Bow to string. It is the only way Tzofia knows to converse with the silences life has made her companions. Always, she begins her practice with the lullaby her mother sang to her in the barn: Cucuricoo! Di mom iz nisht do … She moves on to Brahms’s Scherzo, then assorted pieces she learned with Pan Skrzypczak. Bartók’s Rhapsodies no. 1 and no. 2; Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” The jumpy bow strokes remind her acutely of her bird, his tremulous two-note call. She looks around for something new.

Tzofia sorts through the box of music that someone journeyed with here, prized above other worldly possessions. She finds a piece by Ravel, Kaddish, for violin and piano. She scans the score, then starts to play through the melody, stopping many times to get each tone, each articulation, exactly right. When she feels she has it, she plays from the beginning, filling in the piano in her head as she goes.

The melody—its slowness, its tender sadness, the way each note seems both tense and peaceful at the same time—reminds Tzofia of music her father played. At first, the piano gives only the sparest accompaniment, its high notes ringing out distantly, shimmering crystal-like alongside Tzofia’s melody. But the piano’s part soon grows richer, circling Tzofia’s music with arpeggiations, embracing it like two bodies entwined. Tzofia remembers herself in the barn with her mother, lying in the hay, silent, music in her head. Only now she’s singing her melody out loud, and her mother’s dark eyes shine encouragingly. She quickens her tempo a bit, letting each note lean forward expectantly, and she sways with the ebb and flow of her music. Her tone grows warmer, more joyful. In the piano’s chords she hears consolation, like a hand extended. Tzofia and her mother walk together, out of the barn, through the garden and the field …

A single chord lands uncertain, as if hesitant, stopping to make up its mind. It comes so unexpectedly that Tzofia wonders if it’s a mistake, but the next chord in the piano clarifies: it is determined, turning away, going back. Where?