The Yellow Bird Sings

by Jennifer Rosner

  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.”

  Later, Róża calls the box office to buy a second ticket for Aron, but the concert is sold out.

  Chapter 46

  Tzofia spends long days in a practice room at Heichal HaTarbut. She doesn’t break for a snack or even a brief walk outside; she works concertedly on her recital pieces, measure by measure, her eyes fixed on the wall, streaked by the tines of metal music stands and the backs of folding chairs. To this day she marks the progress of her practice sessions with coins—five shekels crossing the length of a side shelf or else slid back and starting all over again—to master her playing free of mistakes.

  Her talents were discovered here when a violoncellist from the Palestine Orchestra heard her playing at a campfire at the kibbutz Neve Ora. He urged the musical director, still looking to fill spots, to come hear her, and it was he who arranged for her advanced training. Now, so many years later and a first violinist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, she practices “Dryades et Pan,” part of the program she recently recorded and will perform, along with the Brahms Scherzo, live next Tuesday in London and the following Sunday in New York.

  She goes by Tzofia Levy now. Journeying here with Rivka’s family, she adopted their surname. Her given name, lost with her blanket, no longer rattles inside her; and the urge to search for her mother, each time it arises, is quashed by the fact that she does not know her mother’s name either. Years earlier, just before her own daughter, Shoshana, was born, she tried to discover it. At Yad Vashem, she stared at the inscription: To them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters.… Despite searching through survivor records and Żegota transport lists, she couldn’t unearth it.

  She did locate an address for Pan Skrzypczak and wrote, thanking him for all he taught her. He replied, a long letter—the marks on the page transporting her to Mother Agnieszka’s chamber, his figure bent over music pages, etching notes in dark pencil. In the letter he expressed his great relief for her survival and safety, his delight in the successes he knew she was capable of. All his dearness flooded back to her with his insistence that she had taught him the more. He wished to see her perform, and she was preparing to mail him a ticket to an upcoming concert in Vienna when she got word of his death. In unguarded moments it still makes her ache and stirs thoughts of reconnecting with Kasia, and Sisters Alicja and Nadzieja, who cared for her—but she has no wish to return to Poland. She stays pointed forward, focusing on her family, her music.

  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

  When she steps onto the stage, Tzofia looks out over the tight rows of seats, extending upward in lit balcony circles. She joins her pianist for a bow, puts her ear to her violin to tune. Then she closes her eyes, taking in the hushed silence of the hall, and imagines her first notes in her head: the rapping opening, sounds connected with her earliest memories—silence and confusion, but also warmth and touch—which she aims to infuse into every note.

  As always when she performs, no matter where around the world, she angles face out beneath the glare. Just before bringing her bow-arm down upon string, she scans the visible rows and allows herself to imagine.

  Off to the side, a woman with midnight eyes.

  On the woman’s shoulder, a tiny yellow bird.

  * * *

  The music rises as if from the ground beneath Róża’s feet, pulsing through hay and feathers and white rubble. The violin’s rapping, a pounding in her chest; the piano’s rising chords, a restless cry. Notes that Róża once scrawled on hand-drawn staffs, once whispered in the silence of the barn’s high loft, now rush back to her across the hall, across the years: Brahms’s Scherzo reverberating in her every cell like the longing that precedes all memory.

  The violin pours out the melody of soulful exultation. Grounded by the piano’s chords, its song swoops from high, generously, tende
rly, like the folding of a hand. When the violin and piano switch parts, the violinist plays the accompaniment in soft, rising phrases, each ending higher than the last and trailing off like a searching, unfinished thought. Róża feels herself straightening up in her seat as if to catch the music in the air, lifted by each ascent, wishing to cry out yet staying silent.

  The romping start returns, a wild gallop as the piano accelerates, its pitch higher and higher, then stops suddenly as if it has finally reached its destination; and now the violin sings the joyous middle theme. Róża can’t see for her tears as the music tells her all she needs to know: they were as one, from seed within womb to bodies entangled beneath hay to beings apart yet with melodies—this melody—shared between them, always.

  The ending comes as a gift, a surprise placed into cupped hands, expressing affection so powerful as to banish all loneliness. Note by note it thickens like glass beads on a strand.

  Róża stands up.

  * * *

  With the final chord, Tzofia lets her bow-arm drop and brings her violin to her side. Amid the audience’s applause, she smiles at her pianist and bows.

  Patrons rustle, about to start rising from their seats. One, off to the side, is already standing. Tzofia blinks against the stagelights and looks in her direction, faint hope fluttering inside her, like a yellow bird flying its way home.

  Note About Polish Surnames

  In the Polish language, surnames sometimes take different gender forms and so have different endings. Thus the surname of a married woman can have a different ending than the surname of her husband. I have abided by this convention here. Titles, such as “Mr.” (Pan) and “Mrs.” (Pani), and surnames can vary in form depending on sentence case. To avoid confusion for English-language readers, I have written all such titles and surnames in nominative form.

  Translations

  Nightly lullaby (from Yiddish):

  Cucuricoo!

  Mama isn’t here.

  Where has she gone?

  To get a glass of tea,

  Who is going to drink it?

  You and me. (switched to rhyme)

  Mourner’s prayer that Róża recites for Miri (from Hebrew):

  May His great name grow exalted and sanctified

  in the world that He created as He willed.

  May He give reign to His Kingship

  in your lifetime and in your days,

  and in the lifetimes of the entire Family of Israel …

  Folk song that the rabbi sings in the convent (from Yiddish):

  On the path there stands a tree,

  it stands there bowed,

  all birds from that tree

  have flown away.

  Acknowledgments

  Amy Einhorn, editor extraordinaire, saw into the heart of this project and, with great insight and trust, helped me to develop it. Conor Mintzer provided brilliant comments about plot and language, perfectly attuned to the work’s emotional pulse. Francesca Main at Picador and the wonderful Flatiron team, especially Bob Miller, Caroline Bleeke, Amelia Possanza, Nancy Trypuc, Cristina Gilbert, Katherine Turro, and Keith Hayes, gave this book wings into the larger world. Gail Hochman championed my writing—and even offered a bat mitzvah! Jennifer Einhorn always believed in this story and I am beyond grateful to her.

  It was my privilege and honor to interview Stan Berger, Myra Genn, Roald Hoffmann, Millie Selinger, Ruth Salton, and the late George Salton. Your life stories, filled with bravery, perseverance, ingenuity, and love, inspire my awe. While the characters and events in this book are fictional, our conversations enriched me and every page I’ve written.

  My Poland guide, Paweł Szczerkowski, along with Rafał Brenner and Tomasz Ciemiorek, took me to the settings of my imagination and brought historical depth, cultural richness, and fun to our journey. In Israel, Amnon Weinstein welcomed me into his workshop, where he painstakingly restores violins once played by Jews in ghettos and camps for concerts of commemoration and hope.

  If the relationship between Shira and her teacher is dear, it is perhaps because the relationships I’ve had with my teachers and mentors have been all the dearer: Marilyn Abildskov, you have understood me as a writer from the start, and I am so grateful for your perceptiveness, generosity, and intelligence about life’s ordinary moments; thank you, Lan Samantha Chang, for your keen sense of a story’s pacing and its beating heart; Tony Doerr, for your limitless curiosity about the universe and the sheer beauty of your sentences; David Russell, for your unbounded enthusiasm for music, this project, and your treasure trove of anecdotes; Michelle Wildgen, for your deep understanding of narrative cause and effect; Steven Bauer, for your trustworthy narrative intuitions and your ongoing encouragement; Kevin McIlvoy, for your wisdom about books and life and for your constant faith in my creativity.

  Linda Wentworth brought me all the right resources. Catherine Epstein helped me with the history and more. Demetrius Shahmehri taught me how to listen for the stories inside the music. Dusty Miller and Marc Fromm read for a child’s mind, trauma, and dreams. Kent Hicks taught me about tracking—and also built the house where I wrote some of this! Pamela Erens showed me that important changes can be made even to a nearly baked cake. Susan O’Neill shed light on convent life. Martha Scherzer and Jonathan Vatner brainstormed with me at one of my lowest points and brought steady, insightful thinking. This manuscript is better because of Rebecca Gradinger’s great story instincts.

  Thank you to many dear, loving friends: for reading for me at the earliest, worst stages and still encouraging me to continue on: Julia Mintz, Brittany Shahmehri, Catherine Newman, Katryna Nields, Sara Just, Missy Wick, Jean Zimmer, Alisa Greenbacher, Tamar Naor, Tracy Camenisch, Gideon Yaffe, Chris Cander, Judith Frank, Naomi Shulman, Carol Edelstein, Robin Barber, Linda Moore, Amanda Roach, Cynthia Gensheimer, and Shelley Nolden. For fortifying visits, walks, meals, and endless tea drinking: Emily Neuburger, Lydia Peterson, Claudia Canale-Parola, Becky Michaels, Judith Inglese, Ariana Inglese, Kristin Rotas, Anne Hulley, Suzanne Forman, Caryn Brause, Steve Breslow, Drew and Cathy Starkweather, Lauren Weinsier, Jennifer Addas, and Nancy Garlock. And further afield but no less dear: Cathy Bendor, Matthew Tarran, Jennine Kirby, Keith and Lisa Lucas, Manuel and Stephanie Vargas, Susan Verducci, Jenny Walter, Lisa McLeod, Vance Ricks, Susan Leeds, Sarah Buss, and Mar Corning.

  I am thankful for the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and for uninterrupted writing time at Wellspring House, Patchwork Farm, and Hillside House.

  Thank you to my family, the Rosners, Corwins, and Malinas: there is a string connecting us always, and I love you. (Nancy: You helped to keep me healthy. Elisa: You helped to keep me sane!)

  Goldie and Rosebud: Our river walks were, perhaps, the key here.

  Bill, Sophia, and Juliet: You lived through the writing and rewriting of every word in this book, and you never wavered in your encouragement. My love for you surpasses infinity, and I am thankful every day that you are my home.

  Author’s Note

  Several years ago, I was at a book event for If a Tree Falls, my memoir about raising our deaf daughters in a hearing, speaking world. A woman in the audience relayed her childhood experience during World War II: She was hidden with her mother in an attic, where she needed to stay silent nearly all of the time. I imagined the mother’s experience of trying to keep her young child hushed, an effort exactly opposite mine, which focused on encouraging my children to vocalize as much as possible.

  Afterward I arranged to meet with the woman, a “hidden child,” as she called herself, and through her connections, I met several more. Soon I found myself immersed in a new project involving silence, separation, loss, and, above all, love.

  Some of the hidden children I met were placed in hiding apart from their families. I was overwhelmed by their persisting hurt at this separation—despite knowing that it was for the sake of their survival. Some were given new names and placed in Christian settin
gs; many had difficulty, after the war, recovering a sense of community and identity.

  At the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum there are pamphlets with a child’s photo and the caption Remember me? The question is meant to be literal: If you remember me, if there is anyone out there who recognizes me and can tell me about my family, my name, then I might discover my history, my roots: my self. For refugees of current wars and violence, children displaced and torn from their families, this question echoes on.

  My own childhood was marked, daily, by the sound of my father practicing the violin. During the writing of this book, I had the opportunity to meet an Israeli luthier who was asked to rebuild a violin recovered from a Nazi death camp, ashes still inside it. I listened to the sounds of other war-salvaged violins, and felt as if I were hearing the distinct voices of their lost players. I knew, then, that the girl in my story would be musical, that music would be something she shared with her family, together and apart.

  The Yellow Bird Sings is a story about longing: the longing of a child and her mother to be connected, to be heard, to find their way home. I dedicate it to my parents.

  Recommend The Yellow Bird Sings for your next book club! Reading Group Guide available at www.readinggroupgold.com

  About the Author

  JENNIFER ROSNER is the author of the memoir If a Tree Falls: A Family’s Quest to Hear and Be Heard. Her children’s book, The Mitten String, is a Sydney Taylor Book Award Notable. Jennifer’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Massachusetts Review, The Forward, Good Housekeeping, and elsewhere. She lives in western Massachusetts with her family. The Yellow Bird Sings is her debut novel and is being published around the world. You can sign up for email updates here.