A Roman Rhapsody

by Sara Alexander

  “I was an idiot a minute ago. I’m sorry. Just they’re putting me under a lot of pressure. Or I’m doing it to myself.”

  “We’re all the same,” she said, her voice somewhere far away.

  “You want me but you don’t show up, Alba. You keep yourself in a small box, locked, hidden. You see me get vulnerable all the time. I cry. I shout. You just stand there watching. It makes me feel idiotic. I want you to show me you, too.”

  Alba nodded. It felt like a feeble apology, for what she didn’t know.

  He shook his head, rising up to standing. “We’ve been through this,” he said, kissing her ear with soft unhurried lips. “You’ve got stuff to do, so have I. And I love you with every fiber of my soul and I wish you did too.”

  He held her face. His eyes glistened now. It was always hard to tell if it was overwhelming love or frustration.

  “I do love you, Vittorio.”

  “Maybe you do. But sometimes you’re not here. Your body is, but your spirit is somewhere else.”

  The familiar accusations swirled around her but didn’t penetrate. She was accustomed to his speech every time deadlines loomed; she suspected his search for her soul was always more about seeking his own.

  “You want my spirit to show up every time you’re reaching a deadline?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. Forget it.”

  “You swing everything around to me!” he yelled, lifting his pile of manuscripts and sending them cascading onto the floor. She looked at them at her feet, a silent clang of discordant notes.

  Vittorio started to pace. “I’m talking about you not being open with me, not being adult enough to be vulnerable, and you switch it to my faults?”

  “Shouting at me isn’t going to make me want to be vulnerable!”

  “And screaming at me is?”

  “You go out of your way to make people boil. You push. You think making me feel like this shows you to be a good human?”

  “Better to let everything out. I don’t do an Alba Fresu, no, making out like I’m this enigmatic untouchable. Like I’m too good for anyone.”

  Alba froze.

  “Truth hurts, no?” he sneered. “Time to grow up and talk, Alba. You know, like people who love each other. Like grown-ups who love each other.”

  There was no essence of love in his words. The intonation was stark, out of tune, a crass bow in a drunk hand.

  She left.

  18

  Colossale

  to play in a fashion which suggests immensity; tremendous

  The Day arrived.

  Alba waited in her dressing room, the sound of the audience filling the auditorium gurgling out from the stage monitor speaker on the wall. She turned the volume down, then clicked it off.

  It was the loudest silence she’d ever heard.

  Phrases of Chopin’s scherzo toyed in her mind, flashes of purple light, flecks of his passion. Her mother’s face fought for attention, but she willed the images to dissipate, breathing deep into her abdomen. She was a young child again, hearing the echoes of Signora Elias’s home, feeling the light stream in on her face.

  A knock at the door brought her back into the room.

  “Places please, Signorina Fresu,” a voice called from just outside her door.

  She rose, tucked her chair in under the desk, and caught her reflection in the mirror that ran the length of one side of the dressing room. The woman in the glass had a confident, unpredictable gait, her black velvet dress hugged in at her waist, her arms long and muscular by her sides. Her eyes, outlined with black pencil, looked straight into the face looking at her. It was like meeting someone she’d once known and hadn’t seen for many years.

  Her footsteps clacked through the expectant silence, the heels of her flats marking time. As she reached her stool the room filled with applause. She let it die down, retracting from the room into the quiet.

  Her breath fell deep into her abdomen. She was back with Elias, listening to the record for the first time, letting the dreamy yearning of Chopin swirl around her, his phrases unexpected, playful, full of longing and detailed description. Her hands lifted. She flitted across the lower notes, a whisper, a hint, a suggestion of a phrase. Then she swept up to the higher notes and stretched into broad chords. Back again to the bass and a second return to the majestic chords. After a breath she relaxed into the next phrase, her fingers running down the keys with effortless precision as she played with the rhythm, dancing, as Goldstein had told her, with an insecure pace, improvisatory, as if she and Chopin were uttering this melody for the first time. Time drifted away. The walls of the auditorium disappeared. There were no bodies now, no peering eyes, no judgments. Alba was not there. Alba was inside his Scherzo no. 2. She was the oranges and yellows of the allegro, the mischievous phrases, light, golden, playful. Her family fought into her mind now, whilst her fingers traced the melody, their consistent rejection permeated her physical memory and Alba remained powerless to stop it. Their refusal to love her as she was, the bitter disappointment she brought them poured into the deep reds, purples, and onyx of Chopin’s sforzando, strident, rageful, full of disdain and declaration. She eased into the middle of the piece now, spreading golden rays over the keyboard, singing out the simple melody over the top of a rolling bass of arpeggios, bronzes, copper warmth, an easy summer’s day, a meadow by a river, yet a sadness floated above it, a wistful sense of things that might have been but weren’t. And as she approached the final section, her hands stretched, charging up and down the keys, reaching the length of the board and racing down, again and again an unstoppable waterfall, brutal, determined, cleansing. And she was alone, at the center of herself, and nothing could touch her or drown her or make her disappear because the music was beyond all that. And so was she; for those final breaths, for those final defiant chords of strength and passion and freedom. At last nothing mattered. Not her, not her family, not what was shunted from her life as she’d known it. The music powered through her and around her and wove back inside like a golden anchor.

  A chord. And another. And then the final.

  The silence cracked open with applause. A light beamed out of her so bright that it eclipsed her own form, now rendered meaningless and powerful at the hands of Chopin. The people stood. She walked to the front of the stage. The sound rippled down her back as she bowed in thanks. She was laughing now, uncontrollable tear-streaked laughter, shudders from deep inside her that she couldn’t stop. She had touched something beyond them all, and now their response lifted her somewhere just above her body, hovering on the wave of love. Three years of dogged, disciplined work had led to this moment. Three years of her family’s betrayal and the abandonment she refused to let anyone in on, a secret she’d never share. Three years of not having a group of family around her to congratulate her, hold her, touch her, tell her that despite everything, she had made them so very proud indeed. She’d taught herself not to need this. She’d almost convinced herself. Her chest was heat and light. It scored through the darkness, the insistent worry that crept in like a tide as the applause began its fade. She pictured her mother’s face, imagined her loving her music in spite of herself. She thought about her reaction beside Signora Elias, how uncomfortable it felt for her to allow her pride to shine through. As Alba stepped into the shadows of the wings, a terror gripped her so hard, so fast that her breath caught.

  Vittorio was in her dressing room.

  “Sublime. I have no words, my love.”

  Alba smiled and wrapped her arms around him. Their kiss was caramel, flecked with a fire she had come to crave in spite of herself.

  “I fell in love with you all over again. I don’t know how much more I can take,” he murmured, easing his hands down her back. She stopped them.

  “I’m sorry for the other night,” she said.

  “We both are.”

  “Yes,” she said, without knowing why. It was easier somehow than to go into the truth of th
e quiet sorrow that filled even the happiest moment. It was an emptiness he understood, but she was happier delving into his than allowing him to fully see hers. Perhaps that meant she wasn’t adult enough to conduct this relationship after all? His subtle but seemingly gentle criticisms filled her mind. She swept them away like a glissando, running her thumb up over all the keys at great speed.

  The champagne reception in the foyer afterward was in full swing by the time she got there. A sea of faces turned toward her as she entered. It was like stepping into a surprise spotlight and the feeling wasn’t comfortable, until a familiar face rose out of the wash of others’.

  Signora Elias was before her.

  Alba’s breath caught.

  She wrapped her arms around her. The noise of the reception faded into a single distant note.

  “You wrote saying you couldn’t come,” Alba said.

  “I didn’t think I could. Then I felt up to the trip. I thought a surprise wouldn’t be unwelcome. I thought I might make you nervous, to tell the truth. I always hated it when my teachers came to listen to me. Distracted me somehow.”

  “I am thrilled you’re here.”

  “Not nearly as happy as I am.” Tears streaked her eyes now, and she looked smaller than Alba remembered. “It is the most precious feeling, the one I’m having right now. All is well with the world when someone gets what they deserve.”

  Alba wrapped her arms around her again. Her eyes were wet now too.

  “You’ve been with me, Signora, all these years right beside me.”

  “My name is Elena. We are both concert pianists now. Time to let go of your childhood names, no?”

  Alba laughed and took Elias’s hands in hers. Vittorio stepped in beside them.

  “Are you congratulating my girlfriend, Signora? Might I have the pleasure?”

  He stretched out his hand. Alba watched Signora Elias’s face light up. Vittorio did look smarter than usual this evening. His crisp white shirt was open at the neck, hugging his svelte torso. His pride in her performance had lit him up.

  “This is Signora Elias,” Alba began. Signora Elias shot her a look. “Sorry, Elena, my first piano teacher. The reason I am here, Vittorio.”

  They exchanged pleasantries until Vittorio was called away by one of his fellow cellists. He kissed Alba on the cheek before he left.

  “That boy is smitten I see,” Signora Elias said.

  “He’s a wonderful cellist. He’s going to be a conductor. His compositions are divine. He’s had several meetings with agents already.”

  “Congratulations, Alba. I know all this was incredibly hard for you. I watched you sacrifice everything for it. I hope you feel like you made the best decision of your life.”

  “I think I do.”

  “You’ve made me so happy to be alive tonight. Sadly, I have to return tomorrow, I can only stay away for short periods these days. I like my routines, you remember that, don’t you?”

  Goldstein stepped in beside the two women. “Well, you didn’t fail after all,” he said with a chuckle. He introduced himself to Signora Elias and then turned toward the man beside him. “This is my friend Dante De Moro. He’s an agent to some of the best talent in this business. He wants to talk to you. You’ll want to listen. And if he offers you anything too good to be true, talk to me first.”

  The men laughed. De Moro stretched out his hand and shook Alba’s with a firm grip.

  “You made the audience fall in love with Chopin all over again,” he began, “as if we needed to relearn that!” Alba listened to his voice, it had an effortless quality, like a wandering clarinet solo, but beneath, a metallic strength, a quiet confidence.

  “This is my card. I’d very much like to meet with you at your earliest convenience. I think I can help you reach the audiences you deserve. And from what my friend Dimitri says, you have a work ethic that he thought only he knew. And that’s saying something. I’m not accustomed to my friend waxing lyrical about many students. Quite the contrary.”

  “Thank you,” Alba said, the words fighting to get out.

  “I shan’t keep you now, Alba, you’ll want to celebrate with your friends. But I look forward to your call. At your earliest convenience.”

  De Moro walked away. Goldstein turned back to Alba as he did so. “This man doesn’t give his card to people, Alba. Be sure you take him up on his invitation.”

  “Yes, Maestro.”

  He nodded, his eyes twinkling with a conspiratorial glee. At last, it seemed, one of his progenies had blossomed.

  “Oh my God, did you just get introduced to Dante De Moro?” Natalia wafted into view, effusive, the chiffon fringes of her dress floating in different directions, which gave the impression of a passing colorful cloud. “Are you kidding me? This is the best thing ever. I’m so proud of you, you disgustingly talented sexy woman. I was literally weeping watching you.”

  “You weep at everything,” Leonardo purred, stepping in behind Natalia.

  “Seriously, Alba, that was beautiful. You deserve all the things!”

  “You do,” Leonardo added, “it really was the best I’ve heard you play. So deep, clear, passionate. I felt that piece afresh.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alba wanted to say more, but the words were stuck somewhere inside, the overwhelming happiness, relief, excitement just bubbled in her marrow, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Tonight was the best day of her life.

  That’s when a tall young man made a beeline for her. He was slim, with a suit cut to perfection with thick black-rimmed glasses that gave the impression of a fashion designer or an artist perhaps. He looked familiar but there was something about his confident élan that made him hard to place. When he raised his hand, waving it at speed, she recognized Raffaele. They raced toward each other. He lifted her up and spun her. Their voices were muffled in happy tears and shrieks. Alba didn’t notice the people step away from them as they reconciled.

  “This! This is the best night of my life!”

  “No, mine, Alba! Oh my God. No words, my love. You are beyond them. I couldn’t stop weeping. Let me hold you again!”

  He wrapped his arms around her. How different this young man felt in her arms from the gawky teenager of their shared past.

  Vittorio slipped in beside her. “I don’t think we’ve met?” he asked, holding his hand out for Raffaele to shake.

  “I’m Raffaele,” he began.

  “My best friend, tesoro, from home,” Alba interjected, her voice dancing.

  “And there I was thinking I was the only man to make your voice sing like that.” Raffaele mirrored Vittorio’s grin.

  Someone tapped at Vittorio’s elbow, he made his apologies and left again.

  “Seriously?” Raffaele asked, his face alight.

  “Where are you going with that thought?” Alba replied.

  “All the places I shouldn’t. He’s gorgeous.”

  Alba shrugged. Then her best friend’s expression darkened.

  “What’s wrong, Ra’?”

  “Can we go outside for a moment? I need to talk to you where it’s quieter.”

  “Of course!” she replied, still giddy from the froth of the reception. She realized someone had put a flute in her hand and it was already empty.

  They stood in the shadows of Via Greco.

  “I had planned to surprise you. Then I called home yesterday and I knew I had to be sure to get to you right away. I didn’t want to tell you before the concert. I know how important that was.”

  “Ra’, your riddles make me feel queasy.”

  “No easy way to say this.” Alba watched him shift in the shadows. She felt a shiver spindle down her spine.

  “It’s your mamma. She had a routine operation for appendicitis but there’s been complications. My mamma couldn’t tell me exactly what, but the situation is critical. I wouldn’t say this without cause, Alba. I think you should go home. Tomorrow.”

  Alba felt the blood drain from her face.

&nbs
p; “I wanted to tell you right away but I didn’t want to ruin this evening.”

  Alba didn’t move.

  “Say something? I can help you pack? I’ve got a ticket for you for the crossing tomorrow. Signora Elias is going back too. I took the liberty of arranging it so you’d have company.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Yes. I called her to ask what I should do.”

  Alba’s throat was dry. Her heart ached; tomorrow she had to return to face the world she’d fled. It felt like her family desired, by any means possible, to dim her light that yearned to shine.

  19

  Dal segno

  a mark in a composition that informs the performer to repeat a specific section of the composition

  Caffe Greco was an institution along a narrow via that led off the hordes of people clustered around the Spanish steps. The heavy clouds had broken at last and now the tourists waved across the streets in messier swarms than usual, few looking prepared for the cascade.

  Alba stepped into the café, and through time it seemed, landing somewhere circa 1870. Inside, the red padded walls were strewn with heavy framed paintings and drawings. There were sculptures balanced in elegant poses on nooks in the walls of the small warren of interconnecting rooms, each lined with red velvet long-backed benches and small granite-topped tables, most of which were occupied and strewn with tall, fluffy, creamy cakes and dainty china cups of teas and coffees, beside cut-crystal glasses of water. Alba wiped the wet hair off her face and shook her overnight bag. A waiter in black tails looked her up and down, judging her to be yet another tourist escaping the downpour.

  Her eyes caught sight of Signora Elias waving from the farthest room. Alba wound through the tables, past the golden display cabinet of unfilled cannoli, large bavarois, rhum baba, and Sacher torte, smaller powdered custard-filled pastry puffs and fruit tarts. The tailed waiter stopped following her, once he’d realized she’d met a well-dressed friend and was not about to steal the furniture.

  “I took the liberty of ordering a little something already, Alba, hope you don’t mind. I know this is not what you think you should be doing right now, but I think some sustenance will help the crossing—the food on board is not what I would describe as appetizing.”