He left Baylina thinking over her decision, with the tea still steaming, and Bernat Plensa returned to Barcelona in time to ask for permission from management to miss two orchestra rehearsals for serious family matters, fearlessly enduring the manager’s disapproving looks and took the second plane in the last two months, this time to Brussels.
It was a nursing home for the elderly, in Antwerp. At reception, he smiled at a fat woman who was handling the telephone and a computer at the same time and waited for her to finish the call she was on. When the woman hung up, he exaggerated his smile, said English or French, the receptionist answered English and he asked for Mr Matthias Alpaerts. The woman looked at him, intrigued. It was actually more like she was observing him. Or that’s how he felt: intently observed.
‘Who did you say you were looking for?’
‘Mr Matthias Alpaerts.’
The woman thought it over for a few moments. Then she checked the computer. She looked at it for some time. She answered the phone twice to transfer calls and continued consulting the computer. Until she said of course, Alpaerts! She hit another key, looked at the screen and looked at Bernat: ‘Mr Alpaerts died in 1997.’
‘Oh… I …’
He was about to leave, but he got a crazy idea: ‘Could I have a look at his file?’
‘You aren’t family, are you?’
‘No, madam.’
‘Can you tell me what brings you? …’
‘I wanted to buy a violin from him.’
‘Now I recognise you!’ she exclaimed, as if it had been bothering her.
‘Me?’
‘Second violin in the Antigone quartet.’
For a few seconds, Bernat Plensa dreamed of glory. He smiled, flattered.
‘What a good memory you have,’ he said finally.
‘I’m very good with faces,’ she responded. ‘Besides, such a tall man …’ Timidly: ‘But I don’t remember your name.’
‘Bernat Plensa.’
‘Bernat Plensa …’ She held out her hand to shake his. ‘Liliana Moor. I heard you in Ghent two months ago. Mendelssohn, Schubert, Shostakovich.’
‘Wow … I …’
‘I like to be in the front row, right by the musicians.’
‘Are you a musician?’
‘No. I’m just a music lover. Why do you want information about Mr Alpaerts?’
‘Because of the violin …’ He hesitated for a few seconds. ‘I just wanted to see a photo of his face.’ He smiled. ‘Please … Liliana.’
Miss Moor thought it over for a few moments and in honour of the Antigone quartet she turned the computer screen so that Bernat could see it. Instead of a thin man with weepy eyes, bushy white hair and protruding ears — that electric presence he had seen for thirty silent seconds in Adrià’s study when he went to drop off the computer — on the flat screen before him he had a sad man, but who was bald and fat, with round eyes the colour of jet like one of his daughters, he couldn’t remember which. Fucking sneaky bastards.
The receptionist turned the screen back to its original position and Bernat began to sweat anxiously. Just in case, he repeated I wanted him to sell me his violin, you know?
‘Mr Alpaerts never had any violin.’
‘How many years was he here?’
‘Five or six.’ She looked at the screen and corrected herself: ‘Seven.’
‘Are you sure that the man in the photo was Matthias Alpaerts?’
‘Completely. I’ve been working here for twenty years.’ Satisfied: ‘I remember all the faces. The names, that’s another story.’
‘Did he have any relative who …’
‘Mr Alpaerts was alone.’
‘No, but did he have any distant relative who …’
‘Alone. They had killed his family in the war. They were Jews. Only he survived.’
‘Not a single relative?’
‘He was always telling his dramatic story, poor man. I think in the end he went mad. Always telling it, over and over, compelled by …’
‘By guilt.’
‘Yes. Always. To everyone. His story had become his reason for living. Living only to explain how he had two daughters …’
‘Three.’
‘Three? Well, three daughters named so-and-so, so-and-so and so-and-so and who …’
‘Amelietje with the jet-black hair, Truu with the tresses the colour of fine wood and Juliet, the littlest, blonde like the sun.’
‘Did you know him?’ Her eyes wide with surprise.
‘In a way. Are there many people who know that story?’
‘In this home, yes. The ones who are still alive, of course. We’re talking about a few years ago now.’
‘Of course.’
‘Bob did a very good imitation of him.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘He was Alpaerts’s roommate.’
‘Is he alive?’
‘Very alive. He keeps us on our toes.’ She lowered her voice, totally taken by that second violin of the Antigone Quartet, tall as a Maypole. ‘He organises secret domino matches between the residents.’
‘Could I …’
‘Yes. I’m going against all the rules …’
‘In the name of music.’
‘Exactly! In the name of music.’
In the waiting room there were five magazines in Dutch and one in French. And a cheap reproduction of a Vermeer; a woman beside a window who looked, shocked, towards Bernat, as if he were about to enter the room inside the painting.
The man arrived five minutes later. Thin, with weepy eyes and bushy white hair. From his expression, he hadn’t recognised Bernat.
‘English or French?’ smiled Bernat.
‘English.’
‘Good morning.’
Bernat had before him the man from that afternoon, the man who had convinced Adrià … I told you, Adrià, he thought. They saw you a mile away. Instead of going right over and throttling him, he smiled and said have you ever heard of a Storioni violin named Vial?
The man, who hadn’t sat down, headed towards the door. Bernat kept him from leaving the little room, standing between him and the door, covering the exit with his whole body.
‘You stole the violin from him.’
‘Do you mind telling me who you are?’
‘Police.’
He pulled out his ID card as a member of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalonia and added: ‘Interpol.’