He took another breath, then played the adagio from Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto. He’d never felt such joy before; it was as if his heart were in all his fingers, playing.
When at last he drew his bow over the final chords, the room continued to echo.
“Ray, are you okay?”
He was thinking of his great-great-grandfather. He was thinking of Grandma Nora. He was struggling to find words. So instead he looked at Dr. Stevens, and at Jacob. “Thank you.”
“No, son, thank you. This was an absolute treasure.”
“It’s stunning,” Dr. Stevens breathed. “May I?” Ray handed it to her. “Were you able to determine the date?”
Jacob shook his head. “The label’s long disappeared. My best guess is that it’s from between 1720 and 1730.”
They talked for a while longer, then Ray paid Jacob—his $1,500 fee and the cost of the new case—and they left, planning next steps. If this were an Italian eighteenth-century violin, it needed to be authenticated by an expert, and probably insured. Janice now informed Ray that he would be making an appointment in New York City with Mischa Rowland, one of the top Italian violin experts in the country, for Monday morning.
* * *
—
Going through Charlotte’s airport security was anxiety inducing: he’d seen PopPop’s fiddle go through the X-ray machine dozens of times, but this was the first time he’d watched a $300 white case cradling a Stradivarius—his Stradivarius—float away into the X-ray machine. Being separated even so briefly from the violin now made Ray slightly nauseated. He wondered if this was how the rest of his life would be: glued unceasingly to this violin, forever. Would he take it into the shower with him? He’d be taking it to the Tchaikovsky Competition, that was for sure. He grinned to himself.
Two hours later, the plane banked for a landing and there was Manhattan, gleaming in the early-morning sunshine like a fairy-tale city, all glass and gold. It wasn’t a real place: it was something out of a movie, like these past few days. He was just a Black kid who hadn’t wanted to work at a fried-chicken restaurant, and now he was a musician and there, spread out like a Thanksgiving feast, was New York City. He couldn’t believe this was real.
After they landed, though, JFK airport’s grime coating every institutional beige surface jolted him back to reality.
Dr. Stevens—“Ray, you need to call me Janice now, not Dr. Stevens”—had planned on an hour to get into the city, and they needed every minute of it, sitting in their taxi in bumper-to-bumper traffic nearly the whole way. Ray couldn’t imagine how people did this every morning. At 9:04 a.m. their taxi passed Carnegie Hall and a few moments later pulled up in front of a nondescript beige building. Rowland’s Fine Instruments, Sales & Appraisals, est. 1927 was stenciled in ornate gold lettering across the plate glass window. Inside, a single violin, encased in clear Plexiglas, stood proudly. Their appointment was for 9:00. “Good timing, huh?” Dr. Stevens said.
They had to ring a bell to be buzzed in to the main showroom, where a faded violet couch sat against one wall, a beat-up coffee table covered with magazines in front of it. Instruments hung from everywhere, including the ceiling: violins, violas, and cellos shone with a gorgeous luster like nothing he’d ever seen. These were the instruments of princes and kings, the violins for the best violinists in the world. On the counter rested an old-fashioned cash register. No electronics, no card reader. Behind the counter, a staircase carpeted in red damask led up into darkness. On one side of the steps hung an enormous sign: Employees Only. On the other: All Others Keep Out!
The room seemed deserted, but moments after they arrived, a voice boomed from the stairwell. “You have kept me waiting. Your appointment was for nine, and it was a serious inconvenience to fit you in.” A very large man descended. “Janice Stevens and Ray McMillian?” He was very intimidating. Easily six feet four inches, with jet-black hair slicked back to reveal a high forehead and bright blue eyes. He did not offer to shake either Ray’s or Janice’s hand.
“Let me see this instrument.”
Ray set the case down on the glass cabinet behind them. Mischa Rowland leaned forward, expressionless, and then lifted out the violin, turned it around—even, Ray could swear, sniffing it. Mischa pulled out a jeweler’s loupe and did it all again.
“I will give you ten thousand dollars for it,” the man said. He had a thick accent that Ray couldn’t place. “Not a penny more.”