The day the first snow fell in Prague, I saw Elena again.
She stood at the other end of Charles Bridge, wearing that long black coat, her red scarf blown high by the wind.
I chased after her almost without thinking.
“Elena!”
She did not turn around.
There were many tourists on the bridge. I bumped into an old man selling paintings and nearly knocked over a street-side easel. By the time I finally pushed through the crowd, that black figure had already vanished.
Only a crow remained, perched on the stone railing.
It tilted its head and looked at me.
Standing in the snow, catching my breath, I suddenly laughed.
I must be insane.
Elena has been dead for three years.
——
My name is Alexander. I am a pianist.
At least, I was three years ago.
Now I only play on Friday nights.
At eleven o’clock, I leave my apartment on time, walk north along the Vltava River, pass through two unlit alleys, and finally arrive at a nineteenth-century old house.
I have the key.
The lock is old; every turn produces a heavy scraping sound.
There is no heating inside.
I never turn on the lights, only lighting the old-fashioned candelabra in the living room.
At eleven fifteen, I sit down at the piano.
A white rose always rests on the lid.
Then I begin to play.
This habit has lasted three years.
Because Elena once told me she liked Fridays the most.
“Why?”
“Because after Friday comes the weekend.”
“What kind of reason is that?”
She leaned against the piano, thinking seriously for a moment.
“Because I can spend two more days with you.”
I used to laugh at her childishness.
Only now do I understand—some words, when spoken by the living, sound ordinary, but after death, every sentence becomes a final testament.
——
I first met Elena in winter as well.
I was twenty-nine; she was twenty-six.
I was the accompanist at a small theater; she was responsible for restoring the old paintings in the theater’s collection.
The first time she spoke to me was because she thought my playing was too loud.
“Sir.”
I stopped.
She leaned over the second-floor railing.
“Could you play a little softer?”
I looked at her.
“This is a piano.”
“I know.”
“Pianos don’t have volume knobs.”
“Then play more gently.”
It was the first time I had ever heard someone ask a pianist to “play more gently.”
I deliberately played the next passage harder.
She ran straight down the stairs.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She glared at me.
Three seconds later, we both laughed at the same time.
That was our beginning.
Afterward, Elena often sat by the stage watching me practice.
She didn’t understand classical music—she mixed up Chopin and Liszt and could never remember Mozart’s opus numbers.
But she knew when my mood was bad.
Because the worse my mood, the faster I played.
She would walk over and place her hand on the keys.
A string of chaotic sounds stopped abruptly.
“Alexander.”
“What?”
“Come take a walk with me.”
“It’s minus six degrees outside.”
“So?”
“It’ll be cold.”
She had already picked up my coat.
“That’s why I need you.”
I could never win against her.
We walked along the Vltava, bought a cup of scalding coffee. She took two sips then handed it to me, slipping her cold hands into my coat pockets.
“Elena.”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t you have your own pockets?”
“I do.”
“Then why are your hands in mine?”
She looked up at me.
“Because yours are warmer.”
I actually believed this kind of day would last forever.
——
Elena died on November 17th, three years ago.
We had argued that day.
And it was an ugly fight.
The reason was ridiculously small.
I received an invitation from an orchestra in Vienna, hoping I would go for half a year.
I accepted.
But I didn’t tell her until after signing the contract.
“So you’ve already decided?”
She asked me, standing in the kitchen.
“It’s only half a year.”
“I’m asking if you’ve already decided.”
“Yes.”
She was quiet for a long time.
“Then why are you only telling me now?”
“Because this is my job.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t go.”
“Then what exactly are you angry about?”
The moment those words left my mouth, I knew I was wrong.
She looked at me.
Her eyes slowly turned red.
“I’m angry that there’s nothing in your life that actually requires discussing with me.”
“Elena, don’t make this so serious.”
“I’m the one making it serious?”
“I’m only going for half a year!”
“Then go!”
She grabbed her coat.
I was angry too.
So I didn’t stop her.
Even as she reached the door, I said the words I would regret for the rest of my life.
“You’re always like this—can’t you be more mature?”
She paused for a moment.
Didn’t turn around.
The door closed.
At 12:40 a.m., the police called.
The taxi Elena was in lost control on an icy mountain road.
It hit the guardrail.
Flipped twice.
When I rushed to the hospital, she was already unconscious.
The doctor asked who I was to her.
I opened my mouth.
But suddenly didn’t know how to answer.
Boyfriend?
Fiancé?
Family?
We weren’t any of those yet.
In the end, I only said:
“I am the person she loves.”
The doctor fell silent.
That expression—I will never forget it for the rest of my life.
3:17 a.m.
Elena died.
——
It was raining on the day of her funeral.
Everyone held black umbrellas.
Only I didn’t.
The priest said many things.
Eternity.
Rest in peace.
Heaven.
God.
I didn’t hear a single word.
I just watched the coffin slowly descend into the earth.
Someone handed me a white rose.
I didn’t throw it down.
I took it home.
That night, I sat at the piano for six full hours.
Without playing a single note.
Because I suddenly realized—the cruelest thing in this world is not death.
It’s having so many words left to say, yet the other person will never hear them.
——
Three years later, I still come here every Friday.
This house once belonged to Elena’s grandmother.
She used to say that if we ever got married, she wanted to fix it up.
Put my piano in the living room.
Make the second floor her studio.
Plant roses in the yard.
“White ones?”
I asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t you like white roses the most?”
“I liked red ones while I was alive.”
She smiled and said.
“White is for after I’m dead.”
I scolded her for talking nonsense back then.
In the end, she really left me an entire winter of white.
Tonight at midnight, while playing, I suddenly heard a sound from upstairs.
Thud.
Very soft.
I stopped.
The house fell silent again.
“Elena?”
No one answered.
I stood up, carrying the candelabra, and went upstairs.
Her old room was still the same.
Easel, paints, unfinished novel—even the coffee cup she used still sat on the windowsill.
I walked in.
The window was open.
Snow was being blown into the room by the wind.
I was about to close it when I saw a piece of paper on the table.
I froze.
It wasn’t something I had left there.
The paper was yellowed; it was Elena’s handwriting.
Only a few lines.
“If you’re seeing this letter, it means you’ve finally decided to tidy up this messy room.”
I smiled.
But tears fell onto the paper.
There was another sentence below.
“Alexander, if I die before you one day, don’t keep thinking about me all the time.”
My hands began to tremble.
“You can think of me occasionally.
When it rains.
When it snows.
When you hear piano music, too.
But don’t turn your life into my graveyard.”
The last line, she wrote:
“Keep playing the piano.”
I sat on the floor for a long time.
For the first time in three years, I cried out loud.
Not at the funeral.
Not at the hospital.
Not at the accident scene.
But more than a thousand days after she left, I finally admitted something.
I have been waiting for her to come back.
——
At two in the morning, I returned to the living room.
The white rose still sat on the piano.
I sat down.
Lifted the lid again.
The snow outside was falling heavier.
The distant church bells rang.
I placed my hands on the keys.
This time, I didn’t play the piece I played every week.
I played something new.
No name.
No score.
Just kept playing.
Playing the moment she first stood on the second floor complaining I was too loud.
Playing the moment she slipped her cold hands into my pockets.
Playing our first kiss.
Playing the night I didn’t chase after her.
And playing the funeral I never want to remember.
When the final note fell, dawn was near.
I closed my eyes.
“Elena.”
The room was very quiet.
I smiled.
“Good night, for real this time.”
I picked up the white rose, and for the first time, didn’t leave it on the piano.
——
The next afternoon, I went to the cemetery.
Snow covered the entire hillside.
Elena’s gravestone was clean.
I crouched down and placed the white rose beside her name.
A crow suddenly flew over from the side.
It landed on the gravestone.
I looked at it.
“You again?”
The crow didn’t move.
“Do crows really like graves that much?”
It suddenly flapped its wings and flew away.
I laughed.
Stood up.
After walking a few steps, I still looked back once.
Snow was falling.
The white rose lay in front of the gravestone.
I suddenly understood—missing someone who has died doesn’t mean staying frozen with them on the day of their death.
The truly long farewell is to keep living.
I put my hands in my coat pockets and walked down the snow-covered path.
When I reached the cemetery exit, my phone rang.
It was Vienna.
The same orchestra from three years ago was inviting me again for their winter performance.
They asked:
“Alexander, would you like to come?”
I stood in the snow in silence for a moment.
Then looked up.
The sky revealed a faint hint of sunlight for the first time.
“I would.”
Before hanging up, I looked back toward the hillside once more.
This time I didn’t see Elena.
No black coat.
No red scarf.
And no apparition.
Only a flock of crows crossing the winter sky, flying far away.
I suddenly felt this was good.
Because some loves don’t need to be resurrected.
Some people don’t need to return.
She once existed.
Once put her hands in my pockets.
Once smiled and told me on a minus-six-degree Prague street:
Because yours are warmer.
That’s enough.
That night, I didn’t return to the old house.
But passing the Vltava, I heard someone playing the piano in the distance.
The melody carried far on the winter night wind.
I paused for a moment.
Then kept walking.
That was the nocturne I wrote for her.
And also the last one.
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