A Roman Rhapsody

by Sara Alexander

  Instead, she thanked him, words not coming to her rescue in the easy way she would have liked, the sensation of being teenage Alba creeping up again, awash with gratitude for her best friend and the boy she’d trained herself to hate all those years ago, for helping her.

  “Keep doing what you’re doing, Alba. It’s making the world a better place.”

  “Now you sound drunk.”

  “I don’t care, because it’s true. You let people feel things we can’t in day-to-day life. For that, I thank you.”

  He turned then and began walking away, disappearing around the corner, the echoes of his swaying steps echoing along the silent cobbles.

  Alba stepped into her darkened apartment. She poured herself a whiskey from a decanter upon the sideboard, threw in ice, and stepped out onto the terrace. She switched on the string lights that she’d hung across it. The hunk of ice hit the edges with an inviting clunk, swelling the whiskey from side to side. She took a sip.

  Her eyes floated across to the olive tree in the large terra-cotta pot, the small trickling fountain at the far corner and then along the collection of succulents growing out of an array of mismatched pots, curving in toward the terrace along the periphery.

  Alba felt the alcohol begin to turn to sugar. After a large whiskey she always felt a rush of energy, restlessness, a hunger for company. She looked at Misha’s bouquet, lying on the piano stool. In the kitchen she placed them in a vase of water. The note slipped out onto the floor. She opened it.

  I fell into you after the first note you played. You may not feel the same, but here is my number if you do. You can call me anytime. I usually work through the night. Sleep is not my friend but the moon, it seems, is. Misha

  Alba looked at the clock. It was almost three. A splintering electricity zigzagged through her; it was the whiskey, the concerto, seeing Vittorio, finding out that Mario was responsible, in part, for the success of her departure for Rome, Alba knew all this. She recognized this sensation, it followed her performances every time. It was when she’d call her singer, the artist in Berlin, the banker in Milan, or allow herself to enjoy whatever lover offered a night of lovemaking without commitment that particular evening, wherever she found herself performing. She loved the rush of these clandestine interlacings, they were ephemeral, the closest thing to a fleeting performance at the piano, something you couldn’t re-create, would never become real, nor repeatable.

  When Misha arrived at her apartment half an hour later, he looked more radiant than she’d remembered. They took a bottle of wine out onto the terrace but neither of them needed to drink. She switched off the lights and let her naked body wrap around his on the cool of the tiles on her terrace. She felt the moonlight caress the curves of her breasts and surrendered to each sensation. The dawn sliced the sky, tentative pinks and oranges as they wound back onto her bed, as she invited him deeper inside, as she fed all the night’s energy through her body, chasing her pleasure, guiding him to the center of her without fear, and, at last, to the quiet that wound round them like a silken cocoon. Sleep overtook them and the entire night faded into a dreamed past.

  27

  Dead interval

  interval between the ending note of one phrase and the first note of the next

  The accademia looked resplendent a few mornings later when Alba returned, ahead of the summer break, to teach her final one-to-one sessions before starting on the faculty in September. The courtyard at the end of the entrance corridor was bathed in light, the rays stretching through the surrounding walkway as far as the first set of glass-paned double doors at reception. Alba adored the smell of Rome at this time of day, ahead of the humidity of midmorning, when a laurel-infused freshness renewed the air, creeping jasmine hedges scenting it with a heady perfume lingering from the night. On her stroll to work the bars clinked with stocky espresso cups, saucers slammed onto granite counters, air sugared with fresh pastries as she passed, snippets of passionate politics spitting out from caffeine-charged Romans, putting the world to rights, or throwing their arms up in disbelief at the insanity of their new government.

  Manuela was waiting for her, a crème puff and espresso in hand.

  “Buon giorno, Maestra Fresu,” she said, standing up and lifting the plate toward her.

  “Goodness, I’m not going to be treated like this every time I come to work, am I?” Alba said, in reply, smiling. “I’m not sure I’d do well to get used to that.”

  “Perhaps not, but it is your last day and everyone is overexcited for their summer break.”

  “Grazie.”

  “Misha has checked in already,” Manuela added, “then the enrolled students will follow. I’ve printed out the schedule for your morning. The auditions are being held later today too, for Signor Maschiavelli, they’ll be using one of the lower rooms.”

  Alba took the paper and scanned the list of names. Goldstein appeared at the double door leading to the offices. “Well, look who graces us once again,” he said, walking over and kissing her on each cheek. “I’m gushing because I meant to thank you the other night, but you were surrounded by adoring fans picking apart every quarter note of your performance—by the way, whatever you did to that student from the other day, keep doing it.”

  Alba’s eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t act coy,” he continued. “The German girl, I’ve been trying to get her not to play everything as a march since last year and only after an hour with you she’s finally popped her lyrical cherry.”

  He sent a grin to Manuela. “Sorry, don’t mean to be crass.”

  “Of course you do,” Alba replied, “and thank you. It was my pleasure. It’s good to hear that—she appeared terrified throughout our session.”

  “You must have learned from the greats,” Goldstein concluded, twisting back to the dark corridor from where he’d appeared.

  Alba finished her coffee, wrapped the pastry into the napkin, and headed upstairs. All the practice rooms on her floor were silent apart from the farthest one. It was Misha’s favorite room. Though he didn’t like to admit it, he’d become superstitious about that space, he’d told her, as he had lain beside her on their night together, hair ruffled on her pillow. Something about the light, he’d lyricized. She’d teased him then, asking whether his Russian persona was studied for the benefit of foreigners. It had made him laugh, as he rose onto his elbow and kissed her with the most unhurried touch she’d ever felt. It made time slip away through the floorboards, an intimacy she’d not allowed herself to dip into for longer than she cared to remember.

  She walked toward her room for the day, opposite his favorite space. A ribbon of melody wove out from underneath his door, nothing of the Schubert or Brahms they had run through before. The haunting tune pinned her to the spot. It had reflections of Debussy’s descriptive, atmospheric themes but coupled with the complexity of Bach’s fugues, interweaving impressions at once compelling and improbable. It was an artist painting an abstracted version of a classic, the Mona Lisa in unexpected flecks, or Botticelli’s Venus, floating to shore on weeping acrylics. Beneath the main theme, a longing that almost brought tears to her eyes. She caught them before they fell, admonishing herself for infusing the sound with her own version of adolescent folly, standing as she was by his door, hanging on his every note, a soppy sight. She ought to move, she knew that, but the music kept her rooted.

  It shifted to minor now, edging close to unexpected harmonies that held both the quality of a church chorale and a fierce yet restrained passion. It was unusual to use the time ahead of lessons to practice one’s own compositions, or perhaps even improvise something new. Maybe it was Misha’s way of reaching calm, refreshing his approach rather than hammering what they would be focused on for the next hour. A part of Alba wondered whether he was playing their lovemaking, a musical code just for her. The sound was tender, creative, unexpected, everything he had been at her apartment.

  The handle lowered. The door opened before she could move.

  Perha
ps they could laugh off this awkwardness, with the same ease they had made love?

  Vittorio looked as surprised to see her as she did.

  An instant shiver of embarrassment rippled from her center.

  He smirked. “There’s probably a word for professors who skulk outside doorways listening, no?”

  “If anyone knows it, it would be you, I imagine,” she replied. He opened his door a little more. A young woman was folding some music at the piano and filled her satchel with it. She stepped out from behind him, effusive. “Thank you so much for your time, Signor del Piero,” she gushed, her voice light and clipped, as if a small bird was trapped somewhere high in her chest. Vittorio’s effect on young women had not changed. “I’m very much looking forward to playing for Maestro Maschiavelli.”

  He nodded, giving little away. When the young woman disappeared through the double doors, Vittorio turned back to Alba. “Another hopeful. Giving most of them some direction before they see Francesco, in the hopes that at least one of them will understand what the hell I’ve written. Were we so square when we trained?”

  His face lit up then, breezy, inconsequential, tempting Alba toward their shared memory, as if chasing a mutual acknowledgment of a quaint interlude from the past. Had he decided their enactment of love was nothing but an immature romp after all? His sideways smile said as much, always the provoker.

  Alba took a breath to reply when Misha bound in through the doors.

  “I’m so sorry I’m a few minutes late!” he called out, stomping down toward them. “I got held up downstairs with one of the students.”

  “Your next victim, Maestra Fresu?” Vittorio teased. His eyes scanned Misha for details. “They all this pretty? Keep him away from Francesco, for God’s sake. You have no idea how long it takes me to get anything done with that man.”

  Alba brushed off the sensation that Vittorio had intuited this young man was not a student alone. She’d forgotten that tone of his, the charcoal roughness to it, bold, easy to smudge between meanings.

  “Some people have a hard time keeping their folly intact,” Alba replied. Misha caught her eye. For a flicker he led them back to her room, disappearing somewhere together through a silence percussed with breath alone.

  “Buon giorno,” Misha said, reaching out a hand to Vittorio. “The school is electric with your name, Signor del Piero. Quite a frenzy having Signor Maschiavelli here. It’s an honor, really.”

  “Well, it’s lovely to be complimented by the youth. It makes me believe in my genius. And my age,” Vittorio replied. “Does he have the same effect on you, Alba?”

  She’d forgotten the way he’d lift his chin at a slight angle when he spoke to new people. In all these years his defenses were still intact. She would have expected them to have eased away. He had nothing to prove here. Yet a twist of something close to territorial slipped in between his words, as if he was trying to exhibit their supposed friendship in front of Misha, the opposite of how he’d behaved before Francesco.

  A silence stitched the space.

  “Let us begin, Misha,” Alba cut through, with a fleeting glance back to Vittorio. “Best of luck with your auditions today, Vittorio,” she said, determined to have the last word, to show his throwaways left her unmoved.

  “I’ll need it,” he said, holding her gaze a little too long, before closing the door behind him.

  Alba and Misha stepped inside.

  “Are we expected to conduct this lesson without me wanting to peel everything off you?” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her and moving in to kiss her.

  She pulled away. “How would you like me to answer that?”

  “Without words,” he replied, kissing her neck.

  She stepped back. “This is our last hour to work together. Don’t waste it.”

  Misha emptied his satchel and placed a couple of manuscripts on to the piano’s music stand. He lifted his hands as if to begin, then held the pause. “I love it when you call the shots,” he whispered, sideways.

  “I love it when you stop leering and play.”

  He sat down with a grin. “I can still taste you.”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

  Somehow they managed to focus on their music, ignoring the sensations running through them. All the while Alba convinced herself she wasn’t aware of Vittorio in the room across the corridor, shifting the sense he might be listening to their session, marking where and how she worked. More uncomfortable than that was the quiet desire that he do so, that he acknowledge what she had become. How ridiculous to even care a breath of what he thought, it made her dislike his memory even more than before, for unstitching the story of her stepping out from the remnants of their love affair, woven with care, embroidered into memory so she would believe it. With him only meters away in the next room it was like a lamp was shining on a tiny figure carved in his form, rendering it a giant shadow, looming like a grotesque threat, begging for attention.

  At the end of the session Misha turned to her. “This is bittersweet. Hellish actually.”

  “We knew it would be.”

  He reached for her hand, wove his fingers between hers.

  “Misha, please, don’t.”

  “We’re grown-ups, Alba.”

  “Our night was beyond beautiful, Misha.”

  “This sounds like an opening to something longer.”

  She looked into his blue eyes. A welcome whisper of breeze wove in from outside, tickling the tips of his golden hair. “You have a magnificent journey ahead of you, Misha.”

  He cocked his head with a shallow swallow.

  “I’m not going to stand in the way of that,” she added.

  “That’s good,” he replied. “I wasn’t planning on you doing so.”

  She could feel him bristle, a slight petulant tone to his voice.

  “I’d like to buy you lunch,” he said.

  “I’m not hungry, Misha.”

  “After all the snotty students about to saunter in here like they own the planet you’ll need fresh ravioli under some trees, and I know where that place is. Brief though. I know your day is full. And I’ve got an afternoon of practice lined up.”

  Alba took a breath, allowing his beauty to lure her, memories of their night together swirling in her mind, creased sheets, the moonlit floor of her living room, the darkened terrace.

  “Please?” he asked. His smile was knowing, hopeful, almost resistible.

  “Okay. I suppose I would like that, Misha.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. The sunlight fell on her face, the press of his lips ardent and sincere. It wasn’t guilt that urged her away from him, rather the memory of how Vittorio had once drawn her so far in. Knowing he was just the other side of the door unfolded those memories through her body, like a trim of concertina paper garlands unraveling, falling to the floor in a heap, ripping from the thin string that connects them. A familiar sensation of claustrophobia fought for attention, even though she knew this young man wanted no more to snap her wings than she did his.

  “You are the most wonderful kisser, Misha.”

  “I know,” he murmured, his voice spun sugar, fine, a little cloying.

  “Modest too.”

  “Meet me outside, Flaminio?”

  “I’ll be there for one thirty,” she replied, watching him leave.

  Alba took a swig of her water, and a moment to compose herself ahead of the next student.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” she said, eager to begin work with the next student, who was tackling a Liszt.

  Vittorio stepped inside.

  She tensed at his presumption. “You’re not the German girl I’m expecting.”

  “Thank God for that,” he replied. “Here, just wanted to drop Francesco’s note to you. I feel like one of those gofers in a Shakespearean play.”

  He walked over and handed it to her, casual, as if they were friends. “He’s inviting you over for drinks, but don’t eat before yo
u get there, he has a tendency to force-feed people once they’re over the threshold.”

  She looked down at the note. It was for tonight. “It’s rather last-minute.”

  “I tried to tell him that, but he’s a hard man to refuse.”

  It was a level playing field of sorts. “I saw that the other night.”

  They filled the space between them with a breath, less barbed than before, almost comfortable. His face relaxed. “It’s great to see you, Alba.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Perhaps I’ll find the chance to apologize for being such an idiot.”

  She held his gaze.

  “Or not,” he added.

  She scanned her spiraling thoughts. Was he waiting for her to perform the woman scorned act? How he assumed she was steaming after all those years infuriated her. She said nothing.

  “Fact is I was an utter idiot,” he began, reticent for her answer, “an ego-driven boy trapped in a young man’s body. It went to my head, the whole stupid show of it. It’s why I was so thrilled to work like this for Francesco. I needed a break from the opera, leading the orchestra in Paris all those years was incredible and drained me of every ounce of humanity.”

  “I have students coming now, Vittorio.”

  He straightened. It felt good to cut his flow. This was her space. Why did he invite himself inside without doubting whether he ought to? She’d pretended she wasn’t hoping for him to come into her room. She’d imagined them being in a room alone together for months, years after she’d fled from him. Now time had delivered, but the feeling was a world away from her dreamed-up, stifled version. It was raw. She hadn’t given herself space to feel this. Rather it wedged in by force like a stubby angle of wood holding open a heavy door, small, yet potent, letting all matter of emotions fly in and out.

  Vittorio nodded, looking straight into her.

  She didn’t shift her gaze until he’d shut the door behind him.

  * * *

  Flaminio was cooking in the heat. Misha was by the arched entrance to the Villa Borghese gardens, his sky-blue shirt setting off his light skin, sunglasses reflecting the busy street back to her.