by Jaume Cabré
‘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.’
Adrià observed him, stock-still. The old man came over to him as if he wanted to erase any possible intermediaries between them: ‘I didn’t come here to buy it: I came here for restitution.’
‘They hoodwinked you, Adrià. You’ve been swindled by a conman. A clever chap like you …’
Since Adrià didn’t reply, the man continued speaking: ‘When I located it, first I wanted to meet you. At this point in life, I’m in no rush about anything.’
‘Why did you want to do it this way?’
‘To find out if I had to hold you accountable for your role.’
‘I should tell you that I feel guilty about everything.’
‘That’s why I studied you before coming to see you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I read La voluntat estètica and the other one, the fat one. Història del … del …’
He snapped his fingers to help along his senior memory.
‘… del pensament europeu,’ said Adrià with very well concealed pride.
‘Exactly. And a collection of articles that I don’t remember the title of now. But don’t make me talk about them because …’
He touched his forehead to make it clear that his brain wasn’t as sharp as it used to be.
‘But why?’
‘I don’t really know. I suppose because I ended up respecting you. And because from what the investigators told me, you didn’t have anything to do with …’
I didn’t want to contradict him. I didn’t have anything to do with …, but I had a lot to do with Father. Possibly it wasn’t aesthetic to talk about that now. So I kept quiet. I only repeated why did you want to study me, Mr Alpaerts.
‘All I have is time. And in trying to make amends for evil, I’ve made many mistakes: the first, believing that if I hid the horror would disappear; and the worst, causing other horrors because of lack of foresight.’
We talked for hours on end and I didn’t even think to offer him a glass of water. I understood that such profound pain came out of confusing, chaotic stories that made it even more profound and bloody.
Matthias Alpaerts had entered my home after lunch, around two or two-thirty in the afternoon. We didn’t leave the study until nine in the evening except for a couple of interruptions to go to the toilet. Now it had been hours since the windows had begun to allow in darkness from the street and the moving reflection of car headlights going down it. Then we looked at each other and I realised that I was about to faint.
Given the hour, the negotiation was quick: green beans, potatoes and onions, boiled. And an omelette. As I prepared it, he asked if he could use the toilet again and I apologised for being such an inattentive host. Matthias Alpaerts excused it with a wave and urgently slipped into the bathroom. As the pressure cooker released its warning, I went back to the study and put the violin on the table. I looked at it carefully. I took a dozen photos of it with your historic camera that was right where you had left it; until the roll of film ended. Face, back, side, scroll and pegbox, neck and a few details of the fillets. Half way through the operation, Matthias Alpaerts came back from the toilet and watched me in silence.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ I said without looking at him, as I tried to photograph the Laurentius Storioni me fecit through the f-hole.
‘At my age I have to be alert; nothing special.’
I put the violin back in the cabinet and looked Matthias Alpaerts in the eye.
‘How do I know that you are telling me the truth? How do I know that you are Matthias Alpaerts?’
The old man pulled out an identification card with his photo on it and passed it to me.
‘I’m me, as you can see.’ He took back the card. ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you any proof that I’m telling the truth.’
‘I hope you understand that I need to make sure,’ said Adrià, thinking more about Sara and how happy you would be if I were brave enough to give the violin back.
‘I don’t know what more I can show you …’ said Alpaerts, slightly alarmed, as he
hid the card in his wallet. ‘My name is Matthias Alpaerts and I am the sole – unfortunately – owner of this violin.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t know what more I can tell you. As you can imagine, when I went back to the house I didn’t find the certificate of … Nor did I find our family photos. They had destroyed everything: they had devastated all my memories.’
‘Allow me to distrust you,’ I said without wanting to.
‘You have every right,’ he said. ‘But I will do what it takes to get back that instrument: it is what ties me to my history and the history of my women.’
‘I understand you, really. But …’
He looked at me as if he emerging from the well of his memories, his entire face dripping with pain.
‘Having to explain all that to you forced me to return to hell. I hope it wasn’t in vain.’
‘I understand you. But I have a document, and your name doesn’t appear as the instrument’s owner.’
‘No?’ Surprised, confused, so much so that I felt a bit bad for him.
They were both silent for a while. The smell of the vegetables boiling in the pressure cooker began to reach them from the kitchen.
‘Ah! Of course!’ he said suddenly. ‘It must be my wife’s name, of course: what was I thinking.’
‘And what is your wife’s name?’
‘Her name was,’ he corrected me, cruel with himself: ‘Her name was Berta Alpaerts.’
‘No, sir. That isn’t the name I have either.’
We were quiet. I even regretted having started that sort of desperate haggling. But Adrià kept silent. Then Matthias Alpaerts gave a little shriek and said, of course, it was my mother-in-law who bought it!
‘What was your mother-in-law’s name?’
He thought for a few seconds, as if he was having trouble remembering such a simple thing. He looked at me with gleaming eyes and said Netje de Boeck.
Netje de Boeck. Netje de Boeck … The name my father had written down and I’d never forgotten, only because it weighed on my conscience. And it turns out that this Netje de Boeck was a mother-in-law with a chest cold.
‘They’ve conned you!’
‘Bernat, shut up. That sealed it for me.’
‘Fucking idiot.’
Netje de Boeck, repeated the stranger. I only know that the violin went to Birkenau as if it were another member of the family: in the train that took us there I realised that my coughing mother-in-law held it tightly in her arms, as if it were a granddaughter. It was so cold our thoughts froze. With difficulty, I made it over to the corner where she sat beside another elderly woman. I felt Amelia’s little hands clinging to my trousers and following me on that arduous route through the train carriage filled with sad people.
‘Mama, why did you take it?’
‘I don’t want it to get stolen. It belongs to Berta.’ Netje de Boeck was a woman of strong character.
‘Mama, but if …’
Then she looked at me with those black eyes and said Matthias, don’t you see that these are times of tragedy? They didn’t even give me time to gather my jewels; but they won’t steal this violin from me. Who knows if …
And she looked straight ahead again. Who knows if they’ll give us food any time soon, the mother-in-law must have wanted to say. I didn’t dare to grab the violin out of her hands and throw it to the rotten train floor and tell her to take care of Amelia, because the girl was still clinging to my trouser leg and didn’t want to let me go. I had Truu on my shoulders, and I never saw Juliet and Berta again, because they were in another carriage. How could I lie to you, Mr Ardefol? In another carriage, towards the uncertainty of certain death. Because we knew we were heading to our deaths.
‘Papa, it hurts me a lot here.’
Amelietje touched the nape of her neck. Best I could, I put Trude down and examined Amelia’s neck. A considerable lump with a cut in the middle of it, which was starting to get infected. All I could do was apply a useless, loving kiss. The poor thing, she didn’t complain again after that. I picked up the littler one again. After a while, Truu took my face in both hands so I would look into her eyes and said I’m hungry, Papa, when are we going to get there. Then I said to little Amelietje since you are the oldest, you have to help me, and she said yes, Papa. I put Truu down, with difficulty, and asked her sister for the napkin and, with a knife a taciturn, bearded man lent me, carefully cut the napkin into two equal parts. I gave one to each of my daughters, and poor Trude stopped saying that she was hungry and Amelietje and Truu stood together, leaning against my legs, silently gripping their pieces of the miraculous napkin.
The cruellest part was knowing that we were leading our little daughters by the hand to their deaths: I was an accomplice in the murder of my daughters, who clung to my neck and legs as the freezing air in the train carriage became unbreathable and no one looked each other in the eye because we were all haunted by the same thoughts. Only Amelietje and little Truitje had a chequered napkin just for them. And Matthias Alpaerts went over to the table and placed his palm on the dirty cloth that was carefully folded. This is all I have left of Amelia’s birthday, my eldest girl, who they killed when she’d just turned seven. And Truu was five, and Julietje, two, and Berta thirty-two, and Netje, my mother-in-law with a chest cold, was over sixty …
He picked up the rag and looked at it fervidly and recited I still don’t know by what miracle I was able to recover both halves. He placed the napkin on the table, again with the devotion of a priest folding and unfolding an altar cloth.
‘Mr Alpaerts,’ I said, raising my voice slightly.
The old man looked at me, surprised by the interruption. For a few moments it seemed he didn’t know where he was.
‘We should eat something.’
We ate in the kitchen, as if it were a casual visit. Despite his grief, Alpaerts ate hungrily. He curiously examined the oil cruet; I showed him how to use it and he bathed his vegetables in olive oil. Seeing how well it went over, I pulled out your spouted wine pitcher, which I hadn’t used in so long, since your death: I had put it away out of fear it would get broken. I don’t think I ever mentioned that. I put a bit of wine inside, demonstrated how to use it and, for the first and last time, Matthias Alpaerts laughed heartily. He drank from the pitcher’s long spout, stained himself, still smiling, and said, out of the blue, bedankt, heer Ardefol. Perhaps he was thanking me for the laugh that had come out of him; I didn’t want to ask.
I will never know for sure whether Matthias Alpaerts lived through all the things he explained to me. Deep down I know it; but I will never be entirely certain. In any case, I surrendered to a story that had defeated me, thinking of you and what you would have wanted me to do.
‘You squandered your inheritance, my friend. If I can still call you a friend.’
‘The violin was mine, why are you so worked up about it?’
Because I always thought that, if you died before I did, you would leave me the violin.
‘Because it’s not at all clear that this man’s story is true. And even if we’re not going to be friends any more, I’ll show you how to use the computer later.’
‘He told me if you look through the sound hole, mijnheer Ardefol, you’ll see that it says Laurentius Storioni Cremonensis me fecit 1764 and next to that there are two marks, like little stars. And beneath Cremonensis, there is an irregular line, thicker in some parts, that goes from the m to the last n. If I remember correctly, because it’s been more than fifty years.’
Adrià picked up the violin and looked at it. He had never noticed, but it was true. He looked at Matthias, opened his mouth, closed it again and placed the violin on the table.
‘Yes, that’s true,’ ratified Bernat. But I knew that too and the violin wasn’t mine, unfortunately.
Adrià placed the violin on the table again. Now it was time to make a decision. Deep down I know that it wasn’t that hard for me to do. But we still spent a couple of hours together before
saying farewell. I gave him the original case, the one with the dark stain that was impossible to get off.
‘You are a complete fool.’
‘The atrocious pain made Matthias Alpaerts continue living as if he were the same age as when he lost everything. That pain is what defeated me.’
‘You were defeated by his history. No: his story.’
‘Perhaps. So?’
The man caressed the top of the violin delicately with his fingertips. His hand began to tremble. He hid it, embarrassed, and turned towards me: ‘Pain becomes concentrated and more intense when a defenceless being suffers it. And the certainty that it could have been avoided by a heroic act torments you throughout your life and throughout your death. Why didn’t I cry out; why didn’t I strangle the soldier who hit little Amelia with his rifle butt; why didn’t I kill the SS who were saying you to the right, you to the left, you, you hear me?’
‘Where are my daughters!’
‘What?’
‘Where are my daughters. They’ve snatched them from my hands!’
Matthias stood – his arms open, his eyes wide – before the soldier that had called over the officer.
‘What are you telling me for. Come on. Get moving!’
‘No! Amelia, with jet-black hair, and Truu, the one with brown hair the colour of forest wood, they were with me.’
‘I said get moving. Go to the right and stop pestering me.’
‘My daughters! And Juliet, the one with the golden ringlets! A clever little girl. She was in the other train carriage, do you hear me!?’
The soldier, bored by his insistence, rammed his rifle butt into his forehead. As he fell, half dazed, he saw one of the napkin halves on the ground, and he grabbed it and clung to it as if it were one of his daughters.
‘You see?’ he leaned towards Adrià, moving aside the few hairs he had left: there was something strange on his head, some sort of distant scar from that pain that was still so near.
‘Get in the queue or I’ll smash your skull,’ said the deliberate voice of Doctor Budden, the officer, putting his hand on the closed holster. It was later than usual and he was a bit anxious; especially after his conversation with Doctor Voigt, who was demanding results in one thing or another, make it up, for goodness sake, it’s not that hard. But I want a report with the results. And Matthias Alpaerts was unable to see that monster’s eyes because his visor covered most of his face. He got into the right queue obediently, which didn’t take him – though he couldn’t know that – to the gas chambers, but rather to the disinfection blocks to become free labour ad maiorem Reich gloriam. And Budden – like the pied piper of Hamelin – was able to make his selection of boys and girls. Voigt, a few metres further on, was able to blow off the head of Netje de Boeck, Matthias’s mother-in-law with a chest cold. And he kept telling Adrià that in the face of that officer’s threat I lowered my head and ever since then I think that my daughters died because I didn’t rebel, and so did Berta and my mother-in-law with a chest cold. I hadn’t seen Berta and Juliet since we’d got on the train. Poor Berta: we weren’t able to look at each other one last time. Look at each other, just look at each other, my God; just look at each other, even from a distance. Look at each other … My beloved women, I abandoned you. And I wasn’t able to avenge the fear that those ogres made Truu, Amelia and Juliet go through. Forgive me, if this cowardice is worthy of forgiveness.