The Protégé

by Brianna Hale

  Finally she asks, “What do you think that piece is about?”

  I don’t know what I think and I don’t want to search my feelings, either. Straightening the sheet music I reach for what I’ve heard about the piece. “It’s said to be a love song, a sad one. One of the instruments saying I love you, and the other answering I loved you, but I don’t anymore.”

  She hums the cello part for a moment. “I don’t believe that. I think it’s a love song on both sides, but a love that’s destined never to be.”

  I feel strange, my heart racing lightly. I think again about the music, the way the two instruments play together and yet seem to be very much alone with the emotion they’re expressing. Maybe she’s right, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I close the piano lid and stand up. “Goodnight.”

  Isabeau lays her cello and bow aside, still smiling, still as happy as she was when she came toward me with the sheet music. She puts her arms around me and kisses my cheek, something she used to do all the time when she was younger. Lately I’ve been calling out goodnight from the stairs or while walking away from her so she couldn’t hug me.

  She rubs the tip of her nose through the bristles on my cheek. “Night, Laszlo. Mm. Your beard is getting long.”

  My body clenches and I don’t hug her back. I pretend to have forgotten something in the lounge and pull away from her. As I walk down the stairs I touch my beard. She’s right, I do need to clipper it. I rub the place where her lips touched me, not knowing if it’s because I want to obliterate the memory or long to relive it.

  Isabeau wants to play Vocalise just about every Monday night from then on. I want to say no but I’ve never said no to playing with her in nearly ten tears and I don’t know how. A piece of music has never been too much for me no matter how emotional or stormy, but I feel like Vocalise is killing me every time we play it. It should be losing its power over time but it only gets stronger. We learn the parts by heart and she plays with her eyes closed, pouring her every emotion into the notes. I can’t tear my eyes away from her. Who is this young woman playing so beautifully beside me? There’s no coltish uncertainty about her now and in a few months’ time she’ll be eighteen. When did she get so grown up? When did she become so beautiful, inside and out? And loudest and most confusing of all: why does it cause me such pain to look at her when she’s everything I hoped she would be?

  Each time we play her cello sounds sadder and sadder, until one evening she stops playing abruptly halfway though the piece and puts her cello away without a word. I don’t dare look at her. I stare at the piano keys, not moving, waiting until she’s gone and it’s safe to look up.

  “Goodnight, Laszlo,” she says behind me, a wobble in her voice.

  “’Night.”

  She comes forward and clasps me around the shoulders, hugging me close, burying her face in my neck. She holds me like that for several long moments. I close my eyes, savoring her closeness. Paralyzed by the feel of her arms around me. Then she’s gone, hurrying to her room. I put my hand up and touch my neck and feel wetness there, as if she’s been crying.

  I can’t say goodnight to her unless I’m on the other side of the room. I can’t say no to her when she asks me to play. I can never tell her how I feel and I can barely admit it to myself. I love Isabeau. I’m in love with a seventeen-year-old girl.

  It gets harder and harder to be around her. I’m upsetting her with my coldness because she doesn’t understand why I’m avoiding her and I don’t know how to explain why I’m acting like this. I can’t explain it. There’s no one I can talk about it to, either, because I shrink with horror from admitting that I have tender feelings for a seventeen-year-old girl. If it gets out I’ll be the Woody fucking Allen of the classical music world. Questions will be asked. He’s been living with her all this time, since she was a child. He wouldn’t have…would he? To a child? But why did he take her in in the first place? Where did she even come from?

  Worse, what would they say about Isabeau? To Isabeau?

  I dream about her at night, the feel of her soft lips beneath mine, her warm body in my arms. I want her as much as I love her and this sends bolts of guilt through my body like an electric current.

  All the while her eighteenth birthday approaches, the date on the horizon both tantalizing and alarming.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laszlo

  Now

  Isabeau falls asleep somewhere over Eastern Europe and I watch her face in sweet repose. The powerful protective instinct I’ve felt for her since she was sixteen unfurls in my chest. Jealously protective. Not like the tender protectiveness I felt for her when she was eight. This is something reflexive. Territorial.

  What has she been doing the last three years? Who has been getting her laughter? Her music? Her kisses? I’ll lose her amid the chaos of the tour over and over again so these moments when I have her by my side are precious. With a forefinger I smooth a lock of her hair back from her sleeping face. Her hand right hand is close to mine and I could take it, but that one light touch of her hair is all I’ll steal.

  A flight attendant leans over us and hands me two bottles of water, whispering, “For your wife when she wakes up.” I take them silently, enjoying the mistake. Enjoying it far too much. Isabeau’s left hand is hidden beneath the blankets but I imagine a diamond ring sparkling on the third finger. A ring that I’ve given her.

  “You’re all musical, aren’t you? Are you in a band?” the flight attendant asks, indicating the business class seats around us.

  “An orchestra.”

  She breaks into a smile. “How wonderful. Do you two play together at home?”

  My chest feels tight, remembering ten-year-old Isabeau, her hair in a braid and wearing pink pajamas, giggling as we play Saint-Saëns; fourteen-year-old Isabeau practicing in the dusky pink dress I bought her so we can be sure it won’t get in her way when she performs; seventeen-year-old Isabeau, astonishingly beautiful and graceful, her eyes closed as she plays Rachmaninoff while I watch her hopelessly from behind the piano. For three long years the music room has been empty of Isabeau. Empty of happiness. Then Isabeau just a few days ago, clutching her bow in a white-knuckled hand and asking to be my protégé again.

  “All the time,” I tell the attendant.

  She smiles again, and moves on.

  I don’t sleep the whole flight. I don’t want to miss a single second of Isabeau. I’m relearning her and she’s coming back to me as effortlessly as a favorite piece of music.

  When she wakes I’m reading a newspaper and I pass her a bottle of water. She smiles and pushes the hair back from her face, blinking sleepily up at me. I’m pierced with longing for a place I’ve never been. A place where she and I always wake together, and a ring sparkles on her finger.

  At the airport we separate. Singapore is sultry and hot and everyone peels off layers of clothing as we stand in the cab rank. There’s heavy cloud cover but it’s ninety degrees. Isabeau finds her way back to the other cellists and I keep one eye on her as I talk with Marcus about the rehearsal tonight.

  Everyone is rested and changed and at Esplanade Concert Hall by seven forty-five and we rehearse on stage in the empty, vaulted space, all golden lighting and honey wood. People used to build cathedrals like this, spaces that go up and up toward the divine, song used for worship. Now we build concert halls, the music itself deified and conductors as priests. My eyes drop to Isabeau, her long tresses curled in the humidity and her legs bare beneath her cotton dress. I want to kiss a benediction onto her mouth. Beautifully played, my child.

  After, we all stand outside in the marina and look at the lights of the skyscrapers reflected in the water. Isabeau is smiling, looking from one sight to the next and breathing in the heavy, scented air. There are gardens growing in every spare corner in Singapore, even up vertical walls. I think there’s jasmine nearby.

  She’s so close that it’s an effort not to look at her beautiful face. So close and I still can’t have her.


  Later, back at the hotel, I fall into an exhausted sleep. Sometime around seven am local time I wake up, drink a bottle of water, and go back to sleep. I wake again at two in the afternoon and haul myself out of bed to make a pot of filter coffee. The hotel we’re booked into is a grand colonial affair of white plaster, high ceilings, brass fittings and potted palms. I stand on the balcony overlooking a deep green garden and drink my coffee. And I notice Isabeau pacing up and down the garden, chewing her nail.

  Nervous again. This isn’t like her. What’s happened in the last three years to undermine her confidence so much?

  That would be you, asshole.

  I sigh heavily. My support was yanked out from beneath her and she had to adjust to losing the person she was closest to along with beginning university life. Was I right to let her go without trying to contact her? The question keeps gnawing at me. I thought it was better that way because I wanted her too much and she was so very young. And before? Was I right to keep those secrets about her father from her? Am I still doing the right thing by keeping them? Did I encourage her to go and see him as often as I should have? Did I sound like I meant it when I said it?

  I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. All I can do is my best for her now.

  Leaning over the balcony I call out, “Isabeau? Are you all right?”

  She turns and looks up at me and the lost expression on her face makes my heart hurt.

  “Can I talk to you, Laszlo?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Isabeau

  Now

  “Room 305,” Laszlo calls, and disappears back inside his room.

  I go inside and climb the stairs to his room, still chewing on my nail, trying to sort my feelings out. The more I worry I will make mistakes tonight the more likely it is that I’ll make them but I can’t make my mind slow down. The violist’s words cycle through my thoughts again and again. But of course you were always going to land on your feet, being Mr. Valmary’s ward.

  He opens the door before I can knock and stands back to let me in. In the silent privacy of his suite he puts his hands on my shoulders and asks gently, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  I swallow and look up at him. “It’s tonight. I can’t stop imagining that I’m going to let everyone down.”

  “What else?”

  I blink, surprised. Isn’t that enough? I take a deep breath and examine my feelings. There is more. Much, much more. “I think I’ve ruined my career,” I say in a rush. “I haven’t done any of the things I thought I would have by now. I should have a reputation as a soloist, any reputation as a musician, but I have nothing except what I get from being associated with you. And on top of all that is the horrible feeling that I’m only here because you took pity on me and that every mistake I make will be a disappointment to you and another reason I should just go home.”

  I slide into miserable silence, not looking at Laszlo. He knows everything now and I must be a huge disappointment to him.

  “Isabeau. Look at me.” I drag my face off the carpet and watch as he ticks off a list on his fingers. “First of all, you could never disappoint me. Ever. Second of all you’re here because of your talent, and that’s got nothing to do with me. And thirdly, if you played wrong notes all through the concert tonight I’d want to help you, not send you away.”

  I study his face, wanting to believe him. “That’s not the Laszlo Valmary everyone knows and is terrified of.”

  “No. But it’s your Laszlo Valmary.”

  My heart turns over. My Laszlo Valmary. Looking at his face I think he might mean it. But I crave something more from him today. I need that darker side of Laszlo, the part that seethes with strictness and can center me in seconds.

  “Can you, um, do something?” He frowns at me, unsure of what I mean. I’m not even sure what I mean. “Can you do something, sir. Please. To help me feel less nervous.”

  Order me to go and practice. Tell me you expect the very best from me and nothing else will do. Give me something tangible to pull me back into line and make me focus.

  Understanding dawns on his face. He seems to be considering something as he watches me. “Have you ever been spanked?”

  I stare at Laszlo, barely comprehending the words, let alone the order in which they’ve come out of his mouth. “Spanked?”

  “The pain releases endorphins. The heat. The submission. It helps with stress.”

  Mutely, I shake my head.

  Laszlo seems to take my silence as horror and he goes on briskly, “It’s something to think about. Meanwhile why don’t you try some exercise? There’s a gym on the fifth floor. A run would do you good.”

  But I don’t want a run. I want to know more about what Laszlo just suggested. “Does it hurt?”

  “Only if you roll your ankle.”

  “Laszlo.”

  His eyes are sparkling darkly. “Not in a way that you would dislike. Not unbearably so.”

  I stare at him, my breathing shallow, unable to move a muscle. My eyes drop to his hands. I’ve always loved his hands. Large, square, strong hands that caress piano keys and scrub through his too-long hair. I’ve spent hundreds of hours watching them as he conducts, flips through a score, cooks us dinner. The thought of him using them on me is strange and arousing.

  But this is a lot more intimate than we agreed.

  “Only say yes if you’re sure. It’s something I can do to take care of you, to calm you down, if you want it and if you trust me to do it. But I’m going to need you to ask me, sweetheart, because I have to know for sure.”

  He’s saying we can move the boundaries of our arrangement if I want. I picture myself face down over Laszlo’s lap. The pain releases endorphins. The heat. The submission. It helps with stress. I definitely wouldn’t be thinking about my nerves while that was happening. “Could you please, um, do that. Sir.”

  He nods slowly, his hazel eyes very steady. “All right. I can do that for you. But few things first. I’m going to go very easy on you, as this is your first time. No tears. No marks tomorrow. It’s to make you feel calm, not a punishment.”

  Immediately my mind shoots off in several directions at once. He might do this again. He might do it as a punishment, so hard it would make me cry. Leave marks. Would I enjoy that as much as I think I might? What would he be like if he did that? Sweet, understanding Laszlo, mercilessly punishing me. A wave of heat rolls through me as I imagine his eyes black and severe as he hurts me till I cry.

  “You can say stop at any time. Not just now. Any time. But you don’t say stop, you say banana.”

  “Why banana?”

  “Because you’ve been known to tease me in the past and I won’t be able tell if please no, sir is your way of asking for me to be fiercer with you or asking me to stop.”

  The deeper part of my sex clenches as I imagine crying out please no, sir and him only spanking me harder. That shouldn’t be such a turn-on.

  He smiles faintly. “And I know how much you hate bananas.”

  I do hate bananas. He’s known that for a very long time. Laszlo never laid a finger on me when I was a child that wasn’t a hug, but I’m reminded now of the way someone might punish a naughty child. I feel like I need it for letting my life get out of hand. And Laszlo’s the man to do it.

  He looks down at what I’m wearing. “I need you to take your jeans off.” He gives the order calmly as if he’s done this hundreds of times before. As if he’s used to taking nervous women over his knee and spanking them, sometimes till they cry. The thought makes my heart and mind race. Who is this man, really?

  “And my, uh, underwear?”

  “No, keep them on. I can work around those.”

  I wonder if he’s going to look away like a gentleman but he doesn’t, he just watches me, and waits. What about him, will he be taking any clothes off? I’ve never even seen Laszlo with his shirt off in all the years we lived together. Actually, that’s a lie. At home he always emerged from the bathroom swathed i
n a bathrobe. Several times when I’ve woken him up over the years or brought him cups of tea when he was feeling poorly I’ve always found him sleeping in a t-shirt. I don’t think that’s what he would have done if he was alone. I think it was for my sake. I was the same, always getting dressed before I came downstairs, not wandering around in a towel or my underwear. We were very mindful of each other, and we never went to the beach or the pool together either.

  But I have seen him almost naked, at a hotel pool in Edinburgh when we were on tour with the youth orchestra when I was sixteen. I wanted to take a swim early in the morning of our first day, but Laszlo’d had the idea first. I watched him through the glass wall as he swam laps, my towel over my arm, rooted to the spot. There was no reason I shouldn’t join him and maybe I would have if there’d been other swimmers. But he was alone, slicing through the water with an unhurried freestyle stroke, muscled shoulders glistening in the water. As I watched he finished his laps and got out of the pool, water sluicing down him. I’d seen hints of his body over the years. His legs in running shorts, arms in t-shirts, or his shirtsleeves rolled back past his elbows. His throat in open-neck shirts. Hints of his chest when his shirt gaped as he reached for something or conducted. Every glimpse was burned into my memory and the sight of his whole body all at once was…mesmerizing. He didn’t look how the boys my age looked when I saw them at the pool. Laszlo was more muscular. Hairier. And oh, how I liked that. The thick patch of dark hair at the center of his chest narrowed as it trailed down over his belly and disappeared tantalizingly into his swimmers.