Corelli's Mandolin

by Louis de Bernières

  ‘He wasn’t just another hero, was he? He was more complicated. Poor Carlo.’

  ‘He wanted to do something to compensate. Poor man, I feel so sorry. I feel guilty. The boys used to make him go to the brothel. What torture. It’s terrible.’ He paused for reflection, and a thought struck him. ‘I traced Günter Weber. It wasn’t difficult – he used to talk about his village all the time – he actually thought I was tracing him for revenge, for the War Crimes Commission or something. He was pleading with me. Down on his knees. It was so pathetic that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And guess what? He’d followed his father into the Church. There he was, all dressed up as a pastor, grovelling and whining. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to thank him and hit him at the same time. I just walked out and never went back. He’s probably in the madhouse by now. Or perhaps he’s a bishop.’

  Pelagia sighed, ‘I still have trouble being pleasant to Germans. I keep wanting to blame them for what their grandfathers did. They’re so polite, and the girls are so pretty. Such good mothers. I feel guilty for wanting to kick them.’

  ‘The poor bastards will be doing penance for ever. That’s why they’re so courteous. Every single one of them has a complex. But I hear that the Nazis are coming back.’

  ‘Everyone’s doing penance. We’ve got the civil war, you’ve got Mussolini and the Mafia and all these corruption scandals, the British come in and apologise for the Empire and Cyprus, the Americans for Vietnam and Hiroshima. Everyone’s apologising.’

  ‘And I apologise.’

  She ignored him. She intended to hold out – a little – as long as possible, to get her money’s worth. She changed the subject artfully, ‘Iannis wants you to teach him to read music properly, and he says why don’t you come back next summer and play with him and Spiro. Spiro’s gone home to Corfu, but he’s very good.’

  ‘Spiro Trikoupis?’

  ‘Yes. How did you know? You’ve been spying that much?’

  ‘He’s the best mandolinist in Greece. I met him years ago. He only plays popular bozouki for tourists. In the winter he comes to Athens sometimes. I went to one of his classes in classical bozouki, because, after all, it’s only a big mandolin, and I thought, why not? And we got talking, and he knows some of my pieces. In fact he plays them better than I do. It’s old age. It slows the fingers. I have played with him many times. Iannis is going to be good, too, I can tell.’

  ‘He wants to join the Patras Mandolinates Band.’

  ‘Nice happy stuff. Why not? It’s a good place to start. We used to have lots of bands like that in Italy, except that we had all the instruments in the shape of mandolins. Can you imagine it? Mandolin basses and cellos? It was funny to see.’

  ‘Are you very famous then?’

  ‘Only in the sense that other musicians have heard of me. I get lots of silly reviews comparing me to the other Corelli. I play up to it. I’m quite cynical. I tried to write all sorts of modern stuff. You know, chromatic scales and microtones, and all sorts of crashes and bangs and squeaks and noises from lawnmowers, but it’s only the experts and critics who don’t realise what dreadful rubbish it is. My idea of hell; Schoenberg and Stockhausen.’ He pulled a grimace. ‘To tell the truth I don’t even like Bartok, but don’t tell anyone, and I even disapprove of Brahms jumping from one key to another without crossing by respectable stages. I realised that I was completely old-fashioned, so I had to find another way to be innovative. Do you know what I did? I took old folk tunes, like some Greek ones, and I set them for unusual instruments. My second concerto has Irish pipes and a banjo in it, and guess what? The critics loved it. Actually it’s in exactly the same form, with the same kind of development, as you’d find in Mozart or Haydn or whatever. It sounds good too. I’m just a trickster waiting to be found out. I specialise in finding new ways to be an anachronism. What do you think of that?’

  Pelagia regarded him a little wearily, ‘Antonio, you haven’t changed. You just babble away, assuming that I know what you’re talking about. Your eyes light up, and you’re off. You might as well be talking Turkish for all the sense I can make of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s enthusiasm that keeps me alive. I forget. I even wrote lots of fake Greek music, for films. When they couldn’t get Markopoulos or Theodorakis or Eleni Karaindrou, they asked me instead. Fraud is such a great pleasure, don’t you think? Anyway, I’ve retired now … In fact, I was thinking … I don’t know what you’ll think of this, but …’

  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, ‘Yes? What? You want to defraud me? Again?’

  He held her gaze, ‘No. I want to rebuild the old house. I’ve retired, and I want to live in a nice place. A place with memories.’

  ‘Without water and electricity?’

  ‘A pump from the old well, a little filtration plant. I’m sure I can get a power line if I slip a few coins to someone appropriate. Would you sell me the site?’

  ‘You’re completely mad. I don’t even know if we own it. There aren’t any deeds. You’ll probably have to bribe everyone.’

  ‘Then you don’t mind? Isn’t your son-in-law a builder? You know, keep it in the family.’

  ‘You know that if you put a proper roof on you have to pay tax?’

  ‘Merda, is that why all the houses have rusty reinforcing rods sticking out of the top? To look unfinished?’

  ‘Yes. And what makes you think that I’d want an old goat like you living in my old house?’

  ‘I’d pay you to come and clean it,’ he said mischievously.

  She took the bait by taking him at his word, ‘What? Do I need money? With this taverna? And the richest son-in-law anyone ever had? Do you think I’m as mad as you are? Go home to Athens. Anyway, Lemoni would do it.’

  ‘Little Lemoni? She’s still here?’

  ‘She’s as big as a ship and she’s a grandmother. She remembers you, though. Barba C’relli. She never forgot the explosion of the mine, either. She still talks about it.’

  ‘Barba C’relli,’ he repeated nostalgically. Time was a complete bastard, no doubt of that. Weak old arms cannot throw grandmother ships up and down in the air. ‘I still have tinnitus from that explosion,’ he said, and then fell silent for a moment. ‘So do I have your permission to rebuild the house?’

  ‘No,’ she said, still holding out.

  ‘Oh.’ He looked at her doubtfully. He would return to the topic at a later date, he decided. ‘I’m going to come and see you tomorrow evening,’ he said, ‘with a present.’

  ‘I don’t want any presents. I’m too old for presents. Go to hell with your presents.’

  ‘Not exactly a present. A debt.’

  ‘You owe me a life.’

  ‘Ah. I’ll bring you a life then.’

  ‘Stupid old man.’

  He fumbled in his pockets and produced a personal stereo. More fumbling produced a cassette in a very distinguished kind of packaging, which he opened out. He placed the cassette in the stereo and offered her the headphones. She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, waving it in his face as though fending off a mosquito, ‘Go away, I wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those. I’m an old woman, not some silly girl. Do you think I’m a teenager, to be nodding around with one of those on my head?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing. They’re wonderful. I’m going now. Get Iannis to show you how it works, and listen. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.’

  After he had gone Pelagia picked up the cassette’s container, and extracted the information sheet. It was in Italian, English, French, and German. She was impressed. The picture on the front showed Antonio Corelli, a decade younger, in tails and bow-tie, perhaps at the age of sixty, grinning smugly, with a mandolin clutched at an unrealistic angle in his right hand. She fetched herself a glass of wine for the purposes of general fortification, and began to read the notes. They were by someone called Richard Usborne, an Englishman who, according to yet another note, was a famous critic and expert on Rossini. She began to read: ‘This
, the long-awaited reissue of Antonio Corelli’s first concerto for mandolin and small orchestra, was first published in 1954, and premièred in Milan, with the composer playing the soloist’s part. It was inspired by, and dedicated to, a woman named in the score only as “Pelagia”. The main theme, scored in 2/2 time, is stated very clearly and emphatically on the solo instrument after a brief flourish on woodwind. It is a simple and martial melody that was described by one of its earliest reviewers as “artfully naïve”. In the first movement it is developed in sonata form and …’

  Pelagia skimmed through the rest. It was all nonsense about fugal elaboration and such stuff. She scrutinised the small row of buttons embellished with arrows going in different directions, gingerly plugged the phones into her ears, and pressed the little button that said ‘play’. There was a hissing noise, and then, to her astonishment, music began to play right in the centre of her head instead of in her ears.

  As the music flooded her mind, a maelstrom of memories was awakened. She heard ‘Pelagia’s March’, not once, but many times. Snatches appeared out of the blue in curiously distorted and whimsical forms on different instruments. It became so complicated that it was hardly discernible inside such a torrent of notes in different rhythms. At one point it came out as a waltz (‘How did he do that?’ she thought), and just towards the end there was a thunderous rolling of kettledrums that made her pluck off the phones in panic, believing that there had been another earthquake. Hastily she replaced them, and realised that indeed it was the earthquake, a musical portrait, and it was followed by a long lament on a plaintive instrument that was, although she did not know it, a cor anglais. It was interrupted by single blows on the kettledrum that must be aftershocks. Each one came so suddenly and unpredictably that she jumped in her seat, her heart leaping to her mouth. And then the mandolin broke in and marched confidently through a recapitulation of the theme, eventually becoming quieter and quieter. So quiet that it faded out to nothing. She shook the machine, wondering whether the batteries had run out. This kind of music was supposed to end with barrages of crashing chords, surely? She pressed one of the winding buttons, and the machine clicked. It was the wrong one, so she pressed the other and waited for it to get back to the beginning. This time she heard more than she had before, even some rattles that were just like the machine-pistols on the days of the massacres. There was a slightly frivolous part that might have been crawling about, looking for snails. But there was still the same unsatisfying conclusion that just faded away to silence. She sat, puzzling over it, even a little angry, until she became aware that her adolescent grandson was standing before her, his mouth open in surprise. ‘Grandma,’ he said, ‘you’ve got a Walkman.’

  She eyed him ironically, ‘It’s Antonio’s. He lent it to me. And if you think that I look stupid wearing one, what makes you think that you don’t? Nodding about with your mouth open, singing out of tune. If it’s all right for you, it’s all right for me.’

  He did not dare to say, ‘It looks silly on an old woman,’ and so he smiled instead and shrugged his shoulders. His grandmother knew exactly what he was thinking, and slapped him softly across the cheek, a blow that was almost a caress. ‘Guess what?’ she said. ‘Antonio’s going to rebuild the old house. And, by the way, Lemoni told me that your mother told her that you told your mother that I’ve got a new boyfriend. Well, I haven’t. And in future, mind your own business.’

  Corelli had the greatest difficulty in proceeding along the quay to the Taverna Drosoula the next night. He was hardly as strong as he used to be, and besides, he had no experience with this kind of thing. It really was no use tugging and pulling, and barking out commands in the best artillery manner did not seem to work either. He had had an exhausting day.

  When finally he lurched and strained into the taverna and collapsed in a seat, Pelagia detached herself from the Walkman, switched it expertly to rewind, and demanded, ‘And what are you doing here with that?’

  ‘It’s a goat. As you see, I’ve brought you a life.’

  ‘I can see it’s a goat. Do you think I don’t know a goat when I see one? What’s it doing here?’

  He glared at her a little balefully, ‘You said I don’t keep my promises. I promised you a goat, remember? So here’s a goat. And I’m sorry the old one was stolen. As you see, this one looks exactly the same.’

  Pelagia resisted; she had almost forgotten how enjoyable it was. ‘Who says I needed a goat? At my age? In a taverna?’

  ‘I don’t care if you don’t want it. I promised it, and here it is. One goat the same as the other. Sell it if you want. But if you saw how difficult it was to get it in the taxi, you wouldn’t be so hard.’

  ‘In a taxi? Where did you get it?’

  ‘On Mt Aenos. I asked a driver, “Where can I get a good old-fashioned goat?” and he said, “Get in,” and we drove up past the Nato base on the mountain. It took hours. And there was this old man called Alekos, and he sold me this goat. I was swindled, I can tell you, and then I had to pay the driver two fares to bring it back. And how it stank. That’s how I’ve suffered, and now you just shout at me and squawk like an old crow.’

  ‘An old crow? Silly old man.’ She bent down and clamped the goat’s nose firmly in one hand. With the other she lifted its lips and peered at the yellow teeth. Then she burrowed through the hair of its haunches with her fingers, and straightened up. ‘It’s a very good goat. It’s got ticks, but otherwise it’s good. Thank you.’

  ‘What are we going to call it?’ asked Iannis.

  ‘We’ll call it Apodosis,’ said Pelagia, already warming to the idea of having a goat again, ‘and we can tie it to a tree and feed it on the leftovers.’

  ‘Apodosis,’ repeated Corelli, nodding his head. ‘A very appropriate name. “Restitution”. Couldn’t be better. Do you think you’ll get much milk from it? You could make yoghurt.’

  Pelagia smiled, her face shining with condescension, ‘You milk it if you like, Corelli. Personally I only try to milk the females.’ She pointed down towards the capacious pink scrotum with its twin tapered oblongs within. ‘Udders are they?’

  ‘O coglione,’ he said appropriately, burying his face in his hands. Iannis admired people who could swear, especially in foreign tongues, but it seemed strange in an old man. Old people were always trying to reprove you for it. This Corelli was obviously as strange as his grandmother was becoming, skipping about with a personal stereo lodged in her thin grey locks, and smiling coyly when unaware of being observed. This very morning he had caught her before the mirror, posing with different sets of earrings from Antonia’s Emporium, and tossing her head into attitudes that could only be described as coquettish.

  ‘Tomorrow, another surprise,’ said Corelli, and he raised his battered hat and left.

  ‘O dear,’ said Pelagia, her heart full of premonitory misgivings. It occurred to her that she ought to show him her updated ‘Personal History of Cephallonia’; he would probably be interested to know that the real reason for the massacres was that Eisenhower had perversely overruled all of Churchill’s plans to liberate the islands, and sent the Italian Air Force uselessly to Tunisia instead of Cephallonia. She supposed that he knew that the orders for the atrocities came directly from Hitler himself, but perhaps he did not.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ enquired Iannis pertinaciously, having had this same proposition denied repeatedly at every asking.

  ‘Go and do the washing-up, or you don’t get paid,’ riposted his grandmother, and she went to fetch a comb so that she could groom the goat, as in the old days. She wondered where she might find a pine marten’s kitten these days.

  But, she thought, the captain had really surpassed himself when he turned up outside the door with a squeak of brakes, a roaring and revving of pistons, and a cloud of aromatic blue smoke. Pelagia stood with her hands on her hips and shook her head slowly as he clambered carefully off the motorcycle. It was bright red, very high, had thick and knobbly tyres, and looked as though it h
ad been designed for racing. The captain turned the key and shut off the clamour. He kicked out the stand, and propped it. ‘Do you know where we’re going? We’re going to see if Casa Nostra is still there. Just like in the old days …’ he tapped the handlebars ‘… on a motorbike.’

  Pelagia shook her head, ‘Do you really think it survived the earthquake? And do you really think I’m going on a thing like that? At my age? Just go away and leave me in peace. Don’t give me any more of your harebrained schemes.’

  ‘I hired it specially. It’s not as nice as the old one and it makes a horrible noise, like a can of nails, but it goes very well.’

  She looked into the old man’s face, and fought to suppress a smile. He was wearing a ridiculous blue crash-helmet with a little peak, and a pair of reflective sunglasses that were so new that he had forgotten to remove the label, which dangled down upon one cheek like a small autumnal leaf caught on a filament of cobweb. She saw her own reproving face reflected stereoscopically in the lenses of the sunglasses, and watched herself as she held up her hands, palms outspread, ‘Not a chance. I’m too old, and you couldn’t even drive straight when you were young. Don’t you remember all the crashes? You were mad then, and now you’re even madder.’

  He defended himself, ‘On the old machine we wobbled about because I had to keep fiddling with the advance-retard lever. On this it’s all automatic.’ He raised his hands and let them drop, as though to signify ‘No problem’, and then beckoned to her.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘My knees are stiff and I can’t even raise my legs high enough.’ She noticed suddenly that over his shirt he was wearing a bright garment that made him look exactly like the hippies who had appeared on the island in the late sixties. She squinted a little for better focus, and realised that he was wearing the red velvet waistcoat embroidered with flowers, eagles, and fish that she had given him fifty years before. She pretended not to have seen it, and made no comment, but it astounded her that he should have kept it so carefully all this time. She was touched.