The Prodigy: 2014 Edition - The Ghost Stories of Noel Hynd - Number 4

by Noel Hynd

  Geiger pushed the door and it opened. The room lights, which only a moment ago had appeared to be on, were off. The room was pitch-black.

  Rolf reached to the light switch, and before anything could spring forth from the darkness, his hand flicked it on. A line of track lighting across the ceiling brought sudden artificial daylight to the library.

  The piano stood mute and alone. Geiger stared. The keyboard was closed.

  Nothing moved in the room. All the furniture was in place. But he thought he heard a male voice whisper.

  “Yes, Rolf. Thank you.”

  There was no one he could see. He stepped farther into his library.

  “Thank you for what?” Geiger asked aloud. “Is something here or not? Where was the music coming from?”

  Distant laughter. Like an old man. A rasping, mocking voice. He didn’t have to hear any further answer. His gaze examined the piano.

  “Was someone here or not?” Geiger asked.

  Silence answered. Cold, dead silence. Then,

  “Thank you for coming.” It wasn’t a voice this time, it was a thought, a notion that seemed to take shape inside his head.

  “Coming where?” he asked. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  No answer. Not the slightest. No voice. No Chopin. No thought from outer space slipping into his head.

  Nothing. He waited. Still nothing.

  “To pay respect to your mentor.”

  The words formed in his head, same as the last ones had. A message from somewhere? Or Geiger’s own psyche conducting a dialogue within him. Rolf wasn’t certain.

  He scanned the room. Something creaked behind him. Something made a noise. Like a foot on a floorboard. But he couldn’t see anyone.

  Rolf drew a deep breath and steadied himself. This was his home, after all, he reminded himself. And though it was late at night, the thoughts he was entertaining were crazy.

  Rabinowitz was dead. Rolf had personally helped carry the man’s coffin and seen the coffin go into the earth.

  “Rest in peace, you old bastard,” he told his mentor. “You can scream all you want, just stay dead.”

  Geiger managed a slight smile. He was starting to recognize the folly of his own thoughts. As he walked to the piano and examined it, he saw no indication that anyone had touched it since he had finished with it a few hours earlier.

  “Ghosts do not play pianos,” he said aloud.

  Then a little surge of fear went through him.

  “Ghosts?” Why was he even thinking in that direction? “Ghosts?”

  “Yes!”

  Rarely before in his life had he even thought much about their existence. Why now?

  From somewhere in his subconscious, a distant recollection formed and came to him. When studying at Julliard, he had found in the music library, early recordings of a nineteenth-century French pianist named Raoul Pugno.

  Pugno, too, had been a prodigy, making his debut in 1858 at the age of six and winning his first international competitions in Paris at fourteen. Like Geiger, Pugno had virtually no formal training until his teen years. Later he became a teacher, a composer, and a recitalist of chamber music. He had made many appearances with a Belgian named Eugène Ysaÿe.

  Both Pugno and Ysaÿe were huge, heavy men, exceptional in size and talent. “The two colossi on the stage together almost made it buckle,” observed one writer from the New York Times in December of 1878.

  In Paris in 1903, Pugno had been asked to come to the studio of La Grande Compagnie de Gramophone to attempt to make recordings. Pugno had accepted the invitation, spending the next several weeks in the studio at an unexceptional old upright. He performed a variety of works and ultimately made eighteen highly noteworthy recordings. All were well preserved.

  Thirteen years afterward, Pugno died in Moscow. But the recordings remained in Paris. Later they were transferred to modern tapes and discs with remarkable clarity. In the 1940’s, the Julliard School acquired a set.

  At age twenty, Rolf Geiger spent all of his free time one week listening over and over to the recordings of the long-dead Raoul Pugno. The latter’s touch had been surprisingly light and agile, particularly for a legendarily ursine man. But what was most remarkable to Geiger was that he was listening to Pugno at all.

  As Rolf sat in a library lounge chair with headphones across his shaggy blonde head, he heard the brilliant finger work and distinctive technique of a man who had died seventy-three years earlier. Even more eerie, Geiger was listening to a man who had been born during the Second Republic in France and the presidency of Millard Fillmore in the United States.

  Geiger at the time had entertained an uneasy feeling listening to the recordings, a feeling made even more so since apparently—according to the tape’s history at Julliard—no previous student had listened to them in thirty years: He was listening to a ghost.

  Or at least, that was his feeling.

  He had the sense of listening not to just a recording, but to an actual ghost play the piano. The feeling within him was that somehow by teeing up these old tapes on a recording system, he had raised a human spirit to make music.

  When he closed his eyes one night, bringing his entire being and consciousness into a parochial world beneath those headphones, he held before him a mental image of the long-deceased Pugno playing—a heavy, bearded, bespectacled man in a primitive Paris studio transferring elements of his soul into an old upright.

  The image stayed with him with such clarity that Geiger almost had trouble opening his eyes. There was something almost supernatural about the long-deceased Pugno and his music.

  Geiger had managed to open his eyes and return to the present day.

  Now, a little less than a decade later, Geiger found himself listening to this strange piano music that either was or wasn’t emanating from the Steinway in his own home. And Geiger had the same creepy reaction.

  He was again listening to a ghost. But this time, without electronic assistance.

  It all seemed so logical that it was taking a huge effort to pull himself away from it. Or wasn’t it logical at all? Was he actually just being swept away with emotion and musicality?

  He wondered. He agonized.

  Rolf was thinking in that direction, the direction of ghosts and raised spirits, he told himself, because of the trauma of having buried old Rabinowitz, the man who, for better or worse, had been such a focal point of his life. Wasn’t it rational for an intelligent man to belabor the ramifications of such a man’s passing?

  He drew another breath and calmed himself. He was buried in thought and reflection about Pugno and Rabinowitz, life and death.

  And spiritual survival. Absently, he thought back to Brother Matthew at St. Agnes’ School in West Virginia more than two decades earlier. Matthew had loved to hold long discourses on fate and existence of the spirit. Like the tapes of Pugno, Geiger wished he could replay some of those discussions now.

  Geiger’s thoughts drifted back to the present.

  He ran his hand over the closed keyboard of his Steinway. He opened the panel that covered the keyboard. He gently traced his fingers across the smooth ivory and ebony surface of the keys. The touch of the keyboard comforted him.

  This room was empty, Rolf finally concluded. There had been no music. Rather, all he had heard had been an extension of his bad dream. This walk downstairs had not been much different than the imagined nocturnal stroll he had taken a few nights earlier.

  Geiger sat down at the piano bench. He was comfortable there too.

  His gaze settled upon the keys. He had the impulse to play. Maybe just a few warm-up exercises to get the Chopin out of his head.

  He tried to decide. What would he play? His concentration deepened and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt a hand settle on his shoulder.

  “Rolf?” His heart kicked and his entire body convulsed in fear. Geiger screamed. His head shot to the right and there was a human form there! It took a second
for the full impact to register. A long second.

  “Rolf, honey, are you all right?”

  He exhaled in relief, looking up at Diana, who had arrived so quietly next to him.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Did I startle you?”

  “Yes. I didn’t expect you.” She let her hand drift to his shoulders.

  “I saw you get up. I was worried. Can’t sleep?” She hugged him.

  “A little restless,” he answered.

  “Want to play? It won’t bother me. It’s like a lullaby. I could fall asleep listening to you.”

  He smiled.

  “You’re wonderful,” he said.

  “You sure nothing’s bothering you?” He smiled again.

  “Did you hear any music already?” he asked.

  “Music?”

  “The piano,” he said.

  “No,” she answered, a little mystified. “Were you playing?”

  “No.”

  “Then, Tiger, how could I have…?” He shook his head.

  “I was having a dream,” he explained. “A bad one. When I came out of it, I thought I heard piano music coming from somewhere.”

  “We’re alone in this house,” she teased. “So, your imagination is working overtime.”

  “I know,” he said. He pulled her to the bench. “What do you want to hear?”

  “Brahms. Lullaby,” she said.

  He played a minor theme from the lullaby. A mournful one. He played it with sadness and reflection.

  “Sometimes,” he said to her, “I feel overwhelmed by things. By music. By life. By death. I think you’re my lifeboat, my safety valve, my access to sanity.” She smiled and returned his hug. “If I pray about anything in this world, it’s that you’ll always be with me,” he said.

  Gently, he played for her. She kissed him and went back upstairs. Two minutes later, he exhaled deeply. Then he joined her upstairs, and slept perfectly through the remainder of the night.

  Thirteen

  Five days later, Brian Greenstone called a press conference in a private room at Le Champlain Restaurant near Lincoln Center. Following a buffet luncheon, with Rolf Geiger present, he made the official announcement of Geiger’s World Tour. Two dozen reporters were present from media that covered classical music.

  “The schedule of the tour is evolving quickly,” said Greenstone, heightening his accent to give the proceedings as much class as possible. “Several of the dates remain to be finalized but the basic structure of the tour is set.”

  Claire handed out the two-page press release. The tour closely resembled Greenstone’s original proposal, both in length and ambition.

  The inescapable William Baumann of the New York Times asked the first question.

  “What has suddenly changed?” he asked, crusty as ever. “For a couple of years, Rolf Geiger barely performed in public. Now Mr. Geiger wants a live audience of half the world.”

  Greenstone and Geiger both hesitated before picking up Baumann’s live grenade. In the corner of Geiger’s line of view, Diana made an angry expression and turned away from Baumann, whom she found insufferable.

  “I’m suddenly in a good mood, thank you, William,” Geiger said, seeking to keep the discussion upbeat. “And I’d like the entire world, not just half of it.”

  “Any reason, Rolf?” Baumann pressed. “Why a tour of this size and why now?”

  “Why not?”

  “Mr. Geiger has suddenly felt himself to be in an immeasurably creative and productive frame of mind,” Greenstone said. “He wishes to bring his music before the public as soon as possible. Hence, a grand tour starting in the early fall.”

  “Isn’t that rushing things?” Baumann asked. “Often tours like this take years to arrange. Orchestras need to be contracted, halls booked, conductors signed.”

  “Bill, generally you’re right,” Greenstone answered. “But because of the unique nature of Rolf Geiger’s abilities, many of the top people and halls wish to make themselves available when they otherwise might not.”

  Baumann gave an arched eyebrow and turned his attention to a plate of shrimp Dijonaise.

  Greenstone continued, saying that dates in the major cities had already been set. The concert series would begin in New York and then travel to Europe. South America would be next, then Asia. The concluding concert might be in Egypt in March, billed as a “Concert for World Peace,” it would be played in the Valley of the Kings with the pyramids as the backdrop.

  “The Egyptian government has been contacted and is supportive and encouraging,” Greenstone said. “We are hoping for the largest live audience ever to witness any music event. Perhaps one million people. But again, this part has not yet been arranged.”

  “What else will you play?” a reporter asked Geiger.

  “I’ll be playing a heavy concentration of Beethoven. But the tour will focus on music suitable for the particular venues. Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky in Russia for example. Mozart in Vienna. And so on.”

  “Will you play Chopin?” someone asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Wouldn’t that beg a comparison with Isador Rabinowitz?”

  “Probably,” said Geiger. He felt compelled to add, “If you want to make a comparison, go ahead. Recitalists are compared all the time. It’s part of the music world.”

  He exchanged a look with Diana.

  “Mr. Geiger, are you certain you won’t relent somewhere along the line and sprinkle some pop into the repertoire?” another writer asked. “What if audiences demand it?”

  “These will be dignified, ambitious, strictly classical concerts,” Geiger answered. “No one should attend expecting otherwise. I want to demonstrate what I can do as a classicist. The repertoire will be limited. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun: Beethoven, for example, used his own compositions merely as starting points for his own recitals, then improvised on his own work. Hopefully, I can also draw large audiences.”

  Julie Byers of Downbeat said,

  “This concert tour has already had the opportunity to draw some criticism.”

  Geiger knew what was coming.

  “The criticisms are the same ones that you’ve heard for many years: You’ve bastardized ‘great music’ in the past. Now you’re turning around and deciding to play in a manner that you’ve rejected in the past. Some say this whole tour is an exercise in greed. You stand to make about twenty million dollars.”

  “Really?” Geiger said, holding a straight face and pretending to be alarmed. He turned to his agent. “I thought it was fifty million, Brian. I’ve been misled. I want out!”

  There was some laughter.

  “But how can you be taken as a serious musician under those circumstances of formerly playing with such a ‘pop showbiz’ atmosphere,” she asked. “And doesn’t a tour like this underscore all those criticisms as well as add some credibility to them?”

  “Julie,” Geiger asked with a sigh, “I never ‘rejected’ the more traditional approaches to music. I merely didn’t employ them. Maybe I didn’t feel I was ready yet. Nor I am.”

  “How much does the death of Isador Rabinowitz have anything to do with the timing of this,” Baumann asked.

  “It’s coincidental,” Greenstone answered.

  “Come on,” Baumann pressed.

  “Serge Prokofiev died on the same day in 1953 that Rabinowitz signed his first contract with RCA Victor. Does anyone look for cause and effect in that?”

  The laughter around the room defused the point.

  “Mr. Geiger enjoys unparalleled popularity worldwide,” Greenstone said, continuing while he had the momentum. “A tour like this does not come along often. We’re trying to use venues that will allow millions of people to attend.” Still the piranhas swarmed.

  “Speaking of millions, Brian,” asked Maxine Walton of the New York Observer. “How much is this tour really worth to your client? Twenty million? Fifty million?”

  Greenstone started to deflect the subject again. But
Geiger cut him off.

  “It’s okay. I need to address this,” Rolf said. Geiger turned the full warmth of his charm upon his questioner.

  “First, no one criticizes performers like The Rolling Stones or Springsteen when they do world tours with extravagant grosses. There seems to be something written somewhere that says classical artists have to play to smaller elite houses and shouldn’t seek large audiences. I don’t believe that. The late Pavarotti played to worldwide audiences and no one seemed to object. The great tenors Caruso and John McCormack became wealthy playing to the largest audiences they could find as did many modern recital pianists from Liszt and Paderewski in the last century to Horowitz and Rubinstein in this century. I’m creating a venue that increases interest and awareness in the greatest music of the greatest composers. No one is forced to buy a ticket.”

  The writers scribbled and let their handheld tape recorders roll.

  “And at least two of the largest concerts will be largely for charity,” said Greenstone. “One of the European dates, probably the one at Wembley, we’ll do for world famine relief. One of the American dates will also be for U.S. charities that Mr. Geiger favors.”

  “What about recordings?” someone else asked. Geiger arched his eyebrows.

  “Well I would hope there might be some,” he said innocently. He smiled slyly and looked to Greenstone as a small ripple of laughter went around the room.

  “Mr. Geiger’s present label, Aurora Records, has indicated that they will issue the entire tour in a boxed set of ten CD’s next autumn. We’re close to a formal agreement. Aurora will make the announcement when we have the contracts.”

  “What will top ticket prices be?” someone from the rear of the room asked.

  “Maybe as high as four hundred dollars in London and New York, and five hundred in Tokyo,” Greenstone answered.

  “Then what about the charge that this is an exercise in greed?” asked Baumann again. “If you figure that the tour will net tens of millions dollars, you could actually cut ticket prices and viewing and recording costs by fifty percent and come away with a fortune. Charities notwithstanding, you’re still freezing out a lot of people.”

  “Why don’t you ask Alex Rodriguez why he charges so much to hit a baseball?” Brian Greenstone answered. “Could we change the subject?”