Jaume Cabré - Confessions

They continued to talk half-heartedly on three or four more topics, for example, hopefully this will lower instrument prices, which are sky high. You can say that again. And they said goodbye to each other. Vial got out of La Guitte’s coach convinced that this time it would come off.

‘Mon cher tonton! …’ he declared as he burst into the room early the next morning. Jean-Marie Leclair didn’t even deign to look up; he was watching the flames in the fireplace. ‘Mon cher tonton,’ repeated Vial, with less enthusiasm.

Leclair half turned. Without looking him in the eyes he asked him if he had the violin with him. Leclair soon was running his fingers over the instrument. From a painting on the wall emerged a servant with a beak-like nose and a violin bow in his hand, and Leclair spent some time searching out all of that Storioni’s possible sounds with fragments of three of his sonatas.

‘It’s very good,’ he said when he had finished. ‘How much did it cost you?’

‘Ten thousand florins, plus a five-hundred coin reward that you’ll give me for finding this jewel.’

With an authoritative wave, Leclair sent out the servants. He put a hand on his nephew’s shoulder and smiled.

‘You’re a bastard. I don’t know who you take after, you son of a rotten bitch. Your mother or your pathetic father. Thief, conman.’

‘Why? I just …’ Fencing with their eyes. ‘Fine: I can forget about the reward.’

‘You think that I would trust you, after so many years of you being such a thorn in my side?’

‘So why did you entrust me to …’

‘As a test, you stupid son of a sickly, mangy bitch. This time you won’t escape prison.’ After a few seconds, for emphasis: ‘You don’t know how I’ve been waiting for this moment.’

‘You’ve always wanted my ruin, Tonton Jean. You envy me.’

Leclair looked at him in surprise. After a long pause: ‘What do you think I could envy about you, you wretched, crappy fleabag?’

Vial, red as a tomato, was too enraged to be able to respond.

‘It’s better if we don’t go into details,’ he said just to say something.

Leclair looked at him with contempt.

‘Why not go into details? Physique? Height? People skills? Friendliness? Talent? Moral stature?’

‘This conversation is over, Tonton Jean.’

‘It will end when I say so. Intelligence? Culture? Wealth? Health?’

Leclair grabbed the violin and improvised a pizzicato. He examined it with respect. ‘The violin is very good, but I don’t give a damn, you understand me? I only want to be able to send you to prison.’

‘You’re a bad uncle.’

‘And you are a bastard who I’ve finally been able to unmask. Do you know what?’ He smiled exaggeratedly, bringing his face very close to his nephew’s. ‘I’ll keep the violin, but for the price La Guitte gives me.’

He pulled the little bell’s rope taut and the servant with the beak-like nose entered through the door to the back of the room.

‘Call the commissioner. He can come whenever he’s ready.’ To his nephew: ‘Have a seat, we’ll wait for Monsieur Béjart.’

They didn’t have a chance to sit down. Instead Guillaume-François Vial walked in front of the fireplace, grabbed the poker and bashed in his beloved tonton’s head. Jean-Marie Leclair, known as l’Aîne, was unable to say another word. He collapsed without even a groan, the poker stuck in his head. Splattered blood stained the violin’s wooden case. Vial, breathing heavily, wiped his clean hands on his uncle’s coat and said you don’t know how much I was looking forward to this moment, Tonton Jean. He looked around him, grabbed the violin, put it into the blood-spattered case and left the room through the balcony that led to the terrace. As he ran away, in the light of day, it occurred to him that he should make a not very friendly visit to La Guitte.

‘As far as I know,’ continued Signor Somethingorother, still standing in the middle of the street, ‘it is a violin that has never been played regularly: like the Stradivarius Messiah, do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘No,’ said Ardèvol, impatient.

‘I’m saying that that makes it even more valuable. The same year it was made, Guillaume-François Vial made off with it and its whereabouts have been unknown. Perhaps it has been played, but I have no record of it. And now we find it here. It is an instrument of incalculable value.’

‘That is what I wanted to hear, caro dottore.’

‘Is it really his first?’ asked Mr Berenguer, his interest piqued.

‘Yes.’

‘I would forget about it, Mr Ardèvol. That’s a lot of money.’

‘Is it worth it?’ asked Fèlix Ardèvol, looking at Somethingorother.

‘I would pay it without hesitating. If you have the money. It has an incredibly lovely sound.’

‘I don’t give a damn about its sound.’

‘And exceptional symbolic value.’

‘That does matter to me.’

‘And we are returning it right now to its owner.’

‘But he gave it to me! I swear it, Papa!’

Mr Plensa put on his coat, shifted his eyes imperceptibly towards his wife, picked up the case and, with a forceful nod, ordered Bernat to follow him.

The silent funereal retinue that transported the scrawny coffin was presided over by Bernat’s black thoughts, as he cursed the moment when he’d flaunted the violin in front of his mother and showed her an authentic Storioni, and the dirty grass went straight to his father as soon as he arrived and said Joan, look what the boy has. And Mr Plensa looked at it; he examined it; and after a few seconds of silence he said blast it, where did you get this violin?

‘It has a beautiful sound, Papa.’

‘Yes, but I’m asking you where you got it.’

‘Joan, please!’

‘Come now, Bernat. This is no joking matter.’ Impatiently, ‘Where did you get it from.’

‘Nowhere; I mean they gave it to me. Its owner gave it to me.’

‘And who is this idiotic owner?’

‘Adrià Ardèvol.’

‘This violin belongs to the Ardèvols?’

Silence: his mother and father exchanged a quick glance. His father sighed, picked up the violin, put it into its case and said we are going to return it to its owner right now.

I was the one who opened the door for her. She was younger than my mother, very tall, with sweet eyes and lipstick. She gave me a friendly smile as soon as she saw me and I liked her right away. Well, more than liked her, exactly, I fell irresistibly and forever in love with her and was overcome with a desire to see her naked.

‘Are you Adrià?’

How did she know my name? And that accent was truly strange.

‘Who is it?’ Little Lola, from the depths of the flat.

‘I don’t know,’ I said and smiled at the apparition. She smiled at me and even winked, asking if my mother was home.

Little Lola came into the hall and, from the apparition’s reaction, I assumed she had taken her for my mother.

‘This is Little Lola,’ I warned.

‘Mrs Ardèvol?’ she said with the voice of an angel.

‘You’re Italian!’ I said.

‘Very good! They told me you’re a clever lad.’

‘Who told you?’

Mother had been in the shop waging war and organising things since the crack of dawn, but the apparition said she didn’t mind waiting as long as it took. Little Lola pointed brusquely to the bench and vanished. The angel sat down and looked at me, a very pretty golden cross glittering around her neck. She said come stai. And I answered bene with another charming smile, my violin case in my hand because I had class with Manlleu and he couldn’t abide by tardiness.

‘Ciao!’ I said timidly as I opened the door to the stairwell. And my angel, without moving from the bench, blew me a kiss, which rebounded against my heart and gave me a jolt. And her red lips soundlessly said ciao in such a way that I heard it perfectly inside my heart. I closed the door as gently as I could so that the miracle wouldn’t disappear.