Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
They arrived at another small black picket gate—a separate key, drawn with great ceremony from a separate satin-trimmed pocket. Beyond the gate stood a large marble mausoleum. Four stone steps led to four columns, a pedestal, and the bust of a gaunt-cheeked man. Niccolò Paganini.
"The devil himself," she whispered under her breath, and stooped to read the inscriptions, wondering if it was her comment about the maestro and his violin that had put the idea of coming here in her teacher's head. She turned to thank him and to make her way back down the stairs, but he stood in her path.
"Don't you have family to attend to?" She gestured hopefully to the rows of humbler gravesites surrounding them.
"Only this"—and he forced a smile—"my spiritual family."
She put her hands behind her back and rocked on her heels, looking around the graveyard. She counted the seconds, watching out of the corner of one eye to see if he made a move to pray. But he continued to look straight at her, at the front of her overcoat where the buttons joined. Then he sat down on the topmost step and took a jackknife and an apple from his pocket. She watched as he began to peel it, in a long, unbroken strand.
She turned back to the pedestal. "Why doesn't it say he died in Italy?"
"Because he didn't. You saw more than one date, didn't you?"
She nodded.
"In Nice, as he was dying, he refused the final sacrament, so the Church wouldn't sanction his burial, nor would it allow the local church bells to be rung. So his body was kept unburied for five years. Does that bother you? Here, here." He handed her the peeled apple and put his arm around her shoulder. "Actually, can I tell you something? I've seen part of him, his unburied part, in a jar of formaldehyde. A man in Berlin has it. It's shriveled now, but then whose wouldn't be, after all that time? Given his reputation with the ladies, it's no indication..." And his voice lowered, as if he regretted the turn his story had taken. If his lecture had been designed to comfort or seduce, it was a failure.
Seduce. Yes, somehow she understood—even as her teacher finished describing the long-delayed burial, the subsequent disinterment and transfer of the remains, and the second, more elaborate burial he had subsidized, along with a group of others who worshipped the Faustian genius—that he had brought her here to seduce her.
The details didn't matter, and she had tried to forget them as best she could. The marble was slippery and cold. The stairs were narrow. Her head bumped against the pedestal seven or eight times, and she had a staggering headache by the time they reached Bologna. Back in the carriage, he had offered her his handkerchief, but she had looked at it blankly until he gestured to her skirt. Then he realized he had forgotten to lock the gate.
By the time he returned, she had her eyes shut, feigning sleep. She could feel his eyes on her as the sun rose, burning off the morning mist, but she didn't stir, even when her shoulder and neck screamed with stiffness, even when he eased her hand into his lap. Now the sickening effort of her charade was as hard to shake than the memory of what he had done at the cemetery.
He made no attempt to repeat the event. For the next few months he returned to his usual kind self, attentive during her lessons, encouraging despite her poor performance for the Magiones, ready to correct a tensed shoulder with a paternal hand or an awkward angle with a tap on the wrist. Then—overnight—he stopped touching her, stopped even looking at her. It took another month before Aviva grasped what had happened, and in another month Nonna understood, too.
The teacher took back the Magione violin.
Two weeks later, he returned, told her to pack, and took her away. He brought her to a convent even farther into the mountains, near the Austrian border. He explained that she would be allowed to live there, alongside some other unfortunate girls. When she started to cry, he reminded her that music thrived in surprising places—consider the Conservatorio della Pietà, the Venetian orphanage where Antonio Vivaldi, the red-haired priest-composer, had led an outstanding choir and orchestra of foundling girls.
"Does this place have an orchestra?" she said, looking up at the crumbling walls surrounding by treeless, boulder-dotted grounds.
"No."
Before he left, he whispered, "If it's a boy, name him Niccolò"—the only time he 'd acknowledged her condition.
She spat on the ground between them.
A foghorn blasted in the distance.
"Ever since, I've hated Paganini. Whenever I hear those arrogant caprices, I think of him trying to stick his inhuman fingers where they don't belong—if you'll forgive me for the image."
I swallowed the last sip of my cold coffee.
"Please," she said. "You're not saying anything."
"It 's a terrible story."
"You're shocked by it."
"I suppose I am."
"You don't believe in honesty?" She leaned back in her chair.
"No—I do." I paused and took a deep breath. "It reminds me of something that happened to someone very dear to me. Something I've never been able to put out of my mind."
She studied me, teetering between defensiveness and trust. "I'm not claiming it's an uncommon experience. I don't think about it most of the time. I wouldn't think of it all, except..."
She trailed off, looking over my shoulder. Al-Cerraz was standing at the far side of the café, waving to us from the counter.
"I suppose nothing can be done."
"In most cases, no. In mine—possibly."
She seemed to be waiting for me to say something, to ask something. Perhaps she was only deciding how much more to divulge.
"Is there some way I can help?"
"No," she said flatly. Without turning, I could sense Al-Cerraz's approach in her changed expression, her squared shoulders and forced smile. "It's something I need to take care of. Maybe immediately, maybe in a year. In any case, it is the reason I couldn't stay in America, after all. I'm sorry I haven't answered your questions very well."
And then he was with us: a hand on my shoulder, a puddle of coffee on the table as he bumped it, the strong smell of lavender, the booming voice that drowned out the last of Aviva's words.
"It's true!" he bellowed. "According to my broker, I don't have a cent!" He squeezed Aviva's arm. "At least you have the fifty dollars that matron on the steamer gave you."
Aviva nodded politely, switching from German to less-confident English. "It's better than nothing."
"That settles it, then," Al-Cerraz beamed. "We'll be poor together!"
I was not poor; I had more work than I could manage. Just before my American trip, my record label, Reixos, had asked me to do a fourth recording. They had suggested an accompanist for the project, but it wasn't anyone I admired. I didn't expect the record to sound half as good as some of my concerts—certainly not as good as the two concerts on the ship.
I said to Al-Cerraz, "An idea has just come to me. Would you consider recording?"
I would like to say, all these years later, that I was trying to help him financially, or that I was making amends for the Burgos concert. But I was only acting on impulse, moved by the memory of how we had sounded and the ease of our last week together. And there was another force acting upon me as well.
I added, "Aviva could record with us. At last we 'd have a trio."
"You can't just decide that, can you?" Aviva asked. "Doesn't your record company decide these things?"
"Reixos will be thrilled."
"Biber will be even more thrilled," Al-Cerraz interjected. "We'll have to let him know where we want to play after the recording comes out."
I stammered, "Yes, I suppose we will. But I do have my own manager now."
"I can't let mine go," Al-Cerraz explained to Aviva, ignoring me. "Lifetime contract."
"And I have a secretary," I said. "I should try to reach her."
"A secretary?" Al-Cerraz howled. "Don't answer all those letters—that's what I say. Let the manager handle the bookings and ignore the rest. Inaccessibility is one of the keys to long-lasting fame."
"You misunderstand me," I said. "I haven't tried to become more famous."
"Oh, of course not..."
Aviva glanced from one of us to the other, following our rising voices and sharpening tones. We were only warming up, but I suppose she'd never lived with other musicians. She'd simply have to adapt, I found myself thinking—and realized, in that thought, how quickly I was accepting this new arrangement, how easily I could envision the coming year: first a recording, and then a short tour in Spain, perhaps another across Europe.
With far less certainty, Aviva stood, smiled, and began to thread her way between our piles of mismatched cases and trunks. "Let me think about this. While you're both here to guard the castle, I'll go clean myself."
"Fort," I corrected her automatically. "And 'freshen up,' in English. Never mind. Take your time."
When she was out of earshot, Al-Cerraz eyed me gleefully. "Well, this is a big risk for you. Touring with someone new is one thing—but recording? Right away? You won't shake her off too easily after that."
"Since when do I shake people off?"
He cocked his head, studying me, then chose his words with uncharacteristic caution. "We don't know much about her."
I knew something about her, more than he did. But I knew I couldn't share it, because it was the only advantage I held over him. If he knew what I knew, if he spoke better German or Italian, they would be inseparable within days—I was sure of it. With luck, I would always know her a little better. With luck, he would keep his hands to himself.
"I'll say this politely," he tried. "You realize there are far easier ways to get a date."
"A date?" I laughed. "This isn't about a date."
"Then what is it about?"
"It's about music, of course. We sounded brilliant together on the ship, all three of us. If you don't agree one hundred percent, then say it—but I know you agree. I know you heard it. She's everything we wanted in a trio partner ten years ago: fresh, energetic, appreciative, skilled but malleable—"
"You're doing this for music," he repeated, testing me. "When have you ever done anything just for the music?"
I might have argued with him then, but I saw a shadow pass over his face—emotion dangerously near the surface. I knew then that the Burgos concert was still with us, that he still held me responsible for damaging his composing career. He wanted to forgive, I believed he did. And even more, he wanted to move ahead, to perform and to be inspired.
"I left behind so much of my sheet music in Germany," Aviva lamented one day later that autumn, at an outdoor café in Segovia.
The three of us had a day to spend in the city, before heading southeast to a recording studio in Madrid. My label had agreed we should record the Dvo[[[rcaron.gif]]]ák Piano Trios, which we'd been rehearsing for most of November. We'd already accepted some engagements following the recording sessions, but we knew we'd want a broader repertoire for those concerts.
"Eventually, we 'll all need more trio music," Al-Cerraz told her. "I know the perfect place. But first"—he gestured across the street to a woman's dress shop—"take as much of the day as you need. I don't mind giving you a loan until Reixos pays us."
I said, "He means that
I
don't mind giving you a loan."
Al-Cerraz continued, "Feliu and I will pick up some scores and meet you later, for lunch."
She shot him a dark look.
He pressed some money into her hand, oblivious. "Don't skimp."
Al-Cerraz and I were finishing our second coffees with a city map laid out between us when Aviva emerged from the shop and crossed the street toward us, carrying two large bags.
"Done," she said, collapsing into a chair. "Now, there's a Brahms Trio in C Minor I haven't performed; that should be easy to find."
Al-Cerraz stared at her bags.
She tucked them farther under the table. "What about the León concert in December? Do we pair the 'Dumky' with another Dvo[[[rcaron.gif]]]ák piece, or do something entirely different?"
"Something different," I started to say, then stopped, watching Al-Cerraz lower his head, with theatrical effort, under the table. Snagging the handles with his pinkies, he pulled the shopping bags back into view.
"Did you actually try them on, or just point to the window display?"
Aviva extracted a white box, opened it, lifted a red belted dress to her chest, and then stuffed it back into the bag. "Two others," she said. "Same style, different colors."
Al-Cerraz pinned me with an imploring stare. When I didn't pick up the argument, he persevered solo. "No alterations required?"
"The belt has notches," she said flatly.
"Length?"
"They don't drag on the ground, if that's what you mean." Aviva turned the city map around so that she could study it. Al-Cerraz cleared his throat heavily, but she ignored him. Without looking up, she said, "Now where is that music shop?"
I knew there was no point in telling Al-Cerraz that Aviva wasn't a female Gauthier. He could see for himself that she had no difficulty standing up to him.
At least he wasn't a chauvinist. He had paid as much attention to his own appearance in the last few weeks as he paid to hers. Our very first week off the steamer from America, he had started dyeing his silver-streaked hair, so that now the dyed patches gleamed blue-black in the sun. The change was so transparent, it made me laugh. But I dared not tease him about it. Al-Cerraz
did
look younger, and in the months that followed, he seemed healthier as well. He ate better, complained less of his digestive problems, and retired early, with notebook in hand. Privately, discreetly, and without a patron dominating his efforts, he was composing again.
Onstage, Aviva had a contrary style that could not help but attract attention, even while her mannerisms defied charm. She was about ten centimeters taller than I was, and rarely wore high heels. Playing a duet with Al-Cerraz, she stood near the piano, in a surprisingly wide-footed position, as if she were preparing to push a heavy cart through a muddy, rutted field. In trio, she typically sat, but even sitting, she managed an athletic stance, with feet squarely planted, spine straight, and head forward, as if ready to leap off her chair at any moment.