The Silver Swan (5 page)

“I called Baum & Fernand yesterday and asked if I might come over and take a look at the Silver Swan — pay a visit and play a few notes. I have an appointment this morning at eleven. I wonder if you’d be willing to come with me. Please do, Maman. I’d so much like you to be there the first time I
take the instrument out of its case as its rightful owner.” He gave her his most fetching smile. “You were, should we say, ‘instrumental’ in my good fortune.”

This mollified Francine. They went back to their rooms to collect what they’d need for the day. Departing the hotel, he carried his Tecchler with his left arm and held his mother’s arm with his right. The sunlight was brilliant, the city alive with warm signs of spring. On Fifty-seventh Street, they headed west toward Carnegie Hall. His mother walked daintily, in high heels, her short legs unable to keep up with Claude’s quick strides. He slowed his pace when she complained but found it difficult to contain his eagerness to hold the Silver Swan.

After the loud bustle of the street, the shop was a refuge. Hushed and elegant, it smelled of wood and glue and varnish, belonging more to an older world, perhaps Cremona — that center of violin making — than to present-day Manhattan. The heavy glass doors creaked as Claude opened them. At this hour in the morning, the public showrooms were still quiet. Only a few customers had arrived to look at instruments. Antique wooden cabinets with glass fronts lined the walls of the two formal rooms. Warmly lit inside, they contained violins, violas, and cellos, all hung in the same direction, revealing many shades of glowing, polished wood that also caught the subdued light of the antique chandeliers. The floors were covered with frayed but splendid Persian carpets, and each room had a long antique French farm table at its center.

The young woman he had spoken with the day before greeted them and went off to fetch her employer. Claude
and Francine unbuttoned their coats, and he stood his cello case against the wall. Many-paned floor-to-ceiling windows gave out over Fifty-seventh Street, but the traffic below was inaudible.

Heinrich Baum, a short, bald powerhouse of a man, came to greet them and shook their hands energetically. In his early seventies, he wore a dark blue suit with white stripes and a shirt sporting cuff links in the shape of violins. “Ah, Mme Roselle. You I have met when you came with Maestro Feldmann, but your son has not yet visited our shop. I am happy to welcome you here, M. Roselle, and to congratulate you on your great good fortune. It’s a magnificent instrument, as you will see.”

“He has seen it before, of course,” said Francine. “We both know the cello.”

“Yes, certainly,” said Baum. “You were Alexander’s friend.”

Claude added, “I played the Swan several times during lessons, thanks to M. Feldmann’s generosity. I know what a great treasure it is and, believe me, I know how very fortunate I am.”

“Yes,” Baum said ruefully, “it is indeed a treasure.” He rubbed his hands and looked down. “As you no doubt are aware, I was involved in Feldmann’s purchase of the Swan from the very beginning. I lent him the money to purchase it from the Gentner family, in Strasbourg. He paid me back promptly but, I will not pretend otherwise, I thought we had an understanding that our firm would sell the cello after Feldmann’s death if Mariana were to decide to give it up. We are, of course, disappointed that this will not come to pass.” He paused and managed a wry smile. “But our bad luck is your good fortune.”

The three of them laughed uneasily. Francine said, “It was
my
good friend, Isabelle Gentner, who introduced Alexander to the family and made the sale possible. You see, we
all
have had a hand in this.”

“And that’s how my mother met M. Feldmann and how I, so fortunately, became his student.”

“And how the cello has come into your possession,” Baum said.

He then inquired if he might offer them coffee. Claude declined, saying his hands were already shaking with excitement and he’d best calm down if he were planning to play; Francine, however, accepted. The dealer was ceremonial. He spoke about the history of the Stradivarius. There was a trail to follow and he had followed it, he told the Roselles.

Claude listened intently as Baum spoke. In the future he would need to recite these histories. According to records, the Italian Count Crespi bought the Swan in 1714, and the family retained it for two or three generations. Then their republican sympathies forced them into exile. The cello found a new owner, a French military man who lived in Lorraine. Feldmann liked to tell the story he had heard from Mme Gentner — pointing to a faint discoloration on the back — of cognac spilled in argument.

The Swan was sold in Paris to J.-B. Vuillaume in 1854. From this point on the trail grew documented. Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, as was well-known, championed Cremonese instruments. He was a first-rate copyist and patterned his own efforts on the model of the Swan. Using calipers to measure thickness, using the same width for blocks and ribs as did the long dead Italian, he followed the Swan template precisely. Its proportions and its f-holes and the placement
of the sound post were all calculated to produce the largest and sweetest sound. No one could improve on it — or so Vuillaume had claimed. It was this Vuillaume that Mariana played.

Baum, having finished his lecture, excused himself to tell his partner, Pierre Fernand, that the Roselles had arrived. The receptionist led them to a small room and brought a silver tray with coffee and biscotti. Francine helped herself, even though she had just finished breakfast.

Baum returned with the luthier. Pierre Fernand wore a yellow smock with rolled-up sleeves over his clothes. He was a small man with pomaded hair combed back from his forehead and a gray mustache twirled at the ends. Behind him came Philippe Sorel, his assistant and manager of the workshop. He hung back and nodded a greeting. He too wore a smock.

Baum made introductions, and they all shook hands. “
Enchanté
,” said Fernand, “
de vous revoir, Madame
, and to meet your son. I heard always that he is the artistic heir of M. Feldmann, but I see he is also so handsome.” Francine responded that she too was pleased to see him again. “I am
désolé
about Alexandre,” Fernand told the room. “You know, I always called him ‘Maestro,’ but he says to me, no, no, my name is Alexandre. We have lost a very great friend.”

Although he had been living in America for decades, Fernand retained a strong French accent.

Even my mother’s is milder, Claude thought, amused, and she has never lived in an English-speaking country.

“You know,” continued the luthier, “this Swan is my
bébé
, my treasure. I am always the one who works on it, ever since M. Feldmann bring it back from Strasbourg. I myself was working for the great Maestro Sacconi, when I first came
to this country and was, if you can believe it, young. I have waited many years for my chance to restore it, but M. Feldmann was always too busy playing. I hope you will understand, M. Roselle, that I promise him to attend to it.”

“Of course,” Claude said. “I would be honored to have you work on it. But can you tell me what kind of shape it’s in right now? M. Feldmann himself got such a beautiful sound from the Swan, it never seemed to need improvement.”

“Ah, this is not the problem. She sound very splendid, but she need care. She has a crack, tiny crack in the back and other things that must be repaired. The varnish needs cleaning, it gets a bit dull with the travels, changes in climate, dust. Some work on the sound post, an adjustment perhaps to the bridge — every great instrument deserves this, of course. I will make it sing even more beautifully. But you would like to see? Come,
M’sieurdame
to my workshop where is the safe.”

With Baum and Sorel, Claude and Francine walked back, past the offices, toward the luthier’s studio. It was large and light, the edges of the worktables lined with clamps. The walls held shelves with long planks of wood piled in stacks. White wooden blocks in boxes — their contents described by the date and place of acquisition — filled additional shelves. There were boxes labeled
Necks: Violin, Viola, Cello
, and a box labeled
Scrolls
.

A cabinet, its doors ajar, contained bottles of paint thinner and linseed oil and pigment and brushes and rags. Tools hung from large pieces of pegboard, and dismembered instruments rested on each workspace. Several, as yet unvarnished, were white. Wood shavings covered the floor; the smell of glue and varnish permeated the air. Four men were at work, wearing caps. They listened to music on a radio. Claude felt almost
dizzy with excitement as Fernand unlocked the room-size safe and invited them to enter.

Within the safe, instruments hung from velvet straps, each in a separate stall. Inside these partitions sat wooden barrels filled to varying degrees with pieces of the instruments, if they had been disassembled: a neck, a scroll, a rib. One violin — a Guadagnini — had been taken completely apart; it rested in its barrel like a patient in intensive care after surgery. Here in the safe, the most valuable instruments were gathered, beneath little labels affixed to the stalls: Guarnerius, Amati, Stradivarius, Vuillaume. “As you see,” Fernand said, “the Swan is not yet being operated on; she is intact.”

“
Virga intacta
,” joked Baum.

Fernand lifted the Swan from its loop around the scroll and carried it out to the showroom, rotating it so they could admire its shape, its flawless workmanship, and the grain of the wood. Then he handed the instrument to Claude and produced a chair and a bow. He signaled Sorel to silence the radio. “Is yours to play, M. Roselle.”

Fernand was gracious while his partner stood glumly by. Claude understood that Baum had been deprived of a major commission. It was impossible to gauge the Swan’s value on the open — or closed — market, because in recent years there’d been no comparable sales. The forma B celli of Stradivari’s “Golden Period” — roughly 1707 to 1720 — varied in terms of their varnish, how much of the original remained, how much wood had been replaced, and how well the instrument sounded. On all these counts the Silver Swan was, as Claude knew, impeccable, and the fact that he planned to keep it caused Baum a great loss. He had hoped, Claude guessed, to receive two or three million dollars as a commission on its sale.

Before he played, Claude studied the engravings of swans on either side of the scroll. He felt such intense joy he could barely lift the bow to the strings. But when he began the Bach Suite in C Major, the employees stopped work and gathered to listen. Francine watched with great satisfaction. When he finished playing, his small audience burst into applause.

Standing, he handed the cello back to the luthier. “Messieurs, do you think I might play the Swan next week, here at Alice Tully Hall? The sound is so much richer than my own instrument. I am already spoiled.”

“
Anyone
who plays the Swan is after spoiled.” Fernand laughed. “It makes everybody sound like a true virtuoso.”

“I would need, of course, to come and practice every day until my hands adjusted. It would give me such pleasure to play the Swan in honor of the maestro at my first New York recital. Perhaps it’s even not too late to say so in the program, I can ask my manager — and, of course, Mlle Feldmann as well.”

“I repeat, M. Roselle,” said the luthier, “it is after all your instrument to play. But we must make certain the insurance is in order before the Swan can leave the shop. Perhaps Heinrich will arrange it, yes? And you will remember that it comes back to us right after the concert, for adjustments I have promised not only to Alexandre Feldmann alive but now toward his memory. Until then, by all means, you may come and practice every day.”

They said their farewells. Claude and Francine left the shop, he carrying his Tecchler. Both were elated as they parted in the busy street, Claude to rehearse with his pianist and Francine to go shopping a few blocks east at Bergdorf Goodman.

Claude walked downtown in a contemplative mood. He had treasured his visits with Alexander, who made it clear they could talk about anything and he would answer Claude’s questions forthrightly. As Claude reached his teens, Alexander increasingly invited these tête-à-têtes. He would take Claude for long walks along Lake Lugano. Uninhibited, he would shock and delight his young companion with his frank opinions, advice, and risqué jokes and stories, none of which Claude would retell at home. Seeing them off on these excursions, Francine would admonish Alexander, “Don’t fill his head with crazy ideas, Alexandre. We are not Americans.” Alexander, of course, paid her no attention.

On one such walk, when Claude was about to enter the Tchaikovsky Competition for the first time, Alexander, who had come to coach him, asked, “So, young man, we’ve worked and worked on the cello performances. Now let me ask you how things are going with your romantic performances.”

Claude, embarrassed and reticent, kicked a pebble along the path. “Oh come, come,” Alexander persisted. “Certainly the young ladies must be after you. You’re terribly handsome and quite the charmer.”