dead sixty years, said Dagmar, pulling herself up. I never met the man.
Of course you did. He loved you like you were his own skin. Don’t you remember the little deal cradle he made you?
He didn’t, Mother. You told me that this morning, and yesterday, snapped Dagmar.
Norea saw the little cradle. Her three youngest brothers had all slept in it. She stopped, perplexed. But stubbornly she said, Of course he did—you just don’t remember.
Dagmar saw the blue ridges around Norea’s lips. I’m taking you to the school. It’s too cold to leave you here.
This is my house and I’ll do in it as I please and I won’t leave it! With stiff hands Norea swept away the bits of dried petals lying on the table beside Dagmar’s bed. If you don’t like it, get your own house!
She thrashed at the rest of Nyssa’s dead plant and Dagmar snapped, Don’t touch that. Don’t talk to me like this!
Norea heard the axe edge in her daughter’s voice but she could not remember who Dagmar was. With a forest animal’s instinct she spat out, Filthy shrine, and knocked the small vase to the floor.
Stop it! Dagmar got out of bed and crossed the room. She looked back and saw the strange old Irish woman mumbling something in a foreign tongue and she sat down and sobbed.
Norea heard her little girl crying and her memory came back again. She went over to her, caressed her head, crooned, Don’t carry on. It hurts my eyes to look without seeing you. Then memory flickering back confused, she said, No one can cross the river when it is full of ice. Wait till the melt and then we’ll go get her. Let her go, Dag, a girl has to go. You did!
No! raged Dagmar, brushing her old mother’s hand away, It is not the same. I never left the island. I could throw a pebble from Colin’s house to yours. I hear the throbbing of her voice in the storm. A girl must have a way back.
She left the room, went into the kitchen, threw on her coat and walked outside. Alive, Nyssa had disappeared into darkness. Ice fell and the sky cracked. Dagmar could no longer retrieve the details of Nyssa’s nose, her lips, her cheeks. She could not finger her hair or look into her green eyes. She could not smell her or hear the sound of her voice. She could only feel the pain and easing of a baby latching to her breast.
She lamented, Nyssa, my daughter, my dolour. Nyssa child of mine. Air faìl irìnn ì rirìnn. Nyssa, where are you? Speak daughter, any tongue. Long-limbed, spinning steps and fiddling fingers, one cocked eyebrow under all that kinked hair, doom-eager. You cannot disappear, free creator of yourself. Earth will stay frozen to its core until my eyes rest on you once more.
Together Donal and Nyssa listened as the ground bass set out the melody of the “Passacaglia” in a stately triple metre, nimbly followed by the violin with its playful polyphonic variations. Fiddle tripping, bass embracing, daa ta daa ta daa ta daa, fiddle dancing, bass leaping, each seizing hold of the other in grace, in delight, in melancholia and teasing. They parted and returned, sometimes sensual, sometimes in strife, playful, grave, tender, restrained and released by form, their two different beings one in the last variation, golden threads made divine in the music until they were torn asunder and rendered silent. Dominant to tonic, Handel’s shantih and amen.
Donal marked up the score while Nyssa rested on the floor, hearing the music inside. She rose and traced her finger across the notes, absorbing the sound through her eyes, through her whole naked body. She picked up her violin and picked out bits of its melodies, the witty plucking, the dramatic crescendos. Together they worked through the music, hour after hour, becoming the notes, becoming the dance, their instruments ringing together.
Handel, she sniffed when they were done. I want something fresh. Play that harmonic for me again.
Twenty-five days she’d been gone, she figured by the moon. He talked of concerts on the mainland and of playing for strangers. He wanted her to play her Tartini, and he his Bottesini. He wanted to dress her. He wanted to end with their “Passacaglia.” The sounds of these words tripped like precious little chirps from his lips and offended her. What about a set of reels? she had said. He shook his head. Not fancy enough for