53

The 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.’

‘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.’

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.

She 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?’

‘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.

Only 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.

‘I’ve come to return the violin.’

‘Ah, yes, come in. It’s about time, eh?’

The starched maid closed the door and disappeared. And her muffled voice said sir, they’ve come to return Vial. And, immediately, a patriarchal man with white hair came out, dressed in a burgundy and black plaid robe, tightly gripping a baseball bat, and he said are you the bastard Ardefol?

‘Well, yeah.’

‘And you’ve brought Vial?’

‘Fèlix Ardefol, right?’ he said lifting the bat over his shoulders.

‘No. Fèlix was my father. I’m the bastard Adrià Ardefol.’

‘And what took you so long to bring it back to me?’ The bat, still threatening my skull.

‘It’s a very long story, sir, and right now … I’m tired and my beloved is in hospital, sleeping.’

The man with white hair and patriarchal bearing tossed the bat to the floor, where the maid picked it up, and he snatched the case from me. He opened it right there, on the floor, lifted the protective chamois cloths and pulled out the Storioni. Magnificent. Just then I regretted what I was doing because the man with the white hair and patriarchal bearing wasn’t worthy of that violin. I woke up covered in sweat and went back to the hospital to be by your side and I told you I’m doing what I can but I haven’t found the paper. No, don’t ask me to get it from Mr Berenguer because I don’t trust him and he would sully everything. Where were we?

Alexandre Roig put the spoon in front of her mouth. For a few seconds, Gertrud didn’t open it; she just stared into his eyes. Come on, open up your little mouth, I said to her, so I wouldn’t have to tolerate that gaze. Finally, thank God, she opened up and I was able to get her to swallow the warm broth with a bit of pasta and thought that surely the best thing to do was pretend that I hadn’t heard what she’d said to Dora when she thought I wasn’t home and I said Gertrud, I love you, why won’t you speak to me, what’s wrong, they tell me you speak when I’m not here, why, it’s as if you had something against me. And Gertrud, in response, opened her mouth. Professor Roig gave her a couple more spoonfuls and looked into her eyes: ‘Gertrud. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what you’re thinking.’

After a few days, Alexandre Roig was already able to recognise that he wasn’t feeling sorry for that woman, he was afraid of her. I’m sorry that I don’t feel bad for you, but that’s how life is. I am in love, Gertrud, and I have the right to remake my life and I don’t want you to stand in the way, not by being pitiful nor with threats. You were a vibrant woman, always wanting to impose your criteria, and now you are limited to opening your mouth for soup. And staying quiet. And speaking Estonian. And how will you read your Martials and your Livys? Doctor Dalmau – that imbecile – says that this regression is common. Until one day when Alexandre Roig, anxious, decided not to lower his guard; this isn’t regression: it’s cunning. She does it to make me suffer … She just wants to make me suffer! If she wants to hurt me, I won’t allow it. But she doesn’t want me to know what she’s up to. I don’t know how to neutralise her scheme. I don’t know how. I had found the perfect way, but she didn’t go along with it. The perfect way, but very risky, because I don’t know how I was able to get out of the car.

‘Weren’t you wearing your seatbelt?’

‘Yes. I guess so. I don’t know.’

‘It’s not broken or forced.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know: I was … The car hit such a bad bump that the door opened and I flew out.’

‘To save yourself?’

‘No, no. The bump sent me flying out. Once I was on the ground I saw the car sinking and I couldn’t see it any more and she was screaming Saaaaandreeeee.’

‘The drop was three metres.’

‘For me it was as if it had been swallowed up by the landscape. And I suppose I fainted.’

‘She called you Sandre?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Why do you only suppose you fainted?’

‘No … I’m confused. How is she?’

‘In a bad way.’

‘Will she pull through?’

Then the inspector said what he had been so fearing; he said I don’t know if you are a believer or not, but there’s been a miracle here; the Lord has listened to your prayers.

‘I’m not a believer.’

‘Your wife is not going to die. Although …’

‘Tell me exactly what you want, Mr Ardèvol.’

I had to spend a little while ordering unorderable ideas. The stillness of Pau Ullastres’s workshop helped to calm me down. And finally I said this violin was stolen during World War II. By a Nazi. I think it was seized in Auschwitz itself.

‘Yes. And through circumstances that are irrelevant to the case, it has been in my family for years.’

‘And you want to return it,’ prompted the luthier.

‘No! Or yes, I don’t know. But I wanted to know whom it was seized from. Who was its previous owner. And then, well, we’ll see.’

‘If the previous owner ended up in Auschwitz …’

‘I know. But he must have some relative, right?’

Pau Ullastres picked up the violin and began to play fragments of a Bach partita, I can’t remember which. The third? And I felt dirty because it had been too long since I’d been by your side and when I finally was I took your hand and I said I am taking steps to return it, Sara, but so far I haven’t had much luck. I want to return it to its real owner, not some opportunist. And the luthier strongly recommended, Mr Ardèvol, that you are very careful and don’t do anything hasty. There are a lot of vultures hovering around stories like this one. Do you understand me, Sara?

The woman looked at the ceiling; she didn’t even bother to shift her gaze. Alexandre waited for Dora to close the door to the flat and leave them alone before he spoke: ‘It was my fault,’ he said in a soft tone. ‘Forgive me … I guess I fell asleep … It was my fault.’

She looked at him as if coming from a far distance. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something. After a few endless seconds, though, she just swallowed hard and shifted her gaze.

‘I didn’t do it on purpose, Gertrud. It was an accident …’

She looked at him and now he was the one who swallowed hard: this woman knows everything. A gaze had never cut me to the quick like that. My God. She’s capable of saying something crazy to the first person who shows up because now she knows that I know that she knows. I am afraid I have no choice. I don’t want you to be an obstacle to this happiness I deserve.

My husband wants to kill me. No one understands me here. Warn my brother; Osvald Sikemäe; he is a teacher in Kunda; tell him to save me. Please, I am afraid.

‘Say it again,’ asked Dora.

Àgata glanced quickly at the notebook. She looked at the waiter who was heading off and repeated my husband wants to kill me. No one understands me here. Warn my brother; Osvald Sikemäe; he is a teacher in Kunda; tell him to save me. Please, I am afraid. And she added I am alone in the world, I am alone in the world. Someone who understands me, whom I can understand.

‘But what did you tell her? This is the first time, since I’ve been taking care of her, that she’s had a conversation. Up until now, she just talked to the walls, poor woman. What did you tell her?’

‘Ma’am … that must be the nerves over …’

‘My husband knows that I know that he wants to kill me. I am very afraid. I want to go back to the hospital. Here alone with him … everything frightens me … Don’t you believe me?’

‘Of course I believe you. But …’

‘You don’t believe me. He will kill me.’

‘Why would he want to kill you?’

‘I don’t know. We were fine until now. I don’t know. The accident …’ Àgata turned a page in the notebook and continued deciphering her bad, hasty handwriting … I think the accident … How come he didn’t … She lifted her head, devastated: ‘Poor woman, she went on, saying incoherent things.’

‘Do you believe her?’ Dora, sweating, distressed.

‘What do I know!?’

They looked at the third woman, the silent one. As if they had asked her the question, she spoke for the first time.

‘I believe her. Where is Kunda?’

‘On the northern coast. On the Gulf of Finland.’

‘And how is it that you know Estonian and you know …’ Dora, impressed.

Which meant that I met Aadu Müür, yes, that oh so handsome young man, six foot two, kind smile … you can imagine. I met him eight years ago and I fell head over heels in love; I fell in love with Aadu Müür the watchmaker, and I went to live in Tallinn by his side and I would have gone to the ends of the earth, there where the contours of the mountains end and the horrific precipice begins, which leads you straight to hell, if you slip, for having thought, at any point, that the Earth was round. I would have gone there if Aadu had asked me to. And in Tallinn I worked in a hair salon and then I sold ice creams in a place where at night they allowed alcohol and the time came when I spoke Estonian so well that they didn’t know if my accent was because I was from Saaremaa Island or what, and when I told them I was Catalan, they couldn’t believe it. Because they say that the Estonians are cold like ice, but it’s a lie because with vodka in their bodies they turn warm and talkative. And Aadu disappeared one awful day and I’ve never heard from him again; well, yes, but it hurts me to remember it and I came back because I had nothing to do there, in the middle of the ice, without Aadu the watchmaker, selling ice creams to Estonians who were about to get drunk. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock and Helena called me and said let’s see if we get lucky, you know Estonian, right? And I, yes, why? And she, well, I have a friend who’s a nurse, Dora, and she has a problem that … She’s frightened and … it could be something really serious … And I’m still willing to sign up for anything that could help me forget about all six foot two of Aadu and that hesitant sweet soul that one fine day stopped being hesitant and sweet, and I said sure, I speak Estonian: where do we go, what needs to be done?

‘No, no … I mean … How do you know it so well? Because it took me forever to figure out that she was speaking Estonian. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before, you know? Until she said something, can’t remember what and I, after saying Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, I said Estonian and it seemed that her eyes gleamed a bit differently. That was my only clue, yeah. And I hit the nail on the head.’

‘The funny thing is that we don’t know if her husband is a serial killer or if she’s lost her marbles. If we are in danger or not, you know what I mean?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever,’ – Helena’s second contribution to the conversation – ‘seen a woman so afraid. From now on we’d better be on our guard.’

‘We have to ask her more things.’

‘Do you want me to talk to her again?’

‘And what if the husband shows up … Hmm?’

Alexandre Roig, after having paid his beloved a brief but passionate visit, had come to a final decision. I’m sorry, Gertrud, but I have no choice: you are forcing me to it. Now it’s my turn to live. He climbed the metro stairs mechanically and said to himself tonight’s the night.

Meanwhile, Gertrud was saying more and more things in Estonian and Àgata, dressed as a nurse – she who fainted at the first sight of blood – with her heart in her throat, translated them for Dora, and she said I was watching him in the dark, I was watching his profile. Yes, because he had been strange, very strange, for several days and I don’t know what’s happening with him, and he went like this, tightening his jaw and poor Gertrud wanted to lift an arm to show what like this was, but she was realising she could only move her thoughts and then she said it seemed like he was showing me his soul, that he was loathing me just for existing. And he said that’s it, to hell with everything; yes, yes; that’s it, to hell with everything.

‘He said it in Estonian?’

‘Did he say it in Estonian?’

‘What do I know? … That was when I saw him struggling with his seat belt and the car started flying and I said Saaaandreeee son of a biiiiiitcccch … And nothing more; nothing more … Until I woke up and he was there before me and he said it wasn’t my fault, Gertrud, it was an accident.’

‘Your husband doesn’t speak Estonian.’

‘No. But he understands it. Or yes, he does speak it.’

‘And couldn’t you speak in Catalan?’

‘What am I speaking now?’

Then they heard the sound of a key in the lock and the three women’s blood froze in their veins.

‘Put the thermometer in her mouth. No, rub her legs!’

‘Rubbing, for god’s sake. He shouldn’t be here.’

‘Oh, is there a guest?’ he said, hiding his surprise.

‘Good evening, Mr Roig.’

He looked at the two of them. The three of them. A quick, suspicious glance. He opened his mouth. He saw how the strange nurse was rubbing Gertrud’s right foot as if she were playing with modelling clay.

‘Uh … She came to help me.’

‘How is she?’ referring to Gertrud.

‘The same. No change.’ Referring to Àgata: ‘She is a colleague who …’

Professor Roig came all the way into the room, looked at Gertrud, gave her a kiss on the forehead, pinched her cheek and said I’ll be right back, dear, I forgot to buy noodles. And he went out, without giving the other women any explanation. When they were alone again, the two of them looked at each other. The three of them.

Sara, last night I found your slip of paper with the name. Matthias Alpaerts, it says. And he lives in Antwerp. But do you know what? I don’t trust your source, not in the least. It is a source corrupted by Mr Berenguer and Tito’s resentment. Mr Berenguer is a thief who only wants revenge on my father, my mother and me. And he’s used you for his ends. Let me think it over. I have to know … I’m not sure; I promise you, I’m doing what I can, Sara.

I know you want to kill me, Sandre, even though you call me dear and you buy me noodles. I know what you did because I dreamt it. They told me that I was in a coma for five days. For me, those five days were a crystal-clear, slow-motion vision of the accident: I was looking at you in the dark because you’d been very strange for several days, a bit elusive, nervous, always lost in thought. The first thing that a woman thinks when her husband is like that is that there’s another woman he’s thinking of; the ghost of the other woman. Yes, that’s the first thing you think; but I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine you cheating on me. And the first day I said out loud help, I think my husband wants to kill me; help, I think he wants to kill me because he made a strange face in the car and he took off his seat belt and he said that’s it, and I Saandreeee, son of a biiiiiiitccccccccccch, and after a slow dream that repeated everything until, it seems, five days had passed. I no longer know what I’m saying. Yes, that’s the first time I dared to say out loud that I think you want to kill me, no one paid me any mind, as if they didn’t believe me. But then they looked at me, and this Dora told me what are you saying, I can’t understand you; when it was clear as day that I was saying I think my husband wants to kill me, now shamelessly, and panicking over another fear: that no one believed me or paid me any mind. It is like being buried alive. It’s terrible, Sandre, this. I look into your eyes and you don’t hold my gaze: what must you be planning? Why don’t you tell me what you say to the others that you won’t tell me? What do you want? For me to tell you to your face that I think you wanted to kill me, that I think you want to kill me? That I tell you, holding your gaze, that I believe you want to kill me, because I am in the way of your life and it’s easier to just get rid of me like snuffing out a candle than to have to explain? At this point, Sandre … I don’t think I need any explanations; but don’t blow out my flame: I don’t want to die. I am stock-still and buried in this shell and all I have left is a weak flame. Don’t take that from me. Go, divorce me, but don’t snuff out my flame.

Àgata left the house when the scents of the first suppers were timidly rising in the stairwell. Her legs were still shaking. Out on the streets he was greeted by the stench of a bus. She went straight towards the metro. She had looked a killer in the eyes and it was quite an experience. That is if Mr Roig was a killer. He was. And when she was about to go down the stairs, the killer himself, with his eyes like daggers, came up beside her and said miss, please. She stopped, terrified. He gave her a shy smile, ran a hand through his hair and said, ‘What do you think, about my wife’s state?’

‘Not good.’ What else could she say?

‘Is it true that there is no hope of recovery?’

‘Unfortunately … Well, I …’

‘But the process of myoma is solvable, from what they’ve told me.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘So you also believe that it has a solution.’

‘Yes, sir. But I …’

‘If you’re a nurse, I’m the pope in Rome.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘What were you doing at my house?’

‘Look, I’m in a hurry right now.’

What does one do in such cases? What does the killer who realises that someone is sticking their nose in his business do? What does the victim who isn’t entirely sure if the killer is a killer do? They both hesitated for a few seconds like real dummies. Then it occurred to Àgata to say farewell and she took off down the stairs, and Professor Roig, planted there in the middle of the stairwell, didn’t really know what to do. Àgata went down to the platform. Just then a train arrived. Once she was inside it, she turned towards the door and looked: no, that madman hadn’t followed her. She didn’t breathe easily until the carriage doors closed.

At night, in the dark, so he wouldn’t have to bear her gaze. At night, as she pretended to be sleeping, Gertrud made out the shadow of cowardly Sandre and smelled the sofa cushion, which, when her life was alive, she would put behind her head to watch TV comfortably. And she even still had time to think Sandre chose the cushion, like Tiberius did to murder Augustus. It won’t take much because I’m already half dead, but you should know that you’re even more of a coward than you are a bastard. You haven’t even been able to look me in the eye and say goodbye. And Gertrud couldn’t think anything more because the spasm of the smothering was more intense than life itself and in an instant it transformed into death.

Dora put a hand on his back and said Mr Ardèvol, go rest. That’s an order.

Adrià woke up and turned, surprised. The light in the room was tenuous and Mignon’s gardenias gave off a magic brilliance. And Sara slept and slept and slept. Dora and a stranger kicked him out of the hospital. And Dora put a pill to help him sleep into his hand, and, mechanically, he got the metro at the Clínic stop while Professor Alexandre Roig, at the entrance to the Verdaguer metro stop, met up with a girl who could have been his daughter, who was surely a student, and the best detective of them all, Elm Gonzaga, hired by the three brave women, followed them ever so discreetly after having captured their kiss with a camera like Laura’s, digital or whatever they’re called, and all three waited on the platform until the train arrived and the happy couple entered the carriage along with the detective, and at Sagrada Família Friar Nicolau Eimeric and Aribert Voigt got on, chatting excitedly about the big ideas that were going through their heads, and seated in one corner, Doctor Müss or Budden was reading Kempis and looking out the window into the darkness of the tunnel, and at the other end of the carriage, dressed in the Benedictine habit, Brother Julià of Sant Pere del Burgal was dozing off. Standing beside him, Jachiam Mureda of Pardàc was looking, with wide eyes, at the new world around him, and surely he was thinking of all the Muredas and of poor Bettina, his little blind sister. And next to him was a frightened Lorenzo Storioni who didn’t understand what was going on and clung to the pole in the centre of the carriage to keep from falling. The train stopped at the Hospital de Sant Pau station, a few passengers got out and Guillaume-François Vial got on, decked out in his moth-eaten wig and chatting with Drago Gradnik, who was more corpulent than I ever could have imagined and had to duck his head to get into the carriage, and whose smile reminded me of Uncle Haïm’s serious expression, even though in the portrait Sara made of him he wasn’t smiling. And the train started up again. Then I realised that Matthias, Berta the Strong, Truu, the one with hair brown as wood from the forest, Amelietje with her jet-black hair, Juliet, the littlest, blonde like the sun, and brave Netje de Boeck, the mother-in-law with a chest cold, were talking, near the end of the carriage, with Bernat. With Bernat? Yes. And with me, who was also in the train carriage. And they were telling us about the last train trip they’d taken together, in a sealed carriage, and Amelietje was showing her the nape of her neck, wounded by the rifle blow, you see, you see?, to Rudolf Höss, who was seated alone, looking at the platform, and wasn’t very interested in looking at her bump. And the girl’s lips already had the dark colour of death, but her parents didn’t seem to mind much. They were all young and fresh except for Matthias, who was old, with weepy eyes and slow reflexes. It seemed they were looking at him suspiciously, as if they had difficulty accepting or forgiving their father’s old age. Especially Berta the Strong’s gaze, which was sometimes reminiscent of Gertrud’s, or no, a bit different. And we reached Camp de l’Arpa, where Fèlix Morlin got on, chatting animatedly with Father: it had been so many years since I’d seen my father that I could barely make out his face, but I know that it was him. Behind him was Sheriff Carson accompanied by his loyal friend Black Eagle, both very silent, making an effort not to look at me. I saw that Carson was about to spit on the floor of the train carriage, but valiant Black Eagle stopped him with a brusque gesture. The train was stopped, I don’t know why, with the doors of every carriage open. Mr Berenguer and Tito still had time to enter leisurely, by the arm I think. Lothar Grübbe hesitated just as he was stepping inside the carriage, and Mother and Little Lola, who came up behind, helped him finally make up his mind. And as the doors started to close, Alí Bahr ran in, forcing them open slightly, all alone without infamous Amani. The doors closed completely, the train started off and when we’d already been in the tunnel towards La Sagrera for thirty seconds, Alí Bahr planted himself in the middle of the carriage and started shouting like a wild man, take away, Merciful Lord, all this carrion! He opened his jellabah, shrieked Allahu Akbar! and pulled on a cord that emerged from his clothes and everything became luminously white and none of us could see the immense ball of

Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes. It was Caterina, leaning over him.

‘Adrià! Can you hear me?’

It took him a few seconds to situate himself because his sleepiness came from very far away. She insisted: ‘Can you hear me, Adrià?’

‘Yes, what’s wrong?’

Instead of telling him that they’d just called from the hospital or that he had a call from the hospital or even that he had an urgent call, or perhaps even better, instead of saying the phone is for you and going off to iron, which was an unbeatable excuse, Caterina, always anxious to be in the front row, repeated Adrià, can you hear me, and I, yes, what’s wrong, and she, Saga woke up.

Then I did wake up completely and instead of thinking she’s awake, she’s awake, I thought and I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t there. Adrià got out of bed without realising that he was in the nude, and Caterina, with a quick glance, criticised his excessive belly but saved her comment for another occasion.

‘Where?’ I said, disorientated.

‘On the telephone.’

Adrià picked up the receiver in his study: it was Doctor Real herself, who said she’s opened her eyes and begun to speak.

‘In what language?’

‘Can you understand her?’ and without waiting for a reply: ‘I’ll be right there.’

‘We need to speak before you see her.’

‘Fine. I’ll be right there.’

If not for Caterina, who stood square in front of the door to the stairwell, I would have gone to the hospital in the buff, because I hadn’t even realised the incidental circumstances, totally overcome by happiness as I was. Adrià showered, crying, dressed crying and laughing, and went to the hospital laughing, and Caterina locked the apartment when she had finished with the laundry and said this man cries when he should cry and laughs when he should cry.

The skinny doctor with a slightly wrinkled face had him come into some sort of an office.

‘Hey, I just want to say hello to her.’

‘One moment, Mr Ardèvol.’

She had him sit down. She sat down in her spot and looked at him in silence.

‘What’s wrong?’ Adrià grew frightened. ‘She’s all right, yeah?’

Then the doctor said what he had been so fearing; she said I don’t know if you are a believer or not, but there’s been a miracle here; the Lord has listened to your prayers.

‘I’m not a believer,’ I said. ‘And I don’t pray,’ I lied.

‘Your wife is not going to die. Although, the injuries …’

‘On one hand we have to wait and see how the stroke has affected her.’

‘The problem is that there are other problems.’

‘What problems?’

‘We’ve been noticing, in the last few days, some flaccid paralysis, do you understand me?’

‘Yes. And the neurologist ordered a CAT scan and we found a fracture of the sixth cervical vertebra.’

‘What does that all mean?’

Doctor Real leaned imperceptibly and changed the inflection of her voice: ‘That Sara has a serious spinal cord injury.’

‘Does that mean that she’s paralytic?’

‘Yes.’ After a brief silence, in a lower voice: ‘Quadriplegic.’

With the prefix ‘quadri-’, which means ‘four’, and the suffix ‘-plegic’, from the word plēgē, which means ‘blow’ and also ‘affliction’, they had described Sara’s state. My Sara is afflicted by four blows. What would we do without Greek? We would be unable to take in or understand the great tragedies of humankind.

I couldn’t turn my back on God because I didn’t believe in God. I couldn’t punch Doctor Real in the face because it wasn’t her fault. I could only cry out to the heavens saying I wasn’t there and I could have saved her; if I had been there, she wouldn’t have gone out into the stairwell, she would have fallen on the floor and just got a cut on her head and that’s it. And I was fucking Laura.

They let him see Sara. She was quite sedated and could barely open her eyes. He thought she was smiling at him. He told her that he loved her very, very, very much, and she half-opened her mouth but said nothing. Four or five days passed. Mignon’s gardenias were his loyal companions as they slowly woke her up. Until one Friday, the psychologist and the neurologist, with Doctor Real, refused to let me in with them and they spent a long hour in Sara’s room, with Dora keeping watch like Cerberus the hellhound. And I cried in some sort of waiting room and when they came out they didn’t let me go in to give her a kiss until not a trace of my tears remained on my face. And as soon as she saw me she didn’t say I’d love a cup of coffee, she said I want to die, Adrià. And I felt like a stupid idiot, with that bouquet of white roses in my hand and a smile frozen on my face.

‘My Sara,’ I ended up saying.

She looked at me, serious, without saying anything.

‘Forgive me.’

Nothing. I think she swallowed some saliva with difficulty. But she didn’t say anything. Like Gertrud.

‘I’ll give back the violin. I have the name.’

‘I can’t move.’

‘Well, listen. That’s now. We’ll have to see if …’

‘They’ve already told me. Never again.’

‘What do they know?’

Despite everything, she gave a hint of a resigned smile when she heard my response.

‘I won’t ever be able to draw again.’

‘But can’t you move one finger?’

‘Yes, this one. And that’s it.’

‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

She didn’t dignify my question with an answer. To dispel the uncomfortable silence, Adrià continued, in a falsely cheerful tone: ‘First we have to talk to all the doctors. Isn’t that right, Doctor?’

Adrià turned towards Doctor Real who had just come into the room, he still with the bouquet of flowers in his hand, as if he wanted to offer them to the newcomer.

‘Yes, of course,’ said the doctor.

And she took the bouquet, as if it were for her. Sara closed her eyes as if she were infinitely weary.