The Last Violin

The Luthier's Apprentice

Chapter 27: The Last Violin

The case was lined with blue velvet. The velvet was deep blue, the blue of the Adriatic on a windless day, the blue that Giovanni's wife had chosen forty years ago when she selected the fabric for the cases that Giovanni's instruments would travel in, the blue that she had found at a fabric shop on the Corso Garibaldi, the shop no longer there, the wife no longer there, the wife having died eleven years ago of the cancer that had taken her in the space of eight months, the cancer that had been the other loss, the loss that Giovanni did not speak of in the workshop because the workshop was not the place for that loss, the workshop was the place for the work, and the work continued after the loss the way the work had continued after every loss, the death of his father Carlo, the death of his mother, the death of his wife, the work continuing because the work was the thing that did not die, the work was the thing that survived the losses, the work was the constancy.

The blue velvet. Lucia had lined the case, Lucia who had inherited her mother's skill with fabric, Lucia who sewed the velvet into the molded interior of the case with stitches that were small and even and invisible, the stitches the craft of the seamstress applied to the product of the luthier, the two crafts meeting in the case, the case that was the instrument's home, the home that the instrument would inhabit when it was not being played, the home that would protect the instrument from the bumps and the drops and the temperature changes and the humidity fluctuations that the world imposed on traveling objects.

August. The last month. The month that closed the year the way a coda closes a composition, the final section that does not introduce new material but that resolves the material that has been developed, that brings the themes to their conclusion, that allows the listener to understand the whole by hearing the end, and the end was August, and August was the completion.

The violin lay on the workbench. Complete. Every component in place, every surface finished, every joint sound, every element the product of the months of work that had begun in September with the plank of spruce on Giovanni's bench and that had proceeded through the stages — the cutting, the arching, the ribwork, the f-holes, the bass bar, the closing, the neck, the scroll, the varnish, the setup, the stringing, the first sound — the stages that were the chapter headings of the construction, the stages that Nadia had watched and participated in and learned from.

The violin was complete and the completeness was visible. The instrument lay on the bench and the light from the north-facing windows touched the amber-red varnish and the varnish glowed and the glowing was the surface of the completeness, the visible sign of the invisible work, the work that was inside the instrument, the graduation and the bass bar and the sound post and the interior surfaces that no one would see again, the invisible work that determined the voice and that the voice revealed every time the bow was drawn across the strings.

Giovanni stood at his bench. He looked at the violin. He had been looking at it for an hour, standing at the bench in the August morning, the workshop warm, the windows open, the sounds of the street entering the workshop — a bicycle bell, a conversation in Italian between two women passing on the sidewalk, the distant rumble of a delivery truck on the Corso Campi — the sounds of the world outside the workshop, the world that the workshop existed within but that the workshop's concentration excluded, the concentration that was the workshop's atmosphere, the concentration that Giovanni was not maintaining this morning because the work was done, the work that required the concentration was finished, and the finishing was the release, the release of the attention that had been gathered and focused and applied to the instrument for eleven months.

Eleven months. September to August. The span of the apprenticeship, the span of the violin, the two spans coincident, the apprentice and the instrument arriving together, the apprentice arriving in September and the instrument beginning in September and the two of them developing in parallel, the apprentice learning while the instrument was being made, the making and the learning simultaneous, the simultaneity the structure, the structure of the year.

He picked up the violin. He held it by the neck, the scroll in his right hand, the body hanging, the instrument suspended, the weight of it — less than a pound, four hundred grams, the weight of a small book — the weight negligible, the instrument almost weightless, the lightness the product of the wood and the carving and the graduating that had removed the wood that was not needed and left the wood that was, the remaining wood the minimum, the minimum the efficiency, the efficiency the sound.

He placed the violin in the case. He laid it in the blue velvet, the body settling into the molded interior, the scroll resting in the scroll cradle, the tailpiece resting on the velvet pad, the instrument fitting the case the way the body fits the bed, the fit precise, the belonging evident.

He placed the bow in the case. He placed it in the bow holder, the bow secured by the clip, the hair loosened, the bow at rest.

He closed the case. The latches clicked. The clicks were the sound of the closing, the sound of the completion, the sound that said: the instrument is finished, the instrument is protected, the instrument is in its home.

He looked at the closed case. He looked at it for a long time, a minute, two minutes, the looking not a lingering but a regarding, the regarding the last look that the maker gives the instrument before the instrument leaves the workshop, the look that says: I made you, you are mine in the way that a made thing belongs to its maker, you are mine and you are not mine, you are mine because I made you and you are not mine because you will go into the world and be played by hands that are not my hands and will produce sounds that I will not hear and will live a life that I will not live, and the not-living is the point, the instrument outliving the maker, the instrument carrying the maker's knowledge and skill and patience into the future that the maker will not inhabit, and the not-inhabiting is not a sorrow but a purpose, the purpose of the craft, the craft existing to produce things that outlast the craftsman.

He looked at Nadia. He looked at Marco. He looked at the workshop.

The workshop. The workbench with its scarred and stained surface, the surface that held the history of the instruments in its gouges and cuts and varnish stains. The tools on the wall, the planes and gouges and chisels and knives arranged in their functional order, each tool in its place, the places worn into the beechwood board by the hanging and the taking-down and the returning, the cycle of use that was the workshop's heartbeat. The templates on the wall, the five forms that had defined the shapes of Giovanni's instruments for fifty years, the forms hanging in the northern light, waiting for the hands that would take them down, and the hands that would take them down would not be Giovanni's hands, not anymore, Giovanni's hands having made their last violin, the last template-tracing done, the last pencil line drawn, the last shape cut.

He looked at the wood. The wood in the attic above, the planks of spruce and maple that were still drying, still waiting, still undergoing the slow transformation that the air and the time produced, the transformation that Giovanni had overseen for decades, the transformation that would continue after he set down his tools, the wood not caring who oversaw it, the wood drying at the rate of diffusion, the rate of patience, the rate that did not require the maker's presence, the rate that was the rate of the world.

He said: this is the last one.

He said it in Italian. Questo e l'ultimo. Three words. The words were simple, were factual, were the statement of a condition that he had decided months ago, the decision made before the last violin was begun, the decision to make one more and then to stop, the stopping not a retirement but a completion, the completing of the work, the work having been done, the instruments having been made, the knowledge having been applied, the hands having shaped the wood for fifty years, and the fifty years were enough, were the span, were the career, were the life's work, and the life's work was done.

He did not say it with sadness. Nadia heard the sentence and she listened for the sadness and the sadness was not there. What was there was something else, something she recognized from the workshop's vocabulary of silences and gestures and looks, the something-else that was the quality Giovanni brought to everything he did, the quality that was not sadness and not happiness but attention, the deep attention of a man who had spent his life paying attention to wood and tools and sound and who was now paying attention to the moment of the completion, the moment when the last instrument left the bench and the bench became empty and the empty bench was not a loss but a fact, and the fact was attended to with the same care that the making had been attended to, the care that was Giovanni's mode of being, the care that was the craft expressed not in wood but in the living of the life.

This is the last one. He said it with the finality of a man who had made what he was meant to make. The finality was not a door closing but a sentence ending, the sentence that had been his life's utterance, the sentence that began when his father Carlo placed the first gouge in his hands at the age of fourteen and that ended now, in this August morning, in this workshop, with this case closed on the bench and the blue velvet holding the instrument and the instrument holding the sound and the sound holding the silence and the silence holding the workshop.

He set down the tools. Not physically — the tools were on the wall, were in their places, were where they always were — but the setting-down was real, was the internal act that corresponded to the external fact, the decision manifested as a state, the state of being done. He had set down the tools the way he had set down the final coat of varnish, with care, with precision, with the understanding that the setting-down was not a dropping but a placing, the placing the final act of the craftsman, the craftsman placing the tools in their places for the last time, the last time being not a diminishment but a completion.

The completion. The word was the thing. The completion was not an ending but an arriving, the arriving at the place that the work had been going, the destination that the craft had been building toward, and the destination was not the instrument — the instrument was the product, the tangible output — the destination was the maker, the maker who had been formed by the work as surely as the work had been formed by the maker, the fifty years of making having made Giovanni as much as Giovanni had made the violins, the maker and the made in a reciprocal relationship, each shaping the other, each producing the other, the hands shaping the wood and the wood shaping the hands and the shaping being the life.

Not the violin but the person who made it. This was the completion. The violin was the product. The maker was the purpose. The craft existed not to produce instruments — though it produced instruments, beautiful instruments, instruments that would outlive the maker and carry sound into the future — the craft existed to produce the maker, to shape the person, to form the human being who stood at the bench with the tools and the wood and the knowledge and who, through the daily practice of the work, became the craftsman, and the becoming was the purpose, and the purpose was the completion.

Nadia understood this. She understood it not because Giovanni said it — Giovanni did not say it, Giovanni said only this is the last one — but because she had spent eleven months in the workshop and the eleven months had taught her what the words could not teach, the teaching of the daily presence, the teaching of the hands on the wood, the teaching of the watching and the doing and the failing and the learning, the teaching that was the apprenticeship, and the apprenticeship had taught her this: the craft is not about the instrument. The craft is about the maker. The making is the thing that shapes the person. The person who makes the violin is shaped by the making. The shaping is the purpose. The purpose is the person.

She looked at Giovanni. She looked at the man who had made two hundred violins and who had just made his last. She looked at the hands that had carved the arching and cut the f-holes and bent the ribs and fitted the bass bar and applied the varnish and set the sound post and strung the strings and drawn the bow. She looked at the hands and the hands were still, were resting on the bench, were the hands of a man who had set down his tools, and the stillness of the hands was the completion, the hands at rest.

She looked at Marco. Marco who had been in the workshop for six years and who would continue, who would carry the knowledge forward, who would make instruments in the tradition that Giovanni had practiced and that Giovanni's father had practiced and that Giovanni's grandfather and great-grandfather had practiced, the tradition that was the knowledge, the knowledge that was in the hands, the hands that would continue after Giovanni's hands were still.

She looked at the workshop. The workshop that had been producing instruments for more than a century, the workshop that would continue — Lucia had arranged the continuation, Lucia who managed the business, Lucia who had found a way for Marco to take over the workshop, the taking-over not a succession but a continuation, the workshop remaining the workshop, the tools remaining on the wall, the templates remaining on the wall, the workbench remaining the workbench, the wood remaining in the attic, the craft remaining the craft.

She looked at herself. She looked at her hands. The right hand, calloused from eleven months of tools, stained with varnish, the hand of an apprentice. The left hand, calloused differently, calloused from holding and gripping and stabilizing, the hand that had found its new use, the hand that had been an instrument and had become a tool, the hand that was both, the hand that was neither, the hand that was Nadia's hand, the hand that was hers.

Giovanni looked at her. The looking was the assessment, the final assessment, the maker assessing the apprentice the way the maker assessed the instrument, with the careful attention that was his gift, the attention that saw what was there and what was not there and the space between the two.

He did not say what he saw. He did not say: you arrived with broken hands and you are leaving with hands that have built the thing you can no longer play. He did not say: the building and the playing are not the same, and the not-same is not a failure but a discovery. He did not say: the discovery is the sound, the sound of the folk song on the violin you helped build, the sound that filled the workshop, the sound that was beautiful, the sound that was enough.

He did not say these things because the workshop did not say these things, the workshop said bene and the workshop said the nod and the workshop said the silence and the silence said everything.

He nodded.

The nod. The final nod. The nod that encompassed the year and the instrument and the apprentice and the workshop and the city and the tradition and the five centuries and the wood and the tools and the hands and the sound.

The nod that said: bene.

Nadia nodded back.

The exchange of nods, the communication complete, the communication that did not require words because the words were the year and the year had been lived and the living was the saying and the saying was the sound and the sound was the instrument and the instrument was the making and the making was the craft and the craft was the person and the person was Nadia and Nadia was here, in the workshop, in Cremona, in the space between the loss and the building.

August. The violin was complete. The case was closed. The tools were in their places. The templates were on the wall. The wood was in the attic. The workshop was the workshop.

Giovanni placed his hand on the closed case. His palm flat, his fingers spread, the hand on the case the way the hand had been on the spruce plank in September, the same gesture, the same touch, the same assessment and greeting and farewell, the hand saying to the instrument: you are made, you are complete, you are the last thing I will make, and the last is not less, the last is the culmination, the last is the sum.

He lifted his hand. He stepped back from the bench. He stood in the workshop, in the northern light, in the warm August air, and the standing was the completion, and the completion was the thing the craft had been building toward.

Not the instrument but the maker.

Not the violin but the person who made it.

And the person who made it was Giovanni.

And the person who helped make it was Nadia.

And the person who would carry the knowledge forward was Marco.

And the workshop held them all.

And the workshop would continue.

And the instruments would continue.

And the sound would continue.

And the sound was the thing.

The apprentice who arrived with broken hands leaves with hands that have built the thing she can no longer play, and the building and the playing are not the same, and the not-same is not a failure but a discovery, and the discovery is the sound.

The sound of the spruce from the Val di Fiemme and the maple from the Bosnian mountains and the ebony from Africa.

The sound of the hide glue and the oil varnish and the horsehair bow.

The sound of the workshop on Via Palazzo, two blocks from the Museo del Violino, in the city of Cremona, in the Po Valley, in the country of Italy, in the world.

The sound of a Croatian folk song played on a Cremonese violin by a woman who lost one thing and built another.

The sound of the last violin.

The sound.