Read The Spanish Bow for Free Online

cheeks. "Spanish,
ciento por ciento,
" he said. One hundred percent. "But surely the ladies here won't fault me for having a little Moorish and gypsy blood."
    Satisfied titters ran through the crowd.
    A woman yelled, "How old are you?"
    "How old are
you
?" he shot back.
    "
Olé!
" someone shouted.
    An unseen voice: "Is it true you stowed away to Brazil when you were seven years old?"
    He stroked his beard. "My music has allowed me to travel far and wide."
    And another, from a sultry-voiced woman in the rear: "When are you going to stop being called Baby? You look like a big boy to me."
    El Nene made a show of lifting a piece of sheet music and fanning himself with it. "Dear lady, if your impure thoughts have become too much to bear, there's a confessional right next door."
    El Nene nodded across the room to the partners he'd failed to introduce, flipped his coattails out of the way, slid onto the piano bench and launched solo into an opening chord struck so ferociously that a girl in the audience cried out. Embarrassed laughter followed, but the pianist only smiled slightly and kept playing, as if the girl's reaction and anything else our unsophisticated audience might produce—whispers, gasps, applause at inappropriate moments—were to be both expected and forgiven.
    As the audience settled and quieted, El Nene began traversing the keyboard—octave by octave, at high speed, in showy hand-over-hand displays. He spread his arms wide and brought them together again, and I half-expected the keys to hop off the keyboard and pile with a clatter between his hands, like dominoes gathered at the end of a game.
    Some of the assembled farmers and vintners, fishermen and bakers had been dragged to the concert by their wives; they had taken their chairs wearily and had endured El Nene's preconcert banter with haughty expressions. But as he played, their faces softened and grew attentive. They leaned forward in their seats, hands on their knees or their chins, recognizing the athleticism of his attack and marveling at sounds and feelings they could not name.
    As for dynamics, they were limited: loud, louder, and loudest. But to this crowd, it didn't matter. Later, I would recognize this as El Nene's trademark: his chameleonlike ability to judge a crowd, and to play to it. Among kings and queens, he played with lighter strokes and more
ritardes.
In Britain, he tried to sound more southern; in Italy, more northern. The crowds adored him, but the critics abroad sniped too frequently:
not Spanish enough.
It infuriated him, how little they knew about Spain, and how even though he knew so much more, he couldn't please them all.
    Except on an evening like this, in a small town, without music critics. Perhaps that's why he'd come. For the duration of the piece, the audience remained silent. The only stray noise I heard, in the quiet interval before applause erupted, was a quiet, disappointed groan from Percival, who had lost his latest bet.
    If the concert had ended there, it would have stayed in my memory forever. But something more astounding happened when the violinist and the cellist joined the pianist. I looked to the violin first, because it was familiar; I knew I'd learn something by watching, and was hoping to see El Nene's violinist put my own teacher to shame. The cello, played by a man named Emil Duarte, didn't interest me because it seemed like nothing more than an oversized violin. But then Duarte pulled his bow against the larger instrument's strings, and my face turned to follow the sound. I was thankful that El Nene had played solo first, because once the cello started up, I never looked at the violin or piano again.
    Duarte's cello was a glossy caramel color, and the sound it produced was as warm and rich as the instrument looked. It sounded like a human voice. Not the high warble of an opera singer or anyone else singing for the stage, but rather the soothing voice of a fisherman singing as he mended his nets, or of a mother