The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto (15 page)

I dream of her in Avalon

From dusk till dawn

So I think I’ll travel on

To Avalon.

Frankie’s voice, like a strong drink, had made the patrons momentarily forget their fear. But like a drink, it did not last. A man in a beige suit was the first. He banged his glass in protest. Once. Then again. Others followed. Soon the whole
taberna
was slamming its glasses or silverware. Fear pulled down the curtain. Frankie stopped singing. Tears formed in his eyes. He spun to his teacher, who, as if expecting this, stopped playing.

“Help me up,” El Maestro said.

He rose, holding Frankie’s hand. As the customers booed, El Maestro leaned toward Frankie and said, “Now we take a bow, like this.”

He bent at the waist. Frankie did the same. The jeers grew louder. Someone yelled, “
Traidor!
”

“Always thank your audience,” El Maestro whispered. He squeezed Frankie’s hand.

“Now lead us out the back.”

The rest, for Frankie, was a blur. He would remember Alberto, the conga player, waiting behind the wheel of a car in the alley. He would remember a long ride in the dark. He would remember crying much of the trip, thinking of how he made those people angry. He would remember El Maestro, the new guitar case between his knees, saying very little, until he felt the car bump and he asked Alberto, “How much longer?” and Alberto said, “Twenty minutes, my friend.”

He would remember his teacher handing him a silver flask and telling him to drink, that they had a long journey ahead and Frankie needed to sleep. He would remember a sweet but stinging taste to the liquid. He would remember El Maestro handing him the guitar case.

“This will be yours now, boy. It is a fine instrument, made of rosewood and spruce, with an ebony neck. The builder is from an old family of guitar makers. This is important. There should be history in whatever you play.”

Frankie wanted to be happy. A new guitar. But too many emotions were swirling inside him.

“Why did I have to sing, Maestro?”

“One day, you will understand.”

“But they banged their cups.”

“And you showed courage. You will need that in life.”

“Where are we going?”

The blind man turned away.

“Do you remember your first lesson?”

“Yes, Maestro.”

“What did you do?”

“I listened.”

“That is right. And where you are going, you will also have to listen. When you listen, you learn. Remember that. In music and in life.”

“But, Maestro—”

“When you started to play, the first time, what do you remember?”

“It hurt.”

“Yes,” the blind man said. His voice choked. “And this will hurt as well.” He cleared his throat. “But you will form your calluses. And it will get easier.”

The car bumped. The blind man rubbed his face.

“Francisco.”

“Yes, Maestro?”

“There are strings inside this guitar case. You will put them on this guitar.”

“All right, Maestro.”

“They were very special to me.”

“Why, Maestro?”

“They were from my wife.”

“You have a wife, Maestro?”

“No longer.”

“Where did she go?”

“She went to heaven. The strings were a present. I never used them.”

“Because she died?”

“Yes, before she could give them to me. I found them in her purse.”

Frankie tried to imagine what the woman looked like.

“Were those her dresses in the closet?”

“Her dresses. Her shoes. A bottle of her perfume. You don’t need much to remember someone, Francisco. Even one thing will do.”

He reached over and patted the boy’s knee.

“You have those strings from me. That is enough.”

Frankie felt even more scared now.

“Are we leaving our home, Maestro?”

“It is just a flat.”

“Are you coming with me?”

“Above a laundry.”

“Are you coming with me?”

No answer.

“Where are we
going
?”

The blind man leaned over. “What do you see outside?”

Frankie squinted against the windowpane. It was very dark. But as they came over a rise, Alberto slowed the car, and in the distance, small diamonds of moonlight glimmered to the horizon.

“The sea,” Frankie whispered.

Dizzy Gillespie, the jazz trumpet player, once said, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what
not
to play.” He was one of my special ones. And he was quite correct. Silence enhances music. What you do not play can sweeten what you do.

But it is not the same with words. What you do not say can haunt you. El Maestro was an artist (his soul was surely mine), but his instincts were too musical for this life. He left out words as he left out notes.

And so that night, as they sat at the Valencia harbor, he let Frankie fall asleep without telling him everything. And an hour later, when they got the signal, he carried the boy in his arms, walking up a long ramp to a ship, following behind Alberto, who held the bag and the guitar and whispered, “Straight ahead, Maestro . . . watch this plank, Maestro . . .” Many times the blind man lifted the child’s head to his face, rubbing his cheeks against Frankie’s nose and chin, as if memorizing its shape.

He hadn’t told him so many things. That they were not making this journey together. That the boy would awaken, somewhere in the belly of this ship, in the company of men who had been bribed to ensure his passage. That he would find, in his guitar case, a roll of money, traveling documents, a piece of fabric with an American address, and a note that read, in the wiggly letters of a blind man’s penmanship:

Francisco—

It is time for you to leave. It is too dangerous here. This is your papa’s wish. He loves you and will find you one day. I am sorry that I cannot continue to teach you. But you can teach yourself now. Find your aunt in America. When you need money, play your guitar. If you miss me, as I will miss you, close your eyes and play the strings that I gave you. I will be in your music always.

—Maestro

He did not tell him anything else—not the details of the prison visit, not the length of Baffa’s sentence, not the answers to any of Frankie’s many questions, including the one about El Maestro ever being able to see. The truth was, yes, his teacher once had sight. He lost it fighting early in his country’s civil war, protecting his wife’s younger brother, who had raced off to fight with the Republic. He followed the brother into battle. During a violent attack, he saved the young man from a grenade, which exploded, instead, near El Maestro, containing a poison gas that smelled like mustard. In the days that followed, his skin grew blotchy and his eyesight slowly disappeared, like a curtain lowering on his life.

The brother, ashamed, fled the country. El Maestro returned home a blind man.

“We have arrived, my friend,” Alberto said.

“Where are our contacts?”

“Right in front of us,” he answered, nodding at two unshaven sailors from the engine room.

“Is he blind?” one sailor asked.

“He is a great artist,” Alberto said.

“You know what to do with this boy?” El Maestro said.

“Yes, yes. England, then America. Hurry up.”

“Alberto? Can they be trusted?”

“They can be trusted, Maestro.”

“We’ve done this many times,” the sailor said. “Where is the money?”

“In my pocket. Take the child. Careful.”

El Maestro held out the sleeping Frankie, and felt his arms being relieved of their burden. Suddenly, he gasped. He was not prepared for the emptiness that overwhelmed him.

“Wait. Where is he?
Where is he?
”

“Right here, for God’s sake.”

“Francisco!”

“Calm down! We have him. See?” The sailor took El Maestro’s hand and tapped it against Frankie’s face. “All right? Keep your voice low.”

“Yes. Forgive me.”

“He’ll be safe.”

“Good.”

“This is hard for him,” Alberto interjected.

“The money. Now.” The sailor spat. “It’s not my fault the man can’t see.”

Of course, had El Maestro been able to see, our story would be different, for long before handing over the boy in the moonlight, he would have recognized something in Frankie’s dark grape hair and deep blue eyes and the curl of his lips. He would have seen in the boy’s face the unmistakable reflection of his wife, Carmencita. He would have somehow realized she was Frankie’s mother, and the burned corpse left behind in the church was only half the murder he had thought.

He would have realized, when Baffa confessed to not being the child’s father, that he, El Maestro, was. That for years he had been teaching the very child he had been mourning.

But this is the note that fate chose to leave out, shading the melody by making it heartbreaking. Instead, the blind man unknowingly handed his only son to two sailors from the engine room. He gave them ten rolls of pesetas from the velvet sack in his jacket pocket. They took the boy, his bag, and the guitar, which contained the gifted strings and the traveling papers signed by a Carlos Andrés Presto, listing the boy not as a Rubio but as Francisco Presto.

In losing his father, Frankie regained his name.

Minutes later, the boat pulled away from the harbor. El Maestro heard the croaking engine, the splash of waves against the hull, all the sounds of disengagement. He remained there on the ramp, high above the water, until the sounds were gone and the ship was far away. He took off his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. Suddenly, he could not stop his tears.

“Why do you cry, Maestro?” Alberto asked.

He had no words to answer. Only that he felt as hollow as the inside of his guitar. He held out his arm until he found the conga player’s shoulder.

“My friend . . . Thank you for helping me.”

He could not see the blank expression on Alberto’s face. He could not see his eyes get smaller or his jaw set. He only felt the man’s hand slip quickly inside his pocket and steal the velvet sack of money.

“You’re welcome,” Alberto said. “Good-bye.”

He pushed the blind man over the ledge, dropping him twenty feet into the water, where his tears and the sea became one.