otto-chan walked sedately. Rocky walked sedately, too, looking up at Totto-chan from time to time. That could only mean one thing: they were on their way to peek in at Daddy's rehearsal hall. Normally, Totto-chan would be running as fast as she could, or walking this way and that looking for something he had dropped, or going across other people's gardens, one after the other, ducking under their fences.

Daddy's rehearsal hall was about a five-minute walk from their house. He was the concertmaster of an orchestra, and being a concertmaster meant he played the violin. Once when she was taken to a concert, what had intrigued Totto-chan was that after the people had all finished clapping, the perspiring conductor turned toward the audience, got down from his podium, and shook hands with Daddy who had been playing the violin, Then Daddy stood up, and all the rest of the orchestra stood up, too.

"Why did they shake hands?" Totto-chan had whispered.

"The conductor wants to thank the orchestra for having played so well, so he shook hands with Daddy as the representative of the orchestra as a way of saying thank you," explained Mother.

The reason Totto-chan liked going to the rehearsal hall was that, unlike school, where there were mostly children, here they were all grown-ups, and they played all sorts of instruments. Besides, the conductor, Mr. Rosenstock, spoke such funny Japanese.

Josef Rosenstock, Daddy had told her, was a very famous conductor in Europe, but a man called Hitler was starting to do terrible things there, so Mr. Rosenstock had to escape and come all the way to Japan in order to continue to make music. Daddy said he greatly admired Mr. Rosenstock. Totto-chan didn't understand the world situation, but just at that time Hitler had started persecuting Jews. If it hadn't been for that, Rosenstock would never have come to Japan, and the orchestra that composer Koscak Yamada had founded would probably never have made such progress in the short time it did, through the efforts of this conductor of international standing. Rosenstock demanded of the orchestra the same level of performance he would have expected from a first-class orchestra in Europe. That's why Rosenstock always wept at the end of rehearsals.

"I try so hard and you don't respond."

Hideo Saito, the cellist, who used to conduct while Rosenstock was resting, spoke the best German and would reply for them all, "We are doing the best we can. Our technique is still not good enough. I assure you our failure is not deliberate."

The intricacies of the situation escaped her, but sometimes Mr. Rosenstock would get so red in the face it seemed as if steam should be coming out of his head, and he began shouting in German. At times like that, Totto-chan would retire from her favorite window where she had been watching--chin in hands--and would crouch on the ground with Rocky, hardly daring to breathe, and wait for the music to begin again.

But normally Mr. Rosenstock was very nice and his Japanese was quite amusing.

"Very good, Kuroyanagi-san," he would say with a funny accent when they had played well. Or, "Wonderful!"

Totto-chan had never been inside the rehearsal hall. She liked to peek in at the window and listen to the music. So when they stopped for a break and the musicians came outside to have a smoke, Daddy often found her there.

"Oh, there you are, Totsky!" he would say.

If Mr. Rosenstock spotted her he'd say, “Good morning" or "Good day" in his funny accent, and although she was big now, he would pick her up as he did when she was little and put his cheek against hers. It embarrassed her a bit, but she liked Mr. Rosenstock. He wore glasses with thin silver rims and had a large nose and was not very tall. But he had a fine handsome face that you could immediately recognize as an artist's.

Totto-chan liked the rehearsal hall. It was rather Western in style, and a bit dilapidated.

The wind that blew from Senzoku Pond carried the sound of the music far beyond the rehearsal hall. Sometimes the call of the goldfish ( kingyo) vendor would blend with the music: