A Splendid Gift by Alyson Richman Read Free Book Online Page B

nodded. “Even though you’re young, I can tell you are gifted already by the way you sense what’s hidden beneath the music.” He walked over to her and took the bow from her hand, placing it on the music stand that was in front of her. Then, he took his daughter’s hands into his own.
    “When you were only a few months old, I held you in my arms. I looked at that beautiful face of yours and saw your mother’s almond-shaped eyes, her perfect mouth. But I saw you had my hands.” He opened her palm. “You have the same long fingers, the same wide expansion.” He closed her hand again and brought the fingers up to his lips and kissed them. “You’re destined to be a great cellist, because I can sense you want to bring your cello to life.”
    ***
    Just as her father anticipated, a special magic developed between Elodie and her cello. The instrument slowly became her, and she became the instrument. A unique bond that grew increasingly intense as her studies progressed. Sometimes when she held her cello, Elodie thought she could sense a pulse beating within its wooden cavity. It never occurred to her that it was her own heart she was hearing.
    As she grew older, she was given a full-sized cello that her father had bought from a retired teacher at the conservatory. Made of walnut wood with a honey colored finish, she practiced on it daily and her repertoire soon blossomed. She played the Brahms Cello Sonata in E major and the Vivaldi Sonata No. 5 with increasing emotion. She mastered the Tarantella, a piece that challenged her stamina, but she practiced it for hours until the notes were as clean and as bright as sunlight.
    But just before her seventeenth birthday, only four months before her auditions to become a full-time student at Verona’s music school, her father came home with an early birthday gift.
    “It’s a Venetian cello,” he told Elodie. This time when the case was opened, the cello was wrapped in an enormous yellow scarf. Her father seemed to meditate over the instrument for a brief moment, as if he were offering a small prayer. Then, with a grand gesture of his wrist, he withdrew the material to reveal his daughter’s newly gifted cello.
    “It’s extraordinary!” Elodie couldn’t contain her excitement. She had thought the two cellos she had played on previously had been beautiful, but this one was truly magnificent. The instrument was unlike any cello Elodie had seen before. The varnish was not brown, but a striking red. A topaz colored light glowed below its glossy coat, so that the cello appeared as though it possessed its own internal fire.
    Elodie’s hands fidgeted. She was desperate to touch it.
    “In honor of your mother, it had to be Venetian.”
    Her father handed her the instrument and by instinct, Elodie began to caress it. Her hands moved across the edges and every curve, just as she had done with her first cello years before. Almost immediately, she could tell the proportion of this particular cello was slightly different. The bottom part swelled slightly, thus creating a more voluptuous shape. Even the carving of the decorative scrolls seemed wholly different. As if the luthier responsible had been motivated more by whimsy then tradition when creating its flourishes.
    “Papa,” she said, still touching every part of the instrument, as though she could not quite believe her eyes. “This must have cost you a fortune!”
    “Its journey into our living room is a long and complicated story,” he said softly. “But I assured the former owner that you would care for the instrument as if it were an extension of your own body.”
    Her father returned to the case. He pushed aside the yards of bright yellow silk and retrieved a long, slender bow made of dark, exotic wood.
    “The owner said it had to be played with this bow in order to bring out the cello’s full beauty.” As soon as her fingers took hold of it, she remarked at its lightness.
    “It feels almost weightless,” she