5: Je Te Veux
Miëko awoke to find the darkness without refracted upon her room’s large window. Just approaching it, she felt the chill; freezing rain was pouring outside.
She shivered involuntarily.
A rain heralding the winter, she thought.
* * *
The second and last day of the Third Round.
Exhaustion maxed out and then some, transformed into nervous jitters. The last real day of the competition, she thought. She noticed she was almost excited.
Right, this is the end-of-competition mood.
For all the spats or differences in opinion, the judges with whom she’s shared hours, rooms, and meals were her war buddies.
She indeed felt as though she’d fought alongside them.
Even though they were old enough that Miëko was the youngest among them, they were remarkably strong and sharp. Of course, this might just be their personality—if they weren’t strong, they’d never have made it this far in music—but they were all critical, thoughtful, harsh but fair.
As always, walking into the judges’ area in the hall, her eyes first alighted on Nathaniel. She’d long ago given up on preventing herself from looking at him when she walked into a room he occupied.
The man whom she had loved, with whom she had lived, to whom she had given years of her life. There was bound to be a regretful, some unsatisfied itch deep within her—an itch which grew stronger whenever he was near.
Nathaniel seemed deep in thought, sitting in his usual seat.
What is he thinking about? The future of his pupil? The lives of his soon-to-be ex-wife and his daughter? The orchestra he is to conduct next week?
No, I know, Miëko thought.
It’s what most of the judges are thinking—or if not thinking, have thought about in the last week and change.
Will Jin Kazama make it to the Final Round?
More precisely: will we let him make it to the Final Round?
Today’s focus would surely be drawn there.
The rest of the contestants who make it are more or less decided, probably. However unfair that is.
The judges settled in, one by one, for the performances to come. Quiet, relaxed.
But Miëko knew what was really going on in their heads.
What sort of performance is that trickster going to give next?
She of course felt the same way. She felt like a child on Christmas Eve, waiting and waiting until she could sprint downstairs to open her present.
From the First Round, his supporters and detractors had both been immovable; both rounds, he had garnered just enough support to squeeze past.
But not so immovable: his support had increased slightly in the Second Round.
They wanted to hear him again, and again.
What was it they wanted to relive?
What within that boy generated the thing that these professionals, these veterans, so desperately wanted to hear again?
Not even his supporters knew. But that was beside the point.
Miëko had given him top marks both rounds.
She was embarrassed, yes, to have needed such earnest convincing by Sergei and Alain. But spots of doubt still colored her mind.
These doubts, though, were no longer about Jin Kazama, but about herself and her fellow judges.
Whether they could prove themselves worthy of Hoffman. Whether they could deny themselves his bait.
Again: whether they would let him continue on to the Final Round.
She saw Hoffman smiling. A smile full of mischief, ready to burst into full-throated laughter the moment you fell for his prank.
The moment Jin Kazama had stepped onstage in Paris, a very long fuse had been lighted. At the end of the fuse, a bomb.
Just when would the fuse run out? When the judges rejected Jin Kazama.
How could the fuse be defused? By accepting Jin Kazama.
It seemed a simple calculus to her. But, she knew, some of her fellow judges would rather be blown up than be seen—be caught—doing what was needed to defuse the bomb.
However strongly she felt Hoffman watching her from above, she knew Nathaniel felt his gaze that much more strongly.
What are you going to do? What are you going to do? You, the musician: what are you going to do? she imagined him asking.
He would not blame those who let themselves be blown up. He would just be disappointed in them.
She took a sip of water. She was surprised to find herself parched.
I really am nervous. That’s embarrassing.
She was sure of one thing, she thought as she leaned back.
If, today, Jin Kazama is eliminated, one day, not so long in the future, we will come to be known as the judges who rejected Jin Kazama. And that will follow us to our graves.
* * *
Like the day before, the hall was packed the moment the doors were opened. The audience could be seen squabbling over the best seats.
Masaru, Aya, and Kanadae barely got three adjacent seats in the back. The hall was overwhelmingly stuffy from the excitement and chatter.
Masaru and Aya whispered small talk, but there was a thin barrier between them: the barrier between someone who has performed and someone who hasn’t.
“Maya, I’m jealous. You can listen all day without a care in the world.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Sorry you’re last,” Masaru smiled sympathetically. “But it’s rare to close out a competition, you know? That’s an experience to have at least once.”
“That’s a nice way of looking at it. If you assume I’ll make it to the Final Round.”
“Which you will, so.”
They paused for a moment. And then Masaru asked, looking about, “Where’s Jin?”
Aya shivered suddenly. “He’s usually in that corner, but …”
Kanadae looked around as well.
“He likes easy access to the corridor, right?” Masaru asked.
“Yeah, he said he could focus best there,” Kanadae replied.
“He wasn’t around right after the concert yesterday. Do you think he’s practicing?”
While Masaru and Kanadae talked, Aya felt a queer nervousness.
What’s happening to me? I can’t focus. I feel so … unsettled. I couldn’t care less about performing, let alone performing last. What’s bothering me?
Aya thought and thought, but she couldn’t figure it out.
Aya thought about why she didn’t care about performing. No, that wasn’t quite right.
What am I doing here? What am I here for?
The question distilled itself out of her subconscious.
Because it’s fun?
The surrounding babble receded. She imagined herself sitting alone in the hall.
Being onstage was enjoyable, yes. Standing before an audience gave her something of a rush.
She had seen her mother again. She had soared into the heavens.
I think …
Aya thought.
I think I’ve been running away. Fleeing something. Fleeing … my fears? Not fleeing. Averting my eyes from my fears.
Performing had been valuable. She had remembered how utterly grand, how transformative it could be.
But so what?
What good is that if competing is the last thing I could care about?
Why do I care that I don’t care about competing?
Why does it bother me that music and competition feel so disconnected?
Aya thought.
Is it because I feel the need to redeem myself? I’ve done that enough already. I’ve spared Maestro Hamazaki, and Kanadae, the worst of the embarrassment. I’ve gotten interest from the press. I’ve made my audience happy. Isn’t that redemption enough?
The bell signaling the imminent start of the first performance rang, but the frantic audience finding seats or patches of carpeting did not register to her.
* * *
Round Three, day two, performance number one: a young Korean man.
Lanky, amiable, serious: his appearance perfectly complemented his Rachmaninoff-centric program.
“It’s really lively.”
“It wasn’t like that in the First or Second Round.”
Masaru and Aya whispered back and forth as the audience applauded between two pieces. Kanadae agreed: contestants had many types, as it were, and some of them were slow to accelerate but had a phenomenal top speed. This boy, somewhat timid earlier in the competition, now seemed to have found his rhythm, and gained confidence at having made it this far.
“He’s pretty, like, cool, don’t you think?” Kanadae tossed to Aya.
“Yeah, he seems popular,” Aya said distractedly.
The audience seemed to agree: at the end of the recital, the audience’s applause was as rowdy as it ever was.
The next contestant was also Korean, a young woman.
She was the calm type, one whose sensibility immediately distinguished her.
Granted, at this point in the competition, most contestants’ music was immediately distinguishable.
She was only twenty, but her musicality was mature, unfussy; her program, diverse.
Kanadae was thoroughly impressed. “She’s really good.”
“They all are.”
Masaru and Aya again.
Kanadae didn’t think she’d ever stop being impressed how good everyone was. All of them were virtually flawless.
It made her think how Masaru and Aya were all the more impressive for standing out among such perfect musicians. She was even more impressed by them now than during the First Round.
Yesterday’s audience had waited for Masaru, but today’s waited for Jin Kazama. His unique atmosphere, his unique music.
So brilliant, so progressive. His godly talent. When listening, she became slave to his music; afterward, she couldn’t say one sensible thing about it.
Kanadae, like most others, had no idea how to explain him.
Looking slowly around the hall, she sought his small figure.
Where could he be? What was running through his mind?
* * *
Jin Kazama was sitting in the very back of the hall, crouched behind the last row of chairs.
He had awoken in the early morning; unable to lie around until the sun rose, he wandered the streets in the light rain. He ended up drifting too far away, and had barely made it to the hall in time to catch his so-called seat. Curled up as he was, one could hardly tell anyone was even there.
Head tucked between his knees, arms encircling his small frame, he listened to the Korean woman’s performance.
She’s good.
He was happily drifting through the world of music she had constructed.
Rolling hills here, vast mountains there. Sprawling plains, sweeping oceans.
He saw Maestro Hoffman in the woods yonder. He flew over to him, but he didn’t turn around.
Maestro, wait!
The wind was blowing. The light caressed his cheek.
It was bright, but muddled. He felt its warmth, but it wasn’t at full strength.
Maestro stopped; he seemed about to turn around and look at him. Jin barely caught the side of his face, but he faced forward again and continued on.
And then he heard sounds of breakage. Leaving Maestro Hoffman, he followed the sound.
Dogashi was cutting branches. With his large floral scissors, he was cutting down young saplings’ branches with brilliant speed.
—Quickly, Jin, so that they don’t know they’ve been slaughtered.
He cocked his head.
—Eternity is a moment, and a moment is eternity.
Jin opened his eyes.
Showers of applause. The young woman had finished her performance; she was bowing deeply. The applause grew a notch louder.
The hall doors opened with a creak; he stood up hastily, lest he be trampled.
Caught amidst the outflow, he wandered outward.
Outward and outward.
How could he bring music out into the world?
The woman’s music was a world unto itself. How could he bring that world into the real, vast, endless world?
He stared and stared. He felt the chill from outside through the windows.
It’s winter already.
He stroked the window. It was much colder than he expected; he took his hand off reflexively.
He was still seeing the world the woman had conjured; it overlay on his vision like some dissociative palimpsest. He could see Maestro Hoffman again; he was about to fade into the fog.
What do I do? How do I do it?
He had tried playing the piano outdoors with Maestro, but that hadn’t been it. He hadn’t felt like he had freed the music. It had been fun, but it wasn’t the “bringing out” that Maestro had been talking about.
—Maestro, have you ever brought it out?
He had asked once, long ago. Maestro had suppressed a smile and answered, A few times. Rare occasions, those, and lucky too. You won’t need any luck, though, will you?
Jin began walking again. He stepped outside.
Wet, damp air coursed into his lungs. He smelled the winter.
The external covering made nearly a perfect circle of dampness on the pavement.
Jin looked at the sky. Cloudless but slate-gray, the sky was spraying mists of rain upon the earth. He heard distant thunder.
The thunder of winter. Something swelled in his chest. He didn’t see any lightning.
A flat plane of gray, neither close nor far. Unreal, supernatural.
Light sprays of rain flecked his face.
Outward, and outward, and outward.
What do I do.
People silently, grimly walked under umbrellas and hoods, lighted by the harsh gas-lamp glow.
How do I get outside. The true outside.
He stared up again. Miniscule raindrops created a haze of sound around him, more felt than heard.
There aren’t any honeybees today.
He missed the buzzing of their wings.
Where is Maestro today.
* * *
Stage Manager Dakubo looked at the boy standing backstage like a ghost and started mildly.
Onstage, the contestant ahead of Jin was playing.
“What is it, Jin?”
Dakubo spoke as mildly as he could, but the boy did not react.
Usually the upcoming contestant waits in the lounge, and the stage manager retrieves them after the previous contestant finishes. There are those who hang out backstage, or those who practice until the very end. Jin had barely warmed up, listening to as many performances as he could instead.
Something was off with him today. His eyes were unfocused; his hair, messy; his clothes, damp.
“Somebody, a towel, now,” Dakubo whispered to his staff. He approached Jin with it and offered it to him, but still he did not move.
He didn’t know what to do; after nearly half a minute, he started awkwardly, clumsily patting down the boy’s clothes and hair.
Gosh, when was the last time I had dried a lad’s hair.
His eyes watered suddenly at the thought. His boys were so old now.
“Jin, are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?”
Whispering into his ear, Dakubo finally jolted the boy from his reverie: he jumped, eyes wide open.
Dakubo shushed him and held a finger to his lips.
“You’re backstage.”
“Is it my turn?” Jin asked almost frantically.
“No, we’re less than halfway through the current contestant’s performance.”
“Oh, okay.”
The boy closed his mouth, and then opened it again. He breathed in deeply. He seemed back from the dead.
“Why don’t you go sit over there.” Dakubo indicated a small stool; the boy complied quietly. Towel around his head, he seemed deep in thought.
Though he was back in reality, he still seemed focused on something Dakubo couldn’t perceive.
At least he didn’t seem ill or panicked.
Dakubo made sweeping motions over his chest. He wondered what had put the boy in such a catatonia.
For the next half-hour, the boy was motionless, thinking and thinking. His surroundings didn’t seem to register at all.
He surprises me every time.
Dakubo kept an eye on him even as he went about his duties.
The last piece ended. Dakubo opened the doors and the explosive applause enveloped the young Russian boy as he strode through the doors and had a sip of water.
This happiness, seeing this smile—Dakubo wouldn’t exchange it for anything.
The applause was endless. Hearing multiple calls for an encore, the boy, smiling sheepishly, walked back out.
Dakubo looked at Jin and jolted. The boy was staring at some infinitesimal speck on the ground, perfectly still. He seemed deaf to the applause and cheers.
Even after the Russian gave a brief encore and stepped backstage, and then out again, Jin sat, almost crouched, lost in his own world.
Tuner Asano approached. “Master Kazama—”
And the he noticed Jin’s posture, his stonefacedness.
“Is he—” Asano asked Dakubo.
“I really don’t know. He’s been sitting that way for almost forty minutes.”
“But we need to tune. The previous performance was rather something.”
Jin was planning on using the same piano as the Russian.
“Master Kazama, Master Kazama,” Asano said to him, crouching beside him.
“Ah, Mr. Asano.” Jin responded more readily this time. He seemed calm; Dakubo felt relief wash over him.
“How would you like your piano today?”
Jin thought for a moment, and then said seriously, “A sound to reach the sky.”
“Hm?” Asano and Dakubo asked simultaneously.
“Let me play for Maestro Hoffman,” he said, ashen.
Asano seemed a little stunned by his request and demeanor, but he stood up gamely.
“Um, a little more specifically?”
“Softly,” Jin replied immediately. “Not at all harsh. The mellowest tone you can summon.”
* * *
In that moment, Aya Eiden had rushed to a green room and was changing into her dress. A red closer to orange, her third color now.
She remembered Jennifer Chan’s red dresses. They had all been so fabulous. Where did she get them? Were they tailored?
She remembered the silver dress in her hotel room. The one for her Final Round. Would she wear it?
She finished changing and touched up her makeup. It was a comfortable dress, and she had a comfortable pair of low heels to go with it.
Alright, let’s go.
She nodded at herself in the mirror. She, too, warmed up with the bare minimum of scales. She rushed back to the hall; she was one of the few contestants who risked playing on an untuned piano to hear the contestant before her. She threw on a dark cardigan to obscure her dress, but still worried at getting a seat: if she had to sit on the floor or stand for an hour before her concert, it would not be ideal.
All bets are on him, she thought.
Where did that thought come from?
She thought. What bets? Who would entrust anything to that genius idiot, that savant, that god? What does he have to do with anything?
I would.
What did I bet on him? What do I hope from him?
She thought.
Way back in the First Round, she had been overwhelmed by a despair; that despair still lingered somewhere within her. Its nature? That she was through, that it was over, that music no longer had a place in her life.
But listening to Jin Kazama, she wanted to play, and she wanted to stand where he stood. Thanks to him, she could stand onstage, and she could perform.
It was the same way in the Second Round. Only thanks to his “Spring and Havoc” did she play hers. He could reignite any dying or dead ember of music within her.
In other words, it was only thanks to his hauling her this far that she was standing here at all.
But what about after?
The nervousness from the last few days. It was a nervousness about the hereafter. About the days and years to come, about her future, about her musicianship. A nervousness that was as palpable as flames licking her back, a nervousness closer to terror.
Neither Masaru nor Kanadae could help her then. But Jin could. Jin could lift her up, give her the energy, the drive, the passion. She believed this with an almost religious faith.
He might be the one to give me a reason to love music again.
This is what she was hoping for.
She had heard a story about a young talent’s appearance inspiring a retired veteran’s return to the stage, and also pushing an aged titan to his knees, compelling his declaration of retirement.
She was neither a veteran nor a titan, but she did understand how a singular talent could bring about such diametrically opposed reactions.
She had always been waiting, she realized.
So I’m asking, begging.
Thus Aya asked Jin.
Give me a reason to keep going. Give me the motivation to keep going.
She could hear how outlandish, how ridiculous her request was. What a shameless request!
What is this? Your reason to quit is your mother, and your reason to return is some boy?
What are you going to do if his music isn’t what you hoped for? If you’re disappointed, or you don’t like it, are you going to quit?
It’s always someone else’s fault with you. You can’t rely on yourself. Look at Masaru. He’d make music if he were the last person in the world. He’d play the piano with his feet if his hands were cut off.
They have vowed to live as musicians. Not to play music, but to be musicians. Without a shred of doubt. You? Not even close. Have you ever been a musician? Do you have what it takes to give up everything for music?
I’m ashamed, she thought. Masaru is brilliant, charismatic. Kanadae is serious, humble. Before the two of them, I can only hang my head. They have what I don’t, and I’m ashamed.
Fine, she thought. Fine. I’m never going to be certain. I might blame others. I will probably externalize my feelings. I will seem unbearable.
But the music, she sighed internally. It’s so pretty.
She felt her heart pumping. Sweat ran down her face.
She heard a faraway bell. In shock, she looked at the clock: it was time for Jin’s performance. She breathed in, and, picking up her dress, sprinted to the hall.
* * *
“Jin, it’s time to go,” Dakubo said quietly.
“Yes,” Jin replied, and stood up. Tuner Asano looked at him nervously. Would he be satisfied with the tuning?
Asano and Dakubo, without saying a word to each other, knew how much they themselves as well as the other adored the boy. They sent their hopes out with him through the opened stage door.
Onstage, the boy bowed; he could have been standing in a shimmering field of grass, blue sky stretching endlessly, puffy clouds milling about.
He follows no path, no person, Dakubo thought.
Where are you going? he wanted to ask.
Jin, onstage, seemed different from his first two appearances. The first two times, he had walked straight to the piano, as though unable to wait a second longer to play. Now, he stepped carefully and deliberately, as though steeling himself.
Is he nervous? Miëko wondered.
He wasn’t, she realized. He was thinking. He was staring at something very far away.
He was no longer the oblivious boy from before.
He was alone.
An obvious statement, Miëko thought to herself, but there was no other way to put it: the recital is a solo affair, but he looked as though he had just realized he was the last person on the face of the planet.
Why?
Why does he only stare into the distance? Why can’t he see what is before him?
He seemed trapped in the emptiness.
Jin bowed and then sat down; the applause stopped in an instant.
He stared at the keyboard. The audience too could sense something was different.
The boy seemed to murmur something. A prayer?
Had Miëko been right beside him, she would have heard that Jin was speaking to Maestro Hoffman.
He smiled. Miëko jolted forward, making sure she wasn’t imagining things.
A naïve, white blossom of a smile. He might not even know he was smiling.
An unconscious smile. A smile of someone who has felt no sadness.
And then he began to play.
* * *
Wow! Masaru cried internally.
Might this not be the first and last time a piece by Erik Satie is played in a competition?
An innocent “Je Te Veux.” A brisk, cheerful waltz. With the simple melody, the hall becomes a bustling Parisian street.
Clinking coffee cups at a café; noisy carts trundling by.
The music has a personality to it. So young, and yet all the depth of Satie.
The short piece constitutes the prologue and prelude of the hour-long recital.
The piece slows down, ritardando, and then …
Suddenly, the piece changed.
Mendelssohn’s famous “Spring Song.”
Masaru cried out, internally, again.
Could there be a bigger contrast between two pieces?
The view before him collapsed from the Parisian street to a fragrant garden. Bursting flowers scattering their petals about; birds singing from branches.
And honeybees. Honeybees everywhere.
Jin was summoning some sort of vibrato-esque effect that was giving the impression that every note was quivering. It made Masaru think of honeybees.
It was beautiful.
How multisensory; how colorful.
And then Brahms. The Capriccio in D Minor.
A touch that transformed itself at will, playing a miniature of unexpected depth.
Romance, yearning, a touch of humor.
Is this blue I see?
Masaru closed his eyes.
A hazy cerulean. A quiet little village where men and women in traditional dress dance under the twilight sky.
This is no competition performance.
Masaru couldn’t believe his ears.
He was surprised he couldn’t, this being his third time hearing Jin. But he couldn’t. It truly sounded as though the music was going from thought to touch to sound in one fluid, instantaneous arc.
This isn’t live. This is alive.
Not a competition, not a recital. Just Jin Kazama’s life.
As smoke dissipated, the Brahms ended. Jin stopped for a moment, and then began to play.
In that moment, from Masaru as well as most of the audience, there was a little gasp.
Erik Satie.
Again.
The audience rippled.
Jin had begun to play “Je Te Veux” again.
Given his expression—casual, suppressing a smile—it didn’t seem to be a mistake. He certainly knew he was repeating his first piece.
Masaru couldn’t believe it, but then became nervous. Would he be OK?
The program did mention “Je Te Veux,” but it made no comment on the number of times it would be played, or whether it would be interpolated throughout the recital. Wouldn’t playing a program different from the one submitted break the rules of the competition?
Competition rules are strict; he knew firsthand.
If he were eliminated on a technical fault …
Masaru’s heart fell.
No way. For such talent to be rejected …
He felt himself begin to sweat.
The rest of the audience didn’t seem to be worried about it; they were back in Paris.
Onstage, Jin smiled his half-smile, naïve and childlike, as he played through the Satie.
Does he know what a risk he’s taking? Does he not think it goes against the rules? Or …
The Satie slowed down for a second time, and the next piece began.
* * *
Debussy, Estampes.
The first piece: “Pagodes.” Debussy’s first stop on his mini world tour.
The scene shifts: a worn picture in a sun-bleached frame. Beflecked colors, a village nestled in a sweeping landscape. Humid equatorial air. The smell of grass, a heavy wind.
An old tower.
It is a panorama. An immersive movie.
The audience is oppressed by the overwhelming vitality flowing from the stage.
Kanadae too worried whether Jin’s performance would go against the regulations of the competition. For it is a competition: how would the judges react to the doubled Satie?
The second time, it wasn’t even completed; it faded out and “Pagodes” began. A medley of a recital.
But she couldn’t think on it for long: the music is just too intoxicating.
Regulations my foot.
One of the factors contributing to Debussy’s greatness is that every listen, his melodies feel surprising, refreshing. Just as every listen of a Mozart sonata is beautiful and bright, or every listen of a Mahler symphony is transcendental and uplifting, Debussy’s music seems perennially modern.
“Pagodes.” A more perfect picture than any painting.
The flow of emotion, seeping from somewhere deep within the soul, a dark pool rarely touched by sunlight. The flow increases, ripples outward.
The music, too, pushes and pushes, as if straining at the edge of reality itself.
Jin Kazama’s music redefined music.
Kanadae felt goosebumps. From pianissimo to fortissimo, he moved effortlessly, subtly, perfectly. His tone control has never been bettered.
The scene shifted: “Evening in Granada.”
A strong whiff of spice: Arabia has arrived.
Granada evokes diverse images. The south of Spain, Andalusia, where Catholicism and Islam commingled. A navy-blue sky settling into black. The Atlantic Ocean. Something boundless about it all.
The habanera rhythm, dark-haired women, dances with the snap of fans.
An evening where the blessings and curses of life are felt.
Kanadae blinked. She didn’t have any synesthesia, but she felt the audience was bathed in the bleeding red of the setting sun.
She heard herself panting.
The scene shifted one last time: “Gardens in the Rain.” Back to France.
The temperature dropped perceptibly. The orange was gone, replaced with muted greens and grays.
A damp wind brings pouring rain, fat drops bursting on impact.
Branches swaying, leaves shaking, flowers drooping.
Children running for cover, dogs following them.
It’s raining.
The audience, stolen of any detachment or neutrality, stare up into the heavens.
Little puddles form; water drips from gutters.
The heat of Granada is nowhere to be felt; the chill of northern France pierces to the bone.
Kanadae felt the mist of water on her cheeks.
* * *
The moment Jin concluded his multisensory Debussy, he launched into Ravel’s Miroirs.
His immediate style was one his audience already knew well.
But there was no sense of dislocation: from Estampes to Miroirs, did he see them as a continuous, linear arc?
Nathaniel Silverberg was not dwelling on Jin Kazama’s repeated “Je Te Veux.” Though some on the judging panel might object to it, that would be a problem for later.
He focused more on what Jin Kazama was imagining as he played.
He noticed the other two times as well: the boy’s interpretations were something else. Most conservatory-trained (or just trained) musicians try to suss out the intentions of the composer from the score, and craft their interpretations as such.
This boy was the opposite: he made the piece fit his worldview, surely ruffling not a few feathers among the pedagogues and traditionalists.
That wasn’t quite right: he didn’t just make them fit his worldview. He made them part of it. Every performance seemed one component of a vast landscape painting.
Five little scenes reflected in a mirror.
Moths, sad birds, a small boat on the sea, a jester’s song, the valley of bells.
Ravel’s scenes—reminiscences, really—were made alive by Jin Kazama. He didn’t just paint them: he conjured them.
Ravel’s works are hard to sell. As in, they are, in themselves, rarely convincing—almost anti-convincing. Play a score by Beethoven exactly as marked, and most people will be plenty impressed. But with Ravel, you show off too much technique—and you need swimming pools of it—and you lose the lustrous imagery; you indulge in the expressiveness, and everything seems pallid, smudged.
Nathaniel found himself astounded by Jin’s technique at every turn. How easily he dispatched the hardest passages. A technique that only needed unlocking. An ability that would only be demeaned by labeling it technique.
What a miraculous child.
Nathaniel, too, had given up any pretense of detachment. He eagerly followed Jin Kazama’s tugging into the sonic landscape.
He squinted.
Maestro Hoffman?
He thought he heard a passage played exactly as Hoffman would have.
Maestro? Is that you?
* * *
The glacial, meditative “Valley of Bells,” the fifth and last piece of Miroirs, faded into oblivion; Satie’s “Je Te Veux” flowed out for the third time.
There was no more question whether Jin Kazama was repeating it on purpose. A promenade connecting the works, giving the audience a chance to breathe and reset.
Once again, he stops partway through to play Chopin’s impromptu.
Aya watched with a sense of dispossession: she felt as though Jin had inhaled her soul, that she had become one with him.
But Jin would never dispossess anyone of anything. It was more that he seemed to have summoned her beside him onstage, and had begun speaking with her.
—Do you like it?
He smiled gently. She nodded, running her hands over the smooth grain of the piano’s wood.
—Yeah, I do.
Jin grinned quietly and looked at the keys.
—How much?
—Hm, more than I can say.
—Really?
He laughed jokingly and played his Chopin casually, joyfully.
—What do you mean? You think I’m lying?
Aya glares parodically.
—No, it just looked as though you were uncertain.
Aya swallowed.
—Did it?
—Yeah. It doesn’t seem like it onstage, but when you come offstage, you always seem, uh, a little lost.
He had seen right through her.
—I like the piano too.
—How much?
This time she asked.
—Mm.
He stared out into the emptiness.
—Even if I were the last person alive, if there were a piano in some field, I would be happy. I would play it all day.
The last person alive.
—Is it someplace like this?
Aya looked around.
Barrenness all around. The wind was blowing from somewhere; unseen birds were singing. Light poured from high above, between clouds. It was sparse and desolate, but somehow … holy.
—Yeah, someplace like this.
—Even when no one’s listening.
—Yeah.
—Is it music if no one is listening?
—I don’t know. But music is the world. Birds would sing if they were the last bird alive.
—That’s true.
Jin’s light, brisk touch. As usual, it sounded improvised.
—Wouldn’t you want to sing?
Aya looked at him.
—Sing? Mm, I don’t … I don’t really know.
Aya looked up at the light; the light had intensified. She began to squint.
—If I heard you playing, I would sing and sing. To be honest, it’s thanks to you that I was able to stand onstage twice. Without you, I’m not sure I could have.
—Really?
The boy tightened his shoulders.
—Really. So I don’t know. Whether I want to sing.
Aya felt her voice laxen.
—I don’t think that’s it.
He looked at her steadily, swaying slightly.
—What’s not it?
Aya hardened her voice.
—I think we’re the same. I think you just saw yourself in me.
—The same?
—Yeah, the same. We both feel music in our bones. Neither of us can go long without singing. Even if you were the only one left in the world, you’d be sitting at some piano in some field too, playing and playing.
—Me?
Aya looked around again. The wind had become warmer; it breezed through her hair.
—Yeah. I’m sure of it.
—Really?
—I’m telling you.
Jin laughed.
—Trust me. We went to the moon last time you did, remember?
—How could I not?
Aya laughed too.
—We flew and flew. You’re the first person I’ve done that with. So trust me.
—If it’s you saying it, I will.
—That’s right! It’s what I say that counts.
Jin, smiling broadly, played and played.
Aya started. She was back in the corner seat.
Her vision distorted and crumpled; she felt her face, and found them damp.
She started to cry, silently but ceaselessly.
Thanks.
She mouthed toward the stage.
Thanks, Jin.
She dabbed at her cheeks.
* * *
Jin Kazama’s last piece.
It would be no exaggeration to call it the most popular piece of the entire day.
While waiting for Jin Kazama’s turn to perform, all had also, consciously or unconsciously, been waiting in particular for his final piece.
Saint-Saëns, Africa, op. 89.
Originally a ten-minute piano concerto. Springing from the same part of Saint-Saëns’s mind whence his fifth piano concerto, “Egyptian,” came—a corner of the mind interested in the primal, the wild, the dramatic and vast. Written during a trip across the continent whose final destination was the Canary Islands.
The piece has become permanently associated with the European conception of the “African” sound, and it was, if simplistic, not imagined: Tunisian and Saharan motifs figure prominently throughout.
But the reason for the anticipation was not in the piece, but the composer. Or should one say composers, for it was written in the program book: Saint-Saëns—Jin Kazama.
It was Jin Kazama’s transcription—and a world premiere.
How did he transcribe it?
How did he transcribe a piece meant to be the finale of an hour-long recital?
Masaru’s heart thumped as the Chopin impromptu died away.
Jin took a quick breath, and then launched into the introductory tremolos, originally played by the violins.
The audience was quiet, tense.
The left hand began to play the melody, low-ish in the bass.
Bold harmonies echoed out, growing louder and louder.
It’s coming.
A shiver, anticipation of greatness.
And then, in the upper registers, the main theme, like a battle cry.
The audience’s temperature jumped degrees in an instant.
It’s fantastic. It’s captivating.
It’s joyful and foreign and sharp and clear. The rhythms, the rhythms.
Masaru was entranced.
I love it.
I want to play it.
He could feel how fun it would be to play it.
A perfect transcription. Full of mischievous turns and barely-suppressed humor.
But another part of him was more critically analyzing the writing.
A typical transcription of a concerto down to solo piano merges the orchestral and solo parts to mimic the original piece’s overall sweep. The inverse—an orchestration of a solo piano work takes the piano parts, distributes them among the sections, and then fills in harmony and color. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Ravel’s La Valse are the most famous examples of the latter; rarely are piano reductions very well-known.
But Jin Kazama seemed to aim to disrupt the trend.
He did not follow the typical piano reduction mold; instead, he seemed to extract the core ideas of Africa and mold them for the piano: less a reduction or a transcription than Jin Kazama’s Africa on a theme by Saint-Saëns.
Saint-Saëns’s perfect summation of the foreign—the spice in the air, the clotted dirt, the muddy banks. The nature for which humanity fundamentally yearned. The emotions buried or ignored.
Chromatic scales from the treble to the bass; trills flitting like birds; harmonies booming across the plains. Jin Kazama carved out a music that would make any hearing person sway.
What does the score look like? Masaru wondered.
He likely had to submit the score. Could one tell how brilliant a piece it was, just by reading it? Or would the performance come as a surprise?
Is he even playing it as he transcribed it?
Masaru marveled.
Moreso even than his other performances, it felt improvisatory, alive, vital. Jin had an innate, astonishing intuition for drama, for structure, for color.
Is there even a score?
* * *
Aya was soaring over the African savanna.
Africa vis-à-vis Saint-Saëns: the colors, the sounds, the scenes. Her senses were overwhelmed; she felt as though she was hurtling, supersonic, across the land.
Jin was smiling.
He smiled as he soared alongside her tumbling body.
Is it fun? he seemed to ask.
Sparkling melodies, bouncing rhythms, and so much sun. The sky shimmered.
She imagined herself prancing around, joyful as only a child could be, blessed to be alive.
The joy was the point. To hold onto the light, to breathe in the air.
More, more, more. More light, more color, more sound.
Aya smiled.
She stretched her arms out.
Jin, I think I understand who you are. What you are.
She gave herself to the music.
The piece rocketed toward its climax.
* * *
The sound is so, so big.
Miëko couldn’t believe her eyes, her ears.
Her skin hurt, as when sharp, millimetric hailstones prickled down.
His sound pierced and penetrated.
How is his sound so big. Am I imagining it?
And this feeling …
What is this feeling?
Miëko had a cold sweat over her entire body.
No.
This groove, squirming underground, invisible, palpable, is it …
Swing?
No. No no no.
There’s no swing in Saint-Saëns.
But it was unmistakable: like a dance house, like a jazz bar, the music swung.
I can’t believe it.
Miëko gave up. This went beyond classical piano: it was jazz, it was swing, it was—
It was the joy of being alive.
* * *
Nathaniel Silverberg was feeling something much like Miëko.
The feeling of a sprint—but not breathlessness, like Alexei. Blood pumping, oxygen flowing, muscles straining, legs pounding. Vital and virile and—
Alive.
So, so alive.
Nathaniel felt fear. He felt terror.
The boy had the entire hall on tenterhooks.
Where are you sprinting?
Nathaniel asked no one, everyone, the world.
Maestro Hoffman, where are you taking us?
And one more.
Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? Why am I sitting here?
He felt himself reduced to pure id. Not a judge, not a musician, not a person: a nameless, formless, characterless thing, entirely under the thrall of Jin Kazama.
He had never felt this way before.
He listened and listened.
Jin sprinted into the cadenza.
How many arms does this boy have?
Every key seemed to be sounding.
Was there something like this in the score?
He knew it didn’t matter: just as reading the score of any of Jin Kazama’s works so far didn’t matter, reading this one wouldn’t have either.
He felt shaken to the roots.
He felt stranded.
Nathaniel cried out.
But the piece was over.
* * *
Jin Kazama stopped.
The piano was still resounding a ghostly echo; the hall was still hypnotized.
The music still rang in the audience’s ears.
The hall was deathly still.
Nathaniel still felt the music in his bones. In his stomach.
It was a perverse sight: the end of the performance, but the musician, the audience, the very air—perfectly still.
Perhaps thirty seconds passed.
Jin stumbled up, as though remembering he had somewhere to be.
The spell broke, and the audience began to twitch alive.
The boy bowed.
The no-sound of overwhelming noise blasted outward.
Screams and applause that could only be described as nuclear shook the hall to its foundations for seven minutes.