Bridget arrived two minutes later through the stage-right corridor, with her violin case in one hand and her black rehearsal folder under her arm. She’d pinned her hair back more tightly than usual. She greeted the principal second with a touch on the elbow and a low comment that earned a nod. Then she took her place, unpacked, and rosined her bow.
Rehearsal began on time.
I took a seat in the second row. Dominic stopped the orchestra twice for balance and once because the timpani entrance was correct in tempo but wrong in attitude.
“No,” he said from the podium, one hand raised. “You’re arriving like a natural disaster. I’d prefer something more human.”
The timpanist blinked. “Less force?”
“Less declaration.”
They ran it again. It was better.
Halfway through the first run of the last movement, Dominic cut them off and asked Bridget to take the opening transition again.
She did. Perfectly.
He moved on.
I watched her through the next passage. She played with full command, phrasing clean and bow hand steady. If I had not known what I knew, I would have considered her magnificent.
During the break, Dominic remained onstage with the librarian and the principal trumpet. Eamon stepped into the lobby to take a call. Thiago crossed to stage left to speak with the house manager about closing one of the side corridors earlier on concert night.
I stood and went to find Bridget.
She was in the green room with her violin case open on the sofa beside her and a paper cup of coffee untouched on the side table. She looked up when I entered and at the door when I closed it behind me.
“Luca,” she said. “Something must be serious.”
“Yes.”
“Is something wrong with Dominic?”
“No.”
I pulled a chair up, sat, and reached into the folder I’d brought to remove a photocopy of the letter. I didn’t slide it to her immediately, but I let her see what it was.
Color drained from her face.
“So,” I whispered. “Let’s not waste time.”
She looked at the page and then at me. “Where did you get that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I set the copy on the low table between us.
She stared at it.
“That’s a photocopy. He showed me the original,” she said at last.
I kept my voice level. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” She laughed, short and joyless. “You know the letter exists. You do not know what it is to stand in a man’s study and watch him reveal reasons for stagnation in your career.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
She looked down at the paper again. “Dominic intended to retire as a myth. This concert would be a farewell concert, and he would use it for narrative control. He told me the story everyone tells about Jackson Square is false, incomplete, and built on selective memory.”
