Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘How do you know?’

How did you know, Sara … How did you know that, which I only knew because my father had left it written in Aramaic on a piece of paper that surely only I had read.

‘You have to give it back.’

‘To who?’

‘To its owners.’

‘I am its owner. We are.’

‘Don’t involve me in this. You have to return it to its real owners.’

‘I don’t know who they are. Dutch, you say?’

‘Or Belgian.’

‘That’s not much to go on. Should I just go to Amsterdam and stand in the middle of the street with the violin in my hand saying, is this yours, dames en heren?’

‘Don’t play the cynic.’

He didn’t know how to answer. What could he say when he always feared that day would come? Without knowing the details, but that what he was going through would someday happen: I, seated, with my glasses in one hand, my Storioni on the table and Sara with her hands on her hips and saying well, research it. There are detectives in the world. Or we can go to a centre for the recovery of stolen assets. Surely there are a dozen Jewish organisations that could help us.

‘At the first step you take, the house would fill with people trying to take advantage.’

‘Or maybe the owners would show up.’

‘We are talking about fifty years ago, you realise that?’

‘The owners of the instrument have direct or indirect descendants.’

‘Who probably couldn’t care less about the violin.’

‘Have you asked them that?’

Little by little, the tone of your voice grew harsher and I was feeling attacked and offended because the harshness in your voice was accusing me of something I hadn’t felt guilty of until then: the horrible crime of being my father’s son. And, what’s more, your voice was changing, the timbre sharpening, as it always did when you talked about your family or when you talked about the Shoah, or when Uncle Haïm came up.

‘I’m not lifting a finger until I know that what you are saying is true. Where did you get all this from?’

Tito Carbonell had been sitting at the steering wheel of his car on the corner for half an hour. He saw his uncle come out, with his diminishing hair, his briefcase in one hand, heading up València Street towards the university. Tito stopped drumming his fingers on the wheel. The voice from the back seat said Ardèvol’s balder every day. Tito didn’t think he needed to add any comment; he just checked his watch. The voice from the back seat was going to say I don’t think it’ll be long, relax, when a policeman put his hand to his cap in greeting, leaned over to talk to the driver and said gentleman, you can’t be here.

‘We’re waiting for someone who … Here she is,’ he improvised.

Tito got out of the car and the policeman was distracted by a Coca-Cola lorry trying to unload, invading Llúria Street by a good half metre. Tito got back inside the car and when he saw that Caterina was coming through the doorway, he said in a cheery voice that is the famous Caterina Fargues. The voice from the back seat didn’t respond. They waited four more minutes until Sara stepped out on the street and looked both ways. She glanced at the opposite corner and, with quick, decisive steps, went towards the car.

‘Get in, they won’t let us stay here,’ said Tito, pointing to the back door of the car with his head. She hesitated for a few seconds and got in the car, in the back, as if it were a taxi.

‘Good day,’ said the voice.

Sara saw an older man, very thin, hidden behind a dark mackintosh, who looked at her with interest. With a flat palm, he patted the empty part of the seat between them, to invite her to sit beside him.

‘So you are the famous Sara Voltes-Epstein.’

Sara sat down just as Tito started the car. When they passed the policeman, he thanked him with a nod and entered the traffic that was heading up Llúria.

‘Where are we going?’ she said with a slightly scared voice.

‘Relax: somewhere where we can speak comfortably.’

The place where they could speak comfortably was a luxurious bar on the Diagonal. They had reserved a table in an isolated corner. They sat down and for a few seconds they all three looked at each other in silence.

‘This is Mr Berenguer,’ said Tito, pointing to the thin older man. He nodded his head slightly in greeting. And then Tito explained that he personally, some time ago, had checked that in her house they had a Storioni violin named Vial –

‘And would you mind telling me how you checked that?’

— that was very valuable and that, unfortunately, had been stolen more than fifty years ago from its legitimate owners –

‘The owner is Mr Adrià Ardèvol.’

— and it turns out that its legitimate owner has been looking for it for ten years and it seems we’ve finally found it –

‘And why am I supposed to believe you?’

— and we already know that the instrument was acquired by its legitimate owner on the fifteenth of February of nineteen thirty-eight in the city of Antwerp. Then it was appraised at far below its true value. Then it was stolen. Confiscated. The legitimate owner has moved heaven and earth to find it and, when he finally did, he took a few years to reflect and now it seems that he’s decided to reclaim it.

‘Well, then let him reclaim it legally. And prove this strange tale.’

‘There are legal problems. It’s a very long story.’

‘I’ve got time.’

‘I don’t want to bore you.’

‘Aha. And how did the violin come into my husband’s hands?’

‘Mr Adrià Ardèvol is not your husband. But if you’d like, I can explain how it came into Mr Adrià Ardèvol’s hands.’

‘My husband has an ownership certificate for the instrument.’

‘Have you seen it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it’s a fake.’

‘And why should I believe that?’

‘Who was the owner according to that certificate?’

‘How do you expect me to remember that? He showed it to me a long time ago.’

‘None of this makes any sense,’ said Adrià without looking at Sara. He stroked the violin instinctively, but pulled away his hand as though he’d received a shock.

I was too young, but Father had me enter the study as if to tell me a secret, even though there was no one else at home. And he told me have a good look at this violin. Vial was resting on the table. He brought over the loupe and had me look through it. I stuck my hand in my pocket and Sheriff Carson said pay attention, boy, this must be important. I pulled my hand away as if I’d been burned and I contemplated the violin through the magnifying glass. The violin, the scratches, the fine lines. And the ribs, with little varnish left on them …

‘Everything you see is its history.’

I remembered that at other times he had explained similar things about the violin. That was why I wasn’t at all surprised to hear: how, this rings a bell. And so I responded to Father, yes, its history. And what do you mean by that?

‘That its history has travelled through many homes and touched many people whom we will never meet. Imagine, from millesettecentosessantaquattro to today, that’s …!

‘Mmmm … Vediamo … Centonovantatrè anni.’

‘That’s right. I see that you’ve understood me.’

‘No, Father.’

It had been eight months since I’d begun to learn

‘Uno.’

‘Uno.’

‘Due.’

‘Due.’

‘Tre.’

‘Tre.’

‘Quattro.’

‘Quattro.’

‘Cinque.’

‘Cinque.’

‘Sei.’

‘Sei.’

‘Sette.’

‘Sette.’

‘Otto.’

‘Octo.’

‘Otttto!’

‘Otttto!’

‘Bravissimo!’

because you can learn Italian easily, in just four classes, trust me.