Those hands that had made the violin sound so beautiful that she’d made that shop owner cry. He knew almost nothing about her, even after their breakfast confessional. Her ability to play music like that? That had been more of a shock than the things she had admitted to earlier. Slave. The word was some archaic idea he remembered from school history books, something old and forgotten. Something over. Done. Then he remembered the cell he’d found her in, the sedative, and the box of clothes that had arrived like a prescription: wear these and act accordingly. After the music store they had grabbed lunch from a street vendor and eaten as they had walked around a public fountain. He had tried to get her to talk about the music, about the violin, and all she’d said was that music had always made everything better – ‘because it was beautiful no matter where you were, or what was happening’.
