On the 5th of March 1942, Catherine de Sélys gave a secret piano recital at the Paris Philarmonic Society. The particularly infelicitous context of the Occupation had deprived her of any concerts for months and the prospect of plunging into music once again filled her with joy.
During the performance, Catherine felt herself dissolving, body and soul, into the work she was interpreting. On several occasions she was even overcome by the fear of losing all contact with reality, and in order to get back to the real world she found it necessary to improvise a few notes, just to prick her bubble. As luck would have it, her variations seemed to be so natural that, after the concert was over, no-one even noticed.
The next day, Catherine was summoned to the offices of the military police. An officer who was a musical enthusiast played a few bars to her on the piano and with the air of an inquisitor asked her what she thought.
Catherine was incapable of uttering a single word. How could that officer know those notes, those damned notes that ruined her childhood for ever one night back in 1914, when soldiers burst into the family apartment and raped her mother. Catherine heard her mother’s cries once more as, jammed up against the piano, she tried to struggle and banged desperately on the keyboard with her imprisoned hands.
Fearful of what would await her if she remained a second longer in that office, Catherine attempted to escape. But after the officer had just pushed her brutally down on to the desk, she suddenly saw a programme of her recital, on which the famous notes had been hurriedly written down in pencil. So it was that the monstrous tune corresponded in reality to the few bars she had spontaneously played the night before, and which the officer - no doubt present at the concert - was driven to conclude were some sort of secret message.
While she was being taken to a cell (from which she was determined not to say a word), Catherine finally realised that if she was ever to become a professional musician, it would be with the one and only hope of filling herself with so many melodies that they would drown out the tune that had haunted the recesses of her mind ever since that night in 1914.