39
To my dismay, Max didn’t return from Austria that night despite having promised me he would be back before five in the afternoon. After ignoring my calls for hours, he sent me a message after 9 p.m., saying that something unexpected had come up and he wouldn’t be sleeping at home. Since I no longer had a room at the hostel, I had no choice but to ring the doorbell to his apartment and wait for his charming mother to open the door. As soon as she saw me, she gave me a look full of resentment, confirming my suspicion that she hated me for existing and, clearly, also for not being Lana. I slipped past her without a word and scurried like a rat up to the attic. I had brought magazines, water, and snacks, which should last a good while. I didn”t come out of my cave again until four o”clock the next afternoon when I heard Max”s footsteps climbing up the ladder.
“How was Vienna?” I asked as soon as I saw him, eager to escape from my prison in the attic.
“Ah, Vienna, you know. Windy, lots of fountains... but Mozart and Beethoven weren’t home. A disappointment.”
“Aha,” I replied, unimpressed by his evasive answer. “So, are we going to Piran today to look for Katerina Jerman? I guess we”ll have to go by train,” I added, remembering the precarious state of his Yugo when it had been towed away by the vehicle breakdown truck.
“That won”t be necessary. I’ve borrowed a carriage, milady. I hope this one will be more to Mademoiselle”s liking.”
Knowing Max, my expectations weren’t high. We left his house, and I followed him to where he’d parked the borrowed car, figuring I might find a donkey cart or, hopefully, a motorcycle with a 1950s sidecar. My shock was monumental when he pointed out a gigantic black Audi glinting splendidly by the river and looking like it had left the dealership ten minutes earlier.
“Where did you get this thing?” I asked, respectfully brushing the gleaming paint. Not a speck of dust was on it.
The more I looked at the Audi, the more certain I became that Vienna had been an alibi to hide some shady business deal.
“I borrowed it from... my friend”s father,” he mumbled, sitting behind the wheel and adjusting the mirrors.
“This friend must like you a lot.”
“Well, she”s almost family,” Max replied with a vague wave of his hand.
She.
“She asked me to pick the car up and take it to Piran since I had to go there anyway.”
I climbed into the car and absently caressed the seats, as soft as if no one had ever sat in them.
“Do you know many people on the coast?” I asked, intrigued.
“Oh, yes, quite a few. I lived there for a while. I think I told you that.”
“No, I don’t think you did. Was that before or after the philharmonic orchestra?”
He swallowed and started the engine without answering me.
“Check that no one is coming your way, please,” he said in a gruff tone and pulled out, pretending to concentrate on the traffic.
In the hour and a half that the trip lasted, he evaded all my personal questions with masterful skill. After a while, I gave up and instead decided to tell him what I’d discovered about the pendant and Enzo Rossi”s signature. That cheered him up a bit.
“I suspected it was something like that,” he replied, nodding. “That pendant caught my eye as soon as I saw you the first day at the airport. And, if our guesses are right, we could be talking about a violin worth as much as this car. Or more. A museum piece.”
I felt my head spinning just thinking about it. “Can you imagine?” I murmured in a dreamy voice.
“I think I can imagine it a lot better than you,” he replied with a hint of bitterness. “I hope we get lucky with Mrs. Jerman. We”ll go straight to her house. I got her address from... a friend.”
“Another friend from Piran?”
“Another one, yes,” he replied tersely, exiting the highway.
We arrived at the small coastal town of Piran following a narrow road that wound through several towns, offering fantastic panoramic views of the Adriatic. Once there, Max parked the Audi on a dodgy-looking concrete esplanade. The rear wheels were only a couple of inches above the water, almost at the mercy of the waves.
He took his violin case out of the trunk and slung it over his shoulder, claiming he didn”t like to leave it unattended. We ambled along the coast, enjoying the scent of salt and sea on such a fabulous spring afternoon. We passed numerous cafes and restaurants, whose terraces were overflowing with lively tourists.
“Such a beautiful place with such an ugly name,” I commented. “Piran. Sounds like the Spanish word for crazy.”
“You’re not wrong. It was named ‘Piran’ because it’s an accurate description of the people who live here. You have to be crazy to stay here for long. And if you”re not at first, you go crazy little by little, just like them.” Max laughed as if the joke had a double meaning that only he understood.
We wandered into the narrow inner streets, flanked by colorful two or three-story houses with small balconies and ornate, vertical windows reminiscent of Venetian houses. Piran was a maze, but Max seemed to know it well. After a few minutes of walking, he stopped at a door, next to which the name Jerman was engraved in gold letters.
We rang the doorbell several times, but no one answered. As we were about to leave, a white-haired man appeared on the balcony next door, and Max waved to him.
“Excuse me!” he shouted from below, squinting to get a better look at him. “Do you know if Mrs. Jerman is at home?”
“Finkenstein?” answered the man. “Is that you? Maximilian?”
The conversation continued at a speed too fast for me to understand, although I seemed to catch Katerina Jerman”s name and that of the ubiquitous Lana, who was starting to give me a headache.
“He says Katerina is out, but she”ll be back tomorrow morning,” Max explained to me after bellowing a goodbye to the gray-haired man.
I sighed, tired of wasting time.
“So we”ll have to come back another day.”
“We”ll see,” Max replied in a mysterious tone. “Maybe it won”t be necessary. In the meantime, I”m going to take you to a place that I think you”ll like. Come on.”
The sky was turning purple as we emerged from the narrow alleys onto an elegant cobblestone square that spilled artistically over the Gulf of Trieste, surrounded by colorful buildings and crowned by a bell tower at one end.
“Tartini Square,” said Max, pointing to a statue in its center.
On a pedestal, a bronze figure in a wig and frock coat held a violin in one hand and a bow in the other.
“Tartini? That name rings a bell,” I said.
Max stopped dead in his tracks and blinked at me.
“You”re kidding, right?”
I tried to recall, but I still couldn”t remember where I’d heard that name before.
“Giuseppe Tartini, Vesna,” Max said, aghast. “One of the greatest violinists of all time, and born in this very city three hundred years ago, when it still belonged to the Republic of Venice.”
“Oh. Sorry. Should I have known?”
“Well, it wouldn”t hurt since he was the first owner of the violin that Enzo Rossi claims to have given to your grandmother. The same one that the master of all masters, the great Paganini, later bought and auctioned in Paris. The reason why you and I are here today.”
I looked at the statue again with sudden reverence.
I went over to examine the violin that the figure was holding upside down behind his back and, in particular, the pegs. I put my hand to my neck, looking for the pendant. It was no longer there, but I remembered it looked exactly like them.
Suddenly, I felt a deep respect for this famous baroque musician who presided over the square. For him, for Enzo Rossi, and for all those who had preserved this treasure for generations.
As I wondered if my grandmother could be among them, a voice snapped me out of my trance, calling Max loudly from across the square.
“Maxi!” shouted a man dressed in formal attire. He was standing under an awning in front of the glass terrace of a cute boutique hotel.
“Mihael!” Max replied, grabbing my arm and whispering in my ear, “He’s just the person I”ve been looking for. We”re in luck!”
I followed him cautiously over to the hotel, where a young waiter with straight orange hair ushered us into the restaurant. His friend Mihael waited at the front desk.
“Follow me, please,” said the young man in perfect Spanish. “Mr. Finkenstein”s favorite table is free tonight.”
“Excuse me?” I said, perplexed, calculating how much money I had left in my wallet and coming to the conclusion that it would be enough to afford a plate of olives in a place like this.
“Shut up and come on,” Max ordered with a mischievous grin. “They know me from when I was famous.”
The waiter guided us to a table with a linen tablecloth and a centerpiece of calla lilies. As soon as we sat down, he served a glass of champagne and handed us the menu, which was written with golden letters and bound in white leather.
“I have to leave you for a while,” Max apologized, draining his glass in one gulp and getting up from his chair. “I need to talk to Mihael in private, and I may be a little late for dinner. But you go ahead and start eating.”
“But...”
He vanished before I could tell him that my wallet wasn’t happy with his choice of restaurant.
The waiter returned instantly, ready to take my order. I tutted, unable to believe that Max had dragged me to such a romantic and luxurious place, only to leave after five minutes.
Pedro might have his faults, but he would never have done something like that to me.
“I’ll have a glass of tap water and a slice of toast,” I said to the waiter, who was still waiting for an answer.
He hid his amused face behind his notebook and opened the menu to a middle page.
“I have a better suggestion,” he said politely. “I”ll bring you the tasting menu if that”s all right. I suspect Mr. Finkenstein will be a little late.”
I resigned myself to my fate, whatever it was. Dinner passed quietly, and through the window, I watched with interest the comings and goings of people in the square. The lights gradually came on, and the waiter saw to it that my glass was never empty. A sweet smell of geraniums and jasmine filtered in from outside, merging with the aroma of melted cheese and grilled fish coming from various corners of the dining room.
The waiter had just brought me the fluffiest tiramisu ever when Max finally appeared, sporting a smile of absolute innocence, and sat down across from me as if he’d just returned from a brief trip to the bathroom.
“Shall we share that?” he said, and before I could answer, he had already plunged his spoon into my dessert, devouring half of it in one bite.
“Where have you been?” I asked, still a little grumpy at his sudden disappearance.
“I had to talk to Mihael about a rather boring matter, and then we went somewhere even more boring. But I also reminded him that he owed me a favor, so tonight, our meal is on the house.”
Max ordered another tiramisu and a sweet wine to accompany it. While we were tasting it, he began to tell me anecdotes of his time in the orchestra. He spoke with nostalgia; with the tone one uses for the deceased and the things that will never return. The restaurant gradually emptied until we were alone. The waiters cleared all the tables except ours and then began to disappear as well. It was as if we had become invisible, and no one asked us to leave. When there was no one left, Mihael came in. He looked tired and whispered something in Max”s ear. Max nodded. Then Mihael left.
“Do you want to go up to the terrace?” Max asked me. “We can look at the city lights. It”s really beautiful.”
“Of course I”d like to, but they”re already closed,” I replied. “It says on the door, open until midnight. And it”s already half past twelve.”
“Don”t worry. We”ll sneak in.”
“Okay...” I answered, unconvinced.
We went back out to the front desk, and I covered my mouth so as not to shriek when Max stole a key from the deserted counter.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, horrified, “You can”t take the—”
“Shut up and follow me!”
He slipped the key into his pocket and dragged me by the arm to the elevator. We went up to the top floor, from where we made our way to an elegant terrace. The floor was covered with wooden planks, reminiscent of the deck of a ship. From this vantage point, we could see Tartini Square and the lights of Piran twinkling over the dark Gulf of Trieste. No one else was there, but a lit candle waited on one of the tables, next to two colorful cocktails with slices of fruit and sugar on the rim.
“Not bad for a closed restaurant,” I agreed.
“Isn’t it? Please sit down and enjoy the view!”
He pulled his chair close to mine and held out his glass. His cocktail had an orange hue, while mine was strawberry-colored.
“Try both and tell me which one you like best.”
I brought his glass to my lips, unable to stop thinking about how his lips had been on it only seconds before. It was almost like a kiss. I remembered the night we had slept together, swept up in loneliness and rakia, and our subsequent pact to maintain a strictly business relationship from then on.
Under the enchanting night sky of Piran, that promise sounded more and more distant and absurd. It would have been so nice to leave reality aside, together with the hardships of everyday life, and mindlessly devote ourselves to what the heart was crying out for as if there were no tomorrow.
“Seems we might not be able to talk to Katerina Jerman,” I murmured thoughtfully, struggling to keep focused on a business-like conversation. “But it doesn’t matter because I”ve decided to give up the search here. I can”t afford to go on with it. I”m running out of money, and it”s been a week already. Besides, I have the feeling that all we are doing is walking in circles without any clarity.”
Max didn’t comment. He hummed a tune to himself, lost in his own musings.
“Yesterday, I was in Vienna,” he said quietly.
An animated conversation in Slovenian echoed below, brought by the wind from the terraces on the square. In the distance, I heard the murmur of the waves crashing against the concrete piers that lined the city like the margins of a notebook.
“I know,” I replied, scraping sugar off the rim of my glass with my index finger. I didn”t understand why he was telling me again when I already knew.
“I went there to talk to someone. To ask for forgiveness,” he continued in an almost inaudible whisper.
“Forgiveness? What for?”
“When I met Lana, she was dating someone very influential in the orchestra world. It didn”t sit well with him when his fiancée left him for me. At that time, I felt on top of the world and thought I was superior to everyone. I took what I wanted without asking permission, and I did what I wanted without thinking about anyone else. I was the first violin in the most prestigious orchestra in Europe. What could happen to me? But I didn”t count on his ability to make my life impossible. He managed to get me fired, then alerted all his contacts so that I would never find a decent job again, and, incredible as it may seem, he succeeded.”
“People can be so mean,” I said, shaking my head as I remembered my colleague Martha”s jealousy and what she had done to me on my last day at work. “Shouldn”t he be the one to ask you for forgiveness? If his girlfriend left him, there must have been a reason.”
Max shrugged. “That”s what I thought for a long time. But I”m sick of living like this. I decided to swallow my pride and went there yesterday. I went back to where it all started, and it wasn”t easy, believe me.”
“I believe you... but why? Why did he do it? Why did he keep torturing you after all these years? If you”re not together anymore, she could have gone back to him if both of them wanted to, couldn”t she?”
A grimace of pain crossed Max”s face, and, as before, he dodged the question.
“So, did your trip do any good?” I asked, knowing that Lana was still a thorny issue for him.
He shook his head.
“No. He wouldn’t even agree to see me. He still holds a grudge. I guess he’ll never forgive me.”
I thought of my mother and how her mistakes had caused so many people pain.
Then I thought of Pedro. Had he been there, he would have kissed me wildly against the railing, made me forget for one night all the reasons why we shouldn”t be together.
“Max...” I said, raising my glass, “Let”s make a toast.”
He seemed puzzled at my suggestion but agreed and raised his own, watching me curiously.
“To love,” I declared solemnly, “and to all the lives it ruins in its wake.”
“And to the idiots who still believe in it,” Max added and kissed me gently on the cheek.