It was ready. It had responded to me this much, and I remembered from the day it was first shown to me, played for me, that it had had a lower, more lush sound than the Strad, a sound that was a little akin to the large viola, and perhaps it was larger. I didn't know such things about this kind of violin. The Strad had been the object of my love.
Faye came to me and she looked up.
I think she wanted to say things, but she couldn't, any more than I could. And I thought again, You are alive, you are with us, we have a chance to make you safe.
"You want to dance?" I said.
"Yes!" Faye said. "Play Beethoven for me! Play Mozart! Play anybody!"
"Play a happy song," Katrinka said, "you know, one of those pretty happy songs you play."
I know.
I lifted the bow. My fingers came down rapidly, pounding away on the strings, the bow racing, and it was the happy song, the gay and free and happy song and it came unstintingly and bright and fine out of the violin, so fine and so loud and so new in my ear from this change of wood, that I almost danced myself, pivoting, dipping, turning, yanked by the instrument, and only dimly out of the corner of my eye seeing them dance: my sisters, Roz and Katrinka and Faye.
I played and I played. The music poured forth.
AND THAT night, when they slept, and the rooms were quiet, and the tall willowy women for sale walked the boulevard, I took the violin and the bow and I went to the window in the very center of the hotel.
I looked down at the spectacle of the fantastical waves. I saw them dance as we had danced.
I played for them--with surety and ease, without fear and with no anger--I played for them a sorrowful song, a glorious song, a joyful one.
The End
finished: May 14, 1996
1:50 a.m.
second run: May 20, 1996
9:25 a.m.
last run: Jan. 7, 1997
2:02 a.m.
Anne Rice
Anne Rice, Violin
(Series: # )
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