The Great Storyteller

Translated by: ShawnSuh

Edited by: SootyOwl

Juho stared intently at the cat. Although it seemed to pay no attention to the people around it, its ears, which were pointed toward the young author, moved every time Juho spoke. It was a cautious predator.

“Let’s get outta here.”

“Right,” Juho replied. Checking the time, he asked, “Jenkins should’ve arrived yesterday, right?”

“Yep. Although, I don’t know what business he has here. He needs to stick to making movies,” Coin said, clicking his tongue irritably. Juho agreed silently. Jenkins had been in the States for about a month. While Juho had been enjoying his peaceful daily life in the director’s absence, Jenkins had informed the young author that he had arrived from the States just yesterday. Looking at the time, he had to be sleeping at the moment.

“Speaking of which, for how much longer are you staying in Germany?”

“For as long as I want to.”

“Of course.”

Lately, Coin had been traveling around the country. Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Bremen, Nürnberg, Stuttgart, Berlin, Dresden, Bonn, Mannheim, Potsdam. Those were some of the places Coin had visited up to that point. Though, it wasn’t clear what he was doing in those cities.

“Are you going to Mallorca too?”

“No. That’s not Germany,” Coin said, not playing along with the young author’s joke. Although considered a Spanish territory, it was a popular vacation spot for Germans. “The piano recital at Bonn wasn’t half bad,” he added.

Despite the rare occasion that was Coin complimenting something, Juho listened to him indifferently.

“That’s where Beethoven was born, right?”

“That’s right. He was born in Germany.”

Then, Juho listed every single German musician he knew.

“Bach, Hendel, Schumann, Brahms, Hofmann, Mendelssohn… Who else is there?”

“Seems like you listen to a lot of classical music,” Coin posited, raising his eyebrows.

“Not really. I don’t know too much about it. It’s just that they’re all well known.”

Juho barely knew those composer’s life stories in detail.

Then, Coin asked out of nowhere, “Where’s Mozart from?”

“Austria,” Juho replied at once.

“What about Vivaldi?”

“Italy, right?”

“Frédéric Chopin?”

“I believe he’s Polish.”

“OK? What about Nicolas Chopin?”

“France.”

“Remind me again of how you know this?” Coin asked. To which, Juho scratched his chin and replied, “I’ve been working on a novel that spans quite a few borders.”

“And what does that have anything to do with this?”

“I tend to take interest in subjects relevant to the countries that appear in my novel.”

Then, Coin asked another question, as if trying to catch the young author off guard, “Who wrote ‘Die Forelle?’”

“Uh… Robert Schumann?”

“Wrong. It’s Franz Schubert.”

“Ah! So close,” Juho replied, trying his hardest to remember the melody of the piece. Then, he heard music coming from the distance. Being lost in his thoughts about music, Juho briefly thought that he was hearing things.

“Isn’t that…”

“That sounds like a violin,” Coin said. Although it wasn’t the particular piece they were talking about, it was still quite riveting.

“Shall we?” Coin asked and started walking toward the sound without even waiting for Juho’s response. There was a crowd gathered around the source of the sound. The closer Juho got to the source, the clearer the notes became. It was a street performance. Looking at the old man playing the violin, Juho was able to tell his philosophy and the depth of his relationship with the instrument from the furrowed brows, thick eyebrows, and tightly clenched lips.

“Very nice,” Coin murmured. Meanwhile, Juho looked around at the audience. While some were carrying groceries in their hands, others were holding purses and/or coffee. Regardless of what they had in their hands, they had stopped deliberately at the sound of the violin, willingly spending time listening to the performance. Their eyes were fixed on the old performer, just like the young author’s. He had set aside all of his thoughts in order to listen to the music.

“This is ‘Carmen,’ isn’t it?” Juho asked Coin, and he nodded in confirmation. As the violinist bowed his violin cheerfully, a few strands of loose hair flowed about in the air. Although the hands that were playing the instrument were blunt, it moved freely and unhindered on the neck of the violin.

While the music was heavy and somewhat sorrowful, it also felt as though the performer was calmly walking on his toes. Then, the violinist gave one of the strings a couple of plucks with his finger, changing the atmosphere out of nowhere. There had to be a name for that technique. He played his instrument skillfully and with impeccable technique, and an image of Carmen dressed in red welled up into the young author’s mind.

As the performance came to an end, the audience applauded briefly, and the performer readjusted the shoulder rest of his violin, positioning himself for another piece. Then, Juho made his way through the crowd toward the violinist and placed a bill in the violin case. Looking up, he locked eyes with the performer, whose mustache started twitching as if he recognized the young author’s face. Then, showing off his jawline, the performer started off with another piece, one widely-known as ‘Gypsy Airs.’

“Wow!”

It was colorful and embellished, as though the performer were trying to prove his skill through his performance. The rich tone created by the fingers of the violinist evoked an emotional inspiration within the young author, which was tangible enough that he could almost touch it. At that moment…

“For the love of God.”

It was Coin. The sound of his voice snapped the young author right out of the performance. When he looked back at him, Coin was bending at the waist, reaching for his thermos on the ground.

“So sorry,” the pedestrian who had run into him apologized profusely. Looking at the coffee spilling out from his thermos, Coin grumbled irritably. His pants had a massive coffee stain on it, and upon seeing that, the pedestrian apologized all the more. Taking a deep breath, Coin waved his hand at him, gesturing not to worry. Although the author looked quite menacing, he didn’t go as far as raising his voice in public.

“Go on. It’s fine,” Coin said, picking up his thermos, which gave off the smell of coffee.

Thinking that the smell went well with the sound of the violin, Juho asked, “You OK?”

“Do I look OK?”

“I thought you said you were fine.”

“What did you say?” Coin said angrily, his eyes burning furiously.

“Nothing.”

Thankfully, Coin didn’t seem to have suffered any burns.

“I need to use your bathroom. NOW,” Coin said. Since the hotel Juho had been staying in was closer than Coin’s, Juho took him to his hotel room willingly, listening intently to the sound of the violin slowly fading into the distance.

“Gown.”

“Here.”

Coin scowled with discomfort. Thankfully, his favorite coffee shop wasn’t too far away from them, which meant that he would be able to refill his thermos with ease. However, the disgruntled look on his face didn’t change, as if the present discomfort were greater than the reward in the immediate future.

After going into the bathroom, Coin slammed the door shut. Thinking about buying a new pair of pants and some coffee before he came out, Juho went into another room within his hotel room, which was in a state of disarray from all the research data written in German. Despite seeing the wallet right before his eyes, Juho simply couldn’t bring himself to reach for it. Looking up at the ceiling, he said to himself, “I’ll just organize it really quick before I go.”

Pushing all the books, notes, notebooks and pages of manuscript paper to one side, Juho placed his laptop on the desk. It was showing a cursor blinking on a blank page. He thought about the protagonist, who goes on to accomplish great things in the future. His writing remained relevant even centuries after his lifetime, getting passed down by hands and word of mouth. The sound of the violin still lingered in Juho’s ears, the same notes playing over and over in his head, something so tangible and real that he could almost touch it. At that moment, he heard the sound of the shower going, making him hesitate. However, that didn’t last long. Closing his eyes, he listed a set of words in his mind.

“War. Myth. Past. Music. Language of God. Sin. Betrayal. Record.”

Trouts swam against the flow of water. The further one went back to the past, the more colorless the world grew, until eventually, it was left with black and white. Juho heard the sound of water. The trout finally reached its home, which had a piece of red cloth hanging from it as if marking the end of the trail. Looking raggedy from the dust and the stains, it was stiff to the touch. At that moment, Juho saw a silhouette behind it. Breathing slowly, he pulled up the red cloth by its corner. A familiar, yet long-awaited, face greeted him. Juho took a step forward, feeling the corners of his mouth turning up while his hands covered his face. Barely reaching up to his waist, the figure behind the red cloth was quite short and much younger than the young author had anticipated. Covering himself with the red cloth, Juho fixed his eyes on the figure.

“What’s that smell?” Juho asked. There was a stench in the air, which was coming from the child. There were piles of bird droppings on one side, and there were ragged spots on its clothes, as if it had been gnawed on by rats. At that moment, Juho felt the cloth he was wrapped in starting to get wet. The ceiling was leaking. There was a hole big enough to stick a finger into it, revealing the sky through it. It was nighttime.

Instead of lying on the cloth, the child looked around its surroundings, from where there were rats and insects also watching the child. Although locking eyes with them, the child kept looking around unhindered. Then, as if revealing their hidden secret, it walked over to the wooden plank on the ground, which hid something quite expensive. The young author wrapped in red cloth was visible over the child’s shoulders. Then, the child took the object out from underneath the plank. It was a violin. Holding it against its chest, the child headed for the cave, where no one would follow it. Aside from Juho and a lone sheep, there was not a single person around. As the child went into the cave, Juho wandered around the entrance. In the end, he decided to speak to the child through the sheep, which was the ugliest and the fattest in town.

“Where’d you get that?”

Despite the bizarre sight of the animal speaking human language, the child, as if hypnotized, didn’t seem to notice anything strange.

“I found it. There’s a wealthy family who moved away recently while saying that a war had broken out and that it wouldn’t be long until it spread to our village. They left a lot of stuff behind.”

“They’ll be really upset when they find out you took that from them.”

“Then, I just gotta make sure I don’t get caught.”

In order to avoid being nagged at, the child changed the subject, saying, “Well, I wanna play it now, so stop pestering me.”

With that, the child rose from its seat and placed the shiny instrument on its shoulder, looking quite natural. The sheep bleated quietly.

“Listen to this.”

The child started bowing across the thinnest string on the violin. Although it was as simple as a string rubbing against another string, the sound that came out of it couldn’t be more beautiful. The sheep followed the child’s movement with its black eyes.

“Where’d you learn to play?”

“Humans cry naturally after they’re born.”

The sound of music reverberated through the cave. ‘Gypsy Airs.’ The sorrow of an outsider masked by the cheerful, yet, violent sound of the violin. As the sheep exclaimed, impressed, the child puffed itself up.

“I have really good ears. I can tell when you’re bleating, even when you’re with all the other sheep.”

“Can you read, though?” the sheep asked directly, and the child clenched its lips tightly, as if disgruntled that its personal time was being interrupted.

“Can you?” the child asked.

“I’m a sheep. Animals don’t have a written language.”

“I wish I’d been born a sheep,” the child said, playing sorrowfully. Like a true artist, it seemed quite skillful in expressing its emotions. The child’s performance exuded an unmistakable presence in the otherwise dark and quiet cave. The notes coming from the instrument were its words and emotions. A violinist.

“Where’s the sheet music?” the sheep asked, interrupting the music. Turning toward it, the child asked, “Sheet music?”

“The record.”

“What record?”

“Musicians usually perform with sheet music in front of them. It’s music recorded onto a sheet of paper so that other people can learn and remember it.”

The child immersed itself in thought for a brief time. Then, sneering, it said, “I can play just fine without it.”

“What you played today will eventually get lost in your memory.”

“…”

The air sank into silence. Taking its hands off the violin, the child looked at the sheep furiously. Then, stamping its feet, the child shouted, “Underwear!”

Juho stopped his hands, his ears ringing from the shout. When Juho looked back, he was greeted with a pair of blue eyes.