Jaume Cabré - Confessions

‘Why dangerous?’

‘Because he is not what he seems. But he’s having problems.’

Fèlix Ardèvol didn’t take long to find that vaguely Vatican office located on the outskirts of the Papal City, in the middle of Borgo. The man who opened the door, fat, tall, with a large nose and a restless gaze, asked him who he had come to see.

‘I’m afraid I’ve come to see you. Signor Falegnami?’

‘Why are you afraid? Do I scare you?’

‘It’s just an expression.’ Fèlix Ardèvol wanted to smile. ‘I understand you have something interesting to show me.’

‘In the evening, the office closes at six,’ he said, gesturing with his head towards the glass door, which gave off a sad light. ‘Wait outside on the street.’

At six three men came out, one of whom wore a cassock, and Fèlix felt like he was on a secret romantic date. Like in Rome many years earlier, when he still had hopes and dreams and the apples in Signor Amato’s fruit shop reminded him of earthly paradise. Then the man with the restless gaze stuck his head out and waved him in.

‘Aren’t we going to your house?’

‘I live here.’

They had to go up a solemn staircase, almost in the dark, the man panting from the effort, with footsteps echoing in that strange office. On the third floor, a long corridor, and suddenly, the man opened a door and turned on a wan light. They were greeted by an overwhelming stench of musty air.

‘Go on in,’ the man said.

A narrow bed, a dark wooden wardrobe, a bricked-up window and a sink. The man opened the wardrobe and pulled a violin case out from the back of it. He used the bed as a table. He opened the case. It was the first time Fèlix Ardèvol saw it.

‘It’s a Storioni,’ said the man with the uneasy gaze.

A Storioni. That word didn’t mean anything to Fèlix Ardèvol. He didn’t know that Lorenzo Storioni, when he’d finished it, had stroked its skin and felt the instrument tremble and decided to show it to the good master Zosimo.

The man with the uneasy gaze turned on the table lamp and invited Fèlix to come closer to the instrument. Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis me fecit, he read aloud.

‘And how do I know it’s authentic.’

‘I’m asking fifty thousand U.S. dollars.’

‘That’s no proof.’

‘That’s the price. I’m going through a rough patch and …’

He had seen so many people who were going through rough patches. But the rough patches in thirty-eight and thirty-nine weren’t the same as the ones at the end of the war. He gave the violin back to the man and felt an immense void in his soul; exactly the way he had when six or seven years earlier he had held Nicola Galliano’s viola in his hands. He was increasingly able to get the object itself to tell him that it was valuable, pulsing with life in his hands. That could be an authentication of the object. But Mr Ardèvol, with that much money at stake, couldn’t rely on intuitions and poetic heartbeats. He tried to be cold and made a quick calculation. He smiled, ‘Tomorrow I will return with an answer.’

More than an answer it was a declaration of war. That night he had managed to get a meeting in his room at the Bramante with Father Morlin and that promising young man named Berenguer, who was a tall, thin lad: serious, meticulous and, it seemed, an expert in many things.

‘Be careful, Ardevole,’ insisted Father Morlin.

‘I know how to get around in life, dear friend.’

‘Appearances are one thing and reality another. Negotiate, earn your living, but don’t humiliate him, it’s dangerous.’

‘I know what I’m doing. You’ve seen that already, haven’t you?’

Father Morlin didn’t insist, but he spent the rest of the meeting in silence. Berenguer, the promising young man, knew three luthiers in Rome but could only trust one of them, a man named Saverio Somethingorother. The other two …

‘Bring him to me tomorrow, sir.’

‘Please, no need for such formality with me, Mr Ardèvol.’

The next day, Mr Berenguer, Fèlix Ardèvol and Saverio Somethingorother knocked on the door of the room of the man with the frightened eyes. They entered with a collective smile, they stoically withstood the stench of the room, and Mr Saverio Somethingorother spent half an hour sniffing the violin and looking at it with a loupe and doing inexplicable things to it with instruments he carried in a doctor’s satchel. And he played it.

‘Father Morlin told me that you were trustworthy people,’ said Falegnami impatiently.

‘I am trustworthy. But I don’t want to get taken for a ride.’

‘The price is fair. It’s what it’s worth.’

‘I will pay what it’s worth, not what you tell me.’

Mr Falegnami picked up his small ‘just in case’ notebook and wrote something down in it. He closed the notebook and stared into impatient Ardèvol’s eyes. Since there was no window, he looked at Dottor Somethingorother, who was lightly tapping the wood of the top and side, with a phonendoscope in his ears.

They went out of that wretched room and into the evening. Dr Somethingorother walked quickly, eyes forward, talking to himself. Fèlix Ardèvol looked at Mr Berenguer out of the corner of his eye, as the young man pretended to be completely disinterested. When they reached Via Crescenzio, Mr Berenguer shook his head and stopped. The other two followed suit.

‘What’s going on?’

‘No: it’s too dangerous.’

‘It’s an authentic Storioni,’ said Saverio Somethingorother, fervidly. ‘And I’ll say something more.’

‘Why do you say it’s dangerous, Mr Berenguer?’ Fèlix Ardèvol was beginning to like that somewhat stiff-looking young man.

‘When a wild beast is cornered, it will do all it can to save itself. But later it can bite.’

‘What more do you have to say, Signor Somethingorother?’ asked Fèlix, turning coldly towards the luthier.

‘I’ll say something more.’

‘Well, then say it.’

‘This violin has a name. It’s called Vial.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘It’s Vial.’

‘Now you’ve lost me.’

‘That’s its name. That’s what it’s called. There are instruments that have proper names.’

‘Does that make it more valuable?’

‘That’s not the point, Signor Ardevole.’

‘Of course that’s the point. Does that mean it’s even more valuable?’

‘It’s the first violin he ever made. Of course it’s valuable.’

‘That who made?’

‘Lorenzo Storioni.’

‘Where does its name come from?’ asked Mr Berenguer, his curiosity piqued.

‘Guillaume-François Vial, Jean-Marie Leclair’s murderer.’

Signor Somethingorother made that gesture that reminded Fèlix of Saint Dominic preaching from the throne about the immensity of divine goodness. And Guillaume-François Vial took a step out of the darkness, so the person inside the carriage could see him. The coachman stopped the horses right before him. He opened the door and Monsieur Vial got into the coach.

‘Good evening,’ said La Guitte.

‘You can give it to me, Monsieur La Guitte. My uncle has agreed to the price.’

La Guitte laughed to himself, proud of his nose. ‘We are talking about five thousand florins,’ he confirmed.

‘We are talking about five thousand florins,’ Monsieur Vial reassured him.

‘Tomorrow you will have the famous Storioni’s violin in your hands.’

‘Don’t try to deceive me, Monsieur La Guitte: Storioni isn’t famous.’

‘In Italy, in Naples and Florence … they speak of no one else.’

‘And in Cremona?’

‘The Bergonzis and the others aren’t happy at all about the appearance of that new workshop. Everyone says that Storioni is the new Stradivari.’