The following work of non-fiction was originally going to be included in our latest electronic issue, Student Writing Showcase. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to cut it from the project. However, we are pleased to present The Music of Love, here on WORD. It is a wonderful piece of student writing that should be read and celebrated by as many people as possible. After you have finished reading it, talk to your grandparents and find out their true love story. Then write about it and share it with us. You can send your work to word@weeklyreader.com.
The Music of Love
by Polina Senderova
I glance up at my grandmother. She is staring at the passenger seat, though I don't see anything very interesting on it, or in it. She bends forward and mutters something to my mother. Something about my grandfather.
I pull on her sleeve, and she turns to me. "Grandma, how did you and Grandpa meet?" It was a random thought, though I admit I had been interested in it in the past.
She sighs. "It was long ago." She looks back to the front seat and gazes at it for a second. But I am already too curious to let it go.
"But how?" I plead. "Tell me!"
"It will be hard. The memories are harder to remember than to forget." But I knew by her tone that she would try, that she was glad I asked. "It seems like only yesterday," she begins. "I was young, new, fresh. Alive." She has a distant, far-away look in her wrinkled, cerulean eyes as her story begins.
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She was 16 years old when her violin instructor told her that she was ready for what was perhaps the most thrilling voyage of her life. She was to journey to America to attend a music festival in New York City. It was the experience of a lifetime and one she knew she'd never forget.
She arrived at her room in the dormitories. She had no roommate, and she was in a large room, big enough to fit a football team in, all by herself.
Her first day there was the first in the country, and, of course, a lot went wrong. She had several near-vomiting experiences of the strange American food, and a few conflicts with some complicated technology she did not know how to use.
The year was 1938, and the small village in Russia from which she came was completely behind in the development of society, especially in comparison to the U.S. Her first day, she had a private lesson and signed up for recitals, competitions, and master classes. She survived breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and heard a few concerts. Once, she thought she heard someone else conversing in Russian, in the cafeteria. It was during lunch, and she got so excited that she spilled her glass of water on the floor and did not get a chance to say anything. Her teacher, however, did speak Russian so she was able to communicate with her.
"Maria," she told her, "your hands are too tense to play."
It was fine to play with tense hands in Russia, she thought. The tension was what kept her in tune and in rhythm.
After a long and tiring day she dropped on her soft, high throne of a bed and fell fast asleep, with dreams full of memories of the friends she missed and of the little everyday traditions America just did not seem to hold.
The second day she had chamber for the first time, which is where she first met him.
"I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on your grandfather. He was--" she paused dramatically, "--he was shy, out of place, and lonely. Just like me."
He played first violin, and she was second. They also had a violist, a cellist, and a pianist, but she didn't get to know them nearly as well. It was a flea of a room, disproportionately small in a large building, in which the six of them were forced to squeeze like freckles on an otherwise pale face.
Their teacher was a short, stump woman with a large suitcase full of scores for them all, which obviously weighed her down even more than her enormous glasses. She handed out a Dvorák quintet, a very quick-paced piece full of tricky rhythms and very high positions, especially in the first violin part.
"Richard, Maria, Cathy, Jordan, Anna," she called out, addressing all of them in position order in her strong, conspicuous Korean accent. "In this class you will learn to play together, in tune, in tempo, in time. There are five of you here and only one of me, so please try to cooperate and this will be easier for us all."
My grandmother, however, had not understood a word of what she said and had a Russian translator later clarify it. But at that time, she merely smiled and nodded, deciding not to give herself away.
As they began to play, she looked around, observing the others. She was not the only nervous one; the first violinist, my grandfather, was also quite flustered, (although he still played exceptionally well, whereas my grandmother's insecurities tangled with her performance.)
After they sight-read through the piece once, the teacher provided them all with comments, but Maria, of course, couldn't understand them, and it seemed that Richard didn't either.
They went on to the next movement, where the two violinists played a solo together. Maria felt the bond between them, through their violins and the music they played. He felt it too, and he gave her a timid smile when they ceased. Their teacher let them conclude and the others left while Maria and Richard walked to the cafeteria together.
"You--you like play?" Maria struggled to say something he might understand.
He looked at her for a moment--straight into her eyes while his own scrunched up like a napkin--then nodded his head and exhaled. "I like play."
She beamed and he led her to the cafeteria where they sat and ate lunch together. They did not say a word the whole time. Maria often considered other things that she could try to say, but eventually gave up in despair.
When they were finished eating, they walked outside and both sat on the steps with their cases. "Play?" one of them said.
Five minutes later, they were both in Maria's room, practicing their instruments. It was their only common language--the song they played. They played it over and over again, each time feeling closer to each other. Before they knew it, it was late and they found themselves running to the cafeteria again before it closed. They each consumed one small piece of bread and half a drumstick. They implicitly decided to go to a recital playing that night, with a guest musician from northern Europe. They both enjoyed his repertoire and his interpretation of the song.
The next day they sat together on the bus to the school in which their orchestra rehearsals took place. She stared out her window at the windmill they passed and sighed. Two days in America, and she already had a friend. She turned around to look at him and he smiled.
They arrived at orchestra and she opened her case, putting aside the Russian flag she used to cover her violin. To her surprise, he opened his case and she saw a German flag sticking out of it. She stared at it for a moment, mesmerized, until she blinked and returned to her own instrument.
They played Schubert's infamous Unfinished Symphony, along with a Mozart concerto in which they were accompanying a girl who won first place in the previous year's competition.
And so it went on for the next few days, which turned into weeks, as both their concerts loomed closer and closer. Before they knew it, they were all dressed up and standing backstage, silently wishing each other good luck for their final concerts, in both chamber and orchestra.
The orchestra performance went smoothly, and no mistakes were heard, at least not by the audience. Then came chamber, and the five artists were waiting backstage for the previous group to end. Finally, the anticipated applause came, and four small girls exited the stage, beaming at the world and wishing Maria's group good luck.
They walked out onto the spotlight: Richard, followed by Maria, and then the others in their order. My grandparents exchanged a look before they started to play. It was part of the plan, they were supposed to, but there was something more in that look than was required. It lasted forever, seconds broadened into weeks, into years. Richard took a quick breath, their cue for an upbeat, and they began...
They began to play, and Maria, at that moment, saw and heard nothing more than him as her violin expressed how she felt: vibrating as she tore through the strings with her bow.
The concert ended (they closed it) and the crowd went wild with applause. They all bowed synchronously, grinning at each other in triumph, and exited the stage.
That night, all of the other children threw a party, but Maria and Richard decided not to go, and opted instead to spend their last night on the continent together. They walked outside, where it was getting dark and the stars were just coming out and winking upon the couple. They looked at each other, joyful, yet still miserable deep inside that they could not use words to tell each other how they felt. They couldn’t make a promise to come back to America next summer or even to visit each other. They weren't even able to express their love to one another. Not with words, anyway.
That night was when my grandparents shared their first kiss. It was a spontaneous kiss, with no warning or words before it. They both simply bent in after walking a distance and connected.
It was their last day before a year of no contact, for they had no way of keeping in touch.
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"Those were hard times for us all." My grandmother tells me. "After we parted ways, I had no way of knowing if he was even alive." Her voice turns forlorn, and I realize how hard the memories must be. "But then, finally, after a long, presumably endless year, we met again."
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Maria was split right in half trying to decide what to do. Half of her wanted to race to that camp faster than the swiftest bullet on Earth and waste no time in trying to find him. But the other half was more cautious, more hesitant, more afraid of disappointment. During that year, she had taught herself a bit of German with every hope of being able to speak to him. She wanted nothing more than to surprise him with his familiar language, a feat she knew he would love.
She breathed slowly and impatiently as her train came closer and closer to her destination. She stared out her window as she passed animals, farms, and people, living their own lives. As she came even closer, the familiar windmill which she so acutely remembered welcomed her back.
She couldn't help jumping off the train when it came to a halt, regardless of the heavy bags that weighed her down. When she arrived at the campus (she had to walk), she stepped inside the office to check in.
The receptionist recognized her from the preceding summer. She received the key to her new room, and made her way upstairs until she saw her door. Suddenly, she heard someone say something, and she could have sworn that it was in Russian. She turned around, hoping perhaps her roommate was able to speak it, but instead, she saw another.
As her head turned, she realized something, and her eyes widened. She knew that voice--as little as she had heard it, she had dreamed of it every night for a year. She turned fully around and nearly banged heads with Richard. Her heart danced around in her chest, full of life, harmony, and completion. Her eyebrows camouflaged into her copper-colored hair as she desperately tried to think of something to say.
What was the word she had memorized on the train ride? What was that phrase her German acquaintance had told her to say, should the need arise? She could not remember a single word of the language which she spent every waking moment of the past school year memorizing. She stuttered something in gibberish as she looked up at him. He, however, was smiling, as he repeated, perfectly and clearly in Russian possibly better than her own.
"Welcome back," he had said, "I missed you."
Absolutely perfect Russian! Better than even mine, she thought. "Me, too," she answered in her native Russian, then shook her head blinking and repeated the phrase in German: "Me, too."
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"I doubt anybody was more surprised than I was," my grandmother tells me. "All the obstacles were put aside and we were able to truly communicate. In my whole life, there was never anything nearly as magical."
