Vilify a Violin

Chapter 2

Grete did not hold much expectations on the Samsa's trip. "Ver-wahnt-uh", relatives, such a distant word. The subtle change between  V and W resembled people's vague face and outline. It was something very conceptual to Grete, the *Verwandte* living in Kierling, under the roof of some suburban cottage. She has never been to Kierling or generally the southern part of the nation, and one could say she hardly left Prague. Yes, the Samsa has settled in Prague since her birth, or probably before that. She was in fact, though without realization but only a blur sense, emotionally attached to Prague. People always said one's past defined who one was, and in Grete's case, she herself was an epitome of Prague life. 

Has she ever thought about leaving Prague? She had no idea. She wouldn't know how things would end up. In her late teens, everything was moving in a fragmented way as they did in motion pictures, being crucial in some scene but suddenly disappearing in the next. Nothing has long been bothered Grete, including even her father's piles of bills and mother's condition varied with season, though these two created her a lot of concerns. She still had a sense, a duality for playing the audience and the character on stage the same time: she experienced yet lacking a strong ego. An impulse to make change or a strong feeling, no matter delight or misery. This might probably attribute to her families as she was the youngest and definately not the pillar. So it was understandable that she rarely pondered upon her future since she was not living with her whole self. She might marry a man and have a child and stay in Prague until her death. She might go to music school and join an ochestra and go perform somewhere, and she might fail on the latter. She might go to music school and get married, or inverse. Perhaps. 

But now a certainty replaced all the possibilities. She was leaving Prague and would never be back, at least no longer in the name of this young woman Grete Samsa. Walking down the street, the morning breeze stroke her cheeks and combed her hair back, and she found her face a bit scratchy due to the coolness. She was on an errand for their departure as well as the following journey lasting for about a month. She heard the sound of blackbird but failed to see them in her sight; probably they were soaring above her, searching for desirable food. But what did they feed off? Fish? Worms? It couldn't be something human preferred eating, though neither salted meat on ribs nor hardtack were qualified to be considered ideal meal. She remembered this morning mother told her to buy some food to supply their trip, especially non-perished. Before she went out, mothered had implied her to not spend on things unnecessary. 

"Yes, food...We must get some bread, something easy for storage..." She recalled mom's words, "I do wanna some fruit and vegetables, but they can easily go bad...What a hassel! " cough broke her lines and let her hand the purse to Grete, "....So I think it has to be cookie and meat. These two are necessary. Meat and cookie, got it? Just make sure you are spending correctly and don't..." She looked into Grete's eyes and paused for a second, "and take care. I know our Gretchen is a good girl," then kissed Grete on her forehead.

She saw people selling vegetables and fruits in wheelcart, and they looked watery and fresh.  They were inviting under the morning light. But shall I have them? pondered Grete, as mother's words just emerged in her head. How long would it take to...go bad, like totally bad, not edible anymore? How long did it take for the one in Gregor's shell take to decay and bred all these white fungus so thick that almost made Gregor a cocoon? But was it Gregor anymore? How could human eat rotten fruits? She didn't feel like digging deep into this topic, so she walked away without any expressions on her face. 

As the sun hanged high, the market graduatelly got crowded. Legumes and grains would not run out in a few hours, but coffee and honey, drinks and sweetness, were not guranteed. So she accelerated the searching and tried to splinter for a distance; the road, however, was blocked. It became harder to move after swallowed by the crowd. People were going on different directions, and sometime opposite, but none of them were able to make their move smoothly when shoulders were against shoulders, and fabric rubbed creating hissy sound. Grete was a bit riled up by groups of people popping up from nowhere; They were walking blindly, in some sense, and she couldn't help wondering what drived these people in a certain direction, getting in her way. She turned back, and not very far from where she was, at one side of the plaza, it was someone holding a violin. 

The guy seemed to be a music student, about the same age of Grete. She couldn't hear clearly what piece he was playing and whether he played it well as music mingled with noise and became unrecognizable, but it now mattered not to her. Usually she will stop for the performer and gives a listen, and maybe has a small talk with a peer, both being aspiring musician. But is that guy's really playing a violin? If there's any possibilities that it is actually a viola? The question came out of the blue, so random that she chuckled. Then she shook her head, with a wry smile, and soon resumed searching. No more violin. And no more viola. 

"No worries, Gretchen, " mother patted her on her back with another hand, "Soon we'll leave here and go find our relatives. They are nice, and I'm sure they are welcome. They'll be nice. Afterall we are siblings. Siblings are nice to each other, you know, just like...Well, I talked to your father that we shall be leaving within this week. We need more time to get prepared, and..."

Mother hesitated and sighed, "We decide to leave this choice to you. We just can't agree on this: you see, your father insisted selling your violin because you will not need it anymore, at least in a short period of time. He didn't think you'll soon get a private tutor there since it's not the same day; he said a lot about that." 

"But I think it is better to keep it. Music is the best jewery for young ladies. You don't know how  fabulous you look when playing violin, my darling Gretchen, " she grinned, and hold Grete's hand tighter, "Boys must think the same. Imagine that, Gretchen, you hold your violin in a white dress with lace trim..."

She continued, and Grete did not listen attentively until she raised the final question, "What do you think, darling? It's all up to you, really."

Not even she began, mother interrupted, "You don't have to answer me right now. I understand your feeling. It indeed requires time to think about it. Tell me before we go, alright? Now, I had to prepare for dinner."

"I'm keeping it, " she murmured in a voice only herself could hear. No one noticed her comming back with bags of food, and she went straight to the sofa and lay down. Though I'm not going to play with it for a long time. She thought, and closed her eyes. 

*Gretchen is the nickname of Grete