Rosie by Harald Mueller

(Music)

Rosie: Ah music. My God, that meant everything to me in those days. Every Tuesday I used to go to Old Burgin, the old violinist with the city orchestra, for violin-lessons. I saw myself as a world-famous violinist in those days, and I was saving my pocket money for an Amati. The dreams one has when one’s young, my God!

Rosie: One day I’d got my hair done in a long blonde ponytail, and it got caught in the strings on a vibrato. So the old fool runs into his bachelor kitchen, fetches out a rubber band off a jam-jar and ties it up at the back again for me. He got so excited doing it, his hands started shaking. But the best part was, when the time came to go home, he tried to put his arms round me, and when I smacked his hands away, he got an old book down from his bookcase and tried to put it in my briefcase, Health Officer Klaus’s Scientific Instructions for Corporal Love, edited 1852, twenty years after Goethe’s death. Men, you see, men!

Rosie: But I practised the violin every day. Till my fingers were swollen. I used to wear an ankle-length white dress for the school orchestra. My God, I looked good in that! For the school-leavers party – I remember this as if it were yesterday – I brushed my hair a whole hour, till it shone like silk. I really believe I would have made a good first violin at least, for the radio or the opera house. My father was against it though. He heard me playing once and asked me why I practised so much. I told him my plans and without even a word he turned round and walked out. A week later he’d got me down for the Hotel and Catering College.