to do to make you happy, Josy. I wish it could be done with something bought, like a hat or chocolates. That I could manage. I’ve had a lot of time to think today. You want things you don’t know you want. Do you know any of them? Josy, with your huge and gorgeous voice, my true musician. Yes, you are a true musician. What will happen with your voice? Will it bring you happiness?”
“I’m not loved, Papa, that’s it.” She sat leaning forward, one hand on his foot, feeling his sharp toenails even through the covers. “The others are loved so easily. I have no patience with stupidity. I shouted at your pupil today, and I think her mother won’t have us teaching her anymore. I want to be loved so much, but I don’t know how to go about it. Sometimes I wish it were a long time ago when the others weren’t born and there was just us.” She looked up mournfully, reddening. “I’m so sorry about your pupil.”
He patted her hand. “I’ll go tomorrow and placate her.”
In the morning they heard him dressing to go out, whistling a little. Some hours later he returned to wait for another pupil in the parlor.
Josefa, in the kitchen by the simmering soup, was engrossed in the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth when she heard something fall. She jumped up and rushed toward the parlor. Her father lay on the floor by the clavier. “Oh, my darling,” she cried, dropping to her knees beside him. He looked at her as if puzzled to find himself there. Then his breath stopped, and the light went from his eyes.
She held his hand, her fingers caressing the hairs above his knuckles and then feeling down to the supple, hardened fingertips. A sob shook her chest. “Wake up, Papa,” she whispered.
She bent down to whisper into his ear. His soft graying hair stirred. She crouched on the floor, trying to keep her growing sobs inside her, hoping no one else would come. But where is the music? she thought. Where has the music gone? And where has he gone, lying here, almost as if asleep from some great weariness, and not yet fifty years old? When would he stir, and rise up, and rush through the room, scattering music, saying, “The pupil’s coming!” Perhaps you had only so much of yourself to give, and when you had given it all, it was over. He had given of himself for his four girls, to buy them dresses and warm sheets, firewood and veal. Yes, he had spent himself.
He’s mine, she thought. I’m his. The rest of them don’t matter, never did, not even Mama, who drove him on so. I was his first girl; I was here first. He said it last night; he almost said it. Oh Papa, you’re so handsome, not dull like your brother. Inside there’s music, music. It’s still there. It’s not all come out; it’s here in your chest. We haven’t had many walks here. The others took them away, the others who have never really loved you properly. Neither of us has ever been loved the right way; we both know it. You taught me to sing, and I don’t sing, not much, but one day I will, and then each note will be for you.
The tears fell down her cheeks, and she sat back on her heels. Breathing deeply several times, she found the low center of her voice. Then tremulously she began to sing. The rich voice staggered from note to note, and as she breathed more deeply, her voice steadied and flowed forth. She sang part of a mass for the dead, for which he had played first violin so many times in Mannheim churches. “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God.” Her voice rose and rose, until it filled every corner of the room and made the windows tremble. Perhaps it would enter his body and fill it, too.
She hardly knew when the others came in and began to cry aloud, hardly felt it when her mother shook her by the shoulders and shrieked, “Stop singing, stop singing, you stupid girl; why are you singing? Christ have mercy, Christ have mercy!” But she heard her mother’s heavy knees fall to the floor, and then Josefa’s song ended.
There were mourners, of course, climbing the many flights of stairs. Everyone came. She played his favorite music on the clavier hour after hour, her mouth