Read A Certain Music for Free Online Page B

they didn't know was that in the house by the granary, silk and lace and lengths of ribbon were being transformed into gowns of cream and blue that Cinderella herself might have worn to the ball ...
    At the kitchen table the child sat ready to pass pins, thread needles, trace patterns, and make coffee, while her mother and Frau Schwarz measured and cut and stitched and tucked. From time to time the woman would cough, spit into a rag and work on ...
    And the day passed and became the next day and with it came a letter.
    'From Papa.' The woman announced. She read, folded the pages and said nothing.
    'Is it Fritz?'
    'Who?'
    'The squirrel.'
    'No.'
    'What then?'
    'The rash. He had to report it.'
    'You said not to.'
    'He's been given a liniment to rub on.'
    The child loves her papa but she cannot focus on liniment and legs. She cannot think of anything but a man, and a sound, and a dress of blue silk ...

Twenty
    Again it was Sunday. And in four more days (ninety-six hours minus three, to be precise) then ...
    She had waited on the step of the house in the Reinerstrasse for three days now but the door had remained locked.
    And again it was Sunday. And again the man was not there. And in the house by the granary a dress of blue silk floated like gossamer from its peg.
    The child wandered in silence and within herself. Oblivious to the colours and shapes that formed and reformed, kaleidoscope-like, as through the early morning she moved.
    At the edge of the town where the river runs she halted. She entered the Vienna Woods. How long it had been since she'd climbed into the tree, she couldn't measure, though the maples, the beeches, the oaks and the elms had turned a million shades of green. And, like paint when it's splashed upon a canvas, so wild flowers, snowdrops, cyclamens and lilies of the valley splashed the earth with their colour.
    And people in the colours of the flowers came. They strolled along paths, talking and laughing – and silently too.
    Huddled tight between new leaves the child dreamed. She dreamed of a castle as Rauhenstein was long ago, and of a princess with golden hair who had been held captive there and who wore a blue dress ...
    Then she saw him. The man was striding along a path, his head down, his hands behind his back. As he got to where the path swung towards the tree, she jumped. The man stopped. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but instead just shook his head and moved on. The child followed.
    Something had happened. Something terrible. It was in the eyes, the jutting lip ...
    The man strode, stopped, sat, strode again. He made no sound. The child clutched at her pinafore. The bib had been ripped as she'd jumped, though she'd heard nothing.
    Again he sat. This time he didn't move on. At his feet, snowdrops and wild violets grew. Long he stared as though he would paint them, then he raised his eyes. The child had seen the same look in the eyes of her father. It was the look of fear ... She stood silent. Even with the conversation book and a scribe by her side, she wouldn't have been able to frame the words.
    She couldn't speak.
    He couldn't hear.
    She stood, silent among the snowdrops, and clutched her torn bib.

Twenty-one
    The child stared into the night. A highwayman's moon cast its dappled light on rose bush and rooftop, on the outstretched arms of an apple tree in bloom. Dappled light on whitewashed walls formed and faded in markings that made music. If she could read them they would sing ...
    She curled onto her bed and pulled the coverlet up. Now she would pray. She'd seen it done. She closed her eyes, squeezed tight her hands and began ...
    'Please God, help him. He's frightened they'll laugh like they did before and no-one will come. And if you could hear it, you'd think it was so beautiful ... Please God, please make them come and not laugh ...
    ' Auf Wiedersehen – and thank you for listening ... '

Twenty-two
    ' Mutti! '
    Two letters in one week! The woman frowned and slipped it into