School of Velocity

by Eric Beck Rubin

  On cue, a knock on the door: the ten-minute warning. I looked at the small mirror on the back of the green room’s door, unbuttoned and rebuttoned my collar, checked my fly, retied my shoelaces. Another knock: five minutes. I walked up to the wings, hoping not to pass anyone I knew so as not to have to speak. On stage, two men were making the final adjustments to the concert grand. Arne was wiping the lacquered black rim with a white cloth to remove the fingerprints. As they worked on raising the lid I checked the clock backstage. At three minutes to go, beneath the sound of ushers shimmering their chimes to tell people to take their seats, I began to hear in my head the first bars of the first movement. Arne had given me advice for just this moment.

  “Don’t worry about the little things,” he said. “I’ll be there to check the bench is at the right height, the stand is down, the lid at the angle you like. In the last minutes, as you wait in the wings and the audience finds their seats, you may notice a static of expectation. The air will get thicker. Take it in. Use it as a kind of armour.”

  Arne was right; the air felt denser, and the music stands, instrument cases, stacks of chairs, and every other object around me seemed heavier, bigger, more consequential. I looked past the curtains. The last of the audience were taking their seats. First-year students. Members of faculty. A few young men, thin and bespectacled and wearing sharp suits with notepads in hand, probably agency reps. I looked down to the front row, to Lena. Her recently cut hair was angled sharply just below the ears. Her gold hoop earrings, which I especially liked, dangled just below the cut. Wine-dark lipstick stained her already full lips.

  With the audience in their seats, the house lights dimmed and the stage lights bloomed inside their black metal frames. It was time. Inside my head the opening bars of the first movement grew louder, almost raucous. A crowd waiting for the show to start. My palms were sweating and a buzz ran through my fingers.

  Here was the moment I had worked for. I thought of all the hours I’d spent at the Grotrian, in my parents’ living room, on my own. Not paying attention to the weather outside, or what people were doing in it. Not caring about anything but the bar, line, piece I was practising, again and again. From the solitude of practising I had come to the cusp of appearing before an audience. An audience waiting to hear me. And now I had the chance to make this the first of hundreds, thousands, such shows.

  I walked onstage and sat on the bench. A brief applause, then quiet. I placed my hands in position on either side of middle C. One-five-one B-flat octave in the right hand. Root position B-flat triad in the left. Light but steady on the eighth notes, I said to myself. Mind leaving the foot too long on the pedal. Don’t let up on the staccato in the left-hand intervals. I breathed out, held it, and pressed from the shoulders. My fingers, once they fell into rhythm, played on their own. In my mind, I was on a bicycle, picking up speed. The wind cut through my hair, skimmed my sides, shook the nearby branches; it bent the long grass over the dykes and rippled the surface of the canal. I stood on my pedals and could hear every note in the rush of air. When one movement ended, I started right into the next, before the audience had the chance to exhale. Keeping them on the edge of their seats, playing counter to their expectations, that was the idea. Whatever version of the Schubert they came in knowing by heart, automatically humming when they heard the words “Sonata in B-flat,” I wanted to make sure they left with my version in their ears, unable to think it was ever played otherwise.

  As the fourth movement, which double-knotted the laces from previous sections, reached the end, I slowed the bounce of the major chords, leaving an eerie pause between some, as if second-guessing them. Entering the last lines, I opened my eyes, just for a moment, to set my hands for the final tumble of notes. Then I squeezed them shut again, threw my head back, let my hands find their own way, and cut the final note short. My last move was to hold my hands a foot above the keys, fingers spread, as though music was still emanating from the instrument. I wanted everyone to hear, like I did, the afterlife of the piece.

  The applause came like a speeding train, and like a person standing too close to the edge of a platform, I was physically brushed back. So much work, so many hours, and I had arrived. As I stood to take my bows, the clapping turned rhythmic, with a few hoots thrown in, and I remembered despite myself Dirk, ballistically pumping his fists in the air. After leaving the stage I went back for an encore, buzzing through a jangling, blustery version of Rachmaninoff’s C-sharp prelude. Limbs falling spectacularly down stairs.

  With the last of the piece’s power chords I left the stage under a fresh hail of hooting and clapping. The first person I saw backstage was Arne.

  “You’ve absolutely done it, de Vries. First class. I’ve seen plenty take this stage and I’m telling you I wouldn’t be surprised if you signed with an agency tomorrow.”

  Lena came rushing in behind him and kissed me all over the face, in front of everyone.

  Arne had been exaggerating, but not by much. Within days, envelopes started filling the dormitory mail slot, most of them form letters with fresh signatures, but a few handwritten inquiries on personal letterhead. Could I come to their offices? Could I call at this number? We certainly look forward to seeing you. That first week, I travelled to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag. I was taken to lunches and dinners in downtown restaurants. I rode the train in first class and was chauffeured by junior reps from the agencies. “Almost as if I was some kind of hotshot lawyer,” I said to Lena.

  One of the agents suggested a tour of America. Another a series in Germany.

  Every day some news came. Everything a cause for Lena and me to celebrate.

  My mind, having taken a hiatus during the last days of preparation for the showcase, went back to daydreaming my future with Lena. The two of us living together in our own place. Taking road trips down the Rhine or Danube or Canal du Midi. Lena and me in Rome. In bed reading beside each other. In a fancy restaurant. In a seedy bar. Hiking, even though I didn’t like hiking. On a ferry somewhere. Playing minigolf on the ferry. Time passing but never getting old. We started saying “I’m going to marry you” to each other. It was as effortless and inevitable as everything else.

  After the initial flurry of meetings, I signed papers with Alderdink and Associates. Their reputation was excellent, and a number of the tutors encouraged me. As far as I could tell, there were no real associates. Just Alderdink, a portly, suspenders-wearing, cigarillo-smoking man in his fifties who went by his first name, Taub. As soon as I scribbled my signature on the contracts, Taub revealed he had my first date set up for after graduation, a concert in Osaka. And after that, four performances over three weeks elsewhere in Japan and Korea.

  “Ever been to the East, de Vries? Twelve hours on a plane, eh. Better get used to it!”

  Taub laughed. Then he handed me a score and laughed some more. It was the sheet music for Debussy’s En Blanc et Noir, a piece for two pianos. “Hell of a first movement,” he said. “But I’m sure you knew that. The crowds want technical fireworks these days, and you’re going to deliver.”

  I went to Lena’s apartment right after to tell her the first stop wasn’t America, but Japan. She was sheer joy at the news, and right away pulled a beaten Bosatlas off her shelf to scan the Asia maps and pick out city names and travel distances.

  I stayed at her apartment straight through the following week, culminating in my birthday, number twenty-three, when Lena and I stayed up most of the night to celebrate. Like a boxer who lets himself go after a title fight, I didn’t go to the practice rooms once during that time. But I knew eventually I’d have to rouse myself, and the cue was opening the sheet music Taub had given me. The first movement. I’d never performed anything like it, never seen a score like it. But I was at a high point in my confidence. I’d trained for this, was ready for it. I thought of the late nights at the faculty, the addictive adrenaline of a deadline, and could feel the nervous excitement bubbling up inside me.

  Two weeks into my mad dash th
rough En Blanc et Noir, after an all-nighter in the practice rooms, I stopped by the dorm. I wanted to pick up a few books, references to help with the piece. As I walked into the building half dazed from the long night, dragging my feet along the tiles of the foyer, the porter called something in my direction. My name, though it took a few tries till he caught my attention.

  I rubbed my eyes and apologized. The porter handed me a stack of envelopes.

  “More offers, de Vries?”

  “That ship’s sailed,” I said with a touch of the arrogance that Lena had recently been warning me against.

  I climbed the stairs to my room shuffling through the envelopes, curious to know who else might have written. A few late requests from agents, some whose names I recognized, some I didn’t. Campus mail. Something that looked like an invoice, but who knew for what. I was at my door when I got to a sky-blue envelope with a border of navy and red stripes. A sticker pasted to the front said “Air Mail” in English. There were stars and stripes on the stamp. The address was dashed off in almost illegible, but familiar, handwriting. I stopped short, then grabbed my keys, opened the door, and sat on the edge of the bed. I tore one side of the envelope and fished out a folded sheet of waxy thin blue paper.

  The calligraphy, appalling as ever. Jumbled words, scratched-out words, the point of the pen threatening everywhere to puncture the page. I smoothed it out one or two times.

  Dear dear dear de Vries,

  I don’t know if you will get this or not but you know what I want to say my dearest sweetest most wonderful wonder of a friend is —

  Happy motherfucking birthday to you.

  Happy goddamned birthday.

  Oh Good Lord, Sweet Jesus of Lazarus,

  Happy goddamned motherfucking birthday

  dear Old Man de Vries …

  Now go get drunk and watch out for venereal diseases.

  Heaven above, oh heaven above. May your birthday, day of days, moment of history, pivotal instant in the universe, be happy. I miss you grandly, goodness gracious me. So many things have happened over here. Much news to tell, colourful and strange, twenty-four hours a day. But first, what have you been up to? What are you doing? Please, please not all at once. Hold some in reserve. I’ll be home in December so fill me in then. That’s right. Then. In the meantime, little de Vries, allow yourself to be left with the following: “Hi, everybody. I’m Archie Bell and the Drells, from Houston, Texas. We don’t only sing but we dance just as good as we want.”

  D.

  I shook the envelope. There was something else inside. A photocopied sheet, folded over like a booklet, fell out. On the cover was a grainy image of two people, one standing and one kneeling. The standing person held a sword to the shoulder of the kneeling person, as if knighting him. The picture was too rough to tell if either was Dirk. Or neither. In small writing, beneath the picture, was a title. Elsinoreville. Inside was a list of names. Melissa, Markus, Drew, Stephen, Dirk.

  I dropped the program on the bed and went back to the letter. It looked like a relic but carried his voice clear as day. As if he were in front of me. I read it one more time, then folded the paper along its crease and slipped it, and the program, back into the envelope.

  I left the letter in my dorm room and went to Lena’s, where I put on some music and decided to make filet mignon with asparagus, my one and only specialty.

  Three days later, I picked up the phone to call Den Bosch. Though I had stewed over the decision, when I finally dialed the number it felt spontaneous, even liberating. A housekeeper answered, which caught me off guard. I left my dorm number, Lena’s number, and the last day I’d be in Maastricht.

  That night when Lena came home, I told her I’d gotten a letter from an old friend. “Dirk Noosen,” I said. “We were close at Sint Ansfried. Best friends. Then he went to school overseas and kind of fell off the map.”

  Lena was unpacking her briefcase on the kitchen table and didn’t say anything.

  “He’s coming back and wants to meet up,” I said.

  Lena looked up. “Exciting, no?”

  “Well,” I said, “yes. Dirk’s a different kind of person. When we were at Sint Ansfried, everyone loved him. He always had the girls. I guess now the table’s turned.”

  “That’s your first reaction?”

  “We were very competitive,” I said, by way of apology.

  Lena laughed. “Just teasing.” She began to take out plates for dinner. “So when will we be seeing him?”

  “Around Christmas,” I said. Lena nodded. She didn’t ask further about Dirk, didn’t even say more about the idea of being paraded like a trophy in front of him.

  As the end of term approached, I started anticipating a call or note from Dirk. I went about my routine as normal, meeting with Arne, polishing an essay for my theory course, but I kept an eye on the phone in Lena’s apartment, and when I slept there I’d drop by the dormitory the next morning to see if he’d left a message. On December twenty-third, Lena and I were due at her parents’ house, where I’d meet her family for the first time and spend Christmas and New Year’s. I had told that to the housekeeper, so if Dirk got the message, he would know the date. With less than a week left, the rational part of me was reconciled to the likelihood Dirk wouldn’t show up, but the irrational part, which was stronger, was almost certain he would.

  On the eve of our departure Lena and I were in my dorm room, packing. It was going slowly, Lena taking every opportunity to look through my belongings, including a duffle bag of old clothes and a shoebox of notes and photos I’d brought from Vlijmen, which I hadn’t looked through in years.

  “When did you last wear these?” Lena asked. “Who’s the girl in this picture? You liked this band?”

  It was all a joke to her, especially because she saw I was sensitive. “Which pictures should I bring to show my family? How about this one? They’ll be thrilled to know I’m dating someone who was still playing with plastic swords as a teenager.” While I was swatting her comments away, the telephone rang. Lena was closer and picked it up.

  “Hello?” she said. “Mm-hm. No, I’m not. Yes, he is. One second, please.” She handed me the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  It was the porter’s desk. “There’s a gentleman here to see you, de Vries.”

  A gentleman.

  “He says”—a hand covered the receiver—“his name’s Frank Herbert.”

  “I’ll be down in a sec,” I said, hanging up the phone and throwing the folded shirts on the bed. “We’ll do this later,” I said to Lena. “It’s Dirk.”

  “Who?”

  “Dirk, my old friend. He’s downstairs.”

  “You didn’t say he was coming today. What about all this?” She waved towards the clothes on the bed, the open suitcase.

  “C’mon,” I said, “we’ll finish later. Promise.”

  Lena nodded, skeptically, and got up. I hustled us out of the room. I could feel jitters in my knees. Half a flight down and Lena was already three steps behind. “Come on!”

  As I turned the corner into the foyer I could hear his voice. The husky edge always on the verge of making a crude joke.

  “Yeah, everything in America’s different. Especially …”

  I stopped. Looked. Dirk was leaning against the front desk, talking to the porter like they were old pals. One foot crossed over the other, an arm spread over the counter, fingers fidgeting with the corner of the sign-in sheet. Hair a mess. Ears red from the cold.

  “Frank?” I called out.

  He turned. Round, smiling eyes. Chip on the front tooth. “I thought you’d like that one,” he said.

  We walked to each other. I reached out an arm, as if to shake his hand, but it got lost as he pulled me in for a hug.

  “Old Man, Old Man.”

  Dirk laughed. He squeezed his arms around me. I smiled.

  When Lena cleared her throat behind me, Dirk let go and I turned around. “This is Lena. My, ahem, serious girlfriend.” I slipped my
arm around her waist. “Lena, this is Dirk. Dirk Noosen.”

  Dirk leaned back and looked Lena up and down. She blushed.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting,” Dirk said.

  “We were on the verge of leaving town,” I said. “A heads-up would’ve been nice!”

  Lena broke in. “Are you here for the night, Dirk, or are you staying longer?”

  “A couple of days,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I’m with a friend of my father’s, on the north end of town. I think it’s north. Never been here before.”

  “We could go out for a coffee right now,” I said.

  Dirk nodded.

  I looked at Lena. “The Easy?” I asked.

  “Okay,” she said. She must have been thinking of all that was left to do upstairs, but she was being a good sport about it. “I’ll run up and get our coats.”

  The Easy, that night, was full. Dirk and I got a four-seater near the front window. Lena went to look at the choice of pastries and order for us. Dirk watched as she squeezed between tables. “Tight jeans,” he said as she passed from earshot. “Tight jeans ordering your dessert.”

  He looked around the room and bobbed his head. We were, for the moment, alone. The strangeness of it, Dirk’s instant immediacy after such a long absence. I had envisioned this. Imagined my possible responses. Haughty. Passive-aggressive. Just plain aggressive. But now he was here, in front me, I felt myself slipping into my old role. I wanted to ask him questions just to hear the answers, stories about where he’d been, his many exploits, true, exaggerated, imaginary. I wanted to wring everything from him at once. To talk about that Christmas, even. Why not? But it was Dirk, as usual, who took the initiative.