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fill out the piano lesson hours. At other times I played scales and exercises, which are infinitely easier than on the violin. On the keyboard the notes are present, you don’t have to form them. All you have to do is to strike the keys without wondering whether the sounds are in tune. On the violin, instead, you constantly have doubts about the purity of the tone, even when the teacher nods approval.
    Had I begun with the piano instead of the violin, I might have been a good concert pianist. Yet when I practiced the violin, I became conscious of the difficulties, and I entertained no illusions. Besides, the social prejudices of that day stood in the way of a career as a professional performer. My teacher, however, had a different opinion; perhaps she wanted to encourage me. At any rate, this pale, slender, willowy woman with beautiful musical hands but an overly long nose (when she played, her head inclined leftward over the instrument, the violin became an endless extension of her nose) constantly predicted great fame for me on the podium in the music world. A fame that you couldn’t buy, that could be achieved only through work, work, work. She always repeated this word three times.
    She looked at me on one occasion and said: “You know if one isn’t beautiful, life’s not a bed of roses. But if one loves music, if one dedicates oneself to it with talent and perseverance, life becomes beautiful and appearance no longer counts.”
    I was sure that by these words she was not only thinking of herself, but also of me. I was not beautiful, I know that, and I liked that woman who had the courage to talk to me that way.
    Her name was Bertha and she looked like it. Or rather like abird named Bertha. She could also have been a fox called Bertha. Her red-brown hair was her most beautiful feature. Although she gave me violin lessons for years (later I had male teachers), I never learned whether she, like everyone during the war, had lost brothers, friends, or cousins. She never spoke about herself. In winter she would first warm herself the moment she stepped inside, rub her hands, breathe on them, and then hold them around the cup of tea that I would bring to her in the music room.
    In summer she would bring us flowers that she grew in boxes on her balcony, or a tomato of which she was especially proud. At Christmas she gave us a pink-colored, pale blue, or green glass wrapped in colored paper. She would hold it out to me and say: “Here, put it under the Christmas tree for your mother. Let’s see if she guesses from whom this gift is.” She allowed herself this pleasure every year. Her last name was Glass, and she always asked me if my mother saw the connection. I never dared to ask her whether she posed such riddles to all her pupils.
    She was the first to suggest to my mother that I become a violinist.
    My piano teacher was a plump lady whose appearance alone induced trust. She laughed and chuckled over every little thing. When we played four-handed waltzes, she would throw her head back in pleasure. She was pretty but never spoke about what beauty means for a woman. She had daughters, none of them married, and only female cousins, no males. Of all the women I knew, she was the only one who didn’t have a husband in the war. I was convinced that this explained her joie de vivre and her cheerfulness. My mother said: “No, she was born that way and remained that way because she has no husband in the war.” She would send my mother taffeta scarves she had sewn herself and painted with pussy willows and the first bars of Chopin’s waltzes. The material was stiff, the colors flaked from one Christmas to the other, so that many notes of the melody disappeared.
    My mother had great respect for my teachers; she criticized none of their decisions, their methods, their habits, none of their gifts. She wrapped the scarves in tissue paper, placed the colored glasses in the first row of the