Confessions (16 page)

‘Have a seat, Mrs Ardèvol.’

The best detective in the world hadn’t got up, but he waited for his client to sit down before getting comfortable in his chair. The desk was between them.

‘What’s new?’ she asked, intrigued.

The best detective in the world drummed his fingers on the desk in reply, perhaps following some mental rhythm, perhaps not, because the thoughts of the best detectives in the world are indecipherable.

‘And so … what’s new?’ repeated my mother, peeved.

But the detective threatened with another minute of finger drumming. She cleared her throat with a cough and in a bitter voice, as if she were dealing with Mr Berenguer, said why did you have me come, Mr Ramis?

Ramis. The best detective in the world was named Ramis. I couldn’t come up with his name until just now. Now that I’m explaining it all to you. Detective Ramis looked at his client and said I’m quitting the case.

‘What?’

‘You heard me. I’m quitting the case.’

‘But you just took it on four days ago!’

‘A month ago, madam.’

‘I don’t accept this decision. I’ve paid you and I have a right to …’

‘If you read the contract,’ he cut her off, ‘you will see that section twelve of the appendix foresees the possibility of recision by either party.’

‘And what is your reason?’

‘I have too much work.’

Silence in his office. Silence in the entire place. Not a single typewriter typing up a report.

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You are lying to me. Why are you quitting?’

The best detective in the world got up, pulled an envelope out from under his leather desk pad and put it in front of my mother.

‘I am returning my fees.’

Mrs Ardèvol got up abruptly, looked at the envelope with contempt and, without touching it, left stomping her heels. When she slammed the door hard on her way out, she was pleased to hear the ensuing clatter that told her that the door’s central pane of glass had come out of its frame and was falling to the floor in pieces.

A
ll that, along with more details that I can’t recall right now, I learned much later. On the other hand, I remember that I already knew how to read quite complex texts in German and English; they said my aptitude was astounding. It had always seemed to me like the most normal thing in the world, but seeing what usually happens around me, I understand that I do have a gift. French was no problem, and reading Italian, although I put the accents in the wrong places, was almost second nature. And the Latin of
De bello Gallico
, besides of course Catalan and Spanish. I wanted to start either Russian or Aramaic, but Mother came into my room and said don’t even think about it. That I was fine with the languages I knew, but that there were other things in life beside learning languages like a parrot.

‘Mother, parrots

‘I know what I’m talking about. And you know what I mean.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Well, try harder!’

I tried harder. What scared me was the direction she wanted to give my life. It was clear that she wanted to erase the traces of Father in my education. So what she did was take the Storioni, which was in the safe protected by the new secret combination that only she knew, seven two eight zero six five, and offer it to me. Then she informed me that starting from the beginning of the month you will leave the conservatory and Miss Trullols and you will study under Joan Manlleu.

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Who is Joan Manlleu?’

‘The best. You will begin your new career as a virtuoso.’

‘I don’t want a caree

‘You don’t know what you want.’

Here, Mother was wrong; I knew that I wanted to be a … well, it’s not that Father’s programme completely satisfied me, spending all day studying what the world had written, closely following and thinking about culture. No, in fact it didn’t satisfy me; but I liked to read and I liked to learn new languages and … Well, OK. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew what I didn’t want.

‘I don’t want a career as a virtuoso.’

‘Master Manlleu has said you are good enough.’

‘And how does he know that? Does he have magical powers?’

‘He’s heard you. A couple of times, when you were practising.’

It turned out that Mother had meticulously planned to get Joan Manlleu’s approval before hiring him. She had invited him over for tea at my practice time and, discreetly, they had spoken little and listened. Master Manlleu quickly saw that he could ask for whatever he wanted and he did. Mother didn’t bat an eyelash and hired him. In the rush, she overlooked asking Adrià for his approval.

‘And what do I tell Trullols?’

‘Miss Trullols already knows.’

‘Oh, really? And what does she say?’

‘That you are a diamond in the rough.’

‘I don’t want to. I don’t know. I don’t want to suffer. No. Definitely, categorically no and no.’ One of the few times I yelled at her. ‘Do you understand me, Mother? No!’

At the start of the next month, I began classes with Master Manlleu.

‘You will be a great violinist and that’s that,’ Mother had said when I convinced her to leave the Storioni at home just in case and go around with the new Parramon. Adrià Ardèvol began the second educational reform with resignation. At some point he began to daydream about running away from home.

B
etween one thing and another, after Father’s death, I didn’t go to school for many days. I even spent a few very strange weeks in Tona, with my cousins, who were surprisingly silent and looked at me out of the corners of their eyes when they thought I didn’t see. And at one point I caught Xevi and Quico discussing decapitations in low voices, but with such energy that their low voices found their way into every corner. And meanwhile Rosa, at breakfast, gave me the largest slice of bread before her brothers could grab it. And Aunt Leo tousled my hair dozens of times and I came to wonder why couldn’t I stay in Tona forever close to my Aunt Leo, as if life were a never-ending summer far from Barcelona, there in that magical place where you can dirty your knees and no one will scold you for it. And Uncle Cinto, when he came home covered in dust from the threshing floor or dirty with mud or manure, looked down because men weren’t allowed to cry, but it was clear that he was very affected by his brother’s death. By his death and the circumstances surrounding his death.

When I returned home, and as the great Joan Manlleu’s presence took shape in my life, I reintegrated myself in at school as a brand-new fatherless child. Brother Climent took me to class. He pinched my back hard with his fingers yellowed from snuff, which was his way of showing his affection, consideration and condolence, and once we were at the classroom he bade me enter with a magnanimous gesture, that it didn’t matter that class had already begun, that the teacher had already been informed. I went into the classroom and forty-three pairs of eyes looked at me with curiosity and Mr Badia, who, judging by the sentence he was in the middle of, was explaining the subtle difference between the subject and the direct object, stopped his lecture and said come in,
Ardèvol, sit down. On the blackboard, Juan writes a letter to Pedro. I had to cross the entire room to reach my desk and I was very embarrassed, and I would have liked having Bernat in my class, but that was impossible because he was in second and even though I was still bored in first listening to that twaddle about direct and indirect objects that had already been explained to us in Latin and that, surprisingly, some of my classmates still didn’t understand. Which is the direct object, Rull?

‘Juan.’ Pause. Mr Badia, undaunted. Rull, wary, sensing a trap, pondered deeply and lifted his head. ‘Pedro?’

‘No. Terrible. You didn’t understand a thing.’

‘Wait, no! Writes!’

‘Sit down, it’s hopeless.’

‘I know! Wait, I know it: it’s the letter. Right?’

When the idea of the direct object had been fully explained and we entered into the shadowy world of the indirect object, I realised that four or five kids had been staring at me for a while. From the layout of the desks I knew that they were Massan, Esteban, Riera, Torres, Escaiola, Pujol and maybe Borrell, because the nape of my neck was itchy. I guessed that they were looks of … of admiration? More likely a strange mix of emotions.

‘Look, kid …’ Borrell said to me at breaktime. ‘Play with us.’ And to avoid a disaster, ‘But stay here in the middle to keep them from getting through, OK?’

‘I don’t like football.’

‘You see?’ said Esteban, who was also part of the group of ambassadors. ‘Ardèvol likes the violin; I told you he’s a poof.’

And they left quickly because the game had already started without the ambassadors. Borrell, resigned, gave me a few pats on the back and left in silence. I looked for Bernat among the muddle of students in first, second and third who, distributed into bands throughout the playground, played twelve different games and, in general, didn’t mix up the balls. Poof, big
marica
. The Russians call girls named Maria Marika, and I’m sure Esteban doesn’t know Russian.

‘
Marica
?’ Bernat looked out into the distance, as he
ruminated despite the noise of the over-excited footballers. ‘No. That’s Russian for Maria.’

‘I already knew that.’

‘Well, look it up in the dictionary. Am I supposed to explain everything to …’

‘Do you know what it means or not?’

It was very cold those days and pretty much everyone had chafed hands and thighs, except for me and Bernat, who always wore gloves by express orders from Trullols because, with chilblains on your hands, playing the violin was insufferable torment. But chafed thighs weren’t a problem.

T
he first days at school after Father’s death were special. Particularly after Riera spoke openly about my father’s head, which it turned out gave me a prestige that no one else could match. They even forgave me for my good marks and I became just another kid. And when the teachers asked a question, Pujol no longer said that I was the one chosen to answer all the questions, instead everyone played dumb and then Father Valero, to put an end to it said, Ardèvol, and I would finally answer. But it wasn’t the same.

Even though he wouldn’t admit that he didn’t know what
marica
meant, Bernat was my point of reference, especially after Father’s death. He kept me company and helped me feel more comfortable with life. The thing is that he was also a kind of special boy. He wasn’t like the other boys at school either, who were normal, they fought, failed and, at least some in fifth and even fourth, knew how to smoke, and they did it hidden right inside the school. And the fact that he was in a different year and I didn’t see him much at school made our friendship more clandestine and unofficial. But that day, sitting on my bed, his mouth agape, my friend’s eyes were teary because what he’d just heard was too much for him. He looked at me with hatred and said that is a betrayal. And I said, no, Bernat, it was my mother’s decision.

‘And you can’t go against it? Huh? Can’t you say that you have to study with Trullols because otherwise …’

Otherwise, otherwise we won’t go to class together, he
wanted to say; but he didn’t dare because he didn’t want to look like a little boy. His rebellious tears said more than any words could. It is so difficult to be a child pretending to be a man, but who couldn’t care less about what it seemed men cared about, and realise that you couldn’t care less but you have to play it off because if the others see that you do care, and quite a bit, then they’ll laugh at you and say what a baby you are, Bernat, Adrià, what a little boy. Or if it was Esteban, he would say little girl, what a little girl. No, now he’d say marica, you big poof. Along with our moustache hairs, evidence was growing that life was really difficult. But it wasn’t yet unbelievably difficult; I hadn’t met you yet.

We had our tea in silence. Little Lola was already serving us each two squares of chocolate. We were silent for a good long while, chewing our bread, sitting on the bed, looking out at the future that was so complicated. And then we started our arpeggio exercises and I echoed what Bernat played even when it wasn’t in the score and that was a way to make the exercise more fun. But we were sad.

‘Look, look, look, look! …’

Bernat, his mouth agape, put the bow down on the music stand and went over to the window of Adrià’s bedroom. The world had changed, the sadness was no longer so bad; his friend could do what he wanted with his violin teachers; his blood was returning to his veins. Bernat was looking towards the window of the room across the interior courtyard, with the light on and a thin curtain drawn. You could see the bare bust of a woman. Naked? Who is it? Who?

It was Little Lola. It was Lola’s room. Little Lola naked. Wow. From the waist up. She was changing. She must be going out. Naked? And Adrià thought that … you couldn’t see very well but the drawn curtain made it more arousing.

‘That’s the neighbour’s house. I don’t know her,’ I replied, offhandedly, as I again began the anacrusis of the eighteenth bar so that Bernat would now echo me. ‘Come on, let’s see if we can get this right.’

Bernat didn’t come back to the music stand until Lola was completely covered up. The exercise came out quite well, but
Adrià was hurt by his friend’s enthusiasm and also because he didn’t like having seen Lola … A woman’s breasts are … It was the first time he had seen them, the curtain didn’t …

‘Have you ever seen a naked lady?’ asked Bernat when they finished the exercise.

‘You just saw her, didn’t you?’

‘Well, that was seeing without really seeing. I mean really seeing. And the whole thing.’

‘Can you imagine Trullols naked?’

I said it to divert his attention from Little Lola.

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’

I had imagined her a hundred times, not because she was good-looking. She was older, skinny and had long fingers. But she had a pretty voice, and she looked you in the eyes when she spoke to you. But when she played the violin, that was when I imagined her naked. But that was because the sound she made was so lovely, so … I’ve always been one to mix things up like that. It’s not something I’m proud of; it’s more like contained resignation. As hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to create watertight compartments and everything blends together like it’s blending now as I write to you and my tears are the ink.

‘Don’t worry, Adrià,’ Trullols told me. ‘Manlleu is a great violinist.’ She ruffled my hair with her hand. And as a farewell she made me play the slow tempo of Brahms’s sonata number one and when I finished she kissed my forehead. That’s how Trullols was. And I didn’t realise that she’d said Manlleu was a great violinist and she hadn’t said don’t worry, Adrià; Manlleu is a great teacher. And Bernat looking all serious and pretending he wasn’t about to cry. I did shed three or four tears. My God. It must have been because he felt so sad that, when they reached Bernat’s house, Adrià said that he was giving him the Storioni, and Bernat said really? And Adrià, sure, so you remember me fondly. Really? repeated the other boy, incredulous. And Adrià, you can count on it. And your mother, what will she say? She won’t even notice. She spends all day at the shop. And the next day Bernat went home with his heart beating boom, boom, boom like the bells of the
Concepción ringing out the noon mass, and that was when he said Mama, I have a surprise for you; and he opened up the case and Mrs Plensa smelled the unmistakable scent of old things and with extreme emotion she said where did you get this violin, Son? And he, playing it cool, answered by imitating Cassidy James when Dorothy asks him where that horse came from:

‘It’s a long story.’

And it was true. Europe smelled of burnt gunpowder and of walls turned to rubble; and Rome, even more so. He let a fast American Jeep past. It bounced along the gutted streets but didn’t slow at the corners, and he continued at a good clip towards Santa Sabina. There, Morlin gave him a message: Ufficio della Giustizia e della Pace. The concierge, someone named Signor Falegnami. And be careful, he could be dangerous.

‘Why dangerous?’

‘Because he is not what he seems. But he’s having problems.’

Fèlix Ardèvol didn’t take long to find that vaguely Vatican office located on the outskirts of the Papal City, in the middle of Borgo. The man who opened the door, fat, tall, with a large nose and a restless gaze, asked him who he had come to see.

‘I’m afraid I’ve come to see you. Signor Falegnami?’

‘Why are you afraid? Do I scare you?’

‘It’s just an expression.’ Fèlix Ardèvol wanted to smile. ‘I understand you have something interesting to show me.’

‘In the evening, the office closes at six,’ he said, gesturing with his head towards the glass door, which gave off a sad light. ‘Wait outside on the street.’

At six three men came out, one of whom wore a cassock, and Fèlix felt like he was on a secret romantic date. Like in Rome many years earlier, when he still had hopes and dreams and the apples in Signor Amato’s fruit shop reminded him of earthly paradise. Then the man with the restless gaze stuck his head out and waved him in.

‘Aren’t we going to your house?’

‘I live here.’

They had to go up a solemn staircase, almost in the dark,
the man panting from the effort, with footsteps echoing in that strange office. On the third floor, a long corridor, and suddenly, the man opened a door and turned on a wan light. They were greeted by an overwhelming stench of musty air.

‘Go on in,’ the man said.

A narrow bed, a dark wooden wardrobe, a bricked-up window and a sink. The man opened the wardrobe and pulled a violin case out from the back of it. He used the bed as a table. He opened the case. It was the first time Fèlix Ardèvol saw it.

‘It’s a Storioni,’ said the man with the uneasy gaze.

A Storioni. That word didn’t mean anything to Fèlix Ardèvol. He didn’t know that Lorenzo Storioni, when he’d finished it, had stroked its skin and felt the instrument tremble and decided to show it to the good master Zosimo.

The man with the uneasy gaze turned on the table lamp and invited Fèlix to come closer to the instrument. Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis me fecit, he read aloud.

‘And how do I know it’s authentic.’

‘I’m asking fifty thousand U.S. dollars.’

‘That’s no proof.’

‘That’s the price. I’m going through a rough patch and …’

He had seen so many people who were going through rough patches. But the rough patches in thirty-eight and thirty-nine weren’t the same as the ones at the end of the war. He gave the violin back to the man and felt an immense void in his soul; exactly the way he had when six or seven years earlier he had held Nicola Galliano’s viola in his hands. He was increasingly able to get the object itself to tell him that it was valuable, pulsing with life in his hands. That could be an authentication of the object. But Mr Ardèvol, with that much money at stake, couldn’t rely on intuitions and poetic heartbeats. He tried to be cold and made a quick calculation. He smiled, ‘Tomorrow I will return with an answer.’

More than an answer it was a declaration of war. That night he had managed to get a meeting in his room at the Bramante with Father Morlin and that promising young man named Berenguer, who was a tall, thin lad: serious, meticulous and, it seemed, an expert in many things.

‘Be careful, Ardevole,’ insisted Father Morlin.