by Helen Dewitt
I waited for Sib to go on but she didn’t go on. She picked up the remote. ON. PLAY.
I thought: This is an explanation?
STOP.
The thing is, said Sib. She walked up and down.
Do you know what Boulez says somewhere? she said.
No, what does Boulez say somewhere? I said.
Comment vivre sans inconnu devant soi. Not everyone can.
Fine, I said.
Do you know what I said when I woke up? said Sib.
No, I said.
Rage, rage against the dying of the night. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear that from your friend.
No, I said.
On the other hand what’s done is done and here I am and London, with all its shortcomings, is hardly a place of previously unspotted potential. How many people on the planet?
Five billion, I said.
Five billion, and as far as I know I am the only one in all those billions who thinks children should not be in absolute economic subjection to the adults into whose keeping fate has consigned them. I think I should stick around and write a letter to the Guardian.
I said I could write it and sign it Ludo Aged 11.
You can write to the Independent, said Sib. And I’ll write one to the Telegraph signed Robert Donat just on the off-chance.
For someone who believes in the importance of rational argument Sib avoids the issue 9 times out of 10.
She began walking up and down and walking by the piano paused and sat down and started playing a short piece she has been playing off and on for years.
7
I’m a genuine samurai
My father brought out a book about his visit to Easter Island.
Hugh Carey left to walk across Russia alone.
Sorabji got a knighthood.
The painter left to walk across a desert.
Szegeti joined his partner to win the World Bridge Championship 1998 after completing a brief fact-finding mission in Jackson, Mississippi for Nelson Mandela.
People went on with their lives and got on with their jobs.
I didn’t look for another father. I should have gone around saying Open Sesame, but I just wore his jacket and rode the Circle Line around and around and around.
One day I took the Circle Line to Baker Street. It didn’t matter which way I went, so I walked along the Marylebone Road and then turned north. I walked up one street and turned left and down another and turned right and up a third and turned left again. Halfway up the street I heard the sound of a piano.
A herd of octaves fled up and down the keyboard like panicked giraffe; a dwarf hopped on one foot; twelve toads hopped four-footed. I sat on the doorstop while the XXV variations of Alkan’s Festin d’Aesope dazzled an indifferent street. So who’s this? I thought. I had heard Hamelin’s recording of the piece, and I had heard recordings by Reingessen and Laurent Martin and Ronald Smith and I had once heard a broadcast of Jack Gibbons, and when you have heard these recordings you have heard the five people in the world who play it. This wasn’t one of them.
Glenda the Good glided on a gleaming sea drawn by six snowy swans. The Grande Armée crossed Poland on pogo sticks. A woman with a shopping bag walked across the street and up steps. A man with briefcase walked briskly by like an overacting extra.
Six dogs tapdanced on tabletops.
The Variations came to an end. There was a short pause.
A flight of octaves took off like startled flamingoes. No one stopped and stared.
He played variations on the Variations and variations on the variations and he would play one variation next to another next to which it had not originally been juxtaposed.
Are you ready for another fight? No prospects. It could be dangerous.
I stood up and knocked on the door.
A woman came to the door. She said: What to do you want?
I said: I’ve come for my piano lesson.
She said: Oh.
She said: But he doesn’t give lessons.
I said: He’ll see me.
She said: Oh I don’t know
I said: I’ve come for a lesson on Alkan, the once celebrated contemporary of Chopin and Liszt, passed over for the directorship of the Conservatoire through sordid political machinations in favour of a mediocrity and so condemned to a life of bitter obscurity only to die (as legend has it) crushed under a bookshelf while attempting to take down a volume of the Talmud. Only six people in the world today play his music of the six perhaps three are active of the active only one lives in London I have come for a piano lesson with him.
She said: He hasn’t said anything to me.
I said: Oh, go on
She said: Well all right then.
I went through the door. I was in a big room with a bare floor and peeling plaster and a grand piano. Someone sat at the piano—I could only see his legs.
He said:
What do you want?
He raises his sword. He draws it back with a slow sweeping motion.
I said: I had to see you because I’m your son.
He stood up. He was about 25. He was no Mifune lookalike, but it was not likely that I was his son.
He said: What is this shit?
I didn’t know what to say. Then I thought of something to say. I said:
Hey you!
asking me ‘Are you a samurai?’ like that…
what a nerve!
He said: What?
I said:
Even though I look like this, I’m a genuine samurai.
I did not seem to be making much of an impression. I persevered:
Hey, I’ve been looking for you the whole time ever since then
thinking I’d like to show you this.
Look at this.
This genealogy.
A genealogy belonging to my family for generations.
You bastard (you’re making a fool of me)
Look at this. (You’re making a fool of me)
This is me.
He said Ah.
He said:
This Kikuchiyo it talks about is you?
I said:
That’s right
He said:
Listen, if you’re definitely this Kikuchiyo it talks about
You must be 13 this year
This genealogy, where did you steal it?
I said:
What? It’s a lie! Shit! What are you saying?
He laughed.
I said
You left out some lines
He said
I haven’t seen it in years, Kikuchiyo-san.
I remembered suddenly that according to the Kodansha Romanized Japanese-English Dictionary kisama is [CRUDE] and very insulting, that according to Sanseido’s New Crown Japanese-English Dictionary kono yar meant you swine, and that according to Japanese Street Slang baka was Japan’s most popular swear word, baka ni suru meant don’t fuckin’ fuck with me and shiyagatte was the offensive gerund. I thought I’d better stop while I was ahead.
I went over to look at the piano. It was a Steinway, but it was the only thing in the room apart from a rolled-up sleeping bag and a suitcase.
I said
Did you know that Glenn Gould practically rebuilt CD 318 so that it wouldn’t sound like a Steinway?
He said
Everybody knows that.
He said
Do you play the piano?
I said
Not Alkan.
I said
I can play Straight No Chaser.
He said
It doesn’t matter. I don’t give lessons. I don’t even give concerts.
I said
I wasn’t asking for lessons.
Then I said
Why don’t you give concerts?
He started walking up and down the bare floor. He said
I kept giving the wrong size of concert. People missed their trains and they found it detracted from their enjoyment of the evening.
Then he laughed. He s
aid: I thought a few hours one way or the other couldn’t matter but people don’t like to catch just any train.
He was still walking up and down. He said: People kept giving me good advice.
I said
Why don’t you make a CD?
He stopped by the window. He said
No one would buy the kind of thing I’d like to put on a CD and I can’t afford to make a CD that no one will buy.
I said
Variations on variations on variations
& he said
Something like that.
He said
It’s funny the things people won’t buy.
He started pacing up and down the floor again. He said
When you play a piece of music there are so many different ways you could play it. You keep asking yourself what if. You try this and you say but what if and you try that. When you buy a CD you get one answer to the question. You never get the what if.
He said
It’s the same only worse in Japan. People take the train every day. They get on a train and get off and get on and get off day after day.
He said if that was the thinkable you’d think the unthinkable would be—
He said even if you weren’t interested in music wouldn’t the idea that things could be different—
He stopped by the piano. He said
But actually people don’t really like a piece of music until they’re used to it.
He began picking at one of the thin steel strings of the treble. Ping ping ping ping ping. Ping ping ping
He said
I’m stuck in a rut myself. I’ve been doing this too long. I keep telling myself I should bite the bullet, play some of my party pieces and make a comeback. What’s the use of spending my life in this room?
Ping ping ping
Then I go and look at CDs.
Ping
Hundreds of CDs with whole pieces played once for the thousands of people who want CDs with whole pieces played once.
Ping
So those thousands of people are doing OK and they’ll go on doing OK even if I don’t play my party pieces
Ping ping
But anyone who wants to hear what if can’t hear it anywhere, not in the store not in the world not with that kind of piece
Ping ping ping ping ping
He said
I can’t afford to make a CD that 5 people would buy, but there’s something about playing my party pieces for the thousands of people who can always find party pieces to choose from, there’s something about walking away from the 5
He said
Not that I’m doing them much good in this room.
I said
Well I could afford to make a CD that no one will buy
& he said
What?
He said
Why, do you have £10,000?
I said
I’ve got something that’s worth a lot of money. I could get a lot of money for this,
& I took the painter’s heart out of my backpack. It was in a plastic folder to protect the silk, the white silk was still white and the blood was brown.
He said
What is it?
I explained what it was and he said
I’ve never heard of him, thanks but I can’t accept this
I said he could and he said he couldn’t and I said he could and he said he couldn’t.
I said: But what if
He said: What if what
I said: What if it was a matter of life or death
I said: What if it was a matter of a fate worse than death
He said: What are you talking about?
I said: What if someone called the Samaritans
He said: Who?
I said: The Samaritans. They’re a group of people who think anything is worse than not breathing. You can call them if you’re feeling depressed.
He said: So?
I said: What if a person called the Samaritans and they weren’t very helpful? What if a person kept doing the same thing day after day? What if a person kept riding the Circle Line around and around? What if there was a person who thought the world would be a better place if everyone who would enjoy seeing a Tamil syllabary had access to a Tamil syllabary? What if there was a person who kept changing the subject? What if there was a person who never listened to anything anybody ever said?
He said: Did you have anyone special in mind?
I said I was speaking hypothetically.
He said: And what exactly did you think this hypothetical CD could do for this hypothetical person?
He was smiling. He was strumming the strings of the piano softly.
I said: What if the person got off the Circle Line at Embankment, crossed the bridge to Waterloo, took a train to Paris and went to work for a famous sculptor?
He said: What, because of some stupid CD? What planet are you living on?
I said: The premise was that there were only 5 people on the planet who would buy the CD, obviously most people would not get off at Embankment because of a CD but maybe the type of person who would buy the CD would be the type of person who would.
I said
The type of person who thinks boredom a fate worse than death. The type of person who always wants things to be different. The type of person who would rather die than read Sportsboat and Waterski International.
Oh, he said. That type of person.
He picked out the Seven Samurai theme on the treble strings.
Better not take out an ad in Sportsboat and Waterski International then.
He picked the theme out in the bass.
I said
Look at it this way. You don’t have to make hundreds of CDs. You could just make 10. 5 for you and 5 for me. Then they’d be the only 10 in the world and they’d be valuable. Say we get £10,000 for the heart, say it costs £1,000 to make the CDs, say they sell for £1,000 apiece, we could either maximise our profits or we could even give one away if we happened to know the type of person who didn’t mind missing trains.
He went back to the treble. Ping ping ping PING ping ping PING ping ping ping
He did not seem to be finding the argument persuasive.
I said: I could teach you a language. Would you like to learn a language?
He said: What language?
I said: What language would you like to learn?
He said: What do you recommend?
I said: I could teach you to count to 1000 in Arabic. I said: I know about 20 languages so if there’s some other language you want to learn I might know it. I said: Or I could teach you the periodic table. Or I could teach you survival techniques.
He said: Survival techniques?
I said: I could teach you edible insects.
He said: What if I don’t want to eat an insect?
He went back to the bass. Dum dum dum DUM dum dum DUM dum dum dum
I said: What do you want me to do? Do you want me to come back in 10 years? For all you know it may be too late.
There was a short pause. He looked thoughtfully at the strings of the piano. I thought I was really getting somewhere.
He took his other hand out of his pocket and began picking out an arrangement of the samurai theme on two strings.
I did not know what to say. I said
You could play anything you want on the CD
He said
Or I could play something by special request. Any ideas?
I said
Well
Then I said
You could play something by Brahms.
He said
By Brahms?
I said
Do you know Brahms’ Ballade Op. 10 No. 2 in D major?
He said
What?
I said
Brahms’ Ballade Op. 10 No. 2 in D major? It’s part of a set.
He said
Yes I know.
He turned and rested his arm on the curved wooden side of the piano. He said
Do you know the rest of the set?
I said that was the only one I had heard because I knew someone who played it a lot but of course if he wanted to put the whole set on the CD he could because it was his CD and he had complete artistic control.
He said
I don’t know
I did not know what to say.
I said
I could teach you judo.
He said
I don’t know
I said
I could teach you piquet.
I could teach you Lagrangians.
I did not know what to say.
I said
Make this CD and I’ll teach you to play Straight No Chaser.
He said
Done.
