A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C. G. Drews

  He doesn’t.

  He is too spineless. Or he wants to see Jan again?

  Or maybe he’s still perched on that wrong note, clutching it desperately, because when the chord fades, the Maestro will strike. Her silence won’t last.

  He walks the long driveway alone, feeling the restrictions of his new snug jeans. His backpack, stuffed with music and one of Joey’s awful sandwiches, is slung over his shoulder. If his hair wasn’t so crazy, if he didn’t have the scuffed backpack, if he knew how to smile – maybe he’d look like he belonged here?

  It takes an enormous length of time for someone to answer the doorbell. It’s Audwin Denzel, his uncle’s friend. He waves Beck in. ‘Jan is upstairs. Come, Sohn.’

  They bypass the ballroom and instead take the white-carpeted stairs to the second level. Then there’s a twist of hallways and Denzel leaves him in the mouth of a music room – an actual real music room. It’s flooded with light from floor-to-ceiling windows, and the walls are sky blue. And the piano? A white Steinway.

  Just the thought of this guy having two grand pianos makes Beck weak.

  Jan isn’t there and the room is quiet. There are several bookshelves, a coffee table shaped like a quaver note and a white sofa that Beck’s nearly too scared to sit on. But it’s not like he’s going to sit on the piano stool and tap a few notes while he waits. No thanks.

  He rests his backpack on his lap – a shield? – and sits gingerly on the edge of the sofa. And waits.

  Ten minutes?

  Or a million years?

  Finally Jan appears, a mug of steaming coffee in hand. He looks relaxed, casual, with jeans and a black pinstriped shirt, the impossible Keverich curls waxed down and an expensive watch on his wrist, loose and clinking against the mug.

  He leans against the doorframe, sips his coffee and stares at Beck.

  Are his eyes disappointed? Did Beck fail some sort of test? Great. He’s messed up and he’s been here all of ten minutes.

  ‘I had a feeling,’ Jan says. ‘Now I’m sure.’

  What? That Beck is uncultured in rich man’s etiquette? Maybe he should’ve stood as his uncle entered? Maybe he shouldn’t have sat on the snowy sofa?

  Maybe he should’ve told the taxi to take him to the edge of the world and let him fall off.

  Jan strides into the room. ‘You hate it.’

  ‘What?’ Beck is failing this test, failing fast and hard.

  ‘Someone who loves music, breathes music, wouldn’t have been able to resist this piano. I’ve been waiting outside. You did not touch it or play it or even look at it.’ Jan runs a hand along the grand’s white side. ‘You were too scared to put a fingerprint on it.’

  Beck should probably say something. Defend himself? He sits stunned, mute.

  ‘You sit as far from it as you can.’

  Beck hadn’t even thought about where he sat. He just – sat. So his uncle is analysing everything? This is stupid.

  ‘Last night,’ Jan goes on, his voice as crisp as new sheet music, ‘you stayed on the verandah, again as far from the piano as you could be.’

  ‘But Joey—’

  Jan doesn’t hear him. ‘I wondered if it was stage fright. I said as much last night, to which you didn’t blush or look embarrassed. You looked relieved. Because I hadn’t guessed, had I?’

  Stop.

  This is a lie, isn’t it? Where’s the uncle with a smile as warm as hot chocolate and a laugh as bright as sunshine? This man is like the Maestro. Was yesterday all an act?

  Beck should’ve known.

  Jan slams his mug on the coffee table with an ominous crack. Black liquid sloshes over the sides.

  Exactly like the Maestro.

  How much of an idiot is Beck? Once upon a time, when her hands were perfect and her career rioting forward, the Maestro was probably all smiles and melodies too. Beck is a freaking moron. Why didn’t he see?

  And the worst part? He can’t get away. He’s not even sure he can find the front door of this monstrous house, and what would he do if he did? Walk halfway across the city to get home? He’s trapped here, him and Jan and the piano.

  ‘Did you make a mistake or are you the mistake?’ Jan says.

  Beck opens his mouth –

  shuts it.

  Jan’s eyes harden and the next words are a roar. ‘ANSWER ME.’

  It’s not like the Maestro, it is the Maestro. Beck shrinks into the sofa, his world melting. Don’t collapse, don’t shrivel, don’t let his words cut you open. Why wasn’t he born with the Keverich stone and steel?

  ‘Both,’ he says, because that’s what the Maestro would want to hear.

  His eyes close for a second, ready for insults to be hurled at his incompetent foolery. How he’s no Keverich. How he’s no pianist. How he is nothing.

  But it doesn’t come.

  Jan sinks on to the sofa beside him, puts his head in his hands and rakes fingers viciously through his hair. Confused doesn’t cover what Beck is feeling. He resists the urge to scoot away.

  Jan pulls a crisply ironed handkerchief – who does that? Come on – from his pocket and mops up the spilt coffee, cursing softly about wasting good coffee and ruining the mug. Beck’s brain spins, because that’s not something the Maestro would think of. She leaves Beck to clean up the catastrophes.

  ‘I should’ve used a coaster.’ Jan gives Beck a sorry smile.

  Is he messing with him? A cold sort of fury floods Beck’s jaw. His hands knot into his backpack. What is going on?

  Jan pushes the coffee away. ‘You’re not honest with me, Beethoven.’

  ‘Beck.’ He says it stiffly. He’s torn between rage and embarrassment and terror here, but he’s not going to be mocked. And his name is only a joke.

  ‘Beck,’ Jan amends. ‘My apologies.’

  Is this the Keverich curse? Psychotic mood swings?

  ‘Be honest with me now,’ Jan says. ‘How much do you love the piano?’ But as Beck opens his mouth, Jan holds up a finger, ‘Ah. Nein. You are going to lie.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Beck’s teeth grit.

  Jan’s eyebrow rises. ‘Truly? I see your mother’s words written all over your face. I see her behind your music choices. Those études? We played them as children because we were forced to make them perfect. Drove us both insane.’ He shakes his head. ‘I see her in your fear of mistakes. I see her everywhere about you. But, at the piano, I should see you.’ He sighs and knits his fingers together. ‘I apologise for the theatrics, though, my nephew. I needed to know you honestly.’

  What?

  ‘Does she hit you?’

  Beck has lost all use of the human language.

  ‘We are family,’ Jan says. ‘And I have waited years for your mother to contact me, to let me know where in this forsaken country she was hiding. She should never have left Germany. But, her shame …’ He trails off, but Beck knows.

  How, after the stroke, his mother bypassed rehabilitation for the nerve damage in her hands. How she took him when he was just a toddler and left Germany without a goodbye. How she spent all her savings on the house. On the piano. How she couldn’t bear to remember her past, so she cut it away like rot on an apple. How she wanted Beck to take up where she left off, so the world would be awed by the legacy of Ida Magdalena Keverich’s prodigy son.

  How he, unfortunately, was not a prodigy.

  ‘I would have liked to be a father to you and Joey,’ Jan says. ‘But, you know your mother. She wanted to be alone until she was ready.’ He turns on the sofa, faces Beck. ‘So tell me. There is madness in the Keverich line, madness and fear and grief. But does she hit you?’

  Bruised lips. Blood-streaked tiles. Hand-shaped bruises.

  ‘I don’t need rescuing,’ Beck says, voice stretched thin. ‘I’ll save myself.’

  He didn’t know, until that moment, that it was true.

  But it is.

  Jan seems to read between the lines, because he nods and his eyes glow with a thin shred of satisfaction. ‘G
ut. I am glad, Beck, I am glad. But I hope you will not refuse a little aid from someone who wants to be part of your life. And I apologise, again, for coming at you so violently. I know Ida’s tempers. It appears they have not changed much, ja?’

  Beck just shrugs.

  He’s being dissected and it’s hard to breathe.

  ‘I wish I could give Ida her music back. She is lost without it.’ Jan’s eyes cloud. ‘But it is no excuse. I want to make your life better, my nephew. I want to make your existence exciting and spectacular.’

  Beck would prefer an OK life. Where he goes to school and doesn’t worry if there’ll be dinner on the table and never touches a piano and maybe runs to August’s house some nights to stargaze.

  ‘What do you want, Beck? What do you want of this world?’

  He checks to see if Jan is serious – and his uncle’s gaze is level, expectant.

  Great.

  Beck screws his eyes shut and digs his thumb and forefinger into his forehead, massaging the ache. What does he want? He never used to think about it – until August shoved her way into his life. Now he wants so much that the cruel sharp ache of never being able to have it is unbearable.

  He wants Joey to be safe. He wants to eat until he’s stuffed. He wants to walk far, far away without a care in the world. He wants every string that ties him to the piano to snap. He wants the Maestro to say well done. He wants to write the music in his head, pages and pages of it, and never show it to a soul if he doesn’t want to. He wants to own it.

  He wants August. He wants his hand to fit into hers – all the time, whenever he wants. He wants to eat cake with her, listen to her teasing, laugh a little, carry her home from school when she forgets her shoes. He wants to kiss her a million times. And then once more. Because he can’t put a number on how many times he wants to hold her, to feel safe next to her, to feel possibilities.

  He doesn’t want her as a friend.

  He wants more.

  She is the girl his songs are for.

  None of these are answers he can give Jan, or even say aloud.

  ‘I want to be a good pianist,’ Beck says. ‘I want to be a true Keverich.’

  Disappointment crosses Jan’s face and Beck feels ashamed.

  ‘I thought you’d be honest with me, Beck.’

  ‘I was,’ Beck says, without thinking. ‘I mean—’

  ‘Do not worry.’ Jan’s smile is sad. ‘I cannot demand your full trust when you barely know me. Unless—’ He hesitates. ‘Are you sure there is nothing else you want?’

  What Beck Keverich wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands –

  and

  let a girl named August

  teach him how to

  smile.

  ‘Yes,’ says Beck, ‘I do want something. I wrote a piece, a song –’ a confession of everything inside me ‘– and I want to play it and record it.’ He hesitates, his face burning. ‘Please.’

  He knows it’s not what Jan means, but this is a chance, a request, and if Jan is claiming to be a fairy godmother, he can give Beck this.

  ‘Who is it for?’ Jan asks, but his tone is curious, maybe even smudged with excitement.

  ‘A – friend,’ Beck says.

  ‘The girl from the concert?’

  Well, there goes that.

  ‘August,’ Beck says. Her name tastes like earth and sunshine. ‘I know people have iPods and all that, but I want to make a CD.’

  Jan’s nod is slow at first, then vigorous. He bounces off the chair, enthusiasm sprouting like wings. ‘I have a video camera. The quality will not be excellent, but the acoustics in this room are not bad. Good. We can do this. Right now.’

  The worm of doubt has come – he hasn’t even ever played the song before without stopping. And Jan will hear it.

  ‘It’s a mess,’ Beck says, ‘just – um, just know that the middle is rubbish, and I don’t have the ending sorted so—’

  ‘Nein! Nein!’ Jan claps his hands together sharply. ‘That is not how a creator talks about his music. I refuse to believe your music is wrong or rubbish. Someone has told you that and you believe it. Believe yourself.’ He leans forward and taps Beck’s chest. ‘You said you would save yourself – do it.’

  Jan gets the camera.

  Beck gets hit with nerves and a thousand regrets.

  As Jan sets up, Beck slides on to the piano seat and gets a feel for it. The keys are always deeper on a grand, and he works them with the pedal and feels the rich, moody tone. His scribbles are at home, in the bin, crumpled under his pillow, scattered over the floor where Joey’s drawn on them.

  Beck closes his eyes and remembers.

  ‘It is recording,’ Jan says. ‘Play whenever you are ready. Viel Erfolg.’ Good luck.

  Beck plays.

  He stumbles. Seriously? His fingers are going to feel like worthless splinters today, of all days? The entire first movement comes out thick and messy. He stops, drops his hands into his lap, and hates himself.

  ‘Maybe,’ Jan says, his voice soft, ‘you should play this for August. For her, not at her, not to her. For her. Play what August means to you. Play it as if you love her. As if you …’

  All Beck can hear is –

  play

  as if

  you love

  her.

  So he does.

  Jan, the camera, the room, even the oddness of the white piano, all shrink into microscopic factors. Beck’s life is a flood of music, a kaleidoscope of blue and yellow and pink and orange, the smell of summer and rain. His fingers race away and he doesn’t trip. Not once.

  He plays for August.

  And about her.

  Then his fingers tremble, and the staccato bass line runs to the higher register, and he plays like he has the courage to kiss her when he absolutely doesn’t.

  He plays as if he loves her.

  And some time while his heart breaks and skids across the universe like diamond beams of starlight, his thumb catches crookedly on a key and splits. Winter makes for dry skin and easily ripped nails. And now? His fingers dance bloody fingerprints over the white keys, as if the piano and Beck have finally become blood brothers,

  and then the song is finished.

  Beck puts his hands in his lap.

  He leaves a smudge of blood on his new jeans and he totally just ruined a millionaire’s piano.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  Is he crying?

  He doesn’t want to be crying.

  Stop. Stop.

  The recorder beeps as Jan shuts it off. Then he slides on to the stool next to Beck and they sit there, shoulders touching, admiring the reddened piano keys.

  ‘I have never,’ he says quietly, ‘seen a student bleed over a piano. Oh, I’ve seen them bleed, but they always stop and coddle themselves because their music hurt them.’

  ‘It always hurts me.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jan smiles. ‘We are being honest now. But Beck, you – you wrote this. I – I am in awe.’

  Beck puts pressure on his thumb before he, well, dies or something awkward.

  Jan stares at him. ‘If you can compose music like this, it is a sin for you to play from other composers. You are brilliant, Beethoven Keverich.’

  And for once, Beck doesn’t correct his name. He just swallows the words, lets them fill his heart, his lungs, his soul. It’s not his name he hates. It’s what people think it means.

  Jan sounds like Beethoven and Beck are the same – not the dream versus the failure.

  ‘Let me take you to Germany.’ Jan’s voice turns low, urgent. ‘I am not your mother, I swear to you. You will have the best school, the best Universität. You are my nephew and brilliant and you do not deserve to be hidden.’

  ‘I-I can’t.’

  It’s like Jan didn’t hear. ‘I am often away on tours, but I have trusted friends who would check in on you while you get your bearings in the city and then, eventually, you’ll have your own apartment. Your own life. I will give
you the world and you will be my protégé.’

  You could be away from the Maestro.

  You could be free.

  ‘I know there is this girl,’ Jan says softly. ‘August. And she makes you play like nothing in this world. But you deserve more. You deserve a life of promise, not fear. And if you decided to come with me but never play the piano again? So be it. I would not force you.’

  It’s like being beaten – but with hope instead of fists. Beck shuts his eyes, but a tear still frees itself and streaks down his face. He’d never see August again. And what about Joey? He couldn’t leave her with the Maestro, for her life of glitter and gumboots to be cut from her soul while the piano took its place. The Maestro would never let her go. She’d never let Beck go either, if she knew Jan planned to be kind to him instead of chaining him to the piano. Beck could tell what she does to them. But she’s his mother and she might still love them –

  she might she might she might she—

  Jan clears his throat. ‘I don’t expect your decision immediately—’

  ‘I already know,’ Beck says.

  He can taste the blood in his mouth from when she’ll hit him. He can feel the tremble in his bones as he stands between her and his baby sister.

  When he opens his eyes, Jan’s face is lit with expectation, excitement.

  ‘No,’ Beck says. ‘I can’t be your Beethoven.’

  In his mind, it’s like

  cutting off his hands.

  He made the right choice. He did, he did.

  Stop doubting yourself.

  Beck climbs from the car – Jan insisted on driving him home – and forces himself to act casual, calm. But his insides are an ocean of regret and loss and confusion, because he should feel calm about staying. He should feel strong. He’s no Cinderella to be rescued by magic.

  He’s a kid who writes music, who’d never leave his little sister behind.

  He’s a kid who’s going to kiss a girl tonight. No more wishes, wonders, dreams. He’s the one who’ll act.

  Jan lowers the electric window. ‘Wait.’

  Beck hesitates.

  ‘You can change your mind.’ Jan leans over and passes him a card. ‘I am not sure this is your decision.’

  Beck clutches the card like it might save him from drowning. ‘It is. I’m sorry.’