Elise Blackwell - An Unfinished Score

The talcum light is just enough to guide Suzanne across the bridge to the place she seeks: a ramp near Notre Dame that slopes down into the Seine, a ramp that will soak her feet if she follows it to its end. She stops shy of the water.

Paris still sleeps, but the avian world awakens. Gulls shriek — one or two at first and then more — and ducks glide on the river, occasionally diving, their elegant silhouettes tipping to reveal their functional webbed feet.

From below the city looks very nearly as it has for centuries, as it has since the rebuilding of its first church, where Abelard taught and Dante prayed and where Suzanne once played on a cold January night.

It was the next morning that Suzanne stood here, watching these same ducks, or their forebears, glide atop the river’s teal surface. Up early, though not quite this early, she stood shivering with Alex until they were interrupted by a man walking a tiny dog, which lifted a hind leg to wet the ancient rock.

Standing here, as Paris still sleeps, it feels possible that this is that morning. It feels possible that this is the morning Chopin arrived in the city or the morning Berlioz died here or any morning at all.

Paris still sleeps as Suzanne walks back through an uncannily empty Latin Quarter, toward the small hotel that houses the quartet’s other members. Toward Ben, who has accompanied them as composer of one of the pieces they are performing. Toward Adele, who has traveled to hear the music.

I am deeply fortunate to be edited by Fred Ramey, represented by Terra Chalberg, and published by Unbridled Books — intelligent and generous people committed to the text entire.

Though I alone am responsible for any factual or musical errors contained in this work of fiction, two books informed my work: The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg and What to Listen for in Music by Aaron Copeland. I also gleaned information browsing such music composition websites as Music Theory Online: A Journal of Criticism, Commentary, Research, and Scholarship and The Harmonic Wheel . Sitting in on a master class given by the St. Lawrence String Quartet was invaluable to my research, as was observing sessions of the Conductors Institute of South Carolina.

My greatest debts are to the composers and performers of the many recordings and concerts that fueled my writing — and to David Bajo and Esme Bajo for their companionship and saving humor.