The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  “He’s got a job for me,” I guessed.

  Alessandro nodded, dropped his chair to four legs, leaned forward and filled his glass. “Coppa’s decided to go in and do his first two songs. He’s got one they want to use as a single, Antonio says, and the record company is screaming for something to release. They started the day before yesterday.”

  The prospect of working on a major album was much more appealing than having to face the isolation of my little cottage. “I think maybe I’ll go on down tonight, check into a hotel.”

  “Why not?” Alessandro drained his glass, lumbered to his feet. “Sure isn’t anything for you to do around here, unless you’re looking for blisters and a sore back.”

  ****

  Coppa normally used a studio very near Milan’s Piazza Duomo, the city’s central square. The next morning I arrived to find the place jammed by the hangers-on with whom Giorgio Coppa always surrounded himself. Studio work with Coppa was usually a twenty-four hour party. That was one reason why his albums always took so long to record.

  He was successful enough to demand and receive whatever he wanted. There was something about working in the studio that always excited girls—that is, until the boredom of repeated takes set in. For this reason, the girls Coppa brought with him usually changed every few days.

  I knew enough of the crew to receive a hero’s welcome when I walked in. There were a lot of grins, several voices shouting thanks toward the ceiling, many looks of open curiosity from girls I didn’t recognize. I was led straight through to the live room, where Coppa was smoking a cigarette between takes.

  “Maestro, salve.” Coppa moved off his stool, glided over toward the door, offered me his hand and a glad smile. “We were beginning to worry.”

  Coppa was a man in his late twenties who was going prematurely gray. Beneath the close-cropped curls his face was unlined. It was a handsome face, like a well-tanned full-lipped David. His concerts were mobbed by teenage girls who rushed the stage and sang his lyrics back to him, reaching up to touch his legs as he danced. He sang of physical love in scarcely veiled lyrics, and liked to have a beautiful girl watching through the studio window as he recorded. He said it helped put him in the right mood.

  “I got this idea for a song,” he told me. “It burned through me like a fire. I had to record it, and I need you to do the acoustic.”

  He took me by the shoulder, said, “The guys are all over in the lounge. Have Ricki play the tracks, try it out, and come tell me what you think.”

  I nodded agreement, said, “Somebody better call Antonio before he decides to drive to Germany after me.”

  Coppa turned around, not letting me go, said to someone behind us, “See to it.” And to me, “Great you could come, Maestro. I think we’ve got us a hit here.”

  I walked down the long hallway that ran beside the control room. I waved to the sound engineer through the triple-paned windows, wondered why I didn’t feel any pleasure over being back.

  The lounge was a typical Coppa mixture of laid-back musicians and beautiful girls. A television with the sound cut off was showing a quiet car chase. The stereo that climbed the back wall was cut down low and played tracks from the Rolling Stones’ new album. Someone called a greeting. I walked over, said a hello to those I knew. I found Ricki, the group’s road manager, shook hands, endured the pats and the questions and the demands for where I had been hiding myself. He led me into the practice room, closed the door against the noise, held up the cassette with a flourish.

  “I think we got ourselves a winner here.” He slid it into the slot of a portable stereo, closed it, hit the Play switch.

  The song was without lyrics, so I could follow the musical flow without interruption. It was the base upon which the words would be laid, and needed to be listened to by itself to be dissected. I had often heard musicians say they could tell they had a hit if the music was strong enough to stand alone.

  It was a fairly typical Coppa beat, slow and languid with a hint of Latin spice. I could hear the lyrics already. He would describe a meeting, a talk, a touch, a night of love. It was good music. I nodded my approval to Ricki, pushed hard at the emptiness that was welling up inside. I picked up the battered hollow-body that was leaning against the wall, started strumming along. I sought the only way I knew how to ease this sense of distance between myself and the world, through my music.

  The door opened to admit Coppa. With him came the bass guitarist whom I knew vaguely. Two copper-colored heads peaked out from behind the two men. The prettier of the two girls smiled me a welcome.

  Ricki told them to shut the door, pulled a joint from the same pocket that had held the cassette, said, “Moroccan keef, Maestro. Righteous stuff.”

  “Knock your head off,” the bass guitarist agreed.

  The hunger hit me like a clenched fist to the gut. I wanted to smoke as much as I had wanted anything in my life. I tried to remember when I had gone so long without smoking, could not. I wanted it.

  Yet there was something that held me back. It was like a gentle tug at my heart, a yearning for something else, a reminder of the night on the Como pier. And the thought came and rested in my mind like a brilliant light.

  I don’t belong here.

  Yet the desire was stronger than the voice. I took the joint, accepted a light, took a long, long hit. Nodded the approval they were waiting for.

  The flood of emptiness swelled out from my heart to encompass my entire being, the room, the people, my music. I didn’t feel the beginnings of a new high. All I felt was a dull throbbing surge of hopelessness. What was I doing here? Something had changed. I didn’t belong.

  I handed the joint back, waved my hand against the offer of more, said I had not been feeling well. I endured their expressions of concern. I told Coppa I liked the song, asked how he wanted it played. I forced myself to concentrate. All the while my heart toned to the aching bell of emptiness. I didn’t belong.

  The takes went on forever. The clock hands crept around, signaling hour after hour of work without meaning. Coppa seemed dissatisfied with everything I did. I listened to his comments, tried to follow his lead, played like a machine.

  I was taking a break in the late afternoon, staring at a sound-baffled wall I didn’t see, when I was struck by the memory of another time. I saw myself back in the high-ceilinged room of Professor Schmitz, playing once again that tortuous rite of spring. I wiped at the memory with a sweat stained towel, when the thought came unbidden and unwanted. I have spent over a decade running from the thing I hated most, and where has it taken me? Right back to the same place. I have gone nowhere at all. Nowhere.

  When the session finally finished I changed clothes, refused their invitations, and left on my own. I walked the four blocks to my favorite restaurant in Milan, Alla Collina Pistoiese. I accepted the owner’s bow and handshake, was shown to my regular table, ordered without really thinking. Now that I was here I wished I hadn’t come. I wasn’t really hungry, didn’t want to be around people, didn’t know what I wanted. I ate food I couldn’t taste, sipped at wine that seemed bland. I paid the bill and left as soon as I could.

  I walked around the corner and entered the miniature Piazza St. Alessandro. Rising from the other side was a monolithic cathedral that dwarfed the surrounding buildings and the cars that drummed over the old cobblestones. I found my footsteps leading across the plaza and up the many broad steps to the cathedral’s main entrance. I pushed against the massive oak doors, was surprised to find them locked. I checked my watch. Evening mass should have just ended. I set my shoulder and pushed again, harder this time. The doors did not budge. I could just as well have been pushing against a stone wall.

  For a reason I could not explain, a wave of panic swept through me. I leapt against the door, hammering it with my body. It did not give. I did not know why it was suddenly so important to get inside, but I had to enter. I had to.

  The thought was like a cry in the darkness. What if faith is like this? Again I thrus
t my shoulder at the door, and tore my shirt. The thought rode on a wave of fear. What if I had waited too long? I turned and leaned against the door, my chest heaving. What if I had refused the invitation, and the invitation had been taken away from me? What would I do? Where would I go?

  I pushed myself off the door and stumbled into the night.

  ****

  I felt a mixture of relief and shame upon arriving at the studio the next morning to find Mario waiting for me. I paid off the taxi, hesitated, walked across the street to where he slouched against the wall.

  I asked in greeting, “Did they tell you to bring your knife for this trip?”

  With his shoulder he pushed himself erect, said, “I won’t say that everybody is real pleased, Maestro. But you’d be surprised how much they understand.”

  “I wish they’d explain it to me, then.” I stood and looked at him a long moment, said, “If you’d have shown up yesterday I wouldn’t have talked to you.”

  Mario nodded thoughtfully, as though it made all the sense in the world. He grasped my arm, propelled me down the street, said, “Let’s go down to the Piazza and watch the world go by.”

  It was a three-block walk to the Piazza Duomo, dominated by Milan’s central cathedral. The church had recently been cleaned for the first time in three hundred years, and now the stonework gleamed brightly in the midmorning sun. It rose up over one hundred meters. The central doors were so broad and high that a knight in full armor could ride in on horseback, as was common during the Duomo early years.

  Leading off one of the streets that fronted the piazza was the most famous covered promenade in all Italy, the site of legendary court intrigues and romantic trysts for six centuries. The arched ceiling was a full five stories above the marble-laced walkway. Its broad avenues were lined with cafes, restaurants, and stores that charged prices sufficiently high to afford the staggering rents.

  Mario waved us toward a table in the corner cafe. It granted us a view of the cathedral, the plaza, the branching promenade, and the multitudes of nationalities who walked by. He ordered a capuccino and a freshly squeezed orange juice; I asked for the same.

  “So, Maestro,” Mario said, giving me his gentle smile. “You wanna tell me why we’re talking today?”

  “You mean, why we’re talking here in Milan, or what happened yesterday so that we’re talking here now?”

  He laced his fingers behind his head, told me, “Why don’t you just start at the beginning. I can’t think of anything else that’s very pressing right now.”

  It felt wonderful to have someone to whom I could talk, who would understand and not criticize. He sat and watched me with his look of quiet wisdom as I described the dream, relived the panic of my departure from Dusseldorf. He seemed to hold his breath as I described my return and the feeling inside the studio and my even worse panic when I found the church doors closed to me. The outside clamor and swirling throngs became a floating cloud without meaning or substance. We were bound together, Mario and I, by his power to listen with a quiet mind.

  I finished with, “I can see I don’t belong here. I can’t lie to myself about that anymore. The problem is, I don’t know where to go. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere anymore.”

  Mario leaned forward, said, “You don’t know how important a discovery you’ve just made, Gianni. Listen to me, brother. Nobody belongs. It’s one of the great myths the world spins to hold us fast. Nobody belongs. Our home is elsewhere.”

  He reached into his back pocket, came up with a well-worn Bible. I told him, “You guys draw those things out like gunslingers.”

  “More like shields,” he replied, not looking up as he riffled through the pages. “You really ought to study this Book, Maestro. It’s God’s word, given to each and every one of us. Some singer, I don’t remember who, once called it a love letter showing us the way home.”

  He handed it over, pointed at a place on the page, said, “Read this.”

  It was from Jonah, chapter 2, verse 8. I read, “ ‘Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.’ ”

  “It looks to me like the Lord is making your way straight, Gianni,” he told me. “He’s showing you that the idols you used to hold have to be given up. The old ways have to be abandoned, to make room for the new.”

  He took the Bible, turned pages, handed it back, said, “Read verse fifteen.”

  It was from 1 John, chapter 2. I read, “ ‘Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’ ”

  “One more, Maestro, and I’m through,” Mario said, searching the pages once again. He handed it back, said, “Second Corinthians, chapter five, right there under my finger. Read verses seventeen and eighteen.”

  I did so. “ ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.’ ”

  “There’s your answer, Gianni,” Mario told me, taking the Bible back and slipping it into his pocket. “You can die to this world by allowing Christ into your heart, accepting Him as your personal Savior, and letting Him carry the load of your sins for you.”

  I did not have anything to say. There was such simple truth there, such an appealing force that my mind’s vague stirrings of disquiet meant nothing. Something was tugging at my heart, pushing me forward. For the first time I was beginning to really feel that the answer might lie here. Not with the people. With the message.

  “Amy said to tell you that they are all praying for you,” Mario told me. “And Jake said to tell you the same thing he told me, back when he found me up in Hamburg. It’s a couple of passages from the fourth and fifth chapters of Ephesians. I’ve looked at it enough, I don’t think I need the Book for this one.”

  Mario leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, recited from memory:

  With regard to your former way of life, put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

  Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity.

  I spent a long moment mulling over the words and bringing the world back into focus. Finally I turned to Mario, asked, “So what do I have to do?”

  “Open your heart and mind to the Lord Jesus in prayer. Ask Him to enter in, to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and to grant you His eternal salvation and forgiveness. And study the Bible. I can’t stress this enough, Gianni. Every answer you need is right there waiting for you.”

  I pushed myself to my feet, signaled the waiter, said, “Let’s go get started before I lose my nerve.”

  Mario gave me a brilliant smile, followed me up, said, “Sounds good to me, Maestro.”

  When I started off across the street toward the cathedral, Mario stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I’d rather we chose someplace a little more private. Where’s your hotel?”

  “Three, maybe four blocks away.”

  “It’s a pretty day, why don’t we walk?”

  As we strolled down sunlit streets, I asked him, “Did they ask you to come down?”

  He shook his head. “It was my idea. I told them you might need a little help saying goodbye to your old life.”

  I stumbled under the weight of his perception. “I just wish my faith was stronger.”

  He laughed at that. “Don’t we all.”

  “Tha
t’s a joke. You guys don’t ever doubt anything.”

  “Don’t think that for a minute, Maestro. We all have doubts. Especially in the bad times. It’s something, though, how once the bad times are over we can see how clearly the Lord’s guiding hand has been there to see us through.”

  We walked on in silence. I took my key from the hotel concierge, climbed the stairs, let myself into the cramped little room. My hand hesitated over the light switch. Mario stood in the entrance behind me and waited.

  I said, “Now that I’m here I don’t know what to do.”

  “Turn to Jesus,” Mario said.

  His eyes shone in the half-light streaking through the shuttered window. He said, “That’s all you have to do, Gianni. God’ll take care of the rest. Surrender your will to Him and ask Him to put you upon the Way.”

  Following his lead I lowered myself to my knees on the worn carpet. I bowed my head, closed my eyes so tight my eyelids trembled, clenched my hands together. I need help, I prayed.

  “Help me, God,” I said. “Help me see where I belong. Help me leave behind these things that have never brought me lasting happiness. Help me find something that will fill the emptiness.”

  I had to stop. The flame in my chest was overwhelming, pushing a lump into my throat and tears from my eyes. Help me, I prayed.

  “Show me the salvation of Jesus Christ,” I went on, my voice very hoarse. I felt Mario’s gentle hand come to rest upon my shoulder, and I had to stop again. I took a very deep, very shaky breath, went on. “I know now I can’t find the way myself. I need your help. Help me turn to you. Help me see what it is you want me to do.”

  With the softness of a mother’s caress I felt the peace descend upon me. My expanding heart echoed a sensation of overpowering love. An idea came to me, a final plea to be made. Help me heal.

  I said the words, and felt enfolded within an embrace of love. It was a door opening within me, a gift from somewhere beyond myself. And with its gift came understanding. Help was here. I no longer needed to carry these burdens on my own. Help was here.