tall,” not to rest the neck on my wrist. And to be mindful of my technique, always, not just when “trying” Bach or Dvořák. Even the folk stuff I was wasting my talent on deserved at least the poor justice flesh and blood could give it. I knew that voice. If I’d listened, I


could have heard it every time I put my violin to my neck. Before I struck a note, I could feel her adjusting my form. After, I could feel her running commentary. But I was mostly unaware or dismissive of the voice. Even in that moment, for instance, I disputed to myself her doubts about mountain music. But it wasn’t the time for discord. She had sought out my violin—her violin—across a continent and years of absence. I could count on her to be listening wherever I went, with her rare ear, even when I fiddled to an audience of none, and even if defying her counsel,


if that’s what my beautiful folk song demanded of its player. To pay your proper respects to a lady like


Miss Gross, long after having missed her funeral, you’d have to play the tunes better than a boy ever had. I could do little more than thank her softly aloud for her lessons and promise that her spirit came through in every measure. After this small, prayer-like gesture, the


only sound in the room was the call of the music. Like the unheard scream, it too came from a place that few may ever find and, often in the years that followed, a place that no one at all could find, because that’s what I sometimes became in the squares and streets: no one. But I answered the call. The grave could have had me for all I cared. The ones who give themselves to music—like Miss Gross, like Tyler and Ed—live beyond this life.


by William Huhn and friends Play to Listen


“I Know You Rider”


An earlier version of this story was published in the Jabberwock Review in Summer 2011 34


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