In town the snow was everywhere stained with coal smoke and mud, but it was white around the school. A white blanket on the ground, white lace upon the trees. On the first day of classes, Berenice walked with the other girls, foregoing the path through the woods in favor of the cleared drive. Almost with the other girls, not quite. Miss Salter walked ahead with her group of three, Miss Teale behind with her two seconds, and Berenice, neutral party, walked alone. She was too glad to be back, and too glad not to be drawn into the continuing feud, to regret it much. The red brick of Masters Hall loomed warm and cheering at the end of the drive.
Just as cheerful were the voices of the young men lobbing snowballs at one another across the drive. They were using the shoveled drifts of snow as fortifications, and all Berenice could see of them were the tops of their heads and the scything motions of their arms as they threw. Miss Salter’s group, clucking in dismay, came to a disordered stop in the drive.
A boy with pink cheeks and brown hair popped up from behind the right-hand drift. “Hullo! Non-combatants. I say—” was as far as he got before a snowball caught him in the face. He yelped and sat down out of sight.
“Cease fire!” cried the forces on the right, while those on the left shouted, “Surrender or die!”
Snowballs were thrown, from both sides.
“For pity’s sake,” shouted the brash Miss Salter. “You might stop long enough to let us by!”
Several figures stood up at that, faces red and clothes mottled white. There was some startled and sheepish laughter. “I said there were non-combatants on the field,” the brown-haired boy said, and a young man from the other side, whose hair was nearly as pale as the snow, cried, “Ladies! Forgive these cads, they know no better,” and slid down the drift onto the drive. He bowed, shedding snow, and by some deft alchemy of gesture and smile he parted the clutch of girls to single out Berenice.
“Mistress Red, the very sight of you reminds me of summer’s warmth. Will you allow me to escort you from the field of battle?”
“Certainly not,” she said, and brushed past his outstretched hand.
He smiled. The girls, both Miss Salter’s and Miss Teale’s camps, glared.
She had a lesson with Dr. Kingsley first thing. Rather than worry about Mr. Green or her fellow boarders, she worried about how cold her hands were, and how stiff her fingers would be on the keys. He was very critical of her technique, Dr. Kingsley was. She was sweating and red-faced by the end of the lesson, her fingers finally loose, her throat tight with throttled tears.
“Very well,” Dr. Kingsley said, but by his tone of voice he meant, Very ill.
“It’s hard to practice at home, sir. I do better here.”
“You will have to,” he said, unrelenting. He got up from the stool he had placed intimidatingly close to her elbow and rummaged through the music on the shelf beneath the window. Even bent over, he blocked much of the light. He was very large, barrel-shaped in his dusty black suit, with a mane of hair and side-whiskers that should have dated him, but only made him more imposing. He pulled out a score and handed it to her. Satie, some of his pieces for students. She took them without being able to hide her dismay.
“But I wanted to go on working on the Nocturnes.”
“Miss Ross, ambition may not be a cardinal sin, not even in the female, but it is a foolish one when the female in question does not have the necessary foundation upon which to build such edifying structures as those of which she dreams. Chopin requires strength, technique, and a certain vigor of soul, none of which you, at this moment, can muster. It will take a great deal of work to convince me that you ever will. I am not wholly optimistic. However, if you still wish to try, I suggest, in my humble role as teacher and guide, that you begin with these.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
He opened the door and ushered her into the hall.
The second floor landing was the usual eddy of noise, music and voices washing through each other like the hot air from the radiators and the cold draft from the foyer below. Berenice got no further before the tears came. She leaned her forehead against the window frame, and when her breath misted the pane, she wiped it away to make the snowy ground, the black-trunked snowy trees come clear.
A hand touched her cheek, a voice said, “What is this?”
She turned, shocked, in time to see Mr. Green touch his fingertip to his tongue.
“A tear!” He gave her a strange look, solemn and bright. “But what marvel has wrung ocean spray from fiery maid?”
“You’re so odd!” she blurted.
“But then, this is such a very odd world.” He brushed his hand over her cheeks, touched his knuckle to the end of her nose, and smiled at her blush. “There. Fire again. Why did you weep?”
Berenice looked from his pale, beautiful face to the snowy world, but it made no difference. The one was a cold and as mystifying as the other. “Doctor Kingsley says I may not play Chopin. He says I cannot. He says—”
“Fools say much. The wise listen rather less.”
She glared at him. “Doctor Kingsley is one of the most famous, the most reputable—”
“Fools. And cowards, who crop pretty birds’ wings because they cannot, themselves, fly.” Mr. Green gripped her chin. “Listen, my chick, didn’t I say you should play before kings?”
She was mesmerized by his touch, by the cold-water brightness of his eyes. For a moment, shocked and undefended, she thought the whole building fell silent, the very air washed through by the winter ocean that lay behind his regard. Then he released her chin with a last caress across her cheek.
“Called away, alas.” He stepped back. “Play Chopin, Miss Ross. Play Chopin in the dark with your eyes closed.”
She sniffed. “And will you find me a king to play before?”
Delighted, he laughed. “I will, my chick, and so I will.”
He bowed, and scampered down the stairs.
2003:
Brona played at night when the practice room with the concert grand was free. She no longer thought of it as practice—could not, in truth, recollect a time when she had, though she supposed she must have done. Perhaps when she was a child? But now she simply played, and the acoustical curtains that clothed the walls folded the sound away. No echoes to chase, no reverberations rung from memory’s shrouded bell. Nothing but the music.
She came to the end, and stopped. The soundproofed silence was perfect. She opened her eyes. And although she saw nothing but the practice room, the creamy curtains pleated by blackness with only half the track lights burning, and though of course she saw no one, she was surprised, and did not know why. Somewhere in her mind, as elusive as a remembered perfume, there was an expectation of a different room (but what room?) and of an audience (but what audience?). She frowned at the black and white keys, but as always, the hunt after memory only chased it deeper into the recesses of her hidden past. It was late. She closed her eyes and rubbed at the lids, then got up from the piano bench.
Like a mockery, the faint hiss of distant applause broke through the room. Absurdly, she wondered if there was a concert in the recital hall, then remembered the soundproofing. The applause sank, swelled again, soft as a low-tide surf—and as cold, by the prickling of her skin. It wasn’t sense but instinct that tipped her head back and showed her how the wind washed the first snow of the year against the skylight. She saw the snow drift and swirl like foam at the dying end of a wave. She saw herself, foreshortened in the night-backed mirror of glass, face pale, hair and clothes bereft of color, equally dark. She lifted her hands towards her reflection, and her reflection looked liked a woman in mid-dive, arcing towards the depths. She shook her head and left the room, flipping the lights off and changing the In Use sign as she closed the door.
The practice rooms were on an upper level, and a half-flight of stairs led to the hallway of the next cube. The upper landing was wide enough to accommodate a table and a couple of sofas; a stone balustrade guarded the drop to the hall
below. Against the balustrade sat Valentine Fayant, his head tipped back and his face still with the stillness of a troubled man too tired to worry about his troubles. His eyes were open and he watched Brona approach without changing expression or lifting a hand.
She hunkered down beside him and saw the flute case he cradled in the curve of his arm. “So you do practice.” She slipped the case out of his grasp and opened it.
“How do you know I haven’t been sitting here refusing to practice?” His eyes were on her hands.
“With such a fine instrument? It would be a crime.”
“Do you know, that’s almost exactly what Jade said just now.”
The flute shone with the deep, polished wealth of old silver. “Jade was just here?”
“Not two minutes gone. She was giving me another one of her pep talks from the eighth dimension, so if you were planning to cheer me up or inspire me or kick me in my lazy butt, feel free to give it a miss.”
Brona took the flute from the case, fitted the pieces together, adjusted the head. A subtle warmth clung to the metal, the memory of his breath and hands. “Eighth dimension?”
“Or somewhere,” Valentine said on a sigh. “She’s almost as weird as you, Scholarship.”
Brona smiled so she would not frown, thinking, The elusive Jade. She lifted the flute, blew a note, and then another, and then a melody came rippling out of somewhere, dancing in her fingers, singing in her breath. The song tripped through the school’s stony labyrinth as if Jason had not come back weary and wounded from the Minotaur, but happy, laughing, drunk on forbidden wine and with life rather than death behind him.
The melody ended. Brona knelt with the flute still held to her lips, head cocked, listening to the echoes. Valentine reached out and took back his flute, his hands sliding warmly around hers, then gone.
“Are you trying to seduce me?” he said. “Or are you merely trying to destroy what’s left of my ego?”
She smiled at him. “That’s a very good flute.”
He looked down at the shining instrument. “Better in your hands than in mine.” He pulled off the head section and reached for the swab in his case. “Is there anything you can’t do, Scholarship? Please tell me there is, because it’s very difficult going to school with a genius.”
“I can’t remember where I learned that tune.”
Valentine gave his flute the familiar bitter smile, and took off the foot. “Thank you. Really.”
“I can’t remember when I learned to play—”
“Brona.” He fitted the cleaned flute into the velvet compartments of the case and closed the lid. “I don’t need more proof of your brilliance. I need more proof of your humanity.”
“God! So do I!”
He stared at her. She stared back, as startled as he was. After a moment, she grimaced and shook her head.
“It’s late, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Valentine said slowly. “Yes, it’s pretty late.”
1917:
Berenice was descending the stairs to the foyer of Masters Hall, juggling her music folder as she wound her scarf about her neck, when she saw Miss Salter with another girl standing by the door. She hesitated. Miss Salter’s friend glanced up and said something to Miss Salter. Miss Salter said loudly, “Why should we wait? I have no doubt she’ll find someone to walk her home,” and opened the door. The two girls went out into the snowy day. Three young men loitering by the radiator watched them go, then looked up at Berenice, murmuring quietly amongst themselves. Berenice turned to climb back up the stairs. She reminded herself, salve to her pride, that Dr. Kingsley had told her to practice more. But that was more an abrasive than a salve.
In the practice room, with the door safely closed and the hated Satie still in her folder, she played one mind-numbing exercise after another. Played? She pounded through them, stretching her hands, dredging power from her arms, shoulders, spine, banging out machine-gun arpeggios and artillery chords, until the blood throbbed in her temples and the tears dried on her reddened face—
A cool hand covered her eyes. Her fingers stumbled in mid-flight. A cool voice said, “What happened to the Chopin?”
“Nothing!” she cried into the dark of his touch. She caught her breath. “What could happen to the Chopin? I am forbidden— Forbidden!”
“Shh.” Without taking his hand from her eyes, he settled on the bench beside her. “Who is powerful enough to forbid you music? All you have to do is play.”
She caught her breath again, lifted a hand from the keys to touch his wrist. “If Doctor Kingsley gives me too low a grade, I lose my scholarship. My father cannot afford to pay the school’s fees. I would have to leave.”
He leaned his forehead against her hair and whispered, “There are other places to play.”
She gave a shaky laugh. “Have you found me a king, then?”
“I have found a king for you,” he said, “and I have found a musician for a king. Am I not a clever wight?”
“Oh, Mister Green, I only wish it were true.” She let her hand drift back to the keys, pressed them too softly to make a sound. Her voice was almost as quiet. “I do not think I can go home again. I do not know how to live there anymore.”
“There are other places to play. Yes, and live.”
Finally, she pulled his hand from her eyes. His countenance was so lively she felt laughter scud like sea spray across the surface of her misery. She said, “Where, Mister Green? In the hollow of a tree?”
“In a moonlit palace where you shall play for the king and all his starry court. But we might be able to find you a tree if it would please you.” He stood, pulling her up with him, and sang,
“Come, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow me.
Wither shall I follow, follow, follow,
Wither shall I follow, follow thee?
To the greenwood, to the greenwood, to the greenwood, greenwood tree!”
She laughed and put on her coat. When he began the round again as he opened the practice room door she joined in on the Wither shall I follow, and they sang their way down the stairs and out of Masters Hall.
Out of the hall, across the snowy lawn, into the snowy trees. New snow was falling, downy as a swan’s breast, burying the path to town. Berenice might have gone by way of the drive instead, but Mr. Green pulled her on. He quit his song as they came under the eave of the wood and they went in silence save for the crunch of their boots and the hush of snowflakes touching on snow. She held fast to his hand, unaccountably nervous. The narrow band of woods seemed to widen, or deepen, or keep abreast of them as they walked. The trees went on and on, and they were very large and dark against the snow. But then, at last, she could see the end of them, a brightness that grew even brighter as a wind from nowhere plowed the snow clouds away. The sun scattered jewels across the ground, dazzling Berenice’s eyes so that she could not make out the familiar soot-smudged roofs of town.
And then from somewhere, impossibly, she heard the sound of the sea.
2003:
Leona offered to buy Brona a coffee after her lesson. They went to the “café” by the recital hall where refreshments were sold on concert nights, and sat by a tiny round table that bore a constellation of sticky rings.
Leona said, “I’ve never said this to a first year student before, but I want you to seriously consider entering one of the national competitions in the spring.”
Brona shook her head as she blew across the top of her cup.
“Why not?”
“I’m not ready.”
“Are you indulging in a fit of humor? Fishing for compliments? You’re as good or better than anyone in this place, including the faculty, and you know it.” The wrinkles around Leona’s mouth deepened. “You aren’t concert-shy.”
“No.” Brona sipped, set the cardboard cup down, matching the bottom carefully to one of the older stains. “But I’m not ready for a career.”
“Oh, lord,” Leona groaned. “If I had a dollar for every stud
ent that said she wasn’t ready. You’ll never be ready. Ready doesn’t work like that.”
“I’m too young.”
“How old are you?”
Brona shrugged. “I don’t know what kind of career I want. Suppose I decide I want to go into jazz?”
“So what if you do?” Leona leaned across the tiny table. “Give me a real reason, girl. I’m seriously starting to wonder. What’ve you got to hide?”
“What?” Brona sat back, hot and cold moving across her skin.
“I said, what have you got to lose?”
Brona shook her head, more at herself than at Leona, and was still trying to formulate an answer when someone leaned over her shoulder. She looked up. It was Valentine, an envelope in his hand and his flute case under his arm.
He said, “I was looking for you.”
She smiled at him, grateful for the interruption, though he did not look well. “Why is that?”
“I don’t want to interrupt, I—”
“It doesn’t matter. Sit down. Do you know Leona? She teaches piano.”
“No. I can’t stay. I only wanted to give you this.” He laid the big manila envelope on the edge of the table, what little clear space was left beside their cups. Brona had to catch it before it fell onto the floor.
“What is it?”
“It’s—Jade told me—I thought—” He took a breath, turned his head to look off over the heads of the seated crowd. When he looked back down at her, his eyes were hot and strange. “It’s something we found in the archives. Something I want you to see. So you’ll understand.”
“Understand?” He shook his head and Brona raised her brows at him, troubled. “But what is it?”
“You’ll see. Listen. I have to go.” He stepped back.
“All right. I’ll—”
“It was nice to meet you,” Valentine said to Leona, then, to Brona: “Good-bye.” He turned and threaded his way through the tables and out of sight.
“Odd young man,” Leona said. “Isn’t that the Fayant son?”
“Excuse me,” Brona murmured, already tearing open the envelope’s gummed flap. There were only a few sheets of paper inside. Photocopies, it seemed, of black and white photographs.
In the Palace of Repose Page 20