The Imprint of the Waves

The days passed to the rhythm of Éloi’s meticulous work on the instrument. Under his expert fingers, Maëlle’s violin slowly came back to life, piece by piece. The soundboard had regained its perfect curve after he filled the crack with a special resin mixed with fine sawdust. The neck, patiently straightened and sanded, was regaining its former nobility.

When he spotted a lighter stain under the old chin rest he was carefully removing, his eyes misted over. It was a small starfish clumsily carved. He had done it himself, a birthday gift for Maëlle’s sixteenth birthday.

"That way, a good star will always watch over you when you play. It will bring you luck," he had explained, blushing with a shy smile.

His heart skipped a beat. This secret message, he had carved it himself, the night before Maëlle was to leave for her audition in Paris, a memory he hadn’t expected to resurface.

The memory of that last night together returned with a shocking intensity. They had met on their beach, the one no one ever visited. The full moon had bathed the waves in a ghostly light, turning the sea into an endless silver reflection. They had talked for hours, made plans. He had promised to visit her in Paris when she was accepted to the conservatory. She had sworn to come back often.

"And one day, you’ll open your own lutherie workshop, and I’ll play only on your instruments," she had said, resting her head on his shoulder, her voice full of quiet certainty.

That night, they had kissed for the first time, awkwardly, their hearts pounding fiercely. A kiss that tasted of salt, promise, and bittersweet goodbye.

Éloi sat heavily on his stool, haunted by these images he had long suppressed. He had only been seventeen when the ocean took everything. Seventeen, with an entire life ahead of him, which had frozen on that fateful day.

The next day, Maëlle had decided to join her father for one last fishing trip before the big changes ahead. The weather forecasted good conditions. No one had expected the sudden storm, nor imagined such fury. Those monstrous waves, the boat that would never return to port.

Éloi stopped working, overwhelmed by emotion. He laboriously rose and approached the window. The sea was calm today, almost flat, sparkling under the afternoon sun. How could such a peaceful element become so deadly ?

He saw himself running toward the port when the alarm had been raised, witnessing the grave faces of the fishermen going out to search for the missing boat. The endless wait. The hours dragging by. And then, that terrible certainty that had settled as the day faded without any news.

The bodies were never found. Some said it was better that way, that it was kinder to imagine Maëlle and Antoine sleeping in the blue depths rather than their bodies washed ashore. Éloi had never known what he preferred. He only knew that without a concrete farewell, his grief had remained suspended, unfinished, an open wound.

A week after the tragedy, he had begun searching for Maëlle’s violin in their house. His mother, her eyes red from crying, had simply whispered that she had taken it with her that morning. She wanted to offer her music to her father, cradled by the ocean, as a thank-you and a final farewell before leaving for Paris.

Twenty more days of intensive searching passed before the authorities officially declared Antoine and Maëlle Legoff "missing at sea, presumed drowned." His mother left to live elsewhere, far from the ocean that had stolen everything from her. Éloi remained, unable to leave the shore where, against all logic, he still hoped to see his love return one day.

He had eventually converted his parents’ house into a workshop, becoming a nationally renowned luthier. Years passed. Decades. He had never left the village, as if standing eternal watch over the shoreline.

And now, after all these years, the sea was returning her violin.

He resumed working with renewed energy, as if each stroke of sandpaper, each coat of varnish, was an act of love, a way to restore what had been lost. He carefully selected the new strings, chose the perfect bridge from his collection. For the tailpiece, he carved a piece of ebony with delicate veins himself.

The days passed. The violin gradually regained its former beauty, bit by bit. The villagers who occasionally visited him noticed a change in Éloi, a new light in his eyes, an energy they had never seen before.

"You seem different, Éloi," remarked his neighbor, who brought him the daily soup she had made in excess. "You look younger."

The restoration was nearing completion. On the fourth day, he placed the last strings. On the fifth, he carefully adjusted the bridge. On the evening of the sixth day, as the sun set, igniting the horizon, he gazed at his finished work.

The little violin shone as if it had just been made. Only a few faint discolorations in the wood betrayed its long stay in the ocean. Éloi had intentionally left them, like honorable scars, memories of the sea’s deep embrace.

Éloi gently ran his calloused hands over the polished surface. The initials M.L. engraved on the back seemed deeper now, as though refreshed by the time spent under the water. He thought he heard a melody coming from the shore. A few barely perceptible notes, carried by the wind.

He stood up slowly, his joints protesting after hours spent bent over his work. He opened the window and listened, but heard nothing but the rhythmic crashing of the waves. Was it his imagination ? Or was the melody they had composed together now returning to him as his fingers touched the restored violin ?

"Why ?" he whispered to the ocean. "After all these years, what are you trying to tell me, Maëlle ?"

His fingers trembled as he took the bow he had also restored. He carefully applied rosin and hesitated. His hands, so skilled at repairs, would they still be able to play ? He hadn’t played a single melody in so long. Since her, in fact.