Got rich by embezzling Nazi gold  Founder
|
Part three of the writing exercises I've started. This one was a long time coming.
Cello (as selected by Robin Reid)
No one was there to deliver a touching euology. There was no crying wife, no speechless colleagues; no greedy-eyed stepchildren plotting the squandering of an inheritance, nor bored children of an acquiantance, nor spiteful nemesis checking the football scores on his mobile phone. There was no funeral for him; no investigation launched on his disappearance and no jaded police officers shaking their heads solemnly upon discovering the wreckage that was once his shattered body. The remains of my best friend were delivered to me in a plastic bag marked with the word "evidence", which had been crossed out by a thick, black marker. Case closed, apparently.
I accepted the bag and sat down wordlessly, preparing to examine the contents. The police officer bid me good day and closed the door. Opening the bag, I immediately saw his neck - broken at such an angle that the tuning pegs seemed to glare accusingly at me. Unable to continue, I resealed the bag and placed it in my closet. A normal man would've just thrown the bag into the dumpster and moved on with his life... but I couldn't do it - not to my cello.
And in the closet it sat for hours before I could take no more; like the damnable thumping of Poe's tell-tale heart, the low moan of my cello's C-string echoed in my mind's ear, promising to drive me mad if his story was not told. At my wit's end, I siezed my notebook and left my apartment, determined to lift the geas placed upon me by my late friend. Down the stairs, out the door and away - to a nearby park where the sea air, filtering down in palatable doses, could scour the mind and facilitate reminiscing worthy of the bond we shared. The cohorts of a fallen viking could hardly deliver a more complete retelling of their ally's exploits than I managed for my cello.
Before 1953, the history of the instrument is in dispute. My grandfather bought it from an auction house that year for a very reasonable price - the combination of a disinterested midwestern audience and a dubious set of paperwork enabled a simple, unsophisticated eccentric to purchase a superior instrument for little more than the bag of feed he'd bought earlier that day. If the auctioneer is to be believed, the previous owner - a dentist - had acquired it from a down-on-his-luck touring cellist in exchange for emergency dental work. The dentist, a man by the name of Wilbur Cowell, kept the instrument as a curiosity for years until hard times fell upon him - the resulting friendship with whiskey eventually led him to take his own life. His material posessions were auctioned off to pay for his burial.
Upon taking receipt of the cello, my grandfather - a carpenter by trade - was able to inspect it closer and discovered the tremendous build quality of the instrument. He knew craftsmanship when he saw it, but had no means to put the instrument's true value in scope. Thinking it nigh worthless, he maintained and played it only as an idle hobby. This carried on for a number of years and eventually my grandfather was a competent musician - though the trained ear could pick out his lack of formal training. His improvisational skills and unique approach to the instrument made for some unorthodox impromptu hoe-downs with his fiddle-pluckin' neighbors. The only song he called his own was a lullaby he'd composed for his son, Henry.
Henry - my father - grew up with an appreciation of the music, but no talent for its creation; his true passion was journalism, which eventually mainfested itself in a job with our local news agency. He was taken from us in the mid 1990s during a live human interest piece promoting safe driving techniques in inclimate weather, wherein he was ironically struck by a hydroplaning car. During the following years of therapy, my grandfather helped my distraught mother raise my younger sister and I. The therapist encouraged me to find a new hobby, but I didn't take much to reading and anything involving a screen was too traumatizing. One day, out of the blue, my grandfather asked me if I wanted to learn to play his cello. Shaken from my malaise by the unexpected and unique offer, I accepted. I didn't realize it at the time, but as I clumsily drew the bow across the G string, I was unlocking the mental prison I'd held myself hostage in for so many months. The next day, my mother pawned every piece of jewlery she owned, with the exception of her and my father's wedding rings, to buy a cello for me. I accepted it gratefully and promised her that when I got older I'd be a world-famous cellist and I'd be able to buy back all the necklaces and rings she'd sold.
By the time came to choose my career path, I had forged a strong bond with the cello. We hadn't much money, so I couldn't attend any kind of notable or illustrious school, but I managed to find am affordable college that had a cello instructor. That is to say, they had an instructor who could play cello - a former member of the New York Philharmonic that had retired richly from the spotlight and now led a life of self-selected simplicity. After speaking with me at some length over several meetings, he elected to take me on as a student. Though not technically working within the curriculum of the school, I was eventually granted a degree once the old master was satisfied with my skills. Upon graduation, my grandfather gifted me his prized cello and I, not wanting him to be without, gave him mine.
As I sat down to play it for the first time as a professional, the cello settled in my arms and returned my warm embrace the way no friend, kin or lover ever had. I felt an immediate and strong connection to the instrument - a sensation not entirely alien; I felt the first vestiges of it years ago when I'd first played the instrument, but now... now I'd grown into it. The finest luthier alive in our day could not have crafted one to fit me better. This box of mere wood and gut, it was family - as much as any sibling or parent - and I treated it with the reverence appropriate to that station.
I honed my skills at any wedding, church function or bar mitzvah that would have me. My day job at the local library granted me the flexible hours needed for performances and I took only donations for my music. My confidence and ability began to outgrow the small rural town I grew up in and I soon felt the urge to step out into the world on my own. I saved what money I could and moved to New York at the suggestion of my music teacher - he still knew people at the Philharmonic and assured me that I would be given a far fairer shake than the hundreds of other applicants they would see. Despite his voice on their phone, the bigwigs at the symphony refused to hear me play, citing my lack of formal experience. I was lost and despondent, but worse news was on the winds - three weeks later, I would be on a bus back home to pay a final visit to my injured grandfather.
He had been visiting a former coworker on a work site when a portion of an improperly joined house frame broke loose and fell on him. He'd suffered extensive injuries to his chest and various internal organs; the paramadics that were called to the accident scene speculated that he'd have been killed instantly if it weren't for his hard hat. When I arrived at his hospital room, the sight was grim. Assorted family members chewing their lips, wringing their hands and clutching anxiously at their clothing, holding their breath each time he exhaled. This was not the room of a man who had a month left to live; the unspoken sentiment in the room had the sort of clarity that only comes to those who've been in the same room as the Reaper of Souls - my grandfather's time was drawing to a close.
I set the cello case down against the wall and my grandfather stirred almost immediately. His eyes cracked open and he slowly turned his head to look at me. He paused to gather his thoughts and his breath, then licked his dry, cracked lips and asked the family to leave so he could speak to me in private for a few moments. Once he and I were alone, he asked me to play his lullaby, there and then in the hospital room. I knew the tune but had never played it before, so he worked me through it. He'd never learned what notes they were, so he described the fingering positions and I obliged him as well as I could. After a few bars, I was performing the tune, unassisted, to his specifications. I watched him as I played, the grimace of pain melting away with each draw of the bow across the strings until, at last, he was smiling weakly. Moments later, he let out a heavy sigh. I finished the measure and quietly set the cello aside, embraced the shell of my first cello instructor, and called the doctor to mark the time.
I hadn't intended to stay for the funeral, but my family - undoubtedly the whole floor of the hospital - had heard me play grandfather's lullaby and begged me to perform it for the service. Everyone who knew my grandfather knew the song and since I was its only inheritor, nobody else would be capable of playing it as he had. I reluctantly agreed and spent the next few days practicing in seclusion. I practiced until I could play it blindfolded, my fingers stiff and aching from holding the stiff strings for hours on end. When the time came to perform, I strode as nobly as I could to the side of the casket and removed the old cello from its battered and decaying case. I took my seat and began playing, surveying the audience to see who had shown up and if I was playing to their satisfaction. Some of the attendees had been hearing the song for more than 50 years, always performed by the same artist and here I was trying to replicate it with only three day's practice. I was terrified but I knew that without me, this song would never be heard again. As long as I was the herald of this song, people's memories of my grandfather could glow as brightly as the day they were forged.
A cursory sweep of the audience returned a surprising number of unknown faces. There were some that I vaguely remembered; neighbors who had played with the guest of honor at various times, their children, his friends from work and others. Family members, my college cello instructor and friends of the family made up the rest of the crowd. Some of those present beamed wistful smiles at me through eyes full of tears, others had their eyes closed in silent revery. The song's final note finished echoing off the distant hills and the muffled sniffs and sobs could once again be heard. I stood with the cello at my side as the pine box was lowered into the dirt. By nightfall, I was on a bus back to New York.
Ten days after returning to my New York life, I received an unexpected call from the Assistant Music Director of the New York Philharmonic inviting me to audition for them. Puzzled by their earlier disinterest but too elated to dare ask any questions, I agreed and in a few days I was playing my first round of auditions for the Philharmonic. Over the next few days, more auditions would follow, each with fewer and fewer prospective cellists until, at last, the final audition arrived. The music director, assistant music director and me, with the stage all to myself. In front of me, the music stand held an unknown piece of music. I was as nervous as I'd ever been. I don't even remember playing or how it went, I just remember the music director standing up, walking over to me and shaking my hand with an enthusiastic smile on his face. I was in.
Shortly after joining the Philharmonic, my instrument became a point of interest among the other cellists. Some were convinced it was a Ruggieri, while others maintained that it was at best a replica and at worst a forgery. I suppose it was rather selfish, but I was never concerned with who made the cello or what it was worth to a collector; no sum of money could persuade me to part with it, but the decision to part with it wasn't made by me. I'd been out with the string section at a nearby restaurant celebrating the principle cellist's birthday and returned hom to find my apartment ransacked. The door was still locked when I opened it, but knowing the peculiarities of the latch I cursed myself for not being more careful when shutting it. I immediately ran to take stock of life's most critical things: documents, identification, laptop computer and - of course - my cello.
As alluded to earlier, my cello was missing - stolen by an mysterious perpetrator with unknown motives. I recall that several other things were missing, but short of my laptop and TV, I don't remember what they were. The other losses were trivial, but the loss of the cello was absolutely devastating. The next few days went by as a slow blur and... well, that brings us to now.
Though I earlier called it my best friend, I realized - seeing the pieces of the cello laid out in my apartment - that I wasn't mourning a friend, but my grandfather. All the tears I hadn't cried at the hospital, at the funeral, on his birthday every subsequent year, each time I saw my mother cry when she saw someone who looked uncannily like him, each time my grandmother called to speak to me because my voice sounded like his... all the tears came at once. The cumulative loss and sorrow of each year came flooding back and took my legs out from underneath me. I collapsed to my knees and wept for what seemed like ages.
Collecting the pieces, I put them back into the evidence bag and put those bags into a trash bag. Walking down the steps to deliver the clay of my cello to its ignominous end in the dumpster, I felt an odd sense of peace sweep over me - it was as though a weight I'd long grown accustomed to had just been removed from my shoulders. It was the weight of our story; mine, my grandfather's, the cello's - they'd all been told in one fell swoop. After one last moment of silence, I tossed the bag into the empty dumpster. The clang of the bag hitting the bottom was the cello's swan song.
A pitch-perfect G. |
|
Link this post
2009-01-15 03:08:49 |
|
"Children need to be taught from preschool that they might have to put a bullet between the eyes of their own undead mother." - Evans City, PA Police Chief Gino Fulci
|
|
|
