"Kelley Eskridge - Strings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eskridge Kelly)

тАЬItтАЩs good.тАЭ She saw, in a blur, all her Competitions, all her challengers. тАЬItтАЩs
hard. It can be amazing. The Conservatory orchestra is wonderful.тАЭ She set down
her cup. тАЬYouтАЩre thinking of the Competition? Of challenging the Steinway?тАЭ

He bit his lip. тАЬIтАЩve thought about it. Maybe we all doтАжтАЬHe sighed. тАЬI know
if I ever want to be the Steinway IтАЩll have toтАжIтАЩll stop improvising. But Strad, I
donтАЩt know how to stop the music in my head.тАЭ

She felt herself go very still. She had made no sound, but he looked up and
out of himself and saw her. тАЬOh,тАЭ he said gently, hopefully, sadly. тАЬYou, too?тАЭ

She found the muscles that moved her mouth. тАЬI donтАЩt know whatтАжyouтАЩre
talking about, she meant to say, and have it finished. But she could not. She had a
sudden, clear image of how he must have looked in the disciplinary hearing: a new
suit, an old shirt, his breath sour with anxiety, and his mouth suddenly not very good
with words. He would have appreciated the piano they had him use, she knew; it was
undoubtedly the finest instrument he had ever played. She thought of him carefully
wiping the fear-sweat from his hands before he touched it, of him playing it and
denying the music he heard lurking within its strings. It broke her heart.

тАЬI donтАЩt know what to do,тАЭ she said, and behind her the cricket began to play
again.

THAT NIGHT she dreamed of her first competition. She stood with the other
challengers backstage while a crowd of people with no faces settled into the arena
seats. She played in her dream as she had in the real moment, with the passion that
the music demanded and the precision that the Judges required of a Strad, as if the
piece were a new, wondrous discovery, and at the same time as if she had played it a
hundred thousand times before. She forgot the audience was there, until they began
to clap and then to shout, and she could not see them clearly because she was
weeping.

Then the audience disappeared, and the building vanished into a landscape of
sand under a sand-colored sky. Directly ahead of her, a door stood slightly ajar in its
frame. She heard her violin crying. She stumbled forward into dark. The violin
screamed on and on as she searched for it. She found it eventually, high on a shelf
over the door. It went silent when she touched it. She pulled it down and hugged it
to her, and fell on her knees out onto the sand.

She looked at the violin anxiously, turning it over, running her fingers across
the bridge and the strings. She could not see any damage.

Suddenly a voice spoke from the darkness inside the open door. тАЬlt only
looks the same,тАЭ the voice hissed, and the door slammed shut inches from her face
at the same time that the violin stood itself on end and burst into song. And then she
awoke, clutching a pillow to her side and sweating in the cool air of her hotel suite.

She lay still for a few moments, then got up and went into the bathroom, filled
the tub full of water so hot that she had to lower herself into it an inch at a time.