Dirty Wings (19 page)

From the first note it is better than anything she has ever played before, for anyone, for Oscar, for Cass, for the state governor, for her mother, for strangers, for auditions, for contests, it is better than every recording of this piece she has ever heard, it is her crossing over into the realm of the divine, the speed fireworking through her, her heart thundering, her teeth grinding, it's worth it, it's worth it, because she is playing like fucking god is moving through her, she is playing like a girl possessed. She is playing like she has never dreamed of playing in her life. She is the mermaid, she is the lover, she is Ravel dreaming over poetry in the dark, she is the keys, the strings vibrating, she is the wood of the hammers falling and the brass of the pedals and the charged atoms of the air whirling past her, she is the waves of sound, she is particles bright and living, she is shattering and coming together, she is breathing the music, she is transcendent, she is divine. She is outside of time, outside of her body, giving over to whatever force has taken hold of her, whatever moves through her now and draws her hands across the keys, she is flickering in and out of being, now human, now something else, now sound, now echo, she is breathing light, she is breathing light, coming through the first passage and into the second, and the right hand is perfect, perfect, the tremolo magnificent, her fingers sweeping through the glissando and reaching again for the chords. She hears a quick sharp intake of breath, one of them, which one she can't tell, she hopes it's the harpy. The music is an animal moving through her, a force, a tidal wave, an ocean, an earthquake. She is shaking with it. The siren song draws her down and down and down into the dark, into the deep sweet ocean, into the palace of the undersea kingdom where kelp undulates softly on unseen currents, the light filtering faint and splintered from the world above, she is falling, falling, falling into all of it, falling into drown, the man in the black coat waiting for her there as she knew he would be, his dead face alight with something nearly human, his hands reaching out to her, his voice in her head, her heart, her belly.
You play like Orpheus himself, child, come play for us in the long night,
and she thinks
I can't, you know that, I can't, this is my world, this one.
His face fills with sorrow and she brings her hands down for the last soft, watery notes, the quiet at the end of the storm, and tilts forward into the piano, breathing hard, her whole body thrumming, back in the audition room again, and she knows she has won.

The room is dead silent. She lifts her chin, takes a deep breath, plays the Haydn briskly and without flaw, the speed making her fingers move with an unnatural precision. She gets a little grandiose in the opening passage of the Funeral March, which suddenly strikes her as a little pompous—who wants to go to a
funeral
—but comes back to herself for the delicate melody of the following section, imagining Oscar gazing out the window with a faintly wistful expression, as is his wont whenever he listens to her play Chopin. Then the stately, lumbering chords again, why not be a little silly, she's the best thing these people will see in their entire careers and she knows it, they will be talking about what just happened in this room for the rest of their lives, about her, about how she is
better than everyone.
Her breath is hot and fast in her throat. She is elated, trying hard not to grin in triumph. When she is done she waits a moment, her head bowed almost primly, and then she stands and looks at them for the first time. The harpy's mouth is open a little and the jowler rubs at his chest distractedly with one immense, hairy paw. The pinched woman has lost a little of her sharpness, leans back in her seat with an expression that Maia can only describe as dazed. “Thank you,” Maia says politely, and then she walks out of the room without waiting for them to reply.

She's halfway down the hall when she hears a sharp “Wait!” It's the harpy, clip-clopping toward her.
How does she walk in those heels?
Maia wonders. She stands there, her heart still racing, until the harpy's caught up with her.

“Who taught you to play like that? Not Oscar.”

“You know Oscar?” Maia asks, startled.

“Knew. He taught here, a long time ago.”

“Oscar taught
here
? He never said anything.”

“No,” the harpy says. “He wouldn't.” A flicker of distaste crosses her face.

“I love Oscar,” Maia says. “Oscar taught me everything I know.”

“Other people will teach you more.”

“Like who? You?” The harpy raises an eyebrow but says nothing. “That's how it works, right? You sink your teeth into whatever young talent you think will carry your name to the stars? You can't do it yourself anymore so you want me to make your name for you? Does anyone even know who you are? Does anyone fucking care? Because I don't. I don't care about any of this. I don't care about you. I don't care about coming here. I thought I did. I thought this was what I wanted. I don't give a
shit.
” The words are huge and thrilling, coming from somewhere at her core, getting bigger and bigger and faster and faster. The harpy is staring at her in shock. “You and my mother and my father and all your fucking plans for me, you can go
fuck
yourselves. I don't want to sit here and listen to some dried-up old bitch tell me how to live my life. You don't care about the piano. All you care about is making sure your name goes on the goddamn program. I want to fucking make
art.
” Maia wheels around without waiting for the harpy to answer, imagines Cass a stadium of one giving her a standing ovation as she half-runs down the hall. The euphoria lasts all of a few seconds before it dissipates into a cloud of dread.
What the fuck,
she thinks,
did I just do?

Outside, she leans on the building, her heart pounding. The speed is betraying her; she's just jittery now, her fingers twitching, her pulse too fast. There's a pay phone across the street. She crosses to it, finds a stray handful of quarters in her bag, drops them in, dials Oscar's number. He answers on the fifth ring. She's never been so glad to hear his “'
Allo?
”

“Oscar.”

“Maia!” he says, delighted. “
Chérie!
But why are you calling? Aren't you in your audition now?”

“I just finished.”

“And?”

“Oscar, I—I've never played like that.”

He's cautious. “This is good?”

“Oh my god, Oscar, it was like—it was like someone else was playing me. It was beyond good. It was the best I've ever played in my life. I wish you could have seen.”

“Ah,” he says, with a long sigh. “I wish this also, my dear, but it is the curse of the teacher to have his pupil outgrow him. You will be a wonderful pianist, my dear, and I shall beg you not to forget me when you have got your first contract with Deutsche Grammophon and a nice touring program, hmm?”

“Oh, Oscar,” she says. “Of course I'm not going to forget you. But Oscar—I said some things—I—” She falters.
I called the head of the department a dried-up old bitch.
“I'm not sure if coming here is the right thing for me to do.”

He is quiet for a long time. “This school will make your career. You will meet everyone who is important.”

“But I don't think that's what I want.”

“You are too young to know what you want.”

“That's not true,” she says, stung.

“Young people have grand ideas, always,” he says. “It is the job of their teacher to corral them, do you see? You will get in, and you must understand that this is a great privilege. You have worked so terribly hard, harder than any pupil I have ever taught, and you are tremendously gifted, Maia—I do not say this unless it is true. You are the most gifted student I have seen in many, many years. Since I was a student myself. You want to throw this all away because you have a strange mood at the audition? Absolutely not,
chérie,
I won't allow it. I won't allow you to be so foolish.”

“You didn't like it here. You never even told me you taught here.”

“Kaplan. That bitch,” he says, without rancor. “I was better than her, you know. She always hated me for it.”

“Then maybe you can understand why I wouldn't want to—”

“No,” he says, cutting her off. “I cannot. Myself, I have made a terrible mistake. I have ruined my life. And for what? For nothing. For an illusion. It doesn't last. What lasts is a career. A life of art. You have a chance at this and I will not allow you to toss it aside. Do you hear me? I will not.”

“I thought you of all people would understand.”

“I of all people? I of all people do not understand. You are being foolish, you are a child who knows nothing of the world. You do not leave your house except to come to my house. I am telling you that if you make this mistake you will never forgive yourself. You will be a ruin. It will be over for you.”

“Oscar, why didn't you tell me you taught here?”

“Because it was another life,” he says. “That Oscar, I do not even know him. He is a stranger to me.”

“You can't make the past go away by pretending it didn't happen.”

“You are quite young, my dear, to be lecturing me on the uses and nature of the past, and I will thank you to cease at once.”

“I sort of told them—I told that woman to—I wasn't polite.”

“Then you will apologize.”

“I will
not,
” she says, horrified.

“My dear, I know she is not a nice woman. Believe me, I know this quite well. But she is in charge there, god help them, and it is in her hands your fate rests, god help you. When someone has got quite a lot of say over what will happen for you in the future, you must be polite to this person. You mustn't make enemies, my little one. You are not a man.”

“
Oscar.
”

“Do you think it does not make a difference? It is very American of you, to pretend there is no difference. It will end your career, if people find you difficult. It has ended mine, and I am not a woman. It will end yours even more quickly. You will write her a—how do you say? an absent apology?”

“Abject.”

“Yes, thank you. An abject apology. You will grovel. You will offer to lick her shoes clean with your little pink tongue, if it is necessary, is that clear to you? She will like this. It is her greatest passion, to be correct and magnanimous. You will tell her you have seen the error of your ways. When she is satisfied you have got no pride left you will get in, and you will go. Do you understand?”

“I—” she begins, and then she thinks,
I what.
Oscar has nothing left, no hope, no future. Oscar has nothing but her, and she is throwing his dreams for her back in his face. All these people, living through her, and now that for the first time she is beginning to live for herself, she is also coming to see that it will not end well for any of them. But she cannot bear to break his heart. “I understand,” she says.

“I will see you in a few days, my dear, and we will not speak of this tantrum, and when you receive your acceptance letter we shall have a little party, don't you think? A recital.”

“Sure,” she says. “Okay. Sorry. I was being silly.”

“Yes. You are young,” he says. “Young people are always silly. It is why they must trust their betters.
Bisous, chérie.
”

“Bisous.”

She hangs up the phone, stares dully at the receiver. More than anything she wants Cass.
I wonder what it would be like,
she thinks,
for someone to actually see me. To look at me and see what I am. What I want. Who I can be.
She puts her hands in the pockets of her coat and thinks about what she is going to tell her father.

NOW: BARRA DE NAVIDAD

Cass is fuzzy-drunk on some terrifying cheap liquor Jason dug up, sitting at the edge of the water and smoking the absolute last of the weed. She doesn't know much about tequila, but she's pretty sure it's not supposed to taste like paint thinner. They've seen no other white people, the entire time they've spent on the beach; it's the wrong time of year, and other Americans—
tourists
, they'd all concurred with contempt, the one thing the three of them can manage to agree on—prefer the beach towns to the north and south, replete with luxurious resorts.

She doesn't have her candles or her herbs but she has her cards, and she's laying them out on a scrap of cloth on the sand, over and over. The Chariot. The Empress. The Six of Swords. “I need help,” she says. The Lovers. The Hanged Man. “I can't keep going. I need help.” The Magician. The Fool. The Lovers. Death.

The Magician.

Something changes in the air. She looks up and he's there, standing a little ways down the beach, looking at her. She didn't see him come. He is tall, and so thin it is almost painful to look at him, and dressed, despite the fact that they are on the beach in Mexico, in a long black coat and close-cut black trousers and a black shirt that flows loose and soft like silk.
White
is not the word for him; he is so pale he fluoresces. He has stepped out of the dark and into her waking life, but that's not possible, so he must be someone else.

“Hi,” Cass says. “Did you—are you—you're American?”

No.
His voice is so deep she feels it in her bones rather than hears it. It echoes through her, turns her blood cold.
You know what I am, child.
She looks down the beach. Maia and Jason are nowhere in sight.
Ah, shit,
she thinks. The luck of Cass: she's the kind of girl who will meet a touristing serial killer on beach vacation. Or a ghost. Whatever the fuck he is. He is not the man from her dreams; he cannot be. Nothing Raven told her ever prepared her for anything like this. When the people in your head are standing in front of you, cool as you please, the hot white afternoon sun on your face, the heat haze making you stupid. She could swear he's smiling, but his death's-head mask is impassive, the cold black eyes regarding her as though she's an insect pinned on a corkboard.
I had forgotten what it was like, to feel the sun on my back.
He holds his pale hands toward the paler sun, palms facing upward, stands there still as a crow on a wire. His black coat does not move in the faint breeze coming off the water.
Come with me, Cassandra. I have something to show you.
He holds his hand out to her and, not knowing what else to do, she stands and takes it, and the sun winks out.