19/5/25 – English | The Exiled Accordionist

We don’t really know what we came to do to this world, but if we dare to follow our heart’s biggest desire, we would be surprised at the craziest and most wonderful ways that the universe has to make us fulfill our purpose on earth. Luis unexpectedly ended up in Brno and, without knowing it, he is putting his gift into service, or better put, his fingers onto the keyboard, to make the lives of those far away from home bright again.

Luis was a very talented accordionist. He could play for hours no matter if his fingers got tired or cramped. Watching him playing was delightful, for you could see his passion in the movement of his hands, his closed eyes, and the posture of his whole body. Every ounce of his energy and attention was put in the songs he was playing. Every now and then he would open his left eye to see the passers-by just to not lose complete reference of the place where he was. He could hear people leaving some coins into his little case, and he would nod without opening his eyes as a sign of appreciation and gratitude. The only times I could see him stopping his performance was when he would grab his bottle of water to drink and when people, especially old women, stopped by and talked to him excitedly after recognizing the song he was playing. He enjoyed receiving attention from those who stopped and showed real interest in his music, for he could also see his own emotional needs in them. 

There were hundreds of people coming and going through the tunnel of Brno’s main train station and the music that Luis was playing was of absolut no interest to most of them. Yet, there was a specific group of people who were moved by his songs and who Luis cared about. No matter how much time they got available, how in a hurry they were or how noisy their minds were. They stopped to listen to him playing, to feel the vibration of the music in their hearts, to bring old memories back to their minds. The music was the container and Luis was just the channel to bring the good times back to a life that nowadays felt hurtful and hopeless. Little did he know about spiritual matters, but let me tell you that when his people stopped to hear the sounds of their homeland, I could see Luis putting his soul into service as if his purpose on earth was to bring joy to those who were feeling far away from his roots. And in turn, by contributing to these people, he was healing his own wounded heart as well. 

Luis’ wife was the one who encouraged him to play the accordion at the main station’s tunnel for him to have some sort of income, but also she knew that this “new job” could help his husband to cope with his sleeping problems and the sadness caused not only by the fact that they had to leave his home behind but also because it was the second time for Luis to leave a country of residence.

Luis was born in Argentina in 1960. His grandfather, an Ukranian immingrant, was an accordion player who enjoyed playing the music of his country in family reunions and community activities. As much as Luis loved his grandfather, his parents wanted him to integrate into the Argentinian society and follow its traditions, so they paid guitar classes for him hoping that his taste for music would turn into something more socially accepted. Luis spent two years going to guitar classes, but he didn’t like any bit of it. He was in love with the rhythm of the accordion and with the grace of his grandfather who shared memories of his life back in Ukraine everytime he sat down to play. One day, Luis returned back home from guitar classes and told his mother that he was quitting the lessons. “From this day on, I want to play the accordion,” he said. His mother, moved by his determination, agreed to her son’s wish and accepted to follow her father’s cultural influence —after all, it was also part of her heritage.

Years passed by and Luis became a music teacher working for local secondary schools. Even though he couldn’t introduce the accordion to his students because that was not part of the school curriculum, he enjoyed playing it at family gatherings and small social events. After years of teaching music at schools, he found out that teaching music was no longer a passion that fulfilled him. Triggered by the recent passing of his grandfather and a middle life crisis, he decided to make a bold move: he quit his stable job and left everything behind to pursue his dream of getting to know the land of his ancestors: Ukraine. There, he met who is now his beloved wife and happily spent nine beautiful years in the land of his grandfather’s childhood stories until, of course, the war arrived.

As much as Luis and his wife wanted to stay in Ukraine, they found it quite difficult to stay. Luis’ wife had a close friend who was living in Brno for several years now and decided to contact her to see if there was a chance for them to move temporarily there until the war was over. Moving to Brno seemed quite an unexpected turn of events in his life. For Luis, that meant leaving his comfort zone for the second time. At first, he refused to go to a country that he had no connection with. However, his wife, who was the one wearing the pants in the relationship, made clear that their lives were dependent on this decision and there was no way back. Little could he do to stop life from taking control of his destiny again —his wife was right and he chose to follow her.

On a very rainy day of spring, Luis and his wife finally moved to the city of Brno in Czechia. They arrived during the first weeks of May to the main train station where their friend was waiting for them. This friend took them through a tunnel that seemed like a time travel machine. While walking, he noticed a young man with a violin who was playing a popular tango classic that he immediately recognized. Even though his heart was aching, it could feel the vibration of the cords on his chest, and for a moment, the sadness and uncertainty of leaving his home got mixed with the bright memories of the place who saw him growing up, creating a waterfall of emotions that found its course through the tiny blue eyes of a man defeated by the exile. He didn’t believe in God but in that very moment he felt that this young man was channeling a message for him, as if his grandfather was telling him that this new chapter was also part of the whole plan. He continued walking when the song ended, feeling the tunnel in that new city as a place where the heart could dare to feel alive again. 

Living in Brno during the first year was not easy for him. His new apartment was not big enough so he didn’t feel comfortable to play the accordion, plus his wife was not very happy to have him playing in the living room, as it was the only place where she could give her online classes. The neighbors in the building didn’t wave or say hello to him, and what frustrated him the most was that his understanding of Ukrainian language was not helping him understand Czech. Little by little the hopes to return to his country were vanishing and the shocking reality of living in a foreign country that he didn’t feel any attachment to were making him feel profundably miserable. It didn’t take long for relationship problems to arise. They were projecting their frustrations on one another, arguing about the most simple things that before wouldn’t have caused much trouble. Luis’ wife needed to work from home and he, who left his job as an accordion teacher for a community centre in Ukraine, didn’t know what to do in a city whose people were, according to him, not very friendly and whose language he couldn’t speak. He tried to meet compatriots from Ukraine, but he didn’t want to go by himself to the meetings, for his wife, who helped him with the language barrier, had to stay home working extra hours. He then thought of meeting fellow Argentinians, but he could barely find any in Brno.

One day when he was coming back home from the hairdresser, he took the tunnel that would take him to the tram stop. While going through it, he heard at the distance the sound of a violin playing classical music. When he approached the spot where the violinist was standing, he could recognize the young man who was playing the day he arrived in Brno. On this occasion, the young man was not playing tango, but the effect that his music caused in Luis was enough for him to take the reins of his life again. He figured that if this young man was playing his music for a whole year in that tunnel where literally hundreds of Brno citizens were passing by to go to their jobs and back, he could do it as well and, that way, he could even bring something back home so that his wife wouldn’t have to spend hours working to make ends meet.

The first time he took his accordion to the tunnel was a Monday morning. He had prepared a repertoire with the Ukrainian songs that his grandfather had taught him, bought some nice suspenders that matched his clothes and even prepared a sign saying Děkuji moc. He placed his tiny wooden chair closer to the middle part of the tunnel, opened his case nervously and started to play the songs that filled his heart when he was a little boy and when he was a teacher in Ukraine. After playing the first song, he realized that nobody was really paying attention to him. He tried with a second song and he noticed that he got the attention of some people, but nobody approached to give him money. He continued playing the music he prepared for that day feeling ridiculous trying to show his music in a city that didn’t feel identified with the Ukrainian rhythms. He suddenly had the idea to go off script and play a tango song that was very famous and that could attract some people his way. He played it once, he played it twice, but even when some people left a few coins in his case, he felt that the day was not going the way he wanted. Once back home, he told his wife that he didn’t want to come back to the tunnel because he felt that there was no audience for him out there. Luis was very stubborn and once he made a decision, there was no way back. However, his wife, who had a very strong personality and didn’t accept a no for an answer, pushed him to try again. Three weeks passed by until he found the courage to go again and try (moreover, his fingers were thirsty to play again and the only place where he could release that anxiety was at the tunnel.) This second time was a disappointment, the third time as well. He tried different dates, different times of the day. He banged his head against the wall several times until he could grasp how the people passing through the tunnel behaved. He slowly started to understand when there was more flow of people passing by and so he stuck to Wednesdays late afternoon, rain or shine.   

At the beginning, he played a combination of tango songs, along with one or two Ukrainian songs, but soon he realized that his essence wasn’t fully there. Even though some people gave him money or stopped by for a moment and went on, Luis could feel that he was not being himself entirely, unlike when he was a child in Argentina listening to his grandfather’s songs or in Ukraine, playing the music at the local community center or in family gatherings. The memory of his first day in Brno came back to his mind and quickly he realized that the only way to be himself was by channeling his whole heart into his fingers and making others feel the intensity that the Ukrainian songs provoked on him. Tango music was also part of his story, but he felt that it was more part of his country of origin’s heritage than of Luis’ roots. Little by little, he started to shift his repertoire to the songs of his childhood or the songs he played as a teacher in the country that welcomed him after migrating for the first time. Shortly, his compatriots heard of the “foreigner” who played their songs in the tunnel and were eager to pass by on Wednesdays late afternoons to get a little of his previous life back. And even if the people who stopped by to feel his music were just a few, knowing that he could be himself in a new city and help others to feel the sounds of their homeland again was the biggest satisfaction he could have ever felt.

Who would have thought that a skinny Argentinian boy from distant Buenos Aires, whose dream was playing the accordion like his Ukrainian grandfather, would end up in a tunnel in Brno, a city that he has never heard of, playing for a living and warming the hearts of those who felt that God had forgotten about them. That Argentinian boy who, growing up, left his country to pursue his dream to live in the land of his ancestors and was sadly forced to move again to a new land, found his calling in a little corner of a Czech city where his music could accompany the lives of immigrants who left their dreams and joy behind. Czechia became his third country of residency and Brno the city who gave him the stage to make his biggest dream come true: proudly showing his roots to the world and helping people reconnect with their heritage through the music of his treasured accordion.

Luis keeps playing the accordion every Wednesday late afternoon at the tunnel and from time to time I pass by to witness the reaction of the people that are touched by his music and his passion when he lets his fingers do the job. And even though I’m not Ukrainian, I am a foreigner and I can also feel first hand the nostalgia and joy when one of his songs dares to pierce my wounded immigrant heart on my way back home.