The Hand · The Long Way Down to Morning · Pulse Beat
She played the Bach and nobody in the hall could have known. The third finger came late on two passages, a hair late, and she covered it with the bow the way a driver covers a skid with the wheel. In…
She played the Bach and nobody in the hall could have known. The third finger came late on two passages, a hair late, and she covered it with the bow the way a driver covers a skid with the wheel.
In the corridor afterwards, Mira caught her by the elbow. "You were on fire."
"I was fine."
"Fine? Anika. Your tone in the Chaconne, I got goosebumps." Mira Kessler had the room next to hers at the conservatory in Berlin and the chair next to hers in the orchestra, and for four years had been both friend and the only person Anika feared. "Come and eat. You haven't eaten."
"I'll practise."
"You'll fall over." Mira laughed. "Eat. Then practise."
They ate bread and soup in a café that was closing. Anika held the spoon in her right hand, and under the table, in her lap, she kept pressing the left, one finger at a time, as if counting something that might not add up.