Where have I been? Well, I got this crazy idea for a novel dealing with a violin that sort of explains why it's the devils chosen instrument...and kind of went with it. Won't share the whole thing, but at least this is the first salvo.
Cremona
In a dark alley off 57th Street in Manhattan Mary D’Angelis raced pell mell into the
shadows.
Please…dear God say I lost them…please say I lost them…
She scrunched her face and crouched between two dumpsters as she reached for
her cell phone and hit her friends number.
Voice quaking, she spoke, “Hello… Listen. I went. It’s true, they want to bring to bring the Fortuno to America…Yes, I know what you said, but I had to find out…Don’t you understand? We’re all in danger!” she caught herself.
Not so loud…not so loud…
Cautious, she rose just high enough to peek over the top of the dumpster and check the alley. No one. Except for the rustling of rats among the garbage and her friend, Mark, ranting in her ear, she heard nothing and saw only the empty canyon formed between the two buildings.
She sank back down and whispered, “I can’t talk. I can’t say names on the phone. But listen: they want to put the perfect violin with the best player. Don’t let it happen. You know who they’ll go after. Don’t let him even be tempted!”
Above her she heard a voice that froze her heart. “Mary D’Angelis.” Her eyes shot upward. The coven priest towered. “So kind of you to hide among the garbage. It will save us the problem of dragging you here…”
A knife blade flashed and, after a shocked second, Mary realized she bled from the throat. Her own blood double backed and gagged her as she dropped to the ground and watched, helpless, as her life trickled towards the sewer.
Next to her ear, the phone shrieked, “Mary! Mary!”
##
The priest reached down, picked it up and slipped it into his pocket.
He gazed for moment at the dead girl and thought how odd that the hole in her throat resembled a second smile.
Then again, people did often say he had a very positive attitude.
Jerusalem-
Moshe Stein sat waiting at the out door café near the Western Wall and stirred his coffee. His bright green eyes scanned the daily crowd of pilgrims, uniformed soldiers, children, and people hurrying off to work. Despite the crystal blue sky over head and the knowledge of having completed one more successful season with the philharmonic, Moshe felt no joy.
Tales of the Fortuno violin haunted him.
He could still hear his grandfather’s words and see his careworn face as he sat beside the fireplace in his home near Hamburg. “Moshe, his name was Mordecai Yitzman, a fantastic violinist, one of those men who could have had the world at his feet, but it wasn’t to be. This was during my youth before the war here and, Adolph Hitler, the butcher himself, called on Yitzman to perform with the German State Radio Orchestra time and time again. But at each performance, Mordecai had to play on a special fiddle, an evil instrument made by the warlock Renaldo Fortuno back in Cremona at the same time Andreas Amati invented the very first violin.. Every time Yitzman played, people were lulled into complacency because that is the state Hitler wanted. He constantly impressed on Yitzman the need to think of uniting Germany each and everytime he played! It was Yitzman’s music, played on that fiddle, that made people so blind to the things going on in Germany and no one realized it or even knew to admit it, they just blindly followed Hitler all the way to hell! And then finally, Yitzman said he could play it no more and Hitler took the violin from him and said he was never to touch it again. Moshe, Yitzman went mad and died screaming in the back of a mental hospital…and soon as Hitler was dead, the violin disappeared.”
At last, he spied David, a young Hasidic, dressed in his black coat and flat black hat. His sandy hair twirled in long dangling curls at each temple and his beard grew in nearly as curly. Moshe smiled. Despite the stern uniform of his sect, he knew that here was a man whose eyes would hold their youthful sparkle as long as he lived.
At least, he certainly hoped so.
David hurried to his table.
“Moshe, Moshe…” David said, sliding out a chair and taking a seat. He glanced about and lowered his voice. “I heard from the Chabad House near Cremona…”
He paused, glanced toward heaven and pressed a hand to his chest. “I can not believe what I am about to say.”
Moshe paused, already certain he knew, but it brought him no comfort. “David, I have been concertmaster of the philharmonic for many years. I know many things about music and even musical tales like this. This cannot be real!”
David leaned forward. “It is real! The violin exists in Cremona where it was born and I am terrified!”
Moshe’s eyes widened as he gazed, stunned. “How can this be? Dear God, it must be a fable! Please, tell me it’s a fable!”
“Absolutely not! During the 1700’s in France, Napoleon persuades a young musician to play the Fortuno for him. The musician directs his thoughts and intents towards Napoleon. The player went mad, but the hoardes of France follow Napoleon and he becomes Emperor. In Germany, Italy, Africa, everywhere there have been horrible dictatorships and tremendous loss of human life, the Fortuno has been in the background played by some man or woman who could not help themselves and were destroyed by this vile creation. Death and madness surround the Fortuno violin. I do not know who holds it or what they want with it, but what if the next owner is an enemy of Israel? Think of it! Think of what happened to our people when it was in Hitler’s possession! Whole populations swayed by a single instrument!”
Moshe studied his young friends face. He knew David did not jump to strange conclusions without good cause. “I understand what you are saying, and yet, I can’t fathom how one violin is supposed to do this!”
David’s gaze became so intent, Moshe thought he could stare right through his skull.
“A single violin can do this when the most unholy of angels is involved. The violin is said to have been cured in blood tainted by his very essence.”
“Ah….eee…I had heard the story of the fallen one, Azz…”
David’s eyes flew open. “Ah!! Ah..shh..shhh! Shhhh! Do not say that name! I do not want him drawn here!”
Moshe lifted a hand. “Yes, of course, you are right. Please, continue.”
“The other factor that makes it possible for the Fortuno violin’s evil to affect us is that so many believe it can’t happen. What a grievous error we commit when we shrug our shoulders and say, Oh, it’s only music…’”
Moshe nodded, his heart fearful. “We have to retrieve it…We must become its guardians…”
End of chpater 1 or maybe it's a prologue...I haven't decided.
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