‘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.’
‘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?’
‘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.
It 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.
They arrived at Sant Pere del Burgal seven or eight days later, at the end of the summer, along the Escaló trail, which, in the cold times of the great-grandparents of the great-grandparents of the great-great-grandparents, the envoy of death had travelled. On the peak was the monastery, whose walls showed signs of neglect. When he walked around the building he was shocked to find what he believed to be the equal of the finest part of the Paneveggio woods, before the fire. It was an awe-inspiring grove of ten or fifteen immense fir trees and in the centre, like a queen, rose a maple with a suitably large trunk. As his men rested after the wearisome trip, Jachiam blessed the memory of Brother Gabriel of La Grassa. He walked through the trees and touched them, and he made the wood sing like his father had taught him and he sniffed it like Brother Gabriel had. And he felt happy. Then, while his men were napping, he walked through the abandoned rooms until he reached the church’s locked door. He pushed it with the palm of his hand and the rotten, worm-eaten wood of the door crumbled. Inside it was so dark that he just glanced in distractedly before going to take a nap himself.
They set up camp inside the walls of the isolated monastery, beneath a mouldy, half-rotten ceiling, and they bought provisions from the people of Escaló and Estaron, who didn’t understand what those men were after in the ruins of Burgal. They devoted an entire moon to building sturdy carts for transport, further down near the river where the road was more level. Jachiam hugged all the living trunks after cutting off the lower branches. He tapped them with a flat hand and brought his ear close to listen carefully, to the sceptical silence and surprise of his men. By the time they had the carts built, Jachiam of Pardàc had decided which fir he would chop down along with the maple. He was convinced that it was a wood that had grown with exceptional regularity; despite years away from the trade, he knew that it would sing. And Jachiam spent many hours looking at the mysterious paintings in the apse of the little church, which must have contained stories that were new to him. Prophets and archangels, Saint Peter, the patron of the monastery, and Saint Paul, Saint John and the other apostles beside the Mother of God, praising the severe Pantocrator along with the archangels. And he felt no remorse.