The Audition · The Long Way Down to Morning · Pulse Beat
The audition for the chair in the orchestra was in April, behind a screen, so that no one would know her face. She played the Brahms. She played the first page as well as she had ever played…
The audition for the chair in the orchestra was in April, behind a screen, so that no one would know her face.
She played the Brahms. She played the first page as well as she had ever played anything, her heart kicking in her ribs, and then at the turn, in a quiet passage with nowhere to hide, the third finger went. Not a slip. A stop. A moment in which the hand simply would not, and the note she reached for came out as a thin, grey scrape, like a door in an empty house.
She finished. She does not remember how.
Behind the screen the panel was silent. Then a voice, not unkind: "Thank you, Miss Rao. That will be all."
She walked out into the corridor and stood against the wall with the violin held against her chest, and the cold of the plaster came through her coat. In the room, through the door, she could hear them already calling the next name.