5: Lullaby
“Sorry, ma’am—would you come this way with your son just one more time? Alright, perfect, this way please!”
At Masami Nishina’s raised hand, Michiko Dakashima took Akihito’s hand and walked forward from the daycare, awkwardly smiling and with an uneasy gait.
“Nice and easy. Pretend the camera’s not there.”
Akashi Dakashima, watching from the sides, smiled bitterly. Of course he couldn’t help but be even more aware of the camera at such a comment.
Granted, Masami had made an outsize effort to set them at ease, visiting them at home and getting to know them. But the pressure in front of a real camera was altogether different. The outdoor setting, the other parents of the daycare gossiping, the staring of the passers-by—all these seemed to put the normally-calm Michiko at unease.
“Excellent, it’s a go.” Masami waved brightly. Michiko only sighed. “Thanks, little man. You cooperated great.”
Akashi picked up Akihito, whose face was full of wonder. “Cooperate, thank, thank,” he giggled. He seemed to like the sound of the words.
Masami put the camera down and walked over to Akashi. “All we have left is a few more of you practicing, and then the green room the day of the competition, so.”
“Got it.”
“Have you been able to practice any?”
From behind the camera, her air was that of some photojournalist, but without it, she was the high-school classmate Akashi had always known.
“Ah, work’s been busy. I wish I could just lock myself away until I feel the music’s ready to come out, but.”
Masami laughed quietly. “That’s very you, you know.”
“Hm?”
“Sort of understated, not aggressive about your opinions. Just waiting and seeing.”
“Ah, when you put it like that …”
“Why?”
“Because that’s my whole complex, as a musician.”
“No way, really?”
“Really.”
Akashi knew that Masami meant it kindly, as a pronouncement on his aesthetic. But he also knew better than anyone that a strong sense of self, with a definite artistic sensibility, was more favorable than a personality could easily be construed as meekness.
“I like your music. I can’t really describe it, but makes me feel calm. Some strange texturedness, meticulousness.”
“Meticulousness,” Akashi murmured.
Masami looked at Akashi with an eye of worry.
“How are the other shoots going?” Akashi asked, summoning a smile.
Nodding at her friend’s brightness, Masami said, “They’re all cooperative. I’m shooting a Ukrainian and a Russian who are sharing a homestay in Yoshigaë. That host family—so, apparently, the kids who stay with them always end up winning. Especially the Russian—if the rumors mean anything, he seems to have something about him.”
“Hm.”
Something about him. Of course. It’s no surprise that someone with the star-studded history of Russian classical music behind him has very much about them.
Akashi Dakashima, twenty-eight years old. Named for the city Akashi, in the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan, where his father had been working when he was born. He was the oldest contestant of the Yoshigaë Competition, and just under the cutoff. Compared to the other contestants (who naturally are high school- and college-age), he was basically a senior citizen.
When Akashi first received the request to film him for a documentary about piano competitions, he was surprised to learn that it was his old high school classmate, Masami Nishina. And, first being told that he’d be in a television program, he refused, saying it was madness.
—I might not even be around until the Second Round.
At this age, working full-time and with a child, he had no right being in a piano competition. Occasionally, phrases like “self-righteous asshole” would drift into his consciousness.
—No, it’s alright, Masami refuted. People want to see some drama in music. Seeing someone like you in a competition can only evoke sympathy.
Masami didn’t say so in so many words, but Akashi imagined that if every contestant in the documentary were the offspring of wealthy households and renowned teachers, things wouldn’t be all that interesting. A documentary needed an eccentric like Akashi to paint an interesting picture.
Indeed, Akashi had grown up in a profoundly ordinary nine-to-five household. His wife—a childhood playmate—was a high school physics teacher, he a salesman at a large instrument store: two people of perfect averageness.
That, amidst the family-centric mores of Japan, was sure to be a point of conversation. And, despite that, the only reason he finally agreed to the documentary was that this would become his legacy. He knew that this would be his final statement as a musician. After this, he would live out his days as a music-loving amateur. And when Akihito became an adult, he wanted there to be some evidence that his father truly worked to be a professional musician. He explained it in this way to his wife, his parents, even Masami.But that wasn’t quite it, a part of Akashi’s conscience murmured.
That’s just an excuse, his ego chided.
You are full of fury, of wonder. You think differently from most other people.
You, who never assert yourself; you, who are kind and meticulous—you, who have been suppressing this anger and wonder. Don’t you want to let it out at this competition?
He thought, I’ve never understood this: are only through-and-through artists right and true? Can only those who live for nothing but art garner respect? Are the majority of people, those who don’t live solely or primarily for art, somehow lesser?
* * *
Light poured into the room as he slowly pushed open the stiff door. The square of light from the window perfectly framed Akashi’s head.
Ah, this smell.
An image of a boy—young—sitting before the piano—feet not quite touching the ground—arose before him.
Though it was so many years ago, his childhood years washed over him clear as day, channeled by the memory of the scent.
“Wow, look how high the ceilings are. And the columns—so thick! Old houses really are different.”
Masami’s voice brought Akashi back to reality. He looked up; though the lights were on, his eyes were still adjusting to the dim room.
“Is there a loft?”
“It’s just a hidey-hole.”
“Ah, so this is it.”
Masami moved to the attic-space and slowly filmed.
A bare room; the air drier than he remembered.
A covered, unassuming grand piano.
* * *
Masami put the camera right up to the piano and shot patiently for some time.
Akashi’s grandmother, who had bought him the piano, passed away when he was in ninth grade. He glanced at the small wooden backless chair in the corner of the room, where his grandmother would sit, relaxed but straight, listening to her grandson play the piano.
—Your playing is so gentle. Even the silkworms would like your sound.
“It works, you know? The grand piano inside the shed.”
“It’s pretty soundproof too.”
“Do you come often?”
“This is the first time in a while.”
He still gets the piano tuned once a year, but after he committed to entering the competition, he asked for a thorough tune-up once more. He and his tuner, a man named Hanada who was old enough to be his father, went back a long way; upon hearing the news of his decision to compete in the Yoshigaë Competition, he expressed a delight beyond anything Akashi had expected and tuned the piano all the more carefully.
—I’m so happy for you. So happy. I’ve always been a fan of you—and your piano. Piano is not just for the genius boys and girls, after all.
Akashi knew, of course, that he was no prodigy. To be honest, he was a little hurt that Hanada thought the same, but competing at this age counted for something, he supposed.
More than anything, that Hanada’s thoughts were more or less in line with Akashi’s gave him courage.
Piano is not just for the genius boys and girls.
“This is the piano your grandmother bought for you, right? It’s rather cute; I like the scene. Akashi, play something, would you?”
Masami, ever the documentarian, checked the camera repeatedly. Akashi removed the covered and opened the lid and pulled out the chair and at last sat down.
He’d spent countless hours in this chair. The spot where he always sat bore the imprint of his rear.
Compared to the enormous concert grands, it was a very humble grand piano. Beside the matured Akashi, it seemed much too small.
Gosh, it felt so large back then.
He caressed the slightly yellowed keys. How ecstatic he had been when he first sat before it.
His grandmother, so moved was she by his childhood recital, had gone around the neighborhood spreading the good news that “this lad will by the by become a musician.” Then she heard from someone or another that “you can’t become a pro with an upright piano.”
Indeed, when he was young, Akashi had been praised as “someone who would be someone” thanks to his large hands and ease around technically demanding repertory.
His father’s family had been well-known locally as a large silkworm breeder and harvester, but, by the time of Akashi’s birth, the business had declined, and his uncle had found a second job at an electronics manufacturing concern. But still his grandmother saved her hard-earned money to buy this (used) grand piano for Akashi.
Akashi was so happy he could fly. It was the first time he had wept tears of joy. A grand piano was truly the the companion of a pianist. But the grand piano his grandmother had worked so hard to buy had never quite made it to Akashi’s home. Between his father’s frequent moves for work and the tiny size of Japanese apartments, it was simply untenable. Even a successful move would result in complaining neighbors. Upon hearing from his father that there was no way to bring the piano home, this time he wept tears of grief.
So during summer breaks or holidays, and before recitals, he would come here and play all day.
Of course, his grandmother had no formal schooling in classical music. But she had an incredible ear—maybe from listening to her grandson play piano for years and years. In the years before she passed, he frequently found himself surprised by her uncanny hearing.
For example, she could discern subtle shifts in Akashi’s condition or mood. When he sat down for dinner after practicing, she’d sometimes say, “You seem tired” or “Is something bothering you?” She was always spot-on: one time, she remarked that “you seem to speed up whenever something is on your mind,” to his shock. Even from his teachers, he’d hear that when he couldn’t play with enough ease, he’d speed up, resulting in faster performances than when he felt well. It was a tiny difference, hardly noticeable, yet his grandmother had picked up on it.
Every so often, school friends would come by, and his grandmother could tell not only who had played which piece but his friends’ temperament and mood as well.
Akashi’s musicianship and hopes thereof today might indeed have germinated thanks to his grandmother.
That guy, he probably grows bugs inside his piano too.
I heard he plays in a room crawling with caterpillars? I get chills just thinking about it.
After he let slip that the room used to be an incubator for silkworms, such rumors spread at his piano teacher’s studio, and he was relentlessly bullied. One boy in particular reveled in Akashi’s discomfort, and though they went to different conservatories, he would tell Akashi’s new friends the story of his shed. Now that he thought about it, the boy was always second after Akashi (it was a studio that had consistently produced pianists of some renown), and though the abuse was likely a result of Akashi’s musicianship and popularity, its continuation had worn on him.
He had a friend who had graduated an extremely prestigious women’s high school in Tokyo. It was she who told him the surprising news that the most common combination of parental occupation at the school was a doctor father and piano instructor mother.
Though he was no thoroughbred prodigy, Akashi, who had matriculated with reasonably bright hopes ahead of him, ended up absorbing the inferiority complex characteristic of the industry’s supporting actors.
The person who can enjoy music in daily life and possess a keen ear—like his grandmother—occupies some given, ordinary place. Is there no such place for a performer?
It’s not that there wasn’t some way to a professional career. Whether to go pro or not more or less rests on one’s willpower. Though he loved both music and the piano, Akashi feared living in the wide-open, yet claustrophobic “extraordinary” place. He wanted to stay in the ordinary place, with his grandmother.
“Oh, I know this one. What’s it called?”
“It’s one of Schumann’s. ‘Träumerei,’” Akashi casually answered. “You know this one too, I imagine?” He played.
“Oh, this is the piece that plays in the commercial for heartburn meds.”
“Right. It’s Chopin.”
“Your playing is so gentle.”
Akashi felt a chill all of a sudden.
Even the silkworms would like your sound.
It was as though his grandmother was speaking to him through Masami. Something hot, some oozing emotion pushed through his body.
“I, I’m going to stay here and finish getting ready for the competition.”
“Weren’t you going to go to some studio to finish practicing?”
“Nah. I like it here.”
“You sure? It is nice, from a film standpoint—nice and close to you …” Masami said, seemingly taken aback.
He had, after all, complained to her only hours ago that there was nowhere to practice, no time to practice, on and on. But Akashi felt content for some reason.
Yes, let’s finish things here. With the piano grandmother bought me, in the room grandmother listened to me, let’s finish off this competition. It suits me.
“Do you know the movie Never on Sunday?”
Akashi relaxedly checked the weight of the keys and looked at Masami.
“Why, all of a sudden. Of course. With Melissa Mercouri.” Masami grinned as though confident when it came to movie trivia.
“There’s a line I like from it.”
“What is it? Not that I’ll remember, but.”
The silkworm incubator Mozart.
Akashi felt happy for some reason.
“The movie, it’s set in Greece, right? And Melissa Mercouri plays the lead, some charismatic prostitute. And some old university professor comes by and gets into spats with the locals and eventually shouts at the neighborhood musicians that if they can’t read music and don’t know any of the classics, they aren’t musicians.”
“Huh. Was there a scene like that?”
“Yeah. It left such a deep impression on me—maybe because I thought of myself as a musician too.”
“So?”
“So my point is, Melissa Mercouri hears this and goes, ‘No! A bird may not read music but never stops its song for it.’ The musicians, hearing this, come alive again and start to play.”
“Wow!”
“That’s music.”
Mozart gently flowed in the shed where the afternoon sun cast elongating shadows.