Paganini's Ghost (7 page)

“For a short time. Then I met my husband and had Yevgeny
and”—she smiled tenderly at her son—“suddenly my career was not so important.”

“Your husband is travelling with you?” Father Arrighi asked.

“My
ex
-husband,” Ludmilla said carefully, “is living in Moscow with his second wife.”

“Ah, I'm sorry I asked.”

“Not at all. Fyodor and I were divorced a long time ago, when Yevgeny was only a child. It is all in the past.”

I made coffee for everyone; then we went through into the back room to play quartets.

“Let me apologise now for our poor standard,” I said to Yevgeny as we took out our instruments. “If at any time it all becomes too excruciatingly awful for you, you must say so and we will stop. We do not want to torture you.”

“We do this for fun,” Yevgeny said. “I do not care how you play.”

He was holding his Stradivari in his hand.

“May I?” I said.

He passed the violin to me and I ran my eyes over it. I could tell at once—from the warm dark colour, the long corners, the handsome two-piece maple back—that it dated from the early 1700s, the beginning of Stradivari's “Golden Period.” He was in his late fifties then, not much younger than I was. Like me, he'd been making violins for more than forty years, although there the comparison ends. This was an exquisite violin, far surpassing anything I have been able to create in my own, not entirely undistinguished, career. I have examined many Stradivari violins and I have never once felt jealous of his unique skill as a luthier. He is such a world apart from everyone else that it would be like a mortal envying a god. I am just glad that he lived, and that his work has survived for new generations of violin makers to enjoy and attempt to emulate.

I couldn't help comparing this instrument with Paganini's, the Cannon was so fresh in my mind. Guarneri del Gesù—literally, “of Jesus,” because of the cross he inscribed on his labels—and Stradivari
were very different characters as men, and those differences are readily apparent in their violins. Stradivari was a perfectionist, an austere, serious sort of man who led a life of hard work and sober propriety. Guarneri was a wilder, less focused character—much like the rest of us—who got drunk on a Saturday night and didn't give a damn if some of his work was slipshod. Stradivari's instruments are meticulously crafted, every detail given care and attention. Guarneri's—particularly
il Cannone
—are rougher, louder, but don't be fooled by appearances. The trappings may be different, but underneath they both sing like angels.

I peered inside the f-hole, tilting the violin towards the light so I could read the maker's label:
Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1701
.

“It is not mine,” Yevgeny said. “I could not afford a violin like that. It is on loan from the Moscow Conservatoire.”

“It's a fine instrument,” I said, handing it back reluctantly, then picking up my own violin—one I made myself, of course—dating from what I like to think of as my own “Golden Period,” which lasted for about a fortnight in 1985.

“What shall we play?” Guastafeste asked. He was already seated in front of his music stand, his cello between his legs.

“Let Yevgeny decide,” I said. “What would you like?”

“I do not know,” Yevgeny said. “There is so much to choose from. Help me, Gianni. Where do I begin?”

“At the beginning,” I said.

So we played Haydn, the father of the string quartet, then moved on to his heirs, Mozart and Beethoven, sometimes just playing single movements rather than whole works. Yevgeny was happy to dip in and out, sampling a range of composers. He was like a child opening birthday presents, delighted to find something else to unwrap and enjoy.

I was relieved that he didn't want to work on the pieces, to practise the tricky passages. Over my years as an amateur quartet player, I have come to realise that practising the difficult bits doesn't really make you play them any better; it just hammers home the depressing conclusion that you'll never be able to play them.

The string quartet is, in theory, a unified musical form comprised of four equal parts, each as important as the next. In practice, the first violin is more equal than the others, which suited Guastafeste, Father Arrighi, and me perfectly. We could sit back and allow Yevgeny to dominate. We could listen and relish his wonderful sound. Never before had we played with a violinist of his stature. He was accustomed to being a soloist, to being the star, but he was too good a musician to swamp the ensemble with his superior technique. He did his best to blend in, to avoid humiliating us, though the vast gap between us was patently obvious to everyone in the room.

Margherita and Ludmilla sat in the armchairs against the back wall, listening raptly. When we played the cavatina from one of Beethoven's late quartets—one of the most beautiful pieces of chamber music ever written—I glanced at Margherita and saw she had tears in her eyes. Antonio and Father Arrighi were also showing signs of emotion, not just at the music but at the memories it brought back. The cavatina was one of Tomaso Rainaldi's favourite pieces, and this was the first time we had played it together since his death. This was the first time, in fact, that we had played quartets at all.

Losing our first violinist had been a traumatic experience. Having Yevgeny filling the gap was musically rewarding, but Tomaso had been a friend since childhood; we had made music together for fifty years. No one could take his place, either in my life or in our quartet. I found my own eyes watering as I remembered him, remembered all those happy moments we'd had together, and at the end of the movement I made my excuses and hurried from the room.

Margherita found me in the kitchen a few minutes later, dabbing at my eyes with a handkerchief. She didn't say anything, just put her arms round me and drew me close, holding me until I'd composed myself.

“It was Tomaso, wasn't it?” she said, pulling back from me.

I nodded. Margherita had never met Tomaso, but I'd told her stories about him.

“That piece in particular,” I said. “Tomaso loved it so much. We
used to joke about it. ‘Not the cavatina
again
,' we used to say when Tomaso suggested it.”

“It's a very moving piece of music. And you played it so well.”

“I know. Yevgeny is terrific, isn't he? I'm sure he played it better than Tomaso ever did, but the funny thing is, it didn't feel as if he did. Do you know what I mean? It didn't feel right, didn't sound right, because it wasn't Tomaso playing it.” I wiped my eyes again with my handkerchief. “All the time, I was thinking, I am never going to hear Tomaso play this again. I am never going to see him, speak to him, make music with him. He's gone.”

Margherita hugged me again.

“I know,” she said gently. “It's hard, isn't it? Memories are painful, but they're also uplifting. He's still with you, Gianni. You have to look at it like that. Tomaso has gone, but a part of him is still here with you, and always will be.”

She smiled at me.

“Why don't you take a break now? You've played enough. I'll make tea for us all.”

I took her hand and held it tight.

“Thank you. I'm glad you're here.”

“You can always talk to me, Gianni. You know that.”

I went out into the garden for a time to let the fresh air clear my head. It had been many months since I'd shed tears for Tomaso, but grief is like that. It's not a continuous process; it comes in waves. You can keep it at bay for a time, like a dam holding back a lake, but then something triggers an explosion inside you, shattering the wall and letting loose a flood. With me, that trigger is so often music. Music, more than anything, has memories, associations, and it works on a subliminal level that is somehow more powerful than more overt influences. Photographs, remembered conversations, geographic locations—they can all release that torrent of emotion. But music seems to probe deeper, to find the most raw, sensitive part of me, and the resulting deluge is all the more overwhelming.

The afternoon sunshine, the breeze gusting across the plain
soothed me, dried my damp cheeks. I picked a few late French beans and a courgette from my vegetable patch, then heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw Yevgeny approaching.

“You are all right?” he asked, his face concerned.

“I'm fine.”

“I have not tired you too much?”

“Not at all.”

“I know we play a lot. But it has been such fun. All this wonderful music I never play before. Thank you.”

“Thank you for joining us,” I said. “To play with a violinist like you has been a great privilege. I'm sorry we can't match you.”

“You play well, all of you. And I see you love playing. That is good. In my world, the professional world, it is not always fun.”

He looked round the garden, at the shrubs and trees, the surrounding fields rolling away into the distance.

“It is very peaceful,” he said. “You always live here?”

I shook my head.

“I lived in the city for many years. I like the countryside, but it was better for my children to be in Cremona. That was where their schools were, their friends.”

“You have children?”

“Two sons and a daughter. All grown up and settled elsewhere now. I have three grandchildren, too.”

“In Cremona?”

“Mantua. Not far away.”

“It must be nice to have family,” Yevgeny said. “Friends, too,” he added with a pensive frown.

“You have friends, surely?” I said.

“Not really,” he replied. “My life, from age four, has been violin and nothing else—lessons, practice, concerts. Those things boys do—playing football, going to parties, cinema—I do none of them.”

I felt sorry for him, but I wasn't surprised by his revelation. I have encountered a large number of gifted musicians in my time as a luthier, and none of them has had what I would regard as a proper childhood.
Childhood and musical excellence are not compatible with each other—you have to make a choice between the two. I could sense the loneliness in Yevgeny. I could imagine the isolated kind of life he'd led—the years of single-minded practice he'd had to put in to reach his current position. And he was one of the lucky ones. He'd survived, come through it all to establish himself as a soloist, but I knew there were thousands more just like him who had fallen by the wayside. They had sacrificed their youth to music and then found there was no place for them in the adult world.

There are rewards in being a child prodigy, but it is not a life I would wish on anyone, and it is probably not a life many children would choose for themselves if they weren't forced into it by an ambitious parent. And there is usually a pushy mother or father in the background somewhere. Most children do not willingly practise a musical instrument for the many hours a day required to reach a virtuoso standard. I know this from my own three, all of whom learned instruments, and all of whom resisted my attempts to persuade them to practise. I was not inclined to force them and I never had any doubts that that was the right course of action to take. Music should be a pleasure, not a chore. I have seen too many disillusioned, embittered professionals to want my children to become like them. Yevgeny was not yet disillusioned—he was, after all, a prizewinning soloist with a glittering career ahead of him—but he clearly had regrets and was beginning to wonder what he had missed out on for all those years.

“Maybe you should slow down a bit,” I said. “Do something else as well as music.”

He smiled ruefully.

“Slow down? My mother, she never allow it. I just win the Premio Paganini. My life, it will get faster and faster. Lots of people already invite me to play. Mama says I must say yes to them all.”

“You're no longer a child, Yevgeny,” I said. “You can make your own decisions now.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. Then he nodded and started to say something, but the words were cut off by a sudden shout from the terrace.
Guastafeste was walking across the lawn towards us. His mobile phone was in his hand.

“I'm sorry, Gianni, I've got to go,” he said. “I've had a call from the
questura.”

“Bad news?” I said.

“It's François Villeneuve—Vincenzo Serafin's friend from Paris. He's been found dead in his hotel room. And he didn't die of natural causes.”

M
urder investigations are usually so time-consuming and absorbing that Guastafeste effectively disappears from my life for several days, sometimes several weeks, on end. I was therefore surprised to get a phone call from him the following morning. I was in my workshop, cutting out the front plate for a new violin from a two-piece sheet of spruce.

“Are you busy?” he asked.

“Nothing that can't wait,” I replied.

“I need your help. Can I come out and see you?”

“Of course. But what about the Villeneuve case? Aren't you working on that?”

“This is to do with the case,” he said.

Twenty minutes later, I heard his car pull into the drive, the tyres crunching on the gravel. I put down my saw, removed my apron, and went out onto the terrace to meet him. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed. His clothes looked as if he'd slept in them, though—from past
experience—I knew he'd probably been up most of the night. As one of the senior detectives at the
questura
he'd have borne the brunt of the homicide enquiry, working flat out during those first few hours, while the trail was still fresh.

“Coffee?” I said. “You look as if you could use one.”

“Thanks.”

We went into the kitchen and I filled the espresso pot and put it on the stove. Guastafeste sat down at the table. He rubbed the dark shadow along his jawline and yawned.