The Maestro

by T. Davis Bunn

  “I’m Giovanni di Alta. I’m playing tonight.”

  “You’re di Alta?”

  “Yes. Is there—”

  “We’d heard Schmitz had taken a middle schooler,” said a very pretty girl with auburn hair. “Nobody believed it.”

  “Di Alta,” the tall young man said, unable to grasp it. “You’re the one playing first?”

  “How old are you, kid?”

  “Fifteen. Is there a practice room I can use?”

  The girl pointed down a side hall. “Use any that’s free.”

  I could feel their eyes follow me down the hall. I entered an empty room, set down the guitar, heard one say, “Fifteen years old; can you believe it?”

  “And first on the recital.”

  “Have you ever heard him play?”

  “Heard him? I’ve never even seen him before.”

  I closed the door on their voices. I opened my case, took out the guitar and the little towel. Carefully I tuned the strings, polished the neck and face, ran through a few practice scales. I did the opening bars of my piece, then one more practice scale, and stopped. I was ready. I knew what I was going to do. I would give him the precision he demanded. I would play with all the discipline I had.

  But I would also give him fire.

  * * *

  Professor Schmitz stood by the dark curtain that separated the wings from the lighted stage. As the first performer, I stood beside him, waiting for his signal. He made no opening remarks at his recitals. One went out, one played, one bowed, one returned.

  At five minutes past the hour he turned and looked at me for the first time. His face was rigid. The ever-present cigarette sent lazy tendrils floating up between us.

  “It is time,” he said. “You are ready?”

  “Yes.” For whatever came, I was ready.

  He did not let me go. For a moment more he stared at me, then said in his deep monotone, “You will play as I have taught you, boy, or—”

  He searched my face as though seeking a flicker of rebellion. He finished with, “You will play as I have instructed. Do you understand?”

  “I understand you,” I said. Perhaps for the first time, I thought. You and your gifts. And your limitations.

  He hesitated a moment longer, then stepped aside. “Very well,” he said. “Go and play.”

  I stepped past him and walked out on stage.

  The applause was polite and lasted as long as it took me to walk to the chair at center stage and bow. I straightened and stared outward. The lights ringing the stage floor left the audience in shadows, but I could see their faces. I felt little fear.

  I sat down, adjusted the tiny footstool, set the guitar in place, ran up the strings, adjusted one slightly, did it again, took a breath, flexed my fingers, and began.

  The piece had three movements. The first I played as Professor Schmitz dictated, with disciplined precision. This was my gift to the professor. This much I owed him. It was an announcement, both to him and to the world, that I had studied his lesson of discipline and I had learned it well. Each note was measured and laid in place with the precision of a master bricklayer. It was music as he wanted it, my professor. It was music bound firmly to the precise dictates of the written score.

  I finished the movement and paused the required moment. The audience was very still. I began the second movement.

  This was the movement of questioning. There was no outright rebellion. It was a time of asking, what if? What if I were to relax the discipline here and allow the notes to flow? Was something destroyed, or rather was something gained? And what would happen if I held this note just the slightest breath longer than dictated by strict timing? Did that not also add a new dimension, a subtle hint of something deeper, something I would have lost had I held rigidly to notes chained to the page?

  The second movement ended. The audience remained still, almost nonexistent. I held the moment longer than was necessary, flexing my fingers, hunching over the guitar, wanting to show very clearly that a statement was about to be made. Then I began.

  The third and final movement was a declaration. This is how it should be, I said—moving beyond discipline to a freedom of emotional interpretation; giving of my heart as well as of my head and fingers; marrying my own emotions to those of the composer. It was not a slurring of difficult passages, but a creating of emotional flow. I stopped for a span long enough to make the heart pause. I flowed lyrically through a passage that begged to be played as one continuous idea. I hesitated over a note that was both pinnacle and climax, then moved reluctantly onward. Onward, ever onward, to the sadly whispered end.

  “Bravo!”

  It was shouted from the back and caught by a dozen other voices before I could rise to my feet. I bowed and felt the applause wash over me. I raised my head and held out my arms, still grasping the guitar in my left hand. All I could think was, it is over. Whatever happens now, this phase of my life has ended. I stood and shared this moment of ending with the loudly clapping audience, then turned and walked from the stage.

  Professor Schmitz stood in his place by the back curtain. When I approached, he turned away from me and spoke to the next performer. I did not break stride.

  I walked to my case, packed my guitar away, stood and murmured thanks to the congratulations from other performers. As I walked toward the exit I felt eyes upon me. I turned to see Professor Schmitz looking my way. I stopped and faced him fully. He said nothing.

  Then I turned and left the hall.

  Chapter 5

  It was not until midmorning that I emerged from my little alcove. I found my grandmother in the kitchen. Her chair was turned so that her face caught the sunlight streaming in through the back window. Her eyes were closed. Her features looked very drawn, very pale. Her little radio on the kitchen cabinet was playing a Verdi opera. I pulled out a chair as quietly as I could, and set it where I could see both her face and the blue sky outside the window. I sat like that for over an hour, feeling the banked-up fatigue wash over me in waves, watching her face, remembering.

  When the second act was completed she opened her eyes with a long, soft sigh. She stood slowly, turned the music down to a faint background whisper, sat again, and wished me a good morning.

  “I was thinking of your grandfather,” she said. “And of Como.”

  “So was I.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe in a little while.”

  She did not object. “He hated opera, your grandfather. He was such a good-natured gentleman about most things, but he simply could not abide this music.” Her eyes looked into the past, and a faint smile pulled at the edges of her mouth. “He said a herd of cows late for milking could sing better.”

  “He always made us listen to it in the kitchen with the door closed,” I recalled.

  “Yes,” she sighed. “Those days with our young Giovanni learning opera with me in the kitchen and folk music with his grandfather by the fire. I have found myself thinking a great deal about those days.”

  “They were the happiest days of my life,” I said.

  “For me as well, figlio mio. Your grandfather used to call you his last ray of summer sun. Can you remember that?”

  I nodded my head.

  “He told me once—” With an unsteady hand she ran a thumb and forefinger down either side of her head. “He told me that he must have done something very good to have his winter days graced with such a gift as you. I told your grandfather it was because he had put up with me all those years.”

  It felt as though he were there in the kitchen with us. A bright pinprick of longing opened in my heart and spread until my whole chest was filled with its hollow ache.

  “He was much quieter in his faith than I am, but he believed in God,” my grandmother said. “Sometimes late at night he would ask me to read to him from the Book. But I never thought it was in the Word that he knew his Lord. He did it because he knew it was important to me, just like going with me to Ma
ss. You know he never learned to read or write very well.”

  I nodded. It had never seemed very important to me, just one of the traits that made my grandfather who he was.

  “I once asked him what he said in his prayers. He smiled and said, when he could hear the voices in the wind and the voice in his heart, he knew that whatever he wanted to ask was already heard.” She looked at me. “He would have been so proud of you, figlio mio. So very proud.”

  I took an unsteady breath. “I have to quit my lessons with the professor.”

  She was not surprised. “I have known things were not well. I have seen it in your face for months. And last night when you told me that you were to play first, I saw it again. You did not know your professor had given you the position of honor?”

  “No.” As briefly as I could I told her of the battle between us. I described the dilemma, the conflict, the growing frustration. And my decision. She listened in silence, her eyes watching with calm understanding, her face impassive. When I finished she continued to regard me for a time. I was glad to have it all out in the open, very glad.

  “I look at you, and I see a young man where before I saw a child. Where did the child disappear to, figlio mio? How did the child become a man so quickly?” She gazed at me, giving her head a tiny shake. “Will you accept the advice of an old woman?”

  “Always.”

  “It is hard for a man to find his way in this world. There are so many decisions, so many choices to make. And now that you are a young man you must begin to make these choices on your own. Where you will go, how you will play, whom you will obey, what you will and will not accept as instruction from your teachers. Do you see? So many choices, so many difficult passages to overcome.

  “A man needs guidance, Giovanni. A man needs someone he can turn to and ask for help. Someone who sees beyond the veil of time and understands where these paths are truly leading. Someone who sees the dangers before they arise and leads us away from life’s many pitfalls. There is only one Lord who can offer you this safety, figlio mio. Only one. And He stands with open arms waiting for you to invite Him in.”

  With both hands gripping the arms of her chair she pushed herself erect, walked to the sink, and began filling the coffeepot with water. “But man yearns for independence. A young man especially. He is strong and he is able to make his own decisions about his life. To ask for guidance from his Maker is to admit to weakness. Yet we are weak, Giovanni. All of us. Weak and self-centered and blind to all but our own selfish desires. I am speaking to you as a grown man, figlio mio. This is the essential nature of us all. We desire to be independent and to run alone and unguided toward our death.”

  She spooned in the coffee, patted it down, closed the lid, set it on the stove. Her back still to me, she asked, “Now that it is over, Giovanni, how do you feel? About the concert and the difficulties with your professor.”

  I thought it over. “Numb and tired.”

  She placed the bread basket on the table before me. “Yes. You have won your battle, and yet there is no sense of accomplishment. Do you wonder why that is? Do you ask yourself how you could strive toward this goal, and then once it is achieved, you feel nothing? How could it be?”

  My grandmother walked over to her chair and steadied herself by leaning on the back. “Goals sought for themselves bring nothing. This is a truth that you will find repeated in your life so long as you continue to walk the path alone. That which you do for yourself will never satisfy. You will achieve it and you will immediately begin seeking something else to go after. Always an endless cycle of want and need and endless hunger, until you finally realize that there is only one thing which will ever satisfy you, which will ever fill the void in your life.”

  The child is still here, I thought to myself. And he is very frightened by this rushing of events, carrying him forward into the unknown. I did not know what to tell my grandmother.

  She brought cup and saucer over, poured in a thimbleful of coffee and filled it to the brim with milk. I had been drinking this at breakfast for as long as I could remember. Slowly my grandmother lowered herself down to the seat across from mine. She drew the handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped the moisture from her forehead.

  “I have some news for you as well, figlio mio.” My grandmother knotted the handkerchief into a tight little ball. “I finally did as you requested and visited the doctor again. He is concerned about my condition. He says that a cold should not last as long as this one has. He wants to run some tests.”

  The chill that spread through my belly did not leave room for any appetite. I stared across the table at her and waited.

  She refused to meet my eyes. “I was supposed to enter the hospital last week, but I requested a delay. I am very glad I was there to hear you perform, figlio mio. Very glad.”

  I found my voice, managed, “How long?”

  “How long do I stay in the hospital? I do not know. A few days, probably.” She forced a smile. “Long enough for a little rest, and for the doctors to prod these old bones.”

  I found myself unable to take it in. “When are you to go?”

  “This afternoon. Now that your recital is over, I want to go quickly so that I may return. Hospitals are an unpleasantness. I do not feel comfortable having an unpleasantness to look forward to. I prefer to go now so that it will be behind me as soon as possible.”

  She pushed herself to her feet, walked around the table, and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I will not tell you not to worry because that would be foolishness. I will tell you to be strong. And if you cannot be strong, Giovanni, remember there is someone there who will be strong for you, if you let Him.”

  “I wish you had told me,” I said weakly.

  “So that you could have one more thing to worry about before your performance? That is nonsense, and we have too much else to do this morning than discuss nonsense. Finish.”

  She remained standing behind me, her hand on my shoulder. In a calmer voice she went on. “I want you to do one thing for me while I am away, Giovanni. This is very important to me. Are you listening to what I am saying?”

  I nodded. I was listening.

  She took a breath. “Go see your father. Talk to him. Tell him of your life and your decisions. If you can, make peace with him. If not, at least tell him what you will do with your life. I have informed him of my visit to the hospital, so you shall be spared that. He is still your father, Giovanni. Show him this respect. Please. For me.”

  ****

  My grandmother would not permit me to accompany her to the hospital. Signora Angeletti ignored the appeal in my eyes and agreed. “There are times when a woman needs a woman’s help,” Signora Angeletti said. “You will go tomorrow once she is settled. I will come by this evening and tell you where her room is located. You will eat with us tonight, of course. Good. And where will you sleep? Here? You would not be too lonely? Well, perhaps it is better.”

  I called a cab and walked slowly down the stairs with my grandmother leaning heavily on my arm. I stood and watched them drive away. When I returned upstairs the apartment seemed a hollow cavern.

  For the first time in years I was tempted to lie to my grandmother, tell her I had seen my father, avoid the whole thing. But I was afraid my grandmother would look deeply and search out the truth. That more than anything else kept me from lying. I feared my grandmother’s piercing gaze and the shame of being caught in a lie. If I was going, I knew it was something that I could not put off. If I delayed it, I would continue to do so and then have to lie. So that afternoon I left the empty apartment and walked next door.

  I rang the buzzer to my father’s apartment. As I climbed the stairs Anna stood waiting in the doorway. She showed no reaction at all to my arrival. I asked if my father was there. In the living room, she said. I walked down the hallway, following the sounds of the television, willing my heart to quieten.

  My father was watching television from one of the rigid upholstered chairs flanking the coffee tab
le. The same vase of plastic flowers sat in the center of the otherwise bare table. I walked over and sat down on the sofa, its frame as hard and unyielding as it had been the day I had begged my grandmother to take us back to Como.

  With his remote control my father turned the sound off. The pictures continued to flicker and jump. The life seemed to be fading steadily from his face. His hair was turning gray, the lines on his face becoming deeper, his dark eyes dull and receding farther into their sockets. The thin set of his mouth had eased from grim determination to sagging resignation. His face was as gray as his hair.

  I found it easier to watch the television than my father. “I am leaving the Musikakademie,” I said. “There are problems. My professor and I are not getting along. I do not know what will happen, even if I will return to school next year.” He said nothing.

  “I came by to pay my respects,” I told the television, barely aware of what I was saying. “My respects, yes. And to tell you what I will do with my life. If the difficulties of this past winter have taught me anything, it is that I want to become a professional musician. I do not know how. I do not even know if I will remain with classical music. But that is the direction I am headed.”

  “A musician,” he said dully. He passed a limp hand over his face. “You’re going to be a musician.”

  I rose to my feet. It felt difficult to draw breath in the room. I wish you well, I said, my eyes on the floor, the empty walls, the flickering television, the door, anywhere but on my father. I began inching myself from the room. My respects, yes, I said. My respects to both you and Anna. I hope—I had to search frantically for something to say as I moved toward the hallway. I hope you will be well, I said. And happy. Yes, and happy. And I leave you my respects.

  The door slammed loudly behind me, echoing up and down the empty stairwell. I raced down the stairs and out the door and down the sidewalk, taking great gulps of air as I struggled to escape the desperation I had glimpsed in my father’s eyes.

  * * *