Of the reminders Róża skirts here in Greenpoint—the Jewish bakery cases packed with babka and rugelach; certain dress shop windows; any recipe containing mushrooms—one exception is the cello. First rented, now owned, Róża plays and teaches. She accepts students at least ten years or older, a steadfast rule. Not the young ones; never the kindergarten prodigies. The teenagers, lanky and impressionable, she finds most endearing: how they dress in their sturdy jeans and speak in their perfect English, raving about their favorite American rock idols even as they rehearse their measures by Haydn and Beethoven and Bach. After trudging up the tight stairs to the apartment, they settle into a chair in the music room, shifting into a sun puddle by the bay window, wrangling their cellos between their legs. Róża encourages them through their warm-ups and exercises: open string bowing, left hand pizzicati, double stops for the advanced students.

She listens to music—broadcasts on WQXR—whenever she has the chance. She knits as she listens, often thinking of the way her father hummed along to recordings as he meticulously crafted his violins.

Today, she tunes in late to a solo violinist playing Szymanowski’s Mythes. She settles with her needles and yarn—her newest project: a winter scarf in blue bouclé—and her Lipton tea.

Delicate and shimmering, the violinist’s notes displace her from the start. The music unfolds in lines of tension and calm, water flowing, then still, a wooded night turning to dawn. Past memories surface like rising water. Róża might be back in Gracja, by the riverbank, Natan beside her, Shira’s tiny fingers tapping upon her bobe’s leg. But soon the sound grows haunted, and she and Shira are running from all they know and love, huddling together, holding tight. In the music’s dusky timbres she hears the song of the barn rafters, the moistening hay, the night sky. Memories that save as they destroy.

Late in the afternoon, her students arrive. First Stanley, then Muriel.

The last of the day is Julie, her star student. Julie troops in, her cello pressed against her hip, her school bag dangling behind her, the sugary scent of a powdered doughnut still on her lips. Before tuning up, she presses back the fringe of her hair with a thick white headband. Her bright expression turns concerted and serious as she bends toward her strings, sounding notes and listening, subtly adjusting the pegs. Next year, she will attend the Juilliard program for high schoolers.

For an hour straight, they work on the Glazunov Concerto Ballata. When Julie packs up to leave, she says, “I have a ticket for next Sunday’s violin concert at Carnegie Hall, but because of the Bach chamber audition, I can’t go! The seat’s up front, though off to the side. Would you like it?”

“Yes, I’d love it. Thank you.”