1: Intermission
“It's so cold.”
“Whose idea was it? To come to this nowhere?”
“It was definitely Ajang.”
The chilly November beach, devoid of people or populace, seemed like the last place that would be any fun to visit.
Having spent most of their time within either the hotel or the hall—which happened to be connected to the hotel via underground passages—most of the contestants had lost much sense of the current weather. Wearing a thin cardigan or jacket would be a mistake.
As Aya was now realizing, bundling herself against the wind and frowning.
It was in fact Aya who had suggested spending a day at the beach for a change of scenery, but she had not considered, from the comfortable vantage point of her hotel room, that the seemingly peaceful and sunny beach might be under the assault of piercing late-fall gusts.
“Let’s go back, what the hell would we do if we get a cold or something? More importantly, if Masaru gets a cold, Nathaniel Silverberg would skin us alive,” Kanadae said, glaring at Aya.
“Yes ma’am, back inside, right away,” Aya shrugged.
“Jin, what are you doing there?” Masaru called and waved to Jin, who was crouched in the sand, doing God knows what. He did not seem to be cold at all despite wearing only a sweatshirt; he seemed to be gathering things off the ground.
“Let’s head back!” Aya yelled as well.
Jin sprang to his feet and scampered over. “I was collecting shells. They have the Fibonacci sequence,” he said, smiling brightly and extending his hand.
“Fibonacci, wow, Jin, who said you weren’t a polymath?” Masaru laughed. Jin did seem to have not only smarts beyond his age despite not going to school but also a remarkably analytical disposition. He had mentioned offhand earlier in the day preparing for college entrance exams in mathematics.
—Maybe music truly is the logic of the universe. Music and mathematics are similar after all, Ajang had said when Jin brought up his studies. Maya, you’re good at math too, I bet.
—I do OK, sure.
—I used to think the logic of the universe, or whatever I said, was more, hm, independent.
—What do you mean, independent?
—Well, I used to think that elsewhere in the universe, there would be things we hadn’t ever seen, things we couldn’t conceive of. But everywhere in the universe, oxygen is oxygen, and water is water, and so on, you know? So the logic of the universe—the same laws of physics—even the same laws of harmony and rhythm—applies wherever you are. I guess that’s what makes it the logic of the universe, but.
—Right, I see what you’re saying, Masaru had nodded. The fundamentals are the same, no matter where in the universe you are. A star could be tiny or huge, but it’d be a star.
—Yeah.
—And, with the universe being as big as it is, there’s probably a planet a lot like earth, right? And maybe, if the conditions are similar enough to earth, there’s life—maybe intelligent life.
—And maybe that intelligent life likes music! Aya exclaimed. And maybe they have instruments—instruments like the piano. Imagine playing music written by an alien. What would it sound like?
—Well, you just said that the laws of harmony and rhythm apply no matter what. So, if you’re right, we’d probably like it. Maybe we could transcribe it for our instruments, and our music could be transcribed for theirs.
Aya smiled as she recollected this conversation and watched her friends.
Masaru walking ahead.
Jin still scanning the ground.
Kanadae almost running back.
The ashen sea; the rough sand. The salty air blowing inland.
The moment seemed a lifetime in the making. She thought it was the most perfect moment she had ever lived. The four of them here, together, brought together by the centripetal force of this competition. She would remember it forever.
Her meditation on this thought was interrupted by a severe chill running through her. She wrapped her cardigan tighter and chased after them.
* * *
The halfway point of the competition is past.
After eight days of frenzy, the remaining contestants are finally afforded a break from the competition.
Or so is the intention. Some may be relaxing; others may be clocking a full day at the piano.
Aya, for one, had slept in, played some finger exercises, and dragged Kanadae out on a walk when they ran into Masaru. She hadn’t reached out to him on purpose—so as not to interrupt his break—but Masaru, it turned out, hadn’t reached out for the exact same reason. So there they stood, wondering what to do.
—Let’s go to the beach, Aya had said. Masaru (of course) immediately agreed, and the trio had begun their walk when Jin appeared out of nowhere.
—Isn’t that Jin Kazama? When Masaru caught his eye, Jin padded over.
—Where are you staying? Masaru asked.
—A friend of my dad’s.
—You really are a curious one, huh.
Aya and Kanadae looked slightly confused, but Jin was all smiles.
—I never know what to do when I have, like, a day off. Can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything, not really. I wish they’d just get on with it, Masaru had said suddenly.
—Maya, you too? Aya looked, surprised, at Masaru.
—Yeah. Idle hands and the devil’s whatever.
—Exactly.
—Shut your grumbling. The staff, and definitely the judges, need a break. They’re the ones who really don’t have a second to themselves, Kanadae admonished. Thinking of her father, judging and organizing no small number of competitions, she couldn’t help herself.
—Ah, I guess you’re right, Masaru said, lightly embarrassed.
Changing the subject, Aya asked, Masaru, how many competitions have you done?
—Two, including this one. I did Osaka to prepare for this one, so I don’t know how American or Western competitions are.
Chitchatting so, they had ambled over to the beach, but now they rushed back and warmed up in a café.
“I want eel,” Jin said simply. The others agreed; the city was known for its eel.
“But it’ll be expensive. Haven’t they been scarce recently?” Aya whispered to Kanadae while Masaru and Jin debated the relative merits of various seafoods.
“One meal’s OK. I’m sure Dad would understand,” Kanadae said. She seemed to want to pay, especially since Masaru and Jin were guests, if Japanese ones.
As they walked through the city, they spotted several traditional Japanese instrument stores, and the conversation naturally shifted toward non-Western music.
“Ajang, have you ever played a shamisen?”[1]
“No, but I’d love to try.”
“It’s a great instrument. Lovely timbre. And the music itself—non-diatonic scale, a rhythm totally foreign to Western music. I saw an improv group led by a shamisen perform in New York once.”
“You can really see anything in New York, huh.”
“I want to play a shakuhachi,” Jin murmured.
“That instrument? Don’t people say it takes three years to learn to make a sound on it?” Aya laughed.
“It sounds the closest to real wind,” Jin replied.
Kanadae watched the three of them from behind; she had fallen behind to look through an instrument store’s window. She couldn’t believe how relaxed they all seemed; they could have been on vacation.
Who said they weren’t geniuses.
She smiled, recalling Masaru’s comment to Jin. Takes one to know one.
Do they know how happy they are?
She thought of the contestants eliminated, now in the dozens. Wondering whether they had any talent for music, practicing until their fingers curled in on themselves, tossing from sleeplessness the night before performances, despairing about their own very ordinary abilities and the impossible defeat of doing something else after so long.
She thought of herself.
They probably do.
She shook her poisonous thoughts from her mind; suffering wasn’t to be compared.
Prodigies have their own suffering: the suffering of being prodigies. Of the expectations, the self-doubt. The analysis of every uttered word, played note. The scandal if you dare throw away your God-given gift.
No one knew what the future would hold, she thought. Even Masaru, for whom one would expect the ocean to solidify that he might walk upon it, was not guaranteed to be successful. Plenty of prodigies made it this far only to be thrust aside by fate. The earth could be paved over with child prodigies who never came to anything.
But what even goes through Jin Kazama’s head?
Kanadae wondered, watching the boy look into literally every single store they walked by: staring, scuttling, staring, scuttling.
It was a minor miracle that the three of them were in one place. An alignment of the stars.
She fumbled for her phone.
I’ve got to get a photo of this.
She quickly snapped a picture of the three of them walking side by side.
Maybe, one day, this photo’ll go for a lot of money.
She laughed inwardly, imagining herself giving an interview: Yes, it just struck me to take the photo; who knew they’d all become such fabulous musicians; I totally agree, a historical artifact …
It was so vivid that she blinked the scene from her eyes. The three of them still walked ahead of her.
Who knew whether the three of them would ever be in the same place ever again?
Also, why aren’t they taking any pictures?
She realized something in that moment.
All the kids these days—myself included—take pictures of everything. Café menus, the view from the street. As if it doesn’t exist if it can’t be photographed. And they’re not taking any.
The fact conjured another realization in Kanadae.
They don’t need to record their entire lives. Their lives—they have no desire to record it. It’s as if they know that someone else surely well.
While she drifted in this reverie, Aya turned around.
“Kanadae, are you stalking us?”
Kanadae stuck her tongue out. “So what if I do?”
Aya laughed. “No, you’re right. I’m going to take some pictures too. Of Jin—and Maya! Giants among us.”
Aya looked for her phone. Masaru struck a pose, and then said, “Do you mind if I take some of you after you get me? I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.”
She took a photo of him, and then he her. They took a selfie together, and then both pointed their phones at Jin. He made the goofiest, widest grin any of them had seen; photos were taken in twos and threes of all permutations.
“Jin, where’s your phone?”
“It’s at the hotel.”
“What good is that!”
They all laughed and kept striking increasingly ludicrous poses. Kanadae sighed.
I guess I was wrong.
1. An instrument with a wooden body wrapped with a leather skin and strung like a guitar.