The Rainaldi Quartet Read online

  On this particular morning I rose a little after eight, as usual, and had my breakfast in the kitchen. I’d slept badly, my mind preoccupied with Rainaldi’s death, with his grieving family and – of less immediate concern but there all the same – the mysterious violin for which my friend had been searching.

  After breakfast I went through to my violin and tackled the piece which seemed most in keeping with my melancholy mood – the Chaconne from the D Minor Partita which Bach wrote as an elegy for his beloved wife Maria Barbara whom, on returning home after a long absence, the composer found not only dead but buried as well. His distress must have been excruciating and the Chaconne is shot through with the anguish of his grief.

  As I played, I found my conscious thoughts dissolving into the music so that my mind became almost a blank. It calmed me at first, brought a tranquillity which seeped through my body like a drug, then slowly began to energise me, sharpening my senses and filling me with renewed vigour.

  When the last chord had died away and I was alone once again in the silence, I thought inevitably of my own wife. She was a fine pianist. We used to make music together almost every day. One of the Brahms sonatas, or perhaps Beethoven or Mozart. Then to end, just for the hell of it, I would take out some bravura piece by one of the great virtuosi composers: Paganini or Wieniawski or Sarasate. I am a violinist whose ambition, alas, has always surpassed his technique. And Caterina would play along with me, her shoulders shaking with laughter as I caterwauled up and down the register, missing harmonics, butchering double stops, searching for notes that never came in tune or never came at all. I thought of her at the piano, her slim fingers dancing over the keyboard, her eyes shining with pleasure, and I wondered again why it is that happy memories are so much more painful than unhappy ones.

  My practice complete, I drove to the railway station and caught the train to Milan. There was a time when I would have driven all the way, but not now. Milan is so choked with cars it’s difficult to breathe there let alone drive. On the station news-stand there were prominent bills announcing, ‘Violin-maker Murdered – Police Hunt Killer’. I could see the stacks of papers with Rainaldi’s death on the front page. I was curious to see what had been reported, but I didn’t buy one. I knew it would be too distressing to read.

  On arrival in Milan, I took a taxi to Serafin’s shop, though his premises are really too grand for so common a noun. Serafin would be outraged at the term, deeming it a slur not only on his business but on himself for by extension labelling him a shopkeeper. And no one regards himself as less like a shopkeeper than Vincenzo Serafin.

  The salon, Serafin’s preferred description for his place of work – if work is really the word for what he does there – was in the heart of Milan’s fashionable central district, a rhinestone’s throw from the cathedral, the Galleria Umberto II and La Scala. It was sandwiched between an art gallery in which nothing was priced below 5,000 euros and an exclusive haute couture clothes shop with one dress in the window and, apparently, nothing else in the entire store. Serafin’s establishment was even more minimalist. From its polished mahogany frontage no one would have known that violins were sold inside. Indeed, there was no indication that anything at all was sold there. The front window was completely empty and the room beyond, partially shielded from the street by vertical blinds, contained nothing except a desk and a chair in which a supercilious blonde receptionist had little to do except varnish her immaculate nails. Only a small brass plaque beside the door gave any information about the occupants of the building and that was too discreet to provide anything other than Serafin’s name. Clients – never customers – came there by invitation and appointment only. If you didn’t already know what went on there, then you were in the wrong place.

  I went in. The blonde receptionist, becoming animated for a moment, looked up in what – for her – was a frenzy of excitement. Then she saw who it was and relapsed into her lethargic reverie. What she thought about all day – if she thought about anything at all – was a mystery to me.

  ‘He’s upstairs,’ she said, raising her plucked eyebrows a couple of millimetres to indicate where ‘upstairs’ was.

  She pressed a button under the desk and the door behind her clicked open. I walked through into a small carpeted hall where a thick-set man in a dark suit sat upright on an antique wooden chair. He didn’t make a show of it, but I knew he was armed. Behind the door to the man’s left was Serafin’s inner sanctum, the sound-proofed music room where his clients tried out instruments. At any one time there were probably several million euros’ worth of violins in that room, each one individually displayed in an illuminated glass case. The room had a marble floor, intricately carved oak-panelled walls which looked as if they’d come from the choir of an English church, and was acoustically perfect. Violins were tried one at a time, brought forth from their glass cases by an attendant wearing white gloves like a duke’s footman – a wonderful touch which somehow encapsulated Serafin’s shrewd nature. Bare hands would have made no difference to the instruments, but it reassured customers that what they were trying, even if it was some rubbishy old fiddle – and Serafin sells a few of those, though never priced accordingly – was delicate and priceless. In the violin-dealing world – far more than outsiders realise – appearances are everything.

  I went up the stairs. As I neared the top, I heard voices raised inside Serafin’s office. I paused on the landing, listening. I recognised one of the voices as Serafin’s, but the other was unfamiliar. It was difficult to make out exactly what was being said, for Serafin’s office had a thick, reinforced door, but the tone of both voices was undoubtedly heated, and they were speaking not in Italian but in English. I knocked on the door. There was a sudden silence inside the office, then Serafin called out, ‘Yes?’

  I went in. Serafin was seated behind his huge mahogany desk. On the other side of the office – as far away from Serafin as it was possible to be – a man was standing. He was tall and gangly with cold blue eyes and sandy hair, receding at the front but long enough at the back to curl over the collar of his white linen jacket. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties. His underlying complexion was pale, spotted with ginger freckles, but right now his skin was flushed with anger. I’d never seen him before, but from his clothes, his appearance, the snatches of conversation I’d overheard, I knew he was English.

  ‘Gianni!’ Serafin appeared flustered, not something I was used to seeing.

  ‘We had an appointment,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, yes, of course. Our appointment.’

  Serafin glanced at the sandy-haired man, who moved towards the door in such a forceful manner that I stepped quickly out of his way for fear he would knock me over.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said curtly in English to Serafin, his tone more of a threat than a promise, then he turned and walked out of the room.

  I pushed the door to behind him. By the time I looked back at Serafin he’d recovered his composure. He was taking a sip of coffee from the porcelain cup on his desk.

  ‘I’m sorry, did I interrupt?’ I said.

  ‘No, no, it’s all right. We’d finished.’

  Serafin dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and smoothed his neatly trimmed beard with his fingers. There was something very feminine about him – his long, tapering, manicured fingers, his gestures, his soft, fleshy, pampered jowls.

  ‘The violin is over there,’ he said, inclining his head.

  I went to the side table and opened the case, taking out the instrument inside and holding it up to the light. I knew what it was, of course – I’d carried out work on it in the past – but I still felt a tremor of anticipation as I ran my eyes over the curves, the belly, the waist, as a philanderer might appraise his next conquest. What was it about a violin that, even now, a half century after I’d first begun making them, could still arouse such a powerful sense of – I tried to identify what it was I felt. Was it desire, to possess it, to stamp my ownership on it? Was it admiration? Was it env
y because someone greater, more skilful than I had made it? Or was it a nobler sentiment? Did it thrill me because in that beautifully crafted piece of wood there was something more than the sum of its parts? It wasn’t just pine and maple and glue, it had been given life by its maker, a soul all of its own.

  I couldn’t resist looking at the label inside. Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1704. She was three hundred years old and showing her age a bit, but she was still a magnificent old lady. I tilted her towards the window so the light caught the rich orange-red varnish, making it glow like a liquid sunset. I could see every grain of the pine, imagine Stradivari’s hands smoothing over the contours. But on the left side of the belly, just above the f-hole, was a crack which Stradivari certainly would not have recognised.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Serafin pushed aside his coffee cup. He dabbed at the corners of his mouth again, then folded the napkin and placed it neatly beside the cup.

  ‘An accident,’ he said. He mentioned the name of a distinguished violinist, the leader of one of Italy’s foremost string quartets. ‘He put it down in his case which was on the floor next to his chair.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He forgot it was there and trod on it.’

  Trod on it! I could barely contain my contempt. This man had a Stradivari violin, worth probably two million euros, a violin that had survived intact for three centuries. And he trod on it.

  ‘Unfortunate,’ I murmured, though a more robust exclamation was exploding inside my head.

  ‘Quite,’ Serafin said mildly. ‘He is greatly distressed and anxious to have it fixed as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’m sure he is.’

  I examined the crack more closely through the jeweller’s loupe I carry in my pocket. The break looked fairly clean, the wood on either side not too badly shredded.

  ‘How quickly can you do it?’ Serafin said. ‘He has another instrument – a Bergonzi – but they have an important concert in New York at the end of next month and he’d really like the Stradivari back by then.’

  Serafin’s clients move in exalted circles. He deals with concert violinists, chamber musicians, orchestral leaders and rich collectors for whom he attends auctions all over the world. If you want a half-size Chinese import for little Luigi to begin on, then Serafin is most definitely not your man. He knows a lot about violins, but not how to play one nor how to make or repair them – I take care of all that for him. I do the labouring, he takes the money, is how I see it. But it’s a mutually advantageous arrangement that we have maintained successfully for many, many years. Like all luthiers I deal a bit on the side. I could have a salon like Serafin’s, with all the trimmings, but that would bore me. I’d have to wear a suit, acquire a chaise longue, some art for the walls, and I can’t be bothered with all that. I just want to be left alone in my workshop. I’m an artisan not a businessman.

  ‘I can have it ready for then,’ I said.

  I put the violin back in its case and sensed a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head. Serafin’s mistress, Maddalena, was coming through the door from the small flat behind the office. Serafin has a wife but she seldom comes to Milan. She lives on their country estate near Lake Maggiore, a sad neglected creature destined to share her husband’s affections with a steady stream of more sophisticated metropolitan harpies. Maddalena was idle, glamorous, undeniably beautiful yet curiously unsexy. Actually, I don’t know why I say ‘curiously’ for there is nothing curious about it. If there is one thing that I have learnt about women it is that the most stunning of them are rarely the most sexy. Maddalena was so poised and disdainful it was impossible to imagine her ever abandoning herself to the torrid confusion of passion. But then I suspected she was more of an ornament for Serafin’s arm than his bed.

  ‘I’m going out now,’ she said, barely acknowledging my presence. I’m too old and too poor to interest her. I’m simply a servant hovering in the background.

  ‘All right, darling,’ Serafin replied. ‘Shall I meet you for lunch?’

  ‘Not today. I’m seeing Teresa. You know, girl talk.’

  Maddalena leaned down to allow Serafin to kiss her – her cheek only, to avoid any damage to her make-up.

  ‘I’ll see you later, darling,’ Serafin said and watched her waggling her bony hips as she left the office.

  I sat down and we haggled about my fee for the work. Serafin enjoys haggling. He has cultivated a veneer of culture, a suave, slightly unctuous gloss of refinement that appeals to his wealthy clientele, but underneath it all he’s just a market trader, buying low and selling high. In the narrow world of violin dealing he has a reputation as a man who would not just sell his own mother, he would put her out to tender.

  ‘I see you’ve been having some excitement in Cremona,’ he said when we’d sorted out the money.

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘The murder,’ Serafin explained. ‘What was his name again, Tomaso Rainaldi? You know anything about it?’

  His tone was casual, almost indifferent. I was instantly on my guard.

  ‘Why would I know anything about it?’ I asked warily.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re on the spot. He was a luthier. I wasn’t familiar with him myself, but you probably knew him.’

  ‘Yes, I knew him.’ I didn’t expand. I had no intention of sharing my knowledge of the case with Serafin. Ours was strictly a business relationship. ‘Why are you interested?’

  Serafin shrugged. ‘I’m not really. It’s just unusual, isn’t it? A murder in Cremona.’

  He looked away and we chatted about other things for a short while.

  ‘Keep me informed about the Stradivari, Gianni,’ he said as we parted. ‘If there’s a problem, let me know at once.’

  ‘There won’t be a problem,’ I said.

  * * *

  It was early evening by the time I got back to my house. I had something to eat, then took the Stradivari through into my workshop. My workshop is in the garden at the back of the house, but I also have a varnishing room with skylights in the attic, and this is where I finish my instruments and hang them to dry. Stradivari had the same in his house in the Piazza San Domenico and I attribute some of the lustre of his varnish to the Italian sun which seems to have been absorbed by the wood. They make violins elsewhere, some of them very good, but it is no coincidence that the finest instruments have all come from the warm, but not too warm, pastures of northern Italy.

  I laid the violin down on its back on my workbench and composed myself. I’ve repaired Stradivaris before, and Guarneris, Amatis and most of the other great makers too, but I’ve never lost the feeling of being privileged to hold them, privileged to be allowed to take the masters’ creations and work on them with my own humble hands.

  I studied the instrument for a time, examining every part of it carefully to make sure there was no other damage that had been overlooked. Then I concentrated on the crack. The first thing to do was to remove the belly, gently so as not to open the crack even further. I took a syringe and injected a tiny amount of alcohol into the join between the belly and ribs, taking care not to spill any on the varnish which was soluble in alcohol. The alcohol would make the glue dehydrate and lose its grip. Then I inserted a thin knife blade under the belly and put pressure on it with another smaller wedge-shaped blade which I gradually slid in over the ribs. Working my way around the instrument I eased off the front.

  I gazed down at the inside of the violin, seeing the two-piece maple back, the ribs, linings and blocks as Stradivari had left them. I could even see the marks of his clamps on the surface of the blocks. I wasn’t the first person to open up the instrument. Like all violins of that period the neck, fingerboard and bass bar had been changed – probably at the beginning of the nineteenth century – the neck lengthened and angled backwards to take the additional string tension caused by the increased pitch of the diapason since Stradivari’s day. But probably only two other men had seen what I
was seeing now, and one of them was Stradivari himself.

  I lingered a while, studying the results of the Master’s unmatched craftsmanship. Apart from the changes to the neck and bass bar and the switch from gut strings to gut wound with metal, the violin today is exactly the same as it was when Stradivari was alive. Aesthetically, and musically, it cannot be improved, though many people have tried. It is perfect the way it is.

  I pulled my eyes away from the body of the instrument and turned my attention to the belly. I took another careful look at the crack with my loupe, this time from the inside of the belly. Not only was the wood fractured, but the plate had been crushed slightly so the two sides of the break were not in alignment. I would have to fix the crack, and also restore the curve of the belly – a time-consuming task that required my making a plaster cast of the plate, then pressing the wood back into shape with a hot sandbag. This was delicate work that needed more concentration than I felt I could summon at this late hour, so I locked the Stradivari away in my fireproof safe and went to bed early. I needed a good night’s sleep. My grandchildren were coming to stay the next day.

  * * *

  There are three of them: Paolo, aged eleven, Carla, nine, and the baby of the family, Pietro, six. They live only a couple of hours’ drive away, to the east of Mantua, so I see quite a lot of them on day visits. But once a year I have them overnight. My daughter, Francesca, and her husband drop the children off with me on a Saturday morning, then go off somewhere together until Sunday afternoon – maybe to one of the lakes, maybe shopping in Milan followed by an evening at the theatre, a good hotel and some time to themselves.

  They arrived early, unloading what appeared to be enough baggage for a month. Francesca, as usual, began fussing over them, torn between her desire to be off and a mother’s natural anxiety at leaving her children even for just one night.