by Aubrey Rose
“See you guys later.” I waved to Quentin who just held his hand up in farewell as he hurried down the stairs.
“Want me to walk you back to your apartment?” Mark said. I was tempted—it was late, after all—but he had already packed up and all of my papers still lay spread out in front of me. Also, I felt like being alone for a while.
“Nah,” I said. “Gotta check out a book before I go. See you later!”
“Okay,” Mark said, a half-smile dimpling his face. “See you!”
I stood up and stretched, looking through the windows overlooking the lawn below. I half-expected to see the man standing there below, staring up at me. Eliot.
He wasn’t there. A few drunken undergraduates stumbled across the snow-crusted grass, clothed in overly skimpy miniskirts and Ugg boots. Nobody in California knew how to dress for the cold. My eyes focused on the snowflakes stuck to the window pane. It was cold. I should go home. The internship thing was Sunday, and I had been running on a sleep deficit for far too long.
This is important to you, right?
Mark’s words came back to me as I stared out the window, and the snowflakes blurred into a cottony white as tears filled my eyes. All of the junior-level math majors vied for the internship each year, but for me this prize was more personal. Sure, the free travel was tempting, and the semester abroad at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences would brighten my resume with prestige. But that wasn’t the main reason I wanted to win the internship prize, not by far.
CHAPTER THREE
“The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.” - Liebniz
I woke up in darkness. The clock at the side of the bed glowed green: 11:41. I rolled out of bed, pulled on some warm clothes sleepily, and tiptoed down the hall.
Four times already this week I’d woken like this in the middle of the night, not being able to go back to sleep until I’d taken a long walk. I’d read once about how humans used to wake up all the time, just like this, before the industrial age. Benjamin Franklin had written about it—the odd hours between first and second sleep where people would wake up and read, pray, or make love.
Me? I took walks. Most of the time I would walk to campus, just a few blocks from our apartment. At night the sidewalks were empty and the buildings loomed like ghosts over my head. Everything seemed older then, bigger. I would walk, think about math, and then I would be back in my bed, ready to slumber at two or three in the morning.
I tugged on my boots and slid my keys into my pocket, closing the door behind me as quietly as I could. Shannon had agreed to cover for me, and I didn’t want to wake her up the night before she worked my shift. Hurrying down the stairs, I greeted the night as a friend, not even minding the rush of cold air and the soft sprinkling of snow. Perhaps it was my sleepiness, but I didn’t feel as cold during my night walks as I did during the day, even though the temperature dropped ten degrees or so.
Passing briskly through the stone archways onto the campus, I let my mind wander to the internship test I would be taking tomorrow. Tomorrow, or today? I didn’t know the time. Six hours of the hardest math problems, or so I’d heard. I wondered if I would be up to the task.
From somewhere in the distance I heard a bell ring out, and my mind jolted back to the present. I halted in my tracks, not sure where on campus my feet had taken me. The snow had stopped falling, and everything seemed unnaturally hushed. No whisper of cars on the neighboring streets, no rustle of night birds in the eaves of the buildings. Silence wrapped the world in a cradling hold.
I blinked hard and looked up to see the music building in front of me. My body had brought me here unconsciously and now something urged me to go inside, to get out of the night. I looked around, my heart beating quickly as though expecting some predator to jump out of the shadows toward me, but nothing moved. I climbed the stone steps of the building slowly, careful not to slip on the icy granite.
Security always locked the doors for the night, but as I reached for the brass handle I knew that this one would be open. Indeed, the oak door swung outward, a gust of warm air escaping like smoke into the chilly night. I turned back to survey the deserted campus, and again felt a thrill of fear, as though some monster watched me as I moved. A wolf, maybe, though I knew there were no wolves here. Still, I pulled the door closed behind me and locked the bolt myself, shutting out the night.
One of the oldest on campus, the music building boasted an ornate interior, deep carvings in every square inch of the oak walls and thick red carpet lining the floors. My boots sank into the newly-vacuumed carpeting, leaving dark prints behind. The yellow lights above shone dimly through the hallway as I walked on, pushing through a high swinging oak door into the practice halls. Here the lights were dimmed, almost entirely off, and I moved through the darkness, letting one hand trail along the wall to guide me forward.
Then I heard something that stopped me in my steps. Soft music drifted down the hall, muted by the carpet. A piano.
For a moment, I thought someone might just be practicing late at night, an overzealous music major anxious to impress or a chemistry student embarrassed by her amateur playing. But as I moved tentatively down the hall, I could tell that it wasn’t an amateur at the keys. All of the normal practice rooms stood open, their doorways black and empty. The only closed door lay at the very back of the practice hall, and light shone brightly from the insulated glass panel above the door. The piano behind that door was the Bosendorfer.
The midnight piano.
Moving closer, I could hear the notes more distinctly. I recognized the song as a piece by Erik Satie, one of the Gymnopedies. The melody tiptoed along the higher register, a lonely, slow song full of simple repetition. The quarter notes came hesitantly, carefully, building louder as the song continued, but still restrained. The walls, designed to muffle the sound of studious beauty, made the music sound as distant as though it came from another country, far, far away.
Was someone playing a prank on me? Perhaps it was a recording. I pressed my ear to the door and listened.
The music eased into the final chords, the pause between them lingering a moment too long, and then only silence remained. I still had my ear pressed to the door when it opened, sending me tumbling forward into the arms of the midnight piano ghost.
I shrieked as I fell forward. But the arms that caught me were strong and altogether more corporeal than any spectre. I looked up into piercing blue eyes, and gasped as I saw who had been playing the Bosendorfer.
“Valentina. What a pleasant surprise.” Eliot smiled as he helped me find my balance again. His hands supported me easily, and I didn’t want him to let go.
“You’re not a ghost.” I said the first thing I could think of, but I guess Eliot wasn’t familiar with the legend.
“A ghost?” His smile touched his eyes with sincerity. “Not quite.”
“Sorry. I, um, I just— I heard you playing— I didn’t mean—”
“You were eavesdropping,” he said.
I blushed. “Yeah, I guess I was.”
“I was thinking that I might enjoy some company just now,” Eliot said. “How lucky for you to be on the other side of the door.” He motioned me into the room, apparently unfazed by my eavesdropping. He seemed taller than before, over six feet easily, but he moved with a grace that belied his massive stature.
Eliot slid onto the piano bench and patted the wood next to him, inviting me closer.
“Come, sit. You can tell me what I’m doing wrong,” he said. He began to play the first part of the piece again. I had played the song before—a classic, easy enough to learn but not easy to play well. Satie had written notes to sound dissonant before resolving into harmony, and I had always struggled to get the phrasing correct.
Not Eliot. His fingers glided across the keys effortlessly, and his hair hung forward, dark curls resting on his forehead, the scar running down the side of his cheek more visible now in the light. I sat besi
de him on the edge of the piano bench, afraid to let myself get too close. Afraid of my own desires. Without his wool coat and hat he looked like a different man than the one I had met sitting on the bench. His white buttoned shirt and crisp pants gave him an air of authority, and as he played I let my gaze drift over his profile. He stopped on a difficult passage in the second coda and turned to me, catching my eyes resting on his scar.
“It’s from a car accident,” he said, a note of bitterness in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just—”
“It’s alright,” he said, although he sounded more defensive, on edge. His fingers reached out to the sheet music, marking the notes as he spoke. “The accident was my fault. It’s a good reminder.”
“A reminder?”
“To be careful,” he said, with a finality that ended that part of the conversation. He turned back to the music.
“This sounds wrong,” he said, his fingers running across the keys again in irritation. “What is wrong? I am no musician.”
“The right hand is too heavy,” I said before I could stop myself. But he gave me his full attention.
“Too heavy?”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t criticize. I can’t even play it as well as you.” But I knew the song, and I knew that the melody should be lighter there.
“Try,” he said. “I’ll do the left, you do the right.”
I had played it that way before. He couldn’t know, but that was how I had learned the Gymnopedies, all of them. I couldn’t protest against his commanding tone, so I scooted over on the bench, and tentatively put my right hand on the keys.
“From the beginning, yes?” He breathed in expressively, his chest rising, and we fell down into the first notes together.
At first my fingers hesitated too much, then pressed down too sharply. The Bosendorfer startled me with the bright action of its keys, so unlike the practice pianos I was familiar with. The melody burst forth, too loud by a factor of ten. I started at the sound. Easy to have a heavy hand on this piano.
Eliot smiled gently over at me, but continued to play. I quickly collected myself and rejoined him, relaxing my finger muscles and applying a lighter touch to the melody. He moved from chord to chord and I moved with him, learning his rhythm as he learned mine.
By the last measure of the first page we played in tight synchrony, and I lost myself in the song. I wasn’t in the midnight piano room any longer. I was young, seven years old, and I could hear my mother humming the melody in my ear as she played the bottom chords, the extended octaves too much of a reach for my small hands.
I joined him in the last chord softly, the sound trailing off into the muffled walls of the room.
“Who taught you to play?”
“My mother.”
“Is she a musician? Professionally, I mean? You have a talent for it.”
“She’s— she was a musician. She traveled around and played for special events. Weddings, conferences.” My eyes watered at the thought of her saying goodbye to me before leaving.
“She is gone now?”
“Yes,” I said. “She died in Hungary when I was young.” A pang of sorrow shot through my heart as it always did when I spoke of her, but nothing else.
At these words Eliot raised his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry.” He put his hand on mine, and again I felt the inescapable thrill of desire run through me. When he withdrew his hand, I had to stop myself from reaching out. He looked back at the music sheets on the piano. He put his hand out and began to play the Satie again, with a lighter touch. The first chords struck at my heart now that I heard them clearly: so simple, so elegant.
“Hungary is my homeland,” he said, his voice distant.
“I thought so,” I nodded. “You sound kind of like my grandmother. Your accent.”
“I have an accent?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, his fingers continuing into the first slow crescendo. “Have you been to Hungary?”
“No,” I said. “I’d like to. Her whole family was from there. She always told me it was beautiful.”
“And your father?” The first low dissonant notes came in from the bottom.
“He’s in Hollywood with his new wife. They’re very famous.” I couldn’t help but frown, tensing as I thought about the other side of my family, and for a few moments Eliot was silent, letting the music flow from his hands. The softness of the notes relaxed me.
“Fame is not always nice,” he said finally, launching into the second part of the melody.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, although it did. “I live with my grandmother. I’m nobody to him. Or to anyone.” The bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
Eliot stopped playing in the middle of a measure, and silence spilled across the distance between us. He took a deep breath before speaking, his words tracing a slow tempo in the air.
“You are a mathematician,” he said. “And a musician.”
“I’m not anything,” I said. “I’m just—” I’m just Brynn. I cut the words off quickly, frightened suddenly that I might slip and give away my real name. “I’m normal. Not really great at music or math.”
Eliot laughed softly and began to play again. The chords sounded lighter this time around.
“You have years to become great,” he said, letting the space draw out between notes. “No need to rush. See how badly I play? And I’m even worse at math.” A sparkle of teasing glimmered in his eye, but I could not tell if he was teasing me or himself.
“Most people are bad at math,” I said.
“True. So perhaps we have a long way to go before we are satisfied. We have plenty of time.” His eyes caught mine, and the second meaning behind his words made my breath catch in my throat. I coughed and looked up at the piano score, pretending to follow along with the notes. He played the second coda perfectly, hitting the exact right balance between lightness and emotion. I closed my eyes for the final two chords, letting my heart swell as they resolved upward and faded into the air.
“Valentina.”
The brief pause before my look of recognition must have given me away, but he seemed not to notice. He was lost in himself.
“Yes?”
His eyes lowered, unwilling to meet mine, and his fingertips ran along the ivory keys slowly, tentatively.
“You play beautifully.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brass key. He handed it to me, turning his head up, and my lips parted when he pressed his palm on top of mine. His eyes were fierce, demanding, as though he had made up his mind about something.
“What’s this?”
“The key to this room. So you can become great a bit more quickly.” He smiled, his hand still on top of mine. “I’ll let the music professor know you’re allowed to play.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.” It was the most fabulous gift I’d ever received. I thought of how all the music majors would gape as I walked by them to the midnight piano room. How I would sit down at the keys, the deep, rich tones of the Bosendorfer flowing from my fingertips. Mine!
“Say you’ll practice this piece. I’ll leave it for you. You have a talent for the melody.”
“Thank you.” My voice was a whisper as I turned the key in my hand. I could not understand why he treated me so kindly. He brought one finger up under my chin, tilting my head up to meet his gaze. His touch weakened every muscle in my body.
“Promise me you’ll keep playing.”
“Of course.” At that moment, I would have done anything he asked. I wondered why I trusted him. Perhaps it was because he trusted me. Even though I had lied to him. In that instant, I wanted to take it back, to tell him my real name, but I did not know how.
“It’s easy for mathematicians to lose touch with the world around them. Too easy.” He smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes.
“I’ll practice a lot. I love the Gymnopedies,” I said. And now I had an excuse to learn them.
Eliot reach
ed over and closed my hand around the key, his long fingers covering mine. My heart beat fast as he brought both of our hands up to his bent head. His lips pressed against my knuckles and I felt the heat radiate from my fingers through my entire being as he kissed my hand. An emotion I could not let myself feel pooled inside of me, and I ached with it. Stranger still, I felt his desire through his hot lips on my fingers, even as he released them.
“The Gymnopedies—they’re not hard to get right, just hard to get beautiful. The spaces in between the notes...”
He meant something more than the music, I could tell. I clasped the key in my hand tightly.
“May I take you out for a coffee?” he asked. “Let me repay your generosity.”
“Now?” I wanted to go with him, would have gone with him, but it was so late, and the test for the internship prize loomed in my mind.
He shrugged. “Whenever you wish.”
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Maybe some other time. It’s just that I have a test tomorrow.”
“On a Sunday?” He raised his eyebrows.
“It’s a special thing, for some internship.” I saw a strange look pass over his eyes, but it was gone before I could name it. He rested his hands on his lap and looked back at the sheet music.
“Good night, then,” he said, nodding slightly in my direction. The room felt colder, his voice flat, and I wondered if he had changed his mind about me. Maybe he thought I was lying about the test. I paused before turning to leave.
“Good night.” I left him there, sitting alone at the piano. As I walked through the music hall, I could hear the Satie floating through the air at my back, the ghostly notes finding their way to me in the darkness.
The next day I met Mark in front of the auditorium, the events of the previous night still playing through my mind like a vivid dream. I fingered the small brass key in my pocket. Maye it would bring me good luck on the test. Above us in the sky, gray clouds gathered menacingly, and the wind whipped through the campus, tossing the treetops from one side to the other. With my red hoodie pulled tight over my dark hair, I took the steps two at a time on my way up.
