Free The Case of the Orphaned Bassoonists by Barbara Wilson

moved a little closer to us.
    Marco turned on her. “Not my father!”
    “Sorry, sorry. No reason for alarm.” Anna smiled and backed off.
    Sorry, sorry. No reason for alarm . It was what the unknown woman who called me in London had said.
    In her room over the garden, Bitten had taken up her bassoon. She played a series of warm-up chords that led into an adagio movement from one of Vivaldi’s bassoon concertos. I couldn’t have told you which one, but I had heard it often enough, for Nicky loved it too. But Nicky had never played it with such a feeling of loss as Bitten did now.

Seven
    T HE CAMPO SANTA MARGHERITA is long in shape and a bit shabby, like an old slipper. Tourists don’t seem to find it particularly enchanting, or to find it at all, for that matter. Since I was early, I took a seat at an outdoor café and pulled out Lovers and Virgins , but my mind wandered. This morning I’d been completely engrossed. But I had passed into self-disgust and disbelief. I used to feel the same about the gossip of my older sisters. They’d come in breathy on Saturday nights, full of stories of girls behaving with unvirtuous abandon (not them!) in the back seats of parked cars, and I’d listen avidly before suddenly experiencing remorse. How could I even think of giving this potboiler a positive review, much less translating it into English? English had enough crappy historical romance novels; we didn’t need another one from Venezuela. I thought longingly of Bashō in Lima . The unnamed narrator wrote me a poem:
    Down narrow streets
    I search —
    Have you
    abandoned me forever ?
    I had a cappuccino and forced myself to read on. The sooner I finished this novel and gave it a scathing critique, the sooner I could get on to the other books in the stack. The eldest sister, admirable Isabella, had taken over the running of the hacienda and put down a peasant uprising almost single-handedly through a combination of guile and bravado. Had she arranged that the handsome stable hand would die in the riot? Perhaps not, but Maria blamed her sister for his death. Her pregnancy had just begun to show, and she was inconsolable.
    Finally it was time to meet Nicky. The bar she’d directed me to was full of students playing pinball. But there was a back room where depressed-looking young people in black bent over books or leaned together talking intently. Nicola was waiting for me, and as I went toward her I was reminded of the first time we met, many years ago in Islington. It wasn’t by chance. An acquaintance from a ship traveling down the Nile to Luxor had mentioned that she had a friend who had a friend named Nicola who might have a spare room.
    We were both around thirty then, me under, she over. I’d been knocking around the world for a number of years already and had just begun to make some headway in the world of literary translation. Nicky was already well established as a bassoonist and had been living in Olivia’s house for almost a decade. It had been just as Nicky was finishing her music degree that she heard Olivia was looking for a live-in secretary. Nicky applied for the job, seeing it as a temporary occupation while she found her feet in the London music world. It had gradually evolved from a job to a friendship to an attachment strong as family. Olivia had gone from being Nicky’s mentor to being her responsibility.
    Unlike in temperament—Nicky was bold, fresh, open, and Olivia was often secretive and a bit sulky—they were both passionate about their music, and their lives revolved around practicing, rehearsals and performance. When Olivia’s arthritis finally made her put down the bow, at least in regard to the concert stage, she continued to teach. It was only at the very end, a year before her death, that she stopped playing. And even then Olivia had never stopped listening to music.
    Olivia and I had nothing in common. In the early years, just after Nicky had impulsively offered me the attic room, Olivia