Reluctantly, I took up the recorder, and with fingers like soft clay, tried to play. What came out were sorry, shallow squeaks. “You see,” I said, “I can’t do it.” I offered him back his pipe. Refusing, he railed at the top of his voice, threatening to inflict upon me every kind of grisly torture if I didn’t try. At first his shouted warnings terrified me. But as the day wore on, I realized he was mostly bluster. While I didn’t doubt he could have done the ghastly acts he threatened, it was but a rough kindness. The more I realized this, the less tense I became. Gradually I found my way with tongue, fingers, and breath. Before the day was half done, I managed to pipe out his simple song. “There. You’ve done it,” he cried out when first I did. “Tell me that you didn’t hear it, too.” No one was more amazed than me. To think that I, with my breath, could make a song, thrilled me deeply.
