The Guitar Maker – Part 1: Spruce

The workshop on Calle Sierpes smelled of cedar, glue and old varnish, and Alma loved it more than any other place on earth.

She was twenty-eight, an apprentice, with sawdust on her sleeves and a pencil behind her ear. Her master was away in Granada. When the bell above the door jangled, she looked up from a half-carved neck and found a man standing there, hat in hand, looking as if he might bolt.

"I would like a guitar," he said, hoarsely.

"You want to buy one?"

"Made. For me." He was thirty-one, thin and dark-haired, with shadows under his eyes. "I will not play it. I want to have it. I used to sing."

She put down her chisel. "You used to?"

He touched his throat. "Cante jondo. Eleven years. Then an illness. Nothing comes out now but this." He gestured at his own cracked voice, with a wry, tired smile.

Her heart ached. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I am learning to be someone else." He lifted his chin. "Can you make it?"

"Yes."

"Even if I never play?"

"A guitar is not for playing," said Alma. "It's for listening."

She chose the wood herself: old Spanish cedar for the back, spruce for the top, bought from a dying carpenter. Rafa came every evening to sit on a stool and watch the instrument grow. He did not talk much. He didn't need to. She found herself humming as she carved, and on the fourth night, without thinking, she sang a line of an old soleá.

He went very still.

"Sorry," said Alma. "I didn't mean—"

"No." His voice cracked. "Please. Again."

She sang. In the golden light of the workshop, with the smell of wood and varnish around them, he shut his eyes and listened as if he were drinking water.

"Can I ask you something?" said Alma, afterwards.

"Yes."

"Will you come tomorrow?"

"Green?" said Rafa, in his rasping voice, and smiled for the first time.

"Green," said Alma. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Strings.