Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘But Fèlix … The boy is already studying French, German, English …’

‘Signor Simone is a great teacher. In a year my son will be able to read Petrarch and that’s that.’

And he pointed to me, so there was no doubt: ‘You’ve been warned: tomorrow you start Italian.’

Now, before the violin, hearing me say centonovantatrè anni, Father couldn’t repress a proud expression that, I confess, made me feel utterly satisfied and self-important. Pointing with one hand to the instrument and putting the other on my shoulder, he said now it is mine. It has been many places, but now it’s mine. And it will be yours. And it will be your children’s. My grandchildren. And it will belong to our great grandchildren because it will never leave our family. Swear that to me.

I wonder how I can swear in the name of those who have yet to be born. But I know that I also swore in my own name. And every time I pick up Vial I remember that vow. And a few months later they killed my father, and it was my fault. I came to the conclusion that it was also the violin’s fault.

‘Mr Berenguer,’ said Adrià giving her an accusatory look, ‘is a former employee of the shop. He fought with Father and with Mother. And with me. He is a con man, did you know that?’

‘I am quite sure that he is an undesirable who wants to hurt you. But he knows exactly how your father bought the violin: he was there.’

‘And this Albert Carbonell is a half-relative who goes by the name of Tito and now runs the shop. Doesn’t that seem like a plot?’

‘If what they say is true, I don’t care about the plot. Here you have the owner’s address. All you have to do is get in touch with him and then you and I won’t have to wonder any more.’

‘It’s a trap! Any owner those two give us is an accomplice. What they want is to get their hands on the violin, can’t you see?’

‘No.’

‘How can you be so blind?’

I think that comment hurt you; but I was convinced that there was nothing innocent behind Mr Berenguer’s movements.

She handed him a folded piece of paper. Adrià took it but didn’t unfold it. He held it for quite some time before putting it down on the table.

‘Matthias Alpaerts,’ she said.

‘Huh?’

‘The name you didn’t read.’

‘It’s not true. The owner’s name is Netje de Boeck,’ I said angrily.

Thus, as if I were a five-year-old boy, you unmasked me. I looked at the piece of paper that read Matthias Alpaerts and I put it down on the table again.

‘This is all ridiculous,’ said Adrià after a long silence.

‘You are in a position to right a wrong and you refuse to do it.’

Sara left the study and I never heard her laugh again.

Silence reigned in the house for three or four days. It is horrible when two people who live together stay silent because they don’t want to say or they don’t dare to say things that could hurt. Sara focused on her exhibition and I wasn’t good for anything. I’m convinced that if your self-portrait has a slightly sad gaze, it’s because there was that silence in the house as you were making it. But I couldn’t give in. So Adrià Ardèvol made up his mind and went to the Law Faculty to consult Doctor Grau i Bordas about the problem a friend of mine had with a valuable object acquired by his family many years ago that presumably had been pillaged during the war, and Doctor Grau i Bordas stroked his chin and listened to what was happening to my friend and then he began to digress about generalisations regarding international law and Nazi pillaging and after five minutes Adrià Ardèvol understood that the man didn’t have a clue.

In the university’s department of musicology, Doctor Casals gave him a lot of information about the various families of luthiers in Cremona and recommended an authority on historic violins. And you can trust him, Ardèvol. And the question that he wanted to ask him from the moment they’d opened the case: ‘Can I try it?’

‘You play the violin too?’

In the hallway of Musicology, four students stopped to hear the enigmatic, sweet music that emerged from one of the offices. Until Doctor Casals put the violin in its case and said it is extraordinary; like a Gesù, truly.

He left the violin in his departmental office, in one corner. And he saw two students who wanted to improve their grades. And another student who wanted to know why did you only just pass me when I came to every class. You? Well, to a lot of classes. Ah, yes? To some, yeah. When the young lady left, Laura came in and sat at the desk in front of his. She was simply lovely and he said hello, without looking her in the eyes. She made a distracted wave and opened up a folder filled with notes or exams to correct or one of those things that make her sigh. They were alone for quite a while, each with their own work. Twice, no, three times, they both looked up at the same time and their gazes played timidly for a few moments. Until the fourth time, when she said how are you. Was it the first time she took the initiative? I don’t remember. But I know that she accompanied the question with a slight smile. That was an obvious declaration of armistice.

‘Well, all right.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all.’

‘But you’re a celebrity.’

‘Now you’re having a laugh.’

‘No: I envy you. Like half of the department.’

‘Now you’re really having a laugh. And how are you?’

‘Well, all right.’

They were quiet and smiled, each with their own thoughts.

‘Are you writing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind telling me what you’re working on?’

‘I am rewriting three conferences.’

She, with a smile, invited me to continue, and I, obedient, said Llull, Vico and Berlin.

‘Wow.’

‘Yes. But you know what? I am rewriting everything so it will be a new book, you know? Not three conferences, but …’

Adrià made a vague gesture, as if he were in the middle of the problem: ‘There has to be something that ties them all together.’

‘And have you found it?’

‘Maybe. The historical narrative. But I don’t know.’

Laura rearranged the papers, which is what she always did when she was thinking.

‘Is that the famous violin?’ she said pointing with a pencil to the corner.

‘Famous?’

‘Famous.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Gosh: don’t leave it there.’

‘Don’t worry: I’ll take it to class with me.’

‘Don’t tell me that you are planning on playing it in front of …’ she said, tickled.

‘No, no.’

Or yes. Why not? He decided suddenly. Like when he asked Laura to come with him to Rome to play his lawyer. Laura inspired him to rash decisions.

Adrià Ardèvol, in the History of Aesthetic Ideas class, second quarter, at the University of Barcelona, had the nerve to start the class with the partita number one played on his Storioni. Surely none of the thirty-five students noticed the five unjustifiable errors nor the moment when he got lost and even had to improvise the Tempo di Borea. And when he finished he carefully stored the violin in its case, placed it on the desk and said what relationship do you think there is between artistic manifestation and thought. And no one dared to say anything because gosh, I don’t know.

‘Now imagine that we are in the year seventeen twenty.’

‘Why?’ said a boy with a beard sitting at the back, isolated from the rest, perhaps to avoid contamination.

‘The year when Bach composed what I just played so badly.’

‘And our thinking has to change?’

‘At the very least you and I would be wearing wigs.’

‘But that doesn’t change our thinking.’