In the deserted office, it suddenly came to him. Or, to put it better, he came to a decision all of a sudden. It must have been the euphoria of the half-finished book. He dialed a number and waited patiently as he thought please let her be there, let her be there, let her be there because otherwise … He looked at his watch: almost one. They must be having lunch.
‘Hello.’
‘Max, it’s Adrià.’
‘Hey.’
‘Can you put her on?’
Slight hesitation.
‘Let’s see. One sec.’
That meant she was there! She hadn’t run off to Paris, to the huitième arrondissement, and she hadn’t gone to Israel. My Sara was still in Cadaqués. My Sara hadn’t wanted to flee too far … On the other side of the line, still silence. I couldn’t even hear footsteps or any murmur of conversation. I don’t know how many eternal seconds passed. When a voice came on it was Max again: ‘Listen, she says that … I’m really sorry … She says to ask you if you’ve returned the violin.’
‘No: I want to talk to her.’
‘It’s that … Then she says … she says she doesn’t want to talk to you.’
Adrià gripped the phone very tightly. Suddenly, his throat was dry. He couldn’t find the words. As if Max had guessed that, he said I’m really sorry, Adrià. Really.
‘Thank you, Max.’
And he hung up as the office door opened. Laura looked surprised to find him there. In silence, she went over to her desk and shuffled through the drawers for a few minutes. Adrià had barely changed position, looking into the void, hearing Sara’s brother’s delicate words as if they were a death sentence. After a little while he sighed loudly and looked over at Laura.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked as she gathered some very thick folders, the kind she was always carrying around everywhere.
‘Of course. I’ll buy you lunch.’
I don’t know why I said that. It wasn’t out of any sort of revenge. I think it was because I wanted to show Laura and the whole world that nothing was wrong, that everything was under control.
Seated before Laura’s blue eyes and perfect skin, Adrià left half of his pasta on his plate. They had barely spoken. Laura filled his water glass and he made an appreciative gesture.
‘So, how’s everything going?’ said Adrià, putting on a friendly face as if they had lifted the conversation ban.
‘Well. I’m going to the Algarve for fifteen days.’
‘How nice. Todò is a bit loony, yeah?’
‘Why?’
They reached, after a few minutes, the conclusion that yes, a bit loony; and that it was best if you didn’t tell him anything about my book that doesn’t yet exist because there is nothing more unpleasant than writing knowing that everyone is on the edge of their seats wondering whether you will be able to tie together Vico and Llull and all that.
‘I talk too much, I know.’
And to prove it, she explained that she had met some really nice people and they were meeting up in the Algarve because they were bicycling all over the Iberian peninsula and
‘Are you a biker, too?’
‘I’m too old. I’m going to lie on a beach chair. To disconnect from the dramas in the department.’
‘And flirt a bit.’
She didn’t answer. She glanced at him to convey that I was going too far, because women have an ability to understand things that I’ve always envied.
What do I know, Sara? But this is how it went. In Laura’s flat, which was tiny but always spick and span, there was a controlled disorder that was particularly concentrated in the bedroom. A disorder that wasn’t chaotic in the least, the disorder of someone about to go on a trip. Clothing in piles, shoes lined up, a couple of tourist guides and a camera. Like a cat and a dog, they carefully watched each other’s moves.
‘Is it one of the electronic ones?’ said Adrià, picking up the camera suspiciously.
‘Uh-huh. Digital.’
‘You’re always into the latest thing.’
Laura took off her shoes, standing, and put on some sort of flip-flops that were very flattering.
‘And you must use a Leica.’
‘I don’t have a camera. I never have.’
‘And your memories?’
‘Here.’ Adrià pointed to his head. ‘They never break down. And they’re always here when I need them.’
I said it without irony because I can’t predict anyone’s future.
‘I can take two hundred photos, with this.’ She took the camera from him with a gesture that strove to conceal her impatience and put it down on the night table, beside the telephone.
‘Bravo,’ he said, uninterested.
‘And then I can put them into my computer. I look at them more there than in an album.’
‘Bravissimo. But for that you need a computer.’
Laura stood before him, defiant.
‘What?’ she said, her hands on her hips. ‘Now you want a lecture on the quality of digital photos?’
Adrià looked into those oh so blue eyes and embraced her. They held each other for a long time and I cried a little bit. Luckily, she didn’t notice.
‘Why are you crying?’
‘I’m not crying.’
‘Liar. Why are you crying?’
By mid afternoon they had turned the bedroom’s disorder into chaos. And they spent close to an hour lying down, looking at the ceiling. Laura studied Adrià’s medallion.
‘Why do you always wear it?’
‘Just because.’
‘But you don’t believe in …’
‘It’s a reminder.’
‘A reminder of what?’
‘I don’t know.’
Then the telephone rang. It rang on the bedside table next to Laura’s side of the bed. They looked at each other, as if wanting to ask, in some sort of guilty silence, whether they were expecting any call. Laura didn’t move, with her head on Adrià’s chest, and they both heard how the telephone, monotonously, insisted, insisted, insisted. Adrià stared at Laura’s hair, expecting her to reach for it. Nothing. The telephone kept ringing.
VI STABAT MATER
We are granted all that we fear.
50
Two years later, the telephone rang suddenly and gave Adrià a start, just like every time he heard it. He stared at the device for a long time. The house was dark except for the reading light on in his study. The house was silent, the house without you, except for the insistent ringing of the telephone. He put a bookmark in Carr, closed it and stared at the shrieking telephone for a few more minutes, as if that solved everything. He let it ring for a good long while and finally, when whoever was calling had already made their stubborness clear, Adrià Ardèvol rubbed his face with his palms, picked up and said hello.
His gaze was sad and damp. He was nearing eighty and gave off a worn, infinitely beaten air. He stood on the landing of the staircase breathing anxiously, gripping a small travel bag as if his contact with it was what was keeping him alive. When he heard Adrià walking up the stairs slowly, he turned. For a few seconds, they both stared at each other.
‘Mijnheer Adrian Ardefol?’
Adrià opened the door to his home and invited him in while the man, in something approximating English, confirmed that he was the one who’d called that morning. I was convinced that a sad story was entering my house together with the stranger, but I no longer had any choice. I closed the door to keep the secrets from scampering out onto the landing and into the stairwell; standing, I offered to speak in Dutch and then I saw that the stranger’s damp eyes brightened a tad as he made an appreciative gesture to Adrià, who had to brush up on his rusty Dutch straightaway to ask the stranger what he wanted.