Confessions (64 page)

He stopped his account of the facts, but he kept his gaze fixed forward, looking nowhere because such pain could not be expressed while looking into anyone’s eyes. He swallowed hard, but I, tied to my chair, didn’t even think that the stranger, with all his talking, might need a glass of water. As if he didn’t, he continued his tale, saying and so I went through life with my head bowed, crying over my cowardice and looking for some way to make amends for my evilness until I thought of hiding myself there where the memory could never reach me. I sought out a refuge: I probably made a mistake, but I needed shelter and I tried to get closer to the God I distrusted because he hadn’t moved a muscle to save innocents. I don’t know if you can understand it, but absolute desperation makes you do strange things: I decided to enter a Carthusian monastery, where they counselled me that what I was doing wasn’t a good idea. I have never been religious; I was baptised as a Christian although religion in my house was never more than a social custom and my parents passed down their disinterest in religion to me. I married my beloved Berta, my brave wife who was Jewish but not from a religious family, and who didn’t hesitate to marry a goy for love. She made me Jewish in my heart. After the Carthusians refused me I lied and at the next two places I tried I didn’t mention the reasons for my grief; I didn’t even show it. In one place and the other I learned what I had to say and what I had to keep quiet, so that when I knocked on the door of Saint Benedict’s Abbey in Achel I already knew that no one would put
up obstacles to my belated vocation and I begged, if obedience didn’t demand otherwise, that they let me live there and fulfil the humblest tasks in the monastery. That was when I began speaking again, a bit, with God and I learned to get the cows to listen to me. And then I realised that the telephone had been ringing for some time, but I didn’t have the heart to answer it. At least that was the first time in two years that it had rung without giving me a start. The stranger named Matthias, who was no longer such a stranger, and who had been called Brother Robert, looked at the telephone and at Adrià, waiting for some reaction. Since his host showed no interest in answering it, he continued speaking.

‘And that’s it,’ he said, to help himself get started again. But maybe he had already said everything, because he started to fold up the dirty cloth, as if gathering up his stand after a very hard day at the street market. He did it carefully, using all five of his senses. He left the folded cloth in front of him. He repeated en dat is alles, as if no further explanations were necessary. Then Adrià broke his long silence and asked why have you come to explain this to me. And then he added, what does this have to do with me?

Neither of the two men realised that the telephone, at some point, had got fed up with ringing in vain. Now the only noise that reached them was the very muffled sounds of the traffic on València Street. They were both silent, as if exceedingly interested in the traffic noise of Barcelona’s Eixample district. Until I looked the old man in the eye, and he, without returning my gaze, said and with all that, I confess that I don’t know where God is.

‘Well, I …’

‘For many years, in the monastery, he was part of my life.’

‘Was that experience useful to you?’

‘I don’t believe so. But they wanted to show me that pain is not the work of God, but a consequence of human freedom.’

Now he did look at me and continued, raising his voice slightly, as if it were a mass meeting, and he said what about earthquakes? And floods? And why doesn’t God doesn’t stop people from committing evil? Huh?

He put his palms on the folded cloth: ‘I talked a lot with cows, when I was a peasant monk. I always came to the maddening conclusion that God is guilty. Because it can’t be that evil only resides in the desire for evil. That’s too easy. He even gives us permission to kill the evil: dead dogs don’t bite, says God. And it’s not true. Without the dog, the bite continues to gnaw on us from inside, forever and ever.’

He looked from side to side without focusing on the books that had amazed him when he’d first entered the study. He picked up the thread: ‘I came to the conclusion that if all-powerful God allows evil, God is an invention in poor taste. And I broke inside.’

‘I understand. I don’t believe in God either. The guilty always have a first and last name. They are named Franco, Hitler, Torquemada, Amalric, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Adrià Ardèvol or whatever. But they have first and last names.’

‘Not always. The tool of evil has a first and last name, but evil, the essence of evil … I still haven’t resolved that.’

‘Don’t tell me that you believe in the devil.’

He looked at me in silence for a few seconds, as if weighing my words, which made me feel proud. But no: his head was somewhere else. He obviously didn’t want to philosophise: ‘Truu, the brunette, Amelia, the one with jet-black hair, Juliet, the littlest, blonde as the sun. And my coughing mother-in-law. And my strength, my wife, who was named Berta and who I have to believe has been dead for the last fifty-four years and ten months. I can’t stop feeling guilty about still being alive. Every day I wake up thinking that I am failing them, day in, day out … and now I’m eighty-five and I still haven’t known how to die, I keep living the same pain with the same intensity of the first day. Which is why – since despite everything I have never believed in forgiveness – I tried to get vengeance …’

‘Excuse me?’

‘… and I discovered that vengeance can never be complete. You can only take it out on the idiot who let himself get caught. You are always left with the disappointment of those who got away with it.’

‘I understand.’

‘You don’t understand,’ he interrupted, abruptly. ‘Because vengeance causes even more pain and brings no satisfaction. And I wonder: if I can’t forgive, why doesn’t vengeance make me happy? Huh?’

He grew quiet and I respected his silence. Had I ever taken vengeance on anyone? Surely I had, in the thousand evil things of daily life surely I had. I looked into his eyes and I insisted, ‘Where do I show up in this story?’

I said it with some confusion, I don’t know if I was expecting to have some sort of starring role in that life of pain or if I wanted to get to the part I was already fearing.

‘You are entering the stage right now,’ he responded, half hiding a smile.

‘What do you want?’

‘I came to get back Berta’s violin.’

The telephone started to ring, as if it were feverishly applauding the interpreters of a memorable recital.

B
ernat plugged in the computer and turned it on. As he waited for the screen to come to life, I explained what had happened the day before. As he listened, his jaw dropped in amazement.

‘What?’ he said, absolutely beside himself.

‘You heard me right,’ I replied.

‘You’re … you’re … you’re crazy, man!’

He connected the mouse and the keyboard. He banged angrily on the table and started to walk around the room. He went over to the instrument cabinet and opened it with a bit too much force, as if he wanted to check what I’d just told him. He slammed it shut.

‘Careful you don’t break the glass,’ I warned him.

‘Fuck the glass. Fuck you, bloody hell, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because you would have talked me out of it.’

‘Obviously! But how could you …’

‘It was as simple as the man standing up, going over to the cabinet, opening it and pulling out the Storioni.’ He stroked it and Adrià watched him with curiosity and a bit of suspicion.
The man burst into tears, hugging the violin; Adrià let him do it. The man pulled a bow from the cabinet, tightened it, looked at me to ask for my permission and began to play. ‘It didn’t sound very good. Actually, it sounded awful.’

‘I’m not a violinist. She was. I was only a hobbyist.’

‘And Berta?’

‘She was a great woman.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘She was first violinist of the Antwerp Philharmonic.’

He began playing a Jewish melody that I had heard once but couldn’t place where. But since he played so terribly, he ended up singing it. I got goose bumps.

‘And now I’ve got fucking goose bumps, because you gave away that violin, for fuck’s sake!’

‘Justice was done.’

‘He was an imposter, you blockhead! Can’t you see? Bloody hell, my God. Our Vial is gone forever. After so many years of … What would your father say? Huh?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve never wanted to use it.’

‘But I was dying to, for fuck’s sake! Don’t you know how to interpret a no?’ Don’t you know that when you told me use it, take it on tour, Bernat smiled timidly and left the instrument in the cabinet as he shook his head and said I can’t, I can’t, it’s too big a responsibility? Huh?

‘That means no.’

‘It doesn’t mean no, bloody hell. It means I’m dying to!’ Bernat, with his eyes wanting to pounce on me: ‘Is that so hard to understand?’

Adrià was silent for a few moments, as if he was having trouble digesting so much life philosophy.

‘Look, laddie: you’re a bastard,’ continued Bernat. ‘And you let yourself be swindled by some bloke who came to you with a sob story.’

He pointed to the computer: ‘And I came here to help you.’

‘Maybe we should do it some other day. Today we’re … a little …’

‘Fuck, you’re an idiot, giving the violin to the first cry-baby who knocks on your door! I can’t fucking believe it.’

When he had finished singing the melody, the old man put the violin and bow into the cabinet and sat back down as he timidly said at my age you can only play the violin for yourself. Nothing works any more, your fingers fail you, and your arm isn’t strong enough to hold up the instrument correctly.

‘I understand.’

‘Being old is obscene. Ageing is obscene.’

‘I understand.’

‘You don’t understand. I would have liked to die before my wife and daughters and yet I’m becoming a decrepit old man, as if I had the slightest interest in clinging to life.’

‘You’re in good shape.’

‘Poppycock. My body is falling apart. And I should have died more than fifty years ago.’

‘So what the fuck did that stupid old man want with a violin if what he wanted was to die? Can’t you see that it’s contradictory?’

‘It was my decision, Bernat. And it’s done.’

‘Bastard. Tell me where that hapless cretin is and I’ll convince him that …’

‘It’s over. I don’t have the Storioni any more. Inside, I feel that … I contributed towards justice being done. I feel good. Two years too late.’

‘I feel terrible. Now I see: the hapless cretin is you.’

He sat down, he stood up again. He couldn’t believe it. He faced Adrià, challenging him: ‘Why do you say two years too late?’

The old man sat down. His hands were trembling a bit. He rested them on the dirty cloth that was still on top of the table, well folded.

‘Have you thought about suicide?’ My tone came out like a doctor asking a patient if he likes chamomile tea.

‘Do you know how Berta was able to buy it?’ he responded.

‘No.’

‘I don’t need it, Matthias, my love. I can spend my life with …’

‘Yes, of course. You can use your same old violin forever.
But I’m telling you it’s worth making the effort. My family can lend me half of the price.’

‘I don’t want to be indebted to your family.’

‘They’re your family too, Berta! Why can’t you accept that? …’

That was when my mother-in-law intervened; that was before she got the chest cold. The time between one war and the other, when life came back with a vengeance and musicians could devote themselves to playing music and not rotting in the trenches; that was when Berta Alpaerts spent countless hours trying out a Storioni that was beyond her reach, with a beautiful, confident, deep sound. Jules Arcan was asking for a price that wasn’t the least bit reasonable. That was the day that Trude, our second daughter, turned six months old. We didn’t have Juliet yet. It was dinnertime and, for the first time since we’d been living together, my mother-in-law wasn’t at home. When we returned from work no one had made anything for supper. While Berta and I threw something together, my mother-in-law arrived, loaded down, and placed a magnificent dark case on the table. There was a thick silence. I remember that Berta looked at me for a response I was unable to give her.

‘Open it, my girl,’ said my mother-in-law.

Since Berta didn’t dare, her mother encouraged her: ‘I’ve just come from Jules Arcan’s workshop.’

Then Berta leapt towards the case and opened it. We all looked inside and Vial winked at us. My mother-in-law had decided that since she was well taken care of at our house, her savings could be spent on her daughter. Poor Berta was struck dumb for a couple of hours, unable to play anything, unable to pick up the instrument, as if she weren’t worthy, until Amelietje, our eldest who was still very little, the one with jet-black hair, said come on, Mama, I want to hear how it sounds. Oh, how she made it sound, my Berta … How lovely … My mother-in-law had spent all of her savings. Every last penny. Plus some other secret that she never would tell us. I think she sold a flat she had in Schoten.

The man was silent, his gaze lost beyond the book-covered
wall. Then, as if in conclusion to his story, he told me it took me many years to find you, to find Berta’s violin, Mr Ardefol.

‘That’s no argument, Adrià, bloody hell. He could be telling you any old story he’d made up, can’t you see that?’

‘How did you find me?’ said Adrià, his curiosity piqued.

‘Patience and help … the detectives assured me that your father left many trails behind him. He made a lot of noise as he moved.’

‘That was many years ago.’

‘I’ve spent many years crying. Until now I wasn’t prepared to do certain things, including getting back Berta’s violin. I waited a couple of years to come and see you.’

‘A couple of years ago some opportunists spoke to me about you.’

‘Those weren’t my instructions. I only wanted to locate the violin.’

‘They wanted to be intermediaries in its sale,’ insisted Adrià.

‘God save me from intermediaries: I’ve had bad experiences with people like that.’ He stared into Adrià’s eyes. ‘I never would have thought to talk about buying it.’