A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C. G. Drews

  Listening to the other pianists is excruciating. The blueberry plays unbelievably lightly, each note a clear ring of Mozart. There’s no hesitation, no stumble. When the last notes have faded from the hall, the blueberry stands and bows and the applause is thunderous.

  What if Beck fumbles the études, the Maestro’s precious études? A cold shock of dread numbs his spine.

  Every player, every piece, makes Beck feel like he’s moving blindfolded towards a cliff. One slip and he’s over.

  The pieces are all under ten minutes, although one girl pushes to the very last second with her Rachmaninoff concerto. Beck’s playing two Chopin études, back to back, numbers eleven and twelve, and it should take him six and a half minutes.

  Unless he passes out in the middle which, let’s face it, is highly probable.

  The rabid little Erin is directly before Beck – which is terror because she’s wickedly good and melts the audience’s hearts with her petite features and winning smile. Her hands dance an impossibly fast Liszt piece in B flat with a flawless finish. The audience are on their feet with applause.

  When Erin struts off the stage like a sparkling cupcake of doom, she smirks in Beck’s direction. ‘Say bye-bye to the trophy, Keverich.’

  Keverich.

  It’s the heaviest name in the world.

  Every single thought flees Beck’s head.

  Everything is

  fragments.

  No, no, he can’t be like this—

  Pull yourself together, Schwachkopf.

  They’re ready for him to go on. The Maestro’s fingers wrap around his arm, the only pressure keeping him from floating away. The world is a broken mirror, each shard reflecting his terrified face.

  ‘Do not fail,’ she hisses.

  Beck’s legs take him onstage. The silence pounds a symphony on his temples. The stage smells of wax floors and hot lights and shined leather. He tugs at his cuffs, wishes them longer, stops because he’s being conspicuous. The lights are so bright the audience is reduced to unidentifiable black blobs.

  Is that supposed to make them less daunting? Instead of eyes, he’s watched by a sea of faceless ghouls.

  He’s at the piano. Meine Güte, it’s huge.

  The audience shifts, trying to remain patient after the hours of music, wanting to leave and hear the judges confirm their personal favourites as winners. Beck will be unmemorable – too gangly to be cute, too old to be incredible, too stupid, stupid, stupid. The piano is a beast and it owns him.

  Stop cowering. He’s done championships before. He’s played in bigger halls.

  This one shouldn’t be different.

  He slides on to the piano stool, still warm.

  What if they picked him for last because he’s a Keverich? This kid will bring down the house, they probably surmised, if he’s anything like his mother.

  But he’s not. They’ve cut out his heart by making him last.

  Beck’s hands hover over the keys – rows of black and white teeth.

  Play Chopin. Play fast and wild and prove yourself.

  Just play the notes.

  Notes.

  Play.

  Notes.

  What – what – what is he meant to play?

  Time knots around his throat. Hurry up. Think. He rakes desperately through his mind for the curls of notes he’s practised all year, but the Chopin has gone.

  There are no notes.

  No. This can’t happen to him.

  Beck raises his head and sees the Maestro and the co-ordinator hovering at the edge of the curtains, petrified or furious, or both simultaneously. Stage fright doesn’t happen with this level of competition. Shouldn’t happen. They’re better than this. He’s better than this.

  BUT HE HAS NO NOTES.

  The Maestro won’t stand for this – she’ll think he’s doing it on purpose.

  Play something.

  The Maestro will kill him.

  Play something.

  A wave sweeps over the audience, a murmur of confusion, a whisper of empathy at this poor darling trapped on stage with no notes. What a sad way to end an evening. They’ll remember him for sure.

  Play. Play. Oh – please – just – PLAY.

  And he does.

  At first Beck doesn’t know what it is. They’re notes, so that’s a good start – but it’s not Chopin’s whispered opening and launch into a sharp rain of fast notes. This is dark and heavy, with bass chords that would make Rachmaninoff proud and an accompanying melody light as air. The music is sugar and charcoal. The bass crashes with something viciously violent in Beck’s soul. So he repeats that part because it feels so good.

  This piano will not make a fool of him. So he slams his fingers across the keys and owns it.

  It’s not Chopin.

  Don’t think about it now.

  Beck’s fingers calm and skate to the high registers, adding something sweet to the feast of darkness. It aches in minor, like butterflies and broken wings. If the audience doesn’t lose some tears over this, they have no soul.

  He leaves the butterflies bleeding over their wings and descends back to the pits of volcanoes and terror.

  He plays like it’s his last moment on earth. He plays so he feels like crying.

  And then it’s done.

  Silence.

  Sweat trickles down his forehead – sweat and tears and horror. They don’t know if they can clap because this isn’t a carefully metered classical piece they expected. It isn’t on the programme. The judges – oh, the judges. He forgot he forgot he forgot—

  He snaps to his feet, ready to bolt off the stage, but his legs are weak and it’s all he can do to turn around and bow. That’s when he realises they are clapping. It’s not tentative or polite – it’s bold and excited and amazed. There are flashes of colour and jewels and glints of teeth in smiling mouths as they stand. Every single person stands. Each clap says what did we just hear?

  What did he just play?

  The notes he’s been doodling on his homework and tapping on his thigh all the way to the concert hall?

  Beck finishes his stiff bow and walks off the stage. He left his lungs on the piano seat. He can’t seem to breathe.

  The applause fades as a microphone blasts to life – but Beck can’t focus on words. Someone hands him a cold bottle of water and he slinks to a chair. Sits. Rolls the icy bottle over his forehead. His shirt sticks to his back and he feels hotter than the sun.

  Where’s the Maestro?

  He blinks through a curtain of sweat and held-back tears and sees her. No eye contact. But Joey goggles at him.

  He feels sick. Not nerves sick, fever sick, like he needs to cool down immediately or go supernova.

  Backstage is a buzz around him, as notes are compared and the trophies are rolled out by stagehands. The co-ordinator flaps around trying to organise the kids so they’ll be ready to walk onstage when called. Someone’s parents are crying.

  Then the microphone crackles and words smash into Beck’s ears.

  ‘… an unfortunate mistake which leads us to regretfully disqualify contestant number ten, Keverich, Be …’

  No.

  He risks a glance at the Maestro. She’s been carved from marble, every muscle taut and frozen.

  The judge continues with, ‘Though Keverich’s performance was the most extraordinary thing I’ve encountered in thirty years of judging, it was not the required piece for this classical championship. Now, we move to the awarding of …’

  There are people talking to the Maestro. Her answers come slathered in a thick accent.

  Beck zones out. He touches his own forehead and despite the galaxy exploding inside him, he’s glacial cold. He feels dead. Bury him, please. What has he done? What has he done? He shuts his eyes against the burn of tears.

  Cheers, clapping. Names. Trophies.

  Did the blueberry place? Did – oh please no – did the rabid Erin take the trophy, the scholarship money, the promised lessons from a famous pia
nist?

  Beck stares at his hands, his useless hands. He should’ve cut them off years ago instead of fantasising about it. Saved the world from hearing his agony made into music. Saved himself from the Maestro.

  Something’s definitely stuck in his eye.

  The Maestro is in front of him, hauling him to his feet. She jerks his suit jacket straight, murmuring indecipherable German. They’re leaving? Joey trots anxiously behind. They move through the maze of rooms and tunnels and down the stairs, out of an exit, and the cool night clasps Beck in its comforting arms.

  He won’t go to school tomorrow. He won’t even move. He’ll just fade into his bed and he won’t exist.

  It’s late. The night has a wintry bite. The bus stop is nearly a kilometre of walking away, and their tickets are for midnight. Joey will want to be carried. Beck just needs to locate his feet, his wits, his strength, and get through this.

  The walk is silent, brisk, with the Maestro holding Joey’s hand so her small legs fairly run to keep up. No one can tell a dead boy walks with them.

  What will she do?

  They are a street away from the bus station and they pass the gate of a city park with huge heavy branched trees. Shadows hug their shoulders. The Maestro stops. She jerks free of Joey – who stumbles back, tired, surprised – and the Maestro turns on Beck.

  He opens his mouth, but what’s there to say?

  She has height on him, strength, weight. Somewhere there is a man who is Beck’s father and he must’ve been a skinny bean, because Beck sure didn’t inherit his mother’s physique.

  She shoves him against the park gate with a clang. The air goes out of him.

  Joey whimpers.

  The Maestro has no words – not even a deluge of curses to outline his worth. She grabs him by the hair and slaps him. The sound of striking flesh is crisp, too loud, in the emptiness. Someone will see. Someone will stop her. Call the police, a mother hates her son.

  The pain in his eyes must be encouragement, because she slaps him again.

  Again – again – again.

  Beck’s lips splits, his mouth fills with blood, he’s probably bitten his tongue in half. ‘Mutter, please,’ he whispers. ‘Not here.’ A dribble of blood escapes his lips.

  The Maestro must see the sense. She lowers her hand and releases Beck’s hair so sharply he falls back and hits the gate again – this time with his skull. He grabs his head, spits blood, sinks to his knees. There’s probably blood on his only good white shirt, so what’ll he do next time? She’ll be furious because of his shirt and it’s not his fault. Not his fault.

  The tears come in a blur, hot and heavy with hatred.

  Joey is crying and whispering, ‘Don’t hurt Beck.’ It comforts him, just a little.

  ‘Steh auf,’ the Maestro snaps. Get up. ‘There is no word for what I think of you. You have destroyed me.’

  Beck wipes his nose and smears wetness across his cheeks. Blood, snot? Does it even matter? He keeps his mouth closed, so nothing embarrassing can slip out.

  The Maestro closes her hands into fists, but the shaking is ferociously visible.

  ‘You are my disease,’ she says, her voice eerily calm. ‘You will kill me with your disgrace. But it will never happen again, will it?’

  If he opens his mouth, an ocean will escape and he’ll drown. He’ll drown. Please don’t make him answer.

  She steps towards him, voice like a viper. ‘Will it?’

  Beck’s lips part and the last of his music slips free and dissolves in blood and tears.

  ‘Never,’ he says.

  Beck decides to rebel.

  And by ‘rebel’ he means mostly lying in bed for two days straight, not making a peep, minding his manners, and cleaning the entire house for the Maestro, but still – defiantly – not playing the piano.

  On the third day, he’s still burrowed under the quilts when Joey invites herself in with breakfast in bed for him. She has one of her pink plastic toy trays with tiny pots of her infamous concoctions. He spies bread crusts on the tray and feels a stab of guilt. While he sulks, who takes proper care of Joey?

  Her brow puckers, concentrating on not spilling anything. ‘I’m cheering you up since you’re sick.’

  Beck scoots into a sitting position as she lays the tray on his lap. Then she vaults on to the bed and nearly upends the whole thing in his face.

  ‘Then we can go back to school.’ She peers at him and squints. ‘Do we have to wait until your face feels better?’

  Beck picks up a teaspoon and prods one of the pots – is that uncooked rice and peanut butter? ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  Any other parent would’ve hauled their teenage son out the door and lectured him about school. But Beck can skip three days and the Maestro won’t say a word. In fact, the Maestro is ignoring him and thereby ignoring Joey. The message is loud and clear – her children are worthless brats.

  And the Maestro won’t walk Joey to school – as far as Beck knows, the Maestro hasn’t left her room much either – but how long before someone asks questions about the absentee Keverich kids?

  Beck cautiously eats sour yogurt sprinkled with flour.

  Joey pokes his cheek. ‘How much does it hurt?’

  He glares. ‘It hurts when you touch it!’ The purple bruises cover his right cheek and his split lip has crusted in a scab. He just can’t smile, really, which is fine by him.

  Joey watches anxiously as he finishes the bread crusts, which have been left plain to his relief. ‘Is it good? Am I a good chef, Beck?’

  ‘The best,’ he says.

  ‘Oh good.’ Joey beams. ‘I want you to feel all better. And I’ve got some extras –’ Beck pales ‘– but if you don’t want them, that’s OK! I’ll give it to August!’

  Wait. What? ‘August?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Joey says. ‘She’s outside. I told her we—’

  Beck wrangles himself out of the sheets and shoots out of his bedroom. He lunges for the front window and cracks the blinds. Yes, she’s there, swinging around a lamp pole, her lips puckered in a whistle. Has she been doing this every morning? Beck rakes his fingers through his hair and pulls hard.

  Joey patters up behind him.

  ‘You talked to her?’ Beck says, strained. ‘What did you tell her about me?’ What if Joey splatters his embarrassing secrets? He’ll never go to school again.

  ‘I just said that your face was sad.’ Joey sticks her lip out. ‘And that you are a meanie because you haven’t played with me for ever.’

  ‘It’s been three days.’ Beck flies through the house and finds questionably clean jeans – screw the dress code – and a school shirt with holes in the collar. He slams a foot into his shoe so fast the tape snaps, and he has to spend precious minutes with string and scissors. ‘Get ready, Jo!’ he shouts. ‘We’re going.’

  Joey barrels into her room screaming – probably from joy? Maybe? Who could know? She reappears with purple sparkly leggings, a jumper that says ‘I Love The Brachiosaurus’, her gumboots and swimming goggles.

  No time to argue. He finds some old pizza buns in the fridge – if there’s no mould, then they’re OK, right? – and stuffs them into her lunch box.

  As he’s scooting them out of the door, he catches a glimpse of his face in the hall mirror. The swelling has gone down, but the handprint is pretty unmistakable. No one at school will care, of course – kids show up with broken arms and stitches all the time. Fights. Angry parents. Bike accidents. They live in that part of town. The school doesn’t care if dozens of students have bruises or stitches or hollow eyes. It’s too much and the teachers don’t get paid enough for this.

  But August will care.

  Why does it matter?

  Why is he even rushing to walk to school with her?

  Because the last time they were together, he carried her home and he felt helpful and kind. And she thanked him. And it was good.

  Beck locks the front door – he doesn’t know or care where the Maestro is – a
nd Joey sprints across the dewy grass to August.

  ‘WE’RE GOING TO SCHOOL!’ says Captain Obvious.

  Beck suddenly remembers a million reasons why it’s not OK to be around August. What is he doing? He feels like nine left elbows and a stomach full of butterflies. And his face.

  But he deserved it. He failed. Just a simple task, play a Chopin piece, do it well, and he flunked it on purpose. Right? Did he even try? Did he?

  He can’t get rid of the pure elation of his own music flooding that hall. Or how thunderous the applause was. Or how beautiful it was, like a thousand stars exploding in his hands. It was even better than the rubbish he writes between classes.

  But it was wrong – wrong – wrong.

  August pops out two earbuds and stuffs her iPod in her pocket. She gives Joey a high five and then turns to – stare.

  ‘Hi, Beck,’ she says softly.

  Beck wishes he could disappear or become someone else entirely.

  He grabs Joey’s hand and starts walking without a word, mostly because his brain is blank. He has no explanation why he wanted to see her. But now he’s seen her and it’s a mistake.

  If August notices the ignored greeting, it doesn’t show. She falls into step beside him, wearing tattered Converse on her feet for once, and bouncing a little with each step like there’s music in her soles.

  Is her foot OK now? Did her parents roast her for being violent at school? Did she really hang around his house waiting every morning? What does she want from him? What? What?

  ‘So,’ August says, dragging the word out to cover the galaxy of silence between them. ‘You haven’t been at school for a while.’

  ‘I’ve been sick.’ Of everyone and everything.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ Only a mouse could hear that whisper.

  ‘I practised smiling,’ Beck says. ‘The mirror punched me for my efforts so, good news, you were right. I suck at it.’

  He stares at the ground while he says this, counting the cracks, the times he steps over a broken bottle, how often Joey trips on the uneven cement.

  ‘Oh, that’s the thing about me,’ August says, calm. ‘I’m always right. You get used to it, especially if you practise saying “you were right, August! I was wrong” about fifty times before bed.’