Pizzicato: The Abduction of the Magic Violin

by Rusalka Reh

  Pizzicato

  Pizzicato

  The Abduction of the Magic Violin

  Rusalka Reh

  TRANSLATED BY David Henry Wilson

  Text copyright © 2009 Verlag Friedrich Oetinger GmbH

  English translation copyright © 2011 by Amazon Content Services LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Pizzicato - The Abduction of the Magic Violin by Rusalka Reh was first published in 2009 by Verlag Friedrich Oetinger as Pizzicato oder Die Entführung der Wundergeige.

  Cover art by Eva Schöffmann-Davidov.

  Translated from German by David Henry Wilson.

  First published in the U.S. in 2011 by AmazonCrossing.

  Published by AmazonCrossing

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-61109-004-8

  Every blade of grass has its angel, who bends over it and whispers to it: “Grow, grow.”

  The Talmud

  My warmest thanks to Claus Derenbach, master violin-maker, for allowing me to watch and learn in his magnificent workshop.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: Auto Frederick Is Cool

  CHAPTER TWO: Three Tiny Weeks

  CHAPTER THREE: Just You Wait, Slugboy

  CHAPTER FOUR: Lilac and Woodlice

  CHAPTER FIVE: Hands

  CHAPTER SIX: Schubert and Extra Cream

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The Old Cabinet

  CHAPTER EIGHT: No Cut

  CHAPTER NINE: Everyone’s In a Hurry

  CHAPTER TEN: Rags and a Gold Mine

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Cremona

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Cardboard and Customers

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Wonder Doctor

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Indescribably Proud

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Fasten Your Belt and Back We Go

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Lovely Old Jacket

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Queenie Wakes Up

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Ready to Fire

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Missing

  CHAPTER TWENTY: It Doesn’t Belong to Us

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: The Second Violin

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Room to Dance

  CODA

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Auto Frederick Is Cool

  “Darius Dorian!” Mrs. Helmet waves an envelope around in the air, and it looks like a fluttering dove. She quickly grabs her coat and glances at her wristwatch. “Hurry up, will you, just for a change, or my train’ll leave without me in fifteen minutes’ time! You’re last!”

  “It’s last!” hisses a freckled boy in the front row. His name is Max, and he’s class president and self-proclaimed Darius-hater. He grins.

  A boy in the back row stands up and walks toward the teacher’s desk. He walks quite slowly, as if he’s forgotten exactly why he stood up and started moving. He’s almost gotten as far as the teacher when he trips over something. He stumbles, grabs hold of the edge of the desk, and ends up standing in front of the teacher like a car after a particularly difficult parking maneuver.

  “Dear oh dear!” cries Mrs. Helmet, shaking her head. “You and an Australian wombat would really make a fine couple! You know what usually happens to those poor creatures? They get run over because they’re so slow. You do everything slower than any other child I know, including falling over!”

  Everybody giggles, Max loudest of all, since it was actually he who had furtively stuck out his leg.

  “Here,” says Mrs. Helmet and hands the envelope to Darius. “This contains the address of your project site.” She hurriedly slips on her coat. “As you all know, this is the first time our school’s tackled a project like this, and it depends entirely on your good behavior whether subsequent classes will be given the same treat. So behave yourselves! I think you’ve all got everything you need. For those whose project sites are a long way from home, there are facilities on the spot for you to stay overnight. And keep in mind, you should take notes for your essay. The title is ‘The Work People Do.’ And it should be at least eight pages long. Otherwise it just won’t be worth all the expense.”

  Mrs. Helmet throws her bag over her shoulder. “So we’ll meet again at the beginning of May—that’s three weeks from now. Bye!”

  “Byeee!” trills the chorus.

  When the bell rings, their teacher has already disappeared.

  Of course, Darius had guessed that on the way home Max would start getting at him. The two of them live in the same place, The Stork’s Nest Children’s Home. Unfortunately, they not only live in the same home, which is bad enough in itself, but they even live in the same house, although there are actually nine houses on the campus. And to top it all…they even share a room. The boy Darius hates more than anyone else in the world sleeps in the bunk bed above his and every night and every morning flaps his bare feet extra loud up and down the rungs of the ladder six inches away from Darius’s face.

  “Well? Where you goin’, slugboy?” Max asks him now. The April sun is shining onto his freckled face. He makes a grab for the envelope, which is poking out of Darius’s jacket pocket.

  Darius quickly puts his hand on it. A cold gust of wind suddenly blows through his hair, and the trees at the side of the street throw harsh shadows onto the walls of the houses.

  “Don’t know yet,” he says. It’s true. He still hasn’t opened the envelope.

  Max says cockily, “I’m with Auto Frederick! Cool, huh?” He walks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, top-heavy. “Nothin’ but Porsches an’ stuff. Only the best cars fer Max.”

  Darius nods and kicks a stone. “Good for you.”

  “Oh, come on!” yells Max, standing still. “Gooood?” He towers up in front of Darius, legs astride and forefinger pointing. “Auto Frederick is cool, slugboy. Can’t you get that into yer sluggy brain?”

  A veil of clouds now draws itself across the blue sky, and the sun disappears behind it.

  “Yeah,” whispers Darius. “What is Auto Frederick, Mr. Moron?” asks Max, digging his finger deep into Darius’s ribs. It really hurts.

  “Auto Frederick is cool,” whispers Darius, and suddenly his hands feel cold and damp.

  “Hi, you two! So tell me, did you manage to avoid killing each other on the way home?”

  A man with a long ponytail and a hooded sweatshirt is sitting in the hall of House Four, putting a pair of pink gym shoes on a little girl.

  Without answering, Max goes past him and thumps his way upstairs. At the top he yells, “Auto Frederick, everybody! The coolest of the cool!”

  Darius heaves his schoolbag off his shoulders. Ben is his favorite carer, and Darius is pleased that he’s still on duty.

  “And where are they sending you, Darry?” asks Ben, tying a double knot in the little blonde girl’s shoelace. “Done,” he says.

  Darius feels for the envelope in his jacket pocket. “Don’t know,” he says again.

  “Tighten my belt!” whines the little girl. She is seven years old, but looks no more than four: very small and thin. Since her mother put her in the home, she hasn’t grown a single centimeter. She wants to stay this small so that her mother will still know her when eventually she comes to fetch her. In fact, her mother hasn’t visited her even once in three years.

  “You can hardly breathe even now, Queenie!” says Ben.

  Queenie stamps her foot and tugs at her pink belt. She tightens it herself, by no less
than two notches. Then she looks defiantly at Ben and disappears outside.

  Darius is always surprised when Ben stands up, unfolding himself like an accordion. He’s huge! Darius would also like to be that big. Then everyone would be sure to leave him in peace, including even Max.

  “Food in half an hour,” says the giant as he makes his way toward the kitchen. “Then will you tell us where they’re sending you for this…this project?”

  “Mhm,” murmurs Darius and goes upstairs, where he can hear Max’s voice yelling from their room.

  “Wee-ooh! Moron alarm!”

  When Darius enters the room, Max is crouching on the floor poking his friend Daniel in the side. “Just look at that stupid old granddaddy jacket he always wears!”

  Daniel gurgles, as if on command. “Is baby going to have his little afternoon nap now?” he asks.

  Oh God! Two against one. Cowards. Darius drops his schoolbag beside the desk and picks up his radio. If only they’d leave him alone! Or if he could just have his own room. If, if, if. In silence he takes off the large jacket that he’d fished out of the donations bag, and which he rather likes, takes off his sneakers as well, and flops down on his bed. Recently he’s been doing that every day. Or let’s say he’s been doing it since last December. That was when he’d found the radio in the Christmas gift box, among the battered stuffed animals, jeans, remnants, T-shirts, and at least a hundred tattered comics. Mrs. Lewis, the secretary, had simply said he could have the radio. He had no idea why she’d been so nice to him that day. Anyway, now it’s his, and only his, and nobody else’s.

  Okay, so it’s pink, which admittedly doesn’t look all that impressive, but it works. It works perfectly.

  Darius pulls the comforter over himself and his radio.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Max says to Daniel. “What a pain, that guy!”

  The door slams shut.

  Darius turns on the radio. At first there are some scratchy noises until he finds his favorite program, but then the music comes loud and clear through the speaker.

  He pricks up his ears. Violin music!

  And at that moment something rises up inside him, from his feet right up to his hair. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but whatever it is, it’s something great.

  Darius folds his hands behind his head and closes his eyes. But he’s wide awake.

  “That,” purrs a woman’s voice after a while, “was chamber music for violin, viola, and cello, the String Quartet in D Minor, Köchel Number 421 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was played by the Tetzlaff Quartet and recorded at a performance—”

  “Food!”

  Darius starts. The deep voice of the giant Ben reaches into the furthest nook and cranny of House Four. From all directions you can now hear children’s footsteps and voices.

  Darius quickly switches off his radio, burrows his way out of his comforter tent, and takes the white envelope from his jacket pocket. He tears it open.

  Design and decoration—Alice Ponticello, he reads. That’s his three-week project.

  In a jeweler’s shop.

  Oh no! Unbelievably awful! And an absolute gift for his arch enemy, Max!

  “Good Lord, Jessica!” grumbles Ben. “You really don’t have to go and shovel three pounds of it onto your plate! There’s plenty for everyone!”

  There are ten children sitting at the long, brightly colored wooden table in the dining room. The pot of hot dogs is steaming, and there’s also the smell of potato salad with pieces of apple in it.

  “Enjoy your meal,” says Ben. “Enjoy your meal,” they all cry.

  Then there’s nothing but chewing, champing and chomping, and the clatter of knives and forks. Darius has his mouth full of hot dog with a forkful of potato-and-apple salad, which is his absolutely favorite meal, when the brief interlude of peace suddenly comes to an end.

  “O’ course I’ll be drivin’ a 911 Porsche at Auto Frederick.” Max looks around, as if he’s King of God-Knows-Where. Since nobody says anything, he clears his throat extra loud.

  “So cool, man,” he says as he takes another hot dog out of the pot and puts it next to the remaining half of his first one.

  After a short pause of munching and crunching, Queenie says, “But you’re only thirteen!” She’s sitting next to Darius. “You’re not even allowed to drive a car.”

  “Aaaargh!” shrieks Max and drops his knife and fork on the table with a clatter. “Nobody’ll caaaare how old I am when I’m part of Auto Frederick, you stupid midget!”

  “Max!” thunders the voice of the giant across the table.

  Darius shoves some more potato salad into his mouth and chews it in silence. So long as nobody asks him where he’s—

  “So where are they sending you, Darry?” the giant promptly asks.

  Max stops chewing and looks at Darius like a hyena waiting to pounce.

  “Yes, that’s right, where are you going?” Queenie asks as well.

  There’s no point. Some time or the other he’ll have to tell them anyway, so why not now?

  “Design and decoration, Alice Ponticello,” he answers, and it sounds as if he’s reciting some miserable advertising slogan.

  For a moment there’s silence. “Awesome!” Max slaps his thigh and starts to laugh like crazy. He laughs and laughs until there are tears in his eyes. “Desaign and decorashun,” he says with pursed lips. “Earrings an’ gold chains, hoity-toity! Perfect fer our slugboy!”

  He looks around, expecting a round of applause. A few children giggle quietly. Darius feels himself going beet red.

  “Max, that’s enough!” thunders Ben. “That’s it for today. Go back to your room, please. I’ve had just about enough of you!”

  Max stands up. But when Ben is busy eating again, he sticks his middle finger up at Darius and grins even more maliciously than before.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Three Tiny Weeks

  At that very moment, in St. Matthew’s Square at the other end of the town, an impressive-looking gentleman comes out of his house and slams the door behind him, which makes a sound like a clap of thunder. The house to which the high and heavy door gives access is more than a hundred years old, and the outside is covered with scrolls and patterns. To the left and right of the door hang two stone heads with mouths wide open. They look as if they’re screaming. Beneath the stone face on the right is a brass plate bearing the inscription:

  With his coat billowing, the impressive-looking man hurries across St. Matthew’s Square. He has a mane of curly hair on his head, over his eyes, and around his mouth. Black and silver-gray. One might not even see that there’s a face behind that great bush were it not for his sparkling blue eyes.

  He quickly crosses Buckle Street, skips onto the sidewalk, and hurries on. The wind blows his coat open, and for a moment he looks like a magician.

  “Ah, Mr. Archinola, lucky I’ve bumped into you. May I come and practice with you again this afternoon?” cries a girl with a schoolbag, and then she looks bewildered as he simply rushes past her. Her straight black hair blows behind her because the man creates such a draft as he goes by. The girl has a brown patch on her neck and on her left hand, with which she now waves to the man behind his back. Her forefinger sticks up like a little wooden twig.

  “Sorry, Mey-Mey, but I’m in a terrible hurry!” he calls to her over his shoulder. “Alice has a problem!”

  He finally stops in front of a shop window and wipes his sweating brow with a linen handkerchief. Above the door of the shop it says:

  Huffing and puffing, he goes in.

  He immediately sees his friend Alice, who is pacing up and down behind a glass counter, with the telephone to her ear and talking agitatedly. Her long dark hair with silver strands cascades down her sides as far as her waist, like a waterfall.

  “No,” she says, “no, and I can’t think of anywhere else at the moment.” She waves to Mr. Archinola, then turns her back to him and leans on the counter. “Look, surely you can find somewhere else f
or the boy instead of with me.” She falls silent. “I see. He’s one of those problem kids. From the children’s home. Aha. I didn’t realize that.”

  Mr. Archinola, still panting a little from his long-distance sprint, wanders along the glass display cases, wondering what’s the matter with his friend. Normally she’s quite unflappable. He knows, because he comes here every day, to look at her latest bits of jewelry. And also, secretly, to look at her. The fact is, Mr. Archinola is in love with Alice. He’s been in love with her for seven years. Only he hasn’t dared tell her.

  While he patiently waits for her, his gaze falls on the corner with the plush red sofa. He catches his breath. How strange! There’s a violin leaning against the wall. From a distance it looks like a really old one, thinks Mr. Archinola. What’s it doing here in Alice’s jewelry shop? Once again he stares at the violin, as if expecting it to politely introduce itself. It looks a funny color, bluish. Or maybe it isn’t actually the violin at all, but a blue light falling on it from some lamp or the other. He’s just about to go and take a closer look when Alice hangs up.