Read Online The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax - Free Book Online
Authors: Andromeda Romano-Lax
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us know he was back from Madrid and to invite himself to dinner. Enrique had just begun his second year at the academy, and Percival now lived with his employer, at the olive press where he was apprenticing. For Luisa, who was nineteen, Don Miguel brought a hand mirror, its silver handle patterned with bas-relief roses.
For me, Don Miguel brought a magazine called
ABC.
The issue celebrated the anniversary of King Alfonso's marriage to Queen Victoria Eugenia, informally known as Ena. Though our King, now twenty-one years old, had wed Queen Ena a year earlier, the Spanish public was taking some time to accept Alfonso's blond bride. The granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, Queen Ena had converted from her Protestant faith to Catholicism two days before the royal wedding, but that renunciation hadn't changed her reputation as a rather frosty, distinctly non-Iberian foreigner.
Luisa, Mamá, and Tía took turns passing around the magazine. Even my mother couldn't resist poring over the glossy pictures and gossipy captions, but when she flipped past them, she saw why Don Miguel had brought me the magazine and handed it back. The next piece was a profile of El Nene, who had finally shed that nickname and was now called Justo Al-Cerraz. The pianist insisted on the hyphenated version of his last name, drawing conspicuous attention to the Islamic prefix, which was part of his new mystique. His mother was said to be Moorish. Or gypsy. Or both: a distant descendant of some Moor pretending to be a gypsy following the seventeenth-century expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Though Christian, Al-Cerraz claimed he could orient himself toward Mecca even blindfolded, unless there was a piano nearby. (Wasn't there always some piano nearby?) Any stringed instrument, he said, disturbed his "magnetic energies."
In the six years since I'd heard him play, Al-Cerraz had toured briefly with a
zarzuela
company, spent a few months in the royal court of Madrid, then rededicated himself to his own musical education by briefly joining the composer Richard Strauss in Germany. The last episode had not gone well, as evidenced by Al-Cerraz's willingness to poke fun at his short-lived mentor. At the time of Al-Cerraz's visit, Strauss was still basking in the success of his
Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character
—a dissonant production full of bleating trumpets meant to sound like sheep, wind machines, and other noisy post-Wagnerian inventions. When the
ABC
reporter asked what Al-Cerraz thought of Strauss's "variations," the pianist sniped, "They are certainly fantastic. I had no idea that any musical production could have quite so many sheep. I thought I was right back in the Spanish countryside. I forgot I was listening to music at all."
Undoubtedly he was still bristling at Strauss's claim that "A Spaniard will not be the one to write great works about Spain. You are a nation of bullfighters, not composers." For as the article made clear, playing music—even playing for royalty—was no longer enough for Al-Cerraz. He wanted to compose, too.
Reading the article, I didn't sympathize with Al-Cerraz. I had my own miseries to contemplate. I was young, yes, but not so young in a country where the King himself was still learning to shave. At twenty-five, Al-Cerraz was older than our monarch, but look how much he had done! Here he was, embarking on a second career. I hadn't even started my first.
This notion of a profession was no small thing, as my mother's repeated comments had made clear. My leg was as weak as ever. I'd never be able to follow Enrique's footsteps into the army, or Percival's path into the laborious agricultural trades. Recently, setting her sights lower, Mamá had tried apprenticing me to a shoemaker, but even he had deemed me unworthy. My fingers were too clumsy, the shoemaker said, adding, "A good thing you have taught him numbers and history so well, Doña. Perhaps he will serve as his father did, as an
For me, Don Miguel brought a magazine called
ABC.
The issue celebrated the anniversary of King Alfonso's marriage to Queen Victoria Eugenia, informally known as Ena. Though our King, now twenty-one years old, had wed Queen Ena a year earlier, the Spanish public was taking some time to accept Alfonso's blond bride. The granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, Queen Ena had converted from her Protestant faith to Catholicism two days before the royal wedding, but that renunciation hadn't changed her reputation as a rather frosty, distinctly non-Iberian foreigner.
Luisa, Mamá, and Tía took turns passing around the magazine. Even my mother couldn't resist poring over the glossy pictures and gossipy captions, but when she flipped past them, she saw why Don Miguel had brought me the magazine and handed it back. The next piece was a profile of El Nene, who had finally shed that nickname and was now called Justo Al-Cerraz. The pianist insisted on the hyphenated version of his last name, drawing conspicuous attention to the Islamic prefix, which was part of his new mystique. His mother was said to be Moorish. Or gypsy. Or both: a distant descendant of some Moor pretending to be a gypsy following the seventeenth-century expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Though Christian, Al-Cerraz claimed he could orient himself toward Mecca even blindfolded, unless there was a piano nearby. (Wasn't there always some piano nearby?) Any stringed instrument, he said, disturbed his "magnetic energies."
In the six years since I'd heard him play, Al-Cerraz had toured briefly with a
zarzuela
company, spent a few months in the royal court of Madrid, then rededicated himself to his own musical education by briefly joining the composer Richard Strauss in Germany. The last episode had not gone well, as evidenced by Al-Cerraz's willingness to poke fun at his short-lived mentor. At the time of Al-Cerraz's visit, Strauss was still basking in the success of his
Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character
—a dissonant production full of bleating trumpets meant to sound like sheep, wind machines, and other noisy post-Wagnerian inventions. When the
ABC
reporter asked what Al-Cerraz thought of Strauss's "variations," the pianist sniped, "They are certainly fantastic. I had no idea that any musical production could have quite so many sheep. I thought I was right back in the Spanish countryside. I forgot I was listening to music at all."
Undoubtedly he was still bristling at Strauss's claim that "A Spaniard will not be the one to write great works about Spain. You are a nation of bullfighters, not composers." For as the article made clear, playing music—even playing for royalty—was no longer enough for Al-Cerraz. He wanted to compose, too.
Reading the article, I didn't sympathize with Al-Cerraz. I had my own miseries to contemplate. I was young, yes, but not so young in a country where the King himself was still learning to shave. At twenty-five, Al-Cerraz was older than our monarch, but look how much he had done! Here he was, embarking on a second career. I hadn't even started my first.
This notion of a profession was no small thing, as my mother's repeated comments had made clear. My leg was as weak as ever. I'd never be able to follow Enrique's footsteps into the army, or Percival's path into the laborious agricultural trades. Recently, setting her sights lower, Mamá had tried apprenticing me to a shoemaker, but even he had deemed me unworthy. My fingers were too clumsy, the shoemaker said, adding, "A good thing you have taught him numbers and history so well, Doña. Perhaps he will serve as his father did, as an
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