Even before we had ever met
I knew you were coming...
I baked cookies and made one look like a G clef :
“This is for a musician,” I said, although at the time knew none.
That week I moved away from the house I was staying in to live in a small hostel. The owner Charo, had agreed to accommodate me free of charge to which I offered my volunteer help at the place.
The day I moved in, Charo said there were seven Ecuadorian musicians staying in the hostel.
“They wear black and return drunk in early morning hours,” said Charo.
To this description I imagined men with long hair playing heavy metal or rock music.
Quite late next morning I served breakfast to two earliest birds. Except for the tired faces, the guys looked pretty average to me. They seemed very young, perhaps in the early twenties, or even less, I never asked to make sure. Instead I wondered what instruments they played. The answer surprised me.
“Violin? Really? And what kind of music would it be then?”
“Chamber music.”
So it was not a heavy metal band after all. I wanted to go see them and was lucky – their last concert in Mendoza was on that very night in the Theatre of Cuyo University.
The concert hall was full, the music was divine both in repertoire and presentation.
But to put a cherry on top of the cake, so sweet already, my hostel friend was a solist...and he was good. Suddenly I felt so proud I was sharing a hostel with these talented young people. Why did they have to leave so soon? So much I wanted to ask them.
It was sometime during Vivaldi´s "Spring" or perhaps earlier, that I realised whom my cookie was for. The thought made me smile. So even if one did something out of the blue, it might be for a reason to be found out only after..., I thought.
Chamber Orquestra of the Experimental Music Institute of the University of Guayaquil, Ecuador
All of a sudden I had a mission: to get the cookie from a house I did not live in any more, to hand it to the musician when he got to the hostel. Both tasks were difficult.
With the first I had to think of the “HOW” to retrieve it: the concert was to end at 11 PM and the house was far and in the very opposite direction to where I lived:
The star on the map marks the location of the cookie, the house with the flag is the hostel and two masks - the theatre.
The second task was about the “HOW” to hand in my cookie to the violinist – also complicated because it was the last night of the group in our hostel, which they were most likely to spend partying somewhere. At 6 AM the musicians were to depart to the next concert location in Rio Quarto.
So was it a mission impossible?
Only one way to find out: I ran, I walked, and ran again. I did not leave the concert early – it would have been a too big of a sacrifice, so it was just one hope that at least one of the girls who lived at the house would be up to receive me at the hour. I even made a pact with myself that if I got the cookie I would stay up during the night shift.
As I was catching my breath from another long stretch I had run, I smiled – the whole situation seemed so absurd. Yet I liked it.
I think I reached the house a little before midnight, Carina came to open the door – one obstacle gone – I was in the house.
“Do you have the key? (the English word clef comes from French where it means key, which is what it is called in Spanish.)
“The key?”
“The sol-key?”
Had to catch my breath before I could give a better explanation.
“I think we ate it...,” said Carina.
I insisted we would look in the basket.
It was empty, except for some pieces, there was nothing in there.
“Wait, that is it! It is the curve, here is another part – is it whole?” I exclaimed.
Carina started helping me put the puzzle together and soon we had it done – my G clef was complete. How lucky! Then my good friend melted some sugar and we “glued” the pieces. It was 1 AM.
I walked back really slowly, holding my precious G clef gently with two hands – after all that trouble I was not going to take the risk of letting that cookie out of my sight. It took me another hour to get to the hostel.
Simon was on the night shift and came to open the door.
“How was the concert?” he asked.
“Absolutely amazing! Could I please take over the night shift for you,” I asked and to the question mark written in his face answered: “The guys are leaving at 6 AM and I would like to be able to say good-bye.”
When Simon went happily to sleep, I sighed with relief – the hardest part was done. Or was it? I sat behind the table and started waiting.
2:30 AM – some musicians returned, but the star violinist was not among them;
3:00 AM – two visitors came;
4:00 AM - nothing happened; I was very sleepy.
5:30 AM – I heard movement upstairs – the musicians were packing their bags.
6:00 AM – was he not coming? I asked, but only myself.
6:15 AM - he came and I tried to explain...but there was just too much to say and too little time - he was in a hurry. I gave him the present saying that in Estonian G clef is called “viiulivõti” which in translation means key of the violin.
After all that I wondered if he actually got it – the journey of that cookie from making to delivery. I hoped he would later feel in the taste what words lacked to express.
In return I felt how easy it would be to fall in love with a musician if only he did not descend from the stage.
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