Then I remembered.
The last time we’d locked eyes was at my Christmas performance in the Gran Teatro. That was months ago. But the Wonder Boy’s face had been in the papers a couple times since. Even once on TV. Would she know me?
The next time I’d seen her, she was protesting in front of our house. But I’d been invisible, secretly watching her through binoculars behind ten-foot walls.
My guts relaxed. Whether she recognized me or not, I felt certain she couldn’t know I was the mine owner’s son.
The girl turned back to Diadora, addressing her as abuelita, granny. She helped her up and guided her toward the door.
A fire seemed to ignite in Diadora’s good eye and she waved us all into her tiny house.
I had to duck to enter. It was so dark, I bumped into backpacks and shoulders and what felt like a bed. Katie grabbed my hand, I guess thinking I might do another ass plant. Somebody turned on a naked bulb and I found I was standing beside a stack of crudely painted signs. Protest signs I’d seen before.
¡Sí a la vida! ¡No minería! Yes to life! No to mining!
¡Unidos en defensa de Madre Tierra! United in defense of Mother Earth!
Diadora seemed to have recovered. Her eye was back in, anyhow. She was pointing excitedly at a big gash that snaked down the wall and across the floor. “Tantas explosiones. Están destruyendo nuestros hogares.”
Katie looked at me, her dark eyes more serious than ever.
“So many explosions,” I said. “They’re wrecking our homes.”
I was suddenly suffocating and started to squeeze through the bodies.
“You okay?” Adam said as he stepped aside.
“Just need some air.” I was almost at the door when the girl in the kerchief came up to me with a torn scrap of paper and a pencil. “Su autógrafo, por favor.”
I was hardly feeling like the Wonder Boy at the moment. The Indio who signed autographs after concerts seemed a solar system away, if he ever existed. But this Mayan girl now showed me that same star-struck face I’d seen in the theater.
I forced a smile and asked her name in K’iche’.
“Eliza,” she said.
While Diadora carried on about the evil mining company, I flattened Eliza’s paper against the mud wall and wrote, Believe in the music! Love, Indio. When I dotted the last “i” in my name, the pencil torpedoed through the paper making a big ugly hole, like the bullet marks in Diadora’s house. I pulled the paper away to see another gaping crack in the wall.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I smoothed out the paper, handed it back to Eliza, and got the hell out of there.
I took two steps onto the grass when it dawned on me that I wrote her autograph in English. Jesus! I looked at my hands, wondering who was really inhabiting my body.
Then another thought. If I wanted to keep building my musical career, it was high time I changed my name. My last name, at least, to remove any possible connection with this foul place.
PARTY’S OVER
“Who was that girl back there?” Katie asked me as we walked back to the bus.
“Beats me. Some groupie, I guess.”
“Way out here?”
“Hey, I have groupies in New Zealand. Even China.”
We walked in clumsy silence until Katie stopped and slapped both legs with her hands. “Oh, my God!” She threw her backpack to the ground and started wrestling with it, trying to rip something off.
I leaned over her shoulder. She was attacking a Canadian flag. “Uh … what are you doing?”
Katie looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot. “I’m so totally embarrassed to be Canadian!”
I said nothing. I was so totally embarrassed to be the mine owner’s son. No, not embarrassed. Ready to throw up, actually.
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Yeah … I guess so. But I’m not really Canad—”
“Did you believe that eye thing? Those cracks in the wall?”
“Pretty sick, eh.”
Katie got nowhere with her flag.
I went for my jackknife on the bus. I grabbed my guitar, too, thinking we could chill on the grass before climbing on board for the slog home. Maybe knock that shitty feeling from my guts.
My knife did the trick. Katie whipped the flag into a smoldering fire pit. One of Diodora’s goats trotted over, plucked the flag out of the pit, downed it in one gulp, then let out a big belch.
Katie broke into a kind of crying laughter and folded herself into me. I carefully leaned my guitar against the back of the bus and rested my arms on her shoulders.
“Tighter,” she whispered.
I let my arms drop to the small of her back and gave her the squeeze I’d been craving all day. No guitar could ever hug like that. “That goat’s gonna have bad gas,” I said. Then we were both laughing like fools.
Adam strolled by us without a look. “Let’s go, you Canucks. Party’s over.”
The bus driver leaned on the horn and we dashed for the door.
Everybody was letting off steam after a heavy afternoon. Sounded like a soccer game. The bus lurched backwards, spilling packs and water bottles off the overhead racks. I reached out to protect my guitar in the seat beside me … and my stomach did a flip.
“¡Para, para!” I shouted to the driver. “Stop!”
But he didn’t hear me. He didn’t stop.
I jumped out of my seat.
Too late.
I heard a sickening crunch.
My childhood, such as it was, pretty much ended that day with the death of my first guitar. And my discovery of the disgusting truth about my father’s mine.
THE SADDEST SONG
The day after our mine tour, I was back in my practice room with my zebrawood guitar cradled between my thighs. The morning sun shone like a spotlight on the flowered rosette surrounding its sound hole. I ran a finger over the scar made by the protester’s rock months ago. The scar that, in the end, no luthier could fix.
It reminded me of the bullet wound on Diadora’s temple.
As much as I loved that guitar, my sweet little three-quarter model would always be my favorite. The one that now lay ground into the dirt behind Diadora’s mud hut.
Our house was quiet that morning. Loba snored beside me on her sheepskin rug. Through my window I could hear old Andres, our gardener, raking sweetgum leaves off the lawn. The random thump of Juan Carlos lifting weights in the garage. Distant thunder ricocheting off the mountains that protect Xela.
It was one of those rare moments when I didn’t have to practice or rehearse or do anything, really, but hang out with my guitar. After our visit to the mine, I felt more like I was clinging to it for dear life.
Magno was on tour that week, doing his own concerts “to help feed my Corvette,” he’d told me. So no lesson the next day. Dad was away all weekend, “kicking butts at the mine.” So no fear of him stealth-listening down the hall. Mom was out shopping for more shoes or whatever. Uncle Faustus had Sofi covered.
The practice room door was wide open, letting in a cool breeze that got my sheet music dancing on the stand.
I could have played anything I wanted. Some Hendrix or BB King, or maybe some of the Beatles tunes I’d arranged for classical guitar, the ones my classmates screamed for on the bus.
Instead I sat there, with my hands in ready position, wondering what would come.
I closed my eyes and waited.
Magno called this process “spontaneous musical combustion.” You don’t choose the music. It pops up by itself. You don’t play the music. It plays you. You have to calm down, he told me, turn off your brain, forget trying to please anyone. “Not me,” he said. “Not your father. Not even yourself.” Eventually your fingers twitch, you feel a mild burning sensation, then … out it comes.
This was a fun exercise we’d use to break up our three-hour lessons.
What erupted that morning was the saddest song I knew.
Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor.�
�� Magno told me this piece was famous for showing up in the darkest moments of the saddest movies ever. Like Phantom of the Opera, for starters.
The Adagio poured out of my fingers like a slowly building thunderstorm.
I played it through once. Just three and a half minutes but it felt like forever. My ears rode the last notes out the window and into the gray sky. I played it again, falling deeper into the music. I played it again, feeling it massage a lonely spot inside that I knew only music could touch. I played it over and over, feeling my hair and skin and flesh strip away, until all that was left was the pain.
Getting Inside the Music
MUSIC AS MIRROR
My guitar teacher is a bit of a philosopher. He’ll say stuff like, “Music imitates life, only more so.” I don’t exactly get what he means, but somehow it makes more sense when I grab my guitar and play something that shakes me from the inside out. Another time he told me that, “It’s pointless to ask what a piece of music means.” That really got me scratching my head, but I think he’s saying that music is about expressing feelings that words can’t touch.
You can see I learn more in my guitar lessons than just scales and stuff!
I’ve learned, for instance, that if you really listen, music can take you to some pretty cool places inside yourself. Sometimes scary places, too. In my music history book, I triple-starred this quote by the German poet Heinrich Mueller, who takes this idea to the limit:
“Listen well enough and music will show you everything you are.”
TRY THIS EXPERIMENT
So, are you ready to experiment with this? To really listen and see what you discover? Try this one on for size: Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor” (here’s the link). I made this recording for you in the stairwell of my house where I can get some cool churchy acoustics. There was a storm in Xela when I recorded this, so if you turn your volume up, you’ll hear tree branches knocking against the window. Also, my dog scratching at the door, begging to be with me. Sorry! I can control many things but not the weather or my dog!
A small warning: buckle up; this could be a rough ride. And do let me know what you discover. By the way, this piece will be on my first CD that will be available in late summer. I hope you will listen to me then, too.
Yours inside the music, Indio r
That piece struck a chord, so to speak. My followers, whose numbers had just broken 1,000, shared a ton of pretty personal stuff.
i was reading some emails while listening to your masterpiece and suddenly i couldn’t finish the line i was on! my eyes just stopped dead and then—guess what! —they started gushing. i haven’t cried like that since i was a brat. what are you doing to me indio? sounds weird but I wanna THANK YOU for that sad sad song.
Dear young maestro, you are right. There are no words for the feelings this music touches. When I listened deeply like you said, something flew out of me, like a dark bird.
incredible song! my two little nephews were running around, shouting, breaking heads, then i hit play and, you won’t believe it, they sat down in complete silence and just listened to you. i had to run for some kleenex. well played!!
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful sadness.
So perfect! How did I feel? So jealous!
The pile of comments kept me busy online for hours after school, until Juan Carlos came storming into the computer lab, pretending to reach for his gun.
EARTHQUAKE
The earthquake struck the day old Andres and Juan Carlos were decorating our ten-foot wall with Christmas lights. Andres held the ladder while feeding strings of lights up to Juan Carlos, who draped them along the top of the wall. Those guys normally stayed out of each other’s faces. Couldn’t stand each other, actually. But Mom insisted they get the damn lights up prontisimo.
She’d invited a bunch of her family over to celebrate Las Posadas, the traditional welcoming of the pregnant Mother Mary into Bethlehem. Her sister Dora was full-on pregnant, so Mom thought it would be especially good to get together that year. She’d even arranged for a donkey for Dora to ride on up to our gate.
Beyond Uncle Faustus, who’d lived with us forever, Las Posadas was the only time of year I ever got to see anybody resembling family. As far as I knew, the closest relatives on Dad’s side were sheepherders in Scotland.
It was after dark by the time Andres and Juan Carlos argued their way to the last string of lights. I’d been watching the show from my practice room and had to laugh when I saw the lights looking extra cheery, reflected in the coils of razor wire.
The first tremor hit while Juan Carlos was climbing down the ladder for the last time. He must have thought Andres was fooling around and started yelling at him—until he noticed Andres running for his life. I grabbed the windowsill with both hands as another tremor hit and the marble floor beneath me turned to Jell-O.
“Jump!” I shouted out the window.
Juan Carlos leapt from the ladder and hit the ground running just as the wall above him cracked open and spilled a bunch of razor wire over the edge, Christmas lights and all.
That wasn’t all that came crashing down that night, according to the next day’s front-page headline: Contamination from Canadian mine disaster angers villagers. I was about to read the article when Dad grabbed the paper off the kitchen table, spilling the special Christmas hot chocolate Katrina had made for me.
“Shouldn’t we be practicing?” Dad said as he watched Katrina clean up the mess.
I stared at the newspaper crushed under his armpit. “So what’s up at the mine?”
“Oh … just a technical hitch caused by the quake. Need to plug a few leaks.”
“Will you shut it down?”
“Hell, no. Business as usual, you know. Keep pouring those gold bricks. Wouldn’t want the workers to miss a day of pay, would you?”
“Or maybe … an eyeball?” I said.
That just kind of slipped out.
I hadn’t planned to confront Dad about what I’d heard out there. About company thugs roughing up villagers who got in the way. Maybe slitting their goats’ throats. Or the villagers’ throats. I was scared he’d take it out on me somehow—more practicing, less school, more bruised shins.
But it was too late now. There it was, sitting on the kitchen table between us.
Diadora’s glass eye.
Dad slowly took the morning paper out from under his armpit and rolled it into a tight tube. Loba ran to the glass door and scratched madly to get out. Sofi kicked it open and Loba bolted across the grass. Dad looked at the rolled-up paper like he was deciding what to do with it.
“Ever heard of Diadora Itza?” I asked him.
Mom went over and started rubbing Dad’s back. His shoulders dropped about a foot. His face softened. Only Mom could do that to him. She called it the Mayan touch.
Dad looked up at me, smiling. “Never heard of her.”
“Itza,” Mom said. “K’iche’ name. One of us.”
“You mean … she could be related?” I said.
Mom shrugged. “Maybe. Our people—your people, Indio—they cover the mountains like trees.” From behind Dad’s back, she flashed me a hurt look, like she was feeling the villagers’ pain. “Who is she, this Diadora?”
Dad was getting dark again. He stared at me in a way I did not like.
“Just some villager,” I said. “Got into trouble with the mine, I guess.”
Dad slowly put the newspaper down and folded his hands on the table. “Who told you this, Indio?”
“Oh … somebody mentioned her at school, that’s all. In Social Studies class. It’s nothing, Dad.” It hit me that what I just spilled might get my favorite teacher, Adam Upjohn, fired.
“Good.” Dad crammed the newspaper into his jacket and stood up. “Now, I’d really love to hear some of that new Bach prelude before I go.”
“To the mine?” Mom asked.
Dad frowned. “Yes. A little tremor and the villagers don’t show up for work.”
“I
t’s Vivaldi,” I said.
Dad was half out the door. “What?”
“The prelude. It’s by Vivaldi, not Bach.”
“Yeah. That one. Would you play it for me when I get back?”
“Sure, Dad.”
MATH CLASS
It was business as usual for home-schooling that afternoon. If I learned anything in that math class, it was that not even a major earthquake could shake up the schedule my father set in stone for me.
It’s not that my teacher Luiz was a dolt. One look at his Roman nose and bushy beard and you might have said he was brilliant. But it’s a wonder I even knew my times tables.
Luiz sat in Magno’s chair as if he belonged there. It would always be Magno’s chair but I tried not to let it bug me. Even though Luiz once home-schooled El Presidente’s kids, he secretly called himself an anarquista—an anarchist—and was always happy to share his political views with me. Actually, that’s about all he shared.
Not with Dad, of course. What gave Luiz a foot in Dad’s door wasn’t his politics or teaching skills. Luiz had presidential connections. That’s all that mattered to Dad. Beyond enforcing the schedule, Dad showed zero interest in my home-schooling. For him, it was all about guitar.
So what happened in class, stayed in class.
Luiz started this class by scribbling some numbers on a whiteboard. Numbers I’d seen many times before. I said nothing, filing my guitar nails behind his back. It was Luiz’s usual breakdown of Guatemala’s class structure. I doubt if he shared this with the President’s kids.
Los ricos (the very rich) 2%
Clase media (middle class) 28%
Pobreza (the poor) 50%
Extrema pobreza (the very poor) 20%
Luiz spun around and looked steadily at my left ear. I knew there was something wrong with his eyes but, after all these years, it was too late to ask. “Now, listen Indio, if you do the math, assuming Guatemala has, say, 16 million people and a growth rate of 2.5 per cent, how many years will it be until the next revolution?”
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