The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax Read Free Book Online Page B

pronounce and spell
adagio, allegro, andante, presto, maestoso.
    Father Basilio's hopes for my clerical future lasted about six months. By this point, I hadn't played the violin for over two years, but I knew that in preparation for a future cello, I should stay physically ready to play. Alarmed that the calluses I'd developed on my left hand had faded, I discovered a way not only to renew but to increase them—by rubbing my fingertips against stone, at least twenty minutes a day. I always walked on the left-hand side of the street so I could drag my fingers against the rough stone as I walked. In bed at night, in the dark, I rubbed one finger at a time against the wall next to my bed. With time, my fingertips became stiff and waxy, capped with impressively thick, light-yellow pads, the fingerprint lines nearly invisible.
    One day at church, as we were leaving Mass, Father Basilio wished me well and took my left hand in his—a spontaneous, collegial gesture. I watched as he squeezed harder, flattening his fingers against my own, feeling them. His face fell.
    In confession the following Sunday, he asked, "How old are you now, my son?"
    "Eleven years old, Father."
    I heard him sigh. "And already committing the sins of adulthood."
    I waited, confused.
    "Feliu, you must resist your desire."
    The desire to play cello?
    "Our Lord knows what you have been doing."
    I swallowed hard. "I'm not doing anything, Father."
    He sighed again. I heard the wood settling under his bench as he shifted.
    "Have you been helping your brothers with any olive trimming?"
    "Only once last year. I fell off the ladder. Sometimes I visit Percival and he tells me to lie on my back on the ground and look up, to tell him where I can't see blue sky, so he knows where to trim more."
    The priest grunted. After a while, he asked, "What hand do you write with, Feliu?"
    "My right hand."
    He paused again.
    "I believe you have promise; I hope to help you find a meaningful vocation. But first, you must stop what you are doing."
    "What am I doing?"
    "
God
knows."
    "But
I
don't know, Father."
    "The thing you keep doing every day, over and over. The thing that is making those hard spots on your fingers."
    "Oh," I said, relieved—but only for a moment, until I realized where his request was leading. I said more quietly, "But I need to do it. And I like to do it. I can't stop now."
    Father Basilio's normally melodic voice lowered into a growl. "Of
course
you like doing it—that is the problem. I understand your father is dead, but hasn't your mother taught you anything?"
    I leaped to her defense. "She has, Father."
    I recalled what I knew about Father Basilio: that he had dissolved the Catalan-language community choir in favor of an Italian one. Perhaps he wasn't in favor of Catalan music—or musicians—at all. Why else would he discourage me?
    Father Basilio gave me the cold shoulder for several weeks. Then he approached me one day and again clasped my hand. It was as calloused as ever. Feeling its hard patches and raised ridges, he released it and spat, "Considering the defilement this hand has suffered, I shouldn't even touch it!"
    When I told Mamá that Father Basilio had decided to stop touching me, she turned to me, her eyes wide. "Touching you? Feliu—don't be alone with that man. Don't spend any more time in that church than you have to."
    Sorry that I had alarmed her, I said, "All right, Mamá." I knew, though, that I'd miss the singing at Mass, however halting and off-key; and the church's inviting coolness; and the feeling, brief as it was, that one adult seemed to believe I had some kind of calling.
    ***
    Eduardo Rivera continued to avoid our family, but he had an older and more powerful brother—
Don
Miguel Rivera, as my Tía reminded us to call him—who was not so easily rebuffed. Instead of being repelled by my mother's unladylike show of force the day of El Nene's concert, Don Miguel was intrigued by it. At any public gathering, he made sure to