Hearts Unfold Read Online Free PDF

head.   No
longer panicked and angry with himself, now he was overwhelmed with shame.   He was sure Jana would have been standing
there by the phone, would have heard their conversation.   His pathetic idiocy had spoiled their much
anticipated vacation.   It seemed he
always understood, after the fact, how destructive his behavior had become.   He just couldn't seem to remember by the next
time he'd had a drink or two.
    He'd fallen in
love in recent months.   Fine Scotch
whisky had become his passion, the object of his obsession.   He adored everything about it, from its amber
glow in the glass, to the slow warmth that spread through his body as it went
down.   And of course, he loved the
release of tension that followed soon after.   Whisky made the clubs and parties he frequented seem so much friendlier;
made him friendlier, more at ease around people with whom he had nothing
in common.   The only drawback to this
relationship was that he never felt completely comfortable until he'd had too
much to drink.   He was dedicated to
finding just the right balance between having a pleasant time and falling down
drunk, but in the process, he seemed to always go too far.
    Stani knew he
had inherited this love of whisky from his father.   It was probably the only thing they had in
common.   He seemed to recall his father
also having been some sort of musician, but that might just be something he'd
made up as a child.   He'd at various
times invented stories about his father and mother, which he kept mostly to
himself.   Since he had so few memories of
his early life, he had to fill in the details as best he could.   His parents had been real at some point he
knew, but he suspected the people he invented were much more interesting than
they had ever been.   A schoolmaster's
secretary and an absent drunkard hardly measured up to the fantasy parents he
had given himself.
    Again, Stani
made a conscious effort to relax.   He
should feel right at home sleeping in the back of a car.   He did it often enough.   His life was one long line of endless cars,
trains and airplanes, all going to or from equally endless concert halls.   But somehow he never felt at home anywhere
anymore.   Only when he was standing
before the lights, sensing if not seeing the faces turned up in anticipation,
did he feel anything like his old self, that shy little boy who could make
people like him just by playing his violin.
    It was legend
now, the discovery of that little boy's talent.   He suspected that just as he had made up stories about his first few
years of life, some of the details now printed in liner notes had been
embellished over time.   But he
remembered, or thought he remembered, that day very clearly.   It had, after all, been a day of many firsts
for him.   The first time he held a
violin, the first time his teachers seemed to take notice of him, and most of
all the first time his mother seemed pleased with something he had done.
    When he was
five years old, his mother had enrolled him at the school where she worked as
secretary to the headmaster.   It was one
of those elite schools popping up all over England, designed to attract
upwardly mobile young parents in search of a more modern sort of education for
their children.   Eileen Moss could never
have hoped to enroll little Stanley in such a school, had her position not
allowed for a sizable break in the tuition.
    A quiet,
obedient child, Stanley received little attention or encouragement from his
various teachers.   In such an unstructured
environment, it was the more lively students who commanded the most
attention.   Naturally shy, and well aware
that he was only there because his mother was just down the hall working,
Stanley felt much of the time as if he were invisible.   And he preferred it that way.   He knew very well how to avoid drawing
attention to himself.   He had learned
that trick early on, literally at his mother's feet.
    Then one
morning his class