Corelli's Mandolin

  Most curiously, even though he had wanted it in order to be able to impress girls when he was older, by the time he was thirteen, and already quite a good player, he had discovered that girls were a complete dead loss. Their intractable mission in life was to frustrate, annoy, and have things that you wanted but that they would not bestow. In fact they were spiteful and capricious little aliens. It was not until he was seventeen and Grandma had begun her wild and frivolous second youth that he met one who made him burst with longing, and who had stopped nearby to listen when he was making Antonia sing.

  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 house 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.’

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed. ‘O, you startled me.’

  ‘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 fingers into place, saying, ‘Look, the first finger stops the strings across the first fret, the second finger 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 finger 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 roundbacked 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.’

  ‘And would your grandma be Kyria Pelagia, daughter of Dr Iannis?’

  ‘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.’

  ‘And what about your grandfather? Is he well?’

  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.’

  The old man stood up. He looked about him and said, ‘This was a beautiful place. I had the best years of my life here. And do you know what? I was going to marry your grandmother once. I think it’s about time I saw her again. By the way, that mandolin used to be mine, but I’ve heard you play, and I’d like you to keep it. I shall waive my rights.’

  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.

  73 Restitution

  Antonio Corelli, although in his seventies, rediscovered a certain amount of youthful agility in his old limbs. He dodged a cast-iron frying pan, and winced as it smashed the window behind him. ‘Sporcaccione! Figlio d’un culo!’ Pelagia shrieked. ‘Pezzo di merda! All my life waiting, all my life mourning, all my life thinking you were dead. Cazzo d’un cane! And you alive, and me a fool. How dare you break such promises? Betrayer!’

  Corelli backed against the wall, retreating before the sharp prods of the broomstick in his ribs, his hands raised in surrender. ‘I told you,’
he cried. ‘I thought that you were married.’

  ‘Married!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Married? No such luck! Thanks to you, bastardo.’ She prodded him again and moved to swipe him across the head with the broom handle.

  ‘Your father was right. He said you had a savage side.’

  ‘Savage? Don’t I have the right, porco? Don’t I have the right?’

  ‘I came back for you. 1946. I came round the bend, and there you were with your little baby and your finger in its mouth, looking so happy.’

  ‘Was I married? Who told you that? What’s it to you if I adopt a baby that someone leaves on my doorstep? Couldn’t you have asked? Couldn’t you have said, “Excuse me, koritsimou, but is this your baby?” ’

  ‘Please, stop hitting me. I came back every year, you know I did. You saw me. I always saw you with the child. I was so bitter I couldn’t speak. But I had to see you.’

  ‘Bitter? I don’t believe my ears. You? Bitter?’

  ‘For ten years,’ said Corelli, ‘for ten years I was so bitter that I even wanted to kill you. And then I thought, well, OK, I was away for three years, perhaps she thought I wasn’t coming back, perhaps she thought I was dead, perhaps she thought I’d forgotten, perhaps she met someone else and fell in love. As long as she’s happy. But I still came back, every year, just to see you were all right. Is that betrayal?’

  ‘And did you ever see a husband? And did you think what it did to me when I ran to you and you disappeared? Did you think about my heart?’

  ‘OK, so I jumped the wall and hid. I had to. I thought you were married, I’ve told you. I was being considerate. I didn’t even ask for Antonia.’

  ‘Ha,’ cried Pelagia with a burst of intuition, ‘you left it to make me feel guilty, eh? Bestia.’

  ‘Pelagia, please, this is a terrible embarrassment for the customers. Can’t we go for a walk and talk about it on the beach?’

  She looked around at all the faces, some of them grinning, some of them pretending to be looking the other way. Everywhere there were overturned chairs and tables that Pelagia had flung from her wake in the extremity of her wrath. ‘You should have died,’ she yelled, ‘and left me with my fantasies. You never loved me.’ She flounced out of the door, leaving Corelli to tip his hat to the customers, bowing repeatedly and saying, ‘Please excuse us.’

  Two hours later they were sitting together on a familiar rock, gazing out over the sea as the yellow lights of the harbour reflected in the blackened waters. ‘I see you got my postcards, then,’ he said.

  ‘In Greek. Why did you learn Greek?’

  ‘After the war all the facts came out. Abyssinia, Libya, persecution of Jews, atrocities, untried political prisoners by the thousand, everything. I was ashamed of being an invader. I was so ashamed that I didn’t want to be Italian any more. I’ve been living in Athens for about twenty-five years. I’m a Greek citizen. But I go home to Italy quite a lot. I go to Tuscany in the summer.’

  ‘And there’s me, so ashamed that I wanted to be Italian. Did you ever write your concertos?’

  ‘Three. I’ve played them all over the world, too. The first one’s dedicated to you, and the main theme is “Pelagia’s March”. Do you remember it?’ He hummed a few bars, until he noticed that she was trying not to cry. She seemed to have become very volatile in her old age, veering between passionate tears and assault. She had actually knocked out his false teeth, so that they had fallen in the sand and had to be washed in the sea. Even now he had a brackish but not unpleasant taste in his mouth.

  ‘Of course I remember it.’ She let her head sink, and she wiped her eyes wearily. Suddenly, apropos of nothing in particular, she said, ‘I feel like an unfinished poem.’

  Corelli felt a sting of shame, and avoided a reply, ‘Everything’s changed. Everything here used to be so pretty, and now everything is concrete.’

  ‘And we have electricity and telephones and buses and running water and sewers and refrigerators. And the houses are earthquake-proof. Is that so bad?’

  ‘It was a terrible earthquake. I was here. It took me a long time to locate you and find that you were all right.’ He caught her look of astonishment, and said, ‘I did what you told me to. I joined the fire brigade. In Milan. You said, “Don’t fight. Why don’t you do something useful, like join the fire brigade?” so I did. It was just like the Army. Plenty of time for practice in between emergencies. When they asked for volunteers, I came straight away. It broke my heart to see it. I worked so hard. And I had a terrible experience. I saw Carlo’s grave open and close, and his body down there. Little scraps of uniform, and the bones smashed, and the two coins in his eyes.’

  She shuddered, and wondered whether or not to tell him about the secret that Carlo had so perfectly concealed. Instead she asked, ‘Did you know that it was Carlo and my father who wrote that pamphlet about Mussolini? Kokolios printed it.’

  ‘I had my suspicions. I decided to let it pass. We all needed some amusement in those days, didn’t we? I see you still have my ring.’

  ‘Only because I got some arthritis in my fingers and I couldn’t get it off. I had it altered to fit, and now I regret it.’ She looked down at the demi-falcon rising, with the olive branch in its mouth, and ‘Semper fidelis’ inscribed underneath. She hesitated; ‘So did you ever get married? I suppose you did.’

  ‘Me? No. As I said, I was very bitter for years and years. I was horrible to everyone, especially women, and then the music took off, and I was all over the world, flying from one place to another. I had to leave the fire brigade. And anyway, you were always my Beatrice. My Laura. I thought, who wants second best? Who wants to be with someone, dreaming of someone else?’

  ‘Antonio Corelli, I can see that you still tell lies with your silver tongue. And how can you bear to look at me now? I’m an old woman. When you look at me I don’t like it, because I remember what I was. I feel ashamed to be so old and ugly. It’s all right for you. Men don’t degenerate as we do. You look the same, but old and thin. I look like someone else, I know it. I wanted you to remember me properly. Now I’m just a lump.’

  ‘You’re forgetting that I came to spy on you. If you see things happen gradually, there’s no shock. No disappointment. You are just the same.’ He placed his hand on hers, squeezed it gently, and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m with you for only a little while, and it’s still Pelagia. Pelagia with a bad temper, but still Pelagia.’

  ‘Did it occur to you that my baby might have been a bastard? I could have been raped. I nearly was.’

  ‘It occurred to me. With the Germans and the civil war …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It made a difference. We had some notions about dishonour and tainted goods, didn’t we? I admit it made a difference. Thank God we are not so stupid now. Some things change for the better.’

  ‘The man who tried to rape me … I shot him.’

  He looked at her incredulously, ‘Vacca cane! You shot him?’

  ‘I was never dishonoured. He was the fiancé I had before you.’

  ‘You never said anything about a fiancé.’

  ‘You’re jealous.’

  ‘Of course I’m jealous. I thought I was the first.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t. And don’t try to tell me that I was the first, either.’

  ‘The best.’ The emotion was beginning to stir him a little too much, and he tried to check himself. ‘We’re getting sentimental. Two sentimental old fools. Look …’ He reached into his pocket and brought out something white, wrapped in a plastic bag. He unfolded it and drew out an old handkerchief, which he shook in order to spread it. It had dark, yellow-edged brown streaks upon its fabric. ‘… your blood, Pelagia, do you remember? Looking for snails, and your face was cut by thorns? I kept it. A sentimental old fool. But who cares? There’s no one to impress. After all this time, we have the right. It’s a beautiful evening. Let’s be sentimental. No one’s watching.’

  ‘Iannis has been watching. He’s behind that coil of rope
on the other quay.’

  ‘The little devil. Perhaps he thinks you need protecting. There never was any such thing as a secret on this island, was there?’

  ‘I want to show you something. You never read Carlo’s papers, did you? There was a secret. Come back to the taverna and eat, and I’ll give you his writing. We do an excellent snails pilaf.’

  ‘Snails!’ he exclaimed. ‘Snails. Now that’s something. I remember all about snails.’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas. I’m too old for all that.’

  Corelli sat at the table with its chequered plastic cloth, and read through the stiff old sheets that had curled up at the corners. The handwriting was familiar, and the tone of voice and turn of phrase, but it was a Carlo he had never known: ‘Antonio, my Captain, we find ourselves in bad times, and I have the strongest feelings that I shall not survive them. You know how it is …’

  As he read, his brow furrowed, exaggerating its wrinkles and lines, and once or twice he blinked as though in disbelief. When he had finished, he shuffled the papers into order, set them before him on the table, and realised that his snails had gone cold. He began to eat them anyway, but did not taste them. Pelagia came to sit opposite him, ‘Well?’

  ‘You know you said that you wished I was dead? So that you could keep your fantasies?’ He tapped the sheaf of papers. ‘I wish that you hadn’t shown me these. I’ve just realised that I’m more old-fashioned than I thought. I had no idea.’

  ‘He loved you. Are you disgusted?’

  ‘Sad. A man like that should have had children. It’s going to take me a while … It’s a shock. I can’t help it.’