Шопен

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Four days have passed since we arrived at the convent. Audrey is still not comfortable meeting other persons. I have to take her out of her cell and reassure her that everything is fine, before she'll take my help to walk around. We're making our way through the inner yards of the convent, I help her walk, to gain some strength again. We're doing it three times a day, and I can see a small piece of progress.

Probably it's just wishful thinking. But it's all I have. I don't do very much other than looking after her, and in the times in which she's alone in her room, not wanting me to stick around, I sit in my own, worrying about her.

She didn't let the doctor have a look at her. I didn't push her. She seems to be fine, and she seems to have no superficial wounds at all that give her any trouble. She'd tell me if she needed a doctor.
When we were there I let him have a look at my right hand, because it still hurts. Actually, I wouldn't have needed his help, but I wanted Audrey to see that it was okay to trust him.
He told me that one of my metacarpal bones, the one leading to the little finger, got broken at some point and grew back together in a displaced position. That's nothing new to me. I can feel that when I grope for it.

Another day, I tried to walk a different route with her, one that led us down into the garden where a few other people were. She hated to be there, she almost didn't trust me any more after that, refusing to walk with me again until I apologized to her and promised her not to take her to a place again where other people were.

Ever since we've arrived here, I'm slowly starting to get a track of days again. Today's Wednesday. The nuns of the convent have a quite strict schedule of prayers and church services. I'm not interested in that, but I see them disappearing into the church, every now and then, as a big uniform looking bunch of old women in their black robes.

I guess Audrey sees them too, from her window. Those are the times in which she's most comfortable to take a walk, because she knows that almost all of them are gone for an hour. I soon found out that when I come to her, a few minutes after one of their services starts, she's really happy to go for a walk. She knows that I consider this. Sometimes she almost manages to show me that she's thankful for it.

Today, she even let me take her down into the garden.

I just brought her back to her room - just in time before the nuns come out of the church again. I'm sure that she's doing the same right now, she's probably also standing at her window, looking down into the yard and the garden, where we just were.

I lie down at the bed and try to get some rests. My nightmares are still haunting me, every other night I wake up and I have a hard time not to go berserk. Once I hurt my right hand even more during sleep, I guess I thrashed around during one of my nightmares.
If I could just make them stop. I don't know how to make them stop. After quite some of the traumatic experiences in my life, I had to fight such symptoms. They mostly needed months to get better.

In the hours in which I just lie here, without having anything to do, I wonder if Audrey also has nightmares. I guess so. She got hurt deeply. If I could only reach out, grab those memories and rip them out of her. If I could only make the past forgotten. I can't.

There's a knock on my door. I jump up and run over to open up, it could be-

No, it's not her. It's Jokhanna. She sees how disappointed I am, having expected Audrey.

There is something you should see, she tells me, in her bad English.

I'm curious. Suddenly afraid. Has this something to do with Audrey? Must be. No. Can hardly be. She wants me to come along but we just walk past Audrey's room, the door is closed. Audrey would never leave the room without me.

I follow Jokhanna through the hallways of the convent, up to the third floor. I know these corridors now all by heart, after walking through them two or three times per day. Walking with Audrey, we're so slow that I really had time to look at all the pictures on the walls, showing saints or blessed ones. Aside of their names being written in cyrillic, I have no idea of who they are.

She's leading me to the chapel at the end of the corridor. I was here before, together with Audrey. We even sat down for a while to let her rest, two days ago.

Jokhanna is telling me to be silent. I don't speak with her anyway... When she hears the noise of one of my footsteps she looks angrily at me, implicitly telling me not to make any sound.

It's all silent in the little chapel. Well, compared to the cathedral which is next to the convent, this is only a chapel. But in many villages, this place would be bigger than a usual church.

She waves her hand at the last one of the benches, telling me to sit down. It's hard to do that without making the old wood screetch.

I've been sitting here for half a minute when I hear the music. Somebody is playing a piano, up on the quire. The piano is not played very loudly, and the one playing it is not very good either.

Those are the first bars of Chopin's nocturnes.

I freeze, and stare at Jokhanna in disbelief.

She stands there, in the middle aisle and softly smiles back at me.

I can't talk to her, we have to be silent, not to interrupt what's going on here. She knows that and just nods at me, before she turns away and heads back out, leaving me back here, alone.

I'm alone down here, alone with the music.

This must be Audrey.

I try to look up, but the quire, where the piano is, is way above my head, one floor up. I can't see her. But I can hear her.

She's out of practice. She begins again, numerous times, playing the same bars over and over again until she finds the right notes. I guess she doesn't have any scores up there.

It's a mere wonder how much of this song she remembers by heart.

It always was one of her favorite ones. I don't know how many times I heard her play it.

It is a sad piece of music, a depressive sound that has the potential to make the listener cry. If I do, then only out of pure happiness, that she's now found something to express herself with.
When we came here, two days ago, somebody also played up there, on the piano, that's how she must have noticed it that there was such an instrument, here in this chapel. I still wonder, how she made it out of her room, all alone and without my help. It's quite some distance to walk, up the stairs and over to this place. The staircase up to the quire looks tiny and steep.
I don't even know if this is the first time that she came here. If Jokhanna hadn't told me, I wouldn't even know.

She keeps on playing.
I keep on listening. I sit here, in the last row, and I can't help but pray, to thank whoever is out there. Throughout all these past days, I was so ignorant and unthankful. She is out of hell. We made it past the border. Right now, we're safe. That's more than I ever dreamt of, a few weeks back. That's already so much. Our lives could be so much worse.

I don't know for how long I just sit and listen.

She doesn't stop playing. After a while, she even gets a lot better. Given that she hasn't played in months, she's playing virtuosically. She must be exhausted up there, but she's finally found something to let her pain out, even I can hear that. There is only sad music that I hear. Deep tones. Minor chords.

I don't know all the pieces. She often comes back to the Chopin's nocturnes. I know them. They were her favorite thing to play twelve years ago and obviously that hasn't changed in the meantime. She most likely doesn't have any scores up there so she only plays the things that she knows by heart.

Closing my eyes, I can forget the past twelve years and think back to the times when she played. I'm sprawling at the couch again, watching her back as she sits at her black grand piano, dissolving into the music. Even though she let me listen back then, at one point she surely forgot that I was there. Judging from the sound, I could always tell how she felt like.
I'd give so much to make the past twelve years undone. I'd like to get time turned back and pick up from where we were, back then.

So drowned in thoughts, I almost don't realize that her playing stops at one point.

I look at my wrist watch. One and a half hours have passed since Jokhanna brought me here. God only knows how long Audrey was here already. She must be tired. Totally exhausted, in her state.

Trying not to make a sound I crouch down to hide. I can't let her see me here, she'd think I had been spying on her... The stairs are making some noise as she walks down so that makes it easier for me as well not to attract her attention.
Hiding behind the backrest of the church bench I watch her through a tiny gap, as she slowly makes her way down the steep staircase, holding on tightly to the only handrail on one side. She's weak in her legs. They almost give in one or two times.

How much do I want to just rush over to her and help her.

I can't. She needs to do things alone again, I realize. It's great that she screwed up all her courage and left her room at all. If I keep patronizing her, she'll hate me for it and she'll shut herself away even more than she does now.
I will hide. Even if she falls. I'll only get out of hiding if it is about life or death.

She made her way down to the main hall. She looks around once and then she checks if there's anyone out in the corridor, before she dares to step outside.
I get out of my hiding place and follow her.

I watch her from a safe distance, how she slowly walks along the wall, holding on to things, to the drawers, the cupboards, desperately seeking for support.
My heart is bleeding to see her like this. She must do this alone. It'll give her back the confidence that she lost.

Before she enters her room again, she looks around once more. Her eyes don't find me.

But I see the smile on her face.

She made it.
I walk down the stairs, too, and sit down at the lowest steps of the staircase, watching her door.

I can't help her get better. This process is something that involves nobody else but her. I didn't need anyone's help to get better, years ago. I didn't even want anyone to help me.
Even now, nine years later, I can still not put it into words - the why. People always felt obliged to help me, especially my friends. Just like I feel obliged to help her, even though it's the wrong thing to do.

I only needed time for myself.

Audrey doesn't need my help. She needs time for herself.

It's damn hard to make one step back.

I get up and walk back over into my room, opening and shutting the door as silently as I can.

When I lie down at the bed and close my eyes, I can still hear the beginning of Chopin's nocturnes. I hope they'll take me to sleep without any more nightmares.

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