The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  She was a bright, cheery woman, thin and blond, with weak blue eyes swimming behind thick lenses. Her hair fell in careless disarray around her forehead and over her shoulders. She had a nice smile, soft and tender, and she loved music. I knew that as soon as she placed the record on the turntable and closed her eyes and swayed ever so slightly to the scratchy melody.

  When the piece was finished she clapped her hands and looked excitedly at the class. “Now, which one of you can tell me who composed that piece?”

  It was a Mozart concerto, one of my grandmother’s favorites, but I did not raise my hand. When no one else volunteered the information, she began in her brisk, excited way to describe the author, the period in which he lived, and a little about the music he wrote. She loved music, all right. I was very sorry I would see her only twice a week.

  She played the first movement to another Mozart concerto and talked about it for a little while. Toward the end of the class she asked if anyone played a musical instrument.

  Two girls at the front of the room raised their hands. One played piano, the other violin. I listened and watched very carefully. Fraulein Rohr gave them her soft smile, talked about how nice their instruments were, and asked how long they had been playing. Two years for the pianist, and the other had just begun. “That is wonderful,” Fraulein Rohr said. “Do you have private teachers?” Both heads nodded. “And do you know about the teacher who visits this school?” I leaned forward, listening intently. The two heads nodded again. “Well,” Fraulein Rohr said, “I hope you will enjoy your music very much, and study hard. Learning an instrument is never easy, but the rewards are very great; you will cherish the music all your lives.”

  She gave the girls another smile, looked out over the class, and asked, “Does anyone else play an instrument?”

  My heart in my throat, I raised my hand.

  “So, so. Someone from the back of the room finally decides to talk with me.” Her smile took the sting from her words. “And what is your name?”

  “Giovanni di Alta.”

  “What a nice name. And which instrument do you play, Giovanni?”

  “Guitar,” I said. I decided not to mention the accordion.

  “Why, I believe we have a guitar in the common room.” In a moment of sheer terror I thought she was going to ask me to play for the class, but all she said was, “You are a new student, aren’t you? Yes, I see here I have a note; this is your first year in Germany.” She smiled again. “I hope you enjoy it here very much.”

  I stammered my thanks. All the class was looking at me.

  “How long have you played the guitar, Giovanni?”

  “Eight years.”

  She showed surprise. “You started playing the guitar when you were six years old?”

  I nodded.

  “And who taught you?”

  “A man in our village.” That sounded very incomplete to me, so I added, “He taught at a conservatory before he retired.”

  “I see.” The room was very quiet. “And so you play classical music on your guitar, is that right?”

  All the attention frightened me. I dropped my eyes to my desk and nodded quickly, a short single jerk.

  “And do you have a teacher here in Germany, Giovanni?” Her voice was soft, coaxing.

  Again with a tiny jerk I shook my head, no.

  There was a brief silence. I kept my gaze directed at my desk, but I could feel eyes on me. Fraulein Rohr said, “Perhaps you will remain after class a few minutes, Giovanni. I will give you a note for your next teacher.”

  The bell signaling the end of class rang. The hall outside our room erupted noisily. My classmates filed out and joined the tumult. I remained at my desk. Fraulein Rohr walked back to stand beside me.

  “I saw that you were afraid when I asked you about your guitar playing. There is no need to be afraid, Giovanni. We ask every class if there is someone interested in playing an instrument because the school does not have music instruction.”

  I nodded. This I already knew.

  “But if someone is very interested we can perhaps arrange for instructions here in the afternoon.” She smiled at the sudden light in my face. “I do not know if our instructor teaches guitar; I think he does, but I’m not sure. We will have to see. He gives lessons on several instruments at all the Hauptschule in Dusseldorf. But first we need to hear you play, yes? Will you play for me now that we are alone?”

  “Yes.” The prospect of having a teacher overcame all my hesitations.

  I followed her to the teachers’ common room, which was very crowded. Fraulein Rohr led me into a small conference room off to one side, stepped out, and returned quickly with an old classical guitar.

  She gave me the guitar, sat down facing me, smiled gently, and said, “Now play me something nice.”

  Quickly I tuned the guitar. I played a very simple melody by Mozart, one which I had studied several years ago. When I was finished I looked up to find her staring at me strangely.

  “That was very nice,” she said softly. “What was that called?”

  I told her.

  She nodded. “I thought I had heard it before. I did not know it was a piece for guitar.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “That was a student’s rendition.” I used the Italian word riedizioni because I did not know how to say it in German. She nodded as if she understood.

  “Would you play something else?”

  I would have played for her for hours. I chose another rendition, this one a bit harder, a Schubert sonata that I thought she would recognize. When I finished I looked up to find her smiling.

  “That was one of my favorite pieces when I was a little girl,” she said. “Was that another rendition?” She used the German word Transkription. “Yes? It was very nice, Giovanni. You certainly have talent. I think we should have you play for Herr Scherer. Would you like that?”

  I nodded, then blurted out, “Will you be there?” I felt my face blush bright red.

  Fraulein Rohr smiled in reply. “You should not be so frightened by teachers, Giovanni. We want to help you. How long have you been in Germany?”

  “Six months.”

  “You speak German very well for only being here six months.” She became serious. “It is very different here, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. Very, very different.

  She was silent for a moment, then stood. “So. We must send you on to your next class before your teacher thinks I have kidnapped you. I will arrange for you to play for Herr Scherer. Will you play for him? Good. He is a very nice man and you don’t need to be afraid of him. I will find out which afternoon he teaches here and I will let you know. Is that all right? Fine. Now let me write you your note.”

  * * *

  As we rode the tram home from school, I told Mario about maybe having found a guitar teacher. He replied with, “I can’t get over you, Gianni. I mean, the shyest guy I’ve ever met, playing for a teacher the first day at school.”

  “I was really worried about this.”

  “Yeah, you musta been. Hey, how about letting me hear you sometime?”

  “Okay.” I followed him off the tram and down toward their little store. I did not feel like practicing that day.

  Mario had begun to work for his parents that summer after his older brother took a job at the American military base in Darmstadt. The store was open twelve hours a day; Mario’s afternoon shift gave his mother a chance to tend to their apartment and his father time to go to the local markets.

  Every cent Mario made, which was not much, went into old and battered stereo equipment. Little of it worked. Mario spent every free moment stripping and testing and repairing and reassembling. He was almost as fanatic about his mismatched pile of boxes with their flashing lights and dials and switches as I was about my music.

  As soon as we entered the apartment, Mario announced the news to his mother. She clapped her hands and gave the heavens a look and a two-hand shake. I had seen the black-clad ladies of our village d
o that when they received good tidings. “At last,” she said, “our Gianni has something to be happy about. Come, sit down. The house can wait another minute. We can celebrate with a cup of chocolate. You like chocolate? Good. You should drink more of it, you with a body like dried sticks that would blow away in a strong wind. Sit, sit, then both of you can tell me all about what happened.”

  So Mario told it again as if he had been in the room, making it into a feat of wonder and entertaining us both. I sat and smiled and looked about me. The apartment had a musty, damp smell that told of infrequent cleaning and airing. The kitchen was a mess. Dirty pots and pans lined the sink; peppers and onions and bits of garlic clove littered the counter by the stove. The ceramic flour crock was turned over, and flour spilled over the shelf and into the sink; around the stove were tiny spatters of grease. Mario’s mother’s hair was tangled in a loose knot that threatened to come undone as she leaned over me, and there was grime under her fingernails. I sat there and looked around and remembered how my grandmother would talk of women in our village who kept their houses like this.

  But there was something here I could not explain, a sense of belonging. It did not matter what people might say about her housekeeping. I decided it did not matter what people thought about her at all. I was content to sit and sip my mug of hot chocolate and feel her rough hands stroke my head and listen to Mario weave his incredible story, and know that here at least was a place where I was welcome.

  That evening I walked through falling mist and cold metallic air to Mass with my grandmother. She was leaning on me more heavily than usual, and had not felt at all well that afternoon. But the light in her eyes was still there, and it glowed more strongly as I told her about the possibility of guitar lessons. I watched her eyes as I spoke, standing in the misty evening, waiting for the traffic light to change. As I finished talking I realized there were only three times when I could remember the light not being there—on the train ride up to Dusseldorf, during that first argument with my father, and when my grandfather had died. There were probably other times, but I could not remember them. I watched her face and realized how much that warmth and love and light in her gaze meant to me. At times like these I could drink in the strength and the hope from her eyes.

  “I am truly pleased, figlio mio. It was something which I have prayed about all summer. But I said nothing because I knew of nothing that I could do. This is not Italy.”

  “I know,” I muttered.

  “So. You have a teacher. I am very glad to see you continuing with your music.” She stopped to cough into her handkerchief. “Excuse me. This cold and damp has reached into my bones today.”

  “This weather is making you sick,” I said. “I wish we were home.”

  “We are home,” she said sharply. “I do not have the strength to put up with your nonsense tonight. Finish.”

  I stood at the intersection and waited for the light to change, watching the blank faces crowding the sidewalk around me. Their skin looked gray, their eyes cold and dead as the air. There was no greenery, just steel and concrete. The traffic drummed in my ears, making me feel like a misplaced cog in a giant machine.

  Because of the number of Italian families in Dusseldorf, three local churches held Wednesday and Sunday Masses in Italian. The church on our side of town was within walking distance of our apartment. It was constructed of red brick, and looked as though it had been built to meld into the office buildings on either side. The interior was all stone and brick, so that the tiniest sound came crashing back from all sides. The windows were long thin slats filled with abstract stained glass designs. The altar was separated from the front pew by one long low step, the table and pulpit made of light-colored wood that had no adornment whatsoever. Instead of a cross, above the altar hung a figure of a man suspended by two chains reaching out from either side wall and connected to his wrists. The metal figure was thin, like a child’s stick-drawing, and his face looked more asleep than in pain. The first time my grandmother entered the church, she looked around and declared, whoever built this place did not believe in God. I thought the church suited most of the people I had met in this land.

  I endured the smiles and caresses of the women my grandmother had befriended, waited as quietly as I could while they gathered in clusters to adjust prayer shawls and bemoan the fates that so plagued their lives. There were few men here and almost no young people. I stood as far to the edge of the group as I could, and waited for the bell to ring and for us to enter the sanctuary.

  Usually my time in Mass was spent in a dull fog. I retreated behind a veil of sleepiness to hold out what I did not want to face. But today my grandmother’s words rang in my ears, and the fog would not come. This was not home for me. It never would be. I hated this place. I did not belong here. My father did not want me. To have to live with him, to see him every day and watch him turn away from me, to see the resentment in Anna’s eyes whenever I entered a room, to feel their coldness toward me, was agony. It tortured me. I nodded my head slowly. Yes, I truly hated this place. I was trapped in a home and a city and a land where I did not belong and never would. I looked up at the horrid ugly sleeping figure suspended from chains across the front of the church, and I felt my anger spill out in waves. The sterile feeling of the place and the figure blanketed me with indifference. I felt trapped by forces that cared nothing for me at all.

  ****

  Two days later I remained at school after everyone had left. Being alone and without the normal authority that regulated school life filled me with a curious sense of freedom. I walked the empty halls, listening to my footsteps echo up and down the corridors, peering into rooms that seemed so different without their normal noisy charges.

  My ears led me to the classroom used by Herr Scherer. Even with the door closed the piano sounded thunderous in the empty space. I waited outside until a sullen boy a year or so older than I bounded from the room as though escaping from a dungeon. I knocked on the open door and was told to enter.

  The kindness that Fraulein Rohr showed in her smile was there in Herr Scherer’s eyes. They were large, gray, tired, gentle eyes. His gentle gaze softened the fatigue lines etched deeply through his face above the beard.

  He nodded his head at me in greeting. “You are—” He consulted a sheet on the small table by his side. He sat in one of the teacher’s straight-backed chairs next to a tired-looking piano. A battered guitar case lay near his feet. “Giovanni di Alta. Did I say that right? Can you speak German?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come sit down.” He pulled another chair over in front of his own. “You are here to show me how well you play guitar, is that right? Did you bring your guitar? No? Well, you can use mine. It is an old guitar, but it had all six strings the last time I looked, and it still plays.”

  I went over and sat down. He was not a tall man, but every part of him was big. His chest was broad, his face thick and seamy, his hair grayish-black and in curly disarray. He wore corduroy trousers with the knees scuffed shiny and a heavy dark hand-knitted sweater. He opened his case and held out the guitar in a strong hammer-like fist.

  His voice was deep and as kind as his eyes. “Fraulein Rohr has told me that I must be careful not to bite. She says if I do you will become afraid and not play for me. Are you afraid of me, Giovanni?”

  I shook my head, gave a tentative smile in reply to the one in his eyes, and took the guitar.

  Herr Scherer sighed in mock relief and slapped his hands on his knees. “Ah, that’s all right, then. My wife calls me a bear sometimes, but I don’t remember ever eating any of my children. What would you like to play for me?”

  I found my voice. “I don’t know.”

  “Well then, why not play what you did for Fraulein Rohr? She said it was very nice, and I have always enjoyed very nice music, especially when it’s played by children who don’t like to be eaten.”

  So I played the first piece, a brief sonata. When I finished I found him looking at me very thoughtf
ully.

  “Fraulein Rohr was correct,” he said in his deep voice. “Play something else, Giovanni.”

  I thought a moment, then chose a piece by Rossini, simplified for students, but still retaining some of the difficult runs that were Rossini’s artistic signature. I did not know anything about the pattern of Rossini and his music at that time. All I knew was that it was a difficult piece which I had mastered. I wanted to impress Herr Scherer. I wanted to become his student.

  The same thoughtful look was on his face when I finished playing. Herr Scherer curled his lower lip up until it hid most of his mustache, and stared sightlessly at his guitar.

  “That was very nice as well, Giovanni,” Herr Scherer said. “How long have you been playing?”

  “Eight years.”

  “Very nice,” he repeated. “Do you always play without scores? Do you know that word?”

  I nodded my understanding. “Once I have learned a piece I don’t need to see the music.”

  He studied my face a moment longer, then let the smile creep back into his eyes. “Giovanni is a mouthful of a name, isn’t it? I think your name would make a bigger meal than you would. What do your friends call you?”

  “Gianni.”

  “A much easier name. You play very well, Gianni. Very well indeed. I don’t think we need to stop right yet. Would you like to play something else?”

  I nodded, and began retuning the guitar. I loved a piece by Barbetta where the guitar strings were tuned to a C chord. The piece had been very difficult for me to learn, because all the chord positions which I had mastered for the standard tuning no longer fit. The piece itself was melodious and not extremely difficult, but for me the swift retuning was like an announcement that I had moved into another realm of guitar. It was as though I had learned another dialect of my language.

  Herr Scherer’s lower lip was rolled up in thought again when I stopped. He looked at me a long time.