A Traitor to Memory

She nods towards Wigmore Street, where the box office is, where she apparently has gone at first to seek me out. They would have told her that the performers for the evening had not yet arrived, Madam, and that when they do arrive, they use the back entrance and not the front. So if she cared to wait there, she might have the opportunity to speak to Mr. Davies, although the box office couldn't guarantee that Mr. Davies would have the time to speak to her.

She says, “Four hundred thousand pounds, Gideon. Your father claims he does not have it. So I come to you because I know that you must.”





And the world as I know it is shrinking shrinking disappearing entirely into a single bead of light. From that bead grows sound, and I hear the Beethoven, the Allegro Moderato, The Archduke's first movement, and then Dad's voice.

He said, “Act like a man, for the love of God. Sit up. Stand up. Stop cowering there like a beaten dog! Jesus! Stop sniveling. You're acting like this is—”





I heard no more because I knew suddenly what all of this was, and I knew what this had always been. I remembered it all in a piece—like the music itself—and the music was the background and the act that went with that music as background was what I had forced myself to forget.

I am in my room. Raphael is displeased, more displeased than he has ever been, and he has been displeased, on edge, anxious, nervous, and irritable for days. I have been petulant and uncooperative. Juilliard has been denied me. Juilliard has been listed amongst the impossibilities that I am growing used to hearing about. This isn't possible, that isn't possible, trim here, cut there, make allowances for. So I'll show them, I decide. I won't play this stupid violin again. I won't practise. I won't have lessons. I won't perform in public. I won't perform in private, for myself or for anyone. I will show them.

Raphael marches me to my room. He puts on the recording of The Archduke and says, “I'm losing patience with you, Gideon. This is not a difficult piece. I want you to listen to the first movement till you can hum it in your sleep.”





He leaves me, shuts the door. And the Allegro Moderato begins.

I say, “I won't, I won't, I won't!” And I upset a table and kick over a chair and slam my body into the door. “You can't make me!” I shout. “You can't make me do anything!”





And the music swells. The piano introduces the melody. All is hushed and ready for the violin and cello. Mine is not a difficult part to learn, not for someone with natural gifts like myself. But what will be the point of learning it when I cannot go to Juilliard? Although Perlman did. As a boy, he went there. But I will not. And this is unfair. This is bloody unfair. Everything about my world is unfair. I will not do this. I will not accept this.

And the music swells.

I fling open my door. I shout “No!” and “I won't!” into the corridor. I think someone will come, will march me somewhere and administer discipline, but no one comes because they are all busy with their own concerns and not with mine. And I'm angry at this because it is my world that is being affected. It is my life that is being moulded. It is my will that is being thwarted, and I want to punch my fist into the wall.

And the music swells. And the violin soars. And I will not play this piece of music at Juilliard or anywhere else because I must remain here. In this house, where we're all prisoners. Because of her.

The knob is under my hand before I realise it, the panels of the door inches from my face. I will burst in and frighten her. I will make her cry. I will make her pay. I will make them pay.

She isn't frightened. But she is alone. Alone in the tub with the yellow ducklings bobbing nearby and a bright red boat that she's slapping at happily with her fist. And she deserves to be frightened, to be thrashed, to be made to understand what she's done to me, so I grab her and shove her beneath the water and see her eyes widen and widen and widen and feel her struggle to sit up again.

And the music—that music—swells and swells. On and on it goes. For minutes. For days.

And then Katja is there. She screams my name. And Raphael is right behind her yes, because yes, I understand it all now: They have been talking the two of them talking, which is why Sonia has been left alone, and he has been demanding to know if what Sarah-Jane Beckett has whispered is true. Because he has a right to know, he says. He says this as he enters the bathroom on Katja's heels. It is what he's saying as he enters and she screams. He says, “… Because if you are, it's mine and you know it. I do have the right—”





And the music swells.

And Katja screams, screams for my father and Raphael shouts, “Oh my God! Oh my God” but I do not release her. I do not release her even then because I know that the end of my world began with her.

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