Once upon a time I was in love with an orangutan called Baba. He deserted me, so I know what it’s like to be lovelorn. I know that it feels like it will never end. But it does usually. And it did even in Ana’s case.

It took some months, though. She worked all day and wept all night. And she did not sing a note the whole time.

Signor Fidardo wasn’t particularly concerned about Ana being lovelorn, but he was very anxious about her not singing.

“It’s so typical,” he said gloomily. “She’s finally got rid of that music hater Jorge and now she’s stopped singing!”

But Signor Fidardo need not have worried. Once her grief at losing Jorge passed, Ana began singing again, and if anything she sang more beautifully than before. Her voice had become stronger and lighter at the same time.

Signor Fidardo immediately began nagging her to perform in public, and she continued to say no. But it was a different sort of no now—a no that did not sound quite so definite.

My red accordion was almost finished. I had made completely new bellows from kidskin. I had built a new cabinet on the bass side, and almost all of the base and the descant mechanism was new. I had rubbed down, painted and varnished all the wooden parts, and the instrument sparkled like a red ruby when the sun shone on the hard lacquer.

The only thing left to do was to cut a new grill from a sheet of thin brass. Signor Fidardo took a big, heavy book down from one of the shelves in his workshop and placed it on my workbench.

“I was given this book many years ago by my uncle. I had it with me in my knapsack when I came from Italy almost fifty years ago. It is still the best collection of patterns for accordion grills that has ever been gathered together. Choose whichever pattern you think is most beautiful, and then use carbon paper to transfer it to the sheet of brass.”

Three days later I had chosen my pattern and copied it onto the brass. It took me another week to saw out the pattern using Signor Fidardo’s jeweler’s saw. Late one evening I drilled nail holes and, using the smallest size of brass nail, attached the grill to the cabinet of the accordion.

The accordion was finished.

Not completely, however. Something was still missing, and I knew what it was.

Signor Fidardo’s book contained several pages of elegant lettering. I copied the letters I needed and cut them out of a piece of brass that was leftover. Once the letters had been filed and polished, I used a chisel of razor sharpness to carefully inlay them on the front of the cabinet.

Now my accordion bore the name KOSKELA in gleaming yellow brass.

Signor Fidardo tuned the accordion that evening. He carefully filed each of the reed tongues until it was perfectly in tune. There are many reeds in an accordion, and he didn’t finish until Ana came home from work. He invited her in and produced a bottle of Campari.

“We must celebrate,” he said. “That’s what we always do when an apprentice finishes his first piece of work.”

Ana and Signor Fidardo stood there admiring my accordion for a long time. I felt very proud.

“I hadn’t realized that it was Koskela who was going to get the accordion,” Ana said, and smiled at me.

“Nor did I,” Signor Fidardo said. “But we should have known. It’s impossible to think of a better present for a man who is locked up.”

Then Signor Fidardo played the accordion to test it, and Ana sang fado along with him. It sounded wonderful.

The following day Signor Fidardo took me up to the second floor, which was where he had his store. There were sheets of expensive veneers leaning against one wall and, on the shelves above, timber was arranged according to variety and quality. The shelves on the opposite wall were full of musical instruments, some of them in cases with handles and reinforced corners, others wrapped in soft cloth. There were also two harmoniums and a shining bass tuba.

Signor Fidardo took down one of the empty cases. It looked brand-new and had chrome-plated latches and a leather handle. The inside was lined with soft blue velvet to protect the instrument from scratches and dust.

“This case will be perfect for Koskela’s accordion!” Signor Fidardo said. “We can’t send off such a fine instrument in an ordinary cardboard box!”

That evening Ana wrote a long letter to the Chief. She explained that the accordion was from me, and she told him about my work in Signor Fidardo’s workshop. We put the letter in the case along with the accordion, and the next morning we dispatched it all to the Campolide prison. I would, of course, have preferred to visit the Chief and give him the present myself, but that wasn’t possible. Prisoners who had been found guilty of murder were only permitted to have visits from their lawyers and from close relatives.

Two weeks went by and I was beginning to worry whether the accordion had reached the Chief or whether it had been confiscated by the prison warders. But then a small gray envelope arrived in the post for Ana. We knew immediately who it was from. Ana opened it and read:

The Chief’s letter made me happier than I’d been for a long time. He sounded more like himself than in his previous letter, and Ana too noticed the difference.

“Your friend doesn’t seem to have lost hope,” she said.

Life was rather empty now that I’d finished the Chief’s accordion. I suddenly had nothing to do during the day.

Signor Fidardo came up with a solution: “Two accordions have just come in for repair. One of them needs the bellows patched and the other needs new straps. Which would you prefer to do?”

I chose the straps. Working with leather is enjoyable.

The following day Signor Fidardo ordered a new workbench for me. It was identical to his own, with drawers and pigeonholes, a vise mounted on the side, a tool rack and a leather-padded seat that could be adjusted for height. He rearranged the furniture to make space for the new bench in front of one of the tall light windows.

“There we are,” he said when he had finished. “We can’t have an instrument maker’s apprentice working in a cupboard!”

I was a little hesitant at first. Up until that point no one outside the house—except the Chief, that is—had known I was living there. If I moved out of the cupboard and occupied a place by the window, our secret would be revealed. What would all those horrible people who had called me the murderer’s gorilla think about me working for Signor Fidardo? What if they set the police on me? What if they turned on Signor Fidardo?

Signor Fidardo understood my concerns.

“Alfama is the kind of place that considers a seagull doing its business on the bishop’s hat to be a real scandal. The people here just love a fuss. They’ll talk and gossip about it for a couple of days when they hear that you are working with me. But they’ll soon get tired of it and start gossiping about something else instead. Wait and see, believe me.”

So I relied on Signor Fidardo, and it turned out exactly as he had said it would. The rumor that he had taken a gorilla as his apprentice spread through Alfama like wildfire. Lots of people found an excuse to visit the workshop to see if the rumor was true. There was often a crowd on the pavement outside my window. But after a couple of weeks people stopped standing out there staring in to watch me working.

Signor Fidardo also started sending me out on small errands round the neighborhood. I collected parcels from the post office and bought cigars at Widow Pereira’s tobacconist shop. Sometimes Signor Fidardo even took me to lunch at a restaurant. People said hello to me just as they did to anyone else. No one seemed to remember all that business about the murderer’s gorilla any longer.