Heart and Soul

by Sally Mandel

  Despite my efforts at slowing down the rotation of the Earth and therefore the passage of time, my turn came. Somebody walked myself out to the piano. I somehow made it through the first section but then I got stuck in a loop. Panic had erased my memory totally and my fingers just kept repeating the same measures over and over. Then there was the blur of the keyboard, the nauseating motion as it pitched and rolled, and finally the familiar head full of fireworks that ended in a blank.

  Ziggy walked off with the twenty-five grand. All I had to show for my final performance was a lump the color and size of an eggplant and the realization that it was over for me. My seatmate on the way back to New York must have thought I was escaping a battering husband because all I did was cry and pop Motrin for the lump. Ten years of struggle and hope and disappointment down the hopper, not to mention having to face that old man with the cigar. I felt like I was standing at the edge of a grave, shoveling dirt on my broken heart. Professor Stein was expecting a report as soon as I got home but I could tell when I heard his voice on the phone that he already knew.

  “Thank you for trying, Bess,” he said. “You were brave.”

  “Is there any point in my showing up for my lesson on Wednesday?” I asked.

  There was a hesitation. “Yes. Let’s talk then.” But I could hear the resignation. He was finished.

  I remembered when my grandmother died, the pain in my chest like a broken rib. I would forget, and then it would clobber me all over again. It’s over for you, Bess. You will never be a concert pianist. It was the never part that killed me. Despite everything, I’d been hanging on to the possibility that one day I’d be rid of the terror and could walk out on a stage free and strong. I was almost surprised that there was no relief, only sorrow and a sickening sense of shame.

  It was raining hard when I set off for the Professor’s studio on Wednesday afternoon. I didn’t take my music with me. It was time the old man focused what limited energy he had left on someone who could deliver the goods. He’d done it twenty years ago with Eugene Seidelman and he might still have the satisfaction of creating another star.

  It wasn’t unusual to find his door ajar with a shoe holding it open. Sometimes when he’s been hitting the cigars pretty hard and there’s not much cross breeze, he does that to keep from setting off the smoke alarm. The smell of that funky old stogy was just too much for me. I started crying again out there in the hallway and stood mopping rain and tears off my face. I was damned if I was going to show up all weepy and pitiful. But while I was busy dehydrating myself, I realized that words were floating out along with the cigar smoke. I recognized the voice of David Montagnier. I could almost hear the hiss as my tears evaporated. I shoved my ear next to the opening.

  “There’s no one to equal Eugene as an interpreter of avant-garde composers,” Professor Stein was saying, “but Bess can play anything. The first time I heard her, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. She should have been her generation’s answer to Horowitz.”

  “Tragic for her, perhaps,” David Montagnier said, “but it may be good luck for me.”

  “I tell you, it breaks my heart,” the Professor went on. “And it’s not that she doesn’t have courage, but I’ve never seen a more extreme case. We’ve tried everything short of electric shock.”

  I was amazed that they couldn’t hear my heart clattering like a kettledrum on the other side of the door. I realize it was not exactly kosher, my eavesdropping like that, but I was dying to hear how come my catastrophe was David Montagnier’s good fortune.

  “It’s not just her musicality, Harold,” David went on. “It’s one thing hearing her through a practice studio door but quite another in person. It’s palpable, that star quality. She has extraordinary presence.”

  At that, a surprised snorty noise came out of me, but they still didn’t seem to notice.

  “What’s to become of her, David?”

  At first, I thought Montagnier answered, “I wonder,” but then I realized it was I want her.

  “After playing with her only once?” the Professor asked. “You have no idea if she’ll be able to perform.”

  “Look here, Harold, I knew she was the one the first time I listened to her practicing. What made me walk past that studio that particular hour; that day? I haven’t been down that hall in years. It could have been an old lady with three heads in there, but I knew this was the person I’d been waiting for. I just knew. She was speaking to me through the door, through her music.”

  “How are you going to get her out on a stage?” the Professor asked.

  “I’m not worried about it,” David answered.

  This time I covered my mouth. He wasn’t worried about it!

  “I think either you’re deluded or you’re a little bit in love with her.”

  “I assure you, Harold, neither applies. But you’ll see, I’ll get her past this fainting nonsense.”

  Putting it mildly, this was a lot to absorb. I was pretty light-headed and had to grip the doorknob to keep from toppling over. Professor Stein’s next-door neighbor came out into the hall with her godzilla of a dog on a leash. It shoved into me affectionately and gave me a sloppy kiss on the hand. This seemed like a signal so I knocked and let myself in. Professor Stein was on the windowsill letting in the rain. Montagnier was perched on a pile of Schumann.

  “Hi,” I said.

  They stared at me without speaking. It was a strange moment, really, the three of us stuck there on the edge of something. My eyes went from Professor Stein’s weary old face with all its familiar sags and wrinkles to David Montagnier. Once in a great while, I guess life pulls off some unlikely pranks, and this one was a beaut. There he was, David Montagnier; darling of the media and the concert stage, speaker of six languages, romancer of starlets, brilliant musician and intellectual. Who could possibly have been more alien to me? And all I could think of when I looked at him sitting there on a heap of piano music was, Okay, Bess. You’re home.

  Chapter Four

  The following morning when I showed up at David’s apartment, he greeted me with a grin like an exploding flashbulb. After the dazzle dots cleared, I realized he was smiling because we were identically dressed in jeans and black T-shirts. God, I’m a sucker for men with long, lean legs.

  He gave my shirt a little tug. “A good sign, don’t you think, Bess?” and bent to give me kisses on both cheeks. The last time anybody in my neighborhood ever kissed me on both cheeks was when I was twelve and Jake tried to give me symmetrical hickeys.

  “What can I get for you? Espresso?” David was asking. The man had an old-world courtesy that reminded me of my grandfather. For forty years, Grandpa was the headwaiter at a restaurant in Little Italy. He wore a flower in his lapel, never raised his voice, and nobody ever gave him lip.

  “I’m fine,” I said, but I was nervous. “I think I’d like to dive in.”

  David nodded, pressed his hand against my spine, and walked me over to what I already considered to be my piano.

  We practiced all morning, first the Milhaud, then La Valse by Ravel. I’d always dismissed the Ravel as bubblegum music, but once we started digging in, I developed a healthy respect for the demands of the thing. Impressionist music is a challenge for me because it’s subtle and I’m not, or wasn’t until David got hold of me. But once we started playing, I forgot about everything else, the perfect view out the window, the smell of coffee turning to mud in the kitchen, the E-flat that was slightly off key, even how much I’d wanted to jump the guy at the other piano. Three hours passed in a blur of notes.

  Finally, David ran a hand across his face. “Bess, wouldn’t you like to take a break?”

  Once we stopped, I realized how stiff I was. I never felt it in my shoulders. I always worked hard to make sure I didn’t carry tension there because I believed it translated into a brittle tone. But my lower back ached like I’d just had a fusion. “Yuh. Yeah. Yes,” I said. David’s elegant speech made me self
-conscious about my own clunky Long Island lingo.

  “Would you enjoy a walk in the park before we get back to work? Or perhaps you’d prefer to be on your own for a while. Shop, perhaps?”

  I smiled. Shop, with what? I’d taken personal days for both jobs, which I’d probably lose if I kept this up. “A walk would be great.”

  “You’re not sick of me?”

  Oh, sure. Sick of him. Sick about him was more like it.

  We went into the park, following the same route I had stumbled along the first day I played with David and realized I was in love. The trees were still vibrating.

  “How do you feel about those dogs?” he asked.

  I looked around for a German shepherd but he was pointing at one of the frankfurter stands that sell hot dogs with a side of salmonella. I smiled. “I like them fine,” I said.

  We took our hot dogs and Cokes to a bench. It’s amazing how many calories you expend at the piano, and we were both starving. When I was working up a new repertoire, I could count on losing five pounds easy.

  As we scarfed down our lunch, I noticed how people responded to David. The park was pretty full, with joggers, tourists from nearby hotels, and students relaxing on the grass. Everyone stared at David, I guess out of reflex because he was just so beautiful you couldn’t help it. Then in a split second, they’d get it. Most people just smiled and kept a respectful distance. One jogger passed by and said, “Thanks for the music, man.” David gave him a sweet little bow. But a pair of middle-aged women changed direction in midstream and started following us, but I mean tailgating in the worst way.

  David had been talking about a piano he’d played as a soloist in a royal recital in London. The soft pedal had jammed and Rachmaninoff’s thundering Third Sonata came out sounding like a lullaby. In the middle of the first movement, he’d crawled under the instrument in his tuxedo, fixed the problem, dusted himself off and finished the piece.

  “Doesn’t that bother you?” I asked David, nodding toward the women who had almost rear-ended us when we stopped walking. They just stood there staring at him as if they were part of the conversation.

  He barely gave them a glance. “Not really. I’m used to it.”

  “Who’s she?” the shorter one asked David.

  “Bug off,” I said to her.

  David took my arm. “You’ll have to excuse us, ladies,” he said. “Have a lovely afternoon.” We escaped to a spot sheltered by one of Central Park’s monstrous gray rocks. Other than a barefoot guy asleep with his hat over his face, we were alone.

  “I don’t think I’d like that part of being famous,” I said. David had stretched one leg out, the other with knee bent where he rested his hand. A few years later when I saw Michelangelo’s David, I remembered that day and David Montagnier’s hand like a perfect piece of sculpture.

  “Even when I was small, people stared at me,” David was saying. “I don’t know why, really. I adjusted, and now I barely notice unless someone is very aggressive and touches me. That’s unpleasant.”

  “You were playing solo in London when the piano broke?” I asked. “Must have been in ’eighty-six.”

  He thought about it, then smiled. “Yes, you’re right. What else do you know about me?”

  “Ask me a question, any question,” I bragged.

  He thought about it for a second. “All right, what was the first competition I won?”

  “Stuttgart,” I answered. “You played Prokofiev’s Seventh. They liked the way you nailed that killer last movement.” He laughed. I loved the sound of that, maybe especially because it didn’t happen all that often.

  “This could be frightening,” he said. “Do you know everything?”

  “Not enough,” I said. “Like how come you never concentrated on a solo career?” There wasn’t much about that in the Juilliard library. Not on the Internet, either. I’d checked it out at the World Web Coffee House, where for a cup of joe and twelve bucks you could sit in front of a computer for an hour and find out just about anything. If I didn’t have the twelve bucks, it was two dollars for five minutes. I got so I could soak up a lot of information in five minutes.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know,” he said.

  “Oh, I read your article about music being a collaborative art form, but I’m not buying it.” All that crap about carrying on the two-piano tradition now that the golden age of duo pianists was past and Vronsky and Babin were gone.

  He was quiet for a while. Then he looked me square in the face, reached out and cupped my chin. “Because I’m lonely.” I had the feeling I’d just heard something the man had never said aloud.

  When I was eleven, we went on a family camping trip in the Catskills. I was sitting on the steps of our cabin one morning when a fawn came out from the trees. We watched each other for a while, and then he came right up to me. I held my breath and very slowly stretched out my hand. The fawn inched closer and touched his nose to my fingers. Then he turned and disappeared into the wild. That brief, featherweight connection between us, a moment’s gesture of trust, had brought tears to my eyes. At David’s confession, I felt the same sense of privilege.

  “Thanks,” I said to David, for once keeping my questions to myself.

  He stood up and stretched. “Ready to get back to work, Bess?”

  No, I thought. I’d rather sit here on the grass until I rot and turn to muck. It’s just never going to get any better. “Sure,” I said, clambering to my feet and arching my stiff back.

  We played for another four hours. It was real concentrated effort, and I was zonked afterward. That day, like the ones that followed, I kept hoping David would ask me out to dinner or even to stick around for a while after our sessions, but he never did. This went on for three weeks while I stalled my bosses, roller-skated into customers at my night job, and wondered what the fuck I was doing with my life. After all, from this I wasn’t making tips and Angie wasn’t building up any cash in her trust fund. But David just assumed I’d be there the next day, and I couldn’t resist him. I rationalized my weakness by telling myself I was gaining priceless musical experience. The truth was, playing music with David Montagnier was like a drug and I was hooked.

  Not that David was hanging around his apartment in the evenings mooning about me. They have a TV in the bar at Brittany’s and I caught a glimpse of him coming out of a movie premier with some half-naked babe stuck to his hip like Velcro. Her boobs were cannonballs, compliments of silicone. I spent the rest of my shift forgetting people’s orders while I tried to figure out how to drop David the bulletin that mine were the real thing.

  Anyway, that last night I had just gotten to sleep about two A.M. when the phone rang. I guess I was dreaming about David because I thought it was him. It took me a second to recognize Pauline’s voice.

  “Bess. Wake up. Listen to me, honey. There’s been an accident.”

  I switched on the light and tried to shake my brain into consciousness.

  “Your dad’s been hurt in a fire.”

  “Wait. Pauls, is this something you know or something you know?” In my half-asleep state, I wasn’t being very clear, but Pauline got it.

  “No, Bess. He’s at the hospital with your mom and Angie.”

  “Jesus,” I said. It sank in that she was using the present tense. He wasn’t dead, at least not yet. “Where is he?”

  “Long Island General.” The best hospital in Nassau County. Cops and firefighters get preferential treatment when they’re injured on the job.

  “How bad is it?”

  “They think he might have broken his back. When can you get out here?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The trains wouldn’t be running for another few hours. I only had two twenties in my wallet so I rummaged through my pockets and managed to put together another fifteen for cab fare. Then I dumped some essentials in a suitcase. I must have been somewhat out of my mind because along with the toothpaste and underwear I slippe
d in a book of Chopin Nocturnes and a candle shaped like a teapot that Angie had given me for Christmas.

  I was in some state of weirdness in the backseat of that taxi. The central question in my brain was, What if he dies? There were moments over my life, especially after Dutch had given me a throttling, when I had longed for his death. I would count the bruises on my body and burn with hatred. The purity of that feeling was a comfort and made me feel strong. But now the possibility of it as a reality shook me to my bones, as if my skeleton was trying to rearrange itself under my skin. I made a stab at praying. My father would appreciate that—unlike Mumma, he was a believer. It’s just that I figured I’d better hedge my bets. If God was around, I didn’t want to piss Him off by ignoring Him.

  Scenes from my life smeared across the cab window like the city lights. The past five years, my relationship with Dutch had deteriorated into the bitter words of open warfare or, at best, the silence of an uneasy truce. He had always tried to impose his will on me, from the time I was three and wouldn’t eat anything but Cheerios. He had tried bribery, threats, and finally force-feeding. What I did was learn how to vomit at will. Once you learn the knack, it’s a lifelong skill. If I could’ve figured out how to make money from that particular trick, I’d have hired myself out for parties and never bothered with waitressing. Anyhow, I won that battle because my mother got the family doctor into it. I’d lost eight pounds, which is a lot for a pipsqueak.