Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (20 page)

“No doubt a fool,” Ernesto said. “But a romantic fool. Happy to starve, so long as he can sit in our square all afternoon.”

He was thin, sandy-haired and wore unfashionable spectacles—huge frames that made him look like a panda. He turned up day after day, and I don’t remember how exactly it happened, but after a while we began to sit and talk with him in between sets. And sometimes if he came to the cafe during our evening session, we’d call him over afterwards, maybe treat him to some wine and crostini.

We soon discovered Tibor was Hungarian, not Russian; that he was probably older than he looked, because he’d already studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, then spent two years in Vienna under Oleg Petrovic. After a rocky start with the old maestro, he’d learnt to handle those legendary temper tantrums and had left Vienna full of confidence—and with a series of engagements in prestigious, if small, venues around Europe. But then concerts began to get cancelled due to low demand; he’d been forced to perform music he hated; accommodation had proved expensive or sordid.

So our city’s well-organised Arts and Culture Festival—which was what brought him here that summer—had been a much-needed boost, and when an old friend from the Royal Academy had offered him a free apartment for the summer down near the canal, he’d taken it up without hesitation. He was enjoying our city, he told us, but cash was always a problem, and though he’d had the occasional recital, he was now having to think hard about his next move.

It was after a while of listening to these worries that Giancarlo and Ernesto decided we should try and do something for him. And that was how Tibor got to meet Mr. Kaufmann, from Amsterdam, a distant relative of Giancarlo’s with connections in the hotel world.

I remember that evening very well. It was still early in the summer, and Mr. Kaufmann, Giancarlo, Ernesto, all the rest of us, we sat indoors, in the back room of the cafe, listening to Tibor play his cello. The young man must have realised he was auditioning for Mr. Kaufmann, so it’s interesting now to remember how keen he was to perform that night. He was obviously grateful to us, and you could see he was pleased when Mr. Kaufmann promised to do what he could for him on his return to Amsterdam. When people say Tibor changed for the worse that summer, that his head got too big for his own good, that this was all down to the American woman, well, maybe there’s something in that.

TIBOR HAD BECOME A WARE
of the woman while sipping his first coffee of the day. At that moment, the piazza was pleasantly cool—the cafe end remains shaded for much of the morning—and the paving stones were still wet from the city workers’ hoses. Having gone without breakfast, he’d watched enviously while at the next table she’d ordered a series of fruit-juice concoctions, then—apparently on a whim, for it wasn’t yet ten o’clock—a bowl of steamed mussels. He had the vague impression the woman was, for her part, stealing glances back at him, but hadn’t thought too much about it. “She looked very pleasant, beautiful even,” he told us at the time. “But as you see, she’s ten, fifteen years older than me. So why would I think anything was going on?”

He’d forgotten about her and was preparing to get back to his room for a couple of hours’ practice before his neighbour came in for lunch and turned on that radio, when suddenly there was the woman standing in front of him.

She was beaming broadly, everything in her manner suggesting they already knew each other. In fact it was only his natural shyness that stopped him greeting her. Then she placed a hand on his shoulder, as though he’d failed some test but was being forgiven anyway, and said:

“I was at your recital the other day. At San Lorenzo.”

“Thank you,” he replied, even as he realised how foolish this might sound. Then when the woman just went on beaming down at him, he said: “Oh yes, the San Lorenzo church. That’s correct. I did indeed give a recital there.”

The woman laughed, then suddenly seated herself in the chair in front of him. “You say that like you’ve had a whole string of engagements lately,” she said, a hint of mockery in her voice.

“If that is so, I’ve given you a misleading impression. The recital you attended was my only one in two months.”

“But you’re just starting out,” she said. “You’re doing fine to get any engagements at all. And that was a good crowd the other day.”

“A good crowd? There were only twenty-four people.”

“It was the afternoon. It was good for an afternoon recital.”

“I should not complain. Still, it wasn’t a good crowd. Tourists with nothing better to do.”

“Oh! You shouldn’t be so dismissive. After all, I was there. I was one of those tourists.” Then as he began to redden—for he hadn’t meant to give offence—she touched his arm and said with a smile: “You’re just starting out. Don’t worry about audience size. That’s not why you’re performing.”

“Oh? Then why am I performing if not for an audience?”

“That’s not what I said. What I’m saying to you is that at this stage in your career, twenty in the audience or two hundred, it doesn’t matter. Should I tell you why not? Because you’ve got it!”

“I have it?”

“You have it. Most definitely. You have …
potential
.”

He stifled a brusque laugh that came to his lips. He felt more reproach towards himself than for her, for he had expected her to say “genius” or at least “talent” and it immediately struck him how deluded he’d been to expect such a comment. But the woman was continuing:

“At this stage, what you’re doing is waiting for that one person to come and hear you. And that one person might just as easily be in a room like that one on Tuesday, in a crowd of just twenty people …”

“There were twenty-four, not including the organisers …”

“Twenty-four, whatever. What I’m saying is that numbers don’t matter right now. What matters is that one person.”

“You refer to the man from the recording company?”

“Recording? Oh no, no. That’ll take care of itself. No, I mean the person who’ll make you blossom. The person who’ll hear you and realise you’re not just another well-trained mediocrity. That even though you’re still in your chrysalis, with just a little help, you’ll emerge as a butterfly.”

“I see. By any chance, might you be this person?”

“Oh, come on! I can see you’re a proud young man. But it doesn’t look to me like you have so many mentors falling over themselves to get to you. At least not ones of my rank.”

It occurred to him then that he was in the midst of making a colossal blunder, and he considered the woman’s features carefully. She’d now removed her sunglasses, and he could see a face that was essentially gentle and kind, yet with upset and perhaps anger not far away. He went on looking at her, hoping he’d soon recognise her, but in the end he was forced to say:

“I’m very sorry. You are perhaps a distinguished musician?”

“I’m Eloise McCormack,” she announced with a smile, and held out her hand. Unfortunately, the name meant nothing to Tibor and he found himself in a quandary. His first instinct was to feign astonishment, and he actually said: “Really. This is quite amazing.” Then he pulled himself together, realising such bluffing was not only dishonest, but likely to lead to embarrassing exposure within seconds. So he sat up straight and said:

“Miss McCormack, it’s an honour to meet you. I realise this will seem unbelievable to you, but I beg you to make allowances both for my youth and for the fact that I grew up in the former Eastern bloc, behind the Iron Curtain. There are many film stars and political personalities who are household names in the West, of whom, even today, I remain ignorant. So you must forgive me that I do not know precisely who you are.”

“Well … that’s commendably frank.” Despite her words, she was clearly affronted, and her ebullience seemed to drain away. After an awkward moment, he said again:

“You are a distinguished musician, yes?”

She nodded, her gaze drifting across the square.

“Once again I must apologise,” he said. “It was indeed an honour that someone like you should come to my recital. And may I ask your instrument?”

“Like you,” she said quickly. “Cello. That’s why I came in. Even if it’s a humble little recital like yours, I can’t help myself. I can’t walk by. I have a sense of mission, I guess.”

“A mission?”

“I don’t know what else to call it. I want all cellists to play well. To play beautifully. So often, they play in a misguided way.”

“Excuse me, but is it just we cellists who are guilty of this misguided performance? Or do you refer to all musicians?”

“Maybe the other instruments too. But I’m a cellist, so I listen to other cellists, and when I hear something going wrong … You know, the other day, I saw some young musicians playing in the lobby of the Museo Civico and people were just rushing past them, but I had to stop and listen. And you know, it was all I could do to stop myself going right up to them and telling them.”

“They were making errors?”

“Not errors exactly. But … well, it just wasn’t there. It wasn’t nearly there. But there you go, I ask too much. I know I shouldn’t expect everyone to come up to the mark I set for myself. They were just music students, I guess.”

She leaned back in her seat for the first time and gazed at some children, over by the central fountain, noisily soaking one another. Eventually, Tibor said:

“You felt this urge also on Tuesday perhaps. The urge to come up to me and make your suggestions.”

She smiled, but then the next moment her face became very serious. “I did,” she said. “I really did. Because when I heard you, I could hear the way I once was. Forgive me, this is going to sound so rude. But the truth is, you’re not quite on the correct path just now. And when I heard you, I so wanted to help you find it. Sooner rather than later.”

“I must point out, I have been tutored by Oleg Petrovic.” Tibor stated this flatly and waited for her response. To his surprise, he saw her trying to suppress a smile.

“Petrovic, yes,” she said. “Petrovic, in his day, was a very respectable musician. And I know that to his students he must still appear a considerable figure. But to many of us now, his ideas, his whole approach …” She shook her head and spread out her hands. Then as Tibor, suddenly speechless with fury, continued to stare at her, she once again placed a hand on his arm. “I’ve said enough. I’ve no right. I’ll leave you in peace.”

She rose to her feet and this action soothed his anger; Tibor had a generous temperament and it wasn’t in his nature to remain cross with people for long. Besides, what the woman had just said about his old teacher had struck an uncomfortable chord deep within him—thoughts he’d not quite dared to express to himself. So when he looked up at her, his face showed confusion more than anything else.

“Look,” she said, “you’re probably too angry with me just now to think about this. But I’d like to help you. If you do decide you want to talk this over, I’m staying over there. At the Excelsior.”

This hotel, the grandest in our city, stands at the opposite end of the square from the cafe, and she now pointed it out to Tibor, smiled, and began to walk off towards it. He was still watching her when she turned suddenly near the central fountain, startling some pigeons, gave him a wave, then continued on her way.

OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS
he found himself thinking about the encounter many times. He saw again the smirk around her mouth as he’d so proudly announced Petrovic’s name and felt the anger rising afresh. But on reflection, he could see he had not really been angry on his old teacher’s behalf. It was rather that he had become accustomed to the idea that Petrovic’s name would always produce a certain impact, that it could be relied upon to induce attention and respect: in other words, he’d come to depend on it as a sort of certificate he could brandish around the world. What had so disturbed him was the possibility that this certificate didn’t carry nearly the weight he’d supposed.

He kept remembering too her parting invitation, and during those hours he sat in the square, he found his gaze returning to the far end, and the grand entrance of the Excelsior Hotel, where a steady stream of taxis and limousines drew up in front of the doorman.

Finally, on the third day after his conversation with Eloise McCormack, he crossed the piazza, entered the marbled lobby and asked the front desk to call her extension. The receptionist spoke into the phone, asked his name, then after a short exchange, passed the receiver to him.

“I’m so sorry,” he heard her voice say. “I forgot to ask you your name the other day and it took me a while to figure out who you were. But of course I haven’t forgotten you. As a matter of fact, I’ve been thinking about you an awful lot. There’s so much I’d like to talk through with you. But you know, we have to do this right. Do you have your cello? No, of course you don’t. Why don’t you come back in an hour, exactly one hour, and this time bring your cello. I’ll be waiting here for you.”

When he returned to the Excelsior with his instrument, the receptionist immediately indicated the elevators and told him Miss McCormack was expecting him.

The idea of entering her room, even in the middle of the afternoon, had struck him as awkwardly intimate, and he was relieved to find a large suite, the bedroom closed off entirely from view. The tall French windows had boarded shutters, for the moment folded back, so the lace curtains moved in the breeze, and he could see that by stepping through onto the balcony, he’d find himself looking over the square. The room itself, with its rough stone walls and dark wood floor, had almost a monastic air about it, softened only partially by the flowers, cushions and antique furniture. She, in contrast, was dressed in T-shirt, tracksuit trousers and trainers, as though she’d just come in from running. She welcomed him with little ceremony—no offer of tea or coffee—and said to him:

“Play for me. Play me something you played at your recital.”

She had indicated a polished upright chair carefully placed in the centre of the room, so he sat down on it and unpacked his cello. Rather disconcertingly, she sat herself in front of one of the big windows so that he could see her almost exactly in profile, and she continued to stare into the space before her all the time he tuned up. Her posture didn’t alter as he began to play, and when he came to the end of his first piece, she didn’t say a word. So he moved quickly to another piece, and then another. A half-hour went by, then a whole hour. And something to do with the shaded room and its austere acoustics, the afternoon sunlight diffused by the drifting lace curtains, the background hubbub rising from the piazza, and above all, her presence, drew from him notes that held new depths, new suggestions. Towards the end of the hour, he was convinced he’d more than fulfilled her expectations, but when he had finished his last piece, and they had sat in silence for several moments, she at last turned in her chair towards him and said: