Page 77 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘But I don’t know anything about music! You know that! If I don’t like it, that means it’s probably brilliant!’

He half-smiled at that.

‘Ach. And we have eaten well and it is a beautiful night and life says, we must be merry.’

She looked at him as he picked up the now empty wine bottle and frowned.

‘Where did that go? I am talkink too much. I am sorry.’

Marisa shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you told me.’

‘Now. Tell me about you. What is wrong with you?’

She sighed. ‘Well, do you ever get stage fright?’

‘I used to.’

‘When you’re shaking and trembling and terrified?’

‘When I auditioned in Munich, oh. Well. Yes.’

‘I feel like that. All the time.’

Her hands twisted together and she stared at the floor.

‘I see.’

‘What do you say?’ she asked suddenly. ‘When your pupils have stage fright? What do you tell them?’

He looked grave. ‘Well. I say Tazlaswit.’

She looked up. ‘What does that mean? Is it a Russian phrase?’

He looked puzzled. ‘Tazlaswit. Tazlaswit. You know?’

‘I do not know!’

‘Shek it off! Shek it off!’

His meaning finally dawned on her and she burst into peals of laughter.

‘You mean Taylor Swift?’

‘Tazlaswit. I said that.’

She laughed. ‘Shake it off?’

‘For sure. You need to just do it again and again and again until you are not scared any more. You shake it off.’

‘Oh,’ said Marisa sadly. ‘That’s what my therapist says and what’s in my book. You can only get better by doing it a lot. I hoped there was another way.’

‘Everything is practice,’ said Alexei.

He stood up and walked over to the freezer, pulling out of it a vodka bottle with the label in inscrutable Cyrillic.

‘Now we have been talking of old days,’ he said. ‘You will join me?’

Marisa shrugged. She couldn’t work out if this was a good idea or not. On the other hand, when was the last time she had done . . . anything? Spontaneous or otherwise.

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