The Violin Conspiracy(29)

“You know what, baby? You look just like my PopPop, standing up there. I have chills. Look.” She showed him her arm, where a prickle of gooseflesh rose on her thin skin. “I could swear he was standing up there. Sure brings back some sweet memories.” She smiled up at him.

He played an F-major scale to warm up, and his grandma applauded. “That was just a scale,” he told her. “Nothing to clap for.”

“I just love hearing you play. Wait a minute. Larry, Rochelle, Joyce, Thurston, y’all come in here. Ray is going to play for us on PopPop’s fiddle,” she shouted. His aunts and uncles came in from other parts of the house.

“Oh lord. Mama, please,” Ray’s mom said, edging back down the hall.

“Girl, you stand right there. This won’t take long. Ray is gonna play.”

Ray closed his eyes as he lifted the violin more tightly to his jaw. He’d have to get a shoulder rest sometime soon. A nice one. No sponge for PopPop’s violin. But that would wait. He touched the bow to the E string and began L’Inverno. No written music—he should have gotten his music!—but he knew the notes, the correct fingerings were effortless, and he switched smoothly from third to fifth, then back to first position.

The melody started slow, in the night, a plucking of strings, snowflakes falling dreamily, one flake at a time; and then a burst of cold air poured down on them, and flakes eddied, biting in the chill, the north wind coursing through the living room. Dawn came, light glistening off a frozen pond. A bird flew down, hopped on new snow, looking for seed. Bare trees reached to the sky, achingly blue in the cold.

Skaters swirled on ice. Skiers coasted down long cold runs. Then back to the house, to the warmth, to chocolate thawing on the stove and mittens steaming in front of a fire.

He painted all this for them in the air, this first time, with the music from PopPop’s fiddle—of his own violin!—washing over them. How glorious this was: to touch them, to make them hear, to give them this gift.

PopPop’s violin was different, easier to play. Maybe because it was his? Maybe he was channeling PopPop? Maybe he was just so deeply touched, playing for his grandmother, who was swaying there in her chair, eyes closed, a huge smile wreathing her lips? The last eight measures that had given him such trouble now seemed easy, smooth, and then before he was ready he’d played the last note. He held it as long as he could, the bow trembling in his hand.

Grandma Nora pulled herself from her recliner, clapping so hard that two of her pink curlers came loose and bounced to the floor. Moments later the rest of his family joined in.

It was assuredly Ray’s imagination, but holding the violin in his trembling left hand and his right hand sweaty on the bow, as he looked out at the sea of faces, another figure grinned back at him: a small man, shorter than his mother, just behind Aunt Joyce, very thin, with hunched shoulders and deep-set almond-shaped eyes. The shadow of the brim of a hat shaded his forehead. It was almost as if Ray could feel his blessing, his pride, and his exhilaration beaming at him. A moment later, when Ray blinked, the figure was gone.

“Whoa, that boy is good!” Larry patted Ray’s shoulder. The others sang out his praises, too. But he had eyes only for her, tears rolling down her face, hitting her hands together so hard he was afraid that they would shatter. “Baby, I am so proud of you. Your PopPop would be proud of you, too. I just can’t believe how good you play!”

And then, almost by accident, effortless, the thought crept into his head, and he listened to it for the first time: I can do this.





Chapter 9


    Opportunity


January

Like many turning points in a life—especially in the life of a lonely kid who stuck mostly to himself, playing a beat-up violin his grandmother had given him—Ray’s life changed because someone else reached out across the gulf and touched him.

Later, much later, Ray stumbled across a quote that reputedly came from Whoopi Goldberg: “We’re here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark.” Ray would type it up and stick it on his refrigerator with a local realtor’s giveaway magnet, and the paper would curl up at the ends and brown; and every morning, when he’d pull out his orange juice, he would see it hanging there and for an instant he’d pause and be grateful.

He found the torch that would lead him through the darkness at the auditions for the North Carolina Regional Orchestra, Eastern Division. Regional orchestra was a very big deal—he’d never auditioned before, and never thought he had much of a chance. Two hundred violinists vying for forty spots. He was one of three Black musicians out of the 392 trying out, and the only Black violinist. But none of that would stop him from trying out.

After the auditions, as he waited in the cafeteria with Aiden and a couple other kids, someone tapped Ray’s shoulder. A short, thin woman with an electric smile beamed back at him. She was in her early forties, with a few gray strands curling in her black hair. She wore jeans and a blazer. He couldn’t figure out where he knew her from—she looked very familiar—and then he realized that she was one of the judges at the audition: the only Black one. “Hello, young man.”

“Hello, ma’am,” Ray said, instinctively standing up straighter and adjusting his shirt.

“I’d like to say that I enjoyed your audition.”