Miss Satomi reached for Katrina’s violin. But rather than playing, she held it as if reading a book.
“Or so he is regarded today. But at the time, Bartók was destitute. He was also too proud to take charity, so Yehudi Menuhin instead offered him a commission. A sonata. For five hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred?” Katrina could make that much money fapping in front of her webcam.
“I know, right? Still, five hundred dollars was worth more than it is today. And Bartók’s medical costs were rising.”
“He was sick?”
“He was dying. Leukemia. Sonata for Solo Violin would be his final piece. He worked on others, but this was the last one he would complete.”
“So this was a special piece.”
Miss Satomi shrugged. “Perhaps, though he might not have realized how little time he had. But still, as he faded, what must gone through his mind? You see, Béla Bartók was a pianist, not a violinist. Of course, as a composer, he knew how to write for strings. But still, what does a dying genius say, in his last final word, with a voice that is not his own?”
Miss Satomi stared into Aubergine, then laughed softly as she handed it back to Katrina. “Put the sonata off for now. It’s very, very difficult.”
“But—”
“Shhh…”
Miss Satomi went to her bookshelf and grabbed a volume that was on its own shelf.
“Here. Bartók.”
Katrina gasped. This was Miss Satomi’s own copy of the Bartók. There were her notes, in a hand that still knew nothing of damning souls.
And then she saw the music.
“Do you understand? Even some of my previous students would have been unable to play this.”
Katrina’s shoulders slumped. What was she even thinking? She was nowhere near their levels, let alone Miss Satomi’s.
“However…”
However?
“You should know … there are some fine videos online of people playing this piece. Yehudi Menuhin, obviously. Viktoria Mullova’s technique is crystalline. Maybe Gidon Kremer.”
Katrina was confused. “Wait—I thought you said it was too difficult.”
“I did. Teaching Bartók to a player at your level would be unreasonable. Abusive, even.”
Then Miss Satomi stuck out her tongue.
“But, if you want to frustrate yourself, who am I to stop you?”
That night, Shizuka reached under her bed and pulled out a box. From the box, she pulled out six pictures, of six young students, seemingly invincible, elegant, even pure. How could photos look so convincing, yet hide so much of how things really were?
“These are my six stars,” she would say, “and you shall be my seventh.”
At least that was what Shizuka had envisioned. She had rehearsed it thousands of times. The seventh prodigy, the next chosen one. The next hungry, tortured soul.
The one who would finally set her free.
But instead?
Here was a student who played music from video games and anime. Queer, transgender. Uncultured. Her prior training was laughable. Her knowledge of even basic music theory had been nonexistent.
And yet, of all her students, it was she who had come to the piece Shizuka had left unfinished so many years ago.
Bartók. Sonata for Solo Violin.
Shizuka looked at her copy. She looked at her own notes.
She breathed. She reached for her violin.
* * *
“Katrina.”
Katrina had fallen asleep in her studio. She had found a PDF of the score. She had spent two weeks studying everyone Miss Satomi had suggested, and more. But no one had the sound Katrina remembered. It was a sound not so precise as Mullova, not so assured as Menuhin.
“Katrina?”
And yet she remembered how her teacher had played …
“Hey, Katrina?”
“W-what—Shirley?” No matter how often Shirley materialized like that, it always startled her.
“I found a recording,” Shirley said. “Please watch.”
“Ah! You found the Gitlis?” Shirley had been helping her research and locate some of the more obscure recordings.
“No, not the Gitlis,” Shirley said.
“Then who…”
Katrina’s voice trailed off as Shirley activated the projector.
For there, in front of them, stood a young Shizuka Satomi.
“What? How is this possible? Miss Satomi said there are no records of her playing in existence.”
“In your existence. But years ago, many concerts were performed on broadcast television. Those signals have been emanating from your planet at the speed of light. We’ve received and gathered Earth transmissions the entire way here. So I searched through our shipboard archives and located broadcasts of her concerts. There were quite a few of them, but I think you would like to hear this first.”