The Violinist's Family

 

In solely a village, nothing more, contained families all struggling. None more so than the Violinist and his poor companions. He was born a child and grew to be a violinist. From this young age he played for his grandmother as she grew into an unspeakable hibernation from drink and the sweet kiss of a sailor. At those times the music eased her pain, and his too. He lost himself in the instrument. As he did, he grew more laconic until his lips never passed an utterment. He cannot speak and cannot provide. 

Ever since the debut of 1780 he sat on an apple box, in the cobbled street and let his pathetic passion draw his etiquette and existence. He played many classic compositions; Clemential, Mozartesque and assorted auditory sounds. But in his nights of life he wrote pieces of violinatry poetry. 

He, in baggy rags of yellow, red and folk pattern, wears also a bandana tea-cloth coloured also red. His stern face did this many a day and attracted such a little audience and inevitably little money. The cry of hunger swept through the petite city from the ribbon river, to the old barn and from the last cobble stone, to the first. The Violinist’s family joined that cry.

Often his small boy would sit alongside his father, head on his still knees and combined a look of love and melancholy comprehension. The man still played. Even a woman, living with the family, stood in black at the derriere of the man. The man still played.

The expressions this man gave was ambiguous, an ambivalence to his face. He often lent his face next to the strings, feeling the airy vibration upon his wrinkled cheeks and descended his eyes with the sounds. Possibly, the odd being could testify to his swaying now and again. Apart from this, he seldom moved from the apple box. He did so, obviously, to leave for home in the evening and arrived again in the dawn. Along with his hesitance, he never increased his money and lines drew upon his face over time, as he played the same song with slight variations. The peasant played his sombre melodies, companions or none.

Once, at a particular moment ghosted by fate, a man had stopped to listen. This young man, young but destroyed the air of naivety, wore simple and orderly dark clothes.

‘Sir, do you speak this tongue daily?’ called this youngling.

The Violinist said nothing, but composed his fingers in such a way the music answered his question: a sweet “Yes”.

“For what has been the true price?”, the young man quizzed.

The Violinist continued. And then contemplated the question, shedding a cloudy tear. He swayed and his dear son and wife entered from nowhere. In rags and a black dress, dipped in the smell of sorrow. 

The young man, curious and slightly animated, proceeded to lift this twig hands from his pockets. Along with it two objects: a crisp note and a jeweled coin. He held each deep in either palm and observed carefully each one. He drew a conclusion and handed that note from his pocket, carefully placing it on the Violinist’s knee.

The music had stopped. In the middle of an aria he stopped. The Violinist was puzzled and merely gazed at the note. Then hesitantly lifted it from his knee. After 20 years of he and his family eating the dust that rolled past their door, wearing 2^nd hand peasant rags and crying every time the butcher came. They, or he, had made money.

He arose from the apple box and walked on, eyes fixed forward and posture straight. He blended into a silhouette, into the deep hilled sunset, with a violin in one hand and a note in the other. His companions followed, whether it was for him or for it. One can never know.

 

After 20 odd years, that man saw four wars, a revolt, the likes change, everyman marry the young and the young to grow old. The violin was his comment, it always played. The Violinist died on an old October evening, with a violin in one hand and a note, by his heart.

 

A crowd had gathered to an old corner lead by a young man of the previous. The apple box sat up against the wall, surrounded by another wall of people. No violinist had come. Just his son, who came and collected the straw from the inside of the apple box. It would be cold that night. The crowd dispersed and the day went thus, as if no violin had graced that street.