Confessions (9 page)

I
t was mid afternoon; Trullols was with a group of students who never seemed to finish and I was waiting. A boy, taller than me and with a bit of moustache fuzz and a few hairs on his legs, sat down beside me. Well, he was a lot taller than me. He held the violin as if he were hugging it and stared straight ahead, so as to not look at me, and Adrià said hello to him.

‘Hello,’ answered Bernat, without looking at him.

‘You’re with Trullols?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘First year?’

‘Third.’

‘Me too. We’ll be together. Can I see your violin?’

In that period, thanks to Father, I liked the object almost more than the music that came out of it. But Bernat looked at me suspiciously. For a few moments I thought he must have a Guarnerius and didn’t want to show it to me. But since I opened my case and presented a very dark red student violin that produced a very conventional sound, he did the same with his. I imitated Mr Berenguer’s demeanour: ‘French, turn of the century.’ And looking into his eyes, ‘One of those dedicated to Madame d’Angoulême.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Bernat, impressed, perplexed, mouth agape.

From that day on Bernat admired me. For the stupidest possible reason: it’s not hard at all to remember objects and know how to assess and classify them. You only have to have a father who’s obsessed with such things. How do you know, eh?

‘The varnish, the shape, the general air …’

‘Violins are all the same.’

‘Certainly not. Every violin has a story behind it. There’s not only the luthier who created it, but every violinist who has played it. This violin isn’t yours.’

‘Of course it is!’

‘No. It’s the other way around. You’ll see.’

My father had told me that, one day, with the Storioni in his hands. He offered it to me somewhat regretfully and said, without really knowing what he was saying, be very careful, because this object is unique. The Storioni in my hands felt as if it were alive. I thought I could feel a soft, inner pulse. And Father, his eyes gleaming, said imagine, this violin has been through experiences we know nothing about, it has been played in halls and homes that we will never see, and it has lived all the joys and pains of the violinists who have played it. The conversations it has heard, the music it’s expressed … I am sure it could tell us many tender stories, he finally said, with an extraordinary dose of cynicism that at the time I was unable to capture.

‘Let me play it, Father.’

‘No. Not until you’ve finished your eighth year of violin study. Then it will be yours. Do you hear me? Yours.’

I swear that the Storioni, upon hearing those words, throbbed more intensely for a moment. I couldn’t tell if it was out of joy or grief.

‘Look, it’s … how can I put it; look at it, it’s a living thing. It even has a proper name, like you and I.’

Adrià looked at his father with a somewhat distant stance, as if calculating whether he was pulling his leg or not.

‘A proper name?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what’s it called?’

‘Vial.’

‘What does Vial mean?’

‘What does Adrià mean?’

‘Well … Hadrianus is the surname of a Roman family that came from Hadria, near the Adriatic.’

‘That’s not what I meant, for god’s sake.’

‘You asked me what my nam
‘Yes, yes, yes … Well, the violin is just named Vial and that’s it.’

‘Why is it named Vial?’

‘Do you know what I’ve learned, Son?’

Adrià looked at him with disappointment because he was avoiding the question, he didn’t know the answer or he didn’t want to admit it. He was human and he tried to cover it up.

‘What have you learned?’

‘That this violin doesn’t belong to me, but rather I belong to it. I am one of many who have owned it. Throughout its life, this Storioni has had various players at its service. And today it is mine, but I can only look at it. Which is why I wanted you to learn to play the violin, so you can continue the long chain in the life of this instrument. That is the only reason you must study the violin. That’s the only reason, Adrià. You don’t need to like music.’

My father – such elegance – twisting the story and making it look as if it had been his idea I study violin and not Mother’s. What elegance my father had as he arranged others’ fates. But I was trembling with emotion at that point despite having understood his instructions, which ended with that blood-curdling you don’t need to like music.

‘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.’

‘E
bony, 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.’

That day, safe in the sacristy, Jachiam Mureda learned to distinguish woods by their odour and he thought what a shame, what a shame, not being able to share what he’d learned with his family, starting with his father, who was apt to die of sadness if he were to hear that anything had happened to him. And Agno, too, Jenn and Max who haven’t lived at home for years now, Hermes the dim-witted, Josef, Theodor the lame, Micurà, Ilse and Erica, who are already married, Katharina, Matilde, Gretchen and little Bettina, my
little blind one who gave me Mum’s medallion, which is the bit of Pardàc that I always carry with me.

I
t wasn’t until six weeks later, when they began to take down the scaffolding, that Brother Gabriel said that he knew something I think you’ll find very interesting.

‘What’s that?’

He led him far away from the men who were dismantling the scaffolding and he whispered in his ear that he knew of an old, abandoned monastery, in the middle of nowhere, with a forest of fir trees beside it; that red fir that you like.

‘A forest?’

‘A fir grove. About twenty firs and a majestic maple tree. And the wood doesn’t belong to anyone. No one has even touched it in five years.’

‘Why doesn’t it belong to anyone?’

‘It’s beside an abandoned monastery.’ In a whisper: ‘La Grassa and Santa Maria de Gerri won’t miss a couple of trees.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Don’t you want to go back with your family?’

‘Of course. I want to go back to my father, who I hope is still alive. And I want to see Agno again, and Jenn and Max who no longer live at home, and Hermes the dim-witted …’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I know. And Josef and all the others, yes. And with a load of wood that will be of help to you all.’

Jachiam of Pardàc didn’t return to Carcassona. From La Grassa, accompanied by Blond of Cazilhac with a couple of men and five mules laden with cart wheels and a bag filled with all his wages since his flight, he headed up through Ariège and the Salau pass, towards a dream.