Song to listen to:
Étude No. 2 from 42 Kreutzer
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The violin arrived in December, when the world had gone gray and stayed that way.
Yaz had not asked for it. He had not asked for any of the instruments, really. They simply appeared, carried into the Practice Room by men who did not look at him, assembled or positioned by hands that knew what they were doing, left behind like offerings at an altar he did not remember building. The guitar had come first. Then the piano. Now this: a case the color of aged leather, brass latches that clicked open with a sound like small bones snapping, velvet lining the color of old blood.
Inside, the violin waited.
It was smaller than he expected. Smaller than the guitar, certainly. Smaller than his torso. The wood was reddish-brown, warm-looking, the surface covered in a pattern of grain that reminded him of rivers seen from above, or the lines on the palm of a hand. The strings stretched from tailpiece to scroll, silver threads catching the Practice Room's bright light.
He did not touch it. Not yet. Something about the violin felt different from the other instruments. The guitar had been friendly, eager to be held. The piano had been imposing but welcoming, like a large aunt who wanted to hug you. The violin was... watching. Waiting. As if it wanted to see what he would do before it decided what it would be.
"It suits you."
The voice came from the doorway. Yaz turned.
The woman standing there was not Lydia. She was younger, for one thing. Her hair was dark and loose, falling past her shoulders in waves that looked like they had been pulled by fingers rather than brushed by combs. Her eyes were gray-green, the color of the sea in pictures Yaz had seen of places far from here, places where water met sky and it was hard to tell which was which. She was not tall, but she stood like someone who had learned to take up space anyway, her shoulders back, her chin slightly lifted, her gaze moving around the Practice Room with an intensity that felt almost physical.
"You must be Yassine," she said. Her accent was different from Lydia's French, different from Javier's Spanish. Something Eastern. Harder consonants. Letters that hit like small stones dropped into still water.
"Yes."
"I am Anya. Anya Petrova." She walked into the room, her boots making soft sounds against the floor. "Mr. Thorne has hired me to teach you violin. Do you know what violin is?"
"It's the one you put under your chin."
Anya smiled. The smile was small but real, not the practiced warmth of Thorne or the careful professionalism of Lydia. It reached her eyes and stayed there.
"Yes. Under the chin. Against the neck. The violin is not held. It is... worn. Like another body you put on." She crossed to the case, looked down at the instrument inside. "Have you touched it yet?"
"No."
"Why not?"
The question was simple. Direct. But something in the way she asked it made Yaz feel like she actually wanted to know, like the answer mattered to her beyond the lesson, beyond the room, beyond whatever contract she had signed to be here.
"It felt like it was waiting," he said. "For something."
Anya's smile widened. "Good. That is very good. The violin is always waiting. For the right bow. For the right hand. For the right question." She reached into the case and lifted the instrument out, cradling it with a gentleness that seemed at odds with her sharp features. "The violin is a question. Every note asks something. The musician's job is to make sure it asks the right things."
She held it out to him.
Yaz took it. The wood was cool against his fingers, lighter than he expected, the surface smooth in some places and slightly rough in others where the varnish had worn thin. He could feel the strings humming faintly, vibrating with the movement of the air, with the sound of their voices, with something else he could not name.
"Now," Anya said, "let me show you how to ask."
The piece was called Étude No. 2. Yaz did not know what an étude was until Anya explained it: a study, a practice piece, something designed to teach your fingers and your ears and your brain to work together in ways they had never worked before. The composer was Kreutzer, a name that sounded like something you might call a machine, something efficient and precise and German.
But the music was not cold. It was... curious. Each phrase seemed to lean forward, to reach for the next note before it arrived, to want something it could not quite grasp. Anya played it first, her bow moving across the strings with a precision that made Yaz's chest ache. When she finished, the silence felt like a question mark hanging in the air.
"You see?" she said. "Every note asks. Why this note? Why not another? What does this note want to become? What is it reaching for?"
Yaz took the bow she offered. His grip was clumsy, his arm at the wrong angle, the position nothing like the guitar or the piano. But Anya corrected him with small touches, adjusting his elbow, his wrist, the placement of his thumb.
"Now. One note. Just one. Ask a question."
He drew the bow across the string.
The sound that emerged was thin. Scratchy. More of a complaint than a question. But it was sound, and it was his, and Anya nodded as if he had done something remarkable.
"Good. Again. Smoother. Let the bow breathe."
He tried again. The note was cleaner this time, steadier, something that might almost be called music if you were feeling generous.
"Why this note?" Anya asked. "What does it want?"
"I don't know."
"Good. That is the honest answer. You do not know yet. But you will." She took the violin back, positioned it under her own chin, played the same note he had played. But in her hands, it sounded different. Fuller. More alive. "The note wants to connect. To another note. To a chord. To a melody. To a listener. To the world. Every note is lonely until it finds its purpose."
She looked at him. Her gray-green eyes were intense, searching, as if she was looking for something in his face that she was not sure she would find.
"You understand loneliness, yes? You live here. In this place."
The question landed like a small shock. None of the other teachers had asked him things like this. Javier talked about the guitar. Lydia talked about the piano. They asked about his practice, his progress, his technique. They did not ask about the place where he lived, the bed where he slept, the fence he stared through every day.
"Yes," Yaz said. "I understand."
Anya nodded slowly. "Then you understand the violin. It is the loneliest instrument. One voice. One string at a time. No chords like the piano. No rhythm section like the guitar. Just you. Just the question. Just the hope that someone, somewhere, will hear and answer."
She handed the violin back to him.
"Again. Ask again. And this time, ask something you actually want to know."
The weeks passed. December became January. The gray sky outside the Practice Room window darkened earlier each day, the light failing by four o'clock, by three-thirty, by three, until it felt like the world had decided to skip the afternoon entirely and go straight to night.
Yaz practiced the Kreutzer. His fingers learned the positions, the distances between notes, the way the bow had to move to draw clean sound from the strings. His calluses from the guitar helped, but the violin demanded different things from his hands. A lighter touch. A more precise angle. The ability to hold still while moving, to be steady while being flexible.
And Anya asked questions.
This was what made her different from the other teachers. Javier encouraged. Lydia demanded. But Anya questioned. She questioned the music, the technique, the reason behind every note and every rest. And slowly, carefully, like someone testing ice before stepping onto a frozen lake, she started questioning other things too.
"Why do you live here?" she asked one day in late December. They were taking a break between exercises, Yaz resting his arm while Anya tuned her own violin. The question came out of nowhere, dropped into the silence like a stone into water.
"It's an orphanage. For children without parents."
"I know what an orphanage is. I mean, why do you live here? You. Specifically. A child who can play like you play, who creates like you create. Why are you not... somewhere else?"
Yaz did not know how to answer. The question was too big, too complicated. It had too many pieces that did not fit together.
"Mr. Thorne says I need training. He says the world isn't ready for me yet."
"Mr. Thorne says many things." Anya's voice was neutral, but something in her face shifted. A tightening around her eyes. A slight pursing of her lips. "And you believe him?"
"I... I think so. He's helping me. He brought you here. And Javier. And Lydia. He's teaching me everything."
"He is having you taught. There is a difference." She finished tuning, set her violin aside. "Tell me, Yassine. Do you ever go outside? Beyond the fence?"
"No. Not yet. Not until I'm ready."
"Ready for what?"
The question hung in the air. Yaz realized he did not have an answer. Ready for what? Ready to perform? Ready to be known? Ready for the world that was supposedly not ready for him?
"I don't know," he said.
Anya looked at him for a long moment. Her gray-green eyes were soft now, the intensity replaced by something that might have been sadness, might have been concern, might have been both.
"That is a very honest answer," she said quietly. "More honest than most adults could give."
She picked up her violin again. Positioned the bow.
"Let us play. When I do not know the answers, I ask the music. Sometimes it tells me things the world will not."
January turned cold. The kind of cold that made the windows fog with condensation, that made the radiators in the dormitory clank and hiss like angry animals, that made Yaz's fingers stiff and slow when he first picked up the violin each morning.
Anya's questions continued. And they grew bolder.
"Why does a child this talented have no public presence?" she asked one Thursday, after Yaz had played through the Kreutzer with only minor mistakes. "You wrote that song. Fifty million people heard it. And yet no one knows your name. No one knows your face. You are hidden."
"Mr. Thorne says it's for protection."
"Protection from what?"
Yaz thought about the answer Thorne had given him. The world that wanted to consume talent. The industry that chewed people up and spit them out. The dangers of fame without preparation.
"From people who would use me. Hurt me. Take advantage."
"And Mr. Thorne is not... taking advantage?"
The question was sharp. It cut through the familiar words, the comfortable explanations, the things Yaz had been telling himself for months.
"He's helping me," Yaz said. But his voice sounded uncertain, even to himself.
"Is he?" Anya set her violin down. "Yassine. Listen to me. I am asking because I am concerned. You are seven years old. You have extraordinary gifts. And you are kept here, in this basement, playing instruments no one else hears, creating music that goes nowhere. Is this help? Or is this something else?"
Yaz did not answer. He did not know how.
She's asking what we've been afraid to ask, the Maestro said. The voice was quiet, thoughtful. Present in a way it had not been since the contract was signed. She sees what we're starting to see.
"I..." Yaz started. Stopped. Started again. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what else there is."
"There is always something else. There is always another choice." Anya leaned forward. "But you cannot make choices if you do not ask questions. If you do not wonder. If you simply accept what you are told."
She picked up the violin. Handed him the bow.
"Play the Kreutzer. But this time, play it as a question. Let the violin ask what you cannot."
Dayo noticed the change first.
He was in the Practice Room more often now, adjusting the recording equipment, checking levels, doing things with his tablet that Yaz did not understand but knew were important somehow. He watched the lessons through the corner of his eye, pretending to work while actually listening to everything Anya said.
"She asks a lot of questions," Dayo said to Yaz one afternoon, after Anya had left. His voice was careful. Neutral. The voice of someone who wanted to know something but did not want to seem like he was asking.
"She teaches through questions," Yaz said. "It's how she works."
"About the music?"
"About everything."
Dayo was quiet for a moment. His fingers moved across his tablet, tapping at something Yaz could not see.
"Mr. Thorne might want to know about that. The questions."
It was not a threat. Not exactly. But it felt like a warning, the way a crack in ice feels like a warning to someone who knows what ice can do.
"Why?"
"Because..." Dayo paused. "Because some questions are safer than others. And some questions, when you ask them too loudly, they have consequences."
He left. The door closed behind him. The Practice Room was quiet.
He's worried, the Maestro said. Not for you. For himself. For what happens when the questions get too big.
Yaz looked at the violin, still resting in its case. The wood gleamed in the bright light. The strings hummed faintly, waiting for the next question.
Anya asked Dayo the next day.
Yaz was not supposed to hear it. He was supposed to be practicing in the corner, running through the fingering for a particularly difficult passage, not paying attention to the adults having a conversation by the door. But the Practice Room was small, and sounds carried, and Yaz had learned a long time ago that the best way to understand the world was to listen when people thought you were not.
"Why is he kept here?" Anya's voice was low but intense. "Why does he not go to school? Why does he not play with other children? Why is everything... controlled?"
Dayo's response was mumbled. Yaz caught pieces: "contract," "development," "Mr. Thorne's decision."
"Mr. Thorne's decision." Anya's voice rose slightly. "He is seven years old. Who gives Mr. Thorne the right to make decisions about a seven-year-old's life?"
More mumbling from Dayo. Then footsteps, quick and sharp, heading toward the door.
"This is not right," Anya said. "You know it is not right. I can see it in your face every time you look at him."
The door opened. Closed. Dayo was gone.
Anya stood by the door for a long moment, her back to Yaz, her shoulders rising and falling with deep breaths. Then she turned. Her face was composed, but something burned behind her eyes.
"You heard," she said. It was not a question.
"Some of it."
She walked to him. Sat down in the chair across from his. Her hands found her violin, lifted it, set it back down again.
"I am going to ask you something, Yassine. And I need you to answer honestly. Not what you think I want to hear. Not what Mr. Thorne would want you to say. Just the truth."
Yaz nodded.
"Are you happy here? Is this what you want?"
The question was so simple. Two small questions, really, each one tiny enough to fit in the palm of his hand. But the answers were enormous. The answers were everything.
He thought about the Practice Room. About the instruments that arrived without his asking. About the lessons and the teachers and the endless hours of becoming something he could not quite see. He thought about the fence, and the families beyond it, and the diamond pattern pressed into his skin.
He thought about Suki, who still came to see him sometimes, whose family might be serious, who might leave him behind.
He thought about the red light on the recorder, blinking in the corner, watching everything he did.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I don't know if I'm happy. I don't know if this is what I want." He looked at her. "I don't know what else there is."
Anya's face softened. Something like pain moved across it, or maybe recognition. The face of someone who had asked the same questions once and knew how heavy the answers could be.
"That," she said quietly, "is the most honest answer anyone has ever given me."
She picked up the violin. Handed it to him.
"Come. Let us play. Let the music hold the questions for a while."
Thorne's visits grew shorter after that.
He still came on Thursdays, still sat in the chair in the corner while Yaz practiced, still offered his smooth words of encouragement and his careful questions about progress. But something had changed. His warmth had a colder edge to it now. His eyes stayed on Anya longer, watching her the way you watch something you are not sure you trust.
"How are the lessons going?" he asked one evening in late January. Anya had just left. The Practice Room still smelled faintly of her perfume, something clean and sharp that reminded Yaz of winter air.
"Good. She's teaching me to question."
"To question?" Thorne's eyebrows rose slightly. "Question what?"
"The music. Every note. Why it's there. What it wants to say."
"Ah." Thorne nodded. His hand found his watch, that gold antique that he touched whenever he was thinking. "And is she teaching you anything else? Any other... questions?"
Yaz understood. He understood in the way that children understand things they are not supposed to understand, through tone and posture and the shape of silences.
"Just the music," he said. "Just the Kreutzer."
Thorne studied him. The gaze was long, assessing. The gaze of someone who was trying to see beneath the surface, to find the truth behind the words.
"Good," he said finally. "Music questions are important. They make you better. Other questions..." He paused. "Other questions can distract you from what matters."
He stood. Adjusted his jacket. Checked his watch.
"I'll have Dayo monitor the lessons more closely. Just to ensure the teaching stays focused on the curriculum."
He left. The door closed. The Practice Room was quiet again.
He knows, the Maestro said. He knows she's asking things he doesn't want asked.
What will happen to her?
The Maestro did not answer. But the silence felt like an answer anyway.
February came. The cold deepened. The sky stayed gray.
Anya pushed harder.
"Let the violin ask what you cannot," she said one afternoon, positioning the instrument under Yaz's chin. "You have been playing the Kreutzer for two months. You know every note. Now forget the notes. Forget Kreutzer. Just... ask."
Yaz hesitated. He had never played without sheet music before, without a structure to follow, without someone else's questions to channel.
"What should I ask?"
"Whatever is inside you. Whatever you cannot say out loud." Anya's voice was soft but insistent. "The violin will hold it. The violin can hold anything."
He closed his eyes. Drew the bow across the strings.
The sound that came out was not the Kreutzer. It was something else. Something that did not have a name yet, did not have a structure, did not have anything except feeling. The feeling of standing at the fence, watching families walk past. The feeling of signing a contract he did not understand. The feeling of being seen and hidden at the same time, of being valuable and invisible, of being a child in a world that treated him like something else.
He played doubt.
That was what it was, he realized. Doubt made into sound. All the questions he had been afraid to ask, all the uncertainties that lived in the space between what Thorne said and what Thorne did, all the confusion of not knowing whether he was being helped or held.
When he finished, he opened his eyes. Anya was staring at him. Her face was very still.
"That," she said slowly, "is what I have been waiting to hear."
She took the violin from him. Set it in its case. Turned to face him fully.
"I am going to do something, Yassine. And I need you to understand why."
"What are you going to do?"
"I am going to talk to Mr. Thorne. I am going to tell him what I see. That he is not protecting you. He is hiding you. There is a difference." She paused. "And I suspect he will not like hearing it."
Yaz's stomach did something complicated. A twist. A drop.
"Will you get in trouble?"
Anya smiled. The smile was sad and fierce at the same time, the smile of someone who had made a decision and was not going to unmake it.
"Probably. But some things are more important than trouble." She knelt in front of him, brought her face level with his. "You have a gift, Yassine. A real gift. And gifts should be shared with the world, not locked in basements. Whatever happens, I want you to remember that."
She stood. Walked to the door.
"Keep playing. Keep asking questions. Even when I am not here to ask them with you."
She left.
Yaz did not see her again.
The news came two days later.
Mrs. Okonkwo told him, her voice careful and measured, the voice she used when she was delivering information she did not want to deliver.
"Miss Petrova's contract has been terminated," she said. "Mr. Thorne has found a new violin teacher. Someone more... focused on the curriculum."
"Why?"
"I don't know all the details." But her eyes did not meet his when she said it, and Yaz knew that she did know, that she knew exactly why Anya was gone, and that she was not going to tell him.
"Can I say goodbye?"
"She's already left. This morning. Mr. Thorne thought it was best not to... prolong things."
Prolong things. As if Anya was a wound that needed to heal, a disruption that needed to be smoothed over, a question that needed to be closed.
Yaz nodded. He did not trust his voice to say anything else.
Later that day, he heard them talking.
He was in the hallway outside Director Henriksen's office, supposed to be walking to dinner, supposed to be not listening. But voices carried through closed doors, and some things demanded to be heard.
"She was a risk to the investment." Thorne's voice, smooth and certain. "You understand. A teacher who asks too many questions, who plants ideas, who makes the child doubt... that threatens everything we've built."
"Of course, Mr. Thorne." Director Henriksen's voice, agreeable, deferential. "We appreciate your continued... donations."
"The new teacher will arrive next week. More focused. More professional. No questions beyond the curriculum."
"Very good."
Footsteps approaching the door. Yaz moved, pressing himself against the wall, making himself small the way he had learned to make himself small, becoming invisible in the gap between one moment and the next.
Thorne walked past without seeing him. His footsteps faded down the corridor.
Yaz stayed pressed against the wall. His heart was beating too fast, his breath coming too quick, his hands shaking slightly with something that was not cold.
Investment.
The word played in his head, over and over. Not child. Not protégé. Not student. Investment.
She saw what we're starting to see, the Maestro said. The voice was quiet, sad. And they removed her for it.
That night, Yaz went to the Practice Room.
Not to practice. Not really. Just to be there. Just to sit in the space where Anya had taught him, where her questions still hung in the air like ghosts that did not know they were dead.
The violin waited in its case. He opened the latches. Lifted it out. Positioned it under his chin the way Anya had taught him.
He played the Kreutzer. Every note perfect. Every question exactly where it was supposed to be.
But beneath the music, something else moved. A new question. A question that had not existed before, that had been planted and watered and was now growing in the dark soil of his chest.
Why did they remove her?
The answer was there, somewhere. In the way Thorne's voice had hardened. In the word investment, dropped like a seed into Director Henriksen's willing soil. In the way Dayo watched the lessons now, closer than before, his tablet always in hand, his face carefully blank.
Anya had asked questions. Anya had seen something wrong. Anya had threatened the investment.
And now Anya was gone.
If this is protection, the Maestro said, why do they need to silence the people who question it?
Yaz did not have an answer. But the question lived in the violin now. It lived in every stroke of the bow, in every note that hung in the air before fading, in the space between sounds where doubt had learned to hide.
He played until his arm ached. Until his fingers burned. Until the Practice Room was dark except for the red light in the corner, blinking. Watching. Waiting for him to ask something it would have to report.
Anya was gone. The room where she had taught him felt emptier than rooms should feel.
But her questions stayed. They lived in the violin now, in every stroke of the bow, in the space between notes where doubt had learned to hide.
And doubt, once planted, was very hard to uproot.