Confessions

by Jaume Cabré

‘But I …’

  ‘And French tutoring.’

  ‘But, Father, I want …’

  ‘You don’t want anything. And I’m warning you,’ he pointed at me as if with a pistol, ‘you will learn Aramaic.’

  I looked at Mother, searching for some sort of support, but she had her gaze lowered, as if she were very interested in the floor tiles. I had to defend myself all on my own and I shouted, ‘I don’t want to learn Aramaic!’ Which was a lie. But I was looking at an avalanche of homework.

  ‘Of course you do,’ – in a low, cold, implacable voice.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t talk back to me.’

  ‘I don’t want to learn Aramaic. Or anything else!’

  Father brought a hand to his forehead and, as if he had an awful migraine, he said, looking at the desk, in a very quiet voice, look at the sacrifices I’m making so that you can be the most brilliant student Barcelona has ever seen and this is how you thank me? Exaggerated shouting. ‘With an “I don’t want to learn Aramaic”?’ And now shrieking, ‘Eh?’

  ‘I want to learn …’

  Silence. Mother looked up, hopeful. Carson, in my pocket, stirred curiously. I didn’t know what I wanted to learn. I knew that I didn’t want them to fill my head with too much too early, weigh it down. There were a few anxious seconds of reflection: in the end, I had to improvise:

  ‘… Well, I want to be a doctor.’

  Silence. Confused looks between my parents.

  ‘A doctor?’

  For a few seconds Father visualised my future as a doctor. Mother did too, I think. I, who got dizzy just thinking about blood, thought I had blown it. Father, after a moment of indecision, brought his chair closer to the desk, preparing to return to his reading. ‘No: you won’t be a doctor and you won’t be a monk. You will be a great humanist and that’s that.’

  ‘Father.’

  ‘Come on, Son, I’ve got work to do. Go and make some noise with your violin.’

  And Mother looking at the floor, still interested in the colourful tiles. Traitor.

  Lawyer, doctor, architect, chemist, civil engineer, optical engineer, pharmacist, lawyer, manufacturer, textile engineer and banker were the foreseeable professions according to all the other parents of all the other children.

  ‘You said lawyer more than once.’

  ‘It’s the only major that you can do with humanities. But children are more likely to think of studying to be a coal-merchant, painter, carpenter, lamplighter, bricklayer, aviator, shepherd, footballer, night watchman, mountain climber, gardener, train guard, parachute jumper, tram driver, fireman and the Pope in Rome.’

  ‘But no father has ever said, Son, when you grow up you will be a humanist.’

  ‘Never. I come from a very odd house. Yours was a bit like that too.’

  ‘Well, yeah …’ you said to me, like someone confessing an unforgivable defect who didn’t want to go into detail.

  The days passed and Mother said nothing, as if she were crouched, waiting for her turn. Which is to say I started German lessons again, but with a third tutor, Herr Oliveres, a young man who worked at the Jesuits’ school but needed some extra money. I recognised Herr Oliveres right away, even though he taught the older children, because he always signed up, I suppose for the bit of money it brought, to watch over those in detention for tardiness on Thursday afternoons, and he spent the time reading. And he had a solid method of language instruction.

  ‘Eins.’

  ‘Ains.’

  ‘Zwei.’

  ‘Sbai.’

  ‘Drei.’

  ‘Drai.’

  ‘Vier.’

  ‘Fia.’

  ‘Fünf.’

  ‘Funf.’

  ‘Nein: fünf.’

  ‘Finf.’

  ‘Nein: füüüünf.’

  ‘Füüüünf.’

  ‘Sehr gut!’

  I put the time I’d wasted with Herr Romeu and Herr Casals behind me and I soon got the gist of German. I was fascinated by two things: that the vocabulary wasn’t Latinate, which was completely new for me and, above all, that it had declensions, like Latin. Herr Oliveres was amazed and couldn’t quite believe it. Soon I asked him for syntax homework and the man was flabbergasted, but I’ve always been interested in approaching languages through their intrinsic hard core. You can always ask for the time of day with a few gestures. And yes, I was enjoying learning another language.

  ‘How are the German classes going?’ Father asked me impatiently after the first lesson of the Oliveres period.

  ‘Aaaalso, eigentlich gut,’ I said, feigning disinterest. Out of the corner of my eye, not quite able to see him, I could tell that my father was smiling and I felt very proud of myself because I think that even though I never admitted it, at that age I lived to impress my father.

  ‘Something you rarely achieved.’

  ‘I didn’t have time.’

  Herr Oliveres turned out to be a cultured, timid man who spoke in a soft voice, who was always badly shaven, who wrote poems in secret and who smoked smelly tobacco but he was able to explain the language from the inside out. And he started me on the schwache Verben in the second lesson. And in the fifth he showed me, very cautiously, like someone sharing a dirty photo, one of Hölderlin’s Hymnen. And Father wanted Herr Oliveres to give me a French test to see if I needed tutoring, and after the exam Monsieur Oliveres told Father I didn’t need French tutoring because I was doing fine with what they taught me at school, and then, there was that hour in between … How is your English, Mr Oliveres?

  Yes, being born into that family was a mistake for many different reasons. What pained me about Father was that he only knew me as his son. He still hadn’t realised that I was a child. And my mother, looking down at the tiles, without acknowledging the contest Father and I were disputing. Or so I believed. Luckily I had Carson and Black Eagle. Those two almost always backed me up.

  7

  It 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 m
any 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.’

  ‘Ebony, 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?’