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Chapter 1: Voyant
Sylvia pays close attention to the violinist’s gestures—the lovely
way she brushes a hand under her skirt before sitting; her manner of dropping
a square of silk onto her left shoulder and shrugging it into place before lifting
the violin and clamping it with her chin. The other violinists all seem to have
more elaborate devices or padding to protect their chins and shoulders. This
one, with her square of silk, is, in effect, riding bareback. The violinist closes
her eyes as she begins to tune her instrument. Sylvia imagines the inner ear
against which the violinist measures her A and pictures a flower within a flower.
Clearly, the violinist has perfect pitch, a kind of magnetic north that draws
her to its incontrovertible center. In college, Sylvia had known a French horn
player with perfect pitch, and she’d always wondered what it was like for
him to live among the common folk with wavering intonation.
The dashing Brazilian conductor, João Bonfa, gives his downbeat, and the
opening measure of an orchestral suite by Berlioz rises to Sylvia’s box.
She is sitting close enough to study the supple grace of the violinist’s
bow arm, and, gradually, locks into the breathing pattern of the silk-shouldered
beauty.
At intermission, Sylvia asks an usher the name of the first violinist sitting
second stand outside.
“That’s Inez Roseman; beautiful Inez.” The elderly matron,
whose white hair is slipping out of its chignon, turns her head dismissively.
Is the gesture meant as a comment on the violinist or on the philistine posing
the question? Sylvia decides the latter. Maybe the usher remembers her complimentary
ticket, the one with the hole punched through it, and holds that against her.
“Has she been with the symphony for long?” Sylvia persists.
“Yes,” the usher says, turning toward Sylvia. “She’s
been in the symphony for nearly twenty years.”
“How could that be? She doesn’t look like she’s much past thirty.”
“Well, I’m not lying to you. Some of us age better than others.” The
usher takes a linen hanky from her clutch and, unfolding it, reveals a small
stash of lemon drops. She offers one to Sylvia.
“No, thank you.”
The matron plucks a lemon drop from her linen wrap and drops it on her tongue. “Of
course, Inez got into the symphony when she was very young.”
“She’d have had to.”
“And you know who she’s married to,” the usher says, in a stage
whisper.
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Jake Roseman.” The usher puckers her lips around her lemon drop. “You
know, the attorney who’s creating all the fuss with the colored.”
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