The Violin

by Lindsay Pritchard

  “Don’t worry, honey! I’ll be out of this in no time. Just wait ‘til we get our lawyer on this one. I love you!” Harry shouted.

  “What the hell do you mean?” shouted Ronan angrily. “What does he mean Francelle? You’re my girl. Tell him about us Francelle! Francelle!”

  Having won her own particular game of cherchez la femme, Francelle promptly disappeared into nowhere with a fat wedge of cash and some very nice ice.

  Josip searched in vain for his lost love when she didn’t turn up as arranged. His heart was broken.

  *

  Justice was dispensed swiftly and firmly. All the Fellows and Breen assets were seized and, where provable, the thousands of secreted dollars were seized and handed over to the City Treasury.

  Harry and Ronan appeared in court and, having pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain to avoid a stiffer sentence, were both given two years in the New York State penitentiary.

  After serving their time, although not speaking to each other during their sentences, both were released into ignominy. Ronan, having had enough of the high life, returned to Ireland on a tramp steamer into oblivion.

  Harry Farquharson, once part of the gilded generation at Dover College with all the world and time in front of him, was penniless and unemployable. Great hotels and expensive restaurants were swapped for flop houses and soup kitchens. It does not take long for a man to descend into inescapable poverty. Unshaven, gaunt and shattered by the spell in gaol, he was unrecognisable as the gentleman crook in the tailored suit with the lemon gloves.

  Casting around for a source of income, he took one of the few possessions that had remarkably survived with him through his downfall, imprisonment and disgrace. He applied boot polish to his old Italianate violin to spruce it up to play, with a hat in front of him and a sign that said ‘No work. Not eaten today’.

  He stood on a windy street corner in Midtown reprising some of the music he had been taught, interspersed with popular favourites, attracting pennies and dimes and the occasional half dollar.

  The Italianate still rang out faithful and true and its mellow, beautiful carrying resonance would make people stop and smile for a while at its clarity and tone, wondering at the incongruity of such a rough vagrant and such beautiful music.

  One of those who stopped to listen was Emil Hermann. On his way to an appointment at Carnegie Hall he had decided to go a slightly longer way round because he had heard the violin on the far corner of 57th Street.

  He caught his breath as he heard the haunting tones. The player, a rough-looking type whom you would not have readily associated with such fine music and whose playing was of a very moderate standard, nevertheless coaxed sublime tones out of what looked like a decently made violin, though spoilt and darkened by what looked like furniture polish.

  Emil was transfixed. From a few paces, without examining it, he could not guess the origins of the violin. He had to speak to the man. Dropping a ten-dollar bill into the hat he also dropped in his business card.

  “I’ll double that ten if you’ll bring that violin round to my office this afternoon.”

  Harry nodded and played on but did present himself later at the shop on 57th Street.

  At first the door assistant, taking one look at the down and out, refused him entry. But Emil intervened.

  “No, no, no. Let him in. I’ve invited him.”

  Sitting at a side desk, Emil took the violin out of the case and turned it over and over making an instant expert appraisal. It was in poor condition and like nothing he had ever seen before.

  “What’s this you’ve put on it?”

  “It’s a bit of boot polish,” said Harry. “I can wipe it off if you like,” and he attempted to take it back off Emil.

  “No, no, no. We have materials in our workshop that will restore it faithfully. It will also need a little work on the body,” he said, indicating fraying and split purfling, “but nothing we can’t fix.”

  Harry pulled a face. “I can’t afford any restoration. Why do you think I’m playing in the street?” he asked.

  Emil soothed.

  “I understand. What I propose is that you leave it with me, and I’ll give you whatever you make in a week by way of a deposit to you.”

  “About, oh… a hundred I guess,” lied Harry.

  “Well, I’ll give you a hundred down and another hundred if you come back and see me on Friday and we’ll discuss things. How does that sound?”

  To Harry, on his uppers, that sounded more than fair and he had a hundred dollars which would give him a bed for a few nights, some cigarettes and some booze.

  He presented himself the following Friday afternoon. The scene had been played out a hundred years before with John Handyside at M.E. Hill in London.

  Emil said, “What you have here is a unique instrument, a one-off. I know the work of John Johnson of Cheapside – a workaday luthier. But here he seems to have put everything into this one violin to get it as close as possible to a classical instrument. Remarkable. And such a unique tone.”

  Harry was revising his price upwards.

  “What is more,” Emil continued, “and I am a fair man I hope with a reputation to uphold, the provenance of this violin is impeccable which increases its value accordingly.

  “See here,” said Emil, indicating three fading and crumpled letters on the desk. “These were in the violin case underneath the lining. I don’t suppose you have ever had cause to lift it out?

  “The first letter appears to be written by Mozart on the occasion of the death of his friend, Thomas Linley. The second is a letter from the mother of Marie Renard, a well-known Parisian violinist. Mostly forgotten now, but a star in nineteenth century Europe. She appears to confirm that it may have been played, or at least seen, by Paganini. And the third, see here,” indicating a more formal typed letter headed M.E. HILL, LONDON, MAKERS, RESTORERS AND TRADERS OF HIGH QUALITY VIOLINS, CELLOS AND BOWS, “well this is a letter of authenticity from one of the foremost authorities. But not only does it have this pedigree, I have restored it as you can now see this striped back, but I have played it and I consider it to be the finest tone I have heard outside of a classical Cremonese violin. In short, sir, this is a thing of beauty. I have no idea how it came to be in your possession and being used for busking on a New York street but there it is. It is a wonderful find and I want to make you an offer for it.”

  Harry hesitated. The fellow had given it a good write-up. He didn’t want to pitch his price unreasonably high but there again, he could use some money. Aim high, he thought.

  “A thousand dollars?”

  Emil shook his head. Harry mentally kicked himself for overplaying his hand. Emil continued.

  “No, no, no. That is totally unrealistic, I have a business to run and a reputation to uphold. I am unable to purchase this from you for less than two thousand dollars.”

  Harry laughed, “Well, you’ve got yourself a deal! But,” he hesitated, “all in cash. Can’t use a cheque or draft.”

  “I’ll get my assistant to go round to the bank directly and get the money. Of course, you need to sign one of our standard contracts to formally record the transaction.”

  The money produced, the contract signed, there was a final handshake and Harry left with his money.

  Emil looked at the violin and shook his head. He felt the resonance of John Johnson, Thomas Cubitt, Thomas Linley, Marie Renard and all of its other players.

  *

  Harry booked a room in Downtown Manhattan. He bought some strong bootleg, a carton of cigarettes and some lurid magazines. There he was found, a couple of days later. The janitor had complained about the smell and together with the bellhop broke down the door.

  Harry’s journey had ended.

  The violin journeyed on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The 1930s was a pivotal decade. So
me, like Emil Hermann, prospered, buoyed by diligence, commercial astuteness and a willingness to risk all.

  Others, like Henry Farquharson, were dragged into a whirlpool of failure from which there was no escape. He was sucked down by the weight of self-indulgence, poor judgement and weak morals.

  For young Ruth Frankel, in the security of the sunlit walled garden of the family home in the prosperous suburb of Pankow in Berlin, she saw only the shining promise of a life yet to be. Born in 1923, the last of three sisters, home was a spacious and well-appointed residence bought and furnished by the wealth of several generations. The Frankels, Ashkenazi Jews, had owned a successful jewellery business in Berlin. From its inception as a small silversmiths in 1750, successive ancestors had by dint of industry and artistry, established a thriving and well-regarded business. The original silversmiths had enlarged to include goldsmiths, gemologists, diamond cutting, setters and lapidaries producing necklaces, rings, bracelets and brooches with a signature naturalistic style. Ruth’s grandfather had diversified into iron and steel jewellery.

  During the Napoleonic wars the Prussian royal family asked the aristocracy to contribute their jewellery to help fund the War of Liberation. In return they were given iron jewellery as a gift for their loyalty inscribed with Gold gab ich fur eisen. (I gave gold for iron)

  The Frankels began to specialise in neoclassical jewellery made from small individually faceted and polished steel studs, fashioned to catch the light and sparkle like diamonds. The business flourished in the latter part of the nineteenth century. There would have been more than enough to support all four Frankel brothers.

  However, Ruth’s father, Michael, having served in the Great War and been awarded the Iron Cross for gallantry, decided to leave the business to his brothers and pursue a career in Law. Comfortably off through his share of the family assets, he trained as a lawyer and established a flourishing practice in Pankow specialising in the more arcane aspects of commercial law. He met and married Miriam, the only child of the Zucker family who had a factory outside Berlin making weighing scales. They lived near the Frankels in Pankow and both families benevolently engineered the betrothal and marriage of their respective offspring. Michael and Miriam had a happy marriage producing in time three daughters, Marianne, Renate and Ruth.

  Ruth would later, in times of desperation and horror, return in her mind to the four-square three-storey residence on a quiet street off Sredzkistrasse with its walled garden always dappled with sunshine. She would remember playing in the garden with her sisters and friends and being called in by Mama for egg cakes swirled with cinnamon, chopped nuts and chocolate. When desperately hungry and dirty, trying to retain some shred of optimism, she would retreat in her mind to a family Sabbath dinner at Dittman’s restaurant recalling, until she could taste it, chicken soup thick with barley and groats, chopped goose liver and dark rye bread then honey cake.

  For her first ten years, life was serene, gilded and untroubled. The Frankel girls were home schooled, learning the appropriate refinements for young ladies of a wealthy family being readied for a life involving a good marriage and the production of their own children in good time. An appreciation of art, literature, Jewish history and music were the main staples of their education. Marianne showed promise as a painter, Renate joined a local literary group and produced a sprinkling of light romantic poems and novellas. Ruth showed a particular aptitude and liking for music, particularly the violin, which pleased her mother greatly, herself a talented musician.

  By the age of ten, Ruth was showing precocious talent often playing at family gatherings and social occasions.

  Into this world of sunshine and music in early 1930s Berlin, dark clouds began to mass on the horizon. National and local politics were progressively gripped by an unhealthy fervour. There was no thunderbolt of sudden oppression. More that the tentacles of prejudice and creeping intolerance began to grip and take over the press and politicians and to infect public opinion. Zealots shouted down rationalists and life for certain communities began to look fraught with danger.

  *

  Sitting on the stairs one evening, Ruth listened to her father voicing his fears to her mother.

  “All of those considered to be ‘impure’ are to be persecuted, it seems.”

  “What do you mean ‘impure’?”

  “Anyone not native German and not of Aryan blood and even those who are poor, or disabled. Romanies too. And we, as Jews, are classed along with criminals and idiots!”

  “But what does it mean?” asked Miriam anxiously.

  “I am not sure where it is all leading, but there is talk that they will close our newspapers down, our businesses and schools. In some parts they are burning non-German books. It seems that we are to be outcasts.”

  At the age of eleven, Ruth did not fully understand the enveloping shadows, only that her parents were increasingly troubled, with a look here, a whisper there, but keeping the worst of it from the girls.

  Michael’s legal practice began to lose clients until it was barely viable, relying on one or two Jewish friends. There came a time when the children’s questions could no longer go unanswered. Michael, firstly, spoke to Miriam.

  “I don’t want the girls to witness what is going on. It has become impossible to carry on with the business and I have heard that properties like ours are being forcibly requisitioned by the authorities. I have made some plans. I think it best if you and the two older girls go and stay with cousin Baruch in Brussels until the worst of this blows over. I don’t want them to be at any risk.”

  “And what about you? And Ruth?”

  “Firstly, you should go ahead with the girls. Many are thinking of moving abroad, it is that serious. The authorities don’t want us to emigrate but if we do they tax us at ninety per cent on all we own. But I have quietly taken the opportunity of channelling most of what we own through a long-standing client and trusted friend, Zachary Spiegel. He was wise enough to move to New York last year before all this blew up. He works for a bank called Kuhn and Loeb.

  “For now I will keep Ruth with me. It is best if we spread our risk but aim to unite once the time is right again.”

  “But where will you go?” asked Miriam.

  “Some people are going to other parts of Europe. Some say that America is a serious option. They say they are tolerant of outsiders bringing in their labour and talents and that there are opportunities for all. The worst of their financial depression is over and the country is picking itself up again. I will travel on ahead with Ruth to America. We will return once established and arrange for us all to leave Europe quietly.

  “Zachary says that it is possible to buy property there and even contemplate re-establishing my legal practice. Once I have a home and a job I will come back for you and we can go and start a new life. I see nothing for us here. We will all have to take our chances. There is no telling where we will be safe.”

  Attempting to be calm and dispassionate, Michael called the family together. They assembled in the grand salon. Ruth later remembered the clock striking six as her father spoke.

  “My dears, for reasons best known to themselves, the government is taking action against certain people. Is it within the law? I think not, so they just change the law. Presently, because I am Jewish, I am not allowed to practise my profession. You have probably wondered why I am spending less time at my office, well that is the reason. I have recently heard that your uncles’ – our family’s – jewellery business has been requisitioned. By that, I mean just appropriated without reason. Families, like us, are being removed from their properties.

  “Of course we, and others, will be making representations but I fear little will come of it. Evil is taking over and we are powerless in the face of it. So we must make the best of it for now and take some hard decisions. You know that we love you very much and we will stay strong as a family whatever happens. We must not arouse the
suspicions of the authorities so, for now, we have to go our separate ways. If they believe we are escaping as a family together it will go badly for us.

  “For now, Renate and Marianne, you will accompany your mother to cousin Baruch in Brussels. You must pack whatever you need but do it quickly. There is no time to lose or time to look back. Tickets have been bought for Wednesday’s train.

  “Myself and Ruth will go on ahead to America. Once we have established a home there we can all be reunited. I know you must be sad to leave this house, all your friends and your life here. But as long as it is in my power, I will do whatever I can to make us a family once again.”

  His voice emotional, Michael nevertheless knew he had to maintain his outwardly calm demeanour. However, the girls wept and hugged each other in anguish as the shock of the impending rupture swept over them and they felt their old world and its certainties slipping away.

  *

  So it was on a wet Wednesday in March 1937, the family journeyed from Berlin to Paris. Here, amid emotional scenes, Miriam and the two elder girls boarded the train to Brussels whilst Michael and Ruth left for the port of Le Havre.

  Although distraught at leaving her mother and sisters and apprehensive at the sudden uprooting, once aboard the SS Bremen bound for America, Ruth began to enjoy the experience. Heading out into the Atlantic, the clouds began to lift and she and her father explored the ship. She had never seen the like of it in her life. There were several decks, a swimming pool, a library, a smoking room and bars. There was a huge dining room that seated seven hundred and fifty with twelve illuminated Lalique pillars and thirty-eight matching wall panels. There was a children’s dining room with murals by Jean de Brunhoff. In the centre of the ship there was a cavernous oak-lined gallery topped by a dome with the twelve signs of the zodiac. On the top of the ship, between the funnels, was a catapult arrangement that was capable of firing a small seaplane into the air that took mail to the mainland before the ship docked.