Contrary Motion

by Andy Mozina

  —

  Making the semis temporarily banishes my more profound and irrational anxieties. I sleep like a brick and wake clearheaded. Dressing room C already feels familiar from the prelim round and that also calms me. My mantra is simple: Think about music only. It doesn’t bother me to see myself in the mirror surrounded by the Hollywood bulbs.

  A knock on my door. “Mr. Grzbc?” Ty asks. He sounds nicer now. He pronounces my name correctly.

  This time they let me play the five pieces a little longer. This time Uchimura is behind the screen—there’s no mistaking his maestro voice. He calls out tempo changes. He asks me to replay something “more vibrantly.” Once he says, “Don’t forget what the horns are doing—play it again.” I don’t take these comments as criticisms. I tell myself they are just a test of how well he thinks he can work with me. And when I play it again with the horns better in my mind, this changes my playing just so, and I’m rewarded with a drawn-out “Thank you.”

  I leave the stage thinking, Why not me?

  Ty says that after the rest of the semifinalists go, there’s going to be a hiatus so the whole orchestra can use the stage to practice for a concert. I can leave my harp backstage pending the announcement of the finalists around four, but I don’t want to break my spell with the instrument. I load up the harp, get a takeout sandwich, and head back to the Best Western. I cross out what I’ve already played from the repertoire list and look at the thirteen pieces they haven’t called for yet, which include the Moncayo, Ein Heldenleben, and, of course, the pesky Symphonie fantastique. I open the curtains and take the towel off the mirror and I practice those pieces.

  But in the middle of Ein Heldenleben, I start to pick up hints of the buzz in the sixth-octave C. It is definitely back. Maybe there was one venue change too many. I should have left the harp backstage and just relaxed!

  There’s a harp tech on call, but it seems presumptuous to get someone to work on my instrument when I don’t know if I’m going to be in the finals—and I’m not sure I want a stranger messing with my harp right now. Then I realize this is not a confident line of thought. I don’t have anyone’s number at Powell, so I find the main number in the phone book. Of course, no one answers. It’s the weekend. I leave a message. I could move my harp back to Powell and look for the tech, but another venue change so soon might cost me a string or make the buzz worse. With the whole orchestra getting ready to rehearse, backstage will be chaotic. After watching Carl work on the harp the last time, I bought my own set of Allen wrenches. I tighten a few things. The buzz improves slightly, but who knows how it will hold up if I change venues again to play in the finals. Stanley’s words come back to me: “You can’t rely on that instrument anymore.”

  “Shit,” I say, and sweat bombs detonate from every pore.

  —

  I’m practicing work-arounds so feverishly that when the phone rings, I assume it’s the harp tech.

  “Mr. Grzbc,” Ty says, “you’re in the final round. If you have a pen, I can read you the repertoire.”

  I grab a Best Western pen and notepad.

  “Are you there?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  I scrawl the names of the pieces, but for each one my hand makes something like an EKG line right off the pad.

  “Seven-thirty p.m. onstage,” he says. “Dressing room E, starting at six-thirty.”

  “Can the tech meet me there fifteen minutes early? Six-fifteen? I’ve got a buzz.”

  “Oh. Certainly.”

  “Thank you so much, Ty.”

  I hang up the phone. I notice the circled “E” on the notepad. “Why E and not C?” I ask aloud. This should not be mind-deranging information, but the attack of dizziness is precipitous and I lie on the bed, the room merry-go-rounding wildly.

  I try to breathe deeply but normally. It is impossible. I should practice but I can’t. After setting the radio alarm for five-thirty in case I fall asleep, I lie down and try, again, to calm down. I turn my head to face an utterly blank gray matte wall. The wall is fine, and I am fine. I lie very still. Shadows lengthen. I know this even though my eyes are closed.

  —

  I arrive at six o’clock so I can tune before the tech comes, and luckily dressing room E is available. A padded pink slipcover, complete with a ruffled skirt, conceals the wooden, heart-backed chair. The mirror is the same. As I tune, I brace for the worsening of the buzz, and in fact the sixth-octave C does sound worse.

  “Now, now,” I say. My hand shakes as I pull the slip of Best Western stationery out of my pocket. I don’t remember putting it in my pocket, so I’m very glad it’s there. My handwriting is ridiculous but I can make out the six pieces: the Moncayo, Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky, Ein Heldenleben, Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, and of course Symphonie fantastique.

  The harp tech’s arrival is still a few minutes away, so I sit down and launch into Ein Heldenleben, listening for the buzz, which is still there, and I have to admit getting even worse, note to note. I stay on course technically, but musically the harp is not cooperating. I come to the quick pedal changes at the start of rehearsal 33, and in the middle of ramming the C pedal all the way from flat into sharp, there’s a muffled snap and a clinking within the pillar—no tension on the pedal, and six C strings go slack. I press the pedal the rest of the way into sharp position, but the disks in the neck don’t move.

  I spring up and open the door.

  “Ty?” I call into the corridor. “Ty?”

  —

  Pat McCormick, a sparrow of a man with longish gray hair and a neat mustache, assesses my harp in five seconds. “Your C pedal rod broke,” he says like a car mechanic announcing a bad fan belt.

  “That’s what I figured,” I say.

  I glance over at Ty.

  “We can let you use an SLSO harp,” he says. “It shouldn’t be a problem at all.”

  “I’d really appreciate that,” I say. “But what about my turn? Could I have a bit more time to warm up on it, or do I have to go on at seven-thirty?” My watch says it’s already six-thirty.

  Ty also looks at his watch. “Let me go ask. I don’t know if I can get you anything past eight o’clock, though. You’re the last finalist.”

  “Sure, if you can get that. I’ll take anything.”

  “That should be fine. Pat, could you bring him the Lyon and Healy?” Then Ty strides out of the room with Pat in his wake.

  I remember when I failed altogether with Cynthia on the futon couch. If I hadn’t been so freaked out about that, I wouldn’t have slept on the couch and I wouldn’t have been late for brunch and I wouldn’t have dropped my harp and my C rod wouldn’t be broken right now. Someone is warming up Ein Heldenleben in the dressing room next door.

  Then I hear the light rumble of dolly wheels coming down the hall, and Pat stops at the door of the dressing room with a pristine Lyon & Healy covered in gold leaf from the top of the pillar to the front feet of the base.

  “Matt,” he says, “meet your new harp.”

  “Wow,” I say. Then I hustle to move the injured harp into a far corner of the dressing room, which of course I should have already done.

  “Should be fine,” Pat says. “I regulated it on Thursday.”

  Ty pokes his head in. “Eight p.m. onstage, Mr. Grzbc. I’ll see you at seven fifty-five. Good luck.”

  He leaves and raps smartly on the door to dressing room D. “Gracie,” he says, “they’re ready for you.”

  Gracie’s door opens, and I hear her say, “And I’m ready for them.”

  “Good luck,” Pat says. He slips out and pulls the door closed, and then I’m alone with one beautiful, seemingly flawless instrument.

  I start to tune it. It’s a little less tense than mine, which soon enough feels comfortable. But the string spacings are a tad closer in the upper octaves, which is probably fine for Tatiana’s feminine hands, but not so good for mine. I finish tuning and go right at SF, in which the string spaci
ng is going to matter most. I make two audition-killing mistakes in the contrary-motion sequence because my right-hand timing in the second octave is just a hair off. I start over and make a different pair of mistakes.

  I pop out of my chair and start pacing the room. “Shit, shit, shit,” I say. My heart rate is accelerating. I sit down again, but I pop right back up. My head sways as if it’s on a spring. The voice from the meditation CD returns clearly in my head: It’s important to remember not to try too hard to relax; this will just create tension. Gottfried Barker, back in Seattle, wants joy, Adam tells me to choose confidence, and Dr. Oliver tells me to do something. I swing over to the sink and splash cool water on my face, over and over. I’m afraid that when I stop and raise my eyes to the mirror, I’ll see the world spin.

  But at a certain point in the splashing, I wonder if I’m trying to drown myself, and I turn off the water. Without drying my face, I sit in the padded pink chair and rest my head on the counter.

  “It’s going nowhere,” Claire Houghton said about her playing that day in the music room when I finally let her go. She eventually broke up with that handsome boyfriend. Married someone else I never met. Had two kids. Invents breakfast foods for General Mills. I don’t think she plays much anymore.

  Water slides down my face. I need to warm up on this instrument. I need to practice, but I can’t sit at this harp. The padded pink chair smells like a mix of perfumes. I think I detect a scent Milena used to wear.

  You need to practice, I tell myself. But I can’t do that, either. I can’t run toward the pain. I can’t practice—this is suddenly crashingly obvious.

  What I really want is just to hear some music, to listen to it for pleasure. That would be perfect right now. What you do for your audience you do for yourself—isn’t that what Marcia said?

  I stand and finally dry my face and hands. I sit down to the golden Lyon & Healy—just to play. Eddie always said that when a good musician plays you don’t hear the musician, you hear music. I have to let my fingers—and all of myself—play.

  And this new harp sounds great: better than the rattletrap I’ve been saddled with all these years. I’ve been sentimental and stubborn. Just like my father when he refused to trade in the old white Pontiac station wagon he had fixed so many times. Bart and George had to sneak it to the junkyard without him knowing.

  I do nothing but play for over an hour, and when Ty comes back, he asks, “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I think so.”

  —

  The screen is gone. And even though it was tiny relative to this concert hall, its absence markedly opens up the room. Fifth row center, Uchimura, Zikorsky, and four other SLSO members I don’t recognize are eyeballing me. They know about having to switch instruments, which protects me somewhat. I bow to them and sit down to my new harp.

  “Let’s hear Romeo and Juliet, please,” Uchimura says.

  This is the easiest piece, technically. That I blew it in San Diego shouldn’t matter. No doubt they want to hear the right emotion. There’s little chance my fingers will trip up in the tight upper octaves. I play it as well as I can play it, and it sounds fantastic on this harp.

  “Symphonie fantastique,” Uchimura says simply. There are no thank-yous or corrections or instructions. They, too, apparently just want to hear music.

  I open the score, smooth the page though it doesn’t need smoothing, lean the harp back, and start rehearsal 20 strong. My tone and articulation are crisp. I dampen the strings on the second beat at Rehearsal 22, observe a few measures of rest, and begin the first arpeggios with contrary motion. They go fine in the right hand while my left hand keeps the pulse with quarter-note chords. I reconfigure my right hand to grab a four-pack of ostinatos, during which I shift the E and B pedals from natural to sharp and back, then I start the second batch of contrary-motion arpeggios, higher in the scale. My right hand dances like a crazed spider—up, doubling back, then higher—until I have to jump five strings to the second-octave C. My thumb doesn’t perfectly catch the string. I buzz that note badly, a godawful mistake.

  There’s no time to be a worm, or to panic. A professional would blow right on by a small mistake and play as if nothing has happened, but a confident performer in an audition where the judges know he’s had to switch harps an hour and a half ago, where they can see he’s a man playing on a harp built for a woman, where the mistake is not trivial—that’s something else. I don’t think any of this, not in the moment. I just stop and say in a level voice, “I’d like permission to do it again from the top.”

  Uchimura looks to either side of him. Several of the other judges nod.

  “All right,” Uchimura says.

  I rebegin Symphonie fantastique.

  25

  THE FOUR OTHER finalists float among the wings or head for the lounge downstairs. Ty lets me hang out in dressing room E. I try not to think of how I played. I know that my impression of myself can be extremely unreliable during these waiting periods. The second time I played Symphonie fantastique, it felt perfect, and I can’t remember any mistakes in the subsequent pieces. I lie on the thin carpet of the dressing room, letting the sweat under my armpits dry. My broken Aphrodite is mute in the corner. Time doesn’t exist as it normally does, but it hasn’t accelerated or slowed down. There’s just the ringing pulse of an intense now.

  A knock comes at the door. Ty pushes it open and waits until I get to my feet.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Grzbc,” Ty says, smiling a little crazily. “You’re the new principal harpist of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.”

  He extends his hand. I shake his hand. My chest swells big enough to lift me off the floor like a hot-air balloon.

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” I say.

  I cup my hands over my eyes and look down. “I can’t believe this,” I say. “Oh, oh, I can’t believe this.” My own words rise into my face like an echo from a well. The realization blooms and blooms and blooms: I won, I won, I won!

  “Maestro Uchimura would like to congratulate you,” Ty says. “Please follow me.”

  I trail Ty through dark backstage halls, out a door, up a stairwell, down a marble corridor with a red carpet running down the center of it, right turn down another marble corridor. Along the way, I take ownership of every painting on the walls, every potted plant, every chandelier. This is my place, I think, this is where I work. And I’ll be a full-time member of an ensemble again, something I haven’t enjoyed since I used up my eligibility to play in the Civic Orchestra twelve years ago. There will be people I’ll see regularly, whom I’ll have something in common with. From such a position of normal stability and professional accomplishment, I might relax into an un-lonely, un-desperate life, with health insurance. Ty is striding quickly. Then he breaks to the side, almost sliding to a stop. Uchimura steps out of an open office door.

  He beams at me, his eyebrows high and flaring, hand extended. “There’s the old pro,” he says. “Congratulations.”

  Uchimura takes Tatiana, Ty, and me out to dinner to celebrate. I’m able to convince myself that the audition is over and nothing I can say or do now will make them take back their offer. There’s the formal contract to settle but that’s not on tonight’s agenda. When they start asking questions and giving advice about moving to St. Louis, I give brief answers and steer the conversation elsewhere. It only takes me a single question to Uchimura about the fall season to get him rolling on a track that doesn’t end up passing near me. Tatiana tells us about a trip to India she’s going to take by herself. Ty recounts the drama of my harp breaking, and as Tatiana and Uchimura listen, I see confirmed in their eyes that whatever they heard before the finals worked in my favor.

  Back at the Best Western, I empty my pockets on the nightstand and sit down on the bed. I find the crumpled bit of motel stationery on which I wrote the repertoire for the finals, unfold it, and stare. The handwriting is so wild I can’t decipher it now, even though I’ll never forget what I played. I’m amazed I could
read it when it mattered.

  —

  I check out and hit the road on Sunday morning, bound for Chicago. It’s sunny and already hot and humid at ten in the morning as I merge onto Interstate 64 and float toward downtown St. Louis. My harp, its broken rod lying inside of it, sleeps in the back of the Volvo. I don’t play my audition tape. I don’t even listen to the radio. I put down all the windows and wind whips through the car, and I drive to that wild, air-tearing sound.

  Yes, I’ve won, and this astounding fact is still gathering power. After calling my mother, and beating back the sadness that there was no one else critical to call, I lay awake last night remembering moments from the last twenty-five years: moments of hope, like when I made the Civic; moments in the drafty Rogers Park apartment when I soldiered on, sometimes just a few steps ahead of despair, sometimes overtaken by it; moments of crushing disappointment, like Seattle and San Diego. All harp moments, bad or good, are now vindicated. Divine providence, which I gave up on in my faithless mind, is suddenly looking plausible again. This was all meant to be.

  Yet, even in the midst of this, a new and difficult thought has been fighting its way to the surface, and now, as southern Illinois scrolls by, it finally takes over my mind completely: What about Audrey?

  Words from Ms. Grier’s report come back to me: He puts his own desires ahead of his daughter’s emotional well-being. Serious demonstrable harm.

  I have listened to her report, and I have also fought against some of it. What will Dr. Oliver think about my commitment to Audrey’s therapy, to giving her the support she needs, if I just skip town?