Pizzicato: The Abduction of the Magic Violin
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Darius frees himself from Mr. Archinola’s embrace, hurries across to her, and kneels at her feet. “Queenie, what’s the matter now?”
“Boo hoooo! You’ve got to wa-a-atch me when I da-a-ance! Don’t go-o-o, Darry!”
Darius picks Queenie up and perches her on his hip. “I’ll come and see you, I promise,” he says comfortingly. “After all, we’ll still be living in the same town.”
“No-o-o-one ever comes to vi-i-sit me!” she wails. “You’re only sa-a-aying that!”
Mr. Archinola joins them. “Queenie, I’ve talked it all over with Alice,” he says, “and if you like, you can come and visit us every weekend and over the holidays. We’d be delighted if you agreed.”
Queenie’s whole body is trembling. “What do you say?” asks the violin-maker. “Can I…Can I also do my dancing there?” she asks tentatively, in a voice made even tinier by her crying. Then she sniffs and snuffles.
“But of course,” says Mr. Archinola. “There’s plenty of room for you to dance. And we’ll applaud the performance, won’t we, Darius?”
“Like mad!” says Darius. “Queenie’s already a pretty good dancer, actually,” he adds. “She practices all the time.” He holds Queenie very tight, and then he lets her slide away from his arm. She takes his hand.
And now, as if he still can’t believe it, Darius asks, “Can I really come and live with you?”
“Right away,” says Mr. Archinola, laughing. “Pack your bag, my boy, and I’ll wait here for you.”
CODA
During the holidays, Mr. Archinola, Alice, Darius, Mey-Mey, and Queenie all went together to Cremona. After they had handed Pizzicato over to Signor Mosconi, the magic violin hung once again in the Cremona museum.
One sunny afternoon, the little gray-haired curator stood in the far corner of the saletta dei violini in front of a large crowd of guests. He opened the glass cube, and with his fountain pen, and in his beautifully neat handwriting, he wrote on the sign below the violin:
Everyone clapped. A string quartet then played something, and Queenie—who was wearing a pink tutu—would have liked very much to perform a dance, but Alice explained that it wouldn’t be quite the thing for a violin museum. Mey-Mey and Darius stood very close together, and eventually Darius plucked up the courage to take hold of her hand. She didn’t pull it away, but instead held his very tightly. That made him so happy and excited that he scarcely noticed anything else of what was going on. In the meantime, Signor Mosconi delivered a very fine speech. The journalists and tourists took at least five hundred photos of Pizzicato, but the violin didn’t come out very well on any of them. It looked more like a shadow. A bluish shadow. And sometimes a bluish light. It depended on who took the photograph.
A few years later, Darius made his first violin. It was the one he still owed Mr. Archinola. He made it very quickly—actually, in just seven weeks. The violin-maker was astonished, because despite the speed, the violin was “almost perfect.”
Darius had done it so quickly because his second violin was much more important for him. He made it for Mey-Mey. This instrument was outstandingly beautiful. Its varnish had a bluish sheen. Instead of a scroll, Darius carved the face of a girl. She looked a little like Mey-Mey.
And Mey-Mey herself? She conquered one concert hall after another, all over the world.
But Darius always knew she would.
And he was immensely proud of her for the rest of his life.
About the Author
Photo © Peter von Sághy
Rusalka Reh was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1970 and grew up in Germany. She studied special education, rehabilitation, and art therapy in Cologne. She began her career as a scientific assistant at the university’s music seminar and later worked as an art therapist in municipal children’s homes. Since 2000, she has been working as a freelance author, writing lyrics and prose. In addition to books for children and adults, she has published several texts in anthologies and magazines.
About the Translator
David Henry Wilson (1937– ) was born in London, and educated at Dulwich College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He taught in France and Ghana before becoming a university lecturer in Germany, first in Cologne, then in Constance—where he founded the university theatre—and later in Bristol (England). His theatre plays have been widely produced in Britain and other countries, and his children’s books (especially the Jeremy James series) have been translated into many languages. His translation work from French and German ranges from children’s fiction through art and culture to literary theory and other academic fields. He is married and lives in Taunton, England, where to his wife’s dismay he still plays cricket. They have three grown-up children but only one grandchild. They would like more grandchildren.