In dem Schatten meiner Locken

In dem Schatten meiner Locken is a musical piece V. I. Warshawski works through at the piano. Its brief appearance offers a glimpse of a private routine interruptible, like the rest of her day, by other people’s urgent needs.

Musical Practice

Near five o’clock, Warshawski is working through the piece’s syncope without Kathleen Battle’s voice. The detail makes the music an active task rather than background: she is trying to negotiate its rhythm herself at the piano. When the telephone rings, she leaves the instrument reluctantly, and her regret deepens as soon as she hears that Caroline Djiak is calling.

Place in the Narrative

The piano scene follows a gray morning in which Warshawski, unable to summon energy to run, walks alone beside the lake and watches the water. Joggers on the path strike her as isolated figures, each enclosed in private sound. The later return to music gives her solitude a different form: concentrated, practiced, and briefly her own. But the phone call breaks into that interval and draws her back into a relationship that requires her attention.