Lucia

The Luthier's Apprentice

Chapter 18: Lucia

Lucia Ferraro was fifty-three years old and she did not make violins. She had never made a violin. She had never carved an arching or bent a rib or cut an f-hole or fitted a bass bar or applied a coat of varnish. Her hands were not calloused in the specific topography of the luthier, were not stained with the amber of the varnish, were not shaped by the daily holding of the gouge and the plane and the knife. Her hands were the hands of a woman who worked with paper and telephones and the keyboard of the laptop that she carried in a leather bag from her apartment to the workshop each morning, the bag a different kind of tool bag, the bag containing the instruments of her work, the work that was not the making but the managing, the managing that made the making possible.

She arrived at the workshop at eight each morning, an hour before Giovanni and Marco and Nadia began their work at the bench. She arrived early because the early hour was the hour of the correspondence, the emails from the clients and the dealers and the conservatories and the museums and the insurance companies, the emails that constituted the business of the workshop, the business that existed around the craft the way the case exists around the violin, the business enclosing the craft, protecting it, presenting it to the world, and the presenting was Lucia's work, and her work was essential, was as essential to the workshop's existence as Giovanni's carving, because the carving without the business was a hobby, and the business without the carving was a fraud, and the two together were the workshop, and the workshop was what Lucia managed.

She managed the commissions. Giovanni's violins were commissioned years in advance, the waiting list containing the names of violinists and collectors and institutions who had heard Giovanni's instruments or who had read about Giovanni's instruments or who had been recommended to Giovanni by other makers or players, and the waiting list was Lucia's domain, the list maintained in a notebook and in a spreadsheet, the dual record-keeping the compromise between Giovanni's analog world and the digital world that his clients inhabited, and Lucia navigated between the two worlds with the ease of a translator, which was what she was, a translator between the craft and the commerce, between the workshop and the market, between the maker who spoke in wood and the buyers who spoke in currency.

She managed the finances. The accounts, the invoices, the taxes, the insurance on the instruments, the insurance on the workshop, the building's maintenance, the utilities, the supplies. She ordered the strings and the rosin and the pegs and the tailpieces and the chinrests and the endpins and the hide glue and the varnish ingredients and the sandpaper and the steel wool and the brushes and all the consumable materials that the workshop consumed in the course of the making, the materials that Giovanni did not think about because Lucia thought about them, the materials appearing on the shelves and in the drawers and in the cabinets as if by natural process, as if the workshop generated its own supplies, and the as-if was Lucia's work, the invisible work of the manager, the work that makes the maker's work possible by removing the obstacles that are not craft but that impede the craft if they are not removed.

She managed Giovanni. This was the work she did not describe, the work that had no line item in the budget and no entry in the spreadsheet, the work of the daughter managing the father, the managing that was not authority but care, the care that an adult child provides to an aging parent, the care that is not patronizing but protective, the protection that says: you are seventy-eight, you are the master, you are the maker, and I will make sure that the world does not interrupt your making, I will stand between you and the interruptions, I will answer the phone and the email and the door so that your hands can remain on the wood and the wood can remain in your hands.

Nadia learned this gradually. She learned it the way she learned everything in the workshop, through observation, through the watching that was the apprentice's primary mode of learning, the watching that absorbed the knowledge the way the wood absorbed the drying air, slowly, invisibly, the knowledge accumulating without the learner's awareness, the accumulation revealed only in retrospect, in the sudden realization that she understood something that she had not understood a week ago, the understanding having arrived without announcement.

She watched Lucia arrive each morning. She watched Lucia open the laptop on the small desk in the corner of the front room, the desk that was Lucia's workspace, the desk that was not a workbench but a desk, the distinction the distinction between the craft and the commerce, the workbench for the making and the desk for the managing, and the two pieces of furniture in the same room were the workshop's dual nature made visible, the duality of the enterprise, the enterprise that was both art and business, both craft and commerce, both hands and head.

She watched Lucia answer the phone. The phone rang and Lucia answered and her voice changed, the voice becoming the business voice, the voice that was professional and warm and precise, the voice that said: the instrument will be ready in the spring, the instrument has been commissioned, the maker is working, the work is proceeding, and the proceeding was the truth, and the truth was the voice, and the voice was Lucia's instrument, the instrument she played, the instrument that connected the workshop to the world.

It was March when Lucia told Nadia about her childhood. March, the workshop warming, the fog lifting, the first warmth arriving from the south, and Lucia had brought lunch to the workshop, a lunch of pasta and salad and bread and cheese, and Giovanni had gone upstairs to rest after eating, the post-lunch rest that his body required, and Marco had gone for a walk, and Nadia and Lucia were alone in the kitchen, the kitchen that was small and warm and that smelled of the coffee that Lucia was making on the stovetop, the moka pot on the burner, the coffee rising, the sound of the coffee rising the sound of the afternoon, the sound of the pause between the morning's work and the afternoon's work.

Lucia poured the coffee. She poured two cups, small cups, espresso cups, the cups that Nadia had learned to drink from, the cups that held the Italian coffee that was not a beverage but a punctuation, the mark on the day. She handed a cup to Nadia and she sat at the kitchen table and Nadia sat at the kitchen table and the sitting was the being-together that was different from the workshop's being-together, the kitchen being-together being social where the workshop being-together was professional, the kitchen the place of words where the workshop was the place of silence.

Lucia said: I grew up here.

The here was the building. The building on Via Palazzo, the building that was the workshop below and the apartments above, the building that was Giovanni's and that had been Carlo's before Giovanni's and that had been the workshop for more than a century, the building that was the continuity, the physical continuity of the tradition, the tradition housed in this building the way the sound was housed in the violin, the building the body and the tradition the sound.

She said: the smell. The smell was the first thing she remembered, the earliest memory, the smell of the workshop, the smell that entered the apartment above through the floorboards and the stairwell and the doors, the smell that was always present, the smell that was the air of her childhood, the smell of spruce and maple and varnish and hide glue, the smell that other children did not have, the smell that was specific to this building and to this family and to this craft, and the smell was the childhood, and the childhood was the smell.

She said: I would sit under my father's workbench. She was four, five, six. She would come down from the apartment in the morning and she would sit under the workbench, the space beneath the bench a cave, a fort, a hiding place that was not hidden because Giovanni knew she was there, Giovanni always knew she was there, the knowing part of the awareness that the workshop produced, the awareness of everything in the room, the tools and the wood and the light and the child beneath the bench, the awareness that the craft required and that extended to the non-craft elements of the workshop, the child being a non-craft element, or perhaps not, perhaps the child was part of the craft, the child sitting beneath the bench absorbing the sounds and the smells the way the wood in the attic absorbed the dryness, the child drying, in a sense, the child curing, the child being seasoned by the exposure to the workshop, the seasoning the education, the education not formal but atmospheric, the atmosphere the teacher.

She said: the shavings fell on me. The shavings from Giovanni's plane curled from the blade and fell from the bench and some of them fell on her, fell on her hair and her shoulders, the shavings light, the shavings translucent, the shavings smelling of spruce, and the falling of the shavings was the rain of the workshop, the gentle rain that the making produced, and the rain fell on the child, and the child accepted the rain, and the acceptance was the growing-up, the growing-up in the workshop.

She said: my mother sewed the case linings. Lucia's mother, Giovanni's wife, Elena, the woman who had died eleven years ago, the woman who had chosen the blue velvet for the cases, the woman whose work was also part of the workshop, the sewing that was not luthiery but that was part of the instrument's journey from the workshop to the world, the case lining the last layer of protection, the last act of care before the instrument left the building, and the care was Elena's, and Elena's hands sewed the velvet the way Giovanni's hands carved the wood, the two crafts married, the marriage the workshop, the workshop the family.

Elena. Lucia said her mother's name and the name changed the air in the kitchen, the name carrying the absence, the absence of eleven years, the absence that was the loss, and Nadia recognized the change because she knew loss, knew the way loss changed the air, the way loss entered a room when the name of the lost thing was spoken, the speaking the summoning, the summoning the presence of the absence, and the presence of the absence was grief, and grief was the thing that Nadia and Lucia shared, the thing that connected them beyond the workshop and the apprenticeship and the daily life of the building on Via Palazzo, the connection of the lost, the community of loss.

Lucia did not dwell. She said the name and the name changed the air and the air settled and she continued, the continuing the resilience, the resilience of a woman who had lived with the absence for eleven years and who had incorporated the absence into the dailiness of her life, the absence present but managed, the absence a companion that was no longer overwhelming but familiar, the familiarity the accommodation, the accommodation the living-with.

She said: I never wanted to make violins. The sentence was not an apology and not a confession and not a regret. The sentence was a fact, the fact of Lucia's relationship to the craft, the relationship of proximity without participation, the closeness without the doing, and the closeness was close enough, was the closeness that she had chosen, the closeness of the manager rather than the maker, the observer rather than the doer, the daughter who grew up in the workshop and who chose to serve the workshop without practicing the workshop's primary activity, and the choosing was not a rejection of the craft but a recognition that the craft required a different kind of service, the service of the business, the service of the managing, the service that Lucia provided.

She said: my hands are not my father's hands. The sentence carried the understanding of the hereditary, the understanding that the craft passed from hand to hand but not from gene to gene, the understanding that Giovanni's skill was not in his blood but in his practice, and the practice was transmissible but not inheritable, transmissible to anyone who stood at the bench and held the tools and did the work, and the anyone was not necessarily the child, the child of the maker not necessarily the maker, the making requiring the choosing, and Lucia had not chosen the making, and the not-choosing was valid, was respected, was the other path, the path that served the same tradition from the other side, the management side, the business side, the side that made sure the phone was answered and the invoices were sent and the commissions were recorded and the wood was ordered and the workshop was heated and the insurance was current and the world's interruptions were absorbed before they reached the maker's bench.

Nadia listened. She listened to Lucia the way she listened to Giovanni, with the full attention of the apprentice, the attention that was the learning, the learning that happened through the ears as well as through the hands, the learning of the spoken as well as the carved, and the spoken was Lucia's medium, and the medium was the story, and the story was the workshop.

Lucia said: when I was ten my father let me apply a coat of varnish. One coat. One single coat on the back plate of a violin he was making for a dealer in Milan. He gave her the brush. He showed her the angle. He showed her the stroke. She applied the coat, the brush moving over the maple, the varnish spreading, the amber-red liquid covering the wood, and the covering was the moment, the single moment of participation in the craft, the single coat on the single plate, the moment that she remembered because the moment was the doing, the one time she did the thing that her father did, the one time she crossed from the observing to the participating, and the crossing was memorable because it was singular, because it did not repeat, because the one coat was enough.

She said: the brush was soft. She remembered the softness of the brush, the natural hair bristles, the softness against the wood, the softness that was the opposite of the tools' hardness, the tools that cut and carved and shaped being hard, steel and brass, and the brush being soft, being the gentle tool, the tool that did not remove but added, the tool that did not take from the wood but gave to the wood, the brush giving the varnish to the wood the way a hand gives a caress to a face, and the giving was the memory, and the memory was the single coat, and the single coat was enough.

She said: I knew then that my work was not the brush and not the gouge and not the plane. My work was the other work. My work was the making-possible. The making-possible was the phrase that Lucia used for her role, the phrase that described the relationship between the managing and the making, the managing being the condition for the making, the condition that had to be met before the making could happen, the condition of the commissions secured and the finances managed and the supplies ordered and the father protected from the interruptions that the world produced, and the protecting was the work, and the work was the making-possible, and the making-possible was Lucia's craft.

Nadia understood. She understood because she had seen the making-possible in action, had seen Lucia answer the phone and deflect the inquiry and schedule the visit and postpone the demand and absorb the complication, the absorbing the skill, the skill of the manager, the skill that was invisible to the workshop the way the bass bar was invisible to the audience, the invisible skill that was essential, that was foundational, that determined the workshop's capacity to function.

Lucia said: he will stop soon. She said it with the factual tone that she used for the business matters, the tone of the manager stating a condition, but beneath the factual tone was the other tone, the tone of the daughter, the daughter who knew her father, who had known him for fifty-three years, who had watched him age, who had watched the tremor enter his hands and the stiffness enter his back and the slowness enter his mornings, the aging visible to the daughter who had watched the father her entire life, the aging the approaching, the approaching the stopping.

She said: this violin is the last one. She said it before Giovanni said it, said it months before Giovanni would say questo e l'ultimo in August, said it in March in the kitchen over coffee, said it to Nadia with the trust of a woman who had decided that the apprentice was part of the workshop and that the workshop's truth was the apprentice's truth, the truth being that Giovanni would make this violin and then he would stop and the stopping would be the completion and the completion would change the workshop.

She said: Marco will continue. The statement was the plan, the plan that Lucia had made, the plan that she had discussed with Giovanni and with Marco and with the lawyer in Cremona who handled the workshop's legal matters, the plan for the continuation, the continuation of the workshop after Giovanni's tools were set down, the continuation that required Marco's hands and Lucia's managing and the building on Via Palazzo and the wood in the attic and the templates on the wall and the tradition that the building and the wood and the templates embodied, the tradition that would continue through the continuation, the continuation that was Lucia's legacy, the legacy of the manager, the legacy of the making-possible.

She looked at Nadia. She looked at her with the assessing attention that was the family trait, the trait that Giovanni possessed and that Lucia had inherited, the attention that saw what was there and what was not there and the space between, and the looking was the question, the question that Lucia did not ask but that the looking contained: and you, and what will you do, and where will you go, and will you stay, and the staying was the question, and the question was in the look.

Nadia did not answer. She did not answer because the question was not asked and because the answer was not known, the answer being in the future, the future that was the remaining months of the apprenticeship, the months that would determine what Nadia would become, what her hands would become, what her relationship to the craft would become, and the becoming was not decided but in progress, the progress the daily work, the daily shavings, the daily measuring, the daily approaching of the skill that would determine the answer.

Lucia poured more coffee. The pouring was the continuation, the continuation of the afternoon, the continuation of the conversation, the conversation that was not about the future but about the past and the present, the past being Elena and the shavings and the blue velvet and the single coat of varnish, the present being the coffee and the kitchen and the two women at the table, and the past and the present meeting in the kitchen the way the wood and the tools met on the bench, the meeting the workshop, the workshop the life.

She said: this is a beautiful place. She said it simply, the way you state a fact that does not require elaboration, the fact of the workshop's beauty, the beauty of a place where beautiful things are made by hand, the beauty that is not decorative but functional, the beauty that arises from the work, the work producing the beauty, the beauty the evidence of the care, the care the craft, the craft the beauty.

Beautiful things made by hand. The phrase was the workshop's definition, the definition that encompassed Giovanni's carving and Elena's sewing and Lucia's managing and Marco's viola and Nadia's apprenticeship, the definition that included everything that happened in the building on Via Palazzo, everything that contributed to the making of the instruments that left the workshop and entered the world and produced the sound that was the purpose, and the purpose was the beauty, and the beauty was the things made by hand, and the hands were the workshop's, and the workshop was the building, and the building was the family, and the family was Lucia.

Nadia finished her coffee. She set the cup on the table. She looked at Lucia and Lucia looked at her and the looking was the exchange, the exchange of the understanding, the understanding that the workshop was more than the craft, the workshop was the family and the business and the building and the tradition and the loss and the continuation, and the continuation was Lucia's work, and Lucia's work was the making-possible, and the making-possible was the craft, the other craft, the craft of the daughter who grew up in the workshop and who chose to serve the workshop and who served it still.

The kitchen was warm. The coffee was finished. The afternoon was beginning. Giovanni was descending the stairs, his footsteps audible through the ceiling, the footsteps the rhythm, the rhythm the return, the return to the bench, the return to the work.

Lucia closed her laptop. She gathered the cups. She washed them at the sink, the washing the care, the care the managing, the managing the making-possible.

And the making-possible was the craft.

And the craft was the workshop.

And the workshop was the family.

And the family was Lucia.