Fingers

by William Sleator

  “Well, I can think of better places to knock him out than the middle of a crowded restaurant,” I said.

  “Oh, shut up,” said Bridget.

  “I think … if we do this to him again, we have to plan it differently,” said Luc, who still looked pale from the ordeal and was dabbing at his face with a handkerchief.

  “The important thing at the moment is the music,” Bridget said. “You’re sure it’s ready, Sam?”

  It was ready all right. I had slaved over it for eight solid hours that day. The easiest part had been coming up with the tune to base the piece on: I picked an old American blues song, “Yeller Gal,” which I did not think the European critics would recognize. It hadn’t been too tricky to write the opening chromatic scale passage, descending to a five of two chord in C sharp, and then a gigantic dominant seventh with some drippy suspensions. Then I went blank. So I leafed through the Magyar book and decided to introduce the theme delicately, with grace notes, the way he does in his fifth rhapsody. The problem was, “Yeller Gal” turned out to have an incredibly banal and repetitive harmonic structure, basically one-five-five-one, repeated to the point of nausea. So I did it with grace notes, then trills, continuing to build, then I modulated up a tri-tone, which sounded pretty weird.

  And then I went blank again. But the piece was still less than a minute long, too short even for an encore. I couldn’t think of anything to do, and the sounds of the trucks outside were driving me crazy, until I had the brilliant idea of using some truck sounds. So I threw in this big honking diesel blast in B flat and took that around the circle of fifths for a while and then went back to “Yeller Gal” again, this time with tremendous crashing chords at double the original tempo, pouring on the arpeggios. Then I had a sudden stroke of genius and went back through the piece, tossing in some twentieth century jazz blue notes here and there—basically just to see if Luc, or any of the critics, would be astute enough to notice them. When I went over the whole thing at the end, it seemed sloppily tacked together and terribly unmusical, like a patchwork quilt made by a blind seamstress. But by then I was thoroughly sick of “Yeller Gal” and was not about to go over the piece one more time. It was going to have to do; and if Luc didn’t like it, he could write a new one himself, for all I cared.

  Now Bridget said, “Well, can we see it, please, Sam? I want Luc’s opinion. He may want you to make some changes.”

  “If he wants any changes he can make them himself,” I said, and went back in the other room and got the music out of its hiding place at the bottom of my suitcase. Humphrey was dead to the world on the desk, even though all the lights were on.

  I handed the music to Luc without a word, then sat down on the bed and watched him look it over. He scratched his stubble and lifted his eyebrows and hummed to himself, trying to look profound. “Well, uh, not too bad, actually. It just might actually pass,” he said reluctantly, after looking at it for several minutes. “Except …” He thumbed through it again, trying to find something to correct. “Except right here.” He put his fat finger down on the page. “This B flat should be a natural. I insist on it, in fact.”

  I hopped up to look over his shoulder. It wasn’t even one of the blue notes; the dope hadn’t noticed them. “Sure,” I said casually. “You can change that B ftat to a natural. You’re the expert.”

  Luc reached into his pocket for a pen. “No,” said Bridget. “Let Sam do it, so the writing will be consistent.”

  I made Luc’s stupid correction, getting rid of the B flat Magyar’s last composition had been Opus 26, so at the top of the first page I had scribbled “Opus 27, no. 1,” and then a vague approximation of Magyar’s signature. It didn’t have to be too close, since it was supposed to have been written out by Humphrey anyway. Now Bridget looked it over, sucking in her cheeks. “Well, it certainly looks sloppy enough to be authentic,” she said, “just in case anyone wants to see it. And you both say it’s going to sound all right So the only question is, can Humphrey learn it in one day?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s just a lot of cheap tricks. It’s right up Humphrey’s alley.”

  Before she went to bed, Bridget spread the pages out on the desk beside Humphrey and wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the pen I had used.

  Humphrey had always been gullible and submissive. But recently he had begun to show a few faint glimmers of independence, as witnessed by his stubbornness earlier that evening. I wondered, as I slipped into bed, if he was going to be as much of a pushover as we expected.

  HUMPHREY was still asleep when I woke up in the morning, the music in place. He had drooled over the closest sheet I opened the shutters and stomped noisily around the room, and he began to mutter and roll his head. Bridget heard me and came to the door in her bathrobe, already smoking. “Now you’re sure you’ve got the story straight, Sam?” she whispered.

  “After all the times we went over it last night, I think I know it better than my own name,” I said.

  “Shhh! He’s coming to,” said Bridget.

  “Mmmmf,” said Humphrey, and rolled right off the chair onto the floor—a rude awakening for him, and the person downstairs as well. Luc appeared, and he and I rushed over to prop Humphrey back in place. For a moment Humphrey sagged down on the desk again; then he blinked and looked up at us. “Hey,” he said thickly, rubbing his bleary eyes. “My head feels funny. My pillow fell … huh?” He sat up slowly. “I can’t … hey, I’m not in bed.”

  “Well, you did tell us not to disturb you, dear,” Bridget said, all motherly concern.

  “I … what?” Humphrey said. He shook his head like a puppy, pushed the hair out of his eyes, and looked down at the music in front of him for the first time. “What’s all this?”

  “Your precious music that you just had to finish last night,” I said, glancing at one of the pages. “And it better be good. The lights kept me up half the night.”

  “Wha … what are you talking about?” Humphrey said, looking up at me, groggy and confused. “What’s the matter with my head?”

  “You mean you don’t remember?” said Bridget.

  “Don’t remember what?” Humphrey asked piteously.

  “The story about the voice in your head, and the music you heard, and making us leave you alone so you could write it down,” I said. “The whole crazy routine you went through last night. Are you trying to tell us you don’t remember it?”

  “Are you trying to tell me I wrote this?” cried Humphrey, his voice cracking.

  “Humphrey, my little one,” soothed Bridget, elbowing me out of the way to bend over and stroke his forehead. “Tell me, darling, what do you remember?”

  “Nothing different,” Humphrey began, shrugging. “Just … Now wait a minute,” he said slowly, closing his eyes and shaking his head again. “Now let me see … We went downstairs to eat, and uh, we saw that funny little old man, right, Sam?” I nodded. “And, uh, then … I think there was a lady and a little girl, but that’s kind of fuzzy, and … and that is all I remember. I don’t remember anything after that at all!” He sounded frightened now.

  “Luc, what do you think this means?” Bridget said melodramatically.

  “Let me see this,” said Luc, picking up the music and fumbling with it. I went and stood beside him and looked at it curiously myself, as though I had never seen it before. “Let’s see now, the pages appear to be numbered,” Luc went on. “Page three, page two, page one …”

  “Hey, look what Humphrey wrote here!” I said, sounding shocked. “Opus 27, Number One, by Laszlo, Magyar.”

  The three of us stared at one another for a moment. Then we all turned to gaze in silence at Humphrey.

  He looked miserable. “But … but I don’t get it,” he moaned. “Why can’t I remember? What did I do?”

  Bridget was holding his hand now. “At dinner, you began acting a little strange, rather distant,” she said quietly. “When we came upstairs, you said you had a headache. Then you began complaining about noises from
the next room, someone talking in a foreign language and playing music. But none of us heard anything, and I began to be worried. I wanted you to go right to bed, but you refused. You shouted at me to leave you alone.” Bridget looked away from him sadly, getting the most out of her big scene.

  “I shouted at you?” said Humphrey, aghast.

  “You sure did,” I said, with one of my nasty chuckles. “I could hardly believe it was you, Humf.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t Humphrey,” Luc said portentously.

  But Humphrey didn’t notice. “Then what happened? Tell me, please,” he begged, squeezing Bridget’s hand.

  “Well, then you started making these strange, guttural sounds. No one understood you, but it did sound rather slavic. I wanted to call a doctor right away, but your father said to wait and see how you were this morning. The last thing you said in English was to demand music paper and a pen. Then you started writing away, and you absolutely refused to stop and go to bed. So finally we just gave up and left you alone, there was nothing else we could do. And this morning, there you were, asleep at the desk, with the music you had written. I must say, darling, I don’t understand it at all.”

  “Come on, Humphrey, tell us the truth,” I said. “The whole thing was an act, right? You’re just pretending you don’t remember.”

  “But I am telling the truth. I don’t remember anything. None of it” He looked up at Luc, pleadingly. “Is that really what happened, Papa? Did I really write that music?”

  “Yes … you did, Humphrey,” Luc said, looking down uncomfortably at the carpet.

  Humphrey reached out. “Can I see it for a minute?”

  Luc handed him the music, and Humphrey looked over it carefully, page by page, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t know how to write music. Why can’t I remember it?”

  “Are you sure you don’t remember anything?” I said, trying to sound suspicious.

  “I told you I don’t,” Humphrey insisted. “Why would I lie to you, anyway?” .

  This was my cue. Ideally, of course, the idea of Magyar’s ghost dictating music to him should have come from Humphrey. But I, for one, did not believe Humphrey was imaginative enough to think it up himself. And we all agreed that, no matter how much we prompted him, we could not seriously count on Humphrey to come up with the idea on his own. Which meant that it had to be fed to him. But it was also of the utmost importance that the three of us remain skeptical, at least at the beginning. Humphrey knew we didn’t believe in ghosts and even he would see through us if we pretended to believe right away. So the only way to remain skeptical but at the same time plant the idea in his head was to do it in the form of an accusation—from mean old Sam, of course.

  “Why would you lie?” I asked him. “Oh, come off it, Humphrey, we’re not that gullible. I mean look at this.” I gestured at the music in his hand. “That whole act you put on last night, and now this music with Magyar’s name on it. You might as well just come out and tell us that his ghost came and dictated the music to you. Obviously that’s what you’re trying to make us believe, isn’t it?”

  “No!” Now he sounded offended. “Mama, Papa, is that what you think? That I’m trying to play a trick on you?”

  “Well …” Bridget said, squeezing his hand and looking away.

  “But I’m not, I promise I’m not!” cried Humphrey, more upset than ever. “You have to believe me! I’m telling the truth. I don’t remember anything. Oh, why did this have to happen?” He rose up out of the chair and threw himself down on the bed and began to sob.

  This was the crucial moment. We had fed him the idea. If he didn’t latch onto it now and start trying to convince us, then there wasn’t much else we could do without becoming terribly obvious. We waited, listening to him cry. Then Bridget sat down beside him and began patting him on the back. Luc and I stood beside the desk, not looking at each other.

  Eventually his sobs hiccupped to a stop. His breathing gradually became normal. Finally he turned over on his back, one arm thrown across his forehead, and said in a small voice, “Do you really think it might be possible?”

  “What might be possible, dear?” Bridget said vaguely.

  “That … that the ghost of Magyar came and dictated that music to me,” Humphrey said, and I knew we had passed the first hurdle.

  Now we could begin worrying about Humphrey’s concert that night.

  3

  IT MUST have been a rotten summer for concertgoers in Venice. Or perhaps there was a sudden influx of ignorant but culture-starved tourists. Whatever the reason, Humphrey had a better house that night than we had any right to expect. When I looked back from my place in the front row at curtain time, I saw far more occupied seats than empty ones. Recently it had been the other way around.

  Humphrey was very eager to perform his new piece, of course.

  Once he had begun to believe that the music might have come from his own hand with some sort of supernatural help, he was immediately burning to find out what it sounded like. He was not musical enough to tell just from looking at it, though; he had to try it out on a piano. So Luc and Bridget trundled him off to the theater, where he was scheduled to practice that morning. I went along too, just for kicks.

  It had probably been an elegant theater once, a not-too-large, horseshoe-shaped hall with elaborately carved boxes. But it had seen better days. Pigeon droppings had eaten away at the facade, giving it a leprous appearance. Inside, the cupids and muses on the ceiling had cracked and faded, leaving many of them without faces or hands; the red plush seats were gashed in places, the carpet threadbare.

  There could be no complaint about the piano, however, a marvelous old Hamburg B-type Steinway. Humphrey rubbed his hands together hungrily as he approached it. Luc and I leaned over him as he spread out the music on the rack and set his fingers on the keys.

  He’s a terrible sight-reader. It took him nearly an hour to get through the piece once. I began to be seriously worried that he would not be able to learn it in time. Luc kept giving me nasty looks behind Humphrey’s back; he probably thought I had made it especially difficult on purpose, just to show Humphrey up. Now why would I do a thing like that?

  I didn’t dare look at Bridget, who watched from the dimly lit house. After the first half-hour she could no longer sit still and began pacing the aisle and chain smoking. We all knew that Humphrey had to do the piece that night. It was his last concert. And since he hadn’t played Venice for a year, we were pretty sure that some name musicians would show up—the kind of people who, whether they fell for our scheme or not, would be most likely to rile up publicity. But because of Humphrey’s dying reputation, this was the last time we could hope such people would bother to come. It was now or never.

  It was agony, listening to Humphrey stumble ever so slowly and painfully over the notes. It must have been frustrating too for Bridget and Luc not to be able to berate me for doing a bad job; they had to keep their mouths shut in front of Humphrey, of course. But fortunately Humphrey, feeling an author’s pride in what he believed to be at least partly his own composition, was determined to learn the piece of trash. The second time through it took him only half an hour; the third time, fifteen minutes. By the sixth time it almost began to resemble music. After four hours, Humphrey was rattling the thing off with his usual dull and expressionless aplomb.

  Bridget came up onto the stage as he finished. “Well, that sounds a bit better, Humphrey,” she said. “But do you still insist on playing it tonight?”

  “Oh, please, Mama. I learned it good, didn’t I?”

  “You know you’ll be questioned about it,” she said, sighing. “What do you think, Luc?” Her acting was get ting better; she really sounded as though she didn’t approve.

  “Well … maybe we should humor the boy,” said Luc. “He has worked hard on it. But only as an encore, if you earn one,” he admonished, shaking his finger at Humphrey.

  “I will, I will,” burbled Humphrey, b
ouncing up and down on the piano bench, which squeaked in C sharp minor. “I’ll play better than I ever did before.”

  “Then you’d better do some work on your other pieces,” said Luc, looking at his watch. “We only have a few hours until they have to tune the piano.”

  “But then how can I memorize this?” Humphrey asked.

  How, indeed? This was a problem even I hadn’t thought of. Of course Humphrey played everything by memory. It helped to create the illusion that he was a real musician, though it was an onerous chore. It took Humphrey endless hours to learn anything by heart. I remember nearly going berserk when he was working on Chopin’s opus 25, no. 2, the F minor Etude. It’s incredibly repetitive, and the rhythmic structure never varies once throughout the whole piece. But good old Humphrey had to grind it out over and over again, four hours a day for two weeks, before he got it through his thick head. I still feel nauseated whenever I hear it Certainly there was no chance that he would be able to memorize my little ditty, which was about the same length but a good deal less predictable. Not that they could blame me. Bridget would have had to think of the scheme weeks ago if she expected Humphrey to memorize anything. We were lucky he was capable of learning the notes in one day.

  “But what are we going to do?” said Luc, not even attempting to hide the sudden quaver in his voice. “He can’t just carry these scribblings out onto the stage. That’s unprofessional.”

  “Now just wait a minute,” Bridget snapped at him. We watched her as she clenched her teeth and brooded; Then she smiled quickly at Humphrey. “Actually, it might not be a bad idea if he did use the manuscript It might lend a certain authenticity to the … ridiculous claim he’s going to make about the music’s origin. Yes, I think it might even be better this way.”

  So Humphrey was going to bring the music out on stage—if he got an encore.

  IT WAS two minutes past eight, and I was waiting impatiently for Humphrey to waddle out to the piano when I became aware of a genteel uproar behind me. I turned around to look.,Everyone else was looking.too Of all people, the famous pianist, Pitzvah Prendelberg, was making his way down the aisle, a gorgeous blonde leaning on his arm. She looked vaguely familiar. I could hardly believe it when they reached the first row and sat down in the seats next to me. This was fantastic luck, better than anything Bridget had imagined. Prendelberg was a top international virtuoso, as well as a notorious playboy. Any pronouncement he might make would find its way not only into the music pages, but into the slick gossip magazines as well. Now it was up to Humphrey to do his stuff.