“Do you want to do something you’ve never done before?”
“What?”
“Come home with me.”
* * *
Anita lived in the most exclusive part of Stockholm: Östermalm. This district had elegant columned entrances and immense apartments; ladies in fur coats and shiny new cars. He had never understood how Anita fit in. Now she was leading him up a stone staircase toward a huge entrance with a gold nameplate. She greeted the doorman, who was dressed in a stuffy uniform. She pulled open the grate of a small elevator. Now he was standing just inches from her all the way up to the fifth floor.
“Mattias won’t tell on us,” she said, her mouth close to his shoulder. “The doorman, that is. He’s always nice to me.”
“Won’t tell what?”
“Won’t mention you to my parents.”
“But your parents are home, aren’t they?”
She shook her head and took out her key, put it in the lock, and turned. There was another gold nameplate on the door.
“Not for another week.”
He didn’t know where to look. Crystals glittered in the electric chandelier, which lit up when Anita hit the switch. Heavy curtains with classic patterns in a modern style hung from the windows. New armchairs in leather stood between finely decorated china cabinets from the eighteenth century. The floor was some kind of smooth stone. Everything seemed to breathe money. Anita made sure to hang up their coats in the closet.
She walked through the apartment, smiled at him to encourage him to follow her, and then sat down at the stuffed piano stool that flanked an enormous white piano. On the music rack there was a Handel prelude. Anita swung one foot and looked content.
“Can you play that?” Alvar gestured toward the sheet music.
“How do you know I play the piano?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. But you often…”
He intended to say that she often moved her fingers as if she were playing, but it would sound strange.
“I often do what?”
“You like music so much. So I thought maybe you played piano, that’s all.”
Anita lifted her feet and half-spun on the piano stool. First she just plunked a few notes, giggled to herself, and hit some chords at random. He pulled up a chair and sat as close to her as he could, so he almost touched her. Even though she wasn’t playing a melody, it sounded absolutely beautiful. He had no idea a piano could sound so different depending on who was playing it.
When she stopped, he said, “Keep playing.”
Anita breathed easily.
The air was theirs and theirs alone up on the fifth floor. Alvar felt her breath like vibrations. Then she laid her left hand on the keyboard. Her right hand began to play a descant. She was playing swing music.
He wasn’t surprised, not perplexed, not shocked. He was happy deep down in his soul. Anita played swing, her emotions were in both the rhythm and the melody and she was improvising, just like the big names. He began to stamp his feet in time and hummed a bass part, which then turned into some kind of trumpet solo, and she began to hum, too, at a much higher pitch. Neither of them had the best singing voices, but it didn’t mean a thing. Swing music was being played in Östermalm, and Alvar and Anita sang their solos to the crystal chandeliers and were mixed with the cuckoo-cuckoo of the clock’s chime on the hour.
* * *
They drank tea in a room Anita called the “dining room.” In Aunt Hilda’s apartment, it would have corresponded to the few feet of space in the kitchen where the table was crowded by the kitchen bench. Aunt Hilda would say “When I used to live in Östermalm…” with such bitterness that Alvar wondered if Anita would be just as bitter if she were forced to move away from an apartment like this one. He had the feeling that a swing band bass player would never be able to afford an apartment in the district.
“I only play when I’m home alone,” Anita said. “Or on Åsö Street, if nobody else is there.”
“Why? You’re really good!”
Anita laughed, and her cheeks turned rosy. “Thank you. But I’m not that good. Not as good as Ingmar. He studied at the music conservatory, you know. Or did you know?”
“Erling didn’t go to music school. Lots of people don’t go to music school. I didn’t.” He blushed. He hadn’t meant to put himself on the same level as Erling and a number of other anonymous musicians who were really good. “I mean, it doesn’t mean much one way or the other,” he added, quickly.
“You’re better than Erling.”
“What?”
“You’re more talented. He knows more than you do right now, but you will be a better musician in the long run. He’s too sloppy.”
Alvar didn’t know what to say. It was an incomprehensible compliment. He peeked at Anita, her soft face and her blunt nose and the lively contours of her eyes. Her hand almost touched his on the keyboard. Should he take it?
“And, as far as that goes…,” Anita was saying in a slow voice. “I can never be a jazz pianist. My parents won’t allow me to go see jazz music. They’d never accept it as a career for me, even if I was good.”
Alvar looked at her in surprise. “But you go to Nalen every week!”
Anita sipped her tea. She sipped with finesse, not slurping like everyone did at home. Or the way people did in Södermalm.
“As far as my parents know, I’m at the riding club. And that’s what you’ll say, too, if they ask.”
He stared at her to see if she smiled mischievously about her deceit. She didn’t.
“Aunt Hilda thinks I’m out delivering things day and night,” he said.
“I know.”
“It’s … it’s ridiculous that we have to pretend.”
She imitated his Värmland vowels. “Ridiculous.” She smiled. “And there’s another thing on my mind,” she said.
She leaned closer to him, her lips just a breath away. Alvar had never kissed a girl and he was not sure how people did it, but he did know that the boy was supposed to take the initiative.
Anita looked into his eyes. Her lips parted slightly, she smiled. “I’m in love, you see. I’m in love with Ingmar.”
— CHAPTER 16 —
Her bass is in its case on her back, her hepcat hat on her head. Mamma asks her if she’s nervous, if she likes riding the subway, whether she would remember the way if she had to ride it by herself. Steffi grunts as an answer to the first two questions, and to the third she says to her mother that she has to concentrate. “Sorry,” Mamma says. Her mother sounds almost as nervous as she feels.
She’s someone else now. The bullying victim stayed behind in Björke. It is Hepcat taking the subway through its tunnels and stopping at Karlaplan Station, Östermalm Square Station, Central Station, Old Town Station. You are who you want to be, Alvar had told her yesterday evening on the phone. Changing into, and out of, Steffi thinks. It’s not that hard to make herself into Hepcat. She just has to let her fingers fly and be the future hope of Sweden when it comes to playing her bass. Alvar had told her: You reach a breaking point when you are tired of having to be the person your surroundings want you to be.
* * *
His breaking point came after Anita had disclosed her love for Ingmar. For five days, he sat listlessly on the kitchen bench, so listless that Aunt Hilda finally asked him if he shouldn’t leave the apartment. Then he spent a second day pounding various fences with his fists in a vain attempt to rip Anita’s soft gaze and lively piano-playing fingers from his mind. On the seventh day, he went to the barber. Using some of the money he’d saved, he bought a better quality used suit and a tie in the latest style. He polished his shoes, ran Brylcreem through his freshly cut hair, made his most serious face in Aunt Hilda’s mirror, became a man.
“You aren’t going to be getting into trouble, young man?” Aunt Hilda asked.
“A meeting on procuring supplies at the store,” Alvar replied, and Aunt Hilda decided not to press him on the matter, even though it was l
ate in the evening.
He walked with confidence to Nalen. While in line, he practiced his poses—no, he was becoming them. He was turning into the new Alvar, reflecting all the other men in the long line in front of Nalen, and he didn’t look away from the girls’ glances. For a second, he thought he saw a girl he recognized. Was it the sad girl from the train? The one with the angry aunt? She didn’t seem to recognize him—perhaps it was someone who looked like her.
On the dance floor, he got the reaction he’d hoped for. Erling took a leap backward and exclaimed, “I hardly recognized you!” Large, ugly old Ingmar clapped him on the shoulder and Alvar let him, didn’t let anyone see behind his serious expression that he’d practiced so well. A girl smiled at him and he smiled and said, “Hey, good-looking, wanna swing tonight?”
Anita laughed so hard when she heard him that it would have hurt his feelings if he hadn’t changed into a different person.
“So Hepcat is out tonight?” she said.
“Well, ma’am, please excuse me. There are some girls who are demanding my attention.”
* * *
Still, Alvar changed because he was angry, Steffi thought. I’m not changing; I’m becoming more myself. The ugly, disgusting Steffi was someone THEY thought up, not me. They’ll see. They’ll ALL see. While they will never make it, I will. Steffi and her mother are walking down a long hill and are soon in a canyon of enormous brick buildings. Perhaps Alvar had walked down this same hill. Or perhaps one of the other streets they’d been walking along.
“Don’t forget that we are going to Åsö Street later.”
“I won’t forget,” Mamma replies. “But aren’t these buildings impressive?”
One of the brick buildings has the form of a tower and the others are ten stories high with ornate windows and archways. Three young people are walking over the courtyard. One has hair dyed red and another is carrying a guitar case. They’re laughing at a joke Steffi cannot hear, sparring with each other, owning the courtyard.
She turns toward her mother, as she suddenly feels very small. “Is this it?”
Mamma looks at her phone. “Yes, we’re here. We just have to find the entrance.”
In the elevator, they’re crowded together with a boy and his mother and another girl on her own. The parents start to chat about the auditions, nod and smile nervously. Steffi glances at the boy and the girl. Neither of them have instruments. The boy is chewing the inside of his cheek. The girl looks as bored as if she’s on her way to the grocery store.
“Are you nervous?” the boy’s mother asks them and Steffi makes an unclear sound as a reply. The other girl says she’s not nervous at all, as she’s gone to auditions since she was seven. Steffi’s mouth goes dry. She’s been playing bass for only three years.
The hallways have wall-to-wall carpeting. It’s the first difference from Björke School that Steffi notices. The lockers bear stickers, hearts, strawberries, notes: “At Ensemble until 4 p.m. Wait for me!”; “Couldn’t get Fri, took Sat at 11”; “Jossan, I effing LOVE you!”
There’s a waiting room at the end of the hallway. There are some sofas. Steffi sees through a glass window a room with a number of electronic keyboards, and everywhere else there are fifteen-year-olds with dreams of getting into music school. It’s easy to tell them apart from the ones that actually attend. Their eyes show blank, lost looks and subtle fear. They all are trying to focus. Some have parents with them and others are alone with their instruments. Steffi sits down along the same wall as the girl who wasn’t nervous. They don’t know each other, but at least they shared an elevator. On the other side, there are two guys with basses and at least eight with guitars.
“Perhaps this means it’ll be easier to get in if you play bass,” Steffi whispers to her mother.
“Maybe so.” Her mother squeezes her hand.
“Hey there.” One of the boys speaks up. “You’re the only girl trying out on bass.”
“OK.” Steffi can’t think of anything else to say.
“They’ll let you in just for that.”
The girl next to him giggles. “Why would they just let her in? If she’s good, she’ll get in, if not, no.”
It’s the first time in three years that someone her age has gone to bat for her. She secretly hopes that the boy is right and being a girl gives her an edge.
“Could be the opposite,” the boy next to him says. “Could be they won’t think she’s good just because she’s a girl.”
The boy next to Steffi looks at the other three, who are discussing Steffi’s future based on her sex. He’s wearing a beret and looks like a stereotype of a French artist, except for the fact that he’s also wearing a denim vest.
“They’re professionals, you idiots,” he says. “They couldn’t care less what’s between your legs.”
Steffi feels she ought to speak up. She’s Hepcat, of course. In Stockholm, she’s not going to be a victim before she even opens her mouth. “They have a girl bass player on their Web page,” she says. It may have been an idiotic thing to say, but at least she was speaking up.
The boy in the beret says, “The first girl bassist who studied here was murdered.”
Nobody says a thing after that. Steffi wonders how he knows this.
He adds, “Not because she was a bassist, though.”
They start to discuss the musicians who have influenced them. Nikki Sixx, Craig Adams, Lee Rocker. Steffi hasn’t heard of any of them. Then everyone looks at her. “What about you?”
She knows it’s a test.
Her mother is sending her nervous signals, as if she also knows.
But Hepcat always tells the truth.
“I haven’t listened to many modern bass players, but I like Ray Brown, Slam Stewart, Jimmy Blanton, Gunnar ‘The Duck’ Almstedt … Alvar Svensson.” She smiles as she says Alvar’s name.
The fifteen-year-olds across from her look impressed, or at least not scornful. One of the boys nods. “You from Gothenburg or what?”
“Can’t you hear she’s from Värmland?” the other boy says and turns to Steffi. “My stepmom is from Värmland, so I hear that accent every day.”
The boy with the beret says, “If you like jazz bassists, you must love Avishai Cohen.”
He’s peering at her with an intensive look. She peers back, wishing she had known the person he was talking about. “He plays … like, not really experimental in a difficult manner, but a new way. A little more ethnic. Avishai Cohen, here, I’ll write down his name for you. Who were the other ones, besides Ray Brown and Jimmy Blanton?”
Mamma is relaxing—Steffi can tell. The beret boy is looking into her eyes in a way that makes her stomach flip.
“Stephanie,” an authoritative voice says from behind the magic door. “Stephanie Herrera?”
— CHAPTER 17 —
Afterward, she can’t remember how she played. Her mind goes blank after she damps down the last note. All she remembers is feeling good once she was halfway through with the song “Have to, Want To.”
A real bassist and another teacher were observing her. The bassist begins to smile. “Let me guess. The first song was one you were forced to learn and the second one was one you wanted to learn, am I right?”
Steffi cautiously smiles back. Perhaps it’s not so good if he can hear which one she liked to play and which one she didn’t.
“I wrote the second one,” she admits. “It has lyrics, but…”
She falls silent as she feels her heart pounding, as if she’s just run a marathon. Both teachers give her encouraging smiles.
“We like that in a student, don’t we?” one teacher said.
“It’s cool to write your own stuff.” The bassist nods.
She wants to ask if she’s going to get in, but that’s not possible.
They ask her the music she prefers and she tells them jazz and blues. They ask how long she’s been playing and she says three years. She can’t read their faces. Finally they ask her about her grades. Her reg
ular grades, like math and English. She’s on the spot.
“Well, they’re … they’re all right, I guess. I mean, I can’t get in if I have bad grades?”
“Not if they’re especially bad, or if you have incompletes,” the bass teacher replies.
“All subjects are important,” the other teacher says. “We don’t want people who botch it once they get here.”
She doesn’t hear what they say after that. She goes cold. How much has she skipped social studies? And the weeks of Sexual Health and Relationships? Not to mention English! She remembered how Semlan had tried to drill the importance of attendance into her just a few weeks ago. Now she feels what Semlan was trying to make her feel back then. What can she do about it now?
“If you don’t have any more questions, I believe we’re done now.”
She has tons of questions but can’t squeak out a single one.
Both teachers shake her hand before she leaves the room where her fate has been decided. A preliminary letter can be expected in May.
* * *
So that was that.
Steffi feels empty as she leaves the old Brewery housing the music school with her mother. They walk up the hill and past a hot dog stand and a large collection of buildings. They take the escalator deep into the underworld. She is suffering a strong feeling of having lost her only chance.
“Chin up,” Mamma says. “You don’t know for sure how it went.”
Steffi is looking at herself in the dark windows of the subway car. She’s remembering the boy with the beret.
“I like your hat,” he’d said to her right before she was called into the audition room. When she’d finished, he was gone, just as she felt her chances of getting into music school had disappeared. Now she’s absolutely convinced that she’d messed it up.
“Do you still want to see Åsö Street? Or should we just head back to Göran and Annelie’s place?”
Steffi decides to ignore her increasingly pessimistic thoughts about her audition. Alvar didn’t get into Skansen’s Dance Orchestra, and he became a famous bass player nonetheless.
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