As If a Bird Flew By Me: A Novel

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As If a Bird Flew By Me sara greenslit As If a Bird Flew By Me FC2 TUSCALOOSA Copyright © 2011 by Sara Greenslit The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved First edition Published by FC2, an imprint of The University of Alabama Press, with support provided by the Publishing Program at the University of Houston–Victoria. Address all editorial inquiries to: Fiction Collective Two, University of Houston–Victoria, School of Arts and Sciences, Victoria, TX 77901-5731 Cover and book design: Lou Robinson Typefaces: Janson and Commerce Produced and printed in the United States of America ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greenslit, Sara, 1970– As if a bird flew by me : a novel / Sara Greenslit. —1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-57366-164-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) —ISBN 978-1-57366-828-6 (electronic) 1. Women—Fiction. 2. Violoncellists—Fiction. 3. Psychological fiction. 4. Musical fiction. I. Title. PS3607.R465A93 2011 813’.6—dc22 2010053744 Without Sue, without the Greenslits and the Bengtsons— everything fades, everything falters— The tradition of ‘ghost opera’ is thousands of years old. The performer…has a dialogue between past and future, spirit and nature…The ‘little girl’ holds tiny bells and sings the lament of the ‘little cabbage,’ a little girl who has lost her parents. Such an old, sad song, it’s the essence of ghosting. You can talk to the past, the stone can talk to the violin, and the cabbage can sing of her sorrowful life… Tan Dun, composer (b. 1957 in Hunan) ...