She opened her eyes and assessed her reflection, awareness glinting out of her dark irises. She had to be no more tonight than the active component of her violin. No extraneous emotion – and no rustling dress – must upset the flow from Schumann’s mind to the audience’s. A musician is the truest medium there is. She, her technique and the Bergonzi were his channel now from world to world.

She let her sister massage her hands, one at a time. In the hall the orchestra was warming up; some overture was opening the programme, she couldn’t remember which. She tried to blot out all that was extraneous, all that was physical. The concerto existed in sound alone, nothing that could be seen, claimed and owned. Everyone wanted to pierce it with a pin and fix it to a velvet board, but it belonged to everybody and nobody. It was the sum total of all that had passed: imagined by Schumann, nurtured by Clara, fired up by Brahms, twisted by Onkel Jo, guarded by all those gatekeepers, meddled with by Goebbels and Hindemith and even perhaps Ulli. Yehudi, she knew, would play it perfectly – so perhaps she and he were allies after all, desiring the best for the work – and whenever it was played, it would be born anew.

‘Miss d’Arányi, ten minutes, please.’

Adila stopped the gentle motion of hand to hand. ‘All right now, Sai?’

‘Wonderful, Adi. Yes, go and find your seat.’ Perhaps Adila was rubbing some spell into her bones; the pain was receding, the blood warm and coursing.

‘See you later.’ Adila kissed her on both cheeks and went.

Alone, Jelly played quietly through the passagework in the Polonaise one last time. Her mind calmed with the motion of her fingers across the strings.

Her call to the stage came; she glided through the familiar corridors. The dress hissed, whispered and crackled; she’d have to live with it. From the wings she could see the orchestra on stage, the curved shore of the ocean of auditorium, a reef of shadowed heads and shoulders. She stood alone for a minute, lost in her thoughts. Many times she had waited on this spot without a breath of fear. How had she ever had such confidence? Her elbow still ached. Would anybody notice? She had to convince everyone that Schumann’s state of mind had not affected his music, but now, too, that she was not battling the interlocked spirals of body and mind on her own account. She forced herself to set aside this cacophony of alarm and to begin, instead, to pray. Dear God, and dear Virgin Mary, and dear Schumann: if you ever give me your blessing, let it be now.

Adrian was beside her.

‘Ready, Jelly?’

‘Ready.’

He turned and motioned her onto the stage ahead of him. She crossed herself and stepped out into the light. The wave of applause drenched her like a baptism.

*