4: Tremolo
Aya Eiden raised her head from her book.
Hm, the rain’s pouring harder.
The darkness covering the spacious landscape stretching before her belied the afternoon hour; the dense storm sapped all color and vividness from the scenery.
I hear it—the hoofbeats.
It was a rhythm, a timbre she had always associated with the rain. One of her favorite expressions from childhood was that “the horses of rain are coming.”
There was a small ceramic-tiled roof behind her house. In any normal shower, there wasn’t any special sound that can be heard. But, in a thunderstorm like today’s, a certain, almost mystical sound pattered out. Perhaps it was the rain splashing onto that room from somewhere else. Some special rhythm that the laws of physics conjure.
The rhythm of a perfect gallop.
As a child, she once played Burgmüller’s La Chevaleresque,[1] which prominently incorporates a syncopated rhythm, in a competition; she liked to think her evocation of the raindrops was the deciding factor in her win.
She thought of a video on YouTube that went viral recently showing a pianist who, frustrated by an unrelenting fire alarm, started improvising to its beat. She sighed deeply.
Staring at the landscape, warped by the storm, she thought, There’s so much music in the world.
Need I add to it?
She glanced over to the documents sprawled upon a nearby table.
Exhaustion syndrome. It may as well be called ordinary life.
She’s heard such quips ad nauseam.
Every year, from all corners of the world, “prodigal” boy and girl pianists spring into the public eye. They perform with orchestras, are hailed as geniuses, and fill the rosy daydreams of their parents.
Of course, not everyone gets that far. They hit puberty and register the coldness of the world; they fade away after realizing all they really want is friends; their musicality stops developing; or they just get sick of lessons. Each to their own.
Aya was one of them. Winner of domestic and international competitions, and not only releasing a debut album but winning a young artist award for it. But even someone like her can have her career lopped off when it’s least expected.
Which the death of her mother—her first mentor, her protector and supporter and manager—decidedly was.
If Aya had been any older than thirteen, things may have gone differently. Hell, even if she were fourteen or fifteen. If she had had any desire to be free from authority, as most teens that age do. Such circumstances may have imparted a different message on Aya and her music. But she dearly loved her mother—wanted to please her, played only for her—and the loss of her stabilizing, loving presence was one just too great. She literally lost all reason to play.
And so, her first concert after her mother’s funeral, she simply didn’t.
Her schedule had been booked a year and a half ahead; her coordinator at the record label that had made her debut album had been rushed into the role of manager. Her grandmother, who had lived with her and her mother since Aya was a toddler, handled the housework and other living logistics, so there were no problems there. Looking back, she thinks she hadn’t even processed that her mother had passed away—until she was sitting in the green room of that first concert.
Her manager had called in advance for a stylist—a meticulous woman who dressed her, did her hair, and applied her makeup. All things her mother had done for her. Finishing her work, the stylist left to attend to other work.
“Mom, the black tea?” was what Aya was about to say, before she realized she was alone in the room. Her mother’s black tea, dark and sweet, cooled so that it could be sipped without being blown on. A kind smile accompanying the thermos being passed to her.
Aya felt destabilized.
A cavernous sense of loss overwhelmed her. The ceilings literally seemed to recede—far, so far away. Sucking her lifeblood as it went. A lukewarm, tingly, altogether terrible sensation coursed through her.
I am alone. All alone. Mom is nowhere in this world. No one will hand me a thermos of tea in that same way ever again.
Presently, she found her senses again. Where am I? What am I doing? She looked about. White walls. A clock on the wall. The green room—some unfathomable concert hall’s green room.
I have a concert.
Right, yes. I did rehearse with the orchestra just a little while ago. Prokofiev’s Second. As if there were nothing wrong, so naturally. How did I? How could I?
And then she remembered people’s whispers of relief, of admiration. She imagined the chitchat:
I’m so glad. I was worried, but she’s so mature.
I know—incredible. I thought she’d be in shock but she’s calm as ever.
Really, you just have to play through it.
What did they mean?
As she thought, a cold metal ball settled in her stomach. Reality swept over her again: I am alone. I have no Mom. That’s why they’re talking.
Alone alone alone.
The word echoed until she stepped onto the stage, until the roar of the audience poured out, freezing her thoughts and almost her limbs.
All she could see was the luminous grand piano before her.
And then she understood. Her Mom was nowhere—not in the audience, not backstage, not anywhere in the world.
Having finally absorbed this, she knew how to handle the piano before her as much as she knew how to handle a nine-foot slab of rock.
It wasn’t always this way. Pianos used to be her friend. They would sit onstage, all sparkly, bursting with the music that only she knew how to free.
I have to go and set it free.
She always had to resist the impulse to run to the piano, was how eager she used to be. And no one would be happier to see her free the music than her mother.
But now …
An empty, blank beauty. Silent as a tomb, daring someone to touch it. A black box.
There’s no music in there. There’s no music anywhere.
She turned around and walked away.
The shocked members of the orchestra, the staring manager, the roiling audience—she saw them all. But she continued, walking, running, until she was out of sight.
She ran and ran and ran. Ran until she burst from the back door of the hall into an empty street, gloomy and wet from the rain.
And thus she became “the lost genius.”
The abandoned stage became stuff of legend—all the more so because the orchestra members unanimously attested to an astounding musicality, even heightened after her mother’s death. And the problems—the recovery of a concert without a soloist, the refunding of tickets, the abuse endured by her manager—were only beginning. A pianist who abandons a stage, especially one so young as her, does not receive further invitations. There are plenty of other “geniuses” to fill the schedule.
Once, there had even been a verb punning on her name—“to Eiden”—usually used as a jeer among conservatory students. To be destroyed suddenly: “you really got Eidened just then.” The characters used in her name—“ei,” glory; “den,” deliver—of course did not go unnoticed. But they now coined a new verb: “to Eidan,” with “dan,” to cut. And so she was now Aya Eidan, the pianist who cut her own glory short.
But Aya herself felt little despair. For she felt her abdication to be just: why ought one stand onstage, before a piano with no music in it?
And besides, it was much easier to be thought stupid, or to be ignored, than to be envied, or to be the center of attention. Some people, with this or that ulterior motive in mind, tried to get “genius” Aya to do or become something that suited their need and greed. After her abdication, their cautious posture soon gave way to an abdication of their own: there were other geniuses to manipulate and coax.
Aya much preferred it this way.
From the moment she registered her mother’s death onward, she slowly acclimated—or deacclimated—to ordinary life. She enrolled in high school as a “normal” student. Most child pianists, perhaps surprisingly, keep up good grades; she was no exception. Her grades were so good, in fact, that she graduated with honors and considered beginning to attend a local university on full scholarship, enjoying her “normal” life all the while.
And by no means did she “distance” herself from music—at least, so she felt. She just realized there was no music inside the pianos of competition stages anywhere, and she knew her mother would never hear any music she produced ever again. She still loved listening to music, and even played for fun once in a while.
But Aya was different from other child prodigies. Her mother realized this—realized that Aya’s musicality transcended the piano, that Aya might have left the piano on her own—as did one other person.
The thing is, Aya didn’t really need the piano. From her childhood, listening to the rain fall on the rooftop, Aya heard music everywhere in her life, and that was enough for her. It was only because her mother was a talented pianist herself that Aya received any pianistic education at all, and used the piano to express her own music. She was a true genius, one who knew and was satisfied with the fact that music was all around her. Her mother’s true task, perhaps, was in ensuring that Aya continued to find joy in channeling her overflowing musicality into the piano. And without that guidance, what was Aya to do but to leave the piano behind?
The other person who recognized Aya’s genius for what it truly was entered her life around the time she was considering college matriculation. A conservatory friend of her mother’s visiting on the occasion of the anniversary of her mother’s death, he asked if he couldn’t hear the performance of the daughter who brought such joy to his old friend.
Not since the day of her last time onstage had she played for another person. She had manned the synth for pop or rock bands with her friends, but had avoided situations where she might be asked to play all by herself. Not to mention the caution of those around her.
Normally, she would have declined. But as soon as she had met the man—his name was Hamazaki—she had felt an ineffable longing. Stout and solid—she saw a raccoon statue in his figure—like the school principal of a daytime soap, with thin, warm eyes. Speaking slowly, he made his request like an old man asking a passing lad to go and buy him a pack of smokes—and so she replied, just as loosely, Sure, what would you like me to play?
—Anything. Something you like, or maybe your mother liked.
As she guided him to the piano room, she asked, Is it alright if it’s something contemporary?
—Of course.
After her mother died, and Aya stopped performing, the room’s atmosphere changed also. Filled with CDs and books, potted plants and stuffed animals, it had come to serve as her second room. Hamazaki looked about.
—I’m sorry it’s such a mess, she apologized, but he shook his head.
—Not at all—it’s like your personality and the piano have been blended together. One big Aya-piano lump.
—A lump, I like it, she laughed.
She opened the lid of the piano. Something stirred.
It had been a very long time.
Without any score, she began to play. A Shostakovich sonata.
It was a piece she had begun to play for herself after seeing a young Russian pianist have such fun with it. The score was rare and expensive, so she learned it by ear over many listens.
Hamazaki made a face at the unusual choice, but slowly sunk into Aya’s performance. His countenance began to mellow; when the music stopped, he applauded loudly with a serious face.
—Aya, have you performed this for any of your other teachers?
—No, I haven’t studied under anyone since learning this piece, Aya smiled bitterly. When her mother had been alive, she had studied under a renowned instructor, but after her debacle, all contact was severed—whether due to a fear that her instruction would come under scrutiny, or simply because no good would come from any further association.
—Such music, all alone, Hamazaki murmured to himself, before pursing his lips. It was truly great. What were you thinking about as you played?
—Watermelons rolling, Aya said.
—Watermelons?
—I saw a Korean movie with a funny scene recently, Aya said. A bunch of watermelons are rolling down a hill. Some breaking open, others not. The streets are soaked red, and yet there are still countless watermelons just rolling along. When I was playing this piece, that scene came to mind. Wouldn’t you say, there’s something about the music that matches that scene? Later on in the sonata, there’s even a bit that sounds like the watermelons being cleaned up.
Hamazaki blinked, and then began laughing with his entire body. Watermelons, so that’s what it was.
Presently, his laughter died down, and he sat down.
—Miss Aya Eiden, would you not do us the honor of attending our college?
Hearing such formal, almost desperate words, Aya became confused. Our college?
To Aya’s hesitant question, he extended a business card. Aya gasped. Hamazaki was the dean of one of the best conservatories in Japan.
—Miss Eiden, you love music, yes? You love it, and your understanding of it is deep. I wish for such students to come to our conservatory. Nowadays, there are so many musicians, and so many ways of enjoying music, but studying at a conservatory, you’ll surely find more fun, more exciting happenstances, and studying music will help you enjoy music even more. What do you think?
Aya could only blink at the rush of words, almost recited, certainly without a breath. Hamazaki sat waiting for an answer. She almost felt as though she were being tested. Up until now, she had thought both the humanities and the sciences to be fine choices, and had been looking through many universities’ curricula. But she had to admit that Hamazaki’s offer was also tempting.
He knew as well as she that she could not live without music. But she, no longer competition-caliber, had shifted to other genres of music and playing in bands. But what if, she thought, these weren’t enough?
At the audition, a row of renowned professors sat facing her, and she had felt her chest tighten. Among their cool gazes, though, was Hamazaki’s kindly, nodding face—a scene she could remember as though it had happened only yesterday.
As soon as her performance was over, all the professors applauded, looking between her and Hamazaki. In that moment, he smiled ever so briefly and waved to her. She later heard a rumor that this was an unprecedented event—that it was unheard of for a student not studying under someone to be admitted based on a dean’s recommendation and an audition alone. That it was a move that could have destabilized the conservatory’s reputation.
There were, of course, those who heard her name and said, “Oh, she’s …” and looked at one another, and also those who spoke unkindly of her behind her back. She tried not to mind, but as her humble personality and undeniably great musicality came to be recognized, others’ regard for her as a peer, a great peer, and as a friend did truly make her happy.
And it could not be denied that studying theory, composition, and history were tremendous fun, either. Hamazaki had been right: the more she studied, the more she fell back in love with music.
But a competition? Now? She looked out her window, deep into the storm, and sighed.
She barely remembered the competitions of her childhood. At the time, it had felt more like she was an exhibition than a participant in a competition. And certainly it was her first time in a senior competition.
A layperson at twenty. The snark she’d heard somewhere echoed in her mind. She becomes twenty this coming spring. Seven years since her abdication.
Her current professor—an interesting character, definitely an eccentric but also one with whom she got along very well—had suggested it, but there was no doubt that Hamazaki was behind the idea.
It’s not as though she felt ungrateful to him, and she knew that declining to compete would be an insult to him. And as extraordinary as her admission circumstances had been, she felt some duty to prove that their allowances for her had not been in vain.
But maestro, I no longer know how to find that kind of music.
She was so happy with her life right now. She could try out the music in the world beyond the conservatory whenever she pleased, come back to the piano and enjoy herself, and imbibe the music pulsing in the world all around her. That was enough.
Mom, what do I do.
Aya stared at the strengthening ripples of rain coursing down her windows. She put her book down, and lay down on top of it.
The horses were thundering past.
1. “Trotting;” literally, “The chivalrous woman.”