These weren’t discrepancies most people would notice, but their presence was undeniable. Was del Gesù feeling flirtatious?
That wasn’t like del Gesù at all.
Was this a forgery, then? No. If the violin were a fake, Shizuka Satomi would have noticed the moment she played it. Besides, all the signs of a classic Guarneri were there. They were just … different.
No wonder Shizuka Satomi had asked about the client notes.
Lucy walked around the back of the counter, where the old cash register had been. She retrieved an old wooden box, which had held their client notes for two and a half generations. Here were entries in her writing, in her father’s hand, and in her grandfather’s before that. Here were entries for some private school programs, and even a few public schools, from when public schools had music departments. Here were all of Mr. Zacatecas’s repairs—Lucy could almost smell the beer. And Ellen Seidel, who sometimes visited the shop when she didn’t feel like primping for Grunfeld’s.
And Shizuka Satomi’s records would be right …
She frowned.
She searched again. And again.
How could the shop have lost Shizuka Satomi’s records? Had the store simply neglected to keep them? Impossible! Lucy probed further. She stopped.
The Queen of Hell was not the only client who was missing. Other entries were missing as well. Some of their photos even now were hanging on the wall.
All of them? Shizuka Satomi had asked.
Lucy felt stupid, embarrassed, humiliated. How could she have taken that attitude with Shizuka Satomi, when she did not even know her own store?
Helplessly, Lucy looked about the store at the many photos of her grandfather and father. The father and son.
Yes, yes, Matía and Sons, Matía and Sons.
But why didn’t they pass along their notes? Did they not feel she was worthy? Fair enough. She’d even cast her vote to make it unanimous.
But this wasn’t about worthy. This was about legacy.
If she didn’t have their notes—what could she pass on? How could she safeguard their legacy if she did not know what their legacy was?
She had given her life to this family, this store! But now, without their history, their notes, their wisdom, it was all for nothing.
She glared at Catalin Matía’s portrait, gazing so proudly out over the workshop. But now, rather than her usual awe, she felt herself fill with a newfound rage.
“You would betray our family just because I am not a son? How dare you destroy the Matías!”
Lucy rushed across the store and reached up and pulled Catalin’s portrait from the wall. Years of dust fell from the portrait onto her hair, her face, into her eyes.
But she gave none of it any notice.
For behind the portrait was an alcove.
And in the alcove were the missing notes and records of the Matías.
For a long while, Lucy sat at the workbench. After all her talk of legacy, here it was … the voices of years, decades, generations, in these notebooks, all resting in front of her now.
With trembling hands, Lucy reached for the first notebook.
Almost immediately, she found an entry for Shizuka Satomi—and there, in a list of her instruments was
Maker: ex. Giuseppe Guarneri, del Gesù （Katarina Guarneria） c. 1742
Katarina Guarneria?
Of course. Suddenly, the Satomi Guarneri made sense.
Katarina was del Gesù’s wife. She helped him in the shop, and as the master faded, she completed, and even built, many Guarneri violins on her own. But throughout history, many of those instruments had their labels removed or altered, because no one would buy a violin made by a woman.
Lucy picked up the violin and examined it more closely. Yes, it was easy to miss, if one were not specifically looking for it, but indeed, this label had been altered.
Someone had tried to erase the maker from history.
But then Lucy put the Guarneri down. What had seemed so important was now an afterthought.
For that had merely been the first notebook. Here were entries in her father’s hand, her grandfather’s hand, and in older hands she did not recognize. Her great-grandfather? What was his name? Yes. Antonio.
These notebooks held not only records of maintenance and repairs, but of provenance, ownership, and more.
Lucy read another notebook. And another.
When she finished, Lucy sat down, listening to her heart. The sound was as if something dead and mortal had finally been shaved away.
* * *
Not the Sort of Thing for Little Girls
“No, no, luce mia. This is not the sort of thing for little girls.”
Those had been her grandfather’s words, spoken each evening as the sun went down. Lucy had grown up with those words, ferrying her home before the stars came out. She had grown up with those words … that let her father in, let her brothers in, leaving her alone with two hands and nothing to hold.