The Music of Us (Still Life with Memories Book 3) Page 11

  My seat may be empty, but I will be there by your side, listening.

  ❋

  It was a cold December evening, with gusty winds that made it feel even colder. The agitation of it fit my mood. In spite of my father’s last request I was unsure if I should go to the concert. Bouts of grief came upon me even as I was escaping them by being busy. I worked frantically, around the clock, to sort out his things, sell most of them, and clean the vacant apartment in preparation to terminate his lease.

  I felt tired, dejected. Going to a show was the last thing I would choose to do. Sitting next to an empty seat, surrounded by an audience that was cheerful and carefree, would distract me not only from my plans but also from my persistent thoughts, wondering if Natasha was thinking, from time to time, about me, and if so, was she whispering my name.

  Going out would do me no good, or so I thought.

  To my dismay, one of the neighbors had his radio playing at full blast, and a song came in, uninvited. I could not help but hearing the words, even though the window was closed.

  If you are made of air

  Upon your wing I’m taken

  Away from fear, despair

  To find myself forsaken

  At hearing this I had to bolt out of the place, go elsewhere, anywhere. And so it was that at the last minute I decided, on a whim, to put on my father’s white shirt and his only suit, which happened to fit me perfectly, and go check things out, tickets at hand.

  Arriving at the corner of 7th Avenue and 57th Street I saw the massive building. Its exterior was rendered in narrow Roman bricks of a mellow ochre hue, with details accentuated in terra cotta and brownstone. Designed in the spirit of the Renaissance, Carnegie Hall was known as the most prestigious concert stage in the country, a place where leading classical music talents aspired to perform.

  There, opposite me, stood men and women elegantly dressed, and by the clouds of breath that came out of their mouths, billowing in the chilly air, I knew they chatting with each other. The crowd started flowing in to watch the performance. In somewhat of a daze I crossed the intersection and fell in line with all these fur coats.

  Entering the place with them I found myself unprepared for the stunning elegance of the interior. It had a golden hue, an ambience of warmth and beauty.

  A vaulted ceiling soared overhead. Not only was it breathtaking but also gave the hall its legendary acoustic sound. I recalled reading somewhere that the architect, who was an amateur cellist and treasurer of the Oratorio Society, had travelled to Europe to find out what makes a concert hall sound great.

  For me, this was an awakening. My existence had sunk lately into a dead silence, that my senses had been deprived of light, music, or any touch of inspiration, but now, suddenly, something inside me stirred to life.

  Bouncing about in my seat, which was the best one in the house—front row, center—I felt like a boy whose hunger had caught up to him and could not be denied anymore. Now I could not wait for the show to start.

  “This place is amazing,” said a soft, sultry voice in a slight Russian accent. “It’s abuzz with excitement!”

  I looked up. A young woman swung around in my direction, wearing full-length satin gloves that extended up above the elbows, a sparkly black evening dress with a slit on the side, and a necklace that dipped into her cleavage. Her hair swayed around her, shiny and bleached blond, as she gave a little nod to me. With a little sigh, she lowered herself into the empty seat.

  “No, this must be a mistake,” I said.

  “What is?”

  “This seat is taken.”

  “Is it?”

  “It is.”

  She checked her ticket. “Oh yes, you’re right. My seat is on the other side of you.”

  She stepped around my knees on her way to that seat. I looked the other way, but felt her staring at me.

  “You look familiar,” she said.

  I shrugged, not knowing how to respond, or if this was some ploy to draw my attention to her. Meanwhile, someone in the row behind us tapped her shoulder, trying to hint that she should stop it, and no more chitchat, because the sounds of musicians testing their instruments was already heard behind the scenes.

  She licked her red lips and offered a gloved hand in a gesture that confused me. What are the proper manners here? I should shake it or kiss it?

  “My name,” she said, “is Lana.”

  “Lenny,” said I.

  “Oh!” She touched a gloved finger to her forehead, and a sudden glint of recognition shot from the corner of her eye. “What a surprise! What a small world! Now I know who you are!”

  “You do?”

  “You’re a marine, aren’t you?”

  “I am—”

  “You’re Ryan’s friend, right?”

  “You know Ryan?”

  “I do! I’m his girlfriend, you must have heard about me, no? Anyway I got a letter from him, just the other day, with picture of both of you, looking so, so striking in uniform. You were standing there with those English girls all around you, in front of the embassy in London. Don’t tell him I said this,” she hissed in my ear, “because if you do I’ll deny it, but you’re even more handsome in person, especially in this fine suit, if you don’t mind me saying so—”

  “But I do!” said the man from behind.

  And another one said, “Shush!”

  She shrugged him off with a pretty smile, confident that no one can resist her charms, but she did lower her voice, just a bit.

  “Talk about a coincidence,” she said, crossing her legs and shifting position to cuddle up to me, as if she were my babe.

  I left her question unanswered, because the house lights started dimming out. To the sound of applause, which mixed with the sound of wind instruments from the orchestra pit, an announcer stepped out from behind the curtain and headed to the front edge of the stage.

  Meanwhile, “Why are you here?” Lana went on to ask. “Is everyone coming home? I mean, has the war ended?”

  There was a gasp from behind.

  I said nothing to her, because nothing is something at which I am the best at saying, and because this was not the time to say a thing, especially not to someone who was so oblivious to what was going on in the world.

  It maddened me to think that my friends were risking life and limb on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and that civilian casualties were mounting all over Europe, only to be utterly ignored by the likes of this woman, whose only thought was finding someone, anyone to amuse her.

  By now, the announcer came to a stand directly in front of us. “Tonight,” he said, “we’re proud to present a brilliant pianist whose lyrical sensitivity has been honed by acclaimed performances, in every concert hall all over the country, from Los Angeles to Boston.”

  I felt ignorant for not checking the program ahead of time, because of doubting that I would find myself in this place. I had no idea of what music to expect, nor did I know the names of the performers. Now my heart quickened with a sense of anticipation, which was as remarkable as the boredom that registered on Lana’s face. I was surprised to see her subduing a yawn.

  Meanwhile, the announcer went on. “If you haven’t heard the name up to now,” he said, “you’ve been missing out. Quite simply, this performer is known for an amazing virtuosity. One thing I can promise you: after tonight, you’ll never forget her!”

  Then he stepped back and cast a glance over his shoulder. With ghosts of light fluttering around its circle, the spotlight followed him, widening its focus as it went, until reaching the outline, the curvy outline of a grand piano. It washed the heavy, carved legs with light, then climbed over the Steinway and brought a figure standing by its side out of the shadows.

  And there, against the background of richly decorated panels around the stage, in a long, shimmering evening gown that seemed to be aglow, was the one who had vanished, mysteriously, from my life. I looked at her bright, green eyes and for just a moment thought I felt her looking bac
k at me.

  No, I said to myself. From up there, she couldn’t have spotted me. To her I am part of a crowd, a dark, anonymous mass with a glint here, a glint there, flashing across the glass of a pair of binoculars, aimed at her from this and that direction.

  It was at that moment that by the pang, the sharp pang in my heart, I knew: love was not something I could decide not to do.

  There I was, held by a spell.

  Natasha.

  Repose

  Chapter 14

  With a spring in his step, the announcer turned to Natasha and handed her the microphone. She brought it to her lips, but in her excitement could not speak at first, nor could she contain a smile.

  “Natasha Horowitz,” he said, to the sound of applause. “We’re truly honored to have you here!”

  “It’s me who’s honored,” said Natasha, beaming broadly. “Playing at Carnegie Hall has been a dream of mine from early childhood.”

  “It’s a dream for many musicians, but for you it’s real,” he said. “So now tell us, what will you be playing tonight?”

  “This is a special piece for me,” she said, “one that has been commissioned by Count Franz von Walsegg, an Austrian aristocrat who lived in Stuppach Castle. A lover of theatre, he was in touch with many composers, who agreed to deliver their works to him without revealing their identities, for which he paid them handsomely. This way he could retain sole ownership, and on occasion announce that the composer was none other than himself.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Then, in 1791, following the death of his twenty-year-old wife, he commissioned a requiem mass from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.”

  “Please, share with us what this piece means to you,” said the announcer. “What makes it special?”

  “Oh, it’s so stirring, and for many reasons,” she said. “For the composer, what a grand gesture it must have been, creating this music for the repose of the soul of the dead!”

  In a blink her words touched me. They reawakened the grief for my father. In his last days, his pain must have been crushingly strong. It must have prevented him from writing to me at full length. I felt him slipping farther and farther away from me.

  I would never admit it to anyone, lest they think me an irrational fool, but closing my eyes I kept waiting for a whisper, a touch from beyond. I imagined him struggling, even now, to stay close. But other than the empty seat next to me, there was no sign, no presence.

  I was grateful that at last, his flesh was free of suffering, but his soul, I sensed, was still troubled, as was mine. In different ways, this requiem was for both of us. We needed to find peace.

  “Mozart wrote the composition on his deathbed. He never finished it,” said Natasha. “I keep wondering how he might have brought it to completion, had he lived. Such is the riddle of this music. Such is the riddle of a premature departure.”

  I marveled at her words. She had lost her Pa not that long ago and understood, in the most profound way, what I was going through.

  “And as for Count Franz von Walsegg,” she went on to say, “he never remarried. Perhaps in his mind this music stood for eternal love, for faithfulness that persists, that carries what you feel across any and all boundaries, even in the face of death.”

  At hearing this I felt my heart hammering inside me. If the idea of faithfulness was one of the reasons for her choosing this piece, how then could she have deserted me? How could she balance such contradictions in herself?

  As if she could hear my thoughts Natasha said, “And one more thing: contradictions! That’s something I often think about, when it comes to this particular piece. It has it all: love, grief, deception. What a mystery we are, all of us, as you can realize thinking about the Count. Grieving for his beloved was painful, no doubt. Even so it never stopped him from mixing it with deception. He paid Mozart for the Requiem, intending to pass it off as his own.”

  “That,” said the announcer, “may have been legal—”

  “But not right.”

  “On a different note,” he said, “I’m told that this piece was scored for basset horns, bassoons, trumpets, trombones, drums, violins, viola, cello, and organ. The vocal forces included soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass soloists, and of course a choir. But tonight, there’s just you.”

  “Yes, just me. My late Pa transcribed it for piano four hands, and when I could no longer play it together with him—which happened months before he passed away—I transcribed it a different way, reducing it to just two hands.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it.”

  “I can’t wait to play it,” she said. “Can’t wait to bring you in, to hear the contrasts of this piece, its overwhelming contradictions.”

  With that Natasha handed the microphone back to him and curtsied to the audience. A wavy, red strand of hair slinked from her headband, which was decorated with delicate flowers, and glided over her bare shoulder. Below that, the bodice of her dress glinted as she turned around. And again, for just a second, I thought I felt her eyes fluttering in my direction, meeting my gaze. Everyone around me must have imagined that, too.

  Natasha lifted the long, silky skirt of her dress, so its folds fanned out from the seam that hugged her hips. As she sat down they draped, full and flowing, over the piano bench, responding playfully to the light from above with a cherry red shine. A reflection of it lit her chin from below and lined the underside of her slender arms, just a touch. With a slow, deliberate motion she lifted her hand, letting it hover, for what seemed like the span of a thought, over its shadow over the keys.

  Her fingers started flitting across the keys, and at once I was taken by the solemn, dramatic sounds she made rise over us. They came pressing against the far reaches of the hall, gathering ominously just below the vaulted ceiling, as if in preparation to blow it away and sweep us into the night. There was no repose for the soul, at least not yet. Instead there was something else, perhaps a sense of woe. It made me want to kneel down and surrender, give myself up to the unknown, to this darkness that was looming over me, over this entire space.

  In a flash, the words To You all flesh will come flew into my mind. They brought everything I felt to a head: not only the sorrow that descended upon me during the last few days—ever since coming back to my father’s empty place—but also pity, pity for the destruction and the waste I had seen overseas in recent months. Oh, and fear too, fear for the fate of us all, because in this war we suffered and made others suffer in return.

  I closed my eyes. More words drifted before me as the music intensified, and now I realized where I must have seen them: the last thing my father had bought, perhaps together with tonight’s tickets, was a record. I recalled seeing it on his desk and noting that it was still in its original, sealed cover. On the back, it quoted the lyrics from the requiem, translating their Latin phrases. Day of wrath, day of anger... Will dissolve the world in ashes... That day of tears and mourning, when from the ashes shall arise, all humanity to be judged.

  In my hurry to put things in order I had given away all his records, including this one, which now I realized was a mistake. I should have kept it. Oh, was I in loss! Loss, I said to myself, glancing at the empty seat beside me. Loss.

  Overwhelmed by it I felt, for the first time since my return, tears welling in my eyes. Sounds came washing over me, softening my soul, changing my pain into music.

  ❋

  By the end of her performance there was a long silence. Natasha came to the front and took a deep bow, which brought people to their feet, applauding her. The announcer came back onstage with a large bouquet of roses.

  “From your admirers,” he said, offering it to her.

  She took it and gave the crowd a brilliant smile, but her face remained pale and her eyes—sad. Perhaps it was the impact of the music, still echoing inside her. The spotlight followed her as she turned back with a silky swoosh, then it dimmed.

  A while later, curtains fell over the stage, sheer, translucent curtains through
which I could still read an impression, a faint impression of her, exiting the stage.

  The thought of leaping to my feet and running backstage to find her dressing room occurred to me, but I dismissed it. What was the point? Natasha gave me music, heavenly music that lifted me from my grief. I sat empty handed, with nothing to give back.

  Meanwhile I glanced around at the audience. Everyone seemed to be in awe, all except the woman next to me. Why Lana was even here was a mystery. Music was not something she seemed to enjoy. I thought I remembered Ryan, my friend, mentioning to me that his girlfriend had tin ears, which at this point she signaled, without shame, by choking one yawn after another.

  Reluctant to get up by herself, Lana clasped my arm with a pleading look, so I had no choice but to help her to her feet. Wobbling a bit over her high heels, she took a large, jeweled comb out of her purse and inserted it into her hair, which was extremely blond, to hold it in place, twisted up.

  Then, with a little sigh, she told me how glad she was it was finally time for intermission, and she needed a man by her side, not someone who was stationed faraway, and who not only surrounded himself with English girls but also sent her pictures to boast about it, without any consideration for her feelings, and she wasn’t jealous, really, but needed to be held, because what’s a woman to do when she’s lonely, and in particular she needed to be held by me, because right now she was a little tipsy, and would I accompany her as she headed for the bar.

  Perhaps she figured I was not paying attention, because she concluded all that with, “Listen, Lenny. I need a drink. Would you buy me one?”

  I hesitated. For months I ignored any and all temptations. I longed for my girl, but she was a star, and an illusive one at that. Too much time had elapsed since our one-and-only date, and even though I had just seen her onstage, standing right there in front of me, the distance remained.