The Brahms Recital

Through the deep night he drove in and out of so many remembered lives. A mere hour earlier the violinist paused before beginning his final offering; "There's joy in my family this week. Our daughter-in-law gave birth to our first grandchild. You will forgive me for putting it this way? " Laughter and applause spread through the small auditorium filled to capacity. The violinist, the renowned Sir James Crofton, was so happy, his joy cast a sheen over the music lovers. Still smiling, Sir James nodded to his pianist. He emphatically began the Sonata in D minor by Brahms. In his intense solitude, the listener let the perfection of the music raise him into its high spaces above the dangling shreds of a destiny relentlessly unraveling even now. And then it was over except for the formalities of applause and departure. And the listener realized he had listened with a doubled hearing - his certainly and hers just as certainly... His drive past ghostly trees that lined the road was a loneliness that exceeded definition. At the door of their cottage, it was not his wife who greeted him but their hospice nurse: "She's sleeping now, very peacefully. I gave her the pill an hour ago." She helped him take off his winter coat. And he stood exposed as if naked in his own home. How much he wanted to tell the nurse and Judith that he had witnessed that nexus of old life and new life, that exchange of departure and arrival, with things dying and things new born. He was amazed at the depth of consolation such knowledge conveyed impartially, almost secretly. Outwardly he said softly, "Oh, thanks for this respite." Inwardly his gratitude became a prayer, "Oh, thank you for the glory of it all."