Madame Sousatzka (20 page)

Madame Sousatzka gently eased her pressure off the chair. Uncle put her hand on Sousatzka's elbow. ‘All's well,' she whispered. She quickly looked at her programme as if at a time-table, checking that she had three movements on leave. She could safely board the train to Paris having seen that all was well at home. The faint background of the concerto was quickly attuned to the wheels of the train, the station calls, the hotel bells, and the Embassy waltzes.

Cordle put his hand across her, as if her seat were vacant. ‘He's wonderful,' he whispered to Sousatzka, and he leaned back, settling himself into a scrutiny of the various sections of the orchestra. It was the ‘cellos particularly that appealed to him. They, more than any other instrument, seemed to be an integral part of the player. The long black finger-board appeared to him as an extension of the player's tongue. Hitherto, the tongue had played no part in Cordle's osteopathic methods, and he resolved there and then to include it on his charts. He set about thinking what colour would be appropriate. Surreptitiously he felt for his notebook and a bunch of small coloured crayons he always carried with him. He spent the concerto experimenting with his colours.

Manders at the end of the row was planning Marcus's future. He looked across at Cordle's notebook and the coloured indefinable blots on the page. He'd never officially met Cordle, but as part of the Sousatzka retinue he accepted him readily as an eccentric. He looked over at Madame Sousatzka and saw her staring at the ceiling. He looked up to see what had drawn her attention, and a few heads behind him did likewise. But Manders found nothing, and he attributed the tilt of Sousatzka's head to some profound meditation. And he was right.

Of all the people in the party, only Sousatzka was listening to the concerto. But not to Marcus. Once she had seen him off at the start, she was confident he would
play brilliantly. As Marcus was playing, she was listening to her old Pachmann recording in her studio. She knew every nuance of that recording, and when Marcus's interpretation did not coincide with it, it interrupted her enjoyment. In the middle of the first movement there was a slight crack in the record which had stretched itself across several revolutions. The rhythmic jump of the needle in the section had become part of the music for her, and she missed it in Marcus's plastic hi-fi playing. Now the record was clean again, whizzing round in its 78 speed until the chord that introduced the cadenza. The agonizing silence that she had felt all the morning before the rehearsal was much shorter on the Pachmann recording, and he had started on his cadenza while there was still silence in the hall. The audience were shifting in speculation. The resigning chord was like the end of a
pase doble
when all the toreadors retire from the ring and leave the arena to the matador alone. When Marcus began, Pachmann was way ahead, and Madame Sousatzka had difficulty in concentrating on the recording. Marcus's cadenza was a fading echo of Pachmann's and gradually the echo was too distant to be heard. She could hear only the recording now, drumming her fingers on her black velvet knee, marvelling at his strange accentuation, joyfully anticipating the final triumphant trill. At the turn of the trill, the orchestra thundered in to clear away the spoils. The recording ended, and the needle slithered over the grooveless slate. Madame Sousatzka could not immediately reorientate herself to the Festival Hall, and she heard with horror that Marcus was still trilling. She started to count, quickly at first, to make up for the time she'd lost through her fear. But the orchestra had made their entry, and people around her were sighing with satisfaction, either with the playing or in anticipation of an interval. When it came, Sousatzka heard the scratching needle. She picked it up and turned the record over. The orchestra didn't give her enough time. Marcus had started on the second movement before Pachmann could get going. She decided to take off the record and listen only to Marcus. She glanced at Jenny's
open programme. In the margin, Jenny had drawn three little boxes to represent the movements of the concerto, and Sousatzka noticed with a smile that the first little box had been shaded in.

The dark sad tones of the Andante took Uncle back to the moonlit rivers of Europe, where she and Paul had spent their happiness. The melody suggested to Cordle a deep purple, and softly he rubbed his crayon into a newly outlined tongue. Madame Sousatzka found the melody depressing. It seemed to prophesy her final loneliness. She knew that the vitality of the final movement would be strong enough to offset it, so she could afford for a while to indulge in the sadness that the music evoked. The piano and the orchestra were having a discussion, the piano anticipating arguments with youth and impulse, the orchestra gently remonstrating. At times the piano would offer a challenge, and the orchestra would take up the gauntlet with fear of their victory. And then they would turn to discussion again, gently pesuading each other, the orchestra resorting to pizzicato in its persuasion. But the piano always managed to get the upper hand, and in this unequal struggle, Madame Sousatzka saw herself opposed to Marcus. She knew that in the end she would lose him, if not to Manders then to someone else. She wondered how she could ever replace him. He had exhausted her like the leasehold of her house, which she couldn't afford to renew. She felt she was dying, with Marcus strong and surviving at her bedside. In the short cadenza that interrupted her vision, his music was stormy and feverish, then suddenly calm. The orchestra, on its entry, had become tamed, and shifted, martyr-like, into a minor key. With that modulation, Madame Sousatzka felt she had yielded up her spirit and the piano phrase that cloaked the end of the movement fell over her like extreme unction.

There was no pause before the final movement, and Jenny had to read quickly through the programme notes. ‘Notice,' they advised her, ‘the subtle canon between the clarinets and the piano.' She wanted very much to oblige, but the word ‘canon' bewildered her. She had known plenty of canons in her time, and none of them had been
subtle, and she didn't quite see what they would be doing here along with a clarinet, an instrument which, in any case, she couldn't recognize. And quickly, before the Rondo began, she shaded in her second box.

The gaiety of the last movement infected the whole audience. Some were thinking of where they would dine after the concert, others of a visit to the artist's room, of autographs, handshakes, and telling the tale in drawingrooms afterwards. Others wondered whether it was raining outside, and how difficult it would be to get a taxi.

The Sousatzka row seemed suddenly electrified. Manders was beaming. He knew from the feel of the audience that Marcus was a success. Even Uncle had returned from the embassies, and Cordle put away his tongues. Jenny was eagerly but sceptically awaiting the arrival of the canon.

Madame Sousatzka quickly resurrected herself, and felt the general enjoyment of the audience. Marcus was practically dancing in his seat, the elevated pedal springing from the soles of his shoes like a fixed punchball. Sousatzka looked at his body and the slight curve in his back that was accentuated while playing in the bass section of the piano. She realized that he had never played so well, except perhaps at the ‘salon'; that he would reasch a stage when he would depend entirely on having an audience. The thought didn't disturb her too deeply because of the irresistibly happy nature of the music. ‘It plays well, my darrlink,' she whispered.

‘It's nearly over.' The thought flashed through Marcus's mind with a certain regret, and in the loud tone of the ending he suddenly remembered his mother's words before the rehearsal. He'd forgotten to make a point of remembering his soft parts. Had they been soft enough? He'd eat the carrots in case they hadn't. Why couldn't he be like Peter Goldstein, who ate carrots like a rabbit? Why did he have to lie to her? Tomorrow they'd go together into her brown world and he'd make it up to her. I wish I could play it through all over again, he thought.

‘You must be sorry,' said Madame Sousatzka to
herself, ‘that it is nearly finished.'

‘I want to give concerts tomorrow, and the next day. So many concerts. So many orchestras.'

‘You will give many concerts, Marcus. It is only the beginning.'

‘Madame Sousatzka, listen to the 'cellos. I wished I played the 'cello.'

‘Listen, Marcus, how the ‘cello understands you. The piano and the ‘cello, they are close friends.'

‘I like this conductor, Sousatzka. He understands Beethoven. D'you think they will ask me to play with them again, Sousatzka?'

‘The conductor loves you, my darrlink. He will ask you again.'

The conductor, too, was indulging in those thoughts that occupied his mind each time he reached the final coda. ‘Will they ask me again, I wonder? I hope the boy likes me. Must give him a good hand-shake afterwards. Perhaps a kiss, too. Depends on the reception he gets. Mustn't overdo it. He'll go a long way, this boy. Worth sticking to.'

‘I want to play all the Beethovens, Sousatzka, the Tschaikovskys, the Brahms and all the Mozarts.'

‘You will play more concertos, Marcus. Tschaikovsky, Brahms. Everything but Mozart. For Mozart you are not ready. Only Sousatzka can make you ready for Mozart.'

The audience were beginning to close their programmes, anticipating the end of the concerto from the stirring fortissiomo of the full orchestra, rather like a film audience who recognize a long-shot of a cinemascopic sunset as a cue to reach for their coats.

The clapping began almost before the orchestra finished. And when the playing was over, Marcus sat quite still, his head bent, listening to the unfamiliar sound of applause and trying to understand that it was for him. Before Jenny could join in the clapping, she had to settle things. She shaded in the third little box in the margin and ticked off the work for good. Then she closed her programme, put her bag on the floor, slightly rolled up the sleeves of her dress, and offered her contribution.
Cordle had stood up, shouting ‘Bravo's'. The man behind him was obliged to stand up too, because Cordle blocked his view of Marcus, likewise the man behind him, and so on in a single slanting line right to the back of the stalls. Uncle threw her arms round Madame Sousatzka, congratulating her on her achievement. Marcus was standing, bewildered, and bowing in quick jerks to the audience. The conductor took his hand and they bowed together. The applause swelled, and the conductor kissed him. He'd decided it was worth it. Marcus began to walk off the platform, but the volume of applause did not decrease. When he was once again behind the green curtain, the little green man clapped him on the back. ‘You'd better go out again,' he said. ‘They're calling for you.' He drew the curtain aside, and Marcus ran up the steps. As he passed the player on the fourth desk, he noticed again the long fair hair on the back of his jacket. The hair had bred during the performance and two or three smaller hairs lay nearby in a fresh bed of dandruff. Marcus paused to remove the parent hair. He didn't need it any longer.

The applause was thunderous. Madame Sousatzka looked round at the posse of ambulance women. They sat demurely, their hands clasped on their laps. Strictly impartial. It was then for the first time that Madame Sousatzka began to applaud. ‘Darrlink,' she shrieked, and Marcus heard it through the clapping. He smiled in acknowledgement, and bowed again. Then he turned and bowed to the audience behind and to the orchestra. The conductor summoned the orchestra to stand and Marcus shook the leader's hand. Everybody seemed mightily pleased with everybody else. The critics in the audience got down to their jottings. ‘The boy will go far,' wrote one. He was obviously on trial with his paper and he didn't want to commit himself. Another took out his cliché book and ticked off, ‘well-deserved acclaim'. One critic, probably the mouth of a committed paper, wrote ‘a miniature Richter' on his programme. Another critic with literary aspirations wrote ‘a velvet suit filled with genius'. He was rather pleased with that one, and decided to get
a photograph to go with it. He looked at the last item on the programme, and seeing that it was the Beethoven Fifth, he decided that nothing could go radically wrong with that one. So he could go home and write up his piece with the help of his programme notes.

The applause waned slightly, and a body of isolated people in the hall suddenly reinforced it. Marcus came back again. It was the fourth time. There was a shout of ‘Oleh' from a very English-looking gentleman in the audience who, had he had a hoof in his pocket, would surely have thrown it.

Throughout the applause Mrs Crominski had sat immobile, her hands clasped together. And as the applause subsided and people began to leave the hall for the interval, she uncleaved her hands and gently and almost inaudibly clapped them together. She wanted to be alone in her applause. She noticed that Manders's seat was empty, and Madame Sousatzka was hurrying down the aisle towards the exit. She smiled to herself at their haste. Although she was excited at the thought of seeing Marcus, she felt no pressing necessity to get to him first. She was confident that of them all, she would receive the best welcome. But at this thought, she wondered whether in fact he would be pleased to see her. He'd liked her hat, hadn't he? But the others. Madame Sousatzka and Mr Manders. They'd been in on it from the beginning. They'd been to the salon, they'd been to the rehearsal, and they were with him now. ‘But I'm his mother, aren't I?' she said aloud. She got up quickly, furious at herself for having waited so long.

When Madame Sousatzka had reached the artist's room Marcus was sitting on the table with his back towards her, and Manders was bending over him, whispering. When they saw Madame Sousatzka, Marcus reddened slightly. He went over to her and kissed her. ‘It was wonderful, my darrlink,' she said. ‘You enjoy it?'

He was panting with excitement. ‘Oh, Sousatzka, it was marvellous, and Mr Manders says I can play a lot more. I can have thirty concerts a year, he says.'