Jaume Cabré - Confessions

The record player spun in silence, accompanying Adrià’s perplexity. Although he was a little bit surprised that he hadn’t been the least surprised by his father’s confirmation of his moral profile. A long while passed before he began to ask himself questions, for example, why didn’t he want it known that he was killed by a Nazi like this Voigt. Was it that he didn’t want other stories to come to light? Sadly, I think that was the reason. Do you know how I felt, Sara? I felt stupid. I had always thought that I’d designed my life my own way, defying everyone’s plans, and now it turns out that I’d ended up doing what my authoritarian father had intended from the very beginning. I put on the start of the Götterdämmerung to go along with that strange feeling, and the three Norns, Erda’s daughters, gathered beside Brünnhilde’s rock to weave the rope of destiny, as my father had patiently done with mine, without asking me or my mother what we thought of it. But a rope of destiny that Father had prepared had been unexpectedly cut and confirmed my deepest fears: it made me guilty of his atrocious death.

‘Hey! You said three days!’ I had never heard Bernat so indignant. ‘I’ve only had it for three hours!’

‘I’m sorry, forgive me, I swear. Now. It has to be now or they’ll kill me, I swear.’

‘Your word means nothing. I taught you vibrato!’

‘Vibrato isn’t something you can teach; you have to find it,’ I responded, desperate. At twelve years old I wasn’t very skilled at arguing. And I continued, very frightened: ‘They are going to find us out and my father will put me in jail. And you too. I’ll explain everything later, I swear.’

They both hung up the phone at the same time. He had to explain something to Little Lola or Mother about Bernat having my violin homework.

‘Stay on the pavement.’

‘Of course,’ he said, offended.

They met in front of the Solà family bakery. They opened their cases and made the switch, on the ground, on the corner of València and Llúria, ignoring the racket made by the tramvia struggling to make its way up the street. Bernat gave him back the Storioni and he gave back the violin of Madame d’Angoulême and explained that his father had all of a sudden gone into the study and had left the door open. And from his room Adrià had panicked, watching his father open the safe and pull out the case and close the safe without checking that the violin inside the case was the violin that should have been in the case, and I, I swear to you, I didn’t know what to do, because if I tell him that you have it, he’d throw me off the balcony, you know, and I don’t know what will happen, but …

Bernat looked at him coldly. ‘You just made all that up.’

‘No, really! I put my student violin in the case so he wouldn’t suspect anything if he opened it …’

‘I wasn’t born yesterday you know.’

‘I swear!’ Adrià, desperate.

‘You’re a lily liver who can’t keep his word.’

I didn’t know what to say. I looked impotently at my furious friend, who was now several inches taller than me. He looked like some sort of vengeful giant. But I was more afraid of my father. The giant opened his mouth again: ‘And you think that when he comes back and opens the safe and sees the Storioni he won’t start asking questions?’

‘And what do you want me to do? Huh?’

‘Let’s run away. To America.’

I liked Bernat for his sudden solidarity. Both of us running away to America, how cool. They didn’t run away to America, and Adrià didn’t have time to ask him, hey, Bernat, how is it to play the Storioni, can you tell the difference, is an old violin worth it? He didn’t even find out if his parents had noticed anything or … He only said he’s going to kill me, I swear he’s going to kill me, give it back to me. Bernat left in silence, with an expression that made it clear he didn’t believe his weird story that was just starting to get really complicated.

The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Six one five four two eight. Adrià placed the Storioni in the safe, closed it, erased all traces of his furtive steps and left the study. In his room, Carson and Black Eagle were playing it cool and looking the other way, surely overwhelmed by the circumstances. And he sat there with an empty violin case and, to make things even more difficult, Little Lola stuck her head in twice to ask, on Mother’s request, are you studying today or what? and the second time he said I have a callus on my finger, it hurts … see? I can’t play.

‘Let’s see that finger?’ said Mother, entering unexpectedly just as he was gluing the three trading cards he’d bought at the Sant Antoni market on Sunday into his album.

‘I don’t see anything,’ she said, very crudely.

‘But I can feel it, and it hurts.’

Mother looked to either side, as if she was having trouble believing I wasn’t pulling her leg, and she left in silence. Luckily she hadn’t opened the case. Now I just had to wait for my father’s cosmic bollocking.

Mea culpa. It was my fault that he died. Even though he would have died by Voigt’s hand anyway. The taxi had left him alone at kilometre three and he had returned to Barcelona. At that point of the winter, the day faded very early. Alone on the highway. A trap, an ambush. Didn’t you see it, Father? Perhaps you thought it was a joke in poor taste and nothing more. Fèlix Ardèvol looked down on Barcelona for the last time. The sound of an engine. A car was coming down from Tibidabo with its lights on. It stopped in front of him and Signor Falegnami got out, thinner, balder, with the same big nose and his eyes gleaming. He was escorted by two muscular men and the chauffeur. All with disgusted faces. Falegnami demanded the violin with a curt gesture. Ardèvol gave it to him and Falegnami got into the car to open the case. He came out of the vehicle with the violin in his hand: ‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’

‘Now what?’ I can imagine my father more irritated than scared.

‘Where is the Storioni?’

‘Oh, bollocks. You have it there!’

In reply, Voigt lifted the violin and broke it against a rock on the side of the highway.

‘What are you doing?’ Father, frightened.

Voigt put the busted violin in front of his face. The top had broken off in pieces and you could read the instrument’s signature: Casa Parramon on Carme Street. Father must have been the one who was confused.

‘That’s impossible! I took it out of the safe myself!’

‘Well, then you must have been robbed some time ago, imbecile!’

I want to imagine that a smile crossed his lips when he said, well, if that’s the case, Signor Falegnami, then I have no idea who has that marvellous instrument.

Voigt lifted an eyebrow and one of the men punched Father in the stomach: he doubled over, panting.

‘Start remembering, Ardèvol.’

And since Father had no way of knowing that Vial was in the hands of Bernat Plensa i Punsoda, Mrs Trullols’s favourite student at Barcelona’s Municipal Conservatory, he couldn’t start remembering. Just in case, he said I swear I don’t know.

Voigt pulled out the very portable, ladylike pistol from his pocket.

‘I think we are going to have fun,’ he said. Referring to the little pistol, ‘Remember this?’

‘Of course. And you won’t get the violin.’

Another punch to the stomach, but it was worth it. Doubled over again. Panting again, his mouth and eyes open wide. And then, what do I know? The harried winter dusk had given way to night and to impunity, and there they ended up destroying my father in some way I can’t even imagine.

‘How.’

‘Christ, where were you?’

‘Even if your father had given them Vial, they would have killed him anyway.’