art was cultivated and developed by the Sophists as systematically as rhetoric. Sara. In rhetoric, the Sophists saw a perfect instrument to control men. Sara, why didn’t you want to have children? Thanks to the Sophists and their rhetoric, public speeches became literary, since man began to see them as works of art worthy of being preserved in writing. Sara. From that point on, oratory training became essential to the career of a statesman, but the rhetoric included, in its realm of influence, all prose and particularly historiography. Sara, you are a mystery to me. Thus man can understand that in the fourth century the dominant position in literature was held by prose and not poetry. Strange. But logical.

‘Where have you been, man, I can never find you anywhere.’

Adrià looked up from the Nestle opened to chapter fifteen, to Isocrates and new education, where he was immersed. As if he had trouble focusing his eyes, he took a few seconds to recognise the face that entered the cone of light given off by the green lampshade in the university library. Someone hushed them and Bernat had to lower his voice as he sat in the chair in front of him and said Adrià hasn’t been here for a month; no, he’s out; I don’t know where he went; Adrià? He spends the whole day out. Really, man … Not even in your own house does anyone know where you are!

‘Here I am, studying.’

‘That’s twaddle; I spend hours here.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. Making friends with pretty girls.’

It was hard to emerge from the fourth century before Christ, especially if Bernat was there to scold him.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Who’s this girl that they say’s been stuck to you like a leech?’

‘Who says that?’

‘Everyone. Gensana described her to me and everything: dark, straight hair, thin, dark eyes, an art student.’

‘Well, then you already know everything …’

‘Is it the one from the Palau de la Música? The one who called you Adrià Ican’trememberwhat?’

‘You should be happy for me, shouldn’t you?’

‘Bloody hell, now you’re in love.’

‘Will you please be quiet!?’

‘Sorry.’ To Bernat: ‘Should we leave?’

T
hey strolled through the cloister and Adrià told someone for the first time that he was definitively, absolutely, devotedly, unconditionally in love with you, Sara. And don’t say a word about it at my house.

‘Oh, so it’s even a secret from Little Lola.’

‘I hope so.’

‘But some day …’

‘We’ll see about that when that day comes.’

‘In such circumstances, it’s hard for me to imagine that you could do a favour for your former best friend who’s now been demoted to mere acquaintance because your world revolves around that luscious girl named … what was her name?’

‘Mireia.’

‘Liar. Her name is Saga Voltes-Epstein.’

‘Then why did you ask? And her name is Sara.’

‘So why do you have to lie to me? And hide from me? Huh? It’s me, Bernat, what the hell?’

‘Don’t get like that, for god’s sake’

‘I get like this because it seems like you don’t care a whit about your life before Sara.’

Bernat extended his hand to him and Adrià, a bit surprised, shook it.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Ardèvol. My name is Bernat Plensa i Punsoda and until a few months ago I was your best friend. Will you grant me audience?’

‘My goodness.’

‘What.’

‘You are a bit soft in the head.’

‘No. I’m angry: friends come first. And that’s that.’

‘The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

We cannot look for a philosophical system in Isocrates. Isocrates takes what he can use from wherever he finds it. Pure syncretism and no systematic philosophy. Sara. Bernat stood in front of him to keep him from continuing, and stared: ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘I don’t know. I’m very …’

‘It sucks to see a pal in love.’

‘I don’t know if I’m in love.’

‘What the hell, didn’t you say you were definitively, absolutely, devotedly, unconditionally in love? Bloody hell, it’s only been a minute since you made that declaration.’

‘But deep down I don’t know if I am. I’ve never felt a … a … um, I don’t know how to say it.’

‘I can tell you that you are.’

‘That I am what?’

‘That you are in love.’

‘How would you know, you’ve never been in love.’

‘What do you know?’

They sat down on a bench in a corner of the cloister and Adrià thought that Isocrates was interested in the Sophists, but only in specific questions: for example, Xenophanes and his idea of cultural progress (I’ll have to read Xenophanes). And his interest in Philip of Macedonia was the result of his discovery of the importance of personality in history. Strange.

‘Bernat.’

Bernat, pretending that he didn’t hear, looked the other way. Adrià insisted, ‘Bernat.’

‘What.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m angry.’

‘Why?’

‘Because in June I have my ninth-year exam and I’m not ready.’

‘I’ll come to hear you.’

‘Oh, you mean you won’t be too busy with that girl who’s got such a monopoly on you lately?’

‘And come over if you want, or I’ll come over to your house and we can practise.’

‘I don’t want to distract you from wooing the Mireia of your dreams.’

Definitively, Isocrates’s Athens school, more than a philosophy, offered that which in Rome was called
humanitas
and which we would today call ‘general culture’, all that which Plato, and his Academy, left out. Oh, bloody hell. I’d like to peep in on them through a keyhole. And see Sara and her family.

‘I swear that I’ll come to hear you play. And if you want, she’ll come too.’

‘No. Only friends.’

‘You’re a bastard.’

‘How.’

‘What?’

‘You can bet on it.’

‘On what?’

‘On that you’re in love.’

‘And what do you know?’

The Arapaho chief adopted a dignified silence. Did that child think that he was going to reveal his experiences and his feelings? Carson spat on the ground and took up where he’d left off: ‘You can see it a mile off. Even your mother must have noticed.’

‘Mother only has eyes for the shop.’

‘Trust me.’

Isocrates. Xenophanes. Sara. Bernat. Syncretism. Violin exam. Sara. Philip of Macedonia. Sara. Sara. Sara.

Sara. Days, weeks, months of being by your side and respecting that ancestral silence you were often enveloped in. You were a girl with a sad but marvellously serene gaze. And I had increasingly more strength to study knowing that afterwards I would see you and I would melt looking into your eyes. We always met on the street, eating a hot dog in Sant Jaume Square or strolling through the gardens in Ciutadella
Park, in our joyful secrecy; never at your house or at my house unless we were absolutely sure that no one was there because our secret had to be a secret from both families. I didn’t know exactly why; but you did. And I let myself be carried along by days and days of unremitting happiness without asking questions.