Blackthorn glanced at a calendar on his desk. “The festival’s scheduled for June fourth to ninth. About three months off.” He flipped the pages of the festival syllabus. “Ah, here we are, Grade Eight Piano. Let’s see here … ah splendid, Max, splendid! They’ve set Mozart’s Sonata Number Three in C Major as the contest piece.”
“Is that good?”
“It’s not good, my boy,” said Blackthorn, “it’s stupendous! Listen.” And from memory Derek Blackthorn launched into the first movement. Before he’d played a dozen bars, Maximilian recognized the theme as one that had caught his attention before, probably on the radio.
When Blackthorn came to the end of the first movement, he punctuated the finale with a resounding C-major chord. “Well, Glick, as they say on Broadway, d’you think you can get in there and knock ’em dead?”
Max nodded an enthusiastic yes.
From Maximilian’s package of mints Derek Blackthorn extracted two more. He gave one to his young pupil and raised the other to eye level, just as Henry Glick had done with his wine glass on Max’s eighth birthday. “To June fourth,” he proclaimed, “and to victory!”
Teacher and pupil popped the mints into their mouths and for a moment or two chewed in silence.
At this point Shizuko Blackthorn, a ball of wet clay in hand, came in from her studio. “What’s all the commotion?” she wanted to know. “I could hear the shouting all the way into my studio.”
“Shizuko, my sweet,” said her husband in an English accent that always reminded Max of newscasts on the BBC, “Maximilian Glick and I are toasting his forthcoming triumph at the music festival. Here, join us.” He handed her the package of mints.
For the first time since she and her English-born husband had met, Shizuko Blackthorn found herself drinking a toast by eating a mint.
Four
It wasn’t Carnegie Hall, but the auditorium of Steelton Collegiate Institute — Steelton High to the local populace — was the city’s largest and used whenever some eminent personage, usually political, came to town. Indeed, over the years so many visiting politicians — including several prime ministers, no less — had chosen this platform to cajole Steelton’s voters during election campaigns that it had become known among local cynics as the “Stage of False Promises.”
On occasion, however, true promise shone forth from that bare curtainless stage. A handful of budding artists — singers, pianists, violinists, trumpeters, clarinetists — had unfolded their talent and fortitude to audiences who loved music enough to brave the railway-station acoustics, a fickle ventilation system and moulded plywood seats as unyielding as a country Baptist.
It was in this auditorium, five years earlier, that a slender, sober girl whose house squatted in the shadow of the steel plant — Amy Czerczewski — seated herself at the only Steinway Grand in Steelton to take the long first step that would free her from the clutches of her bleak background. Her playing of Chopin’s Ballade in G Minor brought the audience, all eight hundred and fifty, to their feet, cheering and shouting, “Encore!” In obedience to their demand, Amy Czerczewski then played the same composer’s Butterfly Etude, a performance so lambent one would have thought she herself was the winged creature. Only when the Steelton Concert Band rose in the orchestra pit and sounded the opening chord of the national anthem did the audience agree to let the young girl with the honey-coloured braids leave the stage.
On this evening in June there were five contestants in the Grade Eight Piano category. Each had been given a number; the numbers were then drawn from a box, lottery-style.
The first, Bobby Rosenberg, was the son of Dr. Rosenberg, the local orthodontist. Dr. Rosenberg was determined that Bobby would not spend his life among faulty occlusions. No indeed, Bobby would be a concert pianist at all costs, even if it meant the good doctor was still fitting braces when he was ninety-five. There were just two problems: first, Bobby Rosenberg hated to practise.
“Getting that boy to sit down at the piano is like pulling teeth,” Dr. Rosenberg complained one night at the Glicks’.
Bryna Glick said, “That should be easy for you; after all, you are a dentist.” Dr. Rosenberg, who never did extractions, didn’t think this was funny and later that evening grumbled to Mrs. Rosenberg that old women like Bryna Glick should be seen but not heard.
The second problem was that Bobby Rosenberg had no talent. This fact he proceeded to demonstrate within the first twenty seconds of his performance.
Among the contestants waiting their turn anxiously in the wings were two festival officials, one of whom Maximilian heard whisper, “That kid plays like he’s wearing gloves.”
“Yeah,” the other whispered back. “Ski gloves.”
The second contestant was Frank Ianucci, Jr. His father, Frank Ianucci, Sr., was the proprietor of Frank Senior’s Pizzeria and was an amateur operatic tenor who knew exactly one song, “O Sole Mio,” which he sang mostly at Italian weddings. Mr. Ianucci, Sr. wanted Frank, Jr. to be an orthodontist someday because, as everybody knew, orthodontists make a great deal of money, of which fact Frank, Jr.’s mouth was proof. There was, Mr. Ianucci used to say, more metal in it than the steel plant produced in a day.
When Frank Ianucci, Jr. finished his rendition of the Mozart sonata, everyone was convinced that the lad might be many things, maybe even an orthodontist, but a pianist? Never!
Next came Morton Kelly, a youngster whose nickname at Max’s school was “Kelly-belly.” At the moment Morton’s problem — his stomach protruded and his arms were very short — made it difficult for him to maintain regular contact with the keyboard.
The same festival official who had whispered about gloves now said, loudly enough for Max to hear once again, “They oughta design a semi-circular piano for that kid, something that’ll fit around him, like a life preserver.”
After three disasters in a row, one of the festival officials commented to the other, “Well, so far, so bad. Who’s next?” There was a hushed pause in the auditorium while the adjudicator, Professor Lacoste, imported from the Toronto Conservatory of Music, penned a short memo in a loose-leaf notebook. Then the portly professor gently touched a gong to begin.
There was a moment of confusion in the wings.
“Number Four, please,” the adjudicator called out.
Then two contestants started for the centre of the stage at the same time. One was Maximilian Glick, the other a girl who’d been standing next to him in the wings biting her lip and taking deep gulps of air, looking every bit as pale and anxious as he.
“Well, well,” said the adjudicator, peering sternly over his reading glasses at the pair who had just walked to the Steinway, “what have we here? A duet? Perhaps it does take four hands to play this sonata properly after all.”
“I’m Number Four, sir,” the young girl said timidly.
“I’m Number Four, too,” said Maximilian Glick. “Congratulations,” said the adjudicator. “You make a lovely couple and I hope you’ll both be very happy.” The audience broke into laughter and the adjudicator was very pleased with himself. “Now then you two,” he said, “there seems to have been some mix-up. One must be Four and the other Five. Are the officials backstage?”
Looking sheepish, one of the officials emerged from the wings and positioned herself between Max and his fellow contestant. “I suggest you toss a coin,” said the adjudicator to the official, “and whoever calls it correctly is Four. May the best man — or woman — win.”
Again the audience laughed and the adjudicator, thoroughly delighted at the way he was dealing with this crisis, rose and took a short bow.
But at centre stage there was little or no amusement, as the official dug into her purse for a coin. “I hope I’m Four,” the girl whispered to Max. “I just want to get this over with and go home.”
“I hope I’m Five,” Max whispered back. “I’m so scared I don’t even think I could play the radio right now.” Much of Max’s self-confidence had evaporated as he’d watched contestan
ts One, Two and Three march on stage like seasoned professionals, only to slouch back into the wings at the conclusion of their performances.
After digging and fumbling in her purse, the official at last produced a penny, which she held up in triumph. This time the audience applauded. “Heads or tails?” she asked Max and the girl.
“Ladies first,” said Max.
“Heads,” said the girl quickly.
“Tails.” Max felt a little foolish. After all, what other choice did he have?
The coin shot up in the air, rolled over once on its way down and disappeared down a hot-air vent in the floor a few feet from where the trio stood. While the festival official looked about, embarrassed, laughter and applause rolled toward the stage from the crowded auditorium.
The adjudicator, a man of surprising patience considering the musical stars he had just seen and heard, rose from his seat, climbed to the stage and addressed the audience. “When I was a post-graduate student of music at the Paris Conservatory,” he explained, “I took a special course in coin tossing.” Voila! A twenty-five cent piece rose high into the air and descended smartly into the palm of his hand.
“Tails,” he announced and looked to Maximilian. “Very well, Number Four. You may proceed.” He smiled devilishly at the girl. “You, young lady, may retire to the wings to enjoy your reprieve.” From the expressions on their faces neither Max nor the girl was happy with the way Fate had dealt with them.
Max seated himself at the Steinway. In the audience, his parents and grandparents stiffened in their seats. Across the aisle, Derek Blackthorn, looking as rumpled as ever in a dark brown corduroy suit, drew a fresh package of cigarettes from his jacket and began fidgeting nervously with the lid. Without doubt, if smoking had been permitted in the auditorium, Blackthorn would have smoked all twenty cigarettes at once.
The adjudicator nodded. The boy took a deep breath and felt his fingertips touch the cool ivory keys of the Steinway. Strange. He couldn’t remember lowering his hands to the keyboard, but notes began to sound, whole strands and clusters of notes, some fast, some slow, some loud, some soft. He could feel the soles of his shoes on the pedals; he knew something was working down below, but had no idea how well or how poorly. His right thumb and forefinger were certainly working to schedule, turning the pages of the music at precisely the right moment.
And then, suddenly, the big C-major chord. It was over. All over. And, just as suddenly, Maximilian Glick was standing at centre stage. There were applause, cheers, whistles from somewhere out there in the dimly lit hall full of faces.
And then he was back in the wings. Even here people were applauding. The two festival officials (including the lady with the penny) were smiling at each other, exchanging nods of approval. It finally dawned on Maximilian Glick that he had played well. Better than well. “Brilliantly!” That was the word the penny-lady used.
Again the hall fell silent. Again the gong sounded. Number Five made her way to the Steinway, seated herself and awaited the fateful nod. “Miss … uh … how’s that pronounced?” asked the adjudicator, looking up at her.
“Brzjinski,” the girl said meekly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Bur-shin-skee,” the girl replied, her voice fading.
“Hmm,” said the adjudicator, “it might help if you insert a few more vowels between all those consonants.”
This time the adjudicator’s sense of humour brought forth a gale of laughter, while at the piano the young girl waited, her face now flushed. She swallowed hard, as if a watermelon had stuck in her throat and she were attempting to dislodge it. The gong sounded again.
After she had played, the audience greeted her rendition, as they had Maximilian’s, with deafening cheers and applause. They would not laugh at the name “Brzjinski” again.
“This one will be a real horse race,” Max heard one official say.
“I’m betting on Five,” said the other.
“I’m betting on Four.”
A third official suddenly appeared in the wings and poked her nose in. “It’ll be a tie for sure,” she said.
Professor Lacoste took hours — or so it seemed to Max — to finish writing out his comments in his notebook. At last he stood up to deliver his verdict. “Mozart’s piano music,” he began, “calls for a fine balance between delicacy and virility, gentleness and firmness.” There followed a long-winded lecture about the proper technique for playing Mozart that Maximilian thought would never end.
Then, abruptly, the lecture was over and so were the hopes of contestants One, Two and Three. Professor Lacoste, summing up their attempts in a few words, smiled charitably over at them. “Let’s just say they need … more work.”
“Doing what?” whispered one of the officials behind Max.
Clearing his throat noisily, Professor Lacoste continued, “Now, we come to contestants Four and Five.”
If someone had dropped a pin in the rear row, it would have resounded throughout the auditorium like a rifle shot.
“I have been adjudicating at music festivals for more than twenty-five years,” said Professor Lacoste. “This old backside of mine gets pretty numb sitting on a hard chair hour after hour, these old ears of mine begin to ache a little after several hours — or several days — of wrong notes and these old eyes grow dim and blurry. And then, every once in a while … praise be to God! … along comes an exception like our young friend here, Miss Celia Brzjinski” — this time he pronounced the name perfectly — “and life seems again worthwhile.”
One of the officials glanced at the girl in braids. “Another Amy Czerczewski,” she said.
Max told himself that this was it; Celia Brzjinski had won the Grade Eight Piano prize.
Professor Lacoste went on to praise the girl’s handling of the piece. “A splendid, sensitive, surprisingly mature rendition!”
Another round of applause for Celia Brzjinski was cut short when the adjudicator held up his hand for silence.
“Equally splendid, sensitive and mature was the version given to us by Mr. Maximilian Glick. If these two musicians decide to enter the professional musical world some day, I predict that Number Five will have problems with her second name, Number Four with his first name. Otherwise, these two may well make a real name for themselves.”
More laughter and applause.
“Lacoste should have been a stand-up comedian,” said one of the officials.
“I have decided in this instance to award the highest marks I’ve ever awarded in this category because of the outstanding musicianship displayed here.” The professor’s face now took on a grave expression. “I have had to take into account one special factor. One of the contestants handled the pedalling with more taste, more discretion. The other was a bit heavy-handed, or should I say heavy-footed. And this is a crucial consideration in a Mozart sonata. So …”
The adjudicator paused. Max stopped breathing. Celia Brzjinski closed her eyes.
“So to Miss Celia Brzjinski I have awarded ninety-two marks.”
That was it. The girl had won.
“And to Mr. Maximilian Glick … ninety-four.”
A whoop sprang from somewhere in the audience. Max was certain it came from Bryna Glick. He’d heard something like it before, on the night of the Steelton Foods of the World contest, when Bryna’s all-day spaghetti sauce edged out Mrs. Frank Ianucci’s in the Italian category.
Maximilian was recalled to the centre of the stage to receive his First Place Certificate. While he waited for Professor Lacoste to present it to him, he glanced out across the audience. With disbelief, he noticed Derek Blackthorn buttoning his jacket neatly and straightening his plain dark brown tie. Two miracles in one night!
Five
On the drive home from Steelton High, Maximilian sat in the rear seat between the competing perfumes of his mother and grandmother, clutching the certificate
rolled and tied with a gold ribbon. Henry Glick drove, while beside him Grandfather Glick gloated.
�
��The boy won by a mile,” said Augustus.
“By a foot, is more like it,” said his son.
Max’s mother, overcome by the emotion of the night and a little weepy, spoke quietly. “I can’t help feeling sorry for the girl.”
“Nonsense,” Bryna Glick snapped. “Max won fair and square. The girl was excellent. Maxie was more excellent. That’s life. Somebody has to win, somebody has to lose.”
“And you’re the one that says what fun music is supposed to be,” Sarah said.
“Of course it is, Sarah dear,” replied Bryna. “The quest for excellence is always a thrill.”
“Sounds awfully cold-blooded to me, Mother, with all due respect.”
From the front seat, Henry called over his shoulder, “C’mon you two, cut it out. This is Maximilian Glick’s victory night.”
Not another word was spoken and Max could sit back, enjoying the respite, allowing his thoughts to rewind. For a moment he was on the stage again, blinded by the footlights, acknowledging applause from people he could barely see. Then, with some effort, he adjusted his vision to catch sight of Mr. Blackthorn fingering the knot in his tie, just as the fastidious Rabbi Kaminsky would habitually pinch the knot in his, whenever he rose to address his congregation.
Two men — Rabbi Kaminsky and Derek Blackthorn — as different as two men could be. The one with a military record now carrying himself in a stooped self-conscious posture, arms hanging long and awkwardly at his sides, as if all of him were strung together with baling wire; the other, having served in no militia in his life, but polished and straight as a sentry. Neither had ever said more than “Good day” to the other in passing and yet both had become, each in his own way, Maximilian’s personal luminaries, ascending to light his way and warm his youthful aspirations, descending long enough to let the boy be himself, all done with uncanny timing and reliability, like the rising and setting of the sun itself.
The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick Page 4
