Paganini's Ghost (11 page)

“Let's give it a go.”

He turned the first dial on the combination lock to
B
, then the second to
E
. He rotated the third dial to
F
, then paused. He looked up at me. “You'd better be right, Gianni, or I'm going to have to take a crowbar to this.”

He turned the fourth dial to
G
. There was an audible click as the lock disengaged. Guastafeste glanced at me again.

“You have your uses, you know.”

He took hold of the top of the box and pulled gently. Nothing happened. He pulled harder. The lid swung open, the hinges sticking a little. The first thing we saw inside the box was a folded piece of paper. Guastafeste lifted the paper out by a corner and put it to one side, obviously hoping to find something else underneath. But there was nothing. Apart from the paper, the box was empty.

“Oh,” Guastafeste said, unable to conceal his disappointment. “I thought . . . I didn't expect nothing at all.”

“It's empty now,” I said. “But it hasn't always been empty. Look at it.”

The internal dimensions of the box were smaller than the external. The length and width were more or less the same, but the depth was different—shallower by about three centimetres because a false bottom had been inserted. It was like a platform across the whole base of the box—a platform covered in soft navy blue velvet, with a recess cut out in the centre, which was also lined with velvet.

“What the . . .” Guastafeste began. “But that looks like . . .”

“Doesn't it?” I said.

The recess was the exact shape of a violin. The gold box wasn't just a gold box. It was a golden violin case.

“But not a real violin, surely?” Guastafeste said. “It's too small.”

I looked more closely at the recess. It was about twenty centimetres long and ten centimetres across at the widest point. Violins come in many sizes. You can get half-and quarter-and even eighth-size instruments for very young children to begin on, but I'd never seen one that would have been small enough to fit into this recess.

“I don't know,” I said. “It would be quite possible to make a violin that size, though it wouldn't have much of a sound.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged.

“As an ornament? As a joke? Who knows? The challenge, maybe. It would be a test of any luthier's skill to make an instrument that tiny.”

“Have you ever tried?”

“No.”

“Has anyone else? You know, the greats. Did Stradivari ever make any violins that size?”

“Not to my knowledge. Certainly none has ever been discovered.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Quite sure. Why do you think Stradivari might have been involved?”

Guastafeste ran his fingers over the outside of the box.

“It can't have been an ordinary violin that went in here,” he said. “This box must have cost a fortune. Look at the craftsmanship, the quality of the gold. It was made for a very special violin. But whose?”

“Why don't you look at the letter?” I said.

“Letter? What letter?”

His eyes followed my gaze.

“You mean . . .”

He saw it now. The piece of paper he'd removed from the box had come unfolded slightly. Traces of handwriting were just visible on the reverse side.

“Don't touch it,” Guastafeste said. “I'll be right back.”

He went out of the kitchen and round the side of the house. I heard the distant, very faint sound of his car door opening and closing. When he returned, he was wearing a pair of thin latex gloves. He sat back down at the table and carefully examined the letter.

It was written on a thick ivory-coloured sheet of notepaper that had been folded in half and sealed with red wax. The seal was still attached to the paper. It was an ornate affair—an elaborate coat of arms that only a nobleman or person of some consequence would have used, with the initials E.B. stamped in the centre.

“E.B.?” Guastafeste said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

I shook my head.

“Who's it addressed to?” I asked.

Guastafeste turned the paper over and looked at the writing on the front. The ink had faded to a faint grey colour and wasn't easy to read. Guastafeste studied the words for a moment, then let out a low exclamation.

“Nicolò Paganini. The letter is addressed to Paganini.”

He held the sheet up to the light to show me. There were three lines of writing, but the bottom two were so smudged, they were indecipherable. Only the top line was legible. “Sg. N. Paganini,” it read.

Guastafeste unfolded the sheet and held it flat on the table, using only the tips of his gloved fingers. The letter itself was clearer than the address. The ink had faded a little and the paper had yellowed with age, but the writing was legible enough. At the top, in a bold feminine hand, were the words “Villa Vicentina, Trieste, September 1819.” Below that was the text of the letter.

My dear Nicolò
,

I am distressed to have received no reply to my letter of June last. Have I done something to offend you? Have you forgotten your poor Elisa, languishing here in this dull, godforsaken little hole? Have pity on me and send me news of your adventures
.

I have been looking again at the wonderful “Moses Fantasy” you sent me in the summer. I have yet to see Signor Rossini's
Mosè in Egitto,
but if it is half as beautiful as your variations, it must indeed be a masterpiece. I am honoured by your kind dedication, which brings back so many happy memories of our time in Lucca, not least that other piece—your Serenata
Appassionata
—that you wrote for me. I can still hear that haunting melody in my head. I think of it as your ghost, a spirit that is constantly with me though so many years have elapsed since we last saw each other
.

I am sending you this box as a gift, a token of my affection and my gratitude for your variations. I hope you like it. I had it specially commissioned to go with the other gift I gave you in Lucca—you will know the one I mean. You will be intrigued by the lock, but with your sharp mind I am sure you will quickly work out how to open it
.

Felice has attempted your variations and you have never seen or heard anything so comical in your life. I would dearly love to hear them played properly, to hear them the way you would play them, dearest Nicolò. Visit us, if you can, for nothing would make me happier. And if you cannot, and I must forego the pleasure of hearing you play, then write so that I may have the pleasure of your thoughts instead
.

Your affectionate friend, Elisa

Guastafeste took his fingers off the letter and looked at me.

“Elisa? Do you know who she was?”

“Elisa Baciocchi,” I said. “The princess of Piombino and Lucca.”

“A princess? She was a friend of Paganini's?”

“Not just a friend. They were lovers.”

Guastafeste glanced back at the letter.

“He moved in high circles, didn't he? Having an affair with a princess.”

“No ordinary princess, either,” I said. “Baciocchi was her married name. Her maiden name was Elisa Bonaparte. She was Napoléon's sister.”

I
do not regard myself as an expert on Paganini, but I have read enough about him to know something of his life. If you are interested in violins, it is impossible not to be fascinated by this complex, troubled man, the most celebrated—and notorious—virtuoso in history.

I know that he was born in Genoa in 1782, and from an early age showed a prodigious talent for the violin. His father, Antonio, a feckless porter at the harbour, realised quickly that his son's gift had the potential to relieve the family's poverty and maybe even bring great riches to them, so he encouraged Nicolò's playing, finding him teachers and enforcing a brutal regime of practice, which undermined the boy's already-fragile health.

In later life, Paganini claimed that his father starved him in order to make him practise harder. This may be an exaggeration. Successful people have a tendency to play up the hardships of their youth, but it was certainly true that Antonio Paganini was a demanding taskmaster.
His efforts paid off, however, for Nicolò was soon performing in public and astounding audiences with his technical prowess. Just as important to his father, he was also beginning to earn money—so much so that by the time he was sixteen, Nicolò's parents could afford to buy themselves a retirement home in the countryside outside Genoa.

Throughout that period, Antonio Paganini was a constant presence at his son's side—supervising his practice, organising his concerts, accompanying him on tour, and pocketing the proceeds. Nicolò, like any other teenage boy, must have found his father's attentions oppressive and longed to break away. His opportunity came in 1801, when he was permitted to travel to Lucca for the annual music festival of Santa Croce, accompanied not by his father this time but by his elder brother, Carlo. When the festival finished, Carlo returned home to Genoa. Nicolò didn't. He went to Pisa instead and organised a concert himself. Then he went to Livorno and Florence and Sienna, putting on more concerts. Never again would he have his life controlled by his grasping father.

Little is known about Paganini's activities immediately after that. The period from 1801 to 1804 is often referred to as his “missing years.” Much later, when Paganini was established as a soloist of international renown, stories circulated about what he had actually been doing during that time. One had him falling in love with a wealthy widow and retreating with her to her country estate, where he taught himself the guitar and whiled away the hours eating lotus and serenading his lady love. Another story claimed that he had been in prison for murder, having killed his mistress or—in a slightly different version—a rival for a woman's affections. While in prison, the story went, his jailer's daughter—that essential ingredient of all these kinds of tales—had taken pity on him and smuggled in his violin. Confined to a cell for several years—the period expanding depending on who was telling the story—Paganini had used the time to perfect his technique.

Interestingly enough, an almost identical story once circulated about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, the maker of Paganini's Cannon. Guarneri was also said to have spent a few years in prison for killing a
man. The obliging jailer's daughter in that case supposedly smuggled in wood and tools, giving Guarneri the opportunity to hone his craft as a luthier. Disappointingly for lovers of romantic fiction, the Cremona annual censuses show Guarneri to have been living at home throughout the period in question.

The rather dull, prosaic truth is that Paganini was indeed perfecting his violin technique during those missing years, but not on a country estate or in prison, but as the leader of the city orchestra in Lucca. He was still there in 1805, when Elisa Baciocchi, née Bonaparte, came into his life.

Elisa was the eldest of Napoléon's three sisters, and the one most like him in both appearance and temperament. She was not a beautiful woman, but she had a good figure, small feet and hands, and seductive dark eyes, which did much to compensate for her rather plain looks. She was intelligent and cultivated, with a sharp mind and strong character, which did not always endear her to those round her.

Elisa and her brother didn't really get on. Napoléon liked his siblings to be passive and malleable—two characteristics that were entirely alien to Elisa—and he handed out titles and kingdoms to them like birthday presents. Joseph became king of Spain, Louis was made king of Holland, Jérôme king of Westphalia, and Lucien prince of Canino. The husband of Napoléon's youngest sister, Caroline, whose name was Joachim Murat, was given the kingdom of Naples, and Bonaparte's other sister, Pauline, became a princess by marrying into the Borghese family, though her greatest claim to fame was posing topless for a statue by Canova.

Elisa had long wanted a title and a principality to rule over, so to placate her, Napoléon gave her Piombino and Lucca, an insignificant little corner of Tuscany. The title wasn't just symbolic. Elisa had a penchant for government and her effect on the sleepy province was dramatic.

Lucca, a quiet, dreary backwater, was transformed into a brilliant capital, full of life and culture. Two theatres were opened, a casino and bathing centre were built, schools, libraries, and other educational
institutions were set up, and wealthy visitors poured in from all over Italy to enjoy the diversions on offer.

Elisa had artistic and literary pretensions, once shocking Napoléon by appearing onstage in a Voltaire play in pink silk tights, and she quickly established a salon at which writers and artists could meet and show off to one another. Music was also high on her list of interests. Her dim-witted husband, Felice, whose main role in life was to do what Elisa told him, was a keen amateur violinist, and it was not long before Elisa began to take an interest in the leader of what, by now, had become the court orchestra.

Paganini was then twenty-three years old. Portraits of the time show him as a handsome young man with a shock of curly dark hair. His face had none of the ravaged, unhealthy look that we have come to associate with him, though the seeds of that physical deterioration had already been sown. Paganini had almost certainly contracted syphilis by this stage—but then, who hadn't? Practically every young man of the day would have been exposed to the disease if he were sexually active. You were either chaste or you had VD. There wasn't much in between.

Elisa was five years older than Paganini and a woman accustomed to getting what she wanted. Within a short space of time, the two of them were lovers. Paganini was given the job of violin teacher to Felice and, because Elisa wanted him to appear at court functions in splendid uniform, the additional roles of captain of the royal gendarmerie and a member of her personal bodyguard—this last post providing a convenient cover for their assignations, which frequently took place when Felice had been sent away to do his violin practice.