Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Boy, you make me so jealous!’ Even though that afternoon was all me about leaving Bernat with his mouth hanging open, the exclamation came straight from my heart.

‘Why?’

‘Because you have perfect pitch.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Forget about it.’ And going back to the initial situation: ‘Seventeen sixty-four, did you hear me?’

‘Seventeen sixty-four …’ He said it with sincere admiration and I was very pleased. He stroked it again, sensually, like he had when he said I’ve finished, Maria, my love. And she whispered I’m proud of you. Lorenzo stroked its skin and the instrument seemed to shiver, and Maria felt a bit jealous. He admired the rhythm of its curves with his hands. He placed it on the workshop table and moved away from it until he could no longer smell the intense scent of the miraculous fir and maple and he proudly contemplated the whole. Master Zosimo had taught him that a good violin, besides sounding good, had to be pleasing to the eye and faithful to the proportions that make it valuable. He felt satisfied. With a shadow of doubt, because he still didn’t know the price he would have to pay for the wood. But yes, he was satisfied. It was the first violin that he had started and finished all by himself and he knew that it was a very good one.

Lorenzo Storioni smiled in relief. He also knew that the sound would take on the right colour with the varnishing process. He didn’t know if he should show it to Master Zosimo first or go and offer it directly to Monsieur La Guitte, who they say is a bit fed up with the people of Cremona and will soon return to Paris. A feeling of loyalty to his teacher sent him to Zosimo Bergonzi’s workshop with the still pale instrument under his arm, like a corpse in its provisional coffin. Three heads lifted up from their labours when they saw him come in. The maestro understood the smile of his young quasi disciple. He placed the cello he was polishing on a shelf and brought Lorenzo to the window that opened onto the street below, which had the best light for examining instruments. In silence, Lorenzo pulled the violin from its pinewood case and presented it to the master. The first thing that Zosimo Bergonzi did was caress its back and face. He understood that everything was going as he had foreseen when, a few months earlier, he had secretly presented his disciple Lorenzo with a gift of some exceptional wood so he could prove that he had truly learned his lessons.

‘This is really a gift?’ Lorenzo Storioni had said, shocked.

‘More or less.’

‘But this is part of the wood that …’

‘Yes. That Jachiam of Pardàc brought. It is at its best moment now.’

‘I want to know the price, Master Zosimo.’

‘I told you not to worry about it. When you have made the first instrument I will tell you the price.’

That wood had never been free. The Year of Our Lord 1705, many years ago, long before young Storioni had been born, when the earth was increasingly round, Jachiam the unrepentant, of the Muredas of Pardàc, had arrived in Cremona with a cart loaded down with wood that was apparently worthless, saving them quite a few scares along the endless journey. Jachiam was a man over thirty, strong and with a gaze darkened by the determination with which he took on life. He left Blond with the load at a safe distance from Cremona and he headed quickly towards the city. When he reached a small wood of holm oaks, he entered it. He soon found a spot where he could empty his bowels comfortably. As he squatted he looked out in front of him distractedly, and saw some discarded cloth tatters. Those anonymous scraps of clothing reminded him of the accursed doublet of Bulchanij of Moena, and all the misfortune that fell upon the Muredas of Pardàc and which might now end with the stroke of luck he was working in his favour. He cried as he defecated, unable to contain his nervousness. When he was fully composed, after he’d relieved his body and carefully replaced his greasy clothes, he entered the city and went straight to Stradivari’s workshop as he had done a few times as a lad. He asked to speak directly to Master Antonio. He told him that he knew he was about to have problems finding wood because of the fire in the Paneveggio fifteen years ago.

‘I get it from other places.’

‘I know. From the Slovenian forests. When you make an instrument you will find its sound is muffled.’

‘That’s all there is.’

‘No, it’s not. I have an alternative.’

Stradivari must really have been in a bind, because he followed the stranger to the outskirts of Cremona, where he had hidden the cart. His most taciturn son, Omobono, and a workshop apprentice named Bergonzi came with him. All three of them examined the wood, cutting off pieces, chewing them, looking at each other furtively, and Jachiam, Mureda’s son, watched them with satisfaction, sure of his work, as they examined the pieces again and again. It was already getting dark when Master Antonio challenged Jachiam: ‘Where did you get this wood?’

‘From very far away. From the West, a very cold place.’

‘How do I know you didn’t steal it?’

‘You have to trust me. My whole life is wood, I know how to make it sing, I know how to smell it, I know how to choose it.’

‘It is of very high quality and very well packed. Where did you learn the trade?’

‘I am the son of Mureda of Pardàc. Have someone sent to ask my father.’

‘Pardàc?’

‘Down here you call it Predazzo.’

‘Mureda of Predazzo is dead.’

Two unexpected tears of pain sprang from Jachiam’s eyes. My father is dead and won’t see me return home with ten bags of gold so he and and all my brothers and sisters won’t ever have to work again. Agno, Jenn, Max, Hermes the slow one, Josef, Theodor who can’t walk, Micurà, Ilse, Erica, Katharina, Matilde, Gretchen and little Bettina, my little blind sweetheart who gave me the medallion of Santa Maria dai Ciüf that our mother had given her when she died.

‘Dead? My father?’

‘From grief at the burning of his woods. From grief over the death of his son.’

‘Which son?’

‘Jachiam, the best of the Muredas.’

‘I am Jachiam.’

‘Jachiam was drowned in the eddies of Forte Buso because of the fire.’ With an ironic look, ‘If you are Mureda’s son, you must remember that.’

‘I am Jachiam, son of Mureda of Pardàc,’ insisted Jachiam, son of Mureda of Pardàc, as Blond of Cazilhac listened with interest despite the fact that he sometimes missed a word because they spoke so quickly.

‘I know that you are trying to trick me.’

‘No. Look, Master.’

He pulled out the medallion around his neck and showed it to Master Stradivari.

‘What is that?’

‘Santa Maria dai Ciüf of Pardàc. The patron saint of the woodcutters. The patron saint of the Muredas. It belonged to my mother.’

Stradivari grabbed the medallion and studied it carefully. A stately Virgin Mary and a tree.

‘A fir tree, Master.’

‘A fir tree in the background.’ He gave it back to him. ‘That’s your proof?’

‘The proof is the wood I am offering you, Master Antonio. If you don’t want it, I will offer it to Guarneri or someone else. I’m tired. I want to go home and see if my brothers and sisters are still alive. I want to see if Agno, Jenn, Max, Hermes the dull-witted, Josef, Theodor the lame, Micurà, Ilse, Erica, Katharina, Matilde, Gretchen and little Bettina who gave me the medallion are still alive.’

Antonio Stradivari, sensing the possibility that Guarneri would profit from this wood, was generous and paid very well for that load that would save him work when he was able to use it, after a few years of peaceful ageing in the warehouse. He had his future well protected. And that was why the violins he made twenty years later were his finest. He couldn’t know that yet. But Omobono and Francesco, after the master’s death, knew it full well. They still had quite a few planks of that mysterious wood that had come from the west and they used it sparingly. And when they both died, Carlo Bergonzi inherited the workshop, along with the secret stash of special wood. And Bergonzi passed on the secret to his two sons. Now, the younger of the Bergonzi boys, who had become Master Zosimo, was examining the first instrument that young Lorenzo had made in the light that came from the window overlooking the Cucciatta. He examined its interior: ‘Laurentis Storioni Cremonensis me fecit, seventeen sixty-four.’