Andre
Hussar sat on a park bench reading about himself in a magazine. There
was a picture of him in The Symphonic Times, baton raised, eyes
closed.
It
wasn't that he resented the attention. But the trade magazines this
week had been getting a bit creative.
Like
many professional conductors, Andre was acclaimed for his perfect
pitch. But recent reports claimed that his aesthete went beyond the
ability to decipher notes on a scale.
"Andre
Hussar knows what his musicians bring to the stage. For any given
performance he will consider the harmony or dissonance of their
personalities and adjust the piece according to each particular
presence."
The
writer gave no further explanation, only a reference to a previous
interview when the famed conductor had spoken of "temperament
issues" in a particular cellist--the same cellist who ten days
earlier had been spotted dining with him in a hotel in Siena. They
hadn't convinced him to say any more about that.
Soon,
there would be no one who cared about the actual music at all. They
would only speculate and ponder the latest sensational concoction.
Pigeons
purred and bobbed at his feet.
They
weren't just relentless they were an unstoppable force, programmed to
peck and peck until not a crumb was left.
He'd
resisted thinking about their expectations all morning, absorbing
himself in the challenge of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. More than a
few of the sections' ambiguous phrasings would require more intensity
than he'd been able to muster. In the finale he knew it was gone,
stolen along with his inspiration.
When
he returned from the park, the picture of Vonya with her cello smiled
up from the floor among the pages, the straight bars on the sheets of
score crumpled by scratches. The warmth from the big window had faded
with the gathering clouds; the surface of the piano absorbed their
fractured patterns.
Ultimately,
he'd known he would call.
Maybe
the performance couldn't be what it might have. At least he would try.
Hearing
her breathe on the other side, the way she sounded carrying boxes up
stairs or suitcases to the terminal, he instinctively mouthed a quick
prayer. Not long after she left she'd told him he had a responsibility
to his divine gift. He'd never supposed that meant she was leaving for
good. After all, to the angels music was the reason for being.
But
that was what she'd meant. And the way the confession sounded
now--like a threat--made him wonder what he ever expected.
"Vonya,
I can't do it."
"What
are you talking about?"
"I'm
empty. You've taken everything."
Silence.
Finally, softly, "You always get dramatic on performance
night."
There
was a rustling on the line and then Gustav's muffled voice. As a
younger man, he might have cried.
"So
how's Gustav?"
She
sighed. "He hears me, Andre. He hears me--"
He
crushed the cell phone closed, gulping in quick breaths. Gathering the
wilted music in his fists and piling the pages into his briefcase, he
slammed the lid over and over. Each deafening crash reverberated until
all that was left were echoes.
Gray-flecked
pearls streamed down the big picture window.
Later,
he'd tell the interviewer how he loved those pigeons in Central Park,
how he knew they would still be pecking and pecking long after he ran
out of crumbs.
The
piano's golden wheels shrieked as it rumbled across the floor and
pitched through the glass. The rear leg snapped off and the black
skiff slid through the smooth glass, crashing against the wall before
flipping toward the sidewalk. Every tight copper string banged in its
cage before a horrible cacophony of snapping wire, shattering wood and
tinkling glass.
As
the sound traveled through the wet street, somewhere deep inside the
man in the picture, the maestro straightened his collar and clicked
his baton.
And
an eager crowd fell silent and waited.
Magazine