He looked at the twenty-six paintings that the Nasjonalgalleriet of Oslo was exhibiting in various European cities to advertise itself and stimulate tourism in Norway. For a few happy minutes he forgot about his fear of the sentence, Eulalia's fateful demise, Carla's coldness, Sergi's rebellious tears, Amadeu's silence… and thought that living surrounded by such beauty was a gift. And without thinking about it he went back to the painting of the philosopher five or six times, as if he wanted to discover, by looking at it intently, the fount of true wisdom. He was so involved that he forgot about the time, and when he finally looked at his watch, he was already late for his appointment at the hospital. He left the Fundacio in a rush, almost running into a policeman who, with some pleasure, was giving tickets to a string of cars that must have been illegally parked, and reached the hospital panting, scared, afraid that he'd be punished for being seventeen minutes late by having to remain in doubt for twenty-four more hours, and, still panting, asked for the doctor at the reception desk. Which doctor? The one who's supposed to tell me the hour and the day of my death. Fourth floor.
He only had to wait for ten long minutes, along with twenty other condemned prisoners who were probably as scared as he was. The time he'd spent in contemplation at the Fundacio had strengthened his will, and he promised himself that, no matter what the results of the tests, at night he'd watch a little TV with Sergi and in two or three days take him to the movies. Out of love for the child, out of love for Eulalia. He'd have time to cry by himself later, now that he was getting used to the cruel claws of loneliness.
"Please sit down."
He sat down across from the doctor, who made no mention of his tardiness. Like an idiot, he stared at the pencils in the pocket of her very white coat, as if that's where all the answers were. The nurse, a hairy young man with permanently shiny eyes, deposited on the table some envelopes which Agusti assumed contained his fate. The slap of the envelopes on the table reminded him of the blows of the mallet on Eulalia's tombstone. To make things even harder, the young man whispered something to the doctor, who nodded a couple of times, waited for the nurse to disappear through a door that Agusti hadn't noticed, and let two, three, four seconds go by before taking off her glasses and fixing on him a bluish gaze, full of pity. Agusti figured the whole thing meant six months, at the most. With pain.
"All of this is rather strange, Mr…."
"Ardevol." He said it rapidly, in the hope that now she'd look at the envelope, realize her mistake, and see him off with a kiss. "Agusti Ardevol," he insisted. But no: the doctor picked up the envelope that clearly said Agusti Ardevol, took out some papers and reread them, and he could see that the woman had already read them thirty times. And he thought about Sergi, abandoned, with no father or mother… And Carla, though it hurt him to know that she wouldn't be very upset by his death… And Amadeu, who could be counted on to take care of everything with his quiet efficiency… How he loved them, his children! Maybe he hadn't said that often enough. Maybe he'd been too reserved, but he loved them with all his heart. He saw the doctor hesitating and, to keep from exploding, he cried impatiently, "Go ahead and tell me, doctor! How many years?" And because she still said nothing, he bravely reduced the time. "How many months do 1 have?"
"Excuse me?"
"No, 1…" Now Agusti felt a little confused. "What do 1 have?"
"Um… Nothing very bad, Mr. Ardevol," she said, taking off her glasses. "You're basically healthy."
Agusti fell against the back of the chair, horrified. Either she was teasing him, or he had not years or months or days, but only a few hours left, and so she wanted to keep him from knowing right up to the end… Dear Eulalia… if there's anything after, which there isn't, I'll see you soon. The memory of your love is surely what is making it possible to keep from panicking. Amadeu, Carla, Sergi, your father will try to die in a dignified way, he'll try to deserve to be remembered as a worthy husband to your mother. I love you.
Then he heard the doctor's voice, which was explaining the results of the various tests in comprehensible language; no problem here, no problem there. She read him the riot act about trans fat and the dangers of bad cholesterol, about the need to live frugally, eat a lot of vegetables, cut down on drinking and smoking. He interrupted her with the question inside him.
"So I'm not dying?"
instead of answering, the doctor responded with another question, as if they were playing tennis.
"You're married, with children, right?"
"Well…" it was the first time he'd had to talk about it and he had to take a deep breath first. "My wife died the day before yesterday. Cerebral hemorrhage." And, as an excuse, "We buried her today."
"My goodness." She took off her glasses. "You have my sympathy."
"Thank you."
"You have three children, right?"
How many times had the doctor taken off her glasses? As he was saying Yes, three children, he couldn't remember her having put them on, as if she were wearing thirty or forty pairs for those moments when she had to say something important. Like now, when she took them off and turned her blue eyes towards Agusti's suspicious face.
"The thing is that… It's quite surprising, but the results…" She waved one of the papers."…don't leave any room for doubt."
"Come on, doctor…" Now he tried to recover a little of his self-esteem with an attempt at humor. "Look, the truth is that now 1 know I'm not going to die… nothing you say can hurt me or scare me.
She looked at him as if she had doubts about her patient's mental balance. She sighed, looked at the clock behind Agusti's head, and decided to get down to it.
"Well, as 1 was saying," and she shoved the paper across the table so it landed in front of him, took off her glasses-yes, againand looked at him as she said, "1 can tell you for sure that since you had that high fever… since you had the mumps…" Now she picked up the paper and finally Agusti realized that she was putting on her glasses and reading, "..when you were, uh, fifteen, you've been sterile."
Uncomfortable, the doctor took off her glasses and put them down on the table. The sound they made reminded him of the blows on Eulalia's stone. Agusti, his mouth open, thought… He couldn't think anything because he was beginning to accept that the fate of survivors can also be extremely cruel.
With Hope in His Hands
Don't tell me it's not true that the sun bathes in the sea.
ecause 1 want to see the sunset again from the Sau Valley." "That seems like a stupid kind of reason for risking your life."
"When 1 was young, 1 came back from Saxony because 1 was homesick."
"You'll always be a fool."
"Yes. I'll always miss Sau."
The two men were standing under the savage sun, which fell hard on the back of their necks, taking their time to empty the stinking content of their pails, making it look like the shit was sticking, delaying a little longer and keeping their voices low, so no one would imagine they were having a conversation under that cruel sun. Oleguer truly did miss Sau and its imposing landscape. But what really consumed him, and the reason for the whole thing, was finding out why Celia didn't write to him. Twelve years of rats and cockroaches, waiting every day, every minute, every second of his life for a letter that never came.