5: It's Only A Paper Moon
Akashi Dakashima could not rise from his seat for some time.
The audience, come together and exuding its singular, ecstatic praise like some sentient hurricane of a cheer, was opposite his own sinking, almost despairing feeling.
There was only a sense of fantastical dissociation left over in his head. At the same time, he felt the almost comical echoing “ding” of a great bell resounding in his body. It was the bell of disbelief, or something like that.
He could only feel bad for the female contestant who came after Masaru Carlos Levi Anatol. No matter how she tried, the audience carelessly watched the stage, soaked in Masaru’s glory, looking for Masaru’s ghost.
Somehow, this aftershock remained during the recital of the contestant after her as well. It was only until the third contestant after Masaru came onstage that the audience seemed able to focus on the spectacle before them.
Today will be divided in two: those who came before M. Anatol, and those who came after, Akashi thought weakly.
Before Masaru, the contestants were excellent, no doubt—he felt his envy in his bones—but it was still possible to coolly enjoy their music, and to analyze their performances. The previous day’s performance had left him feeling pretty good, and his wife’s and friends’ comments afterward had been colored with genuine admiration—a fact which gave him not a little anticipation.
If this is the competition, I have a chance. I could too.
Though he tried not to think about it, he couldn’t help but think of their performances relative to his own. He found himself lacking, but not by much.
But as soon as Masaru came out, that preconception was shattered like a glass on concrete.
Akashi did his best to avoid intel on other contestants. Frankly, he just didn’t have the time to think about them. But conservatory friends and coworkers still passed along tidbits about the more famous contestants, and here was one of them—the god-child of Nathaniel Silverberg, someone on another plane from him and most of the others. The friend who told him about Masaru had heard him play in New York; when the friend continued that he had heard a trombone performance, he was sure that his friend had mixed up recitals. He was, after all, a guy who enjoyed classical but studied jazz musicology and played the bass in college. It was an understandable error for someone who frequented the great jazz clubs in every city he visited.
—He was just insane. Cheeks like Curtis Fuller,[1] and a really mighty solo that was pretty sensitive too. He was only sixteen—sixteen!—but held his own with the pros.
Searching the internet at home, he saw that Masaru played the trombone for fun and was a Juilliard piano performance student by trade. His skill in guitar and percussion was also said to be conservatory-level.
Jesus, he’s really the genius type, isn’t he. Just had the talent to spare, Akashi thought lightly. Eh, he must still be a little unsure of what he wants to do—had teachers of every sort as a kid. Probably a little naïve.
The musical world, since time immemorial, has had a category just for prodigies. They have some special something at some remarkably young age—bestowed the ability to see the secrets of great music by Fortune.
But they also cannot see things most people can see. They can see the rarefied, heavenly vistas from the peaks of their music, and they can play as though their technique was acquired as easily as software is downloaded. But they do not know the hike—the sheer suffering of starting at sea level to climb the mountain of music; of suffering, and crying, and despairing to earn their views from the pinnacles of Chopin and Bach.
In that sense, mere mortals often feel something akin to superiority over prodigies. And so Akashi never felt threatened or jealous of them.
But Masaru Carlos, stepping onstage, shattered Akashi’s notion not only of greatness but also of genius.
That depth, that greatness of scale, that sheer excellence. All at nineteen: he was a miracle. He was the first true prodigy Akashi has ever seen.
Drunk off his music, Akashi at the same time despaired. In that youthful, beautiful, glittering music, there was even the austerity of the penitent—what he had thought of as the domain of the older, more experienced pianists.
And then he realized: Masaru wanted to know all of music, to dig down to music’s bedrock. The trombone and the guitar were additional tools in his mining ensemble. It was not out of boredom, but out of a singular devotion to his music. To sit before the piano as he did, he had had to go beyond it.
How can people like him exist.
Despair suffused his consciousness. He was literally seeing spots.
How come I wasn’t born like him. How come I have come to play the same instrument as him, in the same place as him, in the same competition as him.
How how how.
While such thoughts flickered through his head, the “post-Masaru Carlos” contestants flitted by like a video on fast-forward. He had appeared somewhere a little past the first half, but when he gathered his wits, the day was over and the crowd was leaving in threes and fives.
How.
That word pinging through his brain, Akashi just managed to stand up. He was aware that he needed to practice for the Second Round, but he could not find it in himself to do so. His sighs sounded like the gasping breaths of a dying man climbing some godforsaken hill.
* * *
“Now that I think about it, she’ll be playing on the last day, right? You know, the one.”
“Yeah, I’m excited. Aya Eiden.”
Aya Eiden, yawning in a restroom stall, heard the exchange beyond the door and just barely caught herself from yelping.
“Have you heard anything about her recently?”
“No, nothing. Her last actual performance was a concerto in Carnegie Hall, which, you know, why even bother with a competition now?”
It sounded like two young women. Probably idly chatting while doing their makeup.
The bathroom was crowded for a little while after the end of the day’s recitals; she had tried to drop in discreetly, and now she was stuck.
What do I do, Aya thought. I can’t leave now. Would they recognize me if I stepped out now? I do look different than my headshot in the program book. It’s a bobcut, how would they? I’ll just be confident and—
“How long has she been away now?”
“Gosh. Seven, eight years?”
“Where do you think they go? You know, the child prodigies. They debut at ten, twelve, whatever, and then they vanish. I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head who debuted as a child.”
“Maybe their talent is just spent. They spent their entire lives playing the piano. There’s a limit to how deep one can go. It’s like how child actors almost never become mature adult actors. There must be some kind of wall.”
She felt the small of her back go cold.
Ordinary at twenty. Childhood peak. The phrases whispered as worst-case scenarios floated along her vision.
“How funny would it be if she didn’t pass the First Round?” The tone was unkind. “How embarrassing? Do you think she’s afraid, after so long? And it’s a freaking competition, not even some resurrection recital. I couldn’t do it.”
Because you’re you and I’m me, Aya thought cruelly. And yet she felt herself begin to sweat from her stomach.
“Do you think she’ll show up?”
“We’ll see.”
“What if she just quits again?”
The voices grew distant. They’d finally left; the bathroom quieted. Aya walked out of the stall, but couldn’t bring herself to leave.
What if they knew I was in here, and said those things so that I would listen? So that I would know what people really thought?
What if I leave now, and they go, “I told you she was in there!”
Creeping out; the women laughing at her. The image was unbearable.
She peeked her head out; the lobby was empty. She returned to wash her hand and tiptoed out again. A mausoleum.
She was glad Kanadae wasn’t with her. She’d had business in Tokyo and left right after Masaru Carlos’s recital; she’d hate to see the state she was in right now.
The entryway to the hall was populated only with a few staffers silently cleaning up and a few straggling audience members. None of them looked as though their voices sound like the ones she’d heard.
She exited as if running away.
I’m not competing because I want to. It wasn’t my choice.
She screamed silently once alone at the hotel. She couldn’t tell whether she was embarrassed, or frustrated, or sad, or angry.
Such was the attention of the world. It considered her neutrally and found her lost in herself. She’d never registered it before, but its evil forced its way into her and poisoned her being. Countless demonic spirits, shrieking and crying and reveling and swarming all over Aya.
The attention of the world does not forget. It does not forget how she abandoned her concert, how her impulsive and pathetic past as a prodigy ground to an ignominious halt.
The voices she’d heard torment her.
—I’m excited. Aya Eiden.
—Why even bother?
—Where do you think they go?
—How funny would it be if she didn’t pass the first round?
—Do you think she’s afraid? I couldn’t do it.
Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t even the unkind tone that got to her, but the disbelieving one. She couldn’t stand it.
It was reckless and stupid. Competing now as though nothing had ever happened. Standing before the world, the wretched coda of a child prodigy. A comet—a bright spark, and then nothing.
She thought of Masaru Carlos. His incredible Mephisto Waltz.
She leaned against the hotel room door—where she had landed after sprinting back to the hotel; where she had collapsed, key still in hand; where she thought she might just die.
This is why I didn’t want to enter the competition.
Maestro Hamazaki, how come you did this to me? As payment for my schooling? To prove to yourself that you were right?
She knew it was fruitless and, more importantly, wrong. But in the moment, Aya cursed and blamed and hated Hamazaki and Kanadae for pushing her into this.
Should I not go?
The thought streaked across her mind.
If I don’t perform now, I can just stay the fallen prodigy. I won’t show myself to anyone. I’ll just go back to Tokyo. I’ll withdraw. I’ll say I’m not feeling well, a high fever or something.
But the words she’d just heard come back to her.
—Do you think she’ll show up?
—What if she just quits again?
A chill erupted all over her body.
* * *
A white card: 88 EIDEN AYA
But no one appears onstage. The hall swells with whispers. The staff murmur to each other in an anxious whisper. The stage manager in an elegant suit steps out and silently removes the card. The hall grows louder.
There is laughter. Stifled and not.
“What’s going on?”
“Did she drop out?”
“Really? And here I was, excited for nothing.”
“Ran away again. Bet she was scared.”
“I thought I saw her listening in the back.”
“That’s what it must’ve been. She heard how good everyone was. Better to stay hidden.”
Other scenes arranged themselves in her mind.
Kanadae sees her card withdrawn and rushes out of the hall, white with fear. She runs to Aya’s room; her knocks go unanswered. Hurried queries at the front desk reveal that she’d canceled the rest of her reservation and checked out hours ago. She calls her father in a panic.
“Aya’s gone. She didn’t appear at the competition and I think she’s headed back.”
Hamazaki screams, “What!”
That Aya Eiden dropped out of the competition spreads throughout the conservatory like a current in the ocean. Hamazaki’s reputation falls through the floor. The hushed exchanges of professors.
Poor Hamazaki. I feel for him. He sticks his neck out for an old friend’s kid and now …
* * *
Aya despaired.
I can’t. I can’t go back. I can’t even drop out.
She fumbled with her hotel key, pressed it into the light switch slot. The room had darkened without her even realizing.
The light came on, warm and gracious.
In that moment, she saw her First Round dress spread neatly on her bed, bright blue and waiting.
1. Curtis Fuller (1932-2021), jazz trombonist and member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.