Winter Journey

Epilogue

The stories in this collection were written over a relatively long period of time. The oldest, in its first version, dates from 1982, and all were finished in 2000. What's interesting is that 1 never got them right the first time. With one exception, the original version didn't turn out to be the one 1 considered definitive. In many cases the themes and issues were right, but the tone was still off. For years I've felt somewhat perplexed about what turned out to be these pages, because 1 had stories and ideas, but 1 wasn't pleased with what 1 made of them. Once, after finishing The Shadow of the Eunuch, on which I'd spent many years, 1 started working hard on the stories, thinking that the time had come to demystify them and make them mine. But 1 had to recognize, after many fruitless sessions, that either these stories had no reason to exist or 1 had no reason to exist for them. When 1 finally understood that stories have legs, 1 changed tactics, and as Lao Tse recommends-according to Quiquin-I sat quite still outside my cabin door and waited until one day the stories passed by, and 1 grabbed them by the throat and made them explain themselves. So, with great patience, 1 figured out the secret of each story, one by one, the reason why the first line or first word of a story had occurred to me or maybe the precise or vague idea of a literarily edifying ending that could exist only in relation to a beginning that 1 didn't yet know. The final versions, new versions of the majority of the fourteen stories, have brought me many surprises. Maybe the biggest surprise is the realization that everything in life is related. 1 thought 1 was putting together a collection of totally independent stories, since the ambience of each story demanded this independence, but the reality of working on them these last few months, in the same span of time, has made me aware of the threads, some secret and others more obvious, that tie them all to one another. I also got to know and, in a way, to love characters who exist without the advantages enjoyed by characters in novels, because living in a story is like spending your whole life in one of those Japanese hotels that seem like a decompression chamber for divers. These characters, like their stories, are often based on what is, but is not said.

There have been low points along the way. There was something about a couple of the stories that just wasn't right and l left them out, though 1 didn't get rid of them. 1 imagine them in limbo, waiting for better times.

1 think that readers of stories have to be more attentive than readers of novels. The space limitations that I referred to above lead to omissions, force the writer to make assumptions about previous lives, summarize entire moral or physical descriptions in a single stroke… The writer must be ingenious, but so must the reader. The writer suggests background, history, landscape, atmosphere, and the reader completes these suggestions in the act of reading. And because not everything can fit into a story, the resulting echo, the memory of reading (equivalent to the immediate auditory memory of music) ends up completing the moral dimension of each story, if there is one.

1 realized these things as 1 worked on this book, as I've also realized that how you breathe when you write a story is different, more syncopated, than the breathing required to write a novel, because it seems as if you have to win the game going in, convincingly and right off the bat, rather than settling in for the long, speculative, laborious, tactical combat of the novel, which you can win on points. Again 1 refer to Quiquin when he cites the Baron of Coubertin, who was inspired by Saint Paul (his second letter to Timothy of Listra, his faithful disciple), when he stated that in art what matters is winning, and everything else is just a tale.

1 am deeply grateful to Miquel Desclot for the magnificent gift of the unpublished versions of Wilhelm Muller's Die Winterreise, which appear quoted and in less obvious ways in the story Winterreise.

The Catalan version of the two lines from the great Hungarian poet Attila J6szef which appear in that story are from Eduard J.Verger and Kalman Faluba. Sr. Adria, who provided me with the reference, confirms that the book is Poemes (Ed. Gregal, Valencia, 1987).

Winterreise is a posthumous cycle of lieder composed by Franz Schubert on a book of poems by Wilhelm Muller entitled Die winterreise. Attilio Bertolucci left us a collection of poems called Viaggio d'inverno. Some years ago, Antoni Mari wrote a book of poems, twelve songs, that bears the title Un viatge d'hivern. The questionable biography of Franz Schubert written by Gaston Laforgue, more to serve himself than to serve the music, is called Voyage d'hiver. From the moment that these stories began to assume an imprecise shape, 1 knew that the collection would have to be called Winter Journey. Some coincidences are intentional and others are not, and even if inevitable they can sometimes be unwelcome. 1 hope that in this case Muller, Schubert, Bertollucci, Laforgue and Mari will take this book as homage.

Also, 1 want to record a series of dedications that 1 hope will be received with, at least, resignation: Gottfried Heinrich's Dream" 1 dedicate to Marti Cabre Barba; a very old first version was already related to him. "With Hope in His Hands" was born dedicated to Clara Cabre Barba. "1 Remember" had its origin in a lively conversation with Sam Abrams and is dedicated to him. "Opus Postum" is dedicated to Cristofol A.Trepat, who knows what it is to go on stage, and to Montserrat Guixer, as well as to the tireless Jordi Mir. "Two Minutes," which bites its own tail, is for Jan Schejbal, of Prague, and Ramon Pla i Arxe, of Barcelona. "Eyes Like Jewels" is for Joaquim M.Puyal, eternally enraptured by the miracle of language, and for Til Stegmann, of Frankfurt, and Joan F.Mira, of Castello, conspirators in Munster. "Negotiation," which in the end is without music because of the pianist's unilateral retirement, to my musical comrades-in-arms Josep Lluis Badal, Oriol Costa and Jaume Sala. "Ballad" is an old story that remained almost faithful to the original idea and is intended for Josep M.Ferrer and Magda Calpe, and for Jaume Aulet. "Dust," not because of the dust but because of the books, is for Ton Albes and Lluisa Carbonell. To my siblings 1 dedicate "The Trace." "Finis Coronat Opus" is for Xavier Fabre and Marta Nadal. "The Will" is for Kalman Faluba, of Budapest, and for Adolf Pla, of Sabadell, "Poc!" despite its violence, is for Oriol lzquierdo and Dolors Borau and for Sergi Boadella. "Winterreise" is for Margarida Barba.

Jaume Cabre

Fall 2000