Looking at her watch, she startles to see that it’s nearly five o’clock. She packs her violin into its case, slings it over her back, and steps outside.

Rothschild Boulevard is crowded, the air sticky and hot. She stops at a market, buys almond paste, butter, and lemons, then continues walking. She wants to get a cake in the oven before dinnertime. Not lavish or ornate, but her daughter’s favorite: almond cake topped with cream and fresh raspberries. Tomorrow they’ll go to Meir Garden for a small party. Tzofia will feel a jab in the low of her stomach as she plays “HaYom Yom Huledet” on her violin and tells the story of a little girl and her bird who gather daisies for a fancy birthday garland, marking the day her daughter turns five years old.

In the subway, no Sunday crowds, Róża stands, one arm looped around a metal pole. Across the aisle, a little girl with long braids sits gripping the bunched fabric of her brother’s pant leg. Róża peers at her reflection in the window glass. When the train pulls into the Fifty-seventh Street station, she hustles out toward the concert hall.

Inside, Róża hands her ticket to a thin-lipped lady in a high-collared blouse and weaves down the carpeted aisle. She’s been to Carnegie Hall only a handful of times, once to hear Janos Starker. She turns circles in the auditorium, marveling at the gilded columns, the high-arched ceilings. She drops into her velvet-covered seat, clutching the concert program.

Couples in black-tie dress, row upon row of them, tip toward each other and talk. They smell of cologne and pomade and clothes starch. Róża feels shabby in her simple dress. She sits upright, solitary, her coat tight around her, and stares ahead at the stage, set with metal chairs and music stands.

Róża remembers a long-ago night in her parents’ parlor, she and Natan tuning up their strings. They’d planned to practice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello together, but then Natan winked—a change in plan—and went off on a Gypsy riff, a fiddling frenzy. Shira, who was nestled between her grandparents, blanket in hand, wriggled from her perch and began running in circles, sheet music fluttering from the stands as she whooshed by. Róża set aside her cello and ran after Shira, catching her, curling her to her chest. Her parents rose also, and they all began dancing, twirling in the tight space of the room, the Gypsy music pulsing through them. Hot and happy. Panting.

Chapter 47