Part 2
Explains the origins, the technical characteristics of the instrument as well as empathising this fascinating objects’ role in the history of music.

Nowadays we listen to the radio and tapes. But try to imagine the days before that and before television, compact discs or records. Until fairly recently, only a few privileged people could be entertained at the opera, theatre or concert hall. But how often would common people hear music? When the organ grinder started playing songs from La Traviata or Carmen in the streets everyone could enjoy fine melodies…

Prelude

Her skin was dark and her teeth were white. She was elegant like a swan, strong like a bull and clever as a fox. Her words were glitter and her somersaults summer. I was ten years old. My sister Marjolaine and I would miss school to see her. We thought she was a mature woman but in fact she was a young woman. To us she was the greatest of all. Her clothes were strange and we told her. She smiled and we could see a silver tooth at the back of her mouth. Her accent was strong and the corner of her eyes wrinkled. She had the smell of the people who live outside. She had been coming for some years with her family of acrobats, stilts walkers, contortionists and musicians around spring in our small French town to give informal exhibitions. Each time, the news of their arrival spread rapidly in the village. She strummed the cymbal to attract the kids. She sang songs we knew and songs we didn’t know, in a language we didn’t know. She told us stories of fairies and ogres, Adam and Eve, Columbine and Pierrot sitting on the edge of the moon. My sister’s favorite was the tale of Noah’s Ark with its nine hundred and ninety nine animals and the missing unicorn. I liked the story of the rise and fall of Atlantis. Me who has always been afraid of water I had shivers when she described the inhabitants of the Island drowning and the tragic disappearance of an entire civilization under the sea. She told us that the night was a person who lies down at the end of the day, pulls her coat from her waist to her shoulders and tells the people: ‘Sweet dreams, stars in the making are taking over the scene and Peter Pan is getting ready for his flight.’ I was ten years old and to me she was the greatest. The flames that came out of her mouth were gold for the masses and her tricks would please the most skeptical audience. Before we knew an hour had passed when she walked on broken glass for the final act.

I was twelve years old when I saw her for the last time. The local council authorities asked her and her family not to come back. Was it because she was different, because of her accent, because she didn’t have a home or simply because she made us dream? Anyway they asked her to call it a day. As she said good-bye, I could smell her breath. I swear that I will remember the smell of cheap wine wafting from her lips all my life and no other wine I have tasted since, no matter the label or quality, can compare in its sweetness and spell.

Before leaving us to our humdrum existence she asked me if she could borrow my bicycle to ride around the square. It was the first of May and the little bouquets of lily were in every child’s hand. That was the first time I was in love, my first deadly war between flesh and spirit. I loved her but I said no because I had heard so many stories about these gypsies. That you can’t trust them and that they are thieves was the popular belief. Later that day at the dinner table, I told my father what happened with the bicycle. He was angry at my meanness. It was one of the very rare times in his life that he slapped me on the face. He told me that if someone wants to borrow anything I should oblige, no matter who he is or where he comes from. I was ashamed and rode back to the gipsy camp the same night. I rushed through the dark and crooked cobblestone streets. I was dying to see her, lend her my bicycle and everything I owned in life. My heart was beating fast. I didn’t know if it was from pedaling or from love. I didn’t know if it was my heart or her heart beating in my tiny chest. I didn’t care about my sister saying the gipsy woman was a witch who had sent a thousand men to their death. Where the caravans had been for the last three days there remained only warm ashes, the smell of Indian spices and goat’s excrement. I never saw her again. They had packed up their cane baskets, guitars, candles and scarves and away they had gone.

I was twelve years old and she was the greatest of all.

Poor gipsy girl I am sorry about the bicycle. I swear nothing compares to the memory of you. The day I’ll die I’ll remember your breath and what it gave me. I am not twelve any more but to me you will always be my first love and the greatest of all. Today, when I see a photo of a gipsy camp or whenever I smell the nectar of pansies, geraniums, or jonquils my heart squeezes and I am back to my little country town’s square. Why do we call it a square when it’s round? Wherever you are now know that there is in the world a French man who plays music on a street organ the same way you did then. When I am outside in the summer breeze and when I sing I feel like I am twelve again and close to you.

I swear to God nothing will ever compare to you. How horribly painful is the thought that our paths will never cross again.
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