She was waiting for me on the broad steps with her schoolbag between her tiny ankles.
You’re late, she said, and I told her I was sorry and lifted her and placed her in the passenger seat.
My violin, she asked, and I told her it was in the boot. So she opened her music as we drove and practised with her fingers on an invisible finger-board. She functioned very well, I thought, among imaginary things, holding her chin down as if on an actual violin, her fingers moving across small, non-existent strings. I crossed the river again as she played and quietly hummed and hit traffic on the other side, so I parked in a side street and began to walk.
Why this way? she asked.
Because of the traffic, I told her.
You’ll get lost, she said.
No, I told her, I know these backstreets.
And I was beginning to. The shadowed arches, each of which held a courtyard with the sagging balconies and the curving steps. And I heard it again, dim, but unmistakable, from several roofs across, the sound of a distant cello.
Someone’s practising, she said.
You can hear it? she asked, and I remember thinking it was odd.
Yes, I said, why shouldn’t I?
Because, she said, I’m not sure everyone can.
And the sound had faded now, or we had walked too far beyond it, and a group of schoolgirls came running down the cobbles, their laughter filling the air.
They can’t hear it.
Because it’s stopped.
No, she said, listen.
And we both stopped and listened. But I heard nothing.
Cellist, she said. Sounds like jealous.
She moved her hand again on the invisible strings, and hummed. And she kept humming till we came to the avenue with the alfresco tables and the bored waiters and the music college beyond, with the sounds of fractured practising coming from every open window.
I waited while she walked up the steps into the great black hole behind the open door. I could hear flutes echoing from the building above, pianos, double basses, what seemed like a fractured orchestra, but no more sound of cello.
There was a small graveyard behind it. I had made it my habit to wander there while I waited out her lesson. The angled slabs with their incomprehensible names, the ivy creeping over the stone angel and the broken statue of some forgotten hero of a forgotten resistance.
I sat on a bench and my telephone rang and I saw Frank’s name come up, so I left it unanswered. Then I saw, beyond two lanes of graves across from me, a couple sitting in the shade of an old yew tree. The woman, plump and broad-hipped, had spread a napkin out between them and was paring a rind of cheese on to slices of bread. The man was pouring coffee from a flask. And I recognised the Pavels, husband and wife. They seemed out of place in the distant hum of traffic that was the city, lonely, yet intimately connected. And I walked towards them, wondering was that what the future held for all of us.
I have forgotten your name, the husband said, with a country-peasant formality.
Jonathan, I told him.
I would offer you coffee, but we have only one cup.
I’m fine.
Is this . . . accident . . . or did you search us out?
My daughter, I said, takes violin lessons in the academy.
The wife chewed at the rind of cheese, as if anxious to waste none of it.
So, you have no news?
My partner’s searching, I told him, a grid of streets around the twelfth district.
You trust psychic?
No, I said. It’s borderline unprofessional. But you do.
So, we should wait?
Haven’t you waited twelve years?
I mean in the city. We were wondering whether to return home.
Where is home?
He mentioned a village with a kind of blunt contempt.
Is it far from here?
Two hours by train.
You should go home then. Any news and we can contact you.
We can stare at the same walls. Walk the same streets.
What is it like, the waiting?
She prays. Every day. I listen.
You don’t pray?
And he almost smiled, showing blackened teeth. He spat in the dust by his leather shoes. As I turned to go, the woman’s voice stopped me.
Thank you, she said.
For what? I’ve got no news yet.
For believing.