72 An Unexpected Lesson

72 An Unexpected Lesson

In October 1993 Iannis was impatiently fourteen, and he had just had a whole summer in which to play duets in public with Spiridon and be bombarded with red roses. In order not to annoy his grandmother by his continuous practising - in fact not to make her cry again - he had gone up to the ruins of the old hoax to play in private, and was concentrating very hard upon creating a decent tremolo by rotating his wrist rather than jerking it up and down, which was exhausting and very soon went out of control. He was biting his lip with the effort, and did

not notice the old man who approached him and watched him with a critical but delighted interest. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice said, in a very curious accent, `Excuse me, young man,'

`Too young for a heart attack,' said the man. 'The thing is, I couldn't help noticing that you are doing something wrong.'

`I've had trouble with this tremolo. It keeps breaking up.'

It was good to talk to an old man on equal terms; the old were so often remote or incomprehensible, but this one was bright-eyed and had about him an atmosphere of energy and merriment. It seemed flattering to have his attention, and Iannis puffed out his chest a little to feel more like a man. His voice was breaking, sometimes producing disconcerting yodels and squeaks, and so he lowered his voice as far as possible and spoke in that self-consciously adult way that makes an adult smile.

`No, no, no, that'll come very well. It's your left hand. You are trying to use your first and second finger for everything, and that won't do.'

He leaned down and started to pull the boy's forgers into place, saying, `Look, the first finger stops the strings across the first fret, the second forger stops those on the second, the third does the third, and the fourth does the fourth. It's a strain at first because the little forger is not very strong, but it stops you having to twist your hand about, which damps the treble strings by accident.'

`I noticed that. It's very annoying.'

`Just keep that same relationship between the fingers and the frets, wherever you are on the diapason, and it'll make everything much easier.'

He stood upright and added, `You can always tell a really good musician,

because a good musician doesn't seem to be moving his hands at all, and the music looks as though it's coming out by magic. If you do as I say, you'll hardly have to move your hand. Just your fingers. And that helps stop the instrument from slipping about. It's always a problem with a round backed mandolin, that, and I've often thought of getting a Portuguese one with a flat back. But I've never got round to it.'

`You seem to know a lot about it.'

`Well, I ought to. I've been a professional mandolinist for nearly all my life. I can tell that you're going to be good.'

`Play me something?' asked the boy, offering him the mandolin and the plectrum.

The old man dug in the pocket of his coat and produced his own pick, saying, `I always use my own. No offence.'

He took the mandolin, settled it into his body beneath the diaphragm, stroked a chord experimentally, and began to play the Siziliano from Hummel's Grand Sonata in G. Iannis was gawping with amazement when suddenly the old man stopped, swivelled the mandolin upwards, scrutinised it with an expression of extreme disbelief, and exclaimed, `Madonna Maria, it's Antonia.'

`How did you know that?' asked Iannis, at once surprised and suspicious, `I mean, you can't know it's Antonia, can you? Have you seen it before?'

`Where did you find it? Who gave it to you? How do you know it's called Antonia?'

`I dug it out of that hole,' said Iannis, pointing to the open cachette in the middle of the ruin. `Grandma told me it was there, and that's what she called it, so I called it the same. In fact Grandma named my mother Antonia too, because she sounded like a mandolin when she was a baby.'

`That's me. I'm called Iannis, after him.'

The old man sat next to the boy on the wall, still holding the mandolin, and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. He seemed to be very anxious. Iannis noticed a scar across the cheek that was only just hidden by the wisps of white beard. Suddenly the old man said, 'When you found the mandolin, did it have four strings missing?'

`Yes.'

`Do you know where they are?'

`No.'

The old man's eyes twinkled, and he tapped his chest. They're in here. Dr Iannis mended my ribs with them, and I've never had them taken out. I was full of bullets, too, and the doctor got them out. What do you think of that?'

The boy was deeply impressed. His eyes widened. Not willing to be outdone, he declared, `We've got a real skeleton over there.'

`O, I know. That's one of the reasons I came. That's Carlo Guercio. He was the biggest man in the world. And he saved my life. He pulled me behind him at a firing squad.'

The boy was so impressed by now as to be completely dumbfounded; a man with mandolin strings in his ribs who had been in a firing squad and really known the owner of the skeleton? It was better than knowing Spiro.

Tell me, young man, is your grandmother alive? Is she happy?'

`She cries sometimes, ever since we dug Antonia and all the other things out of the hole. And she's got stiff knees, and her hands tremble.'

The boy seemed bewildered. He screwed up his face and said, `What grandfather?'

`Not your father's father. I mean Kyria Pelagia's husband.'

The old man mopped his forehead again, and seemed more agitated.

The boy shrugged, `There isn't one. I didn't even know she had one. I've got a great-grandfather.'

`Yes, I know, it was Dr Iannis. Are you saying that Kyria Pelagia hasn't got a husband? You haven't got a grandfather?'

`I suppose I must have, but I've never heard of him. I've only got my father's father, and he's half-dead. So's my father half the time.'

As the two of them walked down the hill, Iannis said, `The biggest man in the world is Velisarios.'

`Porco dio, is he still alive as well?'

Iannis faltered in his steps, `If you're the one who played the mandolin and was going to marry Grandma... does that mean you're the ghost?'

A prodigal and autumnal sun broke briefly through the cloud over Lixouri, and the old man paused for thought.