Madame Sousatzka

by Bernice Rubens

  ‘It’s nearly over.’ The thought flashed through Marcus’s mind with a certain regret, and in the loud tone of the ending he suddenly remembered his mother’s words before the rehearsal. He’d forgotten to make a point of remembering his soft parts. Had they been soft enough? He’d eat the carrots in case they hadn’t. Why couldn’t he be like Peter Goldstein, who ate carrots like a rabbit? Why did he have to lie to her? Tomorrow they’d go together into her brown world and he’d make it up to her. I wish I could play it through all over again, he thought.

  ‘You must be sorry,’ said Madame Sousatzka to herself, ‘that it is nearly finished.’

  ‘I want to give concerts tomorrow, and the next day. So many concerts. So many orchestras.’

  ‘You will give many concerts, Marcus. It is only the beginning.’

  ‘Madame Sousatzka, listen to the ’cellos. I wished I played the ’cello.’

  ‘Listen, Marcus, how the ‘cello understands you. The piano and the ‘cello, they are close friends.’

  ‘I like this conductor, Sousatzka. He understands Beethoven. D’you think they will ask me to play with them again, Sousatzka?’

  ‘The conductor loves you, my darrlink. He will ask you again.’

  The conductor, too, was indulging in those thoughts that occupied his mind each time he reached the final coda. ‘Will they ask me again, I wonder? I hope the boy likes me. Must give him a good hand-shake afterwards. Perhaps a kiss, too. Depends on the reception he gets. Mustn’t overdo it. He’ll go a long way, this boy. Worth sticking to.’

  ‘I want to play all the Beethovens, Sousatzka, the Tschaikovskys, the Brahms and all the Mozarts.’

  ‘You will play more concertos, Marcus. Tschaikovsky, Brahms. Everything but Mozart. For Mozart you are not ready. Only Sousatzka can make you ready for Mozart.’

  The audience were beginning to close their programmes, anticipating the end of the concerto from the stirring fortissiomo of the full orchestra, rather like a film audience who recognize a long-shot of a cinemascopic sunset as a cue to reach for their coats.

  The clapping began almost before the orchestra finished. And when the playing was over, Marcus sat quite still, his head bent, listening to the unfamiliar sound of applause and trying to understand that it was for him. Before Jenny could join in the clapping, she had to settle things. She shaded in the third little box in the margin and ticked off the work for good. Then she closed her programme, put her bag on the floor, slightly rolled up the sleeves of her dress, and offered her contribution. Cordle had stood up, shouting ‘Bravo’s’. The man behind him was obliged to stand up too, because Cordle blocked his view of Marcus, likewise the man behind him, and so on in a single slanting line right to the back of the stalls. Uncle threw her arms round Madame Sousatzka, congratulating her on her achievement. Marcus was standing, bewildered, and bowing in quick jerks to the audience. The conductor took his hand and they bowed together. The applause swelled, and the conductor kissed him. He’d decided it was worth it. Marcus began to walk off the platform, but the volume of applause did not decrease. When he was once again behind the green curtain, the little green man clapped him on the back. ‘You’d better go out again,’ he said. ‘They’re calling for you.’ He drew the curtain aside, and Marcus ran up the steps. As he passed the player on the fourth desk, he noticed again the long fair hair on the back of his jacket. The hair had bred during the performance and two or three smaller hairs lay nearby in a fresh bed of dandruff. Marcus paused to remove the parent hair. He didn’t need it any longer.

  The applause was thunderous. Madame Sousatzka looked round at the posse of ambulance women. They sat demurely, their hands clasped on their laps. Strictly impartial. It was then for the first time that Madame Sousatzka began to applaud. ‘Darrlink,’ she shrieked, and Marcus heard it through the clapping. He smiled in acknowledgement, and bowed again. Then he turned and bowed to the audience behind and to the orchestra. The conductor summoned the orchestra to stand and Marcus shook the leader’s hand. Everybody seemed mightily pleased with everybody else. The critics in the audience got down to their jottings. ‘The boy will go far,’ wrote one. He was obviously on trial with his paper and he didn’t want to commit himself. Another took out his cliché book and ticked off, ‘well-deserved acclaim’. One critic, probably the mouth of a committed paper, wrote ‘a miniature Richter’ on his programme. Another critic with literary aspirations wrote ‘a velvet suit filled with genius’. He was rather pleased with that one, and decided to get a photograph to go with it. He looked at the last item on the programme, and seeing that it was the Beethoven Fifth, he decided that nothing could go radically wrong with that one. So he could go home and write up his piece with the help of his programme notes.

  The applause waned slightly, and a body of isolated people in the hall suddenly reinforced it. Marcus came back again. It was the fourth time. There was a shout of ‘Oleh’ from a very English-looking gentleman in the audience who, had he had a hoof in his pocket, would surely have thrown it.

  Throughout the applause Mrs Crominski had sat immobile, her hands clasped together. And as the applause subsided and people began to leave the hall for the interval, she uncleaved her hands and gently and almost inaudibly clapped them together. She wanted to be alone in her applause. She noticed that Manders’s seat was empty, and Madame Sousatzka was hurrying down the aisle towards the exit. She smiled to herself at their haste. Although she was excited at the thought of seeing Marcus, she felt no pressing necessity to get to him first. She was confident that of them all, she would receive the best welcome. But at this thought, she wondered whether in fact he would be pleased to see her. He’d liked her hat, hadn’t he? But the others. Madame Sousatzka and Mr Manders. They’d been in on it from the beginning. They’d been to the salon, they’d been to the rehearsal, and they were with him now. ‘But I’m his mother, aren’t I?’ she said aloud. She got up quickly, furious at herself for having waited so long.

  When Madame Sousatzka had reached the artist’s room Marcus was sitting on the table with his back towards her, and Manders was bending over him, whispering. When they saw Madame Sousatzka, Marcus reddened slightly. He went over to her and kissed her. ‘It was wonderful, my darrlink,’ she said. ‘You enjoy it?’

  He was panting with excitement. ‘Oh, Sousatzka, it was marvellous, and Mr Manders says I can play a lot more. I can have thirty concerts a year, he says.’

  Mrs Crominski knocked at the door and it was Manders’s authoritative voice that asked her to come in. She was angry with herself that she had knocked and given someone the right to grant her entry. She walked boldly into the room.

  Even Mrs Crominski was surprised at the way Marcus received her. He practically leapt forward, and kissed her affectionately. ‘Momma,’ he said. ‘Momma, did you like it? What was it like out there? Were you nervous? D’you feel better?’ He was hugging her all the time. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Madame Sousatzka looking at them. He immediately withdrew from his mother, holding her at arm’s length. He noticed that his embrace had dislodged her hat. The veil was largely concentrated around her ear and it looked browner than ever.

  ‘I don’t think I have the pleasure,’ Mrs Crominski said, nodding at Manders. For Mrs Crominski, everything and everybody was a pleasure to be proved otherwise.

  ‘This is my mother,’ Marcus said tonelessly. He remembered the pride with which he intended to make this introduction, and he was saddened by his inability to show it.

  ‘Mrs Crominski,’ Manders said expansively, turning his back on Madame Sousatzka. ‘It is indeed a great pleasure. How surprising it is that we have not met before. I fully expected you at our little salon, when Marcus played so delightfully. We had a grand party,’ he rubbed it in, ‘you would have been so proud of him. My wife was most disappointed you couldn’t come.’ He turned to nod at Madame Sousatzka, assuming she was keeping the score.

  Mrs Crominski glanced at Madame Sousatzka, too. ‘I was thinking I wasn’t invited,�
� she said triumphantly.

  ‘Oh nonsense,’ Manders said. ‘We’re not formal about this sort of thing. We don’t send out invitations. And after all, you are the boy’s mother. What you reap,’ he said parsimoniously, ‘you are entitled to sow. And much more will you sow from our seed here.’ He rather liked the metaphor and was prepared to flog it to death. He put his arm round Marcus’s shoulder. ‘A great harvest,’ he went on mercilessly, ‘but he must play, play, and play again.’

  ‘You mean more concerts he should give?’ Mrs Crominski said.

  ‘Many more. Thirty a year at least.’

  Madame Sousatzka stood up. She took Marcus’s hand and pulled him towards her. ‘You cannot play so much,’ she said. ‘At least, if you play so much, you cannot play well. With thirty concerts a year, there is time only for worry, for rehearsal. No time for the lesson. And you must always have the lessons. You play well, my darrlink, but I know you will play better. Sousatzka knows. At the moment, perhaps I let you play two concerts in the year.’

  Mrs Crominski gasped. ‘I let, I let, d’you hear?’ she marvelled.

  ‘Every week I am giving the boy music,’ Madame Sousatzka insisted. ‘You learn something with Sousatzka, Marcus, yes?’ She held him close to her. ‘Sousatzka gives you the life, no?’ she pleaded with him to confirm it. But he was silent. He couldn’t imagine ever living without Madame Sousatzka, but he wanted concerts, too. Why couldn’t he have them both, and his mother and Jenny and Cordle and Uncle and Manders?

  ‘If I don’t go to school,’ he said, ‘and I do nothing else but practise and have lessons, I’ll still have time for concerts.’

  ‘He’s left school already,’ Mrs Crominski marvelled again.

  ‘Madame Sousatzka,’ Manders interrupted. ‘I don’t want to use this time to discuss these matters. But one thing is certain. If you don’t allow Marcus to give concerts, many concerts, I can’t handle him.’

  ‘Who’s to allow? Who’s to allow?’ Mrs Crominski stepped in, begging her rights. ‘For Madame Sousatzka, Marcus is not ready even for this concert.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Manders warmed to her, ‘but when the crop is ripe, it must be reaped.’ Old Manders was back on the farm again. ‘Not ready,’ he laughed, ‘you heard the applause out there. They’ll want to hear him again. They know what they like. The public always knows.’

  ‘They know what you know,’ Sousatzka shouted at him. ‘Nothing.’

  Marcus sat between them, trembling.

  ‘You agree he played well?’ Manders refused to be brow-beaten.

  ‘Of course he played well. My Marcus cannot play bad. But those people out there, they clap anyway. Even if he play like … er … like the other boy on your books last week, I don’t say the name. You know who it is. Believe me, Manders, that boy has money. That’s all. No talent he has. He pays you to give the concert, he pays the orchestra to play with him. He is a prostitute. You know that word, Manders?’ she threatened him.

  Manders lost his temper. ‘You’re jealous, that’s what you are. You’re jealous. You’re afraid to let him go.’

  ‘I want to play,’ said Marcus simply.

  Through the door, they heard the familiar victory opening of the Beethoven Fifth.

  After the concert, a queue formed outside the artist’s room. The door opened and Manders came out, letting in the queue like a cinema commissionaire. Mrs Crominski and Sousatzka stood behind Marcus as the first people congratulated him. Jenny, Cordle and Uncle were in the first batch. They approached Marcus together, kissing him and Sousatzka and whispering excitedly in a huddle, excluding all those waiting in the queue. When they had finished, they stepped aside and sat on the long couch alongside the wall, thus establishing themselves as close friends of the artist’s. They looked on benevolently, as the men and women came to offer their congratulations. A little man went up to Marcus shyly, and whispered something in his hair. Then he stepped back and brought forward a mountain of a woman, holding her away from him with an outstretched arm, as if exhibiting her, eyeing her with pride and with satisfaction as if he’d made her himself. She looked at Marcus and smiled. And then she plunged forward and kissed him on both cheeks, panting loudly and breaking out into an endless stream of pure Russian. Marcus nodded occasionally and smiled. The voice flowed on over a series of sudden equidistant waterfalls, and there was no indication that she was ever going to stop talking. Suddenly, her little owner stretched out his hand, and marched her away in the middle of a sentence, as if she were a musical box which he had overwound and which had begun to repeat itself. She was followed by a man in parenthesis who stepped forward, took Marcus’s hand, let it go, and disappeared without saying a word. Suddenly Manders reappeared with his wife, and they took up their positions next to Marcus. Young boys and girls were coming forward with their programmes to be autographed, and Marcus moved over to the table to sign his name. His mother followed him. The Manders and Madame Sousatzka now remained together in a little group.

  ‘It’s a wonderful turn-out,’ said Mrs Manders as if she were opening a church bazaar.

  ‘He’s been a great success, and he deserves it,’ Manders said. ‘If I have my way, he’ll go far.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you have your way?’ his wife asked with feigned innocence. She was itching for an argument, expecially one in which she was personally not involved. She had enough contempt for her husband to enjoy seeing him bested in a quarrel, and not enough respect for Madame Sousatzka to think that she could do it. ‘You’re his manager, aren’t you?’ she baited. ‘His future’s in your hands.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that, my dear. It seems I have some opposition.’

  ‘But surely not Madame Sousatzka,’ Mrs Manders said, turning to her. ‘Surely you’re not going to stand in the boy’s way?’

  ‘In his way, I shall not stand. In his way as a pianist, I shall not stand. That is why he must learn and practise and have the lesson. The concert is not everything,’ she said.

  ‘But a few concerts,’ Mrs Manders said. ‘Surely one or two a year will not harm the boy’s playing?’

  Madame Sousatzka smiled. ‘Oh no, one or two concerts. Very good. But thirty? No. He is not the machine, my Marcus.’

  ‘Who said anything about thirty?’ said Mrs Manders, turning automatically to her husband.

  ‘I said,’ he said defiantly. ‘If the public are to keep him in mind, he must appear. Continuously. He mustn’t be forgotten.’ Manders was getting angry now. He felt that he was outnumbered. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘he need never have been discovered in the first place. It is only because of me he’s here tonight.’ This thought had been in his mind all day, accompanied by the determination never to voice it. He regretted it immediately he had spoken. Nothing he could have said could have infuriated Madame Sousatzka more.

  ‘Because of you?’ Madame Sousatzka whispered. She had decided to play her trump, and she was going to play it slowly and quietly. ‘Because of you?’ she repeated, ‘or because of Jenny?’

  Manders’s mouth dropped open. Madame Sousatzka prolonged the pause. Give it time to sink in, she thought. Mrs Manders stepped backwards out of line, in order to watch them both. ‘Jenny?’ she breathed. ‘What’s it got to do with Jenny?’

  ‘Ask him,’ said Sousatzka. ‘He knows so much about everybody on his books. Also Jenny is on the books, Mrs Manders. The private books. The diary,’ she added, in case she didn’t make herself clear. ‘Marcus owes it to you, does he?’ she said to Manders. ‘You have taught him the music. You have given him the soul. Yes, Manders?’ She was almost crying now, sensing that she had lost everything. ‘You gave everything to him, yes? The career, the life, the gifts. He owes it all to you, of course.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. Mrs Manders was staring at him. ‘Jenny?’ she asked again.

  ‘Yes, Jenny,’ Sousatzka answered for him. ‘She plays the piano like your husband plays the piano. She knows about the music like your husband
knows. She lives in my house. But she is not my pupil. She has herself the pupils. Your husband is one of them. In fact, he is her favourite. And she does not teach them the arithmetic, Mrs Manders.’ She was at pains to make herself clear. As she looked at Mrs Manders she could not bear to see the quiet pain creasing her face. She herself could no longer hold back her tears, some of which flowed for Mrs Manders too. She started for the door. She stood for a moment behind Marcus, listening to the woman in the queue whose turn had at last come, and who was making the most of it.

  ‘I was moved to tears, to tears, to tears,’ she was saying. ‘You are a pianist to the finger-tips, to the finger-tips, to the finger-tips.’ She obviously carried round her own built-in echo chamber.

  Madame Sousatzka managed somehow to reach the door. The corridor outside was empty, except for one violinist who was dusting the belly of his violin with a yellow duster. She walked down the corridor and found herself again in the empty auditorium. She climbed the steps to the stage, walked slowly across, and sat down at the piano. She stared at the empty hall, then at the seat she had occupied. She shuddered to find it empty. The emptiness of all the seats appalled her. The vast hall was like a desert, politely littered with a few programmes, tickets and sweet wrappers. The boxes along the sides looked like empty drawers that thieves had ransacked and left open. She had often imagined herself sitting at this piano, especially lately in her day-dreams. She had never seen herself in the process of playing. Her dreams always began with the last chord of a concerto. Then she would sit for a moment listening to the applause. Then the bowing, and the shaking of hands, and the clapping that never stopped. The dream was always the same, and the only variation was in the dress she wore. She never saw the audience, or even the orchestra. She saw only herself at the piano and heard the chord and the clapping.