THE ANTIQUE

Catherine had a flourishing zeal for music since her childhood but she didn’t get into the finest music school in town because she became an orphan at a very tender age.

Catherine lost her father at six, and her mother died the following year. Her father was a peasant, a farmhand who could provide just enough for his family to survive. The subsistence agriculture he practiced- if the farming season was foreseen to be favourable- he would extend to a larger scale to see that he got more harvest that could both serve as food for his family’s consumption, and for sales. Catherine was the only child they planned to have, and he could do anything for her. When he discovered that Catherine loved music and, at four, was enthusiastic about learning the piano- the only item of great value in his house, a heritage- he promised her that he’d fulfill his dreams through her.

The Bennett linage was the musical bloodline of the county, and passed down this piano from generation unto generation. This gene of musicianship didn’t skip any generation for over three centuries. The Bennetts were a well-to-do family, and every male child born into the family was sent to a big music school at the age of eight to maintain the bloodline as contracted by the first Count and the first Bennett .
The first Bennett got into agreement with the first Count after he was acclaimed the most skilful pianist, and was called to perform for the count whose heart melted after Bennett played, that he asked Bennett the one thing he desired.

This practice went on well for more than eighteen decades, until Catherine’s great-grandfather could not beget a son after ten years of marriage. After the eleventh year of their fruitlessness, goodness blessed them with a daughter. The Count at that time refused to compromise the terms of the contract, so the contract was relinquished. The Bennett family lost all privileges they relished within the confinements of the contract, even the mansion they dwelt in, therefore the Bennetts became scattered all over the county and beyond.

Catherine’s grandmother, whose husband left her for greener pastures after suffering years of farming in the county, told this story to her son, Catherine’s father: how she was blamed for the misfortune that followed her birth; how even with her love for music her poor parents could not afford the tuition of the music school; and why she named him Bennett.

It was because of this name that a new Count learnt of an abandoned mansion, was taken to it and found the piano, inquired and then commanded that it be returned to the Bennetts, and Bennett, Catherine’s father, became in possession of this antique of thirty decades.

He, too, wished to have been schooled musically, but his struggling mother could not help, too. The blood for love of music was not obstructed, so it kept flowing.

The music blood still flows and is flowing in Catherine’s fingers as she powerfully pounces the keys of the piano. A tear trickles down her cheek. She doesn’t, but knows that only goodness brought her thus far, playing the heritage in front of a million-and-ten audience.

*Fiction