Madame Sousatzka (16 page)

Well, this was easy; she didn't need Cordle or Sousatzka for this one. She was just about to launch into a moving account of her childhood; they'd asked for it, and they were going to get it, and anyway, it was a wonderful way of changing the subject – when a little woman on the other side of the room felt the need to voice her opinion. She obviously felt it to be of great importance and well-studied, because she spoke breathlessly, as if her discovery was the fruit of long and painful research.

‘I like Mozart best myself,' she panted. ‘I do think Mozart is so pretty.' She pronounced Mozart with a soft ‘z'. She was obviously not prepared, since she liked him, to admit that he was a foreigner. ‘There is something about Mozart,' she added, deep in thought, ‘that is so elegant.' Madame Sousatzka could have strangled her.

‘What's the matter with Brahms?' another woman said peevishly. She spoke as if she were Brahms's mother. Madame Sousatzka and Jenny sighed with relief at their acquittal. Manders and Marcus started again on the pedal.

‘Brahms is all very well,' a dowager said generously, ‘but we have some great moderns, you know.'

‘Who?' Mrs Manders was at it again.

The dowager had waited for this moment. It was a moment she obviously manoeuvred in all the salons she attended. ‘Webern, for instance.' Silence. From her long experience of the drawing-room the dowager found that the reaction never varied. Always a flummoxed silence.

‘Come, come,' said an old gentleman whom the dowager had never seen before, ‘you're not really serious?'

The poor dowager had never been taken up on her opinion. It had always been, out of ignorance, accepted. She hoped the old man wasn't going to make an issue out of it.

‘A lot of noise he makes, that's all,' the old man went on. ‘We're talking about the aristocrats of music,' he said, looking at her as if she had betrayed her class, ‘not these upstarts with new-fangled ideas. Webern's like an abstract painter with no academic knowledge.'

‘But we must keep up with the times, you know,' the dowager laughed. ‘Abstract art can be as profound as Leonardo.'

‘You'll be saying next,' the old man chuckled, ‘that concrete music is greater than Beethoven, or that pop singing is greater than opera.'

‘They each have their place,' the dowager insisted, and she shrugged her horsey shoulders like a beatnik granny.

‘I think we're all set now.' Manders emerged triumphant and sweating from underneath the piano. Marcus crept out after him, and sat on the piano-stool testing the pedal. He looked around at Madame Sousatzka, communicating an invisible ‘thumbs up' sign, then at Jenny, with an equally invisible ‘well done'. Cordle and Uncle would have been proud of her.

Madame Sousatzka went over to the piano with the obvious intention of taking over from Manders. She fussed around Marcus, whispering advice in his ear which left the audience in no doubt as to whose property Marcus was. She straightened up and faced the audience. Manders was
beside her, and they both opened their mouths to speak at the same time.

‘The floor is yours,' Manders conceded gallantly. ‘Perhaps you will introduce him, if I may be allowed to introduce you first.'

Madame Sousatzka stepped back, and Manders took the floor. ‘Madame Sousatzka,' he said, ‘is one of our finest teachers. Her teaching methods, as you know, are regarded by some as being most unconventional. Be that as it may, we, the audience, and especially myself, in my own particular way, are interested in results.' He strove vainly in his mind to find some great example of a Sousatzka product. But failing, he passed on quickly to Marcus. ‘Madame Sousatzka herself tells us that Marcus is her prize pupil.' Well, we shall see, he wanted to say, partly because it seemed an obvious remark to conclude with, and partly because he could think of nothing else. With Madame Sousatzka breathing down his neck, he thought that he had already said enough. ‘We look forward to hearing him,' he said weakly, and almost collapsed into the nearest armchair.

There was a faint, polite applause as Madame Sousatzka stepped forward. The women in the audience were examining her minutely. Already they felt hostile towards her, with the natural hostility of the buyer towards the seller. They tried to find fault with her appearance. But it was difficult. Although unconventionally attired, she looked extremely attractive, and they found it undeniable that Madame Sousatzka was a beautiful woman. Their hostility grew. They went on with their dribbling clapping even though Madame Sousatzka was obviously ready to start. They were not going to make it easy for her. ‘Sh,' Jenny suddenly hissed with authority.

Madame Sousatzka smiled and began to speak. ‘I have nothing to say to you,' she said gently. Most of the guests settled comfortably in their chairs prepared for a long speech, having heard that opening before. After all, they thought, most people have nothing to say, but they can take an awfully long time saying it. ‘That is true,' she went on,
as if reading their thoughts. ‘I don't know how to make the speech. All my life I teach the music. Marcus here will make for me the speech.' She touched him gently on the head and sat down next to Manders. The audience were won over and they applauded her.

Marcus waited until they had finished. ‘I will play a Chopin study,' he said. This announcement was followed by thunderous applause. Not only could he play, he could talk too. They settled in to listen.

Marcus repeated his talisman to himself. ‘You will listen, I will listen, Sousatzka will listen, Jenny will listen, and it will play.' And miraculously, it seemed to Marcus for the first time since he had begun playing the piano, that it
did
play. He seemed more and more to dissociate himself from the sounds that filled the room. He heard them and was pleased. Occasionally, he adjusted a note here and there, he encouraged them, he watched them perform, listening to their strange permutations of sounds and rhythms. He felt light and detached as if he had become his own shadow. And at the same time, he felt afraid. Would it ever desert him, the body, would it not perform any more? Would it cease to play? But it went on, it seemed of its own accord, and he was listening and he was happy. And when it had finished it stopped and Marcus returned to the last chord, pressing his fingers into the notes, claiming them as old possessions.

He heard the clapping, and turned to look at Madame Sousatzka, who was coming towards him. There were big tears in her eyes. ‘It played, my darrlink,' she whispered to him, ‘and it played like an angel.'

‘Encore, encore,' the audience was saying, and shouts of ‘Bravo' came from Manders's quarter.

Marcus waited for them to settle themselves again. ‘Variations,' he said, ‘on a theme of Handel, by Brahms.' The Brahms fan in the audience heaved triumphantly. Jenny crossed her legs, arms, and all her fingers.

Marcus started on the theme. It dropped out of the tips of his fingers in its simplicity, ornamented occasionally by a casual trill. Marcus listened and heard it as if for the first time. He smiled. It was still working. After each variation,
Jenny uncrossed a pair of fingers, until by the end, she had uncrossed everything.

The audience, led by the Brahms fan, crossed over to the piano, eager to shake Marcus's hand.

‘You've got quite a property there, Manders, old boy,' a young man, obviously in the trade, gave Manders his verdict.

‘Alas, in partnership,' Manders whispered, nodding in Madame Sousatzka's direction. She was sharing the congratulations with Marcus.

Suddenly a ‘phone rang. And Marcus remembered his mother. She must have phoned him tonight, as she did every Friday night to say goodnight to him. And he hadn't been there. What could Cordle have told her? Cordle didn't know they were trying to keep it from her. He felt a sudden fear at having been found out. He dared not think how he could explain it to her. He wanted to get away. He wanted to sit for a while by the ‘phone-box on Cordle's landing. He wanted most of all to get out of this room, and away from all these people who didn't know the first thing about brown hats and vegetables. He felt a lump in his throat and he opened his mouth wide so that the air could dissolve it.

‘You are so tired,' Madame Sousatzka said, mistaking it for a yawn.

‘Yes,' Marcus said, jumping in on his cue. ‘I want to go back. I want to go home.'

‘Home?' Madame Sousatzka whispered.

‘Yes. Home.' Marcus practically shouted at her.

‘Is too late,' she said coldly, ‘to go home. When we get to my home, we ‘phone your mother.'

‘What d'you think Cordle said to her?' he asked, as if accusing her.

‘I don't know. I forgot to tell him,' she said weakly. ‘We all forgot. So easy it is to forget.' She knew that her omission to cover up their evening was a further setback to her future with Marcus. She realized how important it was for them to get away. ‘Marcus is tired,' she announced sadly. ‘We must go now.'

‘But Jenny,' Manders risked, ‘you can stay a little?'

‘No,' Jenny said, ‘we'll all go together.'

When they got back to Vauxhall Mansions, they found Mrs Crominski pressing the dead bells.

Madame Sousatzka opened the door with her key, and they all trooped silently into the studio, as if the meeting had been previously arranged. Madame Sousatzka and Jenny stood against the piano and Mrs Crominski faced them. Marcus hovered in between, as if unwilling to join the accusable.

‘So a party you've been to,' Mrs Crominski said.

‘Some party,' said Jenny disdainfully. She thought it best to belittle the whole affair.

‘Please?' said Mrs Crominski. ‘I don't think I have the pleasure.'

‘This is Jenny,' Marcus said. ‘I've told you about Jenny, Momma. She lives upstairs.'

‘She lives upstairs. Is that all she does? Lives upstairs? Yet she goes to the party and all she does is live upstairs.'

‘I happen to know Mr Manders,' Jenny said gently. ‘I went because I was invited.'

‘So you were invited. But Mrs Crominski isn't invited. What is my boy, I'm asking. An orphan is he perhaps? Or perhaps Madame Sousatzka, they are thinking you are his mother?'

Marcus looked at Madame Sousatzka, imploring her to say something. She walked over to Mrs Crominski and as she came towards her, Mrs Crominski felt her anger decline. She hoped she wasn't going to touch her. She knew that she would weaken, and on the bus on the way home she would painfully repeat to herself her prepared, unspoken speech. But Madame Sousatzka was already taking her hand.

‘Mrs Crominski,' she said gently, ‘the whole business of the party is not so important. Not so important at all. Is all a business which is made before a concert. The most important is the concert. You will be there. You will be proud.'

‘Tonight at the party,' Mrs Crominski insisted, ‘I would be proud. Such a secret it is, the party. Such a secret his mother shouldn't know. Now suddenly it isn't a party. Now suddenly it isn't important.'

‘But it wasn't,' Marcus said, going up to her. He noticed
for the first time that she was hatless. ‘You would have been bored, Momma,' he said. ‘We were all bored. It was full of business people. There was nothing to eat. I just played to them and we went home. Didn't we, Jenny?'

‘That's right. Manders does it all the time. Before every concert he gives, the artist has to go to his house and play. It's like an audition.'

‘So it wasn't a party?' Mrs Crominski asked weakly.

‘Of course not.' Marcus jumped in on her surrender. ‘I just played, that's all.'

‘Then I'm sorry,' Mrs Crominski said, ‘for all the fuss. You understand, Madame Sousatzka,' she said, ‘I'm anxious for my boy, that's all.'

Don't apologize. Please, please, Momma, Marcus said to himself. You're right. You should have come. They didn't want you to come. Jenny, Sousatzka and I … I didn't want you to come either.

‘Momma,' he said, ‘Tomorrow I'll tell you all about it. I'll play to you what I played tonight. Then you won't have missed anything.' He suddenly felt free with her. She could have walked into his classroom at school, even with her hat on, and he would have happily greeted her. He looked forward to the concert when he could say to everybody, ‘This is my mother.' At last he would be like Peter Goldstein and the others.

‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘at home, we'll pretend it's the audition. You can be Madame Sousatzka, and I'll be me and all the others.' He was bubbling with his sudden sense of freedom.

‘Why wait until tomorrow?' Madame Sousatzka said. She felt she could afford to make a concession. ‘After tonight's playing, is not necessary tomorrow a lesson. Now you go home with your mother.'

‘But I want a lesson tomorrow,' Marcus said. He was suddenly confused. He didn't feel free any more and he was hurt that Madame Sousatzka seemed to find it so easy to send him away. ‘I can go home tomorrow, after my lesson,' he sulked.

Madame Sousatzka put her arm round Mrs Crominski's shoulder, lining herself up with her. ‘Tomorrow,' she
laughed, ‘Madame Sousatzka is not teaching.' Marcus scowled at her and she felt a sudden thrill at his anger. ‘Sousatzka is not at home tomorrow,' she teased.

‘All right,' he said, furious. ‘If you're not teaching tomorrow, you're not teaching next Friday or any other Friday. I'm not coming any more,' he shouted.

Madame Sousatzka broke into hilarious laughter, and Mrs Crominski joined her.

Only Jenny was silent. ‘Put your coat on, Marcus,' she said quietly.

‘I'm not coming any more,' he threatened again through their laughter. ‘It won't be so funny next Friday.'

‘Marcus, Marcus,' Mrs Crominski said. ‘So rude you are. Say to Madame Sousatzka you are sorry.' The sudden link-up between his mother and Sousatzka terrified him. Even Jenny, by helping him on with his coat, was on their side. He felt completely isolated from them all. He hated his mother and he hated Madame Sousatzka and he almost hated Jenny. He looked forward to being alone in his bed, and concentrating on his isolation. He was positive that this night Madame Sousatzka would not come to him, that he'd put his head on his pillow, and like Peter Goldstein and all the others, he'd go straight to sleep.