The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto (13 page)

Meanwhile, during the daylight hours, Frankie studied intensely with his newly sober teacher. It would be the boy’s most fertile musical growth period. As he no longer went to school (an arrangement that did not bother Frankie at all), the two of them worked hours at a time on the guitar. Before he turned nine years old, Frankie could already play multiple styles, from jazz to flamenco, turning his fingernails inward to strum in the
rasgueo
technique. Going classical, he could finger-pick with great speed through difficult arpeggios that made it sound as if one hand were playing a bass line while the other hand played a cascade of notes. El Maestro, despite his blindness, painstakingly taught Frankie to read music, through description, listening, more description, more listening. The teacher could hear even a single note out of place, and insisted Frankie check the sheet music and read him where every dot, line, sharp and flat occurred.

Although his cheeks were still soft and his thick hair carried the sheen of youth, the boy’s music displayed a sensitivity beyond his years. “An old soul” is how you sometimes describe it. But talents like me have been inside you since creation. Every artist is old in that way.

Frankie even mastered the much-revered twelve études of Heitor Villa-Lobos, which were extremely demanding in how they stretched his left fingers. If he complained about how hard they were, El Maestro would tell him, “Mr. Lobos lived with cannibals in the Brazilian jungle to learn his music.
That
was hard. What you are doing is not.”

“Is that really true, Maestro?”

“What?”

image/25655.png

“That story?”

“Of course.”

“Cannibals?”

Maestro sighed.

“Man suffers for his art, Francisco. That is what you must remember. Sometimes it is cannibals. Sometimes it is worse.”

Although Frankie asked many times, he was forbidden to accompany El Maestro to the
taberna
. “You must have your sleep,” El Maestro said. Instead, a mustached conga player named Alberto came by each night to take the blind man to work.

“
Tu tío es un gran artista
,” Alberto often said.
Your uncle is a great artist.

“
Yo sé
,” Frankie replied.
I know.

Sometimes the boy would wake up in the morning and smell a faint trace of perfume. He thought about the dresses in the closet and he wondered if a lady had been there while he was sleeping. It made him think about the pink cheeks and the thin white fingers of Aurora York, and the afternoon they had together before everything changed.

“Maestro?” he asked one day as they ate breakfast, “When is the right age to get married?”

“Are you not telling me something, Francisco?”

“No.”

“Have you met a girl?”

“Once.”

“And you want to marry her?”

“Maybe.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“In the woods.”

“Was she a fairy?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did she have strange eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Was she kind and helpful?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen her again?”

“No.”

“She was a fairy. An
anjana
. Don’t fall in love with fairies, Francisco. They are not real.”

“She was real.”

“She sounds like a fairy.”

“She was not a fairy!”

“All right. She was not a fairy.” He chewed and swallowed, and then tapped the table until he found his coffee cup. “If she was real, you will see her again.”

“When?”

“When it is time.”

He sipped his coffee. Frankie scowled.

“Whose dresses are in the closet?”

He didn’t mean to ask that. He was angry, and it just slipped out. The blind man put down his cup.

“Finish eating, Francisco.”

Every loss leaves a hole in your heart. El Maestro, as you may have surmised, suffered a great loss earlier in his life, one that led him to a drunkard’s despair. His wife died. The beautiful woman who would lead him from the stage and plant a kiss on his lips. Once she was gone, he wanted nothing from this earth. He let himself sink—into melancholy, into drinking, into a haunted, restless sleep. If he could have unplugged his heart and shut the lights on his memory, he would have.

But over the months with his new protégé, the teacher healed considerably. He walked better. His belly shrank. His head hurt less. His skin had more color. Without the constant cloud of alcohol, he gradually returned to a sense of purpose. He found himself almost glad to be waking up, smelling the toast that Francisco was making. He enjoyed the respect that the child showed him, pulling out his chair, handing him his guitar. He liked hearing Frankie sing around the flat, songs the two of them shared in their secret library of shellac recordings. He even, begrudgingly, accepted the dog. Sometimes, the creature would lay its head in El Maestro’s lap and he would scratch its ears.

“He likes you,” Frankie said.

“He smells like gutter water,” El Maestro said.

Deep down, the blind man knew that Frankie remained heartbroken over his father. And having come to care about the boy himself, he could only imagine what pain Baffa was going through. So one night, at the
taberna
, El Maestro took a chance. He asked the owner if there were any soldiers in the audience.

Yes, he was told, a group of them sitting near the front.

“Introduce me,” El Maestro said.

Throughout the evening, he played many flamenco favorites—the kind of music the Generalísimo approved of—and he dedicated them all to the “brave men serving our leader.” People clapped and the owner smiled and the soldiers were appreciative. Later they invited the guitar player to sit with them. He bought them drinks and told them stories and bought more drinks and laughed in a way that he never usually laughed. It was, deep down, agonizing for El Maestro. He had an ugly history with war, and had no use for soldiers or generals. But, like practicing scales, some things you endure for a reason. As the soldiers drank more and more, he braved a few questions.

By the end of the night, he had learned the fate of a sardine maker named Baffa Rubio.

On August 3, 1945, two days before Frankie left the country for good, El Maestro paid a visit to a prison many miles outside Villareal. It took lies and bribes and a gypsy on a motorcycle to accomplish. More details are unimportant to this story. What is important is, that afternoon, in an empty yard behind a redbrick jail, a final conversation took place between the unmarried man who found a baby in a river and the blind guitarist who taught him his destiny.

They spoke for twenty-four minutes, in a whispered,
mosso
pace, 7/4 time—a jerky, interrupting rhythm. Baffa Rubio, who was pale and bruised and much thinner than he had ever been, saw the man with the dark glasses and began to tremble. He waited for the guards to move away. His first two whispered words were: “My son?”

“I have him—”

“Thank God.”

Tears. Breathing. Silence.

“He is all right?”

“He is all right.”

“Does he ask for me?”

“Of course.”

Tears. Breathing. Silence.

“I am a poor father. I never planned if something happened to me.”

“I am watching him, Señor Rubio.”

“You must not tell anyone he is mine.”

“Why not?”

“The factory. Three workers—they hated me—they told the police I was Socialista, that the others were from trade unions. When I denied this, they said I lied. They said the boy was proof. That a good Catholic would never take in a bastard. That his mother was a leftist—”

“Wait. He is not your child?”

Tears. Breathing. Silence.

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“Of course not.”

“I saved a life.”

“Of course.”

“These pigs—”

“Softly, Señor Rubio.”

“This Franco—”

“Do not speak of him, Señor Rubio.”

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“I understand.”

Tears. Breathing. Silence.

“Are you teaching him guitar?”

“Every day.”

“And his playing?”

“It is exceptional.”

“I wish I could hear him.”

“How long will they keep you?”

“Twelve years and a day.”

“Twelve years?”

“That is my sentence. How can this be? When I get out, Francisco will be a man.”

“I am very sorry.”

“I must ask you a favor. Will you do it?”

“I will do it.”

“Send the boy away.”

El Maestro felt his stomach tighten.

“Away?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“America. I have a sister.”

“America?”

“He will be safe there.”

“Such a journey.”

“There is no future here.”

“But I can watch him—”

“It is too risky”

“He can stay with—”

“Please, Maestro. Someone will talk. I have heard what they do to children of traitors. They are beaten and starved.”

“But you are not a traitor.”

“Yet I am still here.”

El Maestro rubbed his face. He was sweating now.

“How would I do this?”

“I have money. Hidden. You will get it. Pay the men at the docks.”

“Which men? Which docks?”

“Enough money will get you any man at any dock.”

“But how—”

“Listen. We have little time. Take this.”

He grabbed the blind man’s hand and slipped him a piece of fabric ripped from a shirt. On it was some writing.

“There is an address in America. It is where he must go.”

“All right.”

“Give the boy a new name. Mine is poison.”

“All right.”

“Tell him one day I will find him.”

“Yes.”

“Not to forget me.”

“Yes.”

“That I love him.”

“I will tell him, Señor Rubio.”

Tears. Choking.

“I’ve done nothing wrong, Maestro. You must believe me.”

“I do.”

“He is all I had.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do what I ask.”

“I will.”

“Keep what money is left.”

“I do not want your money, Señor Rubio.”

“I meant no offense. You cannot know what it is to give up a child.”

Beneath the dark glasses, tears began to well.

“No,” the blind man said. “Of course not.”

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