pointed at the shelves, and some wooden steps that she used to get at the top ones. There is a
special way that music books have of ageing, something to do with the softness of their paper covers, a way they have of yellowing
like parchment or gently flaking and crumbling away. There is a dustiness to them, like old flaking skin, that makes it so
surprising when you take one down and play what is inside.
'Chopin. A dance. A waltz. That's one of his easiest ones, you could play that easily. Some of Chopin's very difficult.'
She played it through and there was water in it as well as dancing, clear fresh water bubbling up out of the dusty books.
'Then how about this?' She went to the shelves again, adjusted the lamp and the colours in her scarf flamed as she passed
before it. She took out books of popular music, traditional songs, jazz, went back to the piano and played snatches of this
and that.
I did not know how to tell her that I really didn't mind doing scales. There wasn't anything I wanted to play.
'Take this then.' A wafer-thin book from a bottom shelf; she had to kneel on the floor to find it. 'You're a dreamer. This
is music for dreaming. Listen.'
'OK, I'll play that one.'
She shifted across and I took my place again beside her on the piano stool. We worked through the first few bars.
'You'll see as it goes along,' she said. 'You'll work it out. The left hand ties it together while the right hand dreams.'
'What language are the directions?'
'French. Lent et grave. That means slow and grave. But you don't need to pay too much attention to them. Some-times the directions in these
pieces are little jokes, absurdities.'
'What are absurdities?'
'The man who wrote this was a little man, a Frenchman, rather odd, with a beard and a bowler hat and an umbrella. Think of
that and you'll understand.'
Sarah Cahn's hands reached across and played it again, all through. I watched the music.
Lent et grave. Like a procession, men and women in black all in a line; but someone came and danced between them, someone in colour. A yellow
butterfly among the mourners.
Her kitchen was the kind of room that kept the rest of the world shut out, all but the piece of it you could see through the
window: the steep rise of hill, a stone wall with a break in it, a big oak just a little off the centre of the view. There
were no curtains on the window so that even in the dusk the field was there like a charcoal picture framed in the bare rectangle,
a part of the room and not outside of it. There were other pictures on the walls, real pictures. No one else's kitchen had
proper pictures on the walls. There was a small lively painting of a little house by the sea, and some drawings of men's faces
that looked as if they been done quickly with long fast lines but that had probably taken far longer. I thought that one of
the men in the drawings must have been Mr Cahn as he was like the man in the wedding photograph in the front room, only less
stiff and more alive. He had a rather broad, lumpy face, not handsome at all. I guessed that Sarah Cahn must have got used
to his being dead by now because the kitchen and all the rooms I'd seen in the little house seemed complete just as they were;
no echoes in them, no empty spaces like at home.
It had become a habit, after the lesson, to go into the kitchen for cake. I suspected that the cakes were baked especially
for me since there was always one fresh and uncut the day that I came. They were rich and luscious, the sort of cakes you
ate with a fork. Sometimes they were a little richer than I liked but I ate them to be polite. Sarah Cahn had something about
her that made me feel that I should be at my most polite. Perhaps it was as a courtesy to her foreignness, which was unmistakable
even though there was hardly a trace of it in her voice. I felt a need somehow to charm this woman, or perhaps it was only
that I sensed that it was in my power to charm
special way that music books have of ageing, something to do with the softness of their paper covers, a way they have of yellowing
like parchment or gently flaking and crumbling away. There is a dustiness to them, like old flaking skin, that makes it so
surprising when you take one down and play what is inside.
'Chopin. A dance. A waltz. That's one of his easiest ones, you could play that easily. Some of Chopin's very difficult.'
She played it through and there was water in it as well as dancing, clear fresh water bubbling up out of the dusty books.
'Then how about this?' She went to the shelves again, adjusted the lamp and the colours in her scarf flamed as she passed
before it. She took out books of popular music, traditional songs, jazz, went back to the piano and played snatches of this
and that.
I did not know how to tell her that I really didn't mind doing scales. There wasn't anything I wanted to play.
'Take this then.' A wafer-thin book from a bottom shelf; she had to kneel on the floor to find it. 'You're a dreamer. This
is music for dreaming. Listen.'
'OK, I'll play that one.'
She shifted across and I took my place again beside her on the piano stool. We worked through the first few bars.
'You'll see as it goes along,' she said. 'You'll work it out. The left hand ties it together while the right hand dreams.'
'What language are the directions?'
'French. Lent et grave. That means slow and grave. But you don't need to pay too much attention to them. Some-times the directions in these
pieces are little jokes, absurdities.'
'What are absurdities?'
'The man who wrote this was a little man, a Frenchman, rather odd, with a beard and a bowler hat and an umbrella. Think of
that and you'll understand.'
Sarah Cahn's hands reached across and played it again, all through. I watched the music.
Lent et grave. Like a procession, men and women in black all in a line; but someone came and danced between them, someone in colour. A yellow
butterfly among the mourners.
Her kitchen was the kind of room that kept the rest of the world shut out, all but the piece of it you could see through the
window: the steep rise of hill, a stone wall with a break in it, a big oak just a little off the centre of the view. There
were no curtains on the window so that even in the dusk the field was there like a charcoal picture framed in the bare rectangle,
a part of the room and not outside of it. There were other pictures on the walls, real pictures. No one else's kitchen had
proper pictures on the walls. There was a small lively painting of a little house by the sea, and some drawings of men's faces
that looked as if they been done quickly with long fast lines but that had probably taken far longer. I thought that one of
the men in the drawings must have been Mr Cahn as he was like the man in the wedding photograph in the front room, only less
stiff and more alive. He had a rather broad, lumpy face, not handsome at all. I guessed that Sarah Cahn must have got used
to his being dead by now because the kitchen and all the rooms I'd seen in the little house seemed complete just as they were;
no echoes in them, no empty spaces like at home.
It had become a habit, after the lesson, to go into the kitchen for cake. I suspected that the cakes were baked especially
for me since there was always one fresh and uncut the day that I came. They were rich and luscious, the sort of cakes you
ate with a fork. Sometimes they were a little richer than I liked but I ate them to be polite. Sarah Cahn had something about
her that made me feel that I should be at my most polite. Perhaps it was as a courtesy to her foreignness, which was unmistakable
even though there was hardly a trace of it in her voice. I felt a need somehow to charm this woman, or perhaps it was only
that I sensed that it was in my power to charm
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