Shizuka was about to find another bench when the girl turned over.
She was holding a violin case.
“W-what?!”
Katrina opened her eyes to an apparition … The woman standing over her looked just like the girl from The Ring.
Except she was wearing sunglasses, and was older, and in red instead of white, and wore a wide-brimmed hat and …
“Nice day, isn’t it?” the apparition said pleasantly.
“Uh … yes?” Katrina looked around. She was not dreaming, and yes, she was still in … Was it El Molino Park?
“Want some donut?”
Wasn’t the usual phrase “a donut,” not “some donut”？ Then Katrina saw the size of what the woman was holding.
Maybe she was dreaming after all.
“It’s an Alaska Donut. Well, half of one.”
The woman handed her the whole piece, and a bottle of water.
Katrina hesitated. Who was this person? People dressed like that didn’t just feed homeless kids asleep on park benches.
“Just take it.” The woman gestured at her violin case. “It’s not like I’ve never seen a hungry musician before.”
Katrina took a small bite. So sweet! So soft! She took another, larger this time. And another. The sugary, chewy goodness cleared her head, and suddenly her world regained color and sound.
“You like it?” the woman asked.
“Yes, very much so. Thank you.”
“If only I’d listened to Astrid and brought tangerines.”
Again, she pointed at Katrina’s violin case.
“Your baby?”
“Yes.”
Katrina finished the last of the donut and licked her fingers. She rinsed her hands with some of the water, and the woman gave her a dry napkin.
“Anytime. Go ahead,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Go ahead?”
“Practice.”
“H-huh?”
Katrina felt more than a little self-conscious; it seemed like ages since she’d felt free to play.
“Don’t worry, I’m just here to feed the ducks.”
Katrina hesitated. But the sunlight was becoming golden, the first blackbirds were leaving the trees.
With sweetness of donut lingering in her mouth, Katrina opened her case.
Meanwhile, Shizuka reached into the bag of hot dog buns, tore off a big piece, and tossed it into the lake. To be truthful, the girl was likely a beginner. Scratchy bowing … nonexistent intonation … the usual beginner headaches.
Still, there was something refreshing about listening to someone who had nothing to do with brilliance or souls.
But then the girl opened her violin case.
The girl … the girl beamed, absolutely shone. Her expression was completely different from the nervous, cultivated expressions she had seen in Arcadia. Shizuka thought of Mr. Grossmueller, who had been through Hitler and everything before and after. When he beheld his violin, a wise and warm Jakob Stainer, he’d kiss it and say in such times, his violin was the only thing to live for.
What the girl held was no Stainer—it was a mere beginner’s instrument—but echoes of hatred, of insanities, of melodies one sings only when one has survived emanated from her just the same.
And then, in the space where words might have been, Shizuka heard the unexpected.
Most people would have heard a tone. A trained musician might hear A440.
And a very special musician would hear the violin waking up, saying good morning, once again coming to life.
“A tuning fork?”
The girl exhaled and seemed to blush.
“My violin likes it better when I tune her this way.”
Shizuka was now fully focused on the player before her.
Where had this girl come from? South San Gabriel? Rosemead?
Shizuka thought of all the students she had seen in Arcadia with brand-new digital tuners and oh-so-precious instruments. How does one such as this simply wander into a park? Shizuka wondered what she would play. Bach? Mozart? Maybe Kreisler? She had a presence that would go with Kreisler.
Or Bartók?
Shhh …
Shizuka stilled herself. Reality was reality. That instrument. That student bow. That awful rosin in the sliding plastic box. This was no cultivated prodigy.
Bartók? Don’t be silly, Satomi. More likely, she’ll play “Perpetual Motion” from Suzuki Book One.
Of all the music she might have imagined, Shizuka did not expect the girl to pull out Schradieck.
Schradieck? As in The School of Violin Technics. These were not musical compositions, but musical exercises. They were basic and beneficial, but basic and beneficial in the way that cod liver oil once was, or a measles vaccine, or a regular trip to the dentist.