The Distance Between Us (8 page)

I pound out the opening measures to the Scherzo of Prokofiev’s
Second Piano Concerto,
exaggerating the accents and the dynamics to make sure she hears what I want her to do. “Understand? Put some muscle into it.”

She nods her empty blond head and plays the phrase exactly the same as she did before I corrected her. I bang my fist down on the lid of the piano and she almost falls off the bench.

“Are you listening to me?” I demand. “Sloppy performers like you are the reason nobody younger than fifty listens to classical music anymore. They think it’s all boneless, insipid tripe that no one with a pulse can possibly respond to. Dear God, girl, are you breathing? Listen to what you’re playing. Can’t you hear the fire in it?”

Her eyes, rimmed with dark blue mascara, well up, and her bright red lips quiver.

Oh, for pity’s sake. I hate it when they cry.

I sigh. I’m in a foul mood and I’m taking it out on this poor child. She’s actually not a bad player, but I don’t have the patience at this given moment to deal with Miranda Moore’s fragile self-esteem.

I grunt and pat her on the shoulder. “There, there. Buck up,
dear.” I force my voice to soften. “If you’re going to make it in this business you need to grow thicker skin.”

Her voice shakes. “I’m sorry, Ms. Parker, but it’s just …” She leans over and grabs a tissue from the box on my desk and blows her nose.

I wait for her to get hold of herself. “Yes? It’s just what?”

She shrugs her shoulders and fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “Last week you told me I was playing too loudly, so I worked really hard on being more musical and more subtle, and now you want me to play louder again. I don’t know what you want.”

My temper re-ignites. “What I want is for you to pay attention to what I’m saying.”

She quails. “I’m trying …”

“No, you’re not. You’re just going through the motions. A lobotomized chimpanzee could play with more feeling.”

Her shoulders begin to tremble and I pause to rub my temples and collect my thoughts.

I should have stayed home this afternoon. It was idiotic to come to work. The argument with Paul on the phone earlier this morning was reason enough to cancel lessons for the rest of the day, even if I hadn’t also had a dreadful meeting with my lawyer afterwards.

The fight with Paul was par for the course, but my conversation with Phillip Hogan was a disaster. The gist of what he had to say today was (in direct contradiction to what he predicted a month ago, when he agreed to represent me) that I am now likely to lose my house to Arthur. He told me Arthur has a much larger chance of winning the house in the settlement than he had originally believed.

And he also told me—more or less—that I should just give up.

I suddenly can’t seem to govern my chin, and Miranda is gawking at me. I look away and struggle with my emotions.

Maybe I shouldn’t be teaching any longer. My students would all be better off and so would I. Maybe all I’m good for these days is terrorizing hapless young musicians like this little girl, and instead of doing that I should just retire and sit in peace by my fireplace. At least there I can’t do any more harm. At least there I’ll be warm and safe.

A shudder runs through me.

My fireplace.

God. What am I thinking? I won’t even have a fireplace when Arthur is done with me. He won’t be happy until he’s tossed my naked body out in the snow for the wolves to feed on.

How did it come to this? How did I ever end up here? Have I been such a bad person that I’ve somehow earned this?

I don’t think I have the courage to answer those questions.

The last few years come crashing into my mind. All the lies I’ve told, all my cruelty, all my selfishness. Everything I’ve done to my husband, everything I’ve done to my children, everything I’ve done to myself. The list is enormous, even if you subtract all the times I was sorely provoked. Is that why this is happening now? Is this what I get for living as I have?

And beyond all that, far beyond, there’s Jeremy.

No. I will not think of that right now. I will not. There are limits to how much blame I’m willing to take on.

Maybe Paul was right to try to get me fired. Maybe I should just accept the inevitable and step down with dignity. Maybe Arthur and Martha deserve the house more than I do. Maybe …

A fugitive spasm of anger tightens the muscles in my chest.

Like hell they do.

Whatever I am, whatever I have done, Arthur is, and has done, too.

With an effort I lift my head and look in Miranda’s eyes. I speak as clearly as I can. “Look, child. I’m a crabby old woman and I can be difficult at times, but I can also make you a better pianist than you’ve ever dreamed of being, if you’ll just bear with me.”

I nudge her shoulder. “Move over.”

She slides to the left on the bench and I sit beside her. I put both hands on the piano and start to play the Prokofiev again. My left wrist immediately begins to ache, but I ignore it and plunge my fingers into the keys.

“Be adaptable is all I’m saying,” I murmur as I play. “Be soft when you’re supposed to be soft, be loud when you’re supposed to be loud. Think. Use your brain. Use your ears. The phrasing will tell you what to do if you just listen.”

She sniffs. “But it says
mezzo forte
there, not
fortissimo.”

“So what?” I snap. “Dynamics are relative. So is everything else, for that matter. Hush now and I’ll show you.”

I can’t help myself. I know how much this will hurt but right at this moment, I don’t care. I’ll dope myself out later on Motrin and brandy.

I dig in and the music explodes around us; my fury couples with Prokofiev’s genius, and the notes fly through the air like shrapnel. I close my eyes and breathe, and I let myself play for nearly a minute, in spite of the horrific pain in my wrist. Miranda disappears from my mind, and so does Paul, then Arthur, then Caitlin—all vanishing one by one, shoved out of the spotlight by wild, pungent chords and unpredictable, frenzied runs.

After that I move on to the worries about my house and my future. I may have no control over anything else, but I can control this particular piano long enough to vanquish
those
feeble anxieties. When they’re gone, I jettison the awareness of my damaged old body, and then I go deeper, tossing out memory after hateful memory, hunting them down and destroying them like rabid animals. I use whatever hurts as kindling, burning it all up inside of me, feeding it a stick at a time into the raging inferno in the center of my chest that used to be my heart.

It builds and builds and builds until finally there’s nothing left but Jeremy.

Jeremy is always the last to go.

Most days I give up long before he departs, but today not even he can survive the noisy apocalypse I’m making. In my mind, he stands in front of me and begs for my attention, but I just play louder and louder, and he eventually has no recourse but to cover his ears and step into the blaze, too. Before my eyes he turns into flame, then ash, and still I keep playing.

There’s nothing in the world but this wall of sound and fire I’ve created. While it’s still standing, nothing can touch me. Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but Nero was a rank amateur compared to me. Rome be damned.

If I had the stamina I’d burn the whole bloody, stinking world to a cinder.

I know that Jeremy and all the rest will reappear, phoenix-like, the instant I stop, so I refuse to quit until my left hand goes numb, and it’s all I can do to not scream. The pain is overwhelming, but it’s preferable to what’s waiting for me when it’s gone.

Burn, damn you, burn.

I can’t take it any longer.

The music ends abruptly and I open my eyes. I have to bite my lips to keep from whimpering.

My studio is just as I left it a moment ago. The two Steinway grands are still sitting side by side, beneath the picture window looking out over Carson Conservatory’s small but tasteful campus, bleak and gray in the late afternoon light of winter. The yellow carnations I brought with me today are also still here, fragrant and bright in a tall vase on the top shelf of the bookcase by my desk.

It’s all so familiar. On the surface, nothing has changed.

My life is just as much a disaster as it was before I sat down to play, my prospects for a decent tomorrow are just as grim. I’m still losing my house, I’m still at war with my family, I’m still tired and old and angry. All of this is true, and yet somehow there is a difference now, however slight.

I feel like me again.

It’s not much, but I guess it will have to do.

I let my hands fall from the piano into my lap. Miranda is watching me with her mouth half-open; her eyes are enormous.

She swallows several times and finally clears her throat.

“I didn’t know Prokofiev could sound like that,” she whispers. “I didn’t know anything could sound like that.” She seems dazed. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

I thank her as gently as I’m able. “So now do you understand what it is I’m after? Do you hear what I’m talking about?”

She shakes her head. “I hear what you want, but there’s no way I’ll ever be able to play like that.” Her voice is diffident.

I stand up, cradling my left wrist. “Of course you will,” I say. “All it takes is patience and practice.”

I watch her go, her face full of wonder. She’s practically floating with inspiration.

She doesn’t yet know a lie when she hears one.

She’s right, I fear. She’ll never play as I play. Oh, she has enough talent that she may eventually be able to execute the notes as well, and she has enough discipline to build herself a decent career as a musician. Ten years from now she may even be something of a name in the world; she has ample poise and grace when she’s performing, and a rare physical beauty audiences will likely respond to. I predict she’ll be well reviewed, and many younger musicians will no doubt flock to her for lessons and guidance.

But Miranda Moore will never have what it takes to play like me.

It’s not a question of talent or ambition; it’s a question of character. She doesn’t have the passion; she doesn’t have the endurance; she doesn’t have the self-honesty necessary for fusing her heart and mind to her fingers. And most damning of all, she doesn’t have the guts to live the kind of life that would teach her these things.

I can’t fault her for that, I suppose. Most people are just like her.

I lift my head and fill my lungs with air, then I let it all out again a second later with a heavy sigh.

For better or worse, there’s only one Hester Parker.

Prior to our children being born—and before I shattered my wrist—Arthur and I were frequently asked to perform together. The best concert we gave was in 1966, in Boston’s Symphony Hall, and I can still recall the entire program. We played the
Violin Sonata
by Darius Milhaud, and Ernst Bloch’s
Baal Shem,
and the third
Violin Sonata
by Brahms, and Rachmaninoff’s
Romance and Danse hongroise.
The audience nearly rioted at the end of all that, and after they finally let us off the stage (four encores later), we escaped to the city’s North End for a midnight dinner at a quiet Italian restaurant, near Old North Church.

Being a classical music celebrity is an odd thing, because your fame is so limited. One moment you can be standing in front of a packed concert hall, receiving a ridiculous amount of adulation from what seems to be the entire population of the planet, and the next you’re out dining in public, unnoticed by anyone.

I remember Arthur bringing up this strange phenomenon that night, over an exquisite bottle of chianti and two vast platefuls of
spaghetti and meatballs. I looked up from my meal to find him surveying our surroundings with an expression of utter satisfaction.

“What is it, dear?” I asked. “Is the wine kicking in?”

Arthur wasn’t much of a drinker in those days, and could become positively giddy after one or two swallows of anything containing alcohol. His boyishness at those times was one of the things I found the most charming about him. But then again, we were newly married, and very much in love, and almost everything he did delighted me.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he beamed. “But I was also just thinking how nice it is to be an anonymous deity.”

I smiled. Off-kilter statements such as this were daily fare from him. “Pardon me?”

“Think about it. A mere …” He glanced at his watch. “… hour and a half ago, we were being treated like the Beatles, and now we’re just a couple of nobodies. There’s not a soul in this place who’s ever heard of us.” He picked up his fork and poked at a meatball, giggling. “Of course, our audience is somewhat different, isn’t it? Most of our fans have blue hair, for one thing.”

I waited for him to go on. When he was in a chatty mood, which was most of the time, I mostly just listened to him talk.

“What I mean,” he continued, “is that I love this. It’s the best of both worlds, really. We get to be treated like emperors half the time, and regular human beings the other half. Who else can say that?”

I wrapped a piece of spaghetti around the tines of my fork. “Radio talk show hosts? Politicians?”

“Radio personalities don’t count. They’re just disembodied voices. It’s easier for them to be anonymous.” He played with the melted wax drippings on the candle in the middle of the table. “And politicians are
never
anonymous. They have power, and people with power are always being stalked, and never really get away from the public eye.”

His face wrinkled with concentration. “That’s the secret. Most celebrities have power, but we have no power at all. We just have talent, and there’s a real difference between the two.” He seemed
pleased with this analysis. “Power comes from words, and we only deal with emotion. And since our art doesn’t rely on words, we have no power to effect political change in the world.” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “And that’s the reason we have no name recognition outside of our art, of course.”

I dabbed a piece of garlic bread into a bowl of olive oil. “I see.” I leaned forward to tease him. “What was your name again, by the way? You look familiar, but I can’t place you.”