Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘It doesn’t? Men and women in wigs, stockings and high heels.’

‘It’s just that the aesthetic idea of the eighteenth century is different from ours today.’

‘Just the aesthetic? In the eighteenth century, if you weren’t wearing a wig, makeup, stockings and heels, they wouldn’t let you into the salons. Today, a man wearing makeup, a wig, stockings and heels would be locked up in prison without any questions being asked.’

‘We have to take morality into account?’

It was the timid voice of a lanky girl from the front row. Adrià, who was between desks, turned around.

‘That’s what I like to hear,’ he said. And the girl turned red, which wasn’t my intention. ‘Aesthetics, as hard as we try to separate it, is never alone.’

‘No?’

‘No. It has a great capacity to drag other forms of thought with it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Anyway, it was a class that worked very well to establish the bases of what I had to explain for the next few weeks. And, for a few moments, I even forgot that at home we were living in silence, Sara and I. And Adrià was very sorry not to find Laura in the office when he went there to pick up his things because he would have liked to explain to her how well her idea had worked.

As soon as I opened the case inside the workshop of Pau Ullastres, the luthier told me it’s an authentic Cremona. Just by its scent and its outward mien. Even so, Pau Ullastres didn’t know Vial’s specific history; he had heard some vague talk about it, but he thought a Storioni could be worth a serious pile of dough and you should have brought it in to be appraised earlier. For insurance purposes, you know? It took me a few seconds to understand, because I had been captivated by the still atmosphere of his workshop. A warm, reddish light the colour of violin wood, made that unexpected silence, right in the heart of Gràcia, more solid. The window overlooked an interior courtyard at the back of which was a wood drying shed with its door open. There the wood aged unhurriedly while the world, now round, spun like a compulsive spinning top.

I looked at the luthier, frightened: I didn’t know what he had said to me. He smiled and repeated it.

‘I never thought to have it appraised,’ I responded. ‘It was like another piece of furniture in the house, just always there. And we’ve never wanted to sell it.’

‘What a lucky family.’

I didn’t tell him I disagreed because it wasn’t any of Pau Ullastres’s business and there was no way I could have read these lines that weren’t yet written. The luthier asked for permission before playing it. He played better than Doctor Casals. It almost sounded as if Bernat were playing.

‘It’s marvellous,’ he said. ‘Like a Gesù: it’s on the same level.’

‘Are all the Storionis as good as this one?’

‘Not all of them; but this one is.’ He smelled it with his eyes closed. ‘You’ve kept it locked up?’

‘Not for some time now. There was a period where …’

‘Violins are alive. The wood of a violin is like wine. It needs to age slowly over time and it enjoys the pressure of the strings; it likes to be played, it likes to live at a comfortable temperature, to be able to breathe, not be banged, always be clean … Only lock it up when you go on a trip.’

‘I would like to get in touch with the former owners.’

‘Do you have an ownership title?’

‘Yes.’

I showed him Father’s contract of sale from Signor Saverio Falegnami.

‘The certificate of authenticity?’

‘Yes.’

I showed him the certificate cooked up by Grandfather Adrià and the luthier Carlos Carmona in a period when for a few grand you could have even counterfeit banknotes authenticated. Pau Ullastres looked at it curiously. He gave it back to me without comment. He thought it over: ‘Do you want to get it appraised now?’

‘No. In fact, what I want is to be sure of who its previous owners were. I want to meet with them.’

Ullastres looked at the ownership certificate: ‘Saverio Falegnami, it says here.’

‘The ones prior to that man.’

‘You mind telling me why you want to get in touch with them?’

‘I don’t even know myself. For me it’s as if this violin had always belonged to my family. I’ve never worried about its genealogy. But now …’

‘You are concerned about its authenticity?’

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘If it helps you at all, I would swear on all that is holy that this is an instrument from Lorenzo Storioni’s finest period. And not because of the certificate, but because of what I can see, hear and feel.’

‘I’ve been told it is the first violin he ever made.’

‘The best Storionis were the first twenty. They say it’s because of the wood he used.’

‘The wood?’

‘Yes. It was exceptional.’

‘Why?’

But the luthier was stroking my violin and didn’t answer. All those caresses were making me feel jealous. Then Ullastres looked at me: ‘What exactly do you want to do? Why exactly have you come?’

It is hard to make enquiries without being entirely truthful with those who could help you.

‘I would like to make a family tree of its owners since the beginning.’

‘That’s a good idea … But it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.’

I didn’t know how to tell him that what I wanted was to work out if Mr Berenguer and Tito had made up the name Alpaerts. And to know whether the name that Father had given me, Netje de Boeck, was the correct one. Or maybe find out that neither of those names were authentic and that the violin had always been mine. Because I was seeing that yes, that if there had been a legal owner prior to the Nazi, that it was in my best interests for me to get in touch with them, whoever they were, to get down on my knees and beg them to let me have it until my death; just thinking about Vial leaving my home forever gave me chills. And I had made up my mind to do whatever it took to keep that from happening.

‘Did you hear me, Mr Ardèvol? An arm and a leg.’

If I’d had any doubt, Vial was authentic. Perhaps I went to see Ullastres just for that: to be hear it for myself; to make sure that I had fought with Sara over a valuable violin; not over some pieces of wood in the shape of an instrument. No, deep down I don’t know why I went there to see him. But I believe it was since my visit to Ullastres’s workshop that I began to muse on that fine wood and on Jachiam Mureda.

For lunch they gave him a bland semolina soup. He thought he should let them know that he didn’t like semolina soup like the one they gave to whatshername … ffucking semolina soup. But things weren’t that simple because he didn’t know if it was his vision or what, but he was having more and more trouble reading and retaining things. Fucking ceiling. Retaining things. Retaining.

‘Aren’t you hungry, my prince?’

‘No. I want to read.’

‘They should give you alphabet soup.’

‘Yes.’

‘Come on, eat a little.’

‘Little Lola.’

‘Wilson.’

‘Wilson.’

‘What, Adrià?’

‘Why am I so befuddled?’

‘What you need to do is eat and rest. You’ve worked enough.’

He gave him five spoonfuls of the semolina soup and was satisfied that Adrià had had enough lunch.

‘Now you can read.’ He looked at the floor, ‘Oh, we’ve made a real mess with the soup,’ he said. ‘And if you want to take a nap, let me know and I’ll put you into bed.’

Adrià, obedient, only read for a little while. He slowly read how Cornudella explained his reading of Carner. He read with his mouth open. But soon he was overcome by I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Little Lola, and he grew tired because Carner and Horace blurred together on the table. He took off his glasses and ran his palm over his fatigued eyes. He didn’t know if he should sleep in the chair or the bed or … I don’t think they’ve explained it well enough to me, he thought. Maybe it was the window?