Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘What year was it made?’ I asked.

Father had me look through the right f-hole. Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis me fecit 1764.

‘Let me hold it.’

‘No. You think about all the history this violin has. But no touching.’

Jachiam Mureda let the two carts and the men follow him towards La Grassa, led by Blond of Cazilhac. He hid in a corner to relieve himself. A few moments of calm. Beyond the wooden carts that slowly headed off was the silhouette of the monastery and the wall destroyed by lightning. He had taken refuge in Carcassona three summers ago, fleeing the hatred of those in Moena, and fate was about to change the course of his life. He had got used to the sweet language of the Occitans. He had grown accustomed to not eating cheese every day; but what was hardest for him was not being surrounded by forests and not having mountains nearby; there were some, but always so far, far away that they didn’t seem real. As he defecated he suddenly understood that it wasn’t that he missed the landscape of Pardàc, but that he missed his father, Mureda of Pardàc, and all the Muredas: Agno, Jenn, Max, Hermes, Josef, Theodor, Micurà, Ilse, Erica, Katharina, Matilde, Gretchen and little Bettina who gave me the medallion of Saint Maria dai Ciüf, the patron saint of Pardàc’s woodcutters, so I would never feel alone. And he began to cry with longing for his people and as he shat he took the medallion off his neck and looked at it: a proud Virgin Mary facing forward, holding a tiny baby and with a lush pine tree in the background that reminded him of the pine beside the Travignolo stream, in his Pardàc.

Repairing the wall had been complicated because first they’d had to knock down a good bit that was shaky. And in a few days he had built a magnificent scaffolding with his wood. The monastery’s carpenter, Brother Gabriel, praised him for it. Brother Gabriel was a man with hands large as feet when it came to hacking and chopping, and thin as lips when it came time to gauge the wood’s quality. They hit it off right away. The friar, a natural talker, wondered how he knew so much about the inner life of wood since he was just a carpenter, and Jachiam, finally free of his fear of vengeance, for the first time since he had run away said I’m not a carpenter, Brother Gabriel. I cut wood, I listen to wood. My trade is making the wood sing, choosing the trees and the parts of the trunk that will later be used by master luthiers to make a good instrument, such as a viola or a violin.

‘And what are you doing working for a foreman, child of God?’

‘Nothing. It’s complicated.’

‘You ran away from something.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’

‘It’s not my place to say this, but be careful you aren’t running away from yourself.’

‘No. I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Because those who run away from themselves find that the shadow of their enemy is always on their heels and they can’t stop running, until finally they explode.’

‘Is your father a violinist?’ Bernat asked me.

‘No.’

‘Well, I … But the violin is mine,’ he added.

‘I’m not saying it’s not yours. I’m saying that you are the violin’s.’

‘You say strange things.’

They were silent. They heard Trullols raising her voice to quiet a student who was zealously playing out of tune.

‘How awful,’ said Bernat.

‘Yes.’ Silence. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bernat Plensa. And you?’

‘Adrià Ardèvol.’

‘Are you a fan of Barça or Espanyol?’

‘Barça. You?’

‘Me too.’

‘Do you collect any trading cards?’

‘Of cars.’

‘Wow. Do you have the Ferrari triple?’

‘No. Nobody does.’

‘You mean it doesn’t exist?’

‘That’s what my father says.’

‘Oh, boy, wow.’ Desolate. ‘Really?’

Both boys were silent thinking about Fangio’s Ferrari, which was composed of three cards that might not exist. That gave them a gnawing feeling in their stomachs. And the two men, also in silence, watched as the wall in La Grassa rose up straight thanks to the solid scaffolding Jachiam had built. After quite some time:

‘And what wood do you use to make those instruments?’

‘I don’t make them, I never did. I offered the best wood. Always the best. The masters in Cremona came to me for it and they trusted that my father and I would have it prepared for them. We sold them wood chopped during the January full moon if they didn’t want it to have resin and in midsummer if they wanted a more bold, melodious wood. My father taught me how to find the wood that sang best, from among hundreds of trees. Yes; my father taught me, and his father — who worked for the Amatis — taught him.’

‘I don’t know who they are.’

Then Jachiam of Pardàc told him about his parents and his siblings and his wooded landscape in the Tyrolean Alps. And about Pardàc, whom those further south call Predazzo. And he felt relieved, as if he had confessed to the lay brother. But he didn’t feel guilty of any death, because Bulchanij of Moena was a murdering swine who’d burned down the future out of envy and he would carve open his belly ten thousand times if he had the chance. Jachiam the unrepentant.

‘What are you thinking about, Jachiam? I can see the hatred in your face.’

‘Nothing, I’m sad. Memories. My brothers and sisters.’

‘You spoke of many brothers and sisters.’

‘Yes. First we were eight boys and when they’d given up hope of having a girl, they got six.’

‘And how many are living?’

‘All of them.’

‘It’s a miracle.’

‘Depends on how you look at it. Theodor is lame, Hermes can’t think straight but he’s got a big heart and Bettina, the littlest, my dear sweet Bettina, is blind.’

‘Your poor mother.’

‘She’s dead. She died giving birth to a boy who died too.’

Brother Gabriel was silent, perhaps in the memory of that martyr. Then, to lighten up the conversation, ‘You haven’t told me what wood you used for the instruments. Which one is it?’

‘The fine instruments created by the master luthiers of Cremona are made with a combination of woods.’

‘You don’t want to tell me.’

‘No.’

‘It doesn’t matter: I’ll work it out.’

‘How?’

Brother Gabriel winked and went back to the monastery, taking advantage of the fact that the bricklayers and their mates, knackered after a day of sorting through stones and bringing them up with the pulley, had come down from the scaffolding to wait for nightfall, for the little food they had and for rest, preferably without many dreams.

‘Someday I’ll bring the Storioni to class.’

‘Poor you. If you do, you’ll find out what a good hard cuff is.’

‘So what do we have it for?’

Father left the violin on the table and looked at me with his hands on his hips.

‘What do we have it for, what do we have it for …’ he mimicked me.

‘Yes.’ Now I was peeved. ‘What do we have it for if it’s always in its case inside the safe and we can’t even look at it?’

‘I have it to have it. Do you understand?’

‘No.’

‘Ebony, a fir we don’t have around here and maple.’

‘Who told you?’ asked Jachiam of Pardàc, impressed.

Brother Gabriel brought him to the monastery’s sacristy. In one corner, protected by a sheath, there was a viola da gamba made of light wood.

‘What’s it doing here?’

‘Resting.’

‘In a monastery?’

Brother Gabriel made a vague gesture that said he wasn’t in the mood to go into more details.

‘But how did you work it out?’

‘By smelling the wood.’

‘Impossible. It’s very dry and the varnish covers up the scent.’