TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

The Grand Piano Room (short story) By Jaroslavas Melnikas Translated from Lithuanian by Marija Marcinkute

Click here for an audio recording of an interview with Jaroslavas Melnikas.

1 I used to play the grand piano in my grand piano room. I only had to walk to the end of the corridor and open the door. There, on a specially decorated little table, lay a violin that my father would occasionally play. He would play when I wasn’t in there, which could be a little difficult (finding a moment when I wasn’t playing the piano, that is). If my father had suddenly felt like running his bow across the violin’s strings he wouldn’t have felt free to do so whenever he wanted. Clearly, it was a bit of an uncomfortable situation, even if it had only been once that he had approached the door and stopped, hearing the music flowing from beneath my fingers. I don’t think there’s any doubt that my father’s desire to play the violin would have been impeded by my presence in the room; he would have been a little bitter (perhaps not just a little) having hurried to the room, wanting to draw the bow across the strings of his violin, right then, immediately.

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