>>24676953
>>24676953
>it can't do shit
On a windy morning, Lin found a violin on his doorstep. The case was black, zipper broken, blue twine tied hard around the handle. He carried it inside to his bench and opened it.
The varnish was amber. A long split ran from the treble f-hole toward the soundpost. Bad news. A soundpost crack. The bridge leaned; the strings were tired; dust lay in a pale drift inside. The instrument smelled of resin and old sweat.
Pinned to the lining was a square of paper.
For Lin: Rowan’s. Please help if you can. His daughter wants it to sing at the memorial. –T.
Anyone around Lydiard Street knew Rowan: the baker’s-door busker with old tunes and a gentle hat for coins. He’d died last week. Facebook had filled with shock and casseroles.
Lin heated the kettle and set a jar of hide glue in a water bath. He called the number.
“Tess,” the voice said. “His sister.”
“It’s a soundpost crack,” Lin said. “I’ll have to take the top off. It’s delicate. The memorial—when?”
“Sunday,” she said. “If it’s ready, it’s ready. If not, we don’t make it worse by forcing it.”
“And the daughter?”
“Caro. Eleven. It was her idea to leave it with you. She says wood listens.”
“Sometimes,” Lin said, and meant it more than he intended.
He took off strings and bridge, warmed a palette knife over steam, and worked it into the seam. Hide glue smells like a shed on a cold morning. The top lifted slowly. Inside: a low ridge for the bass bar, tool marks from some factory, an old corner repair.
At the crack’s center the wood was crushed into a shallow dish. It needed a soundpost patch: carve a hollow, inlay new spruce, fit it thin and tight. He traced the dark rosin stains and saw, faint in graphite, four notes with a tie over the first two. Next to them: C for Caro.
He put the plate down and rested his hand on the spruce. He would leave the pencil there.
He shaped the patch all afternoon, shaving and offering until the grain lined up. He glued it, clamped it with shaped cauls, and let it take. While the glue set, he cleaned the fingerboard, polished the pegs, and carved a new bridge to a height an eleven-year-old could manage. He cut the heart and tapped for the ring he wanted.
Near dusk, Tess and Caro came. Caro hovered in the doorway in a jumper with one sleeve pushed up and the other down.
“You took it apart,” she said, stepping in.
“I needed to see the hurt,” he said.
