The Maestro Read online

  © 1991 by T. Davis Bunn

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7095-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Unless otherwise credited, scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®. NIV ®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.© Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

  It is important to note that, except as specifically mentioned within the Acknowledgments section, this particular story is entirely a creation of the author’s imagination. No parallel between any persons, living or dead, is intended.

  Cover illustration by Dan Thornberg,

  Joy is the customary way of life of those who have received the Spirit . . . The Spirit transforms those in whom He lives. We may have lived without joy, or only with the kind of joy which comes from having selfish desires fulfilled. The Spirit transforms us into people who have joy because we have found our true destiny. The joy we have, not the legalistic rules we follow, show we are Christ’s.

  Commentary on Romans 14:17–18

  The NIV Disciples’ Study Bible

  You make the laws, let me make the music, and I will rule your nation.

  Andrew Fletcher, 1703

  Next to theology, I give to music the highest place and honor. Music is the art of the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.

  Martin Luther

  This book is dedicated to all

  who seek fame and fortune

  for the sake of self.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Endorsements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Three

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Author

  Notes

  PROLOGUE

  Sunlight played over the water, golden mirrors that shimmered among the crystal-blue waves. The air blew fresh and sweet in my face, a breeze tasting both of the lake and distant snow-capped peaks. I could make out a hint of my breath in the chilly April air. The people on the ferry with me did not talk; they sang their speech with hands floating in accent to their words. Before me stretched the city of Como, a fair white maiden bathing at her lake.

  It was still too early in the season for more than a handful of tourists. Two months from now summer would bring them in droves. With the heat came the hordes, the locals said, rubbing together thumb and forefinger to indicate money to be made. Today the boat-bus was filled with well-dressed Italians who knew the luxury of a little free time. The ferry was not the swiftest way to travel the lake’s forty-kilometer length, but on an afternoon as beautiful as this, the panorama brought glances of approval from the most cynical of locals.

  The distance from Torno, the village of two thousand inhabitants where my little stone cottage was situated, to the city of Como was eleven kilometers by car and forty-five minutes by boat. I sat on my favorite bench in the bow and wrapped my scarf up around my face to hold off the water-wind’s bite. I liked this bench and daily hoped that it would be free. With my guitar case beside me there was no room for anyone else, so my solitude was guaranteed.

  The boat chugged its ancient song from village to village, the cobblestone landings grooved by ten centuries of use. Fishing boats lay upturned along the water’s edge, resting beneath blankets of nets. Beyond them, tiny plazas stretched like colorful mosaics, crammed to overflowing with local market stalls.

  Many of the piazzas were fronted by chapels which dated back to the early Middle Ages, dedicated to the men who fished and kept the villages alive. Charming though they might be, these villages and their rocky soil were steeped in poverty before Goethe and Beethoven and Thomas Mann brought the eyes of the world and the wealth of tourism to their shores.

  On the other side of the lake lay the village of Cernobbio, nestled in a narrow valley that swept back from the lake to the Swiss border. Beyond the village rose the snow-capped peaks of the Alps. In the rarified spring air, they seemed close enough to touch.

  Despite the beauty of the scenery, I did not like these Thursday afternoons. My head was a little too clear, the emptiness a little too powerful. I hid behind my sunglasses on the hard wooden bench. It was time to get to work.

  At the Como quay I picked up my guitar case and followed the other passengers off the boat, ignoring the scattered glances tossed my way. There were all kinds of looks and most of them were empty too. I adjusted tiny earphones and switched on the pocket tape player; my head was filled with fusion jazz as my feet beat a matching rhythm across thousand-year cobblestones.

  The closer I came to the club, the more often my hand went up in greeting. I was pretty well known in Como, especially in this neighborhood—the local kid who had made it big.

  The club was still locked, but I had my own key and let myself in through the massive oak portals. In the thirteenth century the hall into which I entered had been the central courtyard of a wealthy man’s villa. Eleven years ago a private consortium had bought the place, reinforced the high surrounding walls, and at incredible expense laid a glass roof over the entire quad. Hanging gardens and a world-class restaurant had at first attracted a fashionable clientele from as far away as Bologna and Torino. But in time other restaurants had opened, and business had gradually begun to fade.

  Then I arrived, guitar in hand, looking for a job. I thought playing in a restaurant might be a nice change from teaching lessons to the local kids. The club’s owner took me on because I was the cheapest thing going; I agreed to work for a good meal with wine and boat-bus fare. I played mostly classical compositions, the music of my upbringing. But in my private time I was becoming more and more intrigued by fusion jazz, that marriage of two worlds, rock and funk.

  That lasted a little less than six months. By then we were both aware that the scene was changing. People were coming back more often, bringing their friends, staying on longer and asking for more. The club’s owner requested a late set and started talking what for me was very serious money. I bought a steel string Ibanez hollow-body and a state-of-the-art drum machine, and began building a second repertoire. By my second summer they were taking reservations two months in advance and talking about keeping the place open as a late-night club.

  I still used the drum machine when playing the early set, when I combined portions of favorite classical pieces with instrumentals designed around well-known hit songs. But
for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday late-night shows I had a couple of friends join me, musicians I had met doing studio work in Milan. We gained a reputation for using the sessions to perform the newest hits weeks before they were released on Italian radio. These late sets were strictly standing-room only.

  * * *

  My dressing room in the corner had probably once served as a guardhouse. I set my guitar case down beside the open window, its frame of stone almost three feet thick. Centuries-old iron bars kept out everything but the chilly evening air. I glanced at the lower cabinet, hesitated for a moment, then decided I could wait to satisfy that particular hunger until after dinner.

  I walked through the dimly lit club, drawn toward the kitchen by the sound of laughter and the aroma of fine cooking. The kitchen door was open and members of the staff were sprawled out around the battered table where they ate their own meals. Glasses were nearly empty; coffee cups and cigarettes dangled from most hands.

  “Salve, Maestro,” somebody called as I entered. I waved my greetings and sat down.

  Alessandro walked over and clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder in greeting. He was a very big man, well over a hundred and forty kilos and sporting a vast black beard. He was the club’s owner, an honest man who had treated me well and genuinely liked my music. His greatest concern in life was that I would go off and leave him with an empty club. Or so he said.

  “What you up for, Maestro? How about some shrimp?”

  “They nice?” Shrimp sounded fine.

  “Take a look.” Alessandro walked over to the long central work station, reached inside a refrigerator and held up a tail almost as long as his hand. “Norwegian. Best there is.”

  “Looks good, thanks.”

  “Save me some of those, Alessandro,” a voice called out from the kitchen’s back door. “I’ve got some friends joining me for dinner tonight.”

  A cheer rose from the table as Mario’s head jutted around the door. Alessandro’s bearded features broke into a smile as he walked over with outstretched hand. “ É il piccolo pazzo, salve,” Alessandro said. The little crazy one. “How goes it?”

  Mario shook his hand, smiled at the crew, gave me a wink. “Had a dream about you, Alessandro. Saw us praying together.”

  That brought down the house. Alessandro raised his hands in mock prayer, then made a rude gesture. “Know what you can do with that?”

  Mario winked again, said, “Just planting seeds, Alessandro, just planting seeds.”

  Alessandro offered to do the seeds a disservice, then walked back over to the kitchen. For some reason he always liked to prepare my dinner himself. From the stove he called out, “Got something special for you, Mario. Piattino dei Profeti.” Plate of the Prophets. “Bread and water, how’s that?”

  “Anything you serve’ll be fine, amico,” Mario said mildly, and to me, “How you been, Maestro?”

  “You know he does it just to get your goat,” I said loudly enough for Alessandro to hear. “All you’d have to do is slap him down once.”

  “That’s right, Gianni, that’s all it’d take.” He repeated his question. “How you been?”

  “Not bad. All right.” Mario was my oldest friend, the only friend I had kept in contact with from my childhood. It was great seeing him again, but his glowing self-assuredness, his downright happiness, was occasionally hard to take. It irritated me and appealed to me at the same time.

  “You given our offer any thought?”

  Mario was sound engineer for an up-and-coming band based in Germany. They were losing their lead guitarist and had been after me for two months to join them. It was only the seriousness with which he discussed the offer that kept me from thinking he was joking. Leave all this? “I’ve been a little busy, Mario.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” The eyes took on a look of silent wisdom, of unspoken criticism. At moments like this I thought Mario’s eyes looked a thousand years old. Mario was the most honest man I knew, and it granted him some special power all his own. That and his religion.

  Mario was handsome in a tough, hard-bitten way. He was dark-eyed like me, with a full head of hair drawn back tightly from an angular face. His chin was sharp, his cheekbones pronounced, and his build as tight as a decade of dedicated body-building could make it. The only thing that kept Mario from being a thoroughly frightening character was the light in his eyes. I often thought of that light in the quiet of my empty nights, after the stage lights went off and the high lost its edge and all that lay in front of me was a lonely taxi ride back to a lonely bed.

  A scar running above Mario’s left eyebrow gave the sharpened features a dangerous cast. Another scar under his shirt traced a jagged line from a point just below his heart all the way around to his armpit. I was one of the few people who knew the story of those scars.

  The fight took place three days before he was brought to his senses and his knees, was how Mario had started the tale. It was back in the days when he still thought faith in Jesus Christ, which his brother and his brother’s friends talked about constantly, was just one step short of insanity; back when he carried a knife in the pouch sewn in his right boot. He had special-ordered those boots from Texas, with metal tips hewn to stiletto points.

  At the time Mario was sound engineer for one of the big German rock groups, and they were up finishing an album in a local Hamburg studio. To celebrate recording the last take on the last song, he and a couple of the musicians made for the Pauli district, a trio of streets lined with beer halls and porn shops and high-rise whorehouses, and a favorite meeting ground for losers from all over the world.

  In one of the bars sporting a live sex show, Mario started trading words with an enormous Dane, a stoker on one of the ferries to Copenhagen. The shaggy-haired giant had survived a dozen fights, and met Mario’s challenge with a joyous gleam in his eyes. Looking back, Mario told me, he realized he had finally found what he’d been looking for all along. Here was a man willing to fight to the death for the thrill of it, for the futility of a life without God.

  The Dane treated it all as a game, and saw Mario with his swaggering braggadocio as just another notch on the fighter’s blade. The fight did not last long; knife fights seldom do. The blond giant opened the skin above Mario’s eye first. When Mario swiped at the blinding spill, the Dane let out a hungry laugh and told Mario, take a good look, kiddie. The next blood you see’s gonna pour from a broken heart. Then his eyes became flat and wide and dark like the mouth of an empty cave, and Mario knew he was looking death in the face.

  When he told me about this part Mario’s eyes looked out into the distance of memories and his voice became low and very hoarse. He said, I never knew what fear was until that moment. I replied, I don’t think I want to hear this. Mario ignored me, went on, I wasn’t scared of dying near as much as I was of ending a life that had no meaning.

  By a miracle the knife deflected off a rib instead of finding Mario’s heart. Two days and eighty-nine stitches later Mario was back on the street, shaken and scared and looking for answers. He’d spent the entire time in the hospital, he told me, remembering the look in the Dane’s eyes and the answering emptiness in his own heart. There had to be more, he’d repeated a hundred thousand times by then. There had to be.

  The next day his brother had shown up with an American called Jake. Before the sun had set that day, as he told it, Mario had found a better way.

  When Mario wasn’t around it was easier to toss the story off as a scared man looking for a lifeline. But when he was looking at me with those shining eyes I found it harder to push it all away. His way of making God seem like a close personal friend left me both confused and angry. His inner light somehow challenged me more than anything he could ever say. It tugged at the shadows I didn’t like to see inside myself. But Mario was my oldest friend. I tried as best I could to ignore his loud proclamations of faith, and looked forward to his visits more than I could say.

  And in the darkness of my lonely room, especially when there was some
little soft-bodied music fan sleeping beside me and making my loneliness ache even more, I remembered the light in Mario’s eyes.

  ****

  Mario sipped his water and said casually, “Jake’s down for a little R and R, Gianni. He wants to drop by and hear you tonight.”

  That surprised me. “Jake, as in the leader of your band?” As in the man who brought Mario to religion. As in the man who wanted me to come play with them.

  “That’s the one,” he said, leaning back and slinging an arm across the chairback. “Amy’s down, too.”

  “She’s your lead singer, right?”

  “And Jake’s wife,” Mario said. “Amy was wondering if she could sing a couple of songs with you tonight.”

  “I don’t know, Mario. I’ll have to check with the others.” We did have the occasional guest singer, but it was usually somebody well known in the Italian pop world, whose appearance on stage created a sensation. Oftentimes they were friends from the studio scene who wanted to try out a new song on a live audience, or who were just out for a night and willing to be dragged up on stage for a song. I tried to remember if we had ever had anyone nameless up there with us.

  I was seeking some kind way to tell Mario that it was not an appropriate request when the familiar face of my booking agent appeared in the doorway and moaned, “Gianni, where is a man supposed to park a car around this dump?”

  Alessandro hefted a large meat cleaver and came swinging around the counter of pots and pans. “I told you the next time you showed your face around here I was gonna chop you up in little bits.”

  Antonio was a wispy stick figure with an oversized walrus mustache and bleak ancient eyes. He didn’t move from the doorway. “Put that thing down before you hurt yourself.”

  Alessandro made do with one more threatening swipe; he kept up a running battle with Antonio, who he claimed was out to steal me from the club. He set the cleaver down, wiped a large hand on his apron, stuck it out, said, “How’s it going, ’Tonio?”

  The tired-looking man with the eternally weary eyes surrendered his hand, winced as it was swallowed. “I’m an old man, Alessandro. Bones don’t heal fast as they used to.”