Wintersong(14)

“Shush,” I said. “You are the virtuoso. Not me.” It was true. While Papa had taught us all to play the violin, it was Josef whose playing sparkled with brilliance. I was a composer, not a performer.

“Yes, but you are the genius,” he said. “You are the creator; I’m just an interpreter.”

Tears started in my eyes. My brother told me my music was worth something every day of his life, but it still hurt to hear him say it.

“Don’t hide away,” he pleaded. “You deserve to be heard. The world needs to hear your music. You can’t be so selfish as to keep it to yourself.”

Oh but I could, but it was not out of selfishness; it was shame. I was untrained, untaught, untalented. It was easier—safer—to hide behind Josef. My brother could prune my wild imaginings into a beautiful garden, smooth their rough edges, and present a work of art to the world.

“But I wouldn’t keep it to myself,” I said softly. “You would play my music for me.”

That was how it had always been. Josef was my amanuensis; through him I could play the music I heard in my soul. I was the violin, he was the bow. We were the left and right hands of a single fortepianist, meant to be played together and not apart. I wrote the music; Josef played it for the world. This was how it would always be.

He shook his head. “No. No.”

Anger flared through me, anger and frustration and jealousy. Josef could have it all, all we had ever wanted, if he would only take the chance. And he had the chance, something I would never have. Could never have.

Sensing my shift in mood, my brother turned to hug me harder. “Oh, Liesl, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said into my shoulder. “I’m a terrible person. I know I’m being selfish.”

My anger faded, leaving me drained and exhausted. No, it was not my brother who was a terrible person; it was I. I, who begrudged him the opportunity of a lifetime because it would never be mine.

“You’re not selfish, Sepperl,” I said. “You’re the least selfish person I know.”

Josef glanced at the window of his bedroom, toward the forest surrounding our inn. The sun was setting, lending a bloody cast to everything. My brother absentmindedly ran his fingers over the bridge of his violin. It was a del Gesù, one of the few valuable violins we had left after Papa sold the others to Herr Kassl to settle his debts. The Amatis, Stainers, and Stradivarii were long gone.

“What if,” he said at last, “I made a wish, and had it answered?”

The reddish light threw all the hollows and shadows of his face into ghastly relief. The bruises beneath his eyes and jaw where he rested it against the chin rest were the color of old blood.

“What wish, Sepperl?” I asked gently.

“To be the greatest violinist in the world.” Josef traced the f-holes, lightly sliding his fingers up the neck to rest on the scroll. The scroll was one of the violin’s more unusual parts, carved into the shape of a woman. It was not the woman that was unusual; it was the fact that her face was carved into an expression of agony. Or ecstasy. I was never quite sure. “To play with such beauty as to make angels weep.”

“Then your wish was granted.” I smiled, but the smile twisted in my mouth. If only our wishes had power. I thought of being young and sitting by K?the’s side in church, our bony thighs pressed into the hard wooden pews. I remembered looking at my sister’s golden hair haloed by the sun, and wishing—no, praying—that I would grow up to be beautiful too.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered.

“Afraid? Of your God-given gift?”

“God has nothing to do with it,” he said grimly.

“Josef!” I was shocked. We might have been indifferent churchgoers, but God was as ritual and routine as washing up in the morning. To deny Him utterly was blasphemy.

“You, of all people, should know this, Liesl,” Josef said. “Think you that our music comes from God? No, it comes from below. From him. The Ruler Underground.”

I knew my brother did not speak of the Devil. I had always known that Josef had faith—kept faith—with Constanze and the Goblin King. More than Papa. More than me. But I had not understood just how deeply his belief in the uncanny was stitched into his bones.

“How else can you explain the wildness, the abandon we feel when we play together?”

Was Josef afraid he was damned? God, the Devil, and the Goblin King were larger figures in my brother’s life than I had realized. More than either K?the or me, Josef had been sensitive to the moods and emotions around him. It was what made him a superb and sublime interpreter of music. Perhaps this was why he played with such exquisite clarity, agony, frenzy, ecstasy, and longing. It was fear. Fear and inspiration and divine providence all in one.

“Listen to me,” I said firmly. “The abandon we feel—that is not sin. That is grace. Grace is not a gift bestowed upon you that can suddenly be taken away. It is within you, Sepperl, a part of you. You carry that grace inside. And you will carry it with you all your life, no matter where you go.”

“But what if it’s not grace?” Josef whispered. “What if it’s a favor to be repaid?”

I said nothing. I did not know what to say.

“I know you don’t believe me,” he said miserably. “And I wouldn’t, either. But I remember a dream, and it returns to me piece by piece, night by night. I dream of a tall, elegant stranger who comes to me.”