Shouting Upon the Strings

Madame Marguerite truly knew nothing.

It's been over two years now, Teacher.

It was true that the boy named Xavier Bransen had left a strong impression on her, but two years was more than enough time for even those complicated feelings about him to fade.

Her curiosity was, on occasion, satisfied by nothing more than reading the newspapers that carried articles about the Bransen family.

That Xavier Bransen had won prizes at several competitions and sent ripples through the music world might as well have been news from a stranger, a distant country she had never visited.

I want to become a great ballerina. I want to be recognized by the people of Beloff—at least until I'm married off, as my father intends.

Didn't you tell me once, child? To love something is to let it change your life.

It was an aphorism rooted, quite literally, in her earliest memories. Softened though it was with the word "like," the truer version would have been: to love something is to allow that something to change you.

The prodigy violinist she had met as a child—that boy had unmistakably left his mark on her life.

But Dolores at fifteen was no longer naive. She had learned how to put on airs.

Teacher, that hardly makes sense. If I graduate from Quinir and then enter Le Havre, it would take at least another year—and surely a boy who enrolled four years before me would have graduated by now?

I suppose so.

Madame Marguerite had smiled with the face of someone who knew everything.

The following year, at sixteen, Dolores's tireless efforts bore fruit: an acceptance letter arrived from the Le Havre Higher Music and Dance Academy.

The acceptance letter from Le Havre was the very emblem of a long-held, desperate wish.

But by the time the letter actually reached her hands, a great deal had changed. A single year was enough to turn circumstances upside down.

She was the same—only the world had changed.

Her father's income had become irregular once more, and he drank away every coin they had on liquor and the household's petty luxuries.

Her mother, whose mending work alone could not stretch far enough, had pushed herself too hard and grown frail, until she was forced to take on less rather than more.

Life had grown unbearably tight. Dolores had once overheard her lamenting to the woman next door, in a voice heavy with resignation: "At this rate, I may have to give up work altogether..."

Anais and Pablo were still too young to contribute to the household. Someone had to make the hard choice, and if it came to it, that someone would be Dolores. Her father gave the order.

Dolores, it's time you stopped wasting your days on nonsense and found yourself work.

The acceptance letter became a meaningless sheet of paper. Every ounce of effort, dissolved into nothing. Dolores wept for three days and three nights.

And then, a few days later, her mother said:

"Pack your bags. You and I are going on a little trip."

Dolores insisted she didn't want to move an inch, but her mother repeated, "Pack your bags," with a firmness she had never shown before.

She had never been so resolute. It was impossible to defy her. Her mother went so far as to override her father's objections.

"Where on earth do you think you're going?"

"I told you days ago."

"I said don't go filling her head with foolishness!"

"Does one bruise just from going to look? Really, you... just go inside. Don't forget to mind Anais and Pablo."

"Has your mind turned to mush? With Pablo's schooling not even settled yet!"

Truthfully, Dolores was a little stunned. She had never once in her life seen her mother brush aside her father's words like that and shut the door in his face.

"What on earth is going on?" she asked, somehow uneasy, but her mother only smiled gently.

And so Dolores and her mother set out on a journey of three days.

Nearly all of it had faded from her memory. Only one moment remained: standing before their destination in Ruisseron, at the end of a full day and half of jolting travel by carriage, clutching her mother's hand and sobbing out loud.

The carriage had come to a stop in front of the Le Havre Higher Music and Dance Academy in Ruisseron.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"To have a look."

"Are you making fun of me? I can't enroll here no matter what."

"...Dolores, I know you have talent. If you're going to give something up because of this family, then before you decide—before any of it—I want to know what you're giving up. And just how much it matters."

Her mother's eyes were already red, and so Dolores could not summon the voice to complain.

Le Havre was a magnificent structure from another age altogether.

Gray-brown brick walls harbored a dignity that no amount of time could hide, and the students crossing the courtyard each seemed to shimmer with vitality, with energy, with hope for the future.

Walking the green lawn of the campus behind her mother, Dolores could not shake the thought that all of it only deepened her gloom.

They said this was an awfully expensive school. I suppose it's true.

"...It has over a hundred years of tradition. The artists' guild treats graduates of Ruisseron and Beurge as entirely separate breeds."

Weren't this place and Lauranche supposed to be the most prestigious?

"Beurge is just a way of separating those born to the capital's elite from everyone else. So for people who truly understand music and dance, what matters is whether you came from Ruisseron or not. Skill matters more than connections, they always say."

Dolores spoke with a carefully veiled note of pride.

Oh dear.

Hack, hack. Her mother coughed into her fist, as though caught mid-confession, and Dolores handed her a flask of water.

Her mother turned back toward Le Havre's main hall with a face that was bright and resolute and, for some reason, strangely dissonant all at once.

"...I see."

The girls of the dance conservatory ran past in formation, chins tilted high with studied indifference, while the musicians carried instruments large and small wherever they went.

Beneath a splendid statue of a trumpet in the center of the courtyard, a small group of boys had gathered, tuning oboes and flutes. Something in her chest grew warm.

"...You know, I loved dancing too, when I was young."

You, Mother?

"Your father doesn't actually hate dance, either. Deep down, he doesn't."

Dolores found it hard to believe—but she felt she could grasp her mother's heart, and so she held back her tears.

"Graduates of Le Havre have always placed first at the competitions. They win awards as naturally as breathing, and built their standing on skill alone. There are famous dancers, of course, but actors too, and playwrights. Musicians as well..."

Her mother caught the shoulders of the girl who rattled on in a hoarse, breathless voice, and smiled.

"I know it's remarkable. Now—shall we rest a while before we go?"

"Yes."

Hunting for shade, Dolores and her mother settled beneath a great tree with a clear view of the lawn.

Her mother gazed out over the campus with a face full of thought, and even Dolores, who had nursed a quiet resentment against her, soon began to feel a twinge of guilt.

Commotion rippled from the far side of the green. Not far off, a crowd of boys came sprinting across the grass in a ragged line. Tall, striking young men, all of them.

And then, quite suddenly—truly, as if by fate—something caught the eye where the boys had passed.

A banner, strung between two trees, supported on either side like a scaffold.

...Xavier.

She had thought she'd forgotten.

Dolores sank into a strangely absurd feeling. All that disparaging talk about Le Havre—and apparently the boy was still enrolled there.

By now, Xavier would not so much as remember her name. And yet, like someone reading news of an old friend's triumphant debut, she felt an unfamiliar warmth bloom inside her chest.

Mother, do you remember? The children from the Bransen family, the ones Madame Roux took in. I... I knew that boy.

She stared so hard and so long that her mother spoke up.

"It says today's the day. Shall we go and watch?"