Author name Millerchip77
Rating This section G but eventually a lot naughtier
Disclaimer I don't own Willow or Tara or anyone; they belong to ME etc
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Summary The story starts in Germany in the 19th century, it will span about 150 or so years and will eventually see W/T getting it on.
Notes This story came to me a while back whilst I was listening to music. Don't want to spoil story but as this is BETA if you wanna know where its going I'll tell you. This is my first AU soI hope you like it so far - it'll get really dark and gothic. Oh yeah, and if my Yiddish/German sucks I apologise and please correct me.
Chapter 1
She was born Esther Rosenberg in 1872 in Köln, part of the recently unified Germany, to a family of Ashkenazi Jews. Her father Ira was the finest violin maker in the city. He owned a workshop from where he made and a shop from where he sold his instruments. The Rosenberg’s occupied small living quarters at the back of the workshop. Young Esther loved her father very much. He always had time for his daughter, letting her sit in the workshop and watch him and his apprentice Moshe Bauman as they worked delicately on their craft.
Esther was fascinated by the process of violin-making and would sit mesmerised as her and father and Moshe turned blocks of spruce, poplar or willow into the instruments they were destined to become. She loved the smell of the workshop, the aromatic and slightly spicy smell as the wood was carved and shaped, the acrid smell of the hide glue they used and the rich, addictive smell of the spirit varnish used to carefully finish the instruments. The bows in particular fascinated her. She imagined the tailless horses from which the hair used to make them had been taken, could they still run without them?
Moshe would sometimes eat with the family after a day at work and after dinner he and Ira would play. Esther loved to hear her father play his violin. Moshe awould accompany him on the piano and Esther would drift away into her imagination, letting the music take her to places she had never been. They mostly played cantorial, Yiddish songs. Esther yearned to play but her father, though forward thinking in some respects, was adamant that playing was not a woman’s preserve and told Esther, “Tokhter playing is yidishlekh, tradition. It is only for mentshen”.
Though she loved all of the music her father and Moshe would play, Esther’s favourite piece was the Adagio from Beethoven’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major. The slow, melancholic tune haunted Esther; hearing it brought her imagination to life. It stirred something within her, made her think of bravery and tragedy, of ancient sorrows long forgotten. It was a delicate, humble masterpiece. The rich melancholy of the Adagio was something she would come to appreciate in many pieces that contained it, and though she also loved the excitement of an allegro, it was always to the sorrows and subtleties of the adagio to which she was drawn.
Ether’s mother Sheila was not as gentle as her husband or her daughter. Beethoven bored her and she would sigh and throw her eyes to the heavens when her husband suggested to Moshe that they play it, “Ira, ikh bet dikh, not that dirge again, play something cheerful for once”. Sheila was often to be heard scolding her daughter when she failed to complete her chores or took too long to come home from school (“Esther, you are a dreamer. Your head is in the clouds, you need to come back to the ground”). Sheila had been unable to attend school, girls were not allowed to do so in her day, and so she couldn’t understand her daughter’s eagerness to learn, after all a woman’s place was with her husband.
Esther was a good pupil and loved mathematics in particular. Her head seemed naturally attuned to organizing numbers and her teacher marvelled at the way in which she was able to calculate even the most complicated of equations in her head. However school would be short-lived for Esther as girls were educated only until the age of fourteen, then they were expected to enter the domestic sphere and never leave. The injustice of this burned Esther and she began to resent the world in which she lived where women were not allowed to play instruments or go to school or do anything but marry and have children. The tediousness of it all stretched out before Esther like an endlessly yawning tunnel.
Ira was known around the Rhineland as a fine maker of violins. One of his most loyal customers was the conductor of the Köln philharmonic, Herr Pfaff, who ordered the orchestra’s violins from the craftsman. Ira could have been a musician himself but he was too shy, preferring to play only in the comfort of his home. Herr Pfaff was a generous man and always gave Ira two tickets when a performance was taking place. Sheila Rosenberg found the performances to be boring, they always went on for too long and besides, she had chores to do. Therefore Esther would often accompany her father in her mother’s place and quickly developed a real taste for music. Music made sense and she began to understand how it was put together, not unlike algebra really; all of the sections of the orchestra had to blend perfectly in order to achieve the right sound. She especially enjoyed the music of the Romantic Movement. She would get lost in her thoughts, and would be transported to places far away from the violin shop in Köln, places full of adventure. She imagined herself as a romantic hero, rescuing fair maidens and then claiming them. She knew instinctively that these particular kinds of dreamings should be left unspoken, after all before long she would be married and rescuing was also not a woman’s preserve.
As Esther grew older she grew more beautiful and, by the time she was twenty she was considered one of the most beautiful and sought after girls in the Jewish quarter of the city. Her red hair and green eyes were enchanting and she was intelligent and polite to match. She was slight, her limbs long and slender and her body boyish. Her father had many offers for his daughter’s hand, but always turned them down. He wanted the perfect boy for his Esther, and he had yet to appear.
Esther herself had very little interest in the young men who came to woo her; she wanted more from life than simply to become a wife and a mother, she wanted things that she couldn’t articulate. She longed to travel and would listen attentively to Herr Pfaff as he told her father about the orchestra’s latest trip to London, Paris or Rome. How she wished she wasn’t a woman, then she would be free to explore the world, to see all the places she'd imagined.
In the October of her twentieth year a woman came into her father’s shop. By now Esther helped her father, sweeping the floors in the workshop, serving customers and bringing her father and Moshe food and coffee. It was late afternoon, around five o’clock and already it was dark outside. The Autumn air had begun to bite and soon the city would be covered in a snowfall that would linger until February.
Moshe and Ira were busy stringing the set of violins that Herr Pfaff had ordered some weeks ago for the orchestra’s return to Köln when they heard the shop bell announcing a customer. “Esther tokhter, see who that is for your father”.
“Of course, tate”, she replied leaving the workshop.
“Guten abend, kann ich ihnen helfen?” Esther said, noticing that the customer was a woman and that she had her back to her. It was unusual for women to be alone after dark. The woman turned around, Esther was transfixed. She was tall for a woman, and slender. Her red dress was corseted at the waist and this accentuated her height and bosom. The woman’s hair was mostly hidden under her hat, but a few strands had come loose and Esther noticed that it was dark brown, almost black. The woman’s eyes were also dark brown and they regarded Esther, seeming to cut through her, they were cold and dangerous and the most exciting eyes Esther had ever seen.
The woman spoke, “Ja bitte. I have come to buy a violin. A contact I have in Prague told me that Ira Rosenberg’s violins were the finest in central Europe”. Prague. Another place Esther longed to see. The woman spoke German with a Czech accent and Esther surmised correctly that she was from the western part of Bohemia, where the people spoke German as well as Czech.
The woman spoke again, “Well young woman, as I assume that you are not Ira Rosenberg, are you going to fetch him for me or stand there all evening?”
The words snapped Esther out of her daydream and she replied, “I-I’m sorry. Zayt moykhul, I mean entschuldigung bitte. I will go and get my father for you. He…he’s in the workshop, I won’t be a minute, well actually I may be a little longer than a minute but I won’t take too long, at least I’ll try not to but Moshe is there too and they’re smoking and drinking coffee and stringing violins and I'm told that these things take time”. Esther turned and started her walk towards the workshop.
“Wait.” The woman spoke the word like a command, Esther had no choice but to obey and she turned to once again face the woman. “What is your name?” Esther obeyed the woman’s command and turned around, “I-I’m Esther, gnädiges Fraülein, Esther Rosenberg”. The woman regarded Esther once again with her penetrative stare, seeming to take in the younger woman’s whole body. Esther felt the woman’s eyes all over her; they seemed almost to touch her as they moved from her feet to legs that were hidden by the work dress and apron she wore. She felt the woman’s eyes move over and linger upon her breasts and finally come to rest on her face again. Esther grew suddenly hot, she felt her cheeks redden and heat in places that were, well, private. The woman grinned before saying softly “You don’t look like an Esther, Fraülein. You look like a Wiedenbaum, a willow tree. Now go and get your father for me”.
