Strange Sweet Song

by Rule, Adi

  Marta.

  Sing draws the Queen of the Tree Maidens, tall and skinny and knobby, with lots of freckles, tangled hair, and enormous, vapid eyes. She’s just putting leaves around her face like a foliage beard when Mrs. Bigelow says, “Okay, we just have a few moments left, and I’d like to hear from each of you which species you chose.” She writes the students’ choices: grosbeaks, mourning doves, tufted titmice (Goatee and Sideburns snicker), chickadees.

  “Cardinals,” Laura says, and Mrs. Bigelow looks up.

  “Hmm … I think I have seen some this year, yes?”

  “I saw one on the way over.” Laura points to the small, open windows. Mrs. Bigelow nods and writes it down. Sing looks; she can see the fading green of the quad, the turning leaves. A lone, massive tree sits across the way, bulbous and smooth, like molasses that’s oozing from the ground into the sky. A pair of crows sit on one of the middle branches.

  “Sing? What species did you choose?”

  “Crows.” The other students snort and murmur.

  Mrs. Bigelow frowns. “Crows aren’t exactly songbirds.”

  “Awwww! Rrraaaaw!” the crows outside hiss. Sing answered impulsively, to get a rise out of Mrs. Bigelow, but now she wonders, What are they saying? “I’d like a mate”? “I’m in danger”? Or just, “I’m here”? She says, “I’d like crows, if it’s all right with you.”

  Mrs. Bigelow keeps frowning but says, “Okay. Crows it is.”

  She says the word crows as if it is strange, out of place. As if it doesn’t belong. As if it isn’t worthy of belonging.

  Nineteen

  BEETHOVEN’S PATHÉTIQUE SONATA IS ONE of the most popular pieces in the world. George didn’t know how many times he had heard it. Hundreds? Thousands? He played it and taught it and studied it. And while the Pathétique would always be exquisite, there were other pieces, other composers, other sounds. George moved on, as one does.

  I’ve learned some Beethoven, Nathan said. Now, in St. Augustine’s bright hall at this ungodly hour on a Saturday, George sat and listened to the Pathétique again.

  During lessons, Nathan was attentive and quiet, absorbing theory and history as quickly as his muscles learned to meet the strange new demands he was making of them. And when George played, Nathan watched his fingers with a savage hunger.

  George knew his student’s ear was extraordinary and that his technical precision was already becoming masterful.

  But now, as Nathan played the first movement of the Pathétique, the ebb and flow of his raw being lent a sweetness and urgency to the music that stirred something in George he had forgotten was there.

  He could not imagine Beethoven himself playing it better.

  From his usual place next to him on the bench, George watched the young man’s long fingers, the curve of his wide shoulders, the exhilaration on his handsome face.

  George’s face, next to Nathan’s in the reflection on the shiny music rack, looked almost like a poor copy, a homely older brother. Droopy curves instead of delicate lines, pockmarks instead of liquid smoothness. But when Nathan’s reflected eyes caught George’s, their gaze was nothing but warmth. George allowed himself to indulge in those eyes for just a moment as the last chord rang.

  “Wonderful!” A shrill voice cut through the piano’s reverberations.

  George leapt to his feet. “Betty! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Nathan stood, smiling politely. “Professor Hardy, what a pleasant surprise.”

  The professor leaned against the doorway, hip cocked. “The pleasant surprise was all mine, my dear. George, I was beginning to think your protégé was just a pretty face. But it seems he plays after all, and damn well. Isn’t that something?” She flashed a red-lipsticked smile. Nathan blushed.

  “Of course Nathan plays well.” George pulled the fallboard over the keys with a thunk.

  “But you’re not a pianist, George, not really,” Professor Hardy said. “Nathan is beyond you. He needs a new teacher. New opportunities.” She approached, the click of her heels echoing. “I wouldn’t mind taking him on myself.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” Nathan said.

  “Come see me if you’re interested.” The professor smiled, and George watched Nathan’s eyes following her as she walked away.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” George said.

  Nathan’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “Why not?”

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?” George’s voice now held a strange roughness. “Don’t you trust me?”

  Nathan patted George’s shoulder and laughed. “Don’t worry, George, for goodness’ sake! I’m not going to leave you for Professor Hardy. Forget it, all right? You know best, I’m sure. Shall we have lunch?”

  George exhaled. “Yes. That’s an excellent idea.”

  Twenty

  SING, MARTA, AND JENNY eat lunch at a picnic table next to the wooden fence separating the campus from the piney woods behind it. The fence is made of vertical logs lashed together and whittled to sharp points, and over the top rises a ledgy, snowcapped mountain. Yellow signs reading DANGER and sporting skulls and crossbones are posted every thirty feet or so.

  Sing pokes at her potato salad, disengaged. Jenny’s brash tone carries over the other conversations at other tables while Marta fiddles with a silver unicorn hanging from her neck.

  Jenny is saying, “You should totally take it next time. We’re building our own violas from scratch! Mine’s going to be complete garbage, but still. Take it if you get a chance.”

  Marta says, “Yeah, I have to take Functional Piano this semester since I didn’t test out of it. I wanted to take Nature of Music. It sounds really cool.”

  Sing snorts, eyes on her lunch. Marta continues, “Sing, aren’t you taking that? I thought I saw you head over to Durand after drama.”

  Sing shrugs. Was that a dig, because she’s not taking The Artist’s Life? At least she doesn’t have to take Functional Piano!

  Jenny says, “What’s up with you, Sing?”

  Marta shushes her, but Sing looks up coolly. “What do you mean?”

  Jenny looks right at her. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Leave her alone, Jenny,” Marta says, cutting steamed carrots.

  “No! She’s been acting rotten all lunch. I’m sick of it.”

  Sing is silent, in no mood for Jenny’s frankness. Her hackles rise. Go ahead, she thinks. Tell me I don’t belong here. Tell me my father is buying my career. Tell me I’ll never sing Angelique for real.

  She is completely surprised when Jenny stretches out a hand and says, “It sucks that you didn’t get the part you wanted. I think maybe it sucks more than Marta and I know. But look, we’re on your side, okay?” She looks into Sing’s eyes, and Sing feels real in a way she hasn’t for a long time.

  Sing exhales quietly and, somehow, it’s more than air that leaves her lungs. She looks at Jenny’s hand resting on her own, and a burning tightness that has been rising since her first moment at the conservatory subsides a little.

  And they are friends.

  As reality bubbles back around her, Sing’s brain fully registers the strange wooden fence for the first time. Partly for something to say, partly because she wants to know, she gestures and asks, “What’s in the woods? Why this crazy fence?”

  “Keeping out the barbarian hordes?” Jenny says, and Sing and Marta snort.

  “My dad says it’s dangerous out there,” Sing says.

  “Probably nuclear waste,” Jenny says. “That’s why all the apprentices are mutants.”

  “That’s not what I heard,” Marta says, and her voice is so uncharacteristically smug that Sing and Jenny turn in surprise. Marta’s eyes are wide and her pleasant face radiates excitement. “I heard the Felix still lives out there.” Jenny looks like she’s trying not to laugh.

  But part of Sing can’t help prodding. “The Felix is a myth,” she says.

  “It’s not a myth,” Marta says.
“It’s known as a myth because of Durand’s opera, but I think he was writing from experience. He saw the Felix and it granted him a wish.”

  “Maybe it wrote Angelique for him,” Jenny says. “That’s the only thing he ever wrote that’s any good.”

  “If Angelique was written by a cat, there would be more mice in it,” Sing says.

  Jenny nods. “And laser pointers.”

  “He’s got some very nice chamber music,” Marta says.

  “Myth or not”—Jenny puts her fork onto the table with a clatter—“there are tons of stories about a huge, scary cat being seen around here, and it certainly doesn’t go around granting wishes. It goes around eating people. They say that’s what happened to Brother Bessette, who built the original church. He wasn’t inspired. He was breakfast. Look it up.”

  Sing can see the tops of the pine trees beyond the fence. The sun still warms like summer, but a chill sweeps down from the mountain.

  “It does eat people,” Marta says. “Remember those hikers about ten years ago?”

  Sing doesn’t, but Jenny says, “Well, you’re not supposed to hike the mountain.”

  “What happened to the hikers?” Sing asks.

  “We don’t know,” Jenny says. “Probably wolves. Or a bear.”

  “Wolves and black bears tend to stay away from people,” Marta says. “And most animals eat their kills.”

  Sing is curious. “The hikers weren’t … eaten?”

  Marta shakes her head. “Only their throats.”

  Jenny tosses her napkin onto the table. “And I’m done with lunch.”

  “The Felix will kill anything it catches,” Marta says. “Except if it looks into the eyes of its prey and sees there a deeper sadness than its own. Then, instead of killing, it will shed one tear and grant a wish. Read Angelique. It grants Silvain’s wish at the end.”

  “That’s just a story,” Jenny says, agitated. “The r—” She stops herself.

  Sing raises an eyebrow. “You were just about to say, ‘The real Felix…’”

  Jenny reddens but laughs. “All the creature books Marta’s got living in our room are getting to me, I guess. But Felix or no, the important question is what is everyone wearing to the party tonight? We have to represent the incredibly stylish first-years since we’re the only three invited.”

  Marta’s jaw drops. “You got us invited? To Carrie Stewart’s party?”

  Jenny efficiently wraps spaghetti around her fork, lunch apparently being on again. “If you think I’m cool, you should meet my sister. Her coolness remains even after she graduates. Of course I got us invited.”

  Sing laughs. It feels good. She says, “Marta and I have rehearsal tonight. We’ll have to meet you there.”

  “Hell, no!” Jenny says. “Meet me in our room. I’m not going up to senior floor alone!”

  “Okay.” Sing’s smile fades as she thinks of the coming rehearsal. “Hey, do you know if Lori Pinkerton is here yet?”

  “Not yet,” Jenny says. “She’s supposed to be in my analysis class, but she wasn’t there this morning.”

  “So you might get to sing Angelique tonight at rehearsal!” Marta says.

  Sing traces a knothole with her fork. “Yeah.”

  Jenny is silent, but Marta says, “You don’t seem too happy about it.”

  Years of being told not to whine clamp Sing’s mouth shut. But she meets Marta’s gaze, and before she can stop herself, she says, “I guess … I was so disappointed I didn’t get the part, because … well, lots of reasons. But it would be so much easier just to move on, you know? I mean, the thought of having to sing it now, in front of everyone, and then Lori Pinkerton singing it better, and everyone knowing she’s better because the Maestro said so…”

  Marta starts to say something, but Jenny cuts her off. “Look, Lori’s a total diva. We know this. But you are, too—in a good way, I mean. Jeez, you’re a first-year and you’re understudying the lead?”

  “I’m seventeen,” Sing says. “I’m a year older than most first-years.”

  Jenny slaps the table. “Who cares? It’s amazing! You must be freaking unbelievable! You’re going to kick total butt when you’re a senior, right?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Marta laughs. “You’ll both be sorry when you meet Lori and she’s nice. You’re getting all worked up over nothing.”

  “What you need to do,” Jenny goes on, “is iron that shirt, fix your hair, get your attitude on, and own that rehearsal tonight! Am I right?”

  Sing smooths her shirt. These uniforms wrinkle so easily.

  Twenty-one

  THE WINDOW OVERLOOKING THE RUE du Faubourg Saint-Honoré was as grand as the hotel room it adorned. Its green-striped silk valance matched the chaise longue; the gilt accents in the molding set off the roses on the wallpaper. George sipped a brandy. Through the glass, he could see twenty or so patrons des arts still gathered by the stage door across the street, their hats and coats darkly speckled by the rain.

  His pale reflection quivered with the raindrops that slithered down the glass. He was a distinguished man, experienced and competent, with years of conducting behind him. But the face that looked uncertainly back at him could have belonged to a young apprentice.

  George looked exceptionally good for his age, and that wasn’t just the magic of Paris talking.

  He wasn’t a superstitious man. But he knew, in his deepest heart, that everything had changed the night of Gloria Stewart’s benefit concert at St. Augustine’s. He barely remembered the concert now, though the events afterward were still perfectly clear—standing transfixed by the tattooed arm, finally gathering his courage to ascend the rickety stairs to the roof, hesitantly approaching the still body of the young man. Nathan.

  He hadn’t meant to steal. He wasn’t a thief. Those beautiful hands were just so spellbinding, he had to touch one. He had to turn the delicate fingers over. It wasn’t his fault that what the hand had been holding came loose and clattered onto the roof tiles. It wasn’t his fault that he put the small, brilliant object into his pocket and forgot about it until days afterward. If Nathan, when he finally came around, had asked for it back, George certainly would have given it. But he didn’t ask; it was as if he didn’t even know about it.

  The crystal was in George’s pocket, as it always was. He reached for it, slid his fingers over the cold surface. He brought it close to his face, its reflection making the streaks of rain on the dark window glint like veins of silver. This beautiful little thing seemed to shimmer from the inside, an entire sparkling, ice-covered forest condensed into a single teardrop. It seemed to radiate sadness.

  Ever since Nathan’s crystal had come into his life, George had sensed time slowing down for him. He had tried to ignore it, focusing on his work. No one at Dunhammond Conservatory seemed to notice. But lately, with these European tours, outside the safety of his small, lonely school at the base of the big, lonely mountain, it was becoming clearer that the years were actually passing him by. Time had almost forgotten him.

  But what good was it? If only he could leave Nathan at the conservatory where no one would see him, then George could have a career of his own without fear of unscrupulous people swooping in to take Nathan away.

  He had tried, once. Just a weekend at a conference, in a city a mere hundred miles south of Dunhammond. Nathan had vomited for three days and was bedridden for two weeks afterward. It wasn’t a stomach flu, as the doctor had said. George had felt the crystal in his pocket yearning for its master the whole time he was away.

  The door to the hotel room opened and Nathan burst in, stamping his feet and shaking the raindrops out of the flaps of his black trench coat. “George! Here you are.”

  A man stepped in behind him, neatly dressed, with thinning blond hair and clear eyes. “Maestro, Paris adores you!”

  George smiled, sliding the crystal back into his pocket. “I highly doubt that. But it was a good performance.” He allowed himself this small boast. It had been an e
xquisite performance.

  “They waited for you, you know, by the stage door,” Nathan said, pouring himself a glass from a decanter. “I thought you had just run up here to change.” He put a hand on his hip. “You are coming for drinks, aren’t you?”

  “Of course he is. You must, my friend!” the man said. George had been introduced to him before the concert—Henri Maneval, managing director of the prestigious Parisian orchestre that had lost its elderly conductor in 1961. George had been courting the orchestra for the better part of the five years since. Postperformance drinks were a very good sign.

  But there was something else. A creeping discomfort that had started scratching at him as he watched Nathan taking in this city for the first time. The young man seemed to absorb its vibrancy, brought to new life by the smells of the patisseries, the colors of the street vendors’ bright artwork, the fresh flowers from Holland. Nathan was so much more noticeable here.

  George set his empty snifter on an end table and turned back to the window.

  “Henri has been paying you the most embarrassing compliments behind your back,” Nathan said. George could hear his disarming smile, even though he couldn’t see it in the window’s reflection.

  “If you’ll indulge me,” the director said, “I’d like to pay those compliments to your face, Maestro. Do come out with us—a quaint piano bar down the street. And your friend has promised to provide some entertainment!” He laughed, and Nathan joined him.

  George turned sharply. “Entertainment?”

  Henri Maneval put a hand on Nathan’s back. “If your protégé plays half as well as you conduct, monsieur, we shall have a very good time!” He glanced at his watch. “It will not do for me to be too late, my friends. You know how these musicians are. A bientôt, mes amis.” And he gave a nod and slipped away into the softly lit hallway.

  George sank onto a velvet settee and put a hand to his forehead. Five years he’d worked for this. More than five years. He’d dreamed of taking the helm of a major orchestra since his days as a student at Dunhammond Conservatory, more than forty years ago.