TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

The Grand Piano Room

are you talking about, Jura? You need to understand, we haven’t got the means. There is a limited amount of space in the house, and what about Lora? Look, she might get married soon. She’ll have her own family.’ Lora was my eldest daughter. There was no grand piano room. There never had been. Or if there had been, then it had been in some other reality. My father didn’t remember it. He remembered neither the grand piano room, nor the fact that he used to play his violin there. He assured me that he played, as he had always played, in his bedroom. In his bedroom! ‘But the acoustics are so bad there!’ ‘Well, what can you do about it, Jura?’ I had no option but to adjust to these inconveniences, though I didn’t believe my father or my wife. I found it difficult to let go of the feeling that the grand piano room had existed. But how was I going to live now? I used to hear the phrase, ‘I somehow had to go on living’ on other people’s lips without understanding what it meant. I had to carry on living, and, having wasted a week mulling things over, I invented a mobile ceiling above the grand piano. Yes, a special ceiling where I could store my canvases. During the week when I was making the ceiling (drawing the plans, ordering, fastening), I couldn’t recognise myself. I had never had to do anything like that before. I wouldn’t say I liked it. In fact, I hated what I was doing. There used to be a grand piano room and now there was not – and I had to

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