The Spanish Bow Read Online Free PDF Page A

salt and ink and sweat—the smell of foreign shores, and also of my father's arms, which were harder to recall with every passing day.
    I loved carrying that indestructible tube and hitting rocks with it as I walked. Once, when I'd made the mistake of dallying too long in the dry wash under the bridge, I attracted the attention of two older boys the same age as Enrique. They teased me, calling me
Cerillito,
or "Little Matchstick"; the dislocated hip had never healed properly following my birth, leaving my left leg thinner and slightly shorter than my right. The nickname didn't bother me. I'd heard the same and worse already from my own brothers. But when they started insulting my father, I hit one of them with the tube end, splitting the boy's lip before I managed to run away, incredulous at my small victory.
    When Mamá found out about the fight, she punished me for it, but she did not take the tube away. I think she sensed I needed some protection. My teacher thought the tube was ridiculous, though, and the bow itself strange—"too thick, too heavy, probably not made for a violin. Anyway, it's too big for you."
    "So is the violin," I retorted. Señor Rivera pinched my arm hard enough to leave a mark, but I didn't care. He'd cuffed me several times when I talked back or disobeyed him. At the time, I assumed he wanted my prize objects for himself. Now I realize he considered the bow an irritating reminder of my father.
    Señor Rivera was half my mother's age. It seemed ridiculous that he kept coming to our house every Sunday afternoon, bringing Mamá and Tía stale cookies that were never sweet enough for two women who had been raised on plentiful Caribbean sugar. My mother was beautiful, with shining chestnut hair and a strong jawline that might have appeared masculine were it not tempered by full lips. Many men sought her, even while an equal number criticized her for what they perceived as haughtiness and disrespect. In a town where many women were merely "Señora," she was "Doña," in deference to her noble bearing and education. Even in the loose-waisted, soot black dresses she'd worn since my father's death, she could not fade into safe obscurity, though she tried.
    It didn't surprise my mother that playing the violin came easily to me. Everyone in our family was musically inclined. "Don't be vain about your gifts," she said. "Music is everywhere, and there is no one alive who can't appreciate it. To love music is easy. To play it well is no different from knowing how to make shoes or build bridges."
    She did not teach me, did not directly encourage me, but she couldn't help asking questions that reflected her own musical past. When I returned from lessons, she would say, "Were you relaxed? Did you play naturally?" They were unusual questions for such corseted, high-collared times; they were the same questions I would ask myself ten and fifteen years later, as I strove to develop my own relaxed bowing style.
    I learned scales and etudes and easy salon pieces. I liked the violin, but I wasn't passionate about its shape or sound, which in my unskilled hands came out as a tinny screech. The adult-sized violin that Señor Rivera let me use was so heavy that I could barely manage to hold it upright, my left wrist throbbing so fiercely I barely noticed what my right hand was doing. Besides, I hated standing to play. My matchstick leg didn't hurt in those days, but because the knob of the thighbone didn't fit the socket properly, I had trouble mimicking Señor Rivera's stance. Occasionally the entire leg would start to tremble, and I'd have to shake out the spasm to regain my balance.
    "Feliu, pay attention," Señor Rivera said one afternoon, assuming I was falling asleep on my feet. "This is what you may someday hope to do." He tossed his head, drawing attention to his fashionable shoulder-length hair and the glistening Cupid's bow visible through his thin, damp mustache. Then he launched into a piece by Pablo Sarasate—our