The Protégé

by Brianna Hale

  I’m still struggling with it. I don’t know.

  Meanwhile I work. I tell Mr. Anumak in Bangkok that he has to be patient, that I can’t decide on his offer just yet. That I need time to think. The orchestra is back together at the Mayhew but I’m just going through the motions. None of this feels right without Isabeau.

  Two days after the funeral I’m rehearsing with the orchestra at the Mayhew when someone walks out onto the stage.

  Isabeau.

  Her face is pale and her eyes dark green with some strong emotion. The orchestra falls silent as I turn to her. I want to crush her to me, to tell her how sorry I am. To beg for forgiveness.

  She looks tired, like she hasn’t slept all night. There’s a piece of paper in her hand.

  A letter.

  My handwriting. My letters. Laurent kept my letters, all these years, and Isabeau has found them. She’s read them.

  “I wanted to tell you,” I whisper.

  Isabeau just stares at me. I search her face, trying to discern what she’s feeling. She knows what I’ve been keeping from her. She has every right to be furious with me that we went behind her back all these years and denied her the comfort of knowing her father knew everything she was doing. That he was trying, for her.

  It can make all the difference in the world, knowing that at least someone tried.

  Beside us, the orchestra are all still and silent, watching us. Isabeau lifts the letter in a trembling hand and starts to read aloud.

  Laurent,

  I’m writing this sitting on her bed in her empty room. There are still clothes in the wardrobe. An empty teacup on her bedside table with cold dregs at the bottom. Lipstick on the dresser. Sheet music spread on the floor.

  She’s gone. This is the last letter I will ever write to you because Isabeau has left, and I drove her away.

  When I took her from you all I saw was a vulnerable child in a terrible place, and I had a way to lift her up out of it and give her everything that she deserved. I didn’t think about the woman she would become. The questions that would haunt her. The answers she’d lack.

  I never imagined the way I would grow to feel about her.

  I’ve never told anyone how I feel, not even Isabeau, but I’ve fallen in love with my protégé. She’s only eighteen. I can’t tell her. She looks to me for support and comfort and it would be so, so easy to convince her that she’s in love with me, too. I’ve enjoyed influencing and protecting her all these years. I’ve kept her jealously close to me, just me, all mine, and I worry that my protection has become something insidious. I’ve always thought of myself as a good man but I don’t know if I’m good man around her anymore. I tell myself that I only want what’s best for her and fool myself that it’s a coincidence when her wishes align with mine. That she doesn’t want to see you. That she doesn’t date. That she wants to kiss me. She’s never been rebellious or gone against even a single one of my wishes and now I wonder why. As I look back over our years together I don’t know if I’ve walked with her down this path or forced her onto it.

  I’m jealous of every man who enters her orbit. All the times she said that she didn’t want to see you I was always so fucking happy. I didn’t want her to love you. I wanted her to love only me.

  I can’t trust myself around her so I’m letting her go.

  The one thing I’m thankful for is that I don’t think she suspects my feelings for her. She thinks I’m angry with her and it’s terrible to cause her pain but the truth would be worse. My love would be a curse to her, leaden as it is with guilt and poisoned with all the things she doesn’t know. A love that’s good for no one at all.

  I miss her. This house is silent now she’s gone. I won’t hear the music of her footsteps on the stairs anymore or smell the melody of her hair when she presses herself into my arms; see the notes of happiness in her eyes when she looks up at me from her cello. She’s easy to adore when she’s playing and it was the music that showed me how much affection I have for her. But I fell in love with Isabeau in between the music. Over all the days she gave me that were never enough.

  I still want more, but I’ll have to be content with what’s left. With all that you were left with. No Isabeau. Just the music.

  Valmary

  There are tears on her cheeks when she finishes. No one in the orchestra moves but I’m barely aware of them as I look at her. She knows everything now. All my heart. All my secrets.

  “I never knew that you loved me, Laszlo,” she says in a tight whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me about my father? About any of this?”

  I shake my head, helpless, because I know even now that I couldn’t have said such things to an eighteen year old girl. The things I said in the letter, about my love for her being poisoned with guilt, I feel the truth of that all over again. It would have ruined us.

  “I couldn’t, sweetheart. I just couldn’t tell you how I felt. And the letters, all the things about your father, he made me promise not to tell you.”

  Her eyes search my face, fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. “And now?” she asks, a wobble in her voice. “Do you love me now?”

  I take a deep breath and lay my baton aside. I put my hand in my pocket and draw something out. I bought it in Bangkok before I flew out, knowing that there was only ever going to be Isabeau for me. I should get down on one knee but I’m paralyzed by fear and hope, holding the white-gold diamond ring in clumsy fingers like a tiny talisman. “You asked me on the day of your father’s funeral if we did the right thing, and my answer is still the same. If there was any fault I take it all upon my shoulders. I won’t ask for forgiveness from anyone but you. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me. I only care about you.”

  I can say this to her, openly and truthfully, as I couldn’t before. She knows everything now. All that I am. All that I have done.

  “I’ve always loved you, Isabeau. I’ll never stop loving you. And I’m asking you to love me too, always, now that you know the truth.”

  Isabeau lets out a strangled sob and runs into my arms. As her body thuds into mine my eyes close and I’m pierced with love and happiness so strong that I can only clasp her tightly against my chest, my eyes closed, thankfulness pounding through me.

  My mouth seeks her lips and they’re soft and salted with tears. We’ve found our way back to each other for the final time. “My love,” I murmur between kisses. “My Isabeau.”

  I fumble for her fingers and she holds out her left hand for me while I slide on the ring. She turns her hand in the light, marveling at the sight of it sparkling on her finger. It looks better than I imagined. Isabeau Laurent is going to be my wife.

  She reaches up and strokes her fingers through my beard, tears shining in her eyes. “I loved you since the moment I saw you looking back at me on that cold London street. I was only a child, but I knew. And I never want to lose you again.”

  A violin starts play. It’s Marcus. Another joins him, and then a cello. Then more instruments until all the string instruments are playing Vocalise. I wonder how they know before I remember that Isabeau and I played it at the airport. I’ve never cared what people think about the things I do, but all the same the sound of their playing is like a blessing. These people at least are happy for us.

  “No one’s taking you away from me. Not ever.”

  She slips her arms around her neck and her voice drops to a whisper only I can hear. She gazes up at me, eyes shining. “Do you promise, daddy?”

  I smile as I look down into her green eyes. “I promise, sweet girl. With all my heart.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Isabeau

  Now

  There’s a piano in the hotel suite on our wedding night. “A room with a piano, and you,” Laszlo says, kissing me. “What else do I need to make me happy?”

  I get out of my white lace dress and take out cello, and sitting in a white corset and suspenders, my hair hanging in long curls over my shoulders, we play together. We pl
ay Vocalise, and for the very first time in my life it sounds different to my ears. The two instruments, once so alone, have found each other.

  Laszlo looks thoughtful. “When we played this together in the airport in Singapore a woman came up to you after and spoke to you.”

  “She said, ‘It’s not in his face, but it’s in the notes he plays. He loves you.’ And I shook my head because I never knew you loved me. I couldn’t hear it.”

  He gets up from the piano and comes over to me, cupping my cheek. I turn my face into the warmth of his palm as he asks, “Do you hear it now, how much I love you, sweet girl?”

  I do hear it, all the beautiful notes of his love, my maestro. I have been his ward, his protégé, his lover and now his wife. “I hear it, daddy. All of it. Every note.”

  He smiles, as he always does when I call him that. Laszlo picks me up and takes me over to the bed, his hands tight around my corseted waist. “And you’ll come to Bangkok, my love, my world-class soloist, as often as you can?”

  Laszlo has accepted the role of musical director of the new Bangkok symphony orchestra, and I’ve accepted Ms. Sanchez as my agent. I’ve already booked several performances in London and Italy with premier orchestras. It will be hard, being away from him so much, but Bangkok is always only a flight away, and when I’m with him there will be a place for me to play in his orchestra, filled while I’m not there by a temp. So I get the best of both worlds, a career as a soloist and the pleasure of playing with Laszlo, which will always be one of my keenest pleasures in the world.

  I take his finger in my mouth and suck it lovingly, saying between licks, “I’ll always come back to you, no matter how many times I leave. Wherever you are in the world is my home.”

  Laszlo’s eye narrow with heat as he watches me, his words a purr that cascades through my body. “Good girl. Are you going to keep being my talented, beautiful Isabeau, my wife, my sweet protégé?”

  I take another of his fingers into his mouth and continue to suck, showing him how happy he makes me. All those things. “Yes, daddy. Yes, sir. Yes, maestro.”

  I can’t wait to perform with the new orchestra. Meanwhile I’ve been playing with the RSLO until we leave for Bangkok, just because it makes me happy. The violist who made me feel so small and ashamed at the airport and was rude to me in Bangkok looked disconcerted to see me there. A little guilty, too.

  Domenica, my section leader, was able to explain. “She took a picture of you and Mr. Valmary kissing in the street in Bangkok and put it on Facebook. That’s how we all found out about you.”

  I tell the violist that I think we got off on the wrong foot and it was awkward at first but I think we’ve cleared the air, though I doubt we’ll ever be best friends.

  In the days that followed Laszlo’s proposal he told me more about his relationship with my father. How he enjoyed writing about me as much as my father loved reading the letters. How proud both of them were of me. How they both just wanted to protect me. I don’t need to take just Laszlo’s word for that, because my father wrote letters, too. Not as many as Laszlo and not as long, but he kept them all for me, in case he would be allowed to show them to me one day.

  “I think it’s time you saw these, sweetheart,” he said, handing me the box the night of our engagement. I read them sitting on the couch in Laszlo’s home. In our home.

  It was so good to be home.

  One letter in particular stays strong in my memory, that Dad wrote after Laszlo’s furious letter when I was sixteen. The one where Laszlo begged Dad to tell me he was trying to get better.

  Valmary,

  The pain isn’t too bad today and I’m not too stoned to write. I know you’re angry but it’s my decision to keep this from her, not yours.

  I don’t get her smiles, or the sight of her over the breakfast table, or hear her questions or see her doing her homework or the million other things that make up a life. But thanks to you I get her music. And I get to know she’s happy. It’s better this way. I’ve got nothing for her but sadness and disappointment. You’re standing between her and all that pain, protecting her from it.

  I suppose this is me saying thank you. For being someone that Isabeau deserves. And for loving her, like I know you do.

  Laurent

  Epilogue

  MARRIED TO A MAESTRO: INSIDE THE CONTENTIOUS UNION BETWEEN LASZLO AND ISABEAU VALMARY

  On the eve of their relocation to Bangkok, biographer EVANGELINE BELL talks with performance power-couple Isabeau and Laszlo Valmary about music, marriage and making waves in the classical music world.

  When I arrive at the Valmarys’ London home I’m greeted by a barefoot Isabeau in a cream dress, her long auburn curls tumbling over one shoulder. “Come up and see the music room,” she says to me with a welcoming smile. “It’s the best place in the house.”

  Just twenty-one, the soloist exudes the confidence of a young woman used to the spotlight. Sitting down at her cello she treats me to an unaccompanied performance of her signature piece, Saint-Saëns’ The Swan. Her playing is filled with the honesty and pathos which has earned her critical acclaim and the hearts of audiences during a recent three-night performance of the Brahms Double Concerto with violinist Hayley Chiswell in Birmingham.

  While she plays her husband appears, as if drawn by the sound of her cello. Laszlo Valmary stands in the doorway watching her. It’s a sight he must have witnessed a thousand times over the years since Isabeau came to live with him when she was just eight years old, but to look at him one would think he was hearing her for the first time.

  Valmary, thirty-eight, is polite though reserved, and shakes my hand with a firm grip, his hazel eyes guarded and assessing. I’ve heard rumors that husband and wife play together often, him accompanying her on the grand piano that stands on one side of the room. When I ask if he’ll perform something too he tells me there’s coffee downstairs in the living room and turns away.

  “We’re not sure what to do with the house,” Isabeau explains when we’re settled on the sofas. “It’s Laszlo’s family home and he doesn’t want to sell it. I’ll be flying back and forth between London and Bangkok a lot for performances so I’ll stay here. Hopefully other touring friends will be able to use it as well. There should always be music in this house.”

  Valmary was recently appointed as musical director of the new Bangkok Symphony Orchestra and will begin auditions for orchestra members as soon as he’s back in Asia. “I’m very keen to gather new talent around me and shape the orchestra’s sound,” he tells me. “There’s a huge appetite for classical music in Asia and the audiences are open to experimentation.”

  Image, above: Laszlo and Isabeau embrace on the sofa in the Hampstead home they’ve shared for most of the last thirteen years. Isabeau twists her fingers through his hair. “It’s always too long,” she says, referring to what she calls his conductor’s mane. “Should I cut it all off?” he teases.

  On the mantelpiece are photographs, mostly of Isabeau over the years, and she takes me through them. Isabeau as a child of eight playing a three-quarter size cello in the room upstairs. “Laszlo bought it for me not long after I came to live with him because my instrument—my mother’s instrument—was too big.” Isabeau onstage with the RLSO at age fourteen as she plays The Swan in a pink dress while Mr. Valmary conducts. A candid shot of a teenage Isabeau looking exhausted but happy sitting cross-legged amid a sea of instrument cases. “Laszlo took that while we were on tour in Edinburgh.” A photograph of their wedding day two weeks earlier, which is the only picture Valmary appears in. It shows Isabeau in a long white lace bridal gown and tiara and Valmary in a grey suit and black tie. The couple are embracing, their profiles to the viewer, Isabeau leaning close as if to whisper secrets to her new husband, pink roses clutched in one hand.

  “It was all done in such a rush,” she explains with a breathless smile. “But it was the most perfect day.” When she resumes her seat her hand slips comfortably into his, and his thumb rubs absently-mi
ndedly over the diamond ring on her left hand.

  On a nearby coffee table I notice a few more pictures that include the conductor: Isabeau and Valmary backstage at an event that I recognize as Isabeau’s last performance with the Royal London Youth Orchestra on the night of her eighteenth birthday. Isabeau notices me looking and regards the pictures, chewing her lip. “We’re not sure where to put these photographs. It was a very happy night but…it’s complicated, too.”

  Valmary, who’s been doing very little talking, speaks up. “I want them where I can see them. As a reminder of what we’ve been through to get where we are today.”

  Isabeau turns to look at him, and nods. She gets up and places one of the photographs next to their wedding portrait. In the picture, Valmary appears to be talking to someone just out of shot, mirror-ball sunglasses atop his head and unbuttoned shirt gaping. One of his arms is around Isabeau who has both of hers wrapped around his waist, and is smiling up at him. It’s a bright, easy smile showing no sign of the impending complications the pair have hinted at.

  They’re reticent to talk about exactly when they became lovers. “I always loved Laszlo, and he didn’t know. When I was old enough I sprang myself on him and it went very badly. I think I shocked him. In fact I know I did.”

  Valmary declines to answer.

  “Later, we were able to figure things out,” Isabeau adds. When asked if the figuring out happened on the recent tour with the RLSO during which Isabeau was second cello, she merely smiles, refusing to answer the question. Isabeau Valmary seems to have as much tenacity as her husband beneath her charm and beauty. While researching the pair I found no evidence that Isabeau and Valmary performed together after the night of her eighteenth birthday, until the most recent tour.

  In February of this year Isabeau joined the RLSO on a limited contract and there are several professional photographs of the couple on stage during a tour of Southeast Asia. Neither have posted any informal photographs of themselves separately or as a couple from this time on social media.