“Martha,” he had told me, his rough, grease-stained hands holding mine on the bus ride back to Michigan, “if you’re going to play, you play on the best they’ve got. You deserve to have your music sound the way it does in your head.” I had kept the original certificate of authenticity and the bill of sale locked in our metal firebox in the closet for fifty years.
Every nick on the spruce top, every worn spot on the maple back from my chin rest, was a map of my life. And here was Wayne Grier, offering me fifty dollars and calling it a favor.
“It has a lot of scratches,” Wayne continued, turning the instrument over with his thick, blunt fingers. He tapped the wood with a dirty fingernail. “And the case is practically falling apart. The leather is dry-rotted. It’s really just a student instrument, Martha.
Useful for sentimental value, mostly. But since I’m trying to help you clear out the place, I’ll take it off your hands for fifty. That’s a tank of gas for you, at least.”
I looked at the violin, and then I looked at Wayne. I could feel a cold, steady quietness settling deep behind my ribs. It was the same calm focus I used to feel right before the conductor raised his baton on opening night. “I’ll think about it,” I said, my voice soft and perfectly even.
Wayne smiled, a smug, satisfied expression that made his cheeks puff out. He reached into his coat pocket and slid a greasy business card onto the kitchen counter. “Don’t wait too long, dear,” he said, patting my shoulder. “The market for old junk is down, and my truck is already half-full.”
As soon as the rumble of his old truck faded down Cherry Street, I walked over to the kitchen counter. I didn’t touch his card. Instead, I went upstairs, unlocked the metal firebox, and took out the yellowed parchment certificate from 1974, along with a recent professional appraisal I’d quietly had done in Detroit two years ago after Arthur died. The appraisal was for eighty-five thousand dollars. I sat down at my kitchen table, picked up the phone, and called DuMouchelles, a reputable auction house in Detroit. A very polite young man named Julian answered the phone. He didn’t call me sweetheart.
Three days later, Julian drove across the state in a clean, quiet sedan. He wore soft white cotton gloves when he lifted the Fiorini from its worn leather case. He spent twenty minutes examining the purfling, the scroll, and the rich, red-brown varnish under a magnifying loupe. When he finally looked up, his eyes were wide. “It’s exquisite, Mrs. Gable,” he whispered, his voice full of genuine respect. “The condition is remarkable. The tone must be incredible.” I smiled, remembering the way the lower G string used to vibrate against my chest during the Brahms concerts. “It is,” I said.
