The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  * * *

  That week we had four concerts scheduled. Kaiserslautern and Wiesbaden were followed by an outdoor concert in Basel, Switzerland, and another show at Karlsruhe. Jake’s silent half-presence weighed heavily on all of us, adding to the strain of travel and strange beds and sound checks and hurried meals and long nights.

  Throughout this difficult period, Pipo continued to fill the void with cheer. As the travel and the back-to-back concerts and Jake’s brooding silence took their toll on everyone else, his confidence remained unshakable. You tell me one person in this whole world who doesn’t go through a rough patch every once in a while, he told us time and again; Jake’ll pull himself out of it, wait and see. Pipo did all he could to lift us from the gloom. His antics were perpetual, his grin seldom slipping. We leaned on him, and responded with grateful smiles to the worst of his jokes. And prayed for Jake’s recovery. His sorrow left the whole band crippled. All, that is, save Pipo.

  The travel allowed me to do some internal inspection, hard as it was at times to face up to what I found. Part of me ached for Jake, yet another side was angry with him. Furious. At times I could not look at him without wanting to shout in his face. He was being weak when we all needed him. He had led me to this thing called faith with such utter strength and sureness, only to let me down. I did not realize how much I had come to rely on his leadership until it was no longer there.

  I had no place to turn except to the Bible, no one to speak to except God. In the midst of those hectic days I found the link between myself and Christ growing stronger, and turning to prayer progressively easier. I recalled Amy once saying that all things worked together for the good of those who love the Lord and sought to do His will. I searched out the passage in the Bible, copied it out on a card, and taped it to the inside of my guitar case. I found myself drawing considerable strength and comfort from those words.

  We had a two-day hiatus between Basel and Karlsruhe, long enough for us to return home for the first time that week. I asked Amy to give me another song from Jake’s file. She didn’t want to; that was something for him to decide, she said.

  “Just give me the one on top,” I replied. “I don’t want to trouble him about it, but I need something to work on. I need to find something to do, something constructive. I have to keep trying.”

  Amy looked at me a long time. “That is exactly what I told Jake last night.”

  The title of the song she brought me was “For Those Who Give In Your Name.” I scanned the lyrics and felt a strong power in the words. Jake had written the song to all those who had helped him find his way, the beacons who had lit his early steps. I liked it very much, and could identify with it more than any other song he had given me. The characters were different, but the story was the same in my own life. I was eager to start on the melody.

  I held back until Jake and Amy were in bed, not wanting to risk any interruption. Once the apartment was quiet I opened the Bible, knowing that here was the foundation upon which I would work. I left the Book open at the passage from 1 John that read, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

  I moved the Bible to the center of the table and pushed aside all conflicting thoughts about Jake’s problems and my own pains and doubts. Many voices clamored to be heard that night, many who had shown me the love and the light and the Way. This would be their song. My grandmother and my grandfather and my mother—each had comforted and succored me. I would write their melodies, and write it for the Father who granted me this healing and rebirth.

  My mother’s melody was the easiest. Hers was the high, lilting melody of the flute, the wordless lullaby sung to a sleepy child. It was a simple tune, a trill of notes played on the verge of night, meant to drift with the dreamer into love-filled slumber.

  My grandfather was the song’s foundation, the underlying chords and bass and gentle percussion, the hint of a force so sure of its power that it did not need to be loud. The power was not in his strength but in gentleness. It was such an underlying murmur that if one did not know to listen for it, it would go unnoticed. Yes. That was my grandfather’s way. He needed nothing from others, least of all recognition in their eyes. His acclaim came from a greater source.

  I spent hours on my grandmother’s song—the faith that defied all odds, the glory sung even unto death. Her melody was thanks for the love and the light and the direction, an answer to her most fervent prayer.

  When the three melodies were completed, I went to the bathroom to wash my face. I entered the living room and stopped, standing outside the dining table’s circle of light, looking down on the scattered pages and the Bible in their midst. The song would be too jerky, too unstable, with three different melodies. Hadn’t they really shared the same melody, all shown me the same love? Yes. That was it. Each had given me the same, but each in a different way. Yes. So what I needed was to meld the three together, to allow each to complement the other. I sat down and went back to work.

  There had to be a counter-balancing melody, a song that lay hauntingly in the background until each stanza ended, some response from my side that welled up between the verses to link them together. Yes. My own emotion would link the melodies. The sax would play for me, lilting through the higher limits to mirror the flute’s shadow-song.

  As soon as the melodies were completed, I began the joining, a thanks to the Father who granted me the freedom to know this joy. It was a shout of liberation from the chains of memories and of pain. It was a chorus of healing, a joining of all voices into one.

  Jake lumbered heavily into the kitchen as I was finishing the main score. Bleary-eyed, he peered over my shoulder. “Been up all night again?”

  I did not reply. I watched him walk over and pour himself a cup of coffee, feeling sympathy for him, caring for him without the anger and the frustration and the worry of previous days. I had felt the Spirit move through me that night, using me and filling me with a power to create far beyond anything I could have done on my own. In the midst of all the turmoil and unsolved problems and unanswered doubts, I had known a complete and uninterrupted peace. It was still with me now, as I sat and watched Jake stare blindly out the kitchen window.

  Jake looked at me, sipped his coffee. “Amy said you had a message I needed to hear. Seein’ you sit there and work all night is a lot clearer than anything you could say to me in words.”

  I did not answer him. I was too busy reveling in this sense of knowing the invisible, partaking of something that comforted me in the face of so much that I did not understand.

  Jake nodded, as though I had given him the answer he expected. “Better get on to bed, Gianni. We leave for Karlsruhe in less than six hours.”

  ****

  We gathered for a hurried dinner before the Karlsruhe concert. As soon as the orders were given and the menus collected, Pipo started in. We leaned forward, thankful for anything to ease the silent burden that Jake pressed upon us.

  Pipo went on, “There was this grandmother, see, older than Father Time, all skin and bones and just shriveled up to nothing. Then she got real sick, and the word went out to all the family, her time’s coming. Everybody dropped everything and came running. All the children and grandchildren and cousins, man, that house was a zoo.

  “So there they are, all crowded around the bed and everything, and her son’s down on his knees with his face right up close to hers. And he goes, ‘Momma, Momma, is there anything we can do for you?’

  “You know how old ladies are when they don’t have their teeth in. She kinda chews on her cheeks for a second, and wheezes out, ‘I’d like a glass of milk.’

  “So her son jumps up like a bolt of lightning’s struck his head and turns to whoever’s right behind him and says, ‘You heard the lady. Go get her some milk and right smart. And don’t get it outta the refrigerator. Go take the bucket and milk old Bessie. This might be the last glass of milk Granny drinks, and it’s gotta be fresh.’

  “It turns ou
t, though, the guy standing right behind him is his nephew Fred. Fred’s got his own way of doing things, see. Not bad, just different. So Fred goes out back and milks Bessie, then comes back in and when he’s getting out the glass he spots a bottle of vodka there on the shelf. Fred decides maybe a little joy-juice won’t hurt old Granny, so he opens up the bottle and pours a little in. Then he decides in for a penny in for a pound, so he dumps in a whole lot more. Then he puts on his most innocent expression and takes the glass in to Granny.

  “So Granny picks up the glass with this hand that looks like it’s made outta twigs and takes this real tiny sip. She lies there a minute real quiet, then she reaches over and takes another sip, a bigger one this time. Then she picks up the glass a third time and drains it. When she puts her head back down after that she’s got the first smile on her face anybody can remember seeing in months.

  “So her son leans back over the bed, asks, ‘Granny, is there anything else we can do for you?’

  “Granny just lies there with her eyes closed and that smile on her old face, and says, ‘Don’t sell that cow.’ ”

  Jake spoke up for the first time in what seemed like weeks. “That joke’s as old as I am.”

  While the rest of us sorted through our astonishment Pipo shrugged easily, said, “You got a better one?”

  Jake stared at him a long moment, said quietly, “Not right now.”

  “This mean you’re back in the land of the living?”

  “Maybe.” Jake nodded his thanks to the waiter as his plate was set down, turned his attention to his food.

  Pipo watched him, a little smile flickering over his features, then said to the group, “There’s this guy, claims he’s got a talking dog. So his buddy bets him ten dollars he can’t get the dog to talk, okay? The guy turns to his dog, says, what’s on top of that building? The dog goes, roof! The guy asks, and how’re the roads? The dog goes, rough! The guy asks, who hit the most home runs? The dog goes, Ruth! His buddy gets disgusted and refuses to pay up. So the dog looks up at his owner, says, what’s the matter, was it Mickey Mantle?”

  Amy reached across me to wrap an arm around his neck. “You know what? You’re the most special nut I know.”

  “Haven’t you heard? You gotta be a little crazy to be a musician. It’s written up in the articles of confederation. No sane people allowed. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

  Without lifting his eyes from his plate he responded, “If it ain’t, it oughtta be.”

  The rest of us shared a look around the table and turned to our food with lightened hearts.

  The concert in Karlsruhe went well. For the first time since his return from America, Jake greeted the crowd with a forefinger directed skyward and a strong, Praise the Lord! We watched him speak with Amy from time to time, nod a response to her touch on his arm, signal to Sameh the beginning of each song.

  We were packing up after the concert, listening to our voices echo back from an empty hall, when a trio appeared at the stage door. The older man was dressed in a blue sports coat that failed to hide the slight bulge spilling over his belt. He had short-cropped white hair and a thin smile that looked pasted on. He was flanked by a pair of young men wearing jeans and sweatshirts and very embarrassed expressions.

  Pipo tripped down the stairs carrying one of the congas and whistling a cheery tune. The man stepped forward, asked in English, “Sir, are you with the band?”

  “That’s right.” Pipo set the conga down. “Can I do something for you?”

  “Well, I wanted to speak to your band leader, if you could point him out to me.”

  Pipo caught himself before his head was halfway around. I avoided looking back to where Jake was seated on Sameh’s drum stool, slowly taping a tear in his guitar case.

  “I guess I’ll do as good as anybody,” Pipo said, pitching his voice loud enough so that Jake could hear and take over if he wanted to. “What you need, man?”

  “I’m an elder in the Trinity Baptist Church, which serves all the bases around Nurnberg. These two young men and a number of their friends have been after us for some time to have an evening worship based around music like yours. I drove up for this concert so that I could see for myself.”

  One of the young men said, “I just became a Christian a couple of years ago. Christian rock’s really meant a lot to me.”

  “Me too,” his friend added. “Your concert was great, by the way.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” the older man interjected. “I’ve tried to keep an open mind about all this, but I’m not convinced this is a good thing. No sir, I have to say that I’m not convinced at all.”

  Pipo’s smile didn’t slip an inch. “You know how it is, man. Everybody’s got their own taste in music.”

  “My taste has nothing to do with it.” The man’s eyes were sky blue and very clear. He looked immensely concerned about what he was saying, and politely determined. “I came to this concert hoping for I don’t know what, but whatever it was, I didn’t find it. I couldn’t tell the difference between your music and MTV.”

  “The difference is in the message,” Pipo said, the smile no longer in his eyes.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what my friends here told me. But I couldn’t make head nor tail of many of the songs, and the others—” He shook his head. “What I heard you do to some of the old hymns and psalms really put my teeth on edge.”

  The whole band was listening now. Amy glided over, placed a reassuring hand on Pipo’s shoulder. “Why was that, sir?”

  The man began jingling coins in his pocket. He looked increasingly worried and very much out of place. “I kept asking myself, ‘Why should we use the devil’s music to get the truth across?’ I felt tainted. Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly how I felt as I sat and watched you prance around. Tainted.”

  “Larry Norman did a song about that a while back,” Pipo said, his voice flat. “He called it ‘Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?’ Little rock-and-roll piece. Maybe you ought to hear what he has to say.”

  “What about all the others?” Amy gestured toward the empty hall. “We had over five hundred people out there tonight. Shouldn’t they be able to praise Him as they choose?”

  “Praise who, ma’am?” The man’s gaze was direct and penetrating. “I just wonder if we’re on the same side of the street.”

  Amy remained unruffled. “I tried to make that message as clear as I knew how, both in the lyrics and in what I said between the songs.”

  The man turned and gazed out over the empty hall. “I sat there tonight and watched those kids dance up and down the aisles, and I listened to all the applause, and I kept asking myself how on earth people like you could become successful and still have a true Christian testimony.”

  “Because we don’t do it for ourselves,” Pipo replied.

  “Fame carries a great risk,” Amy agreed. “But there are hundreds of evangelists—Billy Graham is a perfect example—who have taken the message of Christ all over the world, and still held on to their humility and their faith.”

  “Well, I’ll certainly think on what you said,” he told them. “But I’ve got to tell you that I’m not convinced. Not for one instant am I the least little bit convinced this is true service.”

  He nodded to them and briskly walked from the hall. The two young men turned and followed, their faces bearing expressions of defeat. Pipo watched their departure, said to no one in particular, “You know how it is, man. The old wooden flute just packed up a while back, and I never could get the hang of playing a lyre.”

  “Our Lord didn’t work with a choir when He walked this earth,” Amy said. “And I don’t recall ever seeing anything in the Scriptures about contemporary music being an instrument of darkness. Music is music. It can all be used for praise; the key is reaching a person’s heart. Just because he didn’t care for our music doesn’t mean it’s wrong for the next person.”

  “You never can tell,” Pipo said. “Maybe the guy thinks he’s got some direct line to
the hereafter, some special call on everybody else’s taste in music.”

  “No, he was too sincere for that. He just hasn’t seen that other people’s spiritual needs aren’t met in the exact same form as his own.” She shook her head. “I feel so sorry for those kids. How many people do we exclude from salvation with attitudes like this? Isn’t it our responsibility to convey the message in a way that fits the need?”

  “You said it, sister,” Jake said, rising from his stool.

  Amy turned to where he stood on the stage. Her look softened. “You all right, honey?”

  “I’m tired,” he said. “Deep-down tired. Gotta find some way of setting this burden down. Think maybe we can take time for a prayer?”

  She nodded, gave him her quiet smile, and said, “I’ll get the others.”

  “I tell you what it’s like,” Jake said, when we were gathered and settled in a circle. “It’s like my best just ain’t good enough. It’s more than a disappointment. It’s like everything inside me has been denied. And what hurts most of all is how I let everybody down.”

  “You haven’t let anybody down, Jake,” Amy said, reaching for his hand. “You did all you could.”

  Around us spread the remnants of what had not yet been packed away. Pipo sat on the wooden box that held his percussion instruments and wrapped new tape around bruised fingers. Hans and Karl leaned against the last PA box. Sameh rested on a seat of cymbal cases. Lothar was long gone. Mario settled himself down next to me, stretched his legs out over the coiled cables with a tired sigh.

  “You give it everything you got,” Jake went on, refusing to acknowledge her words. “Not just what you wanted to give, but everything. The deepest part of who I am went into makin’ that contract real. And it still wasn’t enough. Man, that is failure.”

  I waited for somebody to object, to try to push the talk on to something that was not so painful. No one spoke. I looked around the circle, as surprised by their silence as I was pained by Jake’s words. They were taking it in, allowing him to unburden himself. There were no complaints, no objections, no false attempts to lessen the importance of what he was saying. They listened, and they shared with him the load and the pain.