The Ghost Sonata (21 page)

Professor Heslop ripped open the envelope to reveal the sight-reading music. She placed it on the piano's music stand. Gilda gasped: the pages of the dense score were literally black with tiny notes.

“Announcing sight-reading performer number one,” said Professor Heslop.

A tall, thin boy whose long, frizzy hair seemed to float around his head walked onstage, eyed Gilda suspiciously, and sat down at the piano bench. He looked at the music and swore under his breath in German. Sighing, he took a very long time adjusting the piano seat.

“Anytime now, performer number one!” shouted Professor Waldgrave.

Performer number one abruptly launched into the music, and Gilda struggled to follow him in the score. It was hard enough to make sense of the dissonant, contemporary music, and the task was made even more difficult because the boy's hair blocked much of Gilda's view. As he played he muttered to himself.

Gilda felt a knot of dread forming. What was this boy going to do if she turned his page at the wrong spot?
It must be nearly time to turn the page
, Gilda thought, realizing that she had absolutely no clue where performer number one was in the music. She stood up and moved closer, hoping that he would give her some sign when it was time to turn.

Just then, a rotund man sitting in the front row broke into a coughing fit and a woman in a back row joined in with a series of loud sneezes.

To Gilda's surprise, the boy abruptly stopped playing and gazed out into the audience. “Why don't we all have a big, hacking cough right now and get it out of our system, shall we?” He spoke with a German accent.

Gilda slapped her hand over her mouth to suppress a fit of giggles and a group of college students laughed heartily at this outburst.

Professor Waldgrave looked furious. “That's enough from you, performer number one.”

“But Professor,” the boy protested, “the audience was being inconsiderate.”

“A
professional
would keep playing even if every person in the audience leaned over and vomited simultaneously.”

“You can't be serious.”

“I'm completely serious, despite the fact that I share your sensitivity to sound. Do you have perfect pitch?”

“No.”

“Here we go,” muttered Professor Maddox, who sat with her chin resting in her palm. “The old ‘victim of perfect pitch' stor y.”

“
I
have perfect pitch,” Professor Waldgrave continued, ignoring Professor Maddox, “and when I was a boy, my parents owned a record player that played every piece of music in a slightly warped way—so that it sounded as if it was written in a lower key. After listening to that absolutely
diseased
record player for years, many of the major piano works sounded so
wrong
to me that I couldn't bear to hear them.”

“That's horrible,” said the German boy.

“That wasn't the worst of it. I also was so sensitive to every extraneous sound that I could hardly perform. Once—during a recital—the ticking of a clock began to drive me mad—a loud, persistent
tick-tock, tick-tock
that seemed to grow louder and louder, until I couldn't bear it any longer. I stood up from the piano, walked through the audience, climbed up on a chair, and dismantled the clock while everyone watched.”

“You didn't!”

“I
did.
People thought I was mad; I was the only one in the room who had even noticed the clock.”

“You were very sensitive,” said the German boy.

“I was very
insensitive.
Because if I could hear a clock, I wasn't listening to the music, was I? And that's your problem, performer number one. You need to become a better listener. You need to become someone who actually
listens to himself
play.”

Performer number one glumly tucked his hair behind his ears in response.

“And cut down on the German swearing while you're at it.”

“Shall we continue with the piano competition, then?” said Professor Maddox. “These lengthy reminiscences are causing us to fall behind schedule.”

“Next performer please!”

Gilda breathed a sigh of relief. The first performer had exited the stage and she hadn't had to turn a single page. With any luck, the next few competitors would also lose their tempers and get disqualified. Gilda's feeling of hope was immediately dashed, however, because Jenny Pickles had just walked onstage.

Gilda offered Jenny a sullen, tight-lipped greeting, avoiding her eyes. She imagined herself whispering
“Stay away from Julian”
in Jenny's ear as she played. But as Jenny performed, Gilda found it difficult to maintain the intensity of her resentment. For one thing, Jenny helpfully whispered “Now!” every time she needed her page turned, and she never grimaced or muttered “Too late!” under her breath as Wendy often did during practice sessions. Because of this, Gilda managed to turn pages without embarrassing herself—a goal that suddenly seemed more desirable than sabotaging Jenny's performance.

Jenny was followed by musicians including a girl who kept asking if she could start over (she wasn't allowed to), a boy who hummed to himself as his fingers moved across the keyboard, a girl who shed tears as she exited the stage, and a boy who meticulously wiped the keyboard with a rag, as if afraid of catching some disease from the sweaty fingers of other musicians. Everyone missed notes, but Gilda was beginning to recognize the patterns of this bizarre composition—the glissando that signaled the first page turn, the series of octaves that meant it was time to turn the last page. Now she knew how to stand up at the right moment, place her gloved hand over the top of the page, and wait for the pianist to give her a subtle signal—usually a little nod of the head.

As Professor Heslop announced performer number eight, Ming Fong walked toward the piano wearing her lacy dress and the bright red flower in her hair. She regarded Gilda coolly, but Gilda noticed a twinge of alarm in her eyes. “No page-turning, please,” she said in a low voice.

An hour ago, Gilda would have been thrilled to hear this, but now she felt more confident in her skills. “I'm supposed to turn your pages,” Gilda whispered. She flashed Ming Fong what she hoped was a menacing smile. “It's my job.”

“No, thank you.”

“Listen, Ming Fong. I'm the official page-turner for the competition, and your pages are bloody well going to be turned!”

“Is there a problem up there?” Professor Waldgrave eyed the two of them with impatience.

“She doesn't want me to turn her pages.”

“Then don't turn them.”

Ming Fong turned her attention primly to her music, and Gilda leaned back in her chair. She couldn't help feeling a little annoyed when Ming Fong delivered what sounded like the most close-to-perfect performance she had heard yet.
I hope Wendy can't hear her playing from backstage
, Gilda thought. Once again, she tried to send Wendy a psychic message:
Forget everything around you and just remember: you're good at this.

 

Wendy walked onstage looking pale. She walked slowly, dragging her feet with a shuffling gait, as if she didn't want to arrive at her destination too quickly.

I need to talk to Wendy about her walk
, Gilda thought.
She doesn't look confident.

“You can do it,” Gilda whispered as Wendy took a seat at the piano and adjusted the bench. “Everybody else has screwed this up completely.”

Wendy's eyebrows flew up when she saw the score, but a moment later, she managed to play through the entire piece from beginning to end with surprising ease.

Wendy is a great sight-reader
, Gilda thought.
In fact, she might be even better than Ming Fong.
Again, Gilda noticed that both judges regarded Wendy with interest, as if they wanted to remember her. By now Professor Waldgrave's cat had curled up contentedly for a nap.
I hope it's purring
, Gilda thought.

“You totally nailed it!” Gilda whispered as Wendy reached the end of the piece. She flashed Professor Waldgrave a brilliant smile and did her best to send him a psychic message:
Give Wendy a high score!

“Here comes your boyfriend,” Wendy replied in a low voice as she stood up to take a bow.

Waiting with Professor Heslop at the backstage door, Julian's face brightened with surprise when he glimpsed Gilda sitting in the page-turner's chair next to the piano. But was there also something nervous and evasive about his smile? Gilda felt irritated that her stomach still felt fluttery when he looked at her.
You're mad at him
, Gilda reminded herself.

Julian strolled onstage confidently and adjusted the height of the piano bench. “You going to turn my pages?” He spoke in a loud whisper, which somehow made the phrase “turn my pages” sound flirtatious.

Something warm stirred in Gilda's stomach—something that felt like hope. She tried to squelch the feeling. “It's my job,” she replied with a casual shrug.

“My lucky day.”

Gilda let out a giggle that sounded more like a snort, and immediately wished she had remained silent.

Julian squinted at the piano music. “Looks bloody difficult,” he said to the judges.

“It
is
bloody difficult,” Professor Waldgrave replied.

The audience laughed.

“Please begin, performer number ten,” said Professor Waldgrave, clearly agitated by the swell of chuckling throughout the performance hall.

Gilda glanced up into the benches and saw that the audience had increased, as if people had made a special effort to see Julian's performance in particular.

Julian was in his element.
Everyone likes him, and he likes everyone
, Gilda thought. For some reason, the thought made her feel vaguely sad, as if she had lost something.

Julian launched into the music, playing with greater speed than anyone before him. Parts of the composition sounded completely different than anything Gilda had heard that morning, and as she watched his well-developed hands move over the keyboard, she had a dual urge to kiss the back of Julian's neck and give him a stinging flick with her fingernail. A moment later, Gilda found herself merely listening to his performance instead of following the music notation.

“OH, PAGE-TURNER!”

With horror, Gilda realized that Julian was looking directly at her as his hands continued to move across the keyboard.

She had completely missed the page turn.
Gilda jumped to her feet and lurched toward the music. She turned the page with a great flourish, but her giant cocktail ring caught on the music book and the entire book of music toppled to the floor.

First, the audience gasped. Then giggles erupted through the hall as Julian launched into a corny boogie-woogie version of the dissonant, modern music he had been playing a moment before.

Red-faced, Gilda picked up the music, located the correct page, and placed it back on the music stand in front of Julian, who shouted a sardonic “Thank you!” then quickly found his way back into the score.

Gilda did her best to look mildly amused, as if she and Julian had purposefully planned this little slapstick comedy together, but she felt mortified. She glanced at the judges: Professor Maddox gazed at Julian with something close to adoration while Professor Waldgrave sat with his eyes closed and fingertips perched on his temples. It was hard to tell whether he was listening to the music with a special intensity or struggling to suppress a burgeoning headache.

Enthusiastic applause greeted the end of Julian's performance, but Gilda noticed that Waldgrave's cat slunk under the judges' table.

“Sorry about that,” Gilda whispered as Julian stood up to take a bow. Miffed as she felt, she hadn't actually set out to completely botch Julian's performance.

“I was making up half of that rot by the time we got to the page turn anyway.”

“Have fun on your date with Jenny Pickles, then,” Gilda blurted. She immediately regretted the jealous comment.

“Sorr y?”

“Off the stage, please!” shouted Professor Waldgrave.

“Just leaving.”

“The little red-haired girl,” said Gilda, feeling strangely out of control. “I bet you didn't know her last name was Pickles!”

“Page-turner, do you have a problem?”

“No, sir.”

“Your job is to turn pages, not to chat up the competitors.”

Giggles surfaced from a few scruffy-looking college students in the audience, and Gilda glared in their direction as Julian retreated backstage, presumably to go on his sightseeing date with Jenny.

Now that the novelty and sheer terror of sitting onstage and turning pages had worn off, Gilda sensed a tedium setting in. She faced several more hours of sitting in the same chair, turning pages for the same piece of music, and imagining what might be going on between Jenny and Julian.

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