But Shizuka shook her head. “No, no. You’ve already played Bartók for me. Besides, there is a piece that is closer to my heart.”
From the stage, she looked out into the darkness. The darkness she missed. The darkness she loved, loved so much. And as everyone watched, with the lights of the city behind her, Shizuka Satomi began the song that she had arranged in a single night, a song that called her home.
And it began with The NetherTale. As she played, she listened, and as she listened, her arrangement began to speak: Shizuka Satomi, did you not know that you wrote me for yourself? From the moment you heard parts of me, the moment you heard Katrina playing Schradieck, you began to write.
You wrote me the first time you looked into a donut lady’s eyes. When you heard that hum on your way to the donut shop bathroom. When you heard chickens outside your window. And when you realized, how every time you needed her, Astrid was there.
Ah. So that’s what it was. Yes, Katrina’s music was not precisely the music she had heard before. She had told Astrid she had made peace with this, that in Katrina she had found someone who would take her music places where she could never go.
But though she had told Astrid not to worry, though she tried to focus on Katrina, what she had told her student was true for herself, as well. No matter where she had been, where she would go, her life, her music, was her own.
This is half an Alaska Donut and a cup of coffee. This is two-day-old donuts and Olive Garden bread sticks and Hokkaido cream. This is pho ga, roast duck, and dark meat Hainan chicken. This is shopping for shoes and Cinnabon at Santa Anita Mall.
This is waking to hear Katrina playing Kreisler from a memory like yours. This is listening to her play Bartók, with a music that sprang from and rescued yours.
Now it is time to say thank you. It is time to check your posture and play.
Was this her teacher? This was Shizuka Satomi? Katrina had imagined her music to be a whirlwind, a maelstrom. Or perhaps calm and gentle, like a nurturing moon.
But this was the music of a child. She realized that she’d heard this child before, when Miss Satomi had played the theme from Axxiom. But that child had raged from being cheated and betrayed. This child was full of strength and promise and hope in all that was new.
Katrina was holding her own first violin, a gift from her cousin. It was already old, and the case smelled like mildew. Her aunt cautioned that it was only a beginner instrument. But to her, that violin was Christmas and birthdays and Halloween and July Fourth all rolled up into one.
She had slept with it. She woke up with it. She had danced with it. There was no need to apologize. There was no need to mourn, for it was here.
Her father might have smashed it, but he could not erase the music. Nothing could.
And if she had never given it a name?
As she listened to Miss Satomi, Katrina realized she could give it one now.
Shizuka, you had believed your past had tarnished you. You had believed your soul too corrupted to be saved.
Yet on that day at the park, by the ducks, you sensed the sound you had been searching for. And even before that, on an airplane from Tokyo.
The music you were hearing, surely you recognize it now.
To win a game without killing. To create a world.
Yes. It’s real.
Shizuka, Katrina is listening.
You gave her a place to stay, mended her violin, and bought her Cinnabon. You taught her to find friendly faces in the darkness, music in her empty spaces. You gave her a pathway she could follow; you helped her understand applause. And she sang and spoke until she could stand alone, in front of everyone, and declare herself beautiful.
You miss your music, more than you knew. It hurts, even more than the pain ahead. But that’s what it means to deal with Hell, right?
And you know what?
Here, now … you might even have come out a little ahead.
But your job is not over yet. Shizuka. It’s time to give your child her final lesson: With no need for a beginning, nor any reason to end, the music continues. And so, no matter who you are, where you came from, what sins you have committed or hurt you have endured … when you are alone and there is no universe left to remember you.
You can always, always rewrite your song.
At 11:56, someone banged on the gate.
“He’s early.” Astrid frowned.
But it wasn’t Damnation. It was Mr. Aguilar.
“He brought over some tangerines. He said the music is very nice, but he needs to get up early tomorrow.”
Shizuka laughed. She laughed until she could laugh no more.
“Of course he does. Of course he does.”