A Dangerous Duet

by Karen Odden

  “Here.” He took my arm to lead me toward a piano with gold scrolling on the blond wood cabinet. “What do you think of this?”

  “It’s very pretty,” I said hesitantly.

  “Yes, it’s very pretty.” His lip curled. “Good for someone who wants to look at the piano and not play it.”

  I pointed to a plain one. “And that one?”

  “A Bechstein, but it needs a new soundboard. Jacques will do it for me this week.” He patted the edge as if it were a friend’s shoulder. “What kind of piano do you prefer?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “One that’s in tune.”

  “Ah!” He gave a shout of laughter as if I’d said something very clever. “You don’t ask much.”

  “I suppose not.” I looked around the room. “I’ve a Broadwood at home.”

  “Ah! A fine English instrument.” He led me to a piano with a black lacquer cabinet. The fallboard was down, and he drew it up. “Jacques just repaired this one. Would you like to try it?”

  I played a chord, separated the four notes, and rejoined them. “The action is different from mine. The keys spring back faster.”

  “It’s a piano that requires a strong touch,” he said. “But you do not look feeble.”

  I sat down and ran my hands through some harmonics. Then I played them again, astonished by the way the notes connected. “It’s wonderful!”

  His eyes gleamed with approval. “What do you hear?”

  “It doesn’t hesitate. Every note is clear as water. What was it like when it arrived?”

  “Very bad. This one has traveled from France, and an ocean voyage is one of the worst things you can do to a piano.” He sat down on a nearby bench. “Play something for me, chérie. My sister used to play for me, and I miss it.” He waved his hands. “With these, I cannot play anymore.”

  Mindful of the presence of customers, I chose the first movement of Mozart’s Sonata in E-flat Major, an adagio. It was neither too short nor too long and was generally pleasing to the ear.

  When I finished, I looked up to find him studying me with a puzzled expression.

  I took my hands off the keys at once, feeling embarrassed. He had heard scores of brilliant musicians play; perhaps I sounded amateurish to his ears. “Is something wrong?”

  He shook his head hastily. “Of course not. Jacques said you played well—but if he only heard you play those bits for the show, he could not know. You play very well. Why are you not studying at the Royal Academy? Or do you have a tutor?”

  “I haven’t had one since Mr. Moehler died, I’m afraid.”

  He sighed. “Ah, yes. Now I remember. Have you considered what you will do, now that Johann is gone?”

  “He didn’t have time to find me a new teacher. And the two I approached said they couldn’t take me.”

  He rubbed his chin, considering. “But they are not the only two tutors in London. Perhaps I can help you.”

  “Well, I’m also not the usual age of most students.”

  “I know some for whom that would not be an obstacle. My friend Jane Talbot, for example. I could speak to her.”

  Seeing he was not going to let the matter drop, I smiled and bent toward him. “Actually, I have an audition at the Royal Academy next week.”

  His face brightened. “Ah, bien!” He slapped his palms onto his knees. “I do not need to convince you, then. On Wednesday, isn’t it? And you would begin in the fall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, what are your two pieces?”

  “Mozart’s Sonata in C and Chopin’s Scherzo number three.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Vraiment? They are both difficult to play well. Many people think that sonata is simple, but I have heard it butchered, especially the left hand. Now, the Chopin . . .”

  He broke off and took my left hand in his. Knowing what he was looking for, I stretched my fingers wide, and he smiled. “C’est bon! Some of the chords are very difficult, but your reach is long.”

  “I still have to stretch,” I admitted. “And not just my hands. It’s the hardest piece I’ve ever played. Some days when I’m practicing, I can practically hear Chopin turning in his grave, moaning about stupid English girls tinkling away in their parlors.”

  He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Let me hear it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if your customers want to listen to—”

  “Please. Just the first two parts, if you would. I want to hear what you are stretching for, as you say.”

  He looked so earnest, I couldn’t refuse him. “All right.” I took a deep breath and set my fingers back on the keys.

  I played the first section in C-sharp minor and the second in D-flat major. Then I turned to see his reaction.

  His eyes had been closed for listening, and a moment after I finished, he opened them. I had played without any noticeable errors, and I was prepared to see at least mild approval in his expression. But although he smiled, it seemed a trifle forced.

  “Your technique—it is very good.” The overly hearty note in his voice opened a dark pit of fear under my ribs.

  “You say that as if something else is not.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “Pardon an old man—”

  “You’re not old,” I broke in, my heart sinking at the thought that he was trying to soften his criticism by disparaging himself.

  He pursed his lips. “Frankly, my dear, if you weren’t so very talented, I wouldn’t bother saying anything. But yes, I think there is something missing from your playing.”

  I had to swallow before I trusted myself to speak. “Very well. Tell me what’s wrong. If I’m not going to get into the Academy, I want to know why.”

  “Oh”—he waved dismissively—“I don’t think it will keep you from getting in. You’re very proficient.”

  I breathed again. “But what is it? What’s missing?”

  “Why, I think you are missing la susceptibilité.” His voice softened: “Oui. C’était la susceptibilité, Mademoiselle.”

  I had no earthly idea what he meant. “Susceptibility to what?”

  “You play with poise—with reserve, perhaps born of esteem.” He touched his fingertips to his chest. “But Chopin, of all composers, was a man who was intimate with his piano. It was the means by which Chopin conveyed his sentiments to the world—the longing he had for fulfilling love, the pain of his illnesses, the grief of his tragic exile.”

  I nodded. I knew of Chopin’s vexed romance with George Sand, his tuberculosis, his emigration from his beloved Poland.

  “But he understood that the piano has its own voice as well, which he was compelled to heed. It held Chopin’s notes”—his hands formed a cup—“and then refined them, enlarged them, so that they resonated in his ears and stirred his heart. You play with almost perfect correctness but with the susceptibility”—he pushed his open hands away—“out here, as if the piano is not allowed to speak back to you, to make its impression upon you in return.”

  I felt a growing dismay, for I was beginning to have an idea what he meant.

  “My dear, all of music is a reach beyond borders and across the ages. A daring attempt to touch those we do not know, but whose feelings we know in the deepest parts of our hearts because they are our own. Thus, the passions, the pains, the—the sensitivities of the composer and the instrument, all must not only be acknowledged but celebrated.” He leaned toward me, his brown eyes intent. “Comprenez-vous?”

  I swallowed. “I think so.”

  “Then why do you not play so?”

  The note of agitation brought sudden, stinging tears to my eyes.

  He drew back. “Merde,” he said under his breath.

  I looked away and fought to compose myself.

  He sat down heavily next to me on the bench, and I shifted to make room. “Oh, chérie.” All the fierceness had faded from his voice. “It’s a stupid tongue I have in my head.” A linen square, thin and soft from many launderings, was pushed into my hand and I p
ressed it to my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’ve no right to speak to you that way.”

  I met his sorrowful gaze. “Of course you do. You only mean to help me, and you’re not wrong. I do keep susceptibility, as you say, at a distance. I just never knew you could hear it as something missing in my playing. Mr. Moehler never said so. In fact, he didn’t approve of pianists—especially women—who imposed their own feelings on the work. He said it was selfish and disrespectful to the composer, a sign of the pianist’s desire to be applauded, when a true musician should want to be almost invisible, transparent, to let the music come to the fore.”

  He frowned. “But that is impossible! Even the most brilliant pianist cannot hold himself wholly apart. There will be inflections, be they ever so faint. Not because a pianist desires to be seen—the way a man parades in Hyde Park to show off his new coat—but because our brains and hearts inform our playing, and the sounds we hear affect us. To think that one can avoid that—well, it’s—it’s—”

  “Naive?” I said tentatively.

  “Mais, oui.” Mr. Bertault made a noise in the back of his throat, a rumble of a cough. “Did you ever hear Johann play Beethoven’s Ninth?”

  I nodded, remembering. “It was brilliant.”

  “Brilliant.” He nodded as well, slowly. “Sparkling as polished silver, but cold. His piano was like a mute thing, silent in the face of an onslaught. Beethoven would not have played it so.”

  “He was a good teacher,” I said defensively.

  “A fine teacher,” he agreed. “Or your technique would not be what it is. But for someone such as yourself, he was missing”—he brought the thumb and forefinger on his right hand nearly together—“just the smallest piece. It’s not his fault! He didn’t know. It was not in his heart to be humble, to be open to the collaboration between player and instrument. And I could not have explained it to him, as I have done just now, and have him understand what I meant. You”—he pointed—“know how to listen.”

  His kindness brought a lump to my throat. I dropped my eyes to the keys and ran my thumbs along the ivory edges, feeling the gaps between them. Finally, I said, “My mother—she was a pianist, too, but she was ill, for a long time.”

  “Ah, that is very hard.” His tone was subdued, and I sensed he was thinking of Eugenie.

  I looked up. “She was ill in her mind,” I amended. “She had what a French doctor calls ‘folie circulaire.’ The tendency for it can be inherited, you see, and her doctor believed the best thing for me would be to avoid all extremes of feeling, particularly at the piano, as that is what seemed to make her condition worse. He heard me the other day, working on the Chopin. I was playing so vigorously that a string broke, and it distressed him very much. But I am trying—I’ve always tried—to be careful.”

  “And your mother? What happened to her?”

  “When I wasn’t quite a year old, she ran away to Paris. She never came back.”

  A heavy sigh. “I see. From the way you looked just now, I thought she might have died.”

  “That might have been easier to bear.” It came out of my mouth before I had time to think how it might sound to someone who had lost his only sister. Stricken, I wadded the handkerchief tightly in my hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  His eyes held compassion. “I know what you meant.”

  “It was nearly twenty years ago. You’d think it wouldn’t matter anymore.”

  “Nonsense. It will always matter.” The gentleness in his voice made my eyes burn again. After a moment he added, “I am glad you told me, for I understand now. And I would like to hear you play again. But not the Chopin, chérie. Try something that feels like play to you, instead of work. Perhaps something peaceful, of which your doctor would approve.”

  It took me a moment to swallow down the tightness in my throat, the sting in my nose, and to think of a piece. Finally, I picked Brahms’s “Wiegenlied,” something I could play as easily as I could navigate my house in the dark.

  A dozen measures in, he murmured, “That’s it. Let the piano speak back to you. You’ve nothing to fear from a conversation as tender as this.”

  I did my best, and at the final note, I looked up.

  “Mon Dieu!” Mr. Bertault’s eyes were wet. “Did you feel the change?”

  I had, and as tears pricked the corners of my eyes, I nodded. “But does it sound any different?”

  “You play with what the French call la tendresse, and it strikes here.” He tapped his chest with his right fingertips.

  “Mr. York says you play like an angel,” came Jack’s murmur, close.

  Startled, I turned to the opposite side of the piano and hastily wiped my eyes. Jack’s eyebrows rose, and he looked uncertainly from his uncle to me.

  “And now,” Mr. Bertault said with a sigh, “I will leave you to visit.”

  “Thank you,” I said, reaching out. “For saying what you did.”

  A quick squeeze of my fingers, a smile that deepened the lines around his mouth, then an apologetic look at Jack, and he turned away.

  “My uncle doesn’t usually make people cry,” Jack observed.

  My laugh was shaky. “I just came to say hello to you, and instead I received a lesson.”

  “A welcome one?”

  “Yes. It was just—unexpected.” What Mr. Bertault had said was still resonating like a held chord, for I had experienced the alteration in my playing almost physically, somewhere between my brain and my heart and my hands.

  “How is your ankle?” Jack asked.

  “Fine. I walked from home.”

  “I’m glad you came.” A brief teasing smile flickered over his mouth. “You look pretty in a dress.”

  I felt the warmth rush to my cheeks. “Thank you.”

  He extended his hand to help me up from the bench. “Would you like to see something unusual? It just came in this morning.” He led me to a baby grand that stood in the corner. One leg was badly scratched, the wood veneer was dull and peeling, and pieces were torn off of what was once exquisite wooden beading around the edge.

  “Look inside,” he instructed.

  I peered under the lid and felt my eyes widen. Etched inside, in black ink, were rows of what looked like names, letters, and numbers.

  “It belonged to a family named Lavin,” Jack said.

  “The writing is so elaborate.”

  “This part is in Cyrillic.” He ran his forefinger along some of the ink that had faded. “This other part is in French. It’s their entire family tree,” he said, touching each name in turn. “Vadim—that’s the father, Agafya, the mother—and here are the five children, and their children. You see the birthdates?”

  I nodded. “Who were they?”

  “Russian royalty. They left Moscow in the eighteen thirties, and their daughter eventually settled in Paris.”

  “There’s an inscription,” I observed. Our shoulders brushed as I leaned forward. “But I don’t read French.”

  “It says, ‘Ce piano est le cœur de notre maison.’ This piano is the heart of our home.”

  I went to the keyboard and played a scale. It was horribly out of tune, and some of the notes didn’t play at all.

  “You can restore this?” I asked, doubtfully.

  He nodded. “It’s not so bad.”

  “Jack, my boy.”

  We both looked up. A middle-aged man with a stoop and a cane stood in the archway. He raised his hand and waved to Jack.

  “I’ll be back,” Jack said to me. “Mr. Wendell.” He took the man’s elbow and led him to an easy chair in the corner of the main room. I had to smile. It was the same kindness that his uncle had showed me. Jack was more Monsieur Bertault’s nephew than he was his father’s son.

  I bent once more inside the piano. I could read some of the names but not all. Antoine. Étienne. Another Antoine. And then Mr. Bertault was at my side again. “I’m sorry, my dear. Jacques will be with this customer for some time. While he’s busy, would you like to see my second passio
n?”

  I must have looked a bit wary, for he laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you cry again. Come with me.”

  My curiosity roused, I followed him through the archway and to the back door. He reached behind a bookshelf for a brass key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

  I stood at the top of a set of stone stairs and gasped in wonder. I had anticipated a drab alley. What I found instead was a garden that would have been beautiful anywhere in the world. Here in London it seemed as magical and enchanted as something out of a fairy tale.

  Enclosed by the dull brick walls of the buildings around it, the square space was brilliant with flowers of every color—scarlet and plum, gold and pink, white and pale blue, at once as lush as wildflowers in a field and as delicate as a painting by Redouté. There were four slender trees, one for each corner, whose limbs, graceful as those of dancers, cast moving shadows on the brown earth. Two neat graveled paths crossed in an X, their meeting place marked by a white ceramic birdbath. A winged cherub with a dimple in his cheek sat on the edge and tipped a copper urn into the basin. The scent of roses was thick and heavy as incense in a church.

  Behind me, Mr. Bertault gave a mischievous chuckle. I turned and laughed with him. “You relish the surprise, don’t you? I’m sure no one suspects! How could they?”

  “They don’t,” he agreed. “And you’re right. I like my small joke, but I only play it on my friends. And it is best in June, with the roses.”

  We walked down the steps onto one of the paths, the gravel crunching under our feet. Pale bricks marked the edges of the flower beds, and I bent first to examine the delicate lavender phlox at my feet, then to smell the peach roses behind them. Next came bushes of peonies flanked by dark pink roses that were mostly buds, except for one that had laid itself open wide, so we could see the golden heart. The petals were like silk, the green leaves verdant, and the fragrance sweet without being cloying.

  “These are the Pink Ladies,” Mr. Bertault said.

  “They’re beautiful. How did you grow all of this?”

  He gestured around. “Plants like alchemilla and phlox and ranunculus all grow easily this time of year. But the roses are from clippings from our farm northeast of Toulon. It’s been my family’s business for years, beginning with my great-grandfather.”