The Blue Guitar

by Ireland Ann

  Toby adjusts the bench to its proper height. The guitar fits with its waist on his raised left thigh, the footstool cranked as high as it will go. He launches into the tuning dance, popping harmonics, checking one string against another as heat bears down from the spotlight, changing the strings’ pitch. At the same time he listens to sound reverberate in the hall, gauging acoustical brightness and rate of decay.

  First up is the Tárrega, which begins slowly, then builds to a hectic middle section. Important not to think ahead and thus infect the early part with intimations of anxiety.

  He lifts his hands and peers into nothing; plenty of time to gather the sound in his head before beginning.

  Moxie is seventeen. Jasper checks her chart. No, eighteen. Lives in an Iranian community in Thornhill, north end of the city.

  “My parents don’t know what to make of me,” she says in a voice tinged with pride.

  Literature professors in pre-revolution Tehran, the couple now runs a mail-order office supply business.

  “They believe they’re modern,” Moxie goes on, “but they want to control my every move. I freak them out because I have actual friends.” She brushes aside that haunting white hair, such a contrast to the olive skin. That’s when Jasper spots the raccoon rings under her eyes and the taut cheekbones. Her teeth are almost transparent, enamel scoured by gastric acid, and he guesses the girl is bulimic as well as anorexic. She could die of this horror.

  Toby enacts a bit of flim-flam near the end of the piece. Not exactly a wrong note, more of a fudging through a tricky transition. Only people who know the work intimately will guess, which means everyone in the hall. Key thing is to continue and not break the spell. He dabs the Vaseline and rubs it into his fingertips, a slick wakening of the flesh.

  Someone coughs, another blows her nose. Judges take the opportunity of the brief break to rustle papers and make notes.

  Toby holds his hands over the strings, a signal for silence, then launches into the next piece, feeling it soar as his fingers anticipate each nook and cranny.

  On the upper floor of the institute, Jasper leaks a relieved smile. Moxie is diligently writing down a list of leisure-time activities, most of which involve text-messaging or downloading music. In her dreadful thinness there is beauty, but one mustn’t speak of this, though it’s what she loves most in herself, even as it frightens her. Her delicate wrist sweeps across the page, and the crown of her head is almost bare, for the malady causes hair to fall out. Does someone kiss her there? Jasper wonders. A boyfriend, a sister, or perhaps the mother who hovers in constant worry.

  Spanish composers are Toby’s specialty, and he’s proud of this, given his Teutonic ancestry. It is unexpected, this proclivity toward the romantic and glissando passages.

  Next up is the final piece of the compulsories, a wicked tour de force by Toronto composer Jay Krehm. His “Pounce in E-Flat” is a competition favourite because it runs the gamut of virtuoso techniques, including a series of polyrhythmic whacks on the soundboard.

  Toby retunes, basted by the spotlight, while the judges scratch so many points for tone quality, for artistic merit, for presentation — and technique.

  Jasper claims to love this piece, but then he makes a point of loving anything difficult and up-to-date. Toby’s hands shake — too late to pop beta blockers. This is the treacherous moment, just before attacking the opening bars. He looks up at the audience that he can’t see and forces a smile: he’s a message in a bottle tossed into an invisible sea.

  Moxie blithely continues to print in capital letters the story of her life. After school she’ll Skype the boyfriend in Peterborough that her parents disapprove of. Before rising each day she’ll write down her dreams. “I have astonishing dreams,” she insists, waiting for Jasper to pursue this, but he doesn’t.

  The first minefield in the Krehm pops up: a barre chord that crosses all strings but one, and that one is in the middle of the fretboard. Toby lays down his index finger, leaning into it, and luck swarms in. The notorious bar passes with just a hint of string buzz. Quickly, he creates a new memory that supersedes the old; it’s music’s great gift of temporality.

  The middle movement is a hailstorm to be played, according to the composer’s instruction, “as fast as possible.”

  Hold on to your hat: Toby dashes into the flamenco-styled rasqueados that lead up to heroic slaps on the soundboard.

  Bravo, Toby. ¡Olé!

  “Know something?” Moxie stares at Jasper with her sunken eyes. “Everyone thinks I’m making myself puke, but that’s not true. This is the way I’m supposed to be.”

  “I’m not your therapist for the eating disorder,” Jasper reminds her. “We’re here to concentrate on life skills and organizational issues.”

  No wonder she sniffs with contempt. She’s finishing up her list and has managed to write “homework” in the slot just before “bedtime.” Her high school marks have been in the doghouse, she confesses.

  Scheduling saves us; without it there is no way of living inside time, feeling its edges. Toby claims this is what music does, creates bar lines and distinct phrases and rhythm, pressing time into a logical sequence. He likes Jasper to believe that music is a steadying influence, both feet on the ground, but Jasper isn’t fooled. It’s a parallel universe reached via a homemade rocket.

  Krehm’s middle movements are ultra-short: one is thirty seconds long, the other less than a minute, both percussive, sounding like cutlery jiggled in the drawer. In the final movement, regulation length, comes a passage of great tenderness and retro-charm, played in creamy tosta tones over the sound hole — the composer’s nod to tradition. Toby starts in, but he’s going way too fast, caught up in the wild ride of what preceded. The judges must be scratching their heads: is this an interpretative oddness, or a misstep?

  Jasper feels his shoulders tighten as he stares out the window at the boulevard streaming with morning traffic. Noise is muted by double-paned glass. Something is going wrong.

  Toby expels breath, and when he goes back to play the repeat, he’s sweet as birdsong. With luck the judges will think he meant the contrast.

  “Want me to fill out this part?” Moxie tilts the page, index finger pointing to “sports.”

  “Please.”

  Jasper watches as she checks off football, ice hockey, and ping-pong: she’s been lying from the start.

  Toby doesn’t know what he’s going to be asked to play for his free choice until the last minute. Competitors email a list of possibilities, and the judges announce their pick on the spot. The performer must be ready to enter any of several musical worlds without hesitation.

  Manuel Juerta calls out, “Sor’s Grand Sonata, please, Mr. Hausner.”

  Toby tugs at his cuffs. “Excuse me. That’s not on my list.”

  Juerta peers through his reading glasses at a sheet. “I see it here, son.”

  “That piece was on my first list,” Toby says, clearing his throat. “I sent you a replacement list last month. Didn’t you receive it?”

  The auditorium becomes very quiet, then there is a whispered consultation among the judges and a shuffling of paper.

  Juerta glances up. “We have located it. But this is not a good plan, my friend, to change your mind.”

  Toby bows his head in acknowledgement of this indisputable fact. Jasper would have told him it was a daft idea.

  “Let’s hear the Giuliani,” Juerta says, easing back into his seat.

  Toby’s face relaxes. He could play this in his sleep.

  “I like the way you don’t get on my case about eating,” Moxie offers, tapping the pen against her injured teeth.

  “That’s not my job.”

  “Everyone else does.” She considers Jasper with big amber eyes.

  “So I don’t have to.”

  She doesn’t buy this. “You probably think I want to disappear, so I starve myself. That my dad or some gross uncle had sex with me when I was little and that I hate my boobs.” She rises to he
r feet, teetering with the vertigo that accompanies her condition. Jasper holds out a hand to help, but she waves him off. “Everyone’s making such a big deal about it. Why can’t they just go back to their own lives and stop gawking?” She points to her medical chart. “Write something true for a change.”

  “What might that be?”

  She looks as if she’s going to bark at him, but instead she sits down again with a light thud. “I wasn’t always like this,” she says after a moment. She’s plucking at the material of her skirt. “Something happened. It took on a life of its own.”

  Jasper has read her chart before the session: this behaviour began when her sister left home to go away to college two years ago. A fact that tells him nothing.

  The life-skills chart spills off Moxie’s tiny lap onto the floor. “You actually believe in this crap? Tell me you don’t. It’s too pathetic.”

  The sardonic tone is back, but Jasper isn’t deceived. She tries to wipe away tears without him noticing as she leans over to pick up the paper. The abrupt change in position makes her dizzy again, and she grips the side of the chair. He moves in; he could reach her in one step if necessary. She’s supposed to be drinking Ensure Plus twice a day.

  “I believe in your ability to turn your life around,” Jasper says. “A plan can help you get started.”

  This solid life Jasper presents to her, measured off in teaspoons, holds little appeal. The institute’s room is two-dimensional, a cubist spray of lines and colour. She sees what other people can’t: hunger gives her special powers.

  Jasper points to the chart. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Moxie,” he says good-naturedly. “Erase, please, and start again.”

  She mimes indignation, and when Jasper doesn’t respond, she laughs and says, “Tough crew here,” then hunches her brittle shoulders for the task.

  How her mother must despair, watching her daughter’s flesh fall away. The woman crowds in at every meal, adding a dollop of sour cream or extra meat, then watches anxiously to see what Moxie does with it, every bite and swallow a victory. After the meal, she stands next to the closed bathroom door, ear pressed to the wood, listening to every sound that breaks through the swoosh of the running tap.

  “This is so sick,” Jasper’s client informs him. “You want to know what I’m doing every minute of the day.”

  “It’s not for me, Moxie. It’s for you.”

  She doesn’t fall for this line, either. But instead of attacking him, she changes her tone and speaks in a low voice, barely audible. “I can’t stop.”

  He waits, then says, “I know.”

  “Every morning I wake up — it’s there. First thing I think about, even before my feet hit the floor.” She shakes her head. “You can’t imagine.”

  But he can.

  “Everyone wants to burrow inside me,” she goes on. “The hospital? They can’t get enough, poking around measuring potassium levels, glucose, antibodies, blah, blah heart rhythm, blah, blah thyroid, blah, blah kidney function …” She seesaws back and forth on the chair, voice rising with outrage.

  “What if we all went away?” Jasper asks. “Then what would you do?”

  She seems to be having trouble catching her breath: lung function poor. Maybe feeling an arrhythmia, though the immediate crisis is supposed to be past. Her bony fingers tap her sternum, as if encouraging the engine to rev up. Her whole body seems to quiver from within. “That’s not going to happen,” she says. “I got appointments into next year.” Her fingers now curl over the rim of the chart — such old hands.

  “You’ve heard about the virus,” Jasper prompts.

  “No way I’m going inside an airplane. Those things are bacteria bombs.”

  “This wouldn’t be a good time to end up in hospital again,” Jasper says.

  She rubs her mouth, which is itchy, possible case of thrush.

  Jasper gazes over her head at the wall, the framed photo of Monet’s pastel-hued water lilies.

  Toby is well into the Giuliani by now, a charming piece but hardly the pinnacle of artistic expression. Prickly heat soaks his armpits, masked by the trim blazer he’s bought for this event. Then he finishes, wrist lifting to let the last of the sound float away.

  “I practically died last year,” Moxie says. “They said a couple more days and my kidneys would’ve shut down.” She crosses her legs, making no attempt to mask their alarming thinness: she is in awe of her achievement, even inside her terror.

  “We don’t want that to happen again,” Jasper says.

  “And this list is going to help?” she asks, holding up the chart.

  “What do you think?”

  “Don’t feel bad if you can’t get through to me,” Moxie says. “Because I can’t get through to me, either.”

  The timer starts blinking: session is over.

  “Take the chart home and give it another go,” he says, then holds out a hand to steady her as she rises. She clings to his elbow as they make their way to the door, but already with her free hand she’s searching in her bag for her phone. No doubt she believes that Jasper is ill-defined, that most people stumble through life as deaf as furniture.

  Rachel is talking on the office phone as they enter the reception area. When she spots her boss, she waves and continues to speak to the caller. “I get the picture,” she says with a gesture of exasperation, and Jasper understands it is Luke on the other end.

  “What did our friend want?” Jasper quizzes when she hangs up.

  “Oh, you know.” Rachel assumes a conspiratorial tone. “Making nice before the meeting, hoping I’ll let some tasty bit of news slide out.” She leans back on the swivel chair and plants her feet on the desk. “Don’t worry. I’m a paragon of discretion.”

  Sometimes Jasper regrets confiding details of the current mess: the girl believes it gives her privileges.

  “I need a copy of this document.” He releases Moxie’s chart.

  Rachel hesitates before lowering her feet, as if the mundane task were beneath her.

  When Rachel disappears into the copy room, Moxie says, “She doesn’t like you much, does she?”

  “What makes you say that?” Jasper doesn’t conceal his surprise.

  “That weird look on her face.”

  For a moment Jasper is rattled. He recalls Rachel’s expression while talking on the phone before she spotted Jasper. You can’t say it was gleeful. That would be an overstatement.

  Pens squeak as the judges scribble notes and scores on their clipboards.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hausner!” a voice booms from the wilderness. No hint in its tone as to how he has played. Toby beats an escape to the wings, breathing hard.

  “Outstanding!” Lucy says, touching his back.

  His heart is an ungated pony. “I was okay?”

  “More than.”

  “I stampeded through the last movement of the Krehm.”

  “But you pulled it off.” Lucy clings to his elbow in a proprietorial way as they move down the corridor toward the green room. “Dazzling!”

  “Really?”

  “Where have you been hiding all these years?” she asks.

  “Hiding?” he repeats like a half-wit. He’s running through the program in his mind, focusing on bits where he’d inexplicably strayed from decisions worked out hundreds of times in practice. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “You could, but you haven’t.”

  The Argentine sits on the chair in the green room, hands breezing through the opening bars to the Tárrega. The man is dressed like a movie star — steel-grey jacket with black shirt and turquoise tie. He glances up as Toby enters, nods once, but keeps playing. Feeling his impatience, Toby packs quickly and darts out of the room, not noticing that Lucy has disappeared. He’s ravenous, a tight muscle of hunger, and fixes his mind on a platter of steak frites, the sort of thing Jasper never serves at home.

  Lucy waits outside the recital hall in her summery dress, hand planted on one hip as Toby steps into the daylight.
“They tell me,” she says gaily, “that if you play well here, you might get laid.”

  “Good incentive,” Toby says.

  “I go on in forty minutes.”

  “Then you should be busy prepping, not hanging around here.”

  The smile leaves her face, and he can see the lined skin, the brave red lips. He guesses she has allowed thoughts of home to invade her mind, a substitute anxiety that is more familiar than performance.

  They move toward the dorm, which is a long block through the campus. A slick modern building housing the medical school blocks light in one direction while a dour Victorian edifice crowds the western side. An outdoor art exhibit is underway, and the courtyard is packed with booths displaying watercolours of Old Montreal and marine life, the vendors parked on camp chairs. Lucy threads her way between them.

  “I never practise just before going onstage,” she says, brushing past a booth selling handmade puppets. “What if I blow a passage, or forget it entirely?”

  This is where Toby should reassure her, but he doesn’t, his mind still wrapped around his own performance. As they near the dorm building, Hiro bursts through its double doors and cries, “Absolute disaster!” He waves his hand in front of their faces. The nail of the ring finger is torn, leaving a jagged edge. “I hit on fucking shower tap.”

  Toby lifts the wounded hand and inspects the damage. “Got a Nittaku back in your room?”

  Hiro nods. Nittaku is the Japanese ping-pong ball favoured for cutting into crescents to serve as emergency nails.

  “But I absent special glue,” he says.

  “Fetch the ball and I’ll enact my magic,” Toby instructs. “But first I must eat.”

  As Hiro disappears into the elevator, Lucy says, “Don’t do too good a job.”