The Song Behind the Thick Door

Chapter 1Again

The same violin phrase came through the wall for the sixth time.

Aharon put down his pencil.

He knew the first part now, although he had never played a violin. The next note still seemed to fall sideways every time.

Across the table, his younger brother rubbed his eyes. He had come home tired and was resting before supper.

Aharon stared at the wall.

The new neighbor must know how loud he was.

Perhaps he simply didn't care.

The crooked note began again.

Aharon pushed back his chair.

Chapter 2The Knock He Wanted

He wanted to knock hard on the neighbor's door.

He wanted to say that nobody else in the building needed to hear the same mistake all afternoon.

Abba came into the room before Aharon reached the hall.

"Where are you going?"

"To tell him to stop."

"What will you ask?"

Aharon repeated what he had been planning.

Abba glanced at the wall.

"You have a real difficulty. That doesn't tell us what he knows about it. Come with me. We can ask about the timing."

Aharon didn't like the quieter wording. It sounded smaller than his annoyance.

He went with Abba anyway.

Chapter 3On the Other Side

Mr. Rosen opened the door with the violin tucked under his arm.

"Good afternoon."

Abba explained that the music carried into their main room and that a younger child was trying to rest.

Mr. Rosen looked toward his practice chair.

"I thought this thick door kept most of it in. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Aharon noticed a cloth against the bottom of the door.

It hadn't done what Mr. Rosen hoped.

"Can you practise later?" Aharon asked.

"Some days. I leave for work in the evening. I do need practice time, and I don't have another room to use."

Aharon had expected either a refusal or a promise to stop.

The answer had neither shape.

Chapter 4The Afternoon List

Abba asked when Mr. Rosen usually practised.

They compared two ordinary weekday afternoons and the times the younger child usually rested.

Mr. Rosen offered to avoid their short rest window on those days. Abba said they could move a desk to the room farthest from the shared wall.

They agreed to try that arrangement for a week and speak again if it didn't help.

No one had declared that the violinist could play at every hour or that the family could demand silence at every hour.

Other questions about the building would go through the grownups and its ordinary rules.

Aharon had a plan that changed part of the afternoon.

It did not remove every sound.

Chapter 5The Desk

At home, Abba moved the desk safely. Aharon carried its light drawer after removing the books.

Mummy, her green tichel tied neatly at the back, helped choose a place where it would not block the doorway.

The violin sounded fainter there.

Aharon still noticed it.

He wrote the first answer in his exercise, then stopped when the difficult phrase started.

"He's still doing that bit wrong," he said.

Abba smiled slightly.

"Yes. A practice isn't a finished performance."

Aharon knew that about his own difficult work. He had forgotten it when somebody else's difficulty came through the wall.

Chapter 6Thursday

On Thursday, the music began during the agreed quiet window.

Aharon stood up quickly.

Then he checked the paper Abba had written with the times.

It really was the quiet window. This wasn't something he had imagined.

He told Abba instead of pounding on the wall.

Abba spoke to Mr. Rosen.

The neighbor had mixed up the two afternoons. He stopped and corrected his own list.

An agreement could be missed and still be worth reminding someone about.

Aharon's brother finished his rest. Aharon finished two more answers before supper.

Chapter 7The Unfinished Phrase

The week ended with the grownups checking the arrangement.

The rest window had helped. The farther desk had helped. There was still music in the household on some afternoons.

They kept the arrangement for now.

One day, Aharon heard the difficult phrase played smoothly.

He looked up before the violin moved on.

He wanted to tell his brother that the note had finally found its place.

Instead, he found his brother reading quietly and left him alone.

Not every thought needed to become another sound in somebody else's room.

Chapter 8A Good Afternoon

Later, Aharon met Mr. Rosen beside Abba in the entrance hall.

"I heard the tricky part go right," he said.

"Some of it," Mr. Rosen replied. "There is another tricky part now."

Aharon laughed.

He still wouldn't choose to hear a violin phrase twenty times while doing homework.

He didn't have to enjoy it to stop imagining the man behind the wall as someone who enjoyed bothering them.

Mr. Rosen had a practice chair and a work schedule. Aharon's family had a rest time and a desk.

The thick door had not solved everything.

A clear conversation had done more than the knock Aharon first wanted to give.