Balázs stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath. Shifting the violin on his back, he rolled his head in tight circles and tapped out a rhythm on his thigh. He obviously knew the legend of the Fiddler, which I'd often told him when he was a child, but he wanted to hear it again anyway, for perhaps the hundredth time. He wanted to hear the mantra, the magic spell to help deal with fear and work through pain. My throat went dry, as the blue light filtering through the leaves of trees showed me how sad he was. I'd preferred the face from Christmastime, overflowing with joy. Without waiting for him to ask, I went on with the story:
   "He kept going back to fiddle there until one night, a great storm appeared out of nowhere. The first fat drop of rain fell just as Tony lifted his bow. The rain didn't bother him, and he ignored the sharpening wind. The fiddle bore the rain well, it had a body made of Bosnian pine, resistant to the violent wind. At first he only played softly, long piercing notes without any trills or flourish. The music cried and cried, flowing along slow through the drizzle. Then as thunder drowned out the sad melody, the bow gave a shriek and bounced along the strings under his swiftly shifting fingers. The tune took on a pleading tone, and answered back at the bouts of lightning, challenging the thunder. The fiddler took on the primal forces of valley and forest, looking them straight in the eye. My father begged to get going before night fell upon them, but it was no use. The fiddler stood there with both feet planted firmly, like the roots of the great trees gripping deep into the earth. His jacket flapped around him like a pair of enormous wings. Time stood still, like nothing existed outside that valley. The valley which closed around a father's goodbye, and a man's deep agony. That night's downpour washed everything clean, and the swollen Greenbrook carried away all the world's sorrows toward the sea.

translated by Dani Dányi