The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  “I thank you, Lord, for bringing me to this point,” I said. Amy gave my hand a hard squeeze and held on tight. “I never thought I would feel sure enough of an invisible presence to speak out loud, but here I am. You exist, Father, and you have changed my whole world. There could be no greater witness to this than the fact that I am standing here, in this place, speaking to you in prayer. Thank you, Father, for reaching down and saving me.”

  A happy crew walked out on stage about an hour later. The room was packed to capacity. All the tables were moved aside, and people pressed up right against the stage. At Jake’s suggestion Amy came out with us at the beginning of the set, since she and I were the only ones of the group that anyone in the crowd would recognize. We would start the second set with Hans’s solo.

  Our entrance was greeted with a tremendous noise. Amy was wearing a sequined blue gown, and as she raised her hand and waved to the crowd a myriad of sparkling diamonds winked across the back wall. Without preamble Jake nodded to Sameh, and we started in with a high-powered rendition of Mylon Lefevre and Broken Heart’s “Give It Up.” At the close we swung into the Imperials’ ”Promised Land” before the audience could react. Immediately we followed that with “Heaven” by Bebe and Cece Winans. When we finished the third song, the audience demanded to be heard.

  Amy smiled through their noise, and when the crowd quieted she looked my way. I licked my lips, nodded. We knew it was a secular crowd we were facing here. We were going back to the way we had done it in the big Turin clubs. The verbal ministry would be short, sharp, decisive pauses after every second or third song. I would translate at the end of each sentence, speaking rapidly but clearly. Then we would swing into the next song before the crowd cooled.

  “We are so very happy to be here, to be greeted by such a wonderful audience,” Amy said, and waited for me to catch up. “We are called Natural Light, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Alessandro and our friend Giovanni here for making it possible for us to perform for you.”

  The spotlight swiveled and searched and found a beaming Alessandro waving from his place by the reservations desk. He had stationed himself there to greet everyone as they entered, then found himself unable to come forward because of the crush. The crowd gave him a loud ovation.

  “You are looking at one happy man,” Amy said, smiling at him. “May we join with all the others here in wishing you and your club many years of success.”

  When the spotlight and crowd had turned back to her, Amy went on. “There is a very fine band in the United States named First Call, and as they say in one of their songs, the reason we sing is to praise the One who gave us His Son, so that we might all know the freedom of eternal salvation.”

  The instant I completed my translation, Jake swept down his hand and we leapt into Kathy Troccoli’s “Holy, Holy.”[13] It was a good move. We were able to preach the Word to those who otherwise would run for cover by giving them no time whatsoever to react. Amy danced the length of the stage, singing with that heartfelt power that was all her own. Holy is the Lord, God Almighty, she sang, and I watched the audience slowly gather back from the shocked stillness where our words had pushed them. Holy is the Lord God Almighty, Amy sang, and I endured the stunned glances cast my way that even the spotlights could not erase.

  I will sing a song of praise to you, oh Lord, my God and King, Amy sang, and Pipo pounded and danced and smiled as Hans and Karl swayed in step and belted out the accompanying overtones. You are the Prince of Peace, Amy sang, and I saw that while some in the crowd balked at the music’s direction, most responded with smiles and hand-waving and swaying bodies. In your light I find a new joy dawning, she sang, and the band and the crowd moved to her song’s magnetic quality.

  To you, oh Lord, my God and King, I lift up my soul, we sang in unison, and I felt a thrill of rightness lift me beyond the club’s earthly confines. This was my public declaration. This was my gift to those who needed what I had found. This was my service for the One who had seen fit to save me from myself.

  ****

  Mornings and afternoons we used the empty club for practice. Occasionally Alessandro would be there with salesmen and trades-people, sometimes the cooks or waiters would come out front and smoke and smile and tap their feet and clap between songs. But mostly we were left alone. We began after breakfast and stopped when light streaming through the glass roof turned the courtyard into an oven. The massive air conditioners switched on automatically in the early afternoon, and by the time we returned from our siesta and stroll through the city, the place was once again comfortably cool. We stopped when the sky overhead became streaked with the burnished gold of another sunset, and joined the kitchen crew for dinner and conversation.

  Jake pushed us all very hard. There was little free time and less relaxation. The tension and sense of unexplained urgency was with us always. We finished playing at one in the morning, arrived back in Torno about two, slept until ten, had breakfast together at the cottage, then drove back to the club. It was a grinding pace, but no one complained. No one even asked the reason for it, or questioned why we were concentrating so hard on our own music. Jake did not give us a reason, and we did not ask. There was something about his reserve, some intense quality to his drive for perfection, that gave us the patience to wait until he was ready to tell us whatever it was that wound him up so tight.

  I wrote another song during that time, working through the quiet midday hours while the others slept. This time there was no ready acceptance of my work. Everything was questioned, pulled apart, adjusted, reworked. I stood in silent compliance, redoing parts as requested, too caught up in the pressing tension to argue. The result was good. Very good, in fact; focused and tight. The song was entitled “Light Me Up,” and was a tune with simple lyrics inviting the Holy Spirit to come and transform the singer’s life. The melody was saved from being straight disco-funk by fancy drum work and alternating percussion, and by a solo that matched my harsh rock-like guitar with Karl on alto sax. The result was both powerful and polished.

  Late afternoon in the middle of the third week, we were finally satisfied with the song. All eyes turned toward Jake. There was no need to say it. It was time to hear what was pushing us so hard.

  Jake took his time unstrapping his guitar. He wiped his face with the sweat-stained towel, draped it across his shoulders, motioned for us to gather at one of the stage-side tables.

  A final sunbeam narrowed its way between two neighboring buildings to angle a pillar of fire through the glass roof and across the stone-faced courtyard. Pipo and Hans sat on the edge of the stage with their legs dangling down. The remainder of us pulled chairs up in a broad circle.

  “Time for the next step,” Jake began. He gave his face another swipe with the towel. “Got us a record company in Holland who wants to give us a chance.”

  “And a producer,” Amy said, her eyes on Jake.

  “Dude by the name of André Fredricks. Some of you may have heard of him.”

  “Sure,” Mario said. “He mixes all the Gospel Holland television shows. Did Larry Norman’s ‘Live’ album last year.”

  “Man is buildin’ a strong name in the Christian music scene,” Jake said.

  “He’s supposed to be the best in Europe,” Mario agreed.

  The room was so quiet I could hear a single car drum by on the cobblestones outside the club. High overhead a bird perched on the edge of the courtyard wall sang a plaintive note. Someone laughed inside the kitchen. The air conditioner breathed quietly in the distance.

  “Best deal I could get,” Jake said, talking to the linen covered table. “Company’s called Spark Music, based in central Holland. Flattest place you’ve ever seen. Guy who runs it’s called Gerrit Aan’t Goor—hope I said that right.”

  “You’re doing just fine, honey,” Amy said, reaching for his hand. “Just fine.”

  “Yeah, well, he works with this lady called Leida Glass. Two real strong Christians, real committed to gospel music. Sta
rted out a few years back importing records for Word Music. Then they signed on some local acts. Recorded in local studios, used the same distribution network they set up for Word. Did pretty well. So now they want to try and work out a deal with Word. The idea is, see, they’ll distribute us here in Europe, and get Word to handle us in the States.”

  Grins were popping out around the table. Jake’s sweat-sheened seriousness held us back from shouting, jumping up, racing around the room. Pipo was content to grasp hold of the stage, lean back, and release a silent cry toward the distant ceiling.

  “We’ve got us a special price from the studio in Dusseldorf where Mario, Pipo, and I work. Gonna go for a whole album, nine songs. Gotta push hard.”

  Jake raised his head and raked us with a warning glare. “Let’s get two things straight right here, right now. We do not have time for mistakes.”

  “Or money,” Amy added quietly.

  “They’re takin’ a big chance on us. Biggest risk they’ve ever taken. You hear what I’m sayin’? We are their trial run. Even with the discount this is gonna strip the cupboard bare. Lotta hopes are ridin’ on our bein’ able to get it right the first time. Lotta dreams, lotta people’s faith bein’ put on the line.”

  Pipo started, “What if—”

  “There can’t be any what if’s,” Jake replied, his voice a rasp. “Nine songs, three days per song. Two days at the start for the guide tracks. Twelve days for mixing. Anybody who gets us off schedule ain’t long for this earth.”

  He let the silence hold us until he was sure the importance was clear. I thought about having my songs put on display before all the world. I looked around the table, saw serious faces and inward-looking gazes. Jake’s somber urgency had touched us all very deeply.

  “There’s one more thing,” Jake said, drawing us back into the circle. “This album is gonna be an act of faith. Right from beginning to end. Egos and selfish desires are gonna be kept outside the studio. Prayer is the name of the game.”

  “And thanks,” Amy murmured, her eyes on Jake.

  “This is a miracle, and that’s no lie. When all was lost and hope was gone, the Lord came through and turned the world to light. Remember that. This ain’t something we’ve done for ourselves. This is a gift from on high. And we’re gonna reflect that in our music and in our work.”

  Amy swiveled around in her seat and reached up for Pipo’s hand. Silently we joined hands around the table and bowed our heads. We waited a moment, and it dawned on me that Jake was not going to speak.

  In silence we prayed for that binding force, that cleansing power. Help me to set myself aside, I prayed, and felt the silence come alive. Help me to do your will with this gift. In Christ’s holy name I pray.

  ****

  Wednesday morning I excused myself from practice. Jake was not at all pleased with the news, and pressed hard. “We got exactly three more days here and fourteen in Dusseldorf before the hammer falls,” he told me.

  I refused to yield. “There’s something I have to do.”

  Amy walked over, slid her arm around Jake, looked into my face, and said quietly, “It’s important, isn’t it, Gianni?”

  I nodded. “Something I’ve been putting off for too long.”

  “Gianni’s not the kind of man to do this unless it was really important, Jake.”

  The hardness left Jake’s eyes. He told me, “Try to be back for the afternoon practice.”

  * * *

  On a hill protruding from the heart of my little village rose the church of Torno. There were other chapels, other places of worship or prayer or gathering or gossip, but this was the church.

  Twin staircases flowed down either side of an ancient balustrade like two graceful arms. Between them stood a supporting wall and a time-worn fountain that dated from the eleventh century. The town treated these stairs as their public domain. In the afternoons the ice-cream man set up his stall across the street, next to the tiny bar and dusty piazza where my grandfather used to sit with his cronies. In the summertime young people paraded majestically back and forth from the stairs to the ice cream seller and back again. The sweet sound of Italian spoken in the flush of youth was a continuous chorale until dusk. On weekends it lasted until midnight.

  On Sundays to climb the stairs meant to run the gauntlet of the town’s entire church-going population. Here new babies were presented, love publicly declared, scandals inflamed and settled, business transacted, life enhanced, feelings aroused. It was an enclave, this heart of the town, where life’s theater was displayed for all to see.

  The church’s jumbled interior was the perfect child’s fantasy. The marble floors and stone walls and high ceilings drew up all the coughs and sighs and droning voices and returned them in the endless echoes of one giant voice saying anything a child wished it to. Everywhere there were doors covered in red velvet, leading off to mystical places. The light was soft and still and cool, broken into a thousand shades by the stained-glass windows. The colors moved and floated with the clouds that drifted overhead. In alcoves stood statues that would come to life under a child’s gaze and accompany him on adventures through the church’s hidden ways.

  When I was very young, my grandmother once told me that the church was where God lived. The church was dressed in such finery, she said, as a sign of respect to the Master of the house. In my wide-eyed wonder I imagined the bells to be the voice of God. And why not? They were certainly the loudest sound in the village, a melody that could be heard everywhere. They sang in a language that only the priests could understand, I decided. That was why priests stood in those fancy robes and talked to the people of the village. They were explaining what the bells had said that morning. They came out front to interpret, then went back into the hidden rooms to be with God in His home.

  I sat in the church that Wednesday morning and remembered without pain. My Bible was open in my lap, and from time to time I would search out a passage, taking tiny tastes and savoring the simple joy of understanding.

  For nine long years, Wednesday morning had been the only period in my drug-addled week when I had allowed myself to remember all that had come before. Here in the cool confines of this church, I had been able to bring out the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand and recall them without the pain that had left me sweaty and heartsore when dreams had invaded my lonely nights.

  Now I sat in the same pew that had harbored my few moments of relative peace, and I felt closer to my grandmother than I had since her death. Not because of the place or because of the memories. Because of finally sharing her faith.

  I walked from the church and stood on the broad terrace, looking down on the dusty central square, on the cafe with its rusty tables and feeble patrons, on the flock of motorcycles where the young people gathered to laugh and flirt, on the lake’s deep blue that sparkled up between the houses, on the distant mountains. I took a deep breath and said a silent prayer. It was time to go.

  A path of three hundred and fifty weathered stone steps led from the church up the steep hillside to the cemetery. I stopped halfway up to catch my breath, and turned to look out over the unfolding vista. Already I was above the village’s highest point. The lake beckoned and shimmered, its surface ruffled into a million glinting mirrors by the breeze. The breeze tossed my hair with gentle fingers. I stood and inhaled the fragrance of mountain wildflowers and remembered the other times I had climbed these same stairs.

  The first time had been for my grandfather’s funeral, and I was saved from the blackness of his absence by my youth and by my grandmother’s strength. For my grandmother’s funeral there had been no one to turn to for help. Certainly not the fresh-faced priest sent to officiate over the final farewell of a woman he had never met. Certainly not my father, who had not come, not called, not tried to contact me during the dark days following her death as I had struggled with the German bureaucracy. On that day, I had climbed these stairs utterly alone. Not far above the point where I now stood, I had finally stopped and tur
ned around, unable to continue.

  I had been so afraid that day, afraid and alone. The void inside me had shrouded a terrifying pain. I had been too fearful of facing that pain to continue. I had stood there on the stair feeling nothing but the dread and the dark emptiness until the priest had returned down the stairs.

  I remembered that day very clearly, the way his cassock had dragged on the ground, making the rustling sound of dried twigs in the wind, the way he had grasped the black-bound prayer book to his chest as though holding a shield between himself and me. I remembered the way he had looked at me with irritation and curiosity, as though I had sent him up the stairs on a fool’s errand. But the priest had seen something in my eyes that had stilled the words before they were spoken. He had turned away from me with a slight shudder, and then hurried on down toward the village and life and friends and safety. I had remained standing frozen to the stair until darkness and exhaustion had finally driven me back to the empty cottage.

  Now I stood and looked into the distance and felt the chains fall around my feet. I turned and continued up the stairs.

  My grandfather’s father and his father before him had been stonemasons. That was as far back as the family memory had gone, to my grandfather’s father’s father—three generations who had resided in the tiny village and scraped a living from the heart of the mountain.

  As I pushed through the squeaky wrought-iron gate another image surfaced—that of a young child watching a very weary old man wash his hands at the kitchen’s stone sink before seating himself for the evening meal. Why was my grandfather a stonemason, I had asked in my little piping voice. The smile that had creased the ancient features had taken the last vestige of strength the old man had possessed. When I was a child your age, he had replied, the greatest hope of an uneducated man was for a job. Any job. I did it because I could, he had said, but you must remember this, little Giovanezzo. It is not what a man does that is the measure of his worth. It is what he carries in his mind and heart. It is what he builds his life upon.