Jaume Cabré - Confessions

Sara got up, went to the instrument cabinet and pulled out Vial. She put it on the reading table with a bit too much emphasis, almost covering up poor Hobbes who was in no way to blame.

‘Where did you get it from?’

‘Father bought it.’ Suspicious pause. ‘I already showed you the buyer’s certificate. Why?’

‘It’s Vial, the only Storioni with a proper name.’

Sara kept silent, prepared to listen. And Guillaume-François Vial took a step out of the darkness, so the person inside the carriage could see him. The coachman stopped the horses right in front of him. He opened the door and Monsieur Vial got into the coach.

‘Good evening,’ said La Guitte.

‘You can give it to me, Monsieur La Guitte. My uncle has agreed to the price.’

La Guitte laughed to himself, proud of his nose. So many days roasting in Cremona’s sun had been worth it. To make sure: ‘We are talking about five thousand florins.’

‘We are talking about five thousand florins,’ Monsieur Vial reassured him.

‘Tomorrow you will have the famous Lorenzo Storioni’s violin in your hands.’

‘Don’t try to deceive me: Storioni isn’t famous.’

‘In Italy, in Naples and Florence … they speak of no one else.’

‘And in Cremona?’

‘The Bergonzis and the others aren’t happy at all about the appearance of that new workshop.’

‘You already explained all that to me …’ Sara, standing, impatient, like a strict teacher expecting an awkward child’s excuses.

But Adrià, tuning her out, said ‘mon cher tonton! …’ he declared as he burst into the room early the next morning. Jean-Marie Leclair didn’t even deign to look up; he was watching the flames in the fireplace. ‘Mon cher tonton,’ repeated Vial, with less enthusiasm.

Leclair half turned. Without looking him in the eyes he asked him if he had the violin with him. Leclair was soon running his fingers over the instrument. From a painting on the wall emerged a servant with a beak-like nose with a violin bow in his hand, and Leclair spent some time searching out all of that Storioni’s possible sounds with fragments of three of his sonatas.

‘It’s very good,’ he said when he had finished. ‘How much did it cost you?’

‘How.’

‘Ten thousand florins, plus a five-hundred coin reward that you’ll give me for finding this jewel.’

‘Hey, how!’

With an authoritative wave, Leclair sent out the servants. He put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder and smiled. And I heard Sheriff Carson’s curt spit hitting the ground, but I paid him no heed.

‘You are a bastard. I don’t know who you take after, you son of a rotten bitch. Your poor mother, which I doubt, or your pathetic father. Thief, conman.’

‘Why? I just …’ Fencing with their eyes. ‘Fine: I can forget about the reward.’

‘You think that I would trust you, after so many years of you being such a thorn in my side?’

‘So why did you entrust me to …’

‘As a test, you stupid son of a sickly, mangy bitch. This time you won’t escape prison.’ After a few seconds, for emphasis: ‘You don’t know how I’ve been waiting for this moment.’

‘How, Adrià, you’re drifting! Look her in the face!’

‘You’ve always wanted my ruin, Tonton Jean. You envy me.’

‘Christ, child. Listen to Black Eagle! She already knows all that. You’ve already told her.’

Leclair looked at him in surprise and pointed to him: ‘No flea-ridden cowboy should even address me.’

‘Hey, hey … I didn’t say anything to you. And I deserve to be treated with respect.’

‘Piss off, both of you, you and your friend with the feathers on his head who looks like a turkey.’

‘How.’

‘How what?’ Leclair, absolutely irritated.

‘Instead of making friends, you’d be wise to continue the argument with your nephew before the sun sets over the western hill.’

Leclair looked at Guillaume Vial, somewhat disconcerted. He had to make an effort to concentrate and then pointed at him: ‘What do you think I could envy about you, you wretched, crappy fleabag?’

Vial, red as a tomato, was too enraged to be able to respond.

‘It’s better if we don’t go into details,’ he said just to say something.

Leclair looked at him with contempt.

‘Why not go into details? Physique? Height? People skills? Friendliness? Talent? Moral stature?’

‘This conversation is over, Tonton Jean.’

‘It will end when I say so. Intelligence? Culture? Wealth? Health?’

Leclair grabbed the violin and improvised a pizzicato. He examined it with respect.

‘Adrià.’

‘What?’

Sara sat down in front of me. I faintly heard Sheriff Carson saying watch out, kid, this is serious; and then don’t tell me we didn’t warn you. You looked me in the eyes: ‘I said I already know that. You explained it to me a long time ago!’

‘Yes, yes, it’s just that Leclair said the violin is very good, but I don’t give a damn, you understand me? I only want to be able to send you to prison.’

‘You are a bad uncle.’

‘And you are a bastard who I’ve finally been able to unmask.’

‘The brave warrior has lost his marbles after so many battles.’ A curt gob of spit corroborated the valiant Arapaho chief’s statement.

Leclair pulled on the little bell’s rope and the servant with the beak-like nose entered through the door to the back of the room.

‘Call the commissioner. He can come whenever he’s ready.’ To his nephew: ‘Have a seat, we’ll wait for Monsieur Béjart.’

They didn’t have a chance to sit down. Instead Guillaume-François Vial walked in front of the fireplace, grabbed the poker and bashed in his beloved tonton’s head. Jean-Marie Leclair, known as l’Aîne, was unable to say another word. He collapsed without even a groan, the poker stuck in his head. Splattered blood stained the violin’s wooden case. Vial, breathing heavily, wiped his clean hands on his uncle’s coat and said you don’t know how much I was looking forward to this moment, Tonton Jean. He looked around him, grabbed the violin, put it into the blood-spattered case and left the room through the balcony that led to the terrace. As he ran away, in the light of day, it occurred to him that he should make a not very friendly visit to La Guitte the bigmouth. And Father bought it long before I was born from someone named Saverio Falegnami, the legal owner of the instrument.

Silence. Unfortunately, I had nothing more to say. Well, I had no interest in saying anything further. Sara stood up.

‘Your father bought it in nineteen forty-five.’

‘How do you know?’

‘And he bought it from a fugitive.’

‘From someone named Falegnami.’

‘Who was a fugitive. And his name was surely not Falegnami.’

‘That I don’t know.’ I think you could see a mile off that I was lying.

‘I do know.’ With her hands on her hips, leaning towards me: ‘He was a Bavarian Nazi who had to flee and thanks to your father’s money he was able to disappear.’

A lie, or a half-truth, or a few lies cobbled together for the coherence that transforms them into something believable, can hold up for a while. Even for a long while. But they can never last an entire lifetime because there is an unwritten law that speaks of the hour of truth of all things.

‘How do you know all that?’ trying to seem surprised and not defeated.

Silence. She, like a statue, icy, authoritarian, imposing. Since she was silent, I kept talking, a bit desperately: ‘A Nazi? Well, it’s better that we have it than some Nazi, right?’

‘This Nazi had confiscated it from a Belgian or Dutch family that had the poor taste to show up in Auschwitz-Birkenau.’