The Bach Manuscript. Scott Mariani

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       Chapter 7

      ‘You could have fooled me,’ Ben said. ‘It looks real enough. But then, I’m hardly an expert.’

      Nick laughed as he set the things down on the coffee table and took a seat in a nearby armchair. ‘Join the club. I’m just a humble instrumentalist, not exactly one of your hardcore scholars or collectors who scour the earth ready to part with eye-wateringly vast sums for original manuscripts. I picked that up as a novelty for a few pennies in a crumbly old backstreet music shop in Prague when I was there for a concert last October. Believe me, if it was the genuine item, it’d probably be worth as much as this apartment and everything in it, plus that daft car outside. But it looks the part and is a great conversation piece among my musician pals. We’re a dull lot, I’m afraid.’

      Ben peered back through the glass at the manuscript. ‘I suppose that stain on it would lower its value, though. If it was the real thing, I mean.’

      ‘I amuse myself by telling gullible souls that Bach spilled coffee on the paper while he was composing. You should see their faces at the idea that the great man would actually do such a thing as sit at the keyboard with a steaming mug next to him, like any other human being.’

      ‘Is that what the stain is, coffee?’ Ben asked, peering at it. Through the glass, it was hard to tell.

      ‘That’s what it looks like to me,’ Nick said. ‘One thing I do know, old Johann Sebastian was nutty about the stuff. Of course, coffee was very much the craze across Europe at that time. He loved it so much that he even wrote a piece of music as a homage to it, a mini comic opera called the “Coffee Cantata”.’

      Ben glanced back at the stern face on the portrait. ‘He doesn’t strike me as the comic type.’

      ‘Oh, don’t let that austere front fool you,’ Nick said with a wave. ‘Bach loved nothing more than to have a good time, in all kinds of ways. He was the father of twenty-two children and he was extremely fond of his grub, not to mention wine and beer. He was sixty-three when he sat for that portrait, but he could still enjoy himself. I’m trying to remember how the “Coffee Cantata” goes. Oh, yes—’

      Nick recited:

      ‘Oh, how sweet coffee tastes,

       More delicious than a thousand kisses,

       Milder than muscatel wine.

       Coffee, I have to have coffee,

       And, if someone wants to pamper me,

      Ah, then bring me coffee as a gift!’

      ‘Sounds like he had it bad,’ Ben said. ‘Even I’m not that addicted to it, yet.’

      Nick smiled and pointed at the cups on the table. ‘I’m willing to bet you soon will be, once you try this. Come and drink it while it’s hot.’

      The coffee tasted as good as it smelled. Ben took it black, no sugar, the way coffee ought to be. He nodded his appreciation. ‘Now I am an expert in this department,’ he said. ‘And that’s no fake. It’s the real McCoy. Colombian?’

      ‘Brazilian Sierra Negra,’ Nick said, looking happy. ‘Something special, isn’t it? Better than the bilge water they serve in Hall, at any rate.’

      Ben drank some more, then shook his head, thinking back to the manuscript. ‘It’s a strange world where someone would go to the trouble of counterfeiting something like that.’

      ‘Welcome to the music world. You’d be amazed at the fakery that’s out there. Do you seriously imagine, for instance, that I could afford a real lock of Chopin’s hair? There’s only one validated example in existence, and that’s in a museum in Warsaw.’ Nick motioned towards the cabinet. ‘That one there was most likely put together from the sweepings off the floor of a pet-grooming parlour.’

      ‘That’s one way to make use of dog hair,’ Ben said, thinking of the state of the floor of the Le Val office after four German shepherds had been lying around in there. ‘I was thinking of stuffing pillows with it.’

      Nick smiled. ‘I should point out, however, that not everything I possess is phony. That harpsichord there, for example. Made by Jacob and Abraham Kirckman, London’s finest craftsmen of their day, circa 1775. Double manual, six hand stops, cabinet of oak, mahogany and tulipwood, all hand-inlaid. I had it professionally rebuilt six or seven years ago. Cost me an absolute bomb.’

      ‘You can see where the money went,’ Ben said.

      ‘And hear it. Listen.’ Nick jumped to his feet, went over to the harpsichord and dashed off a few fast, tinkling bars. ‘Scarlatti. Hear the quality of the sound?’

      ‘I have to say the piano appeals to me more. That’s an impressive Bosendörfer you have.’

      ‘And we had some fun dragging it up the stairs, I can tell you,’ СКАЧАТЬ