“To me, that’s no different from composing. I just do it because I do it. It’s not a matter of whether it’s enjoyable or not.”

“So in other words, composing just flows out of you naturally, the same way talking or breathing does.”

That wasn’t quite the point I had been trying to make, but it wasn’t wrong either. I said nothing and stared blankly at Peter’s face, and eventually a hollow laugh slipped out of him.

“I have to rack my brain to the point of bursting just to write a single piece, and geniuses have it flow out naturally like talking. What does that feel like? Do you just go around feeling incredibly impressive? Being a genius is genuinely infuriating.”

This time Peter’s words were genuinely funny to me. People who used the word infuriating to my face were fairly rare. Unable to hold it in, I let out a laugh, and Peter’s expression began to twist more and more at the sight of it. The word infuriating that had first slipped out of his mouth had clearly been a joke, but that twisting face was real.

“But why have you been agonizing over this so much? It’s not like you at all. These are all half-finished scores.”

Peter waved the sheet music in front of me with a goading expression. The pages were covered in thick black lines scratched through the notes.

“I’m not sure. It’s rare for me to have this much trouble writing a piece. I genuinely don’t know why.”

Looking at the crumpled scores, some with barely ten measures and others not even one complete bar, my head began to ache again. To escape the scores that were making my eyes swim, I decided to simply close them.

With the darkness came the sound of Peter sighing. The rustling of the sheet music that had been fluttering before me was already gone. The breeze drifting in through the open window and the sunlight still pouring onto my face made my drowsy mind grow languid. My body grew heavy, on the verge of slipping into sleep, and the tangled thoughts that had been running on and on began to fade to white.

“Teacher? Don’t fall asleep uncomfortably on the sofa. Go to your room and rest properly.”

Peter’s voice ringing in my ear grew more and more distant. Through that fading voice came the sound of a piano from long ago. A familiar sound. The melody of a sonata I had once loved to play. The sound draws closer, little by little.

I know I can no longer move my hands the way I once did, and yet I can’t help but move my fingers anyway. It was a kind of instinct. As I moved my hands, I could actually feel the weight of the keys beneath my fingertips, as though they were really there. I know it’s foolish and impossible, but the solid sensation of the keys touching back put me in a good mood.

My hands dance along with the music that follows. C, B, A. With each slow movement of my fingertips following the long breath, notes bloomed. But the ease doesn’t last. Following the rising flow of the melody, my hands move faster and faster, and the force pressing down on the keys grows stronger. A little more, a little more. The moment my mouth runs completely dry in the quiet intensity.

“Hm?”

Someone grabbed the hand playing the piano. The soft warmth touching my cool hand was deeply unfamiliar. I startled and opened my eyes, and what came into view was a small, pale hand laid over mine. Following the fingertips with my gaze, a small child was staring at my hand with a blank expression. Red hair and grey eyes. The childhood version of you, whom I know so well, unfolded before me.

“Excuse me.”

I opened my mouth carefully, and life returned to the hazy grey eyes. The moment those eyes, now fully in focus, met mine.

“Oh, it worked? I actually caught it.”

The child murmured blankly and let go of the hand she had been holding. The warmth that had been touching my hand receded in an instant. The child’s face was now full of bewilderment. She was rolling her eyes this way and that, thinking hard about something. Before I could even begin to guess what, the child scrambled backward.

“S, sorry!”

And then the apology that followed. With every step of the child’s retreat without waiting for an answer, her hair flew behind her. Right. You and me, our first meeting. This is the memory of that day.

In an instant my vision filled with red, but the red that filled my eyes lasted only a moment. The child who had grabbed my hand out of nowhere and left nothing but a strange apology behind quickly receded to the far reaches of memory. 

At the time, I had been busy being dragged around by the director to perform here and there, and since he had been scheduling two or three performances a day, I would come back to the orphanage room each night and collapse, utterly spent. The performance at the Astrid salon was just one engagement in that relentless schedule, so naturally the strange little child I happened to cross paths with made no great impression on me.

Still, the pale face full of bewilderment and the red hair that contrasted so sharply with it did come to mind from time to time. Perhaps the boldness of reaching out to a complete stranger without hesitation, so unlike the orphanage children who were accustomed to keeping their guard up around unfamiliar people, had quietly lodged itself in my memory. 

But if it hadn’t been for the unexpected visitor who came to the orphanage unannounced, I might never have thought deeply about that child for the rest of my life.

It was one of those days when I was moving from one performance to the next without pause. From early that morning, a strangely charged air had hung over the orphanage. The director, who usually wore a permanent scowl and swatted at the children, was grinning from ear to ear, and I, who was usually rushing off to find the next place to perform, was still at the orphanage.

“Sio. You have a visitor. Do you remember? Lady Astrid.”

In the late afternoon, as the sun began to sink. The director came to inform me of Lady Astrid’s visit, finding me tense from the strange atmosphere that had hung over the place all day. The director was patting my shoulder with an uncharacteristically broad smile, which gave me the feeling it wasn’t bad news, but I had no idea why that woman would be coming to see me.

I already knew of Lady Astrid’s reputation. People commonly called her Madame Astrid, and while making the rounds of various salons to perform, her name had come up at least once from the mouths of nearly every musician I met. Among the great patrons who wielded influence over the music world, she was said to hold the strongest sway of all.

But why would someone like that come here? My mind is filled with question marks. I had performed at her salon once before, arranged by the director, but her response at the time had been thoroughly underwhelming. I still remembered clearly how the director’s confident expression had grown stiffer and stiffer at her cold reaction.

“The conditions here are not quite what I expected. It looked reasonably decent from the outside.”

Lady Astrid looked around the orphanage with the same cold expression as that day and clicked her tongue. Every time her gaze landed on some part of the facility, the director let out a pathetic laugh, not knowing what to do with himself. Seeing the director, who lorded over the children here like a tyrant, crawling like a dog somehow left me feeling hollow.

Before her gaze could reach any more of the place, the director quickly ushered me and her into the consultation room. He served her tea with a rather self-satisfied expression, claiming it had come from some fine establishment, but the sour smile that appeared on her face made it clear the tea was nothing special.

“Well then, have your conversation. I should go spend some time with the children. They’re always looking for me.”

Flustered by her expression, the director made up a flimsy excuse and slipped out of the consultation room. She gave him a light nod and pushed the tea she had barely sipped to the corner of the table.

“Sit down. Oh, you know who I am, don’t you? You came to our salon not long ago. With Mr. Manuel.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m not sure why you wanted to see me.”

I sat down across from Lady Astrid and asked what seemed like a reasonable enough question, and to my surprise, a flicker of astonishment crossed her face.

“My goodness. So you had no idea, Mr. Lieselotte? Why Mr. Manuel brought you to our salon.”

“I was told you wanted to hear me play.”

“Is that so? Well, it’s not entirely wrong, I suppose.”

Her fingers tapped lightly on the table. Watching her pause and search for words, looking slightly caught off guard, I gathered that some conversation I was not privy to had taken place between her and the director. It wasn’t particularly surprising. Everything the director had ever done was like that. Arranging performance schedules, setting up meetings, all of it was one-sided.

While I was calmly taking in the situation, the hand tapping the table came to a stop. A composed smile had settled on her face.

“You’re probably aware that I’m quite an influential figure in this field. I hold regular salons for young artists, and when I see someone with promise, I support their recitals or recommend them for good positions. Because of that, many people try to get close to me from all directions. Most of those cases are nobodies not worth my time, but the rumors about you, Mr. Lieselotte, were rather interesting.”