6: Drumroll
The domed ceiling, composed of confident, tall arcs, showered the people packed into the lobby of the hall below with the echoes of their own jovial laughter.
Camera flashes everywhere. The ones in dark suits with notepads, running hither and thither—those were the regional newspaper and music magazine writers, or perhaps the sponsoring corporations’ PR representatives. As the reputation and public profile of the Yoshigaë International Piano Competition rose over the last few years, national newspapers’ columnists and famous music critics have also increasingly joined this mix.
Miëko Saga, holding a glass of champagne, stared through the curved glass enveloping the lobby at the darkness of the courtyard beyond. The hall was part of a multifunctional complex, containing a hotel, a shopping mall, and offices; its placement within the complex allowed for a clear view of the entry plaza. The plaza was dark and empty at this late hour—10 P.M.—and, with the contrast between the fanciful lights of the lobby and the eerie darkness lying beyond that mere sheet of glass somehow evoking the pomp of the concert stages to come and the buried emotional torment of those upon it, Miëko felt for a moment as though the Japan’s late-autumn chill would shatter the silicate barrier and pierce her skin.
She caught a glimpse of her own countenance in the glass and halted: a worried, hostile expression. Gosh, do I really look like that? I look as though I’m one of those competing conservatory students.
As she chided herself for her expression thus, she ran her palm over her cheek, to little effect.
* * *
Tonight was the opening night of the two week-long Yoshigaë International Piano Competition; the First Round would begin tomorrow.
The opening concert was ven by the last competition winner; it functioned as the kickoff to the winner’s tour in Japan, which tour is one of the awards for victory. That winner failed the document stage only to resurrect through the auditions, and after winning Yoshigaë also won the S— Competition—a star at last; now, the pianist stepped onstage with a mysterious new maturity. Contentedly watching a star one has found as an audience member at their opening recital can be said to be a competition judge’s dream; also the desire to find yet another star naturally wells up in these moments.
After the recital, a competition affiliate-only party took place in the lobby; here, the judges who had been scattered around the world finally came together. Some contestants were also in attendance, creating something of a global atmosphere. The organizers of the competition, the mayor of Yoshigaë and regional dignitaries, and executives of sponsoring corporations also took part: a bona fide fancy shindig. Despite the recessive mood of the global economy, Yoshigaë, as a leading manufacturing city with half a dozen industrial concerns calling it home, could still show off some glamour.
“Why do you seem so small, Miëko?”
The person casually bumping Miëko, who had been trying to massage her hardened face, was Dadaïki Hishinuma. Miëko smiled bitterly.
“Mr. Numa, must you speak so? Can’t you just say I look deep in thought?”
“You’ve still got bark, huh? No different to the young girl who couldn’t pay attention to a single minute of my lecture, who told me she hated solfege more than anything else. I turn around and she’s become a woman who scornfully counts her new wrinkles in the glass.”
“You’re too much,” Miëko laughed emptily, too tired even to fight back.
The Yoshigaë International Piano Competition always commissions a new piece by a Japanese composer; Hishinuma was that composer this year. From a family of art critic and politician grandparents, a world-famous composer of conservative dress and unremarkable stature—yet a tongue of acid and fire to stun anyone into submission.
“So I heard the French team dug up something amazing,” Hishinuma said with a spark in his eye.
“God, even you know,” Miëko sighed and frowned.
“A son of an apiarist? He’s apparently being called the ‘honeybee prince.’”
“Honeybee prince,” Miëko said, suddenly unable to speak and feeling a wave of heaviness.
Jin Kazama. The name weighed on Miëko. Just now, she saw Alain and Sergei for the first time since the Paris auditions, and she was sure that the name was stressing them out as well. Though each had been busy after the audition, they had researched Jin Kazama and pooled their knowledge.
Miëko, for one, had thought he would have used Jin 仁, but instead he used Jin 塵; she explained to Alain that the former meant “humaneness,” a Buddhist virtue, while the latter meant “dust,” to which he burst out laughing. His laughter depressed Miëko. It wasn’t enough that they all had fallen into Hoffman’s game; even his name was a tease. His father was sure to be a character as well. Though Alain seemed to treat it all as good fun, Miëko couldn’t help but feel her anxiety over Jin Kazama swell.
It was kind of remarkable how fast the news—and rumors—about Jin Kazama had swept the field. Miëko tried to avoid prejudice and talk, but it was impossible to shut the world out. The information about him was minimal—he truly was a nobody—but this only served to fan the flames of gossip. If such a contestant appeared only to give a flashy, boring performance—she didn’t want to imagine the fallout, which was sure to be directed at her and the other Paris judges.
“What even is your expression—like you’ve bitten into a bug or something.” Hishinuma peered at her—maybe he expected her to freak out.
“Oh, you know. Christ, Maestro Hoffman really was unkind,” Miëko complained, almost involuntarily.”
“I heard there was a recommendation.”
Miëko wasn’t sure how he interpreted her expression at that statement, but for once he wore a serious expression.
“Whatever people say, it is in fact true that Hugh instructed this honeybee prince. I called Daphne a while ago and she said that Hugh did in fact have a student he visited and taught every so often.”
“What?”
Daphne was Hugh von Hoffman’s wife; Hishinuma has long had connections with Hoffman’s family, and even after his death was known to exchange calls with them.
“Maestro visited? No way in hell,” Miëko shot back without thinking. Hoffman was famed to be a scarce teacher, and had never taught outside his own home.
“Daphne thought it was odd too, and said she asked him about it. He just laughed, she says, teasingly, and wouldn’t tell her who he was or where he lived. What a joker he was. ‘He’s a traveling musician, so.’”
A traveling musician. Not an incorrect description of the son of an apiarist who followed the blossoming of flowers.
But how did he teach him? There wasn’t a trace of professional pedagogy in the image of this boy who didn’t even know how to handle himself onstage.
“So what of this prince? I don’t assume he’s coming today,” Hishinuma said, looking about.
“For better or for worse, he’s performing on the last day of the First Round. He seems to be flying in just before.”
A marathon of a competition—two weeks. The First Round, with its ninety musicians, takes five days. The contestants in attendance tonight are either already semi-professionals or playing early on in the First Round. Naturally, some of these people were practicing even now, reflexively more than anything, perhaps.
From the perspective of Americans or Europeans, Japan is far, expensive to compete in. Even for those with a homestay, the burden is great: it’s only the contestants from the upper classes of Korea and China who stay in the city’s hotels. It’s only natural for them, really, to arrive at the last minute. There’s no real way to know whether Kazama is facing financial hardship, but then there haven’t been rumors of his family’s wealth, either.
No one was really to say whether getting judged earlier or later is better, either.
“The Queen comes hither,” Hishinuma murmured.
Olga Sluchkaya, tall of height and robust of frame, embraced by a suit of striking blue and exuding a brilliant yet grave energy, the redhead beauty of Russia, approached. Not only was she a consummate pianist of her own right, she had trained numerous protegés and was famed as an excellent teacher as well. Her favorable view of Japan and its culture was hardly less renowned: many of her pupils were Japanese, and her command of the language was formidable. Though she was approaching seventy, her magnetic charm and energy had not faltered one iota; she cast long shadows on the classical music world, and, aided by her talents in negotiation and politics, she played an indispensable role in raising the profile of the Yoshigaë International Piano Competition from an East Asian backwater to a truly cosmopolitan competition.
“Casting aspersions about me, are we?”
“God forbid, ma’am,” Hishinuma demurred with a glint in his eye. Though he was barely younger than her, even he genuflected so: Miëko found it a little pathetic.
“We were just talking about how we’re sure to meet a star this year as well.”
“Oho, how lovely that would be,” Olga said, eyes flashing.
She’d surely heard about the Paris auditions, and definitely knew the tastes of the three judges behind them. Olga, oh-so-strict, advocated for a musical pedagogy based on deep understanding and careful study; she’d undoubtedly frown at any antics by the “honeybee prince.” But ever the pragmatist, she was sure to use any attention thus garnered to the competition’s advantage: otherworldly playing, Hoffman’s recommendation, nicknames—whether they be the honeybee prince or gnat prince.
“Miëko, lovely to see you. Please come by my room when you have a chance.”
Miëko pridefully watched Olga’s departure, smiling coldly and tsking her under her breath, and then turned to eye another group of sparkling personalities. A group much more likely to disdain the so-called honeybee prince.
“There’s supposed to be another demigod coming, from New York,” Hishinuma said, following Miëko’s sightline.
“Oh, really?” This old man’s instincts are too good.
At the target of her sightline was Nathaniel Silverberg, with a smile so sweet you’d never notice the fierceness of his eyes.
Curly, light-brown hair with pronounced losses, like a lion’s patchy mane. Normally genial and relaxed, he was the model of a charming man, but he had his passions, and, when it came to music, he took no prisoners. Should one have the misfortune to touch a nerve, there would be no holding him back. Miëko has witnessed such a scene precisely once. The Nathaniel she knew was vaporized by a man whose hair seemed to stand upright by the sheer energy radiated by his anger, shaking and waving less like a mane and more like tongues of flame.
He, the same age as Miëko (and approaching fifty, gosh), had few equals as a pianist and recently forayed into conducting and theater, garnering praise and respect beyond the classical world. Though British, as a Juilliard professor, he spent most of his time and had most of his engagements in the United States.
“A man with hair. I’m jealous,” Hishinuma sighed with a wistful rub of his nearly-arid scalp.
“Even that’s a lot less than he used to have. He could have played the lion in a kabuki[1] without a wig, is what people used to say.”
Hishinuma snickered as though imagining the scene.
“I heard he was having a rough time with the divorce proceedings, but all things told, he doesn’t look so bad—his skin’s positively glowing.”
“Are you sure it’s not just because he’s white?”
Even Miëko had heard of his divorce from a famous British theater actress. He does always seem to get into women problems, Mieko thought to herself.
Hishinuma looked at Miëko with a curious eye, and then tapped his forehead. “Right, I’d forgotten he was your ex-husband too!”
Like you’d actually forgotten.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Yes, yes. How’s your son?”
“I got a note from him recently. He’d gotten a job as a civil servant, I think in economic development.”
Hishinuma looked at Miëko with an expression of disappointment. “Not even knowing what his work is. Come now! Young Master Sin-ya must be a smart one.”
“Thanks to his father. Even his face seems copy-pasted.”
After divorcing Nathaniel, she met a man of her parents’ recommendation, a Tokyo University alum who worked for a bank. It was madness looking back, but at the time, with her head still spinning from going round and round with Nathaniel, she wanted a simple, honest fellow, and thought she in fact loved the man. The son from that marriage, as if physiologically rejecting a character as freewheeling and heterodox as Miëko, seemed almost a cookie-cutter replica of his father, not only in appearance but in his simple character and desires.
Admittedly, Miëko divorced the father before the boy started elementary school, and did not exactly watch him grow up day by day. And with the father remarrying soon after, the image of Sin-ya in Miëko’s mind was still of the toddler bobbing about. As Sin-ya grew, head held high and broad-shouldered, she felt deeply grateful for the woman who had taken him in as her own.
Though he himself did not play, Sin-ya came to enjoy music, and started to send Miëko his thoughts on her performances by mail. Surprised by the nuance of his observations, she was at once joyed and somehow embarrassed. Nowadays they mostly emailed; she suspected his family knew it too.
Whom might Nathaniel’s daughter resemble?
As the thought crossed her mind, she also locked eyes with Nathaniel.
Involuntarily, she shuddered.
In his eyes was a look, the slightest look, of embarrassment.
She knew he had some unresolved feelings for her, and she herself did not have only unkind feelings about him. But his shift of expression to one of darkness did not bode well: she was willing to bet he had just remembered the “honeybee prince.”
He strode over; Miëko effortfully smiled at him.
“It’s been a while,” he said calmly, eyes unsmiling.
“You look good!” she said, forcing brightness into her tone.
“You as well,” he replied, his expression unchanging. But to Hishinuma, he flashed his trademark smile, teeth and all.
“Professor, forgive my scarceness. I much enjoyed your piece for the competition.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
As Nathaniel chatted away with Hishinuma, she watched his face in profile and saw its latent tension.
He was upset, deeply upset. At her, at her admitting the student with Hoffman’s recommendation.
Why did you do it? Why didn’t you stop it, Miëko? Thus did his profile, his gaze lament to her. If he had heard that child play. She had the sudden image of his implosion of fury flash before her eyes.
Because he was one of Hoffman’s few students.
Because he had flown from London once a week to Hoffman’s home to receive instruction and had still never received a recommendation.
So it was. Hoffman was, especially to those who admired and praised and glorified him, a wheel that dispensed both fortune and misfortune.
To see a recommendation from his life’s mentor appear in the fist of some ignoramus, he would not know how to handle it except to bleat and clamor in fear.
I couldn’t help it, Miëko said in her heart.
And besides, Maestro Hoffman’s bomb just detonated. There was nothing we could have done. He had already received his “gift” …
At that moment, a stride brisk enough to conjure a breeze passed by and a looming figure appeared beside Nathaniel.
“Professor Silverberg.”
Miëko blinked unconsciously. The figure seemed to have a warm, buttery halo about him.
“Ah, Masaru.” Nathaniel’s expression softened.
“Masaru?” Miëko repeated dumbly. Nathaniel looked at her and then at the man in realization.
“Yes, Masaru is also part-Japanese. Peruvian and fourth-generation Japanese on his mother’s side.”
“Peruvian fourth-generation Japanese.” Miëko studied his face but the only thing to be said was Latinate; there was no Japan anywhere to be seen. The only word that came to mind was “hybrid.”
The man—boy, she now realized—was tall enough to edge out Nathaniel, and dressed in a refined gray tweed suit without looking at all old-fashioned. High in stature yet soft in statements. Animal yet depthful. He seemed to embody contradiction, polar opposites fused, forced together. Occasionally there are physiques which might best be described as “speed as flesh;” this youth was just that type. A lounging beast with explosive energy; a racecar engine in low gear.
“Please look kindly upon him,” Nathaniel said as he patted the youth on the shoulder. “He’s Juilliard’s secret soldier. Started competing this year.”
“Your first was in Osaka, right? Why Osaka?” Hishinuma asked.
“I wanted a preliminary to Yoshigaë. To get a feel for Japan and its halls. But I didn’t know the rules well enough, and was eliminated on a technicality.” The youth scratched his head as though in embarrassment.
“Oh!” Miëko cried involuntarily.
Is this that one, that—
She stared at him. She had heard about a contestant who had garnered perfect scores but gave an encore when he shouldn’t have and so had failed to progress. It seemed this was him.
“Masaru means ‘victory,’ you know,” Nathaniel said as if changing the subject. “This is Miëko Saga. An old friend.”
“I’ve heard much about you. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Masaru said, eyes sparkling, as he extended his hand.
As his hand enveloped hers, Miëko could not help but sigh.
Victory and Dust. The stage has been set.
Turning, Miëko looked back out into the plaza. The depth of the darkness and the night seemed endless. The competition was set to begin.
1. A traditional form of Japanese theater, a mixture of dance and drama.