Excerpt from The Great Passion by James Runcie, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

1

There are gaps of time into which we sometimes fall, when the pattern of our days is suspended. It happens when there is a birth or a death, an arrival or a departure, the moments either side of it becoming forms of descent and recovery, when we do not know quite what to do or how long this unexpected bewilderment will last.

In general, I prefer not to talk of those years, now that my hair is thinned and grey, but once people discover how well I knew the family, they question what it must have been like to be amongst the first to sing Bach's music. I am unmarried and live without children and it's often the only subject they ever want to ask me about. My present occupation or state of health is of little concern. It's as if, as soon as my voice broke, my life ceased to be of interest.

I had grown tired of telling people but then, when the news came of his death, I found that I wanted to speak of little else. I tried to remember, once again, everything the Cantor had taught me: how he had introduced me to a different world, let me sing with a new voice, encouraged me to be more than I ever thought I could be.

Today, I make organs. Our workshop lies on the edge of town, in a solid and expansive brick building that is well protected against the dangers of fire. It was a warm day when the message arrived, and the windows and doors were open. The smell of resin, forged iron and newly carved ivory mingled with cedar and spruce, Italian cypress and Norwegian pine from the adjacent forest. Normally it is a place full of noise, but time stands still for the dead. Once I had opened the letter, I asked for silence from the five other men in the workshop. They put down their tools, stood up, brushed off their clothes and clasped their hands, ready to mark the moment with prayer. They all knew the man, if only by reputation.

I felt the gap opening up in my life, as if I was looking down from a high hill into a valley below. I had never realised the descent was so steep, the depths shading into a darkness more cavernous than memory, as simple and eternal as the grave.

'Lord, lettest now thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word … ' I prayed.

We could hear the song of the blackbirds, children playing a game of catch, and a cart making its way back from town, its driver singing an old folk tune that was out of rhythm with the sound of the horses' hooves.

After everyone returned to work, I found that I could not concentrate. You assemble an instrument, I thought, just as you put together a life: the blocks of wood in the workshop were like frag-ments of memory; the sounding board echoed the conversations I had had in the past. I was like an old musician I had once seen sitting at a keyboard without touching it, trying to remember what he had once performed but unable to play any longer, his fingers arthritic, his memory failing.

It was the Feast of the Commemoration of Mary, Elisabeth and Lazarus. The Cantor had died the day before, shortly after eight o'clock in the evening. I hadn't been thinking particularly of him, but I had been remembering my childhood in church that morning as we heard the story of Christ bringing a man back to life. I recalled my father's blasphemous muttering, wondering why Jesus went to all that trouble to raise a friend from the dead when the man was going to die anyway.

Perhaps every death is a reminder of the first one we witness. I thought of my mother's last days, dying from a slow illness no one could name. I learned what it was to change one's hopes, praying for her return to health in the early weeks of her incapacity and then, as the months of decline lengthened, asking God for a merciful release. Afterwards, our grief was so sharp my father considered it best to send me away for a year. He didn't think he was the best person to look after me. I was a shy, red-haired boy in need of grow-ing up. Perhaps I was also too much a reminder of my mother.

Excerpted from The Great Passion by James Runcie. Copyright © 2022 by James Runcie. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.