Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: MUSIC (04/02/20)
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TITLE: The Sound of Love | Previous Challenge Entry
By Arlene Baker
04/05/20 -
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“Ah, Deutschland, mein Mutterland.” Opa sighed as he settled deep into his worn rocker. Karoline plopped down on the three-legged milking stool next to him and leaned against his knee. She closed her eyes as his gnarled hand rested on her head for a whisper of a moment, it reached to tug on her curls. “You would love our homeland. Ach, but ’twas not to be.”
“Start from the beginning, Opa,” Karoline always begged.
“You hear it so many times.” Oma had stepped in from the kitchen, wiping both hands on her apron. “You want to hear it again, Liebchen?”
“Ja, Oma, yes. It is the most beautiful story in the world.”
Opa and Oma had married in Saxony, Germany, where Bohemia lay close by to the east. A poorer country, many Bohemians handcrafted violins, then brought them to Germany to sell. One day, as Opa labored on his farm, he watched as a young man approached. He leaned on his hoe and waited.
“Mein Herr, I must sell this violin.” The stranger pulled a package from his bundle and unwrapped it with great care.
“Pah! What use is a violin to me?” Opa had scoffed. He flung out one arm. “I am a farmer. I have no time for music. I work the land to feed my wife and children, so be off with you.”
“Please, sir.”
Karoline’s grandfather hesitated. Had he heard the desperation in the stranger’s voice?
“Sir.” The boy swallowed. “I must sell this violin. Today. My papa has died. Mama is sick. I have four younger sisters. They are hungry. We need money. Any money. Can you not find it in your heart to buy this?” In desperation, he placed the violin under his chin and lifted the bow. He drew it across the strings in a single mournful note.
Opa grunted. “Not impressed.” Suddenly the young man’s fingers flew up and down the neck of the instrument, extracting astonishing music as the bow flashed. Opa’s eyes moistened.
“I lost my mother,” he muttered. “I was but 10 years old when Mutti died.” He choked back a sob. “She loved that song.” He pulled a small bag from his trouser pocket. “How much do you want?” The musician named a price. Opa deliberated over each coin before laying several in the stranger’s open palm. Double the young man’s price.
The lad cradled the violin like an adored child before wrapping it again in the cloth. He placed it in Opa’s soil-stained hands. Tears shimmered in his own eyes.
“Danke, mein Herr,” he murmured. “My family eats well tonight.” A soft laugh. “For many nights.”
Opa picked up his hoe and trudged home. How could he help his wife understand the why of his purchase?
Karoline’s grandfather never found time to learn to play, not even the simplest child’s tune. However, when revolution broiled through his beloved homeland — forcing him to flee to the safety of the New World — the violin accompanied him and his family across the Atlantic.
“I just wanted peace,” he often explained to Karoline when she was old enough to understand. “My relatives and friends took sides. They joined opposing armies. Who was right? Who was wrong?” He shrugged. “All I know is they all ended up the same — dead in battle.”
“Why did you come to Texas?” Karoline always asked the same question at this point in Opa’s story. Each time, he grinned.
“So, you — my first grandchild would become the family’s first Deutschtexaner (German Texan). When we first came to Texas, we saw blue everywhere. Acres and acres of blue. The Texas Bluebonnet. The first time you opened your own blue, blue eyes to me, I told your Oma, ‘She is my Texas Bluebonnet.’”
Karoline’s eyes filled with tears as memory ended Opa’s story. A red-tailed hawk screeched overhead, jolting her thoughts to the present. She stood in an old cemetery before a simple wood cross which read, Otto Schwarz 1785 -1856. A moment later, she placed a fistful of bluebonnets at its base.
“Opa,” she whispered. “Soon you will be a great-grandpa.” She laid a hand on the gentle swell of her tummy. “If my baby is a boy, I shall name him Otto.”
Then she straightened up, lifted the violin to her shoulder and played.
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