The Violinist

Headline news: yesterday, theKwek sent another mysterious letter to the postbox of The Straits Times. Editors were pleasantly surprised to find an essay about a strange wooden instrument with four wires and a bow. This may provide valuable insight to theKwek's pastime...

The Violinist

His gelled-to-perfection, jet-black hair stood firm against the persistent gusts of moist wind that threatened to sweep it into disorder as he stepped lightly off the sleek sedan, violin case in hand. Memories avalanched before his eyes as he remembered another rainy day fifteen years ago, when as a boy of nine he’d given his first solo recital, right here in this hall.
Striding down the hallway with escorts tailing behind him, wisps of his own words came back to him: “When will I be playing?” “Can I take off this jacket now?” “This hall is bigger than our house!” Words… those same words that he had blurted as a child, those naïve snippets of conversations that had taken place under this very roof, a blend of childhood ignorance and the thrill of the stage.
His medley of thoughts continued as ushers respectfully whisked him towards the concert hall, footsteps falling in sync with the rhythmic pitter-patter of raindrops on the corridor’s stained glass bay windows. What irony, he reflected, to be invited to a stage that he had grown up on. As a child, teenager and youth he had explored the mysterious backstage, toyed with the lighting effects and experimented with the acoustics. In all the years of his life in music this was his school and second home, welcoming him to spread the joys and pangs of a boy’s growing-up years to the loftiest rafters of the hall through his evocative music.
In one lucid motion he unzipped the violin case – an action by now practiced to perfection – and lifted his Stradivarius out from its velvet blankets. Fondly, he plucked at the strings and clipped on a top-quality shoulder rest. This was his one and only true friend, with whom he had gone on countless long dialogues, he supplying the skill and the instrument supplying the sound. Never was there a friend more trustworthy or an advisor who provided better counsel. His violin was his all.
Cradling his violin, he stepped onto the stage, noting in his last moments backstage the humdrum tapping of the rain upon the skylights. From the dimly-lit steps he burst into the full glare of the stage lights, his well-rehearsed entry accompanied by a burst of ground-shaking applause from the appreciative audience. He winked at the conductor, an old family friend, who grinned and signaled to the orchestra members. The orchestra then lifted their instruments and the conductor his baton, ready to fulfill the violinist’s musical demands.
He, too, lifted his violin, met the eyes of the audience with a soul-searching look and leapt into the music.
The music poured from his fingers, perfectly in time with his orchestral backdrop, and instantly he was at home. His eyes flitted about the hall – those pillars, reminiscent of Greek architecture; that specially built roof, which reflected every single note of his to the ears of the audience; those stage steps, over which, as a boy he had tripped countless times. He could feel the hall coming alive in his music, the hearts of the audience beating as one with his, the very same emotions the composer felt when he penned the magnum opus resonating in the silence of the night.
He knew, he saw explicitly, the clarity of life abounding from his playing. It was different – different from all the times he had performed here as a child, all the times that with childish pride he had exercised his fingers to wow the crowds, all the times that he had had the orchestra at his beck and call, or received the bouquets from the stage girls. Then, the music was missing its essence – the life in the music was absent. He knew the notes well, yes, he had memorized every jot and titter on the score, yes, but all he had done was to flaunt his skills to judges, critics and fans. Those had earned him diplomas, scholarships, prizes and trophies, but failed to deliver his spirit. Now, though, he could sense the music living in him, and spilling from him, pounding with relentless rhythm, at times heartbroken, at times ecstatic, but forever captivating.
Still, his heart felt it was lacking in something. The life was there, tunefully illustrating the melodies that the notes sketched out, but something else, elusive and vague, was missing. What… what was it? What was that missing element, without which his music was still incomplete?
Slowly, though, the music gripped him once more, smothering the unsolved mystery under the blankets of the dynamic, contrasting and colorful buildup towards the peak of the masterpiece. Running notes, marvelous ascending sequences, accelerating tempo, and widening bow strokes signaled his approach to a climactic end. By now sweat flew from his brow, his fingers ached from arching and sliding over each accurately shaped note, and a few strands of the horsehair on his bow had given way to his rapturous playing, yet he pressed on. Five bars to the end… Four bars… Now three… Then two…
The last fortissimo notes erupted from his violin; reverberating and powerful, illuminating the stunned awe of the audience. Silence surrendered to waves of tumultuous applause; applause so addictive and thirst-quenching, his hard-earned reward.
Yet, defying custom, his mind dwelt not upon the ovation. It was as if those last notes had triggered once more the long-forgotten synapses in dark memory banks, jettisoning him from the clapping of the present, further and further backwards through the maze-like paths of time….
He saw himself, yes, himself, as a slender schoolboy of five, pouting obstinately on the lavishly carpeted floor outside his mother’s classroom. His mother was the renowned virtuoso Li Qingyun, widely acclaimed throughout the musical world as devoted instructor, highly-experienced violinist and doting mother. His future seemed bright, but somehow, Mother’s multiple roles didn’t quite seem to click.
Those same quavering last notes, as if played back through the years, floated through the mahogany double doors to the child outside. The violinist of nineteen years later furiously racked his brains, seeking a clue to his childhood agony and perhaps the solution to the mystery of what element of his music was lacking. Was it a lack of skill? Or was it a lack of strength?
The magical inspiration of those special notes, soldered with anguished frustration and a child’s pure, innocuous perspective, created a rare window of understanding for him to glimpse, for once, his heart’s genuine desire – a mother’s love and attention. Since his tender childhood, while others sampled the joys of home-cooked delicacies, he received a hotel chef’s fare. While others were being piggybacked outdoors by market-going mothers to meet new friends, he was grounded daily by a foreign nanny. While others heard nightly dosages of fascinating bedtime stories, he could only envision such fantasies in listless daydreams.
Suddenly, he saw as well something that clicked in his heart – the real reason behind all these years of his musical pursuits. That child that was him all those years ago knew there was only one avenue to fulfill his heart-rending longing. How else could the boy earn a fraction of his world-famous mother’s time, unless he embarked on a musical quest to regain that quality time which had been robbed from him?
While reveling in the prolonged applause in his half-bowed poise on stage, he followed earnestly his own tuneless journey of pride and fame; holding tightly that spark of music that recreated those bittersweet childhood scenes.
He saw how he began intensive lessons with his mother from that immature age, and how his violin, only quarter-sized at that time, grew to become his sole pastime, heartlessly depriving him of both meals and sleep. His mission impossible was aimed at the goal of equaling and exceeding Mother’s superhuman results, to excel in the only realm that she could ever show passion in, and to leap, at long last, into her rewarding embrace.
To fight with heart, soul, mind and strength in order to have a true, loving Mother.
In those nineteen years since that fateful day listening intently to his mother’s lessons, his well-honed talents have crowned him with international trophies, bagged him numerous qualifications, scored countless distinctions and made him the object of strife between rival musical factions, who so wished to be able to show off for themselves such a promising, musically-inclined youth.
But alas! The quality time that he craved with his mother continued to elude him, as he garnered the painful realization that there was forever someone who outdid him, crushing his hopes to be, for once, the apple of his mother’s eye. His childhood dreams – to enjoy unbreakable mother-son bonds – were dashed upon the cruel boulders of his mother’s maniacal schedule and expectations.
Slowly he withdrew from those point-blank rebuttals to his search for love and acceptance, cocooning himself within the emotional depths of his outstanding virtuosity. Whatever Mother failed to deliver in her unceasing obsession with her music, he would compensate for it with the temporary pleasure from the appreciation and applause for his own life-infused melodies. Layer after layer of resilience had soothed his open wound, but with such a piercing memory, his heart throbbed, his vision blurred and on that prestigious stage, the great musician’s frame shook ever so slightly with inconsolable sobs.
Melting back into the jubilant present, shaking away all his unwanted, poignant memories, he looked fully into the glaring cameras, standing audience, and lusty cheers. Sweat, mingled with tears, trickled down his cheeks and splotched on his spotless tuxedo, a confirmation of his exhaustive performance. The exuberance of the moment, borne on the wings of a satisfying ovation, reached once more deep into his heart, as it did after every performance, and cast aside his depraved and sorrowful spirit.
He lived for this moment.
(1,627 words)