River's Edge

Good.

Prologue

I don’t trust memory—not really. My mind is a storehouse of wordless snapshots from childhood, pictures without context or captions, still frames of silent movies that seem so true but whose veracity cannot be counted upon.

I remember sitting in the back garden near a bush heavy with blooming lilacs, holding a white kitten in my lap, giggling with delight as the kitten extends a tiny sandpaper tongue and begins licking my hands. The picture is clear in my mind, but I do not trust it. Did I have a kitten? Father never mentioned it, and in the photographs of our garden in Alexander Platz there are no lilacs, only serviceable shrubs and rows of spiny rosebushes, blooming in season exactly as they were supposed to. I cannot imagine Father allowing anything as unruly and independent as lilacs to take root in his garden.

I remember, too, a day in the park, Father smiling and humming as he carries me in his arms. I feel the brass buttons of his dress uniform pressing circles into my chest as I snuggle close to him. Mama and I are in matching white linen dresses, her eyes bright and her face glowing with good health, her figure shapely, a bit plump even. Her hands soft and teasing, her fingernails pale pink ovals as she playfully slaps Father on the wrist in scolding response to a joke I don’t understand but laugh at anyway. If I close my eyes, I can conjure the picture into being, but I do not trust it. Were we ever so happy? Was there a time, when we were as carefree as any other young family strolling in the park on a sunny afternoon? I suppose it is possible, but I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. I may have imagined the whole thing.

But there is one childhood memory that I am certain of. I was very young, but I remember the day of my first piano lesson with utter clarity. I always loved to listen to Mother play. Sometimes I sat across from her, rapt and still, in a chair of tufted green velvet, watching her hands float above the keys, graceful and fluid as swimmers moving through clear water. Other times I would lie stomach-down on the floor, as close to the foot pedals as possible, to feel the notes rumble through every part of my body. Every day I spent hours listening to the music Mother made, but until that day, I never so much as touched the piano myself, not because anyone had said I mustn’t, but because somewhere inside me lay a belief that Mother was a magical being and only her touch could make the heavy black box sing so beautifully.

Her cough was worse that day. Sitting in the green chair, I grew impatient as she stuttered through my special song, Für Elise, starting and stopping to clear her throat. Finally her shoulders started convulsing, and she pushed the piano bench back and leaned down, coughing violently, her handkerchief held tight to her mouth. I jumped up from my chair and ran to her side, thumping her back with my little fists, trying to free her from the invisible obstruction, but my efforts seemed to make no difference.

Mother! I cried and thumped her back even harder than before. Are you all right? Tell me what to do! I begged.

She just shook her head silently and waved a hand to motion me back to the green chair, but I wouldn’t leave her side. Finally the fit passed, and her shoulders dropped more evenly as she took in deep breaths of air, becoming herself again. She sat up and pulled the cloth away from her mouth to show a ragged circle of red, cruel and unseemly against the ladylike linen and convent-made lace of her handkerchief.

Mother! You’re bleeding!

No, darling, she murmured, folding the hankie quickly to hide the stains. I’m fine. I was just coughing too hard, that’s all. It brought up a little blood. Nothing to worry about, Elise.

Are you all right?

Yes. I’m just a bit tired, that’s all. Playing the piano is hard work, and I get tired more easily these days. She smiled so sweetly and reassuringly that I didn’t think to ask her why that was. She chucked me under the chin playfully. I can’t always do all the work, you know. You’ve watched long enough, my love. It’s time for you to start playing and me to start listening.

She walked slowly to a bookshelf, chose a couple of thick leather-bound volumes that she stacked on the piano bench, and perched me on top of them so I could reach the keyboard. Then she sat down next to me and let her hands hover over the keys. Watch, she said and gave me my first piano lesson.

Completely bypassing nursery songs and scales, Mother began teaching me Beethoven’s Für Elise. She played through the entire composition. Urging me to watch her fingers carefully, she played through the first eight bars twice more, then told me to try.

Surely that first attempt was halting and punctuated with mistakes. After all, I couldn’t have been more than four years old, but in my memory the music flows from my fingers unbidden, unerring, an untapped spring of music gushing from my fingertips, spilling into the room and quenching a thirst I’d never known I had. Somehow I understood that it didn’t matter if I never spoke again, because the piano would always be able to express what I felt more completely than words. Words, like memory, can’t be trusted. You can never be sure that you’ve chosen the right ones or that they were heard correctly. Music isn’t like that. It cannot ring false. Music doesn’t try to describe the heart: it is the heart. It says exactly what it means. It cannot dissemble or be misunderstood.

This was a revelation as my fingers rocked rhythmically from ebony to ivory and back. I finished the phrase, beaming with the joy of my discovery and looked to Mother for approval and her acknowledgement that, like her, I, too, was a magical being. She rewarded me with a smile and a rare, delicious peal of laughter, silver and bright, a sound like pearls and new coins pouring a generous stream into my open palms. Her pale, delicate face was suddenly unlined and glowing—mysteriously, there seemed to be more of her, as if a new layer of flesh had suddenly been added to her thin frame. She was the Mother of my memory again, pink and healthy and strolling through a park where every day was happy and gilded with promise.

I laughed too, giddy with my newfound power—the power to banish sickness and age, the power to make Mother well again. I played through the phrase again without being asked. It was even easier than the first time. Mother laughed again, and I joined in, the sounds of our shared delight filling the dark corners of the room and making them light.

"That was beautiful, Liebling," she said in the soft, breathless voice I still hear in my dreams. I was right. You could only be called Elise. When Herr Beethoven sat down to compose this, he surely had you in mind.

I believe in destiny, but not in fate. Maybe that sounds contradictory, but in my mind they are two completely different things. Fate says that whatever happens is meant to be, and nothing you can do will change it. If I believed that, I’m not sure I’d be able to get myself out of bed in the morning. What would be the point? Destiny is different. It is a place. Once you arrive there, you understand that this is precisely what and who you were created to be. Fate is resignation and defeat. Destiny is peace and discovery. If you are lucky, sometimes you stumble upon clues to your destiny—riddles that, after you have reached your destination, are suddenly so obvious you wonder why you didn’t see the answer to begin with.

Before I was born, my parents agreed that if I was a boy I would be named Herman Braun, the name my father shared with the previous four generations of firstborn Brauns. There was not much thought given to the possibility of my being a girl. However, in the extremely unlikely case of such an embarrassing occurrence, my father declared I should be named Helga, after his own mother.

On the day of my birth, mother held me in her arms and, in a rare and surprising display of independence, insisted that my name was Elise. Father protested briefly but indulged my mother, chalking it up to female inconstancy. When his son followed, he would have to be firm, but why not let Mother have her way this time? I was, he reasoned, only a daughter. It was of little importance what I was named. Mother knew better.

Of course, destiny does not always leave a trail for us to follow. Sometimes, if you are fortunate, you stumble upon it by accident. I was born in Berlin in 1925, a link in the chain of an ancient Prussian military family that stretched back to the days of Frederick the Great. There was never any reason for me to suppose that my destiny lay in the tobacco country of the Connecticut River Valley, but it did. At the age of fourteen, the seemingly accidental tides of history carried me across the sea. I fought against the current, and yet, at the moment I stood on the edge of the valley and saw the ribbon of river at my feet, a great peace descended upon my heart. I understood my arrival in that spot was meant to be.

Someone once told me that the Connecticut River is the third most beautiful river in the world. I don’t believe it. There cannot be any place more beautiful than this. Here, just outside Brightfield, Massachusetts, the river is generous, and paradise lies on both banks. It is like the Jordan that we must cross to enter into the bounds of heaven, except this crossing is unnecessary, for whichever side you rest on, you are already home.

The river moves slowly. There is no reason to hurry, and it seems even the fish linger a time before swimming downstream to the sea. The river valley is lovely in every season. In summer, the fields fed by the river are dressed in swathes of green velvet and fine white linen; the swaying leaves of the tobacco plants and the cotton tents that are erected to shade the growing plants protect the best of them from the harsh summer sun. In fall, the meadowlike intervales are brown and rich, their scent ancient and sure. In winter, snow blankets the landscape, stretching pristine white to the edge of the world, unspoiled and chaste, unblemished by human contact. In spring, the soil is soft and stoneless, so tender the blades of the plow cut through it like butter. So rich you might think planting almost an act of egotism—as if you could toss the seeds in the air, come back a few weeks later, and find a jungle of green had sprung up. It’s a cunning disguise, but I know the truth.

The ground is fertile and yielding, but tobacco is a fickle mistress. She requires coaxing and care and sometimes life blood before she’ll give up her favors—if she chooses to give them up at all. Still, if you come to the valley and it speaks to you, there is no other place for you on the face of the earth.

I had no more asked to come to the valley than the tobacco seeds had asked to be planted. Someone brought those seeds from the jungles of Sumatra, and against all odds they flourished in the river-washed soil of a New England valley, just as I did. We’d both been brought from foreign shores and climates, transplanted exotics, moved by forces beyond ourselves, but once planted we took root and became as much a part of the landscape as the life-giving river that fed us both, that made us grow and thrive in a country that was ours not by birth but by destiny.

Chapter 1

My eighth birthday party, January 30, 1933, was a small one, as always. The same five people were in attendance every year: Mother, Father, Uncle Wilhelm, Cousin Peter, and me. Mother’s health did not allow her to entertain large groups, and even small adult celebrations were taxing for her, leaving her weak for days afterward. Inviting other children was simply out of the question. Even if I’d had any little friends to include in the festivities, their parents would have forbidden them to attend. They were afraid of contagion. I don’t blame them. If Mother hadn’t been consumptive herself, I am sure she would have felt the same way.

Captain Wilhelm Canaris, whom I always called Uncle, was my nominal godfather. Father had served under him on his first posting, as a midshipman aboard a U-boat. Like Father, Uncle Wilhelm came from a distinguished German family, and though Father was then only a young officer in training, just sixteen years old, Captain Canaris had taken a liking to him. Over the years, they had become good friends. In 1935 Uncle Wilhelm would become Admiral Canaris and head of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence office. He made Father part of his staff.

Though Uncle Wilhelm came to our home only rarely, I looked forward to his visits. He was very prompt and always arrived for my birthday dinner at precisely the appointed hour; yet I came downstairs fifteen minutes early to wait for him just the same. I sat dressed in my very best on the bottom step of the staircase, hugging my knees in close as I rested my chin on them and stared at the face of the old grandfather clock, willing it to strike seven.

When at long last the magical hour arrived, the heavy brass knocker sounded waltz time, one-two-three, on the front door. I rushed forward to open it, only to be impatiently pushed aside by the uniformed housemaid who had been hired to serve for the evening. Uncle came in the door smiling, murmuring inconsequential complaints about the cold to the housemaid, and bearing a simply enormous and extravagantly wrapped gift in his hands. Though I knew I wouldn’t be permitted to open it until after dessert, it was difficult to keep my eyes off the beribboned box. Guessing what was hidden inside gave me a way to occupy my mind during the long, dull meal and grown-up conversation that I was expected to endure as the silent guest of honor. Uncle always insisted on bringing my present into the dining room and placing it on the sideboard, directly across from my place at the table. I think he knew how gazing at it helped me to pass the time.

Upon handing his coat and hat to the maid, who hung them up and then went to announce the arrival of Captain Canaris to my parents, Uncle pretended to suddenly notice me perched on the stair where I had retreated after being pushed aside by the maid.

Well, well, well! he said cheerfully, drawing his considerable eyebrows together into a single, bristly bunch, like a well-used scrub brush. What do we have here? A mouse hiding on the stair? Come here, little mouse, and let me see how you have grown. I stood up, and he kneeled down, so we were eye to eye as he looked me carefully up and down, declaring, as he did every year, that I must have grown a meter since he last saw me.

I smiled timidly in response, but before I could say anything, Father emerged from his study, wearing his full dress uniform, complete with highly polished shoes and rows of shining medals. Mother followed slowly behind, using a cane to steady her uncertain steps. She was beautiful, dressed in one of the dozens of elegant evening gowns that hung in her dressing room, a glittering reminder of the gay life she had led before I was born, before she first became ill.

Uncle rose from his knees to clasp Father’s outstretched hand. The room always seemed smaller when Father entered it, and, not for the first time, I reflected that it was a good thing Mother and I were so petite or there wouldn’t have been room in the house for us.

Lale, my darling, Uncle purred as he leaned down to kiss Mother on the cheek, You are looking radiant, my dear. It was true. Mother’s face was always radiant. Her cheeks were twin flames in her thin face, feverish reminders of the specter that haunted us all.

The welcoming rituals having been observed, we filed into the dining room and sat down at the table, Father at the head, with Uncle at his right hand and Mother at his left. I sat next to Uncle. This left an empty place next to Mother where Cousin Peter was meant to sit, but he was late. The grownups talked quietly of things that did not interest me. From time to time, Father looked impatiently at his watch. Finally he said, I don’t know what is keeping Peter. He is always late.

"I am sure he is not always late," Mother disagreed gently, but I knew she was wrong.

Whenever Cousin Peter came to dinner he was at least ten minutes late and would enter the dining room breathless and beaming, full of good cheer and complicated explanations. Unlike Uncle Wilhelm, Cousin Peter was an actual relative, descended from our common ancestor, General Yorck, hero of the Napoleonic wars. Father was very proud of our connection to the great General Yorck. When expounding on the shameful state of the German military, as he did tonight to Uncle, he often quoted Yorck’s 1813 speech to the troops in which he declared that the chief virtues of a Prussian soldier were courage, endurance, and discipline.

And then, Father said, fixing his eyes skyward and stabbing the empty air with his index finger to emphasize his point, the Great Yorck said, ‘but the Fatherland expects something more sublime from us who are going into battle for the sacred cause—noble, humane conduct even towards the enemy.’

Finishing the quote, his hand dropped to the table and his lip curled in disgust as he complained to Uncle, These Allied generals know nothing of the honor that should exist between warriors, both victor and vanquished. Uncle nodded in agreement as he sipped wine from his glass. But, neither do we anymore, Father continued. We have forgotten our tradition and honor. That is our shame.

Father put a great store on honor and tradition. Although Cousin Peter was an actual count, titled, and more closely related to the great Yorck than we were, he was far less Prussian than Father, lacking the stiff formality that was the mark of a German military aristocrat. They were nearly the same age, but Peter seemed much younger than Father. Peter was handsome and fun-loving, and I was a little in love with him. I suspected that Father disapproved of his cousin taking up the law, just as he disapproved of his habitual lateness, but he still liked Cousin Peter. However, Peter’s lack of punctuality rankled.

Whatever can be keeping Peter? Father growled as he pulled out his pocket watch to confirm that his cousin was now late by a full quarter-hour.

I am sure he has good reason for his tardiness, Mother said gently. You know what the traffic is like this time of night, Herman.

Father grunted. Captain Canaris had to deal with the same traffic, and he is not late. I don’t think it is fair to keep everyone waiting for their dinner just because—

But before Father could finish his sentence, the door to the dining room burst open and Uncle Peter was in the room, pushing past the housemaid, who looked irritated that he had not given her a chance to announce him properly, kissing Mother on the cheek, shaking hands with Father and Uncle, winking at me as he put his birthday gift on the sideboard next to Uncle’s, all the while offering his profound apologies, saying it simply couldn’t be helped, the shop assistant who had wrapped his gift had taken forever and ...

Well, Father said gruffly but not unkindly, you are here now, and that is what is important. Please, sit down. He got to his feet and motioned toward the empty place next to Mother. Turning to the maid, he inclined his head slightly to indicate that she could begin to serve.

The meal consisted of three courses and two wines and one birthday cake. I ate my slice of cake with relish and thought with pleasure about what was to come next.

When the plates were cleared I would finally be allowed to open my gifts. What would I find in those boxes? A bright-eyed Steiff bear? An elegantly dressed doll? One year I received a hand-painted miniature tea set imported from England. What about this year? Uncle Wilhelm and Cousin Peter never failed to give me the perfect gift, and I never needed parental prompting to bestow sincere kisses of thanks on their cheeks. Afterward we would retire to the music room, and the grownups would sip sherry from tiny crystal glasses while I played the piano for the prescribed half-hour, always opening the concert with my favorite, Für Elise, and closing with Uncle’s favorite, The Blue Danube waltz. When the clock struck nine, Mother would suggest that it was time for me to go to bed. With my bedroom door left slightly ajar, I would fall asleep to the sounds of pleasant, rumbling male voices punctuated by Mother’s tinkling laughter and occasional cough.

Certainly, my birthday celebrations were quite subdued and predictable compared to many other children’s, yet I liked them just the way they were. Growing up in the shadow of my mother’s illness made me cherish the tradition and regularity of the occasion, as though observing our little rituals with exactness and precision would keep anything from changing. But it didn’t work that year, my eighth. I didn’t realize it yet, but that was the year when everything began to change—for me, for my family, for Germany, for the entire world.

As I scraped the last bite of icing off the plate and onto my fork, I heard a faint murmur of voices outside that grew in strength and volume as the moments passed, like a distant sound of rushing water that grows and swells when a current carries you to the edge of the falls. I saw a flicker of candlelight that became a glow through the darkness, illuminating the white lace curtains of the windows, bathing them in heat and yellow light. I looked around at the faces of the grownups to see if they’d heard it too. They had. The stiff, uncomfortable set of Father’s jaw and the studied indifference of Uncle’s expression told me that they were as aware that something was happening outside as I was. Mother started making aimless small talk with Cousin Peter about the cake, commenting that she didn’t think it was as moist as it should have been. They were all working so hard to ignore the noises outside that I somehow sensed I should do the same, but when the swelling voices began to sing, I couldn’t help myself. I jumped out of my chair, pushed open the French doors, and ran out onto the dining room balcony. The grownups followed me, slowly, and stood framed in the door behind me.

The street below was crowded with young people, singing and carrying torches, marching in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate. There were so many of them that the sky glowed orange-red with the light of the torches they carried. The air was electric with their excitement, and, for one silly moment, I was excited too, thinking that the parade was somehow connected with my birthday. The marchers finished singing, and a handsome young boy dressed in a brown shirt with military-looking braid, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, saw me leaning over the balcony railing and grinned at me. Raising his arm at a stiff, sharp angle, he shouted, Heil Hitler! and, as if in answer to his call, the other marchers shouted lustily, Heil Hitler! They began singing again, even more loudly and enthusiastically than before. The sound was so powerful and the atmosphere so thick with their expectation that I could feel the hair standing up on my neck.

I spun around to face the grownups, too excited to take much note of their serious expressions. Mother! Father! Look how many people there are! I exclaimed breathlessly. There’s no end to them! I pointed down the street in the direction that the marchers had come from. It was true; the crowds of people stretched down Wilhelmstrasse as far as the eye could see, as though the parade stretched to the horizon and the marchers had been mysteriously summoned from the bowels of the earth.

What are they so excited about? I asked. I was young and knew nothing of the political turmoil of recent days. Who is Hitler?

He is the new chancellor, Mother answered without offering further explanation.

Father snorted derisively at her simple description. "He is a thug with delusions of grandeur. He is a former wallpaper hanger and a former corporal." He spoke this last word with a sneer. Worldly I was not, but I was an officer’s daughter, and even at the age of eight, I knew that corporals ranked very low on the list of persons one must concern oneself with. Corporals were not people who merited parades.

Father’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the columns of torches advancing past him. Stupid sheep, he commented to no one in particular. He shook himself as if in response to a sudden chill. Come, Lale, he said. Elise. Come inside. It’s cold. Come inside before you catch a chill.

Mother and I did as we were bid. Father and Uncle followed behind, and I heard Uncle say, Flash in the pan, Herman. Nothing to worry about. He may be chancellor, but the strength of Germany still lies with the military. He needs us more than we need him. He can be managed. You’ll see.

I am not so sure about that, interjected Cousin Peter. He becomes stronger every day. Two years ago, or even one, could anyone have imagined that this would have happened? He may only be a former corporal, Cousin Herman, but now he is chancellor of Germany. He is powerful, cunning, and ambitious. A year ago you might have been able to manage him. He turned his head and scanned the crowds of chanting young people streaming by, their eyes unnaturally bright and fixed, as if they were gripped by some feverish delirium. A cloud of concern passed over Peter’s normally cheerful face. He doesn’t need you anymore. He has them.

For a moment the adults were silent. I could feel the tension among them, and I drew close to Mother, leaning my head against her hip. She looked down at me and smiled. Peter! Herman! she remonstrated cheerily. Have we forgotten? It’s Elise’s birthday! This is no time to discuss politics. Not when we have a gifts to open and a lovely evening of music planned!

At Mother’s prompting, we all adjourned to the music room. I was finally allowed to open my presents—a charming Victorian dollhouse complete with five rooms of furniture and a family of tiny dolls from Uncle, and from Cousin Peter, a truly exquisite book, The Children’s Encyclopedia of Animals, filled with lifelike illustrations and information on animals from all over the world. I was delighted.

Now, my little mouse, Uncle said, pinching my cheek playfully, you must give us something in return. A song. Yes?

I sat down on the piano bench and began, but I had to strike the keys more firmly than usual to be heard over the singing outside. It threw off my timing. For the first time in my life, my fingers stumbled across the keyboard and I had to begin again.

I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, but this day was the beginning of the end of my childhood. In a few short years my town, and my nation would be transformed. The map of my world ended a few hundred meters from our house on Alexander Platz, and my country was Mother’s bedroom. However, even that private land was soon to change.

Her cough got worse. There were no more parties, not even small ones. She almost never left her room. She liked to hear me play, said the music eased the pain and the fits of coughing more than all the doctor’s pills and powders, so Father had the piano moved to her room. I spent my afternoons playing to her. If she was awake she would applaud weakly after each piece, her hands delicate and so pale they might have been carved from ivory, fluttering like the wings of a dove. When she fell asleep, I continued to play, never lifting my foot from the soft pedal, the notes a quiet accompaniment to her dreams. In those early days, when Mother would go through a particularly bad spell, I would play longer and more intensely. Time and time again, she rallied in response, and I came to believe that the music healed her and that as long as I kept playing, Mother would live. For a long time it was true, but one winter she was worse, and nothing I played seemed to help.

Each morning, when I would pull aside the heavy drapes that covered the bedroom windows, she seemed a fraction smaller, her skin a shade paler. She was quietly disappearing, and as the months passed, I grew more and more afraid that one day I would tiptoe into the thick blackness of her darkened bedroom, pull back the curtains to let in the morning sun, and find that she was simply gone.

I convinced Father to allow me to leave school and study at home. In our hearts we both knew the end was coming, and we both tried to deny it. For Father that meant removing himself from the hurt by working longer and longer hours, staying as far away as possible from Mother’s little room, a room that smelled like camphor and secrets. For me it meant staying as close to Mother as possible, knowing that while my music urged her not to leave me, she would fight to live as long as she could.

How well I remember those years, sitting on the floor near Mother’s bed, studying quietly when she was asleep, reading to her from my textbooks when she was awake, playing music to distract her when the pain was worse. It was a private play in which Mother and I acted out the only important parts, with occasional cameo appearances by Father, doctors, nurses, and housemaids.

Father spoke to me about Mother’s illness only once. He called me into his study to say he’d heard of the Schatzalp sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland. It had a wonderful reputation. Many of its patients came home completely cured after months of exposure to the resin-scented pine forests and healthful climate. Mother was awfully sick. She could not sleep at night because the coughing never stopped. Father explained that after Uncle had pulled some strings with a Swiss cousin who knew one of the doctors at Schatzalp, he had been able to secure a bed for Mother.

She will be leaving for the sanatorium tomorrow, Father said. I will take her there myself.

No! I cried, surprising both him and myself with this outburst of protest. I had never contradicted him before. You can’t send her away! Those places never do any good, anyway.

In the past, Mother had gone to various sanatoriums for short periods of time and always came home improved, but not cured.

Elise, Father began gently, you must understand—

She will get better, I insisted. You’ll see. She always gets better. I am the only one who knows how to take care of her. Mother says that no one but me knows how to make her tea properly. There won’t be any pianos there, and no one to play them if there are! You’ll kill her! I shouted. Father stared at me hard, as if he didn’t quite recognize me. I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak more calmly.

Please, Father. Don’t send her away. She needs me, I said pleadingly. I can make her better. I know I can! I’ve been working on a new sonata. Mozart’s C Minor. Her favorite. It is very difficult, but I’m practicing as hard as I can. Soon I’ll have it, and then ... Father’s eyebrows drew together, and he studied me with a mixture of concern and confusion.

I stopped in midsentence, knowing I wouldn’t be able to make him understand. As Mother’s illness progressed I had forced myself to learn more and more difficult pieces, believing that somehow only the sacrifice of my time and effort would satisfy the greedy god of tuberculosis. So far it had worked. Each time I stretched myself and mastered a more difficult piece, Mother rallied just as she had the day I’d first played for her. Well, not quite like that. She was never as well as that again, but she was still alive. The Mozart was the hardest composition I’d ever attempted, not because of its technical difficulty, though it certainly was a challenge, but because it required an emotional depth that seemed beyond me. Mother loved it for just that reason. It is so impulsive! So personal! she would say. "As if he is finally