The Mozart Season (23 page)

I went to two more Youth Orchestra rehearsals, and I turned pages for people, and I practiced. I watched the days go by, and I knew I was going to honor my agreement with Elter Bubbe Leah, and I knew it might be an insane thing to do.

And most of the time, even sometimes when I was swimming with my friends, what was walking along through my mind was the terrible way I was playing the concerto.

While my mother and father were away, a thing happened. It was late afternoon after I'd practiced for hours, and I was sitting in a slanted sprawl at the dining-room table holding Heavenly on my stomach, feeling her just begin to dig me with her claws and then pull back. Dig, retreat, dig, retreat. I was sort of counting out the rhythm of her claws, and she was kind of humming along in an in-and-out purr. I was tired from practicing, and we were just hanging out on a summer afternoon not doing anything. My eyes closed.

I don't know what made me open them. In the middle of Bro David's mess on the table was a cartoon of me, playing my violin like some kind of madwoman and wearing an animal skin slung around me, and my feet were wheels. Sweat was pouring off me, and I had an insane look on my face. None of that was so strange, David is a cartoonist. What was extremely weird was that I was huge, like an Amazon, and the violin was so tiny it looked as if I'd break it any instant. And an auto mechanic was standing there with a wrench in his hand saying, “When your violin overheats, check your head gasket. You may need your whole head replaced.”

It was an insulting picture. And at the same time a bell was ringing in my head.
That
was what Mr. Kaplan meant. Very slowly, I began to put some pieces together. An Amazon on wheels, wearing an animal skin—she could crush the tiny violin. She was in a frenzy.

I heard again in my mind, “Don't upstage the nineteen-year-old boy who gave us this concerto.”

I stared at the cartoon. It was horrible.

I stood up, Heavenly leaped down, I went to the music room and got my violin and bow, I took them to the downstairs bathroom where there's a big mirror, and I started playing. Little sections of the concerto. Bits from the third movement, a longer bit from the second, part of the cadenza from the first. I watched myself.

And I remembered a thing that Jessica thinks is so ridiculous at school: the athletic coaches talk about how the team is going to give 110 percent. I watched my arms. Mr. Kaplan has always told me I have to be in partnership with the violin. I'd gone beyond that. Way, way beyond. David was right.
That
was what Mr. Kaplan meant. Almost on top of Mozart.

I was a combination of angry and relieved. I stood in the bathroom and let the tears spurt right out onto the counter. I'd been trying too hard. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, holding my violin and bow. I would play the Bloch finals for Elter Bubbe Leah, just the way I'd promised. But I'd make changes. I had to. When you think about it, it's the most obvious thing, and I should have realized it weeks before: trying too hard to play Mozart well would be like driving a car through a rose garden, or ironing a silk dress with a very hot iron, or cutting a lace doily with a chain saw, or—or like having a marching band play Brahms's “Lullaby.”

After that afternoon, every time I went to the music room, I could feel the changes. The concerto didn't get any easier. The notes were still the same notes, but I gave myself permission to—this was the most surprising thing: I gave myself permission, down way deep in me, not to try to be Steve Landauer.

And I didn't tell anybody about it. Not anybody.

With the finals three weeks away, Mr. Kaplan turned sideways on the piano bench and said to me, looking in his over-the-glasses look, “I think our work together is getting somewhere. I think you're finding your way. When was the last time you listened to a recording of this concerto?”

“Maybe a week ago,” I said. “I just simply stopped, I'm not sure why.” I realized that I'd silently given myself permission not to try to be Anne-Sophie Mutter or David Oistrakh too.

“Good. I wouldn't advise you to listen to anyone else until after the finals, Allegra.”

“Is there ever going to be an after-the-finals?”

He laughed. “I understand. Yes, and your school will begin again, and you'll be an eighth-grader. And we'll have only one lesson each week again. And we'll do a different concerto.… Indeed.”

It was hard to imagine, but I knew it was true.

“And this week you should have new strings. They'll have just about the right amount of time to adjust before Labor Day.”

I don't think I would have admitted to anybody that the practicing was getting easier. It would seem as if I were cheating. If it doesn't hurt, it's not doing any good: that seems to be what we're supposed to believe.

I almost laughed as I tuned and retuned and retuned my new strings, listening to them getting used to being played.

I turned pages for two more concerts, both pianists.

*   *   *

Labor Day weekend meant I was supposed to be on TV. I watched the show a couple of times to find out what it was. A man talked to people and made jokes. It was like other shows.

Jessica and Sarah helped me decide what to wear. It included a shirt of Sarah's and Jessica's socks.

My mother took me to the studio very early in the morning and said she'd pick me up at 10:05
A.M.
, after it was over. “Don't worry about being on TV,” she said. “It'll be all right.” I gave her a look. She said, “I'm a mother. I'm supposed to tell you it'll be all right.”

She got berserk when I went bike riding but a television interview in front of thousands of people was going to be all right. I got out of the car and went into the building. Somebody told me to take the elevator to the sixth floor. I pushed the button and waited for it. Then a man come rushing down the hall and said to take the other elevator, they'd had some trouble with this one. Then he said No, take this one after all. There was a tall lady in a lace collar standing just outside the elevator. I told her who I was. She shook my hand and said, “Congratulations.” I didn't know what for.

She said, “You're a bit—no, I guess you're not late, we don't have everybody quite yet.” We were walking down a narrow hallway. She turned left suddenly, into a doorway. I followed her. It was a big room with couches and chairs and a vending machine and bright fluorescent lights, no windows. “Just have a seat,” she said, and walked out.

An Asian girl was sitting on a leather couch, and Christine was on a chair next to her, and a very freckled boy wearing serious glasses and a white shirt was across from her. Steve Landauer was sitting on the corner of a table, away from the others, flipping the pages of a magazine. I stood in the doorway. The room smelled like paint thinner.

Christine didn't look surprised to see me. She said, “Hi, Allegra. I had a feeling you'd be here.” Her eyes shifted instantly to Steve Landauer and back. She almost didn't look at him at all, it was so fast.

“Hi,” I said. I started to say hi to Steve Landauer, but he was staring into the magazine. I walked over and sat on the couch.

“This is Ezra,” she said, pointing to the boy in the white shirt. “He's from Culver. And this is Myra Nakamura. She's from Roseburg. This is Allegra. She's from Portland.”

I said hi. Out of the corner of my left eye I could see Steve Landauer's hands stop moving on top of the magazine. I turned a little bit toward him and said a part of a hi. It was just kind of an “h” hanging in the air. He nodded his head at me. Then everything went quiet. He started flipping magazine pages again.

Christine smiled and slid around on her chair, shifting her legs into a different position. Myra said, “I thought there were going to be six.”

“There's one more coming,” Christine said. “I think.” Then she was quiet. So was everybody else.
Fp, fp, fp,
went the pages of Steve Landauer's magazine.

“They probably want us to get acquainted,” Christine said. “That's probably why nobody's here.”

There was more silence. I looked at the four pairs of shoes I could see.

“I mean nobody official,” she said.

Steve Landauer started to swing one leg back and forth in the air. His pants moving against the table made a very slight sound. Ezra uncrossed his arms and crossed them the other way.

“Is anybody else as nervous as I am?” said Myra. Everybody laughed a little bit, nervously, except Steve Landauer. His leg made just a slight pause in the air and went on swinging.

Christine said, “I don't know. How nervous are you?” We laughed nervously again. Then nobody said anything. Mr. Kaplan was right. I was definitely the youngest.

“Very,” said Myra.

“Is it about the competition or about being on TV?” Christine asked.

“I'm not sure. Maybe they're equal.” She had beautiful hands.

“I'd much rather play for people than talk for people,” Christine said.

“Me, too,” said Ezra. What a name. Ezra. I tried to imagine him playing the violin, but it was easier to picture him mowing a lawn.

Myra Nakamura was talking. “… and so my teacher said I had to call every club and church in town—and it's a real little town. I had to volunteer to play for everybody till I got over my stage fright.…” Christine and Ezra were laughing. “And—you know—some of the groups have all the same people in them, and—” Myra stopped and held her left hand up, counting very fast on her fingers. “I can't believe some people had to listen to the same Bach sonata six times. It's embarrassing.”

Everybody was laughing except Steve Landauer.

“And the last movement of the Mozart,” she said.

We laughed again.

“And a lot of them didn't even like classical music to begin with.…” she said.

I thought of mentioning the beta-blocker drugs Deirdre had told me about. But they made you see hallucinations. And another thing: I've had quite a bit of experience being the youngest, and it teaches you to be kind of quiet.

Christine asked, “Did the project work? Are you so afraid now?”

“Not so,” Myra said. “Not so afraid. My bow doesn't shake anymore. I guess you could say it worked.”

“You showed up here,” Ezra said. He had a slow, drawly voice. We all looked at him.

The lady in the lace collar hurried in again with a bundle of papers, and Karen Karen was behind her. “Here, fill these out,” she said, kind of nudging Karen into the room and handing us each a long sheet of paper and a pencil. Then the lady left the room.

Karen came over to me all excited. Her glasses didn't have the adhesive tape holding them together anymore. “Allegra! A familiar face! Boy, am I relieved! This place is full of strange-o's. They sent me to the freight elevator—they're all these really vague types—all these people saying, ‘Someone will be with you in a minute'—And I'm late to begin with because I was listening to the end of
The Magic Flute
in my car. Don't you just love that opera?” She flopped down on a chair.

“Hi,” I said. She was wearing a flowered dress that made her look even dumpier than she'd looked in jeans. “How's your hand?” I asked.

“My hand. It's okay. Not perfect.” She held out her right hand and flexed her fingers. “Why does it smell like paint remover in here?”

Everybody except Steve Landauer laughed.

Christine introduced herself to Karen and told her who everyone was. I looked at the paper we were supposed to fill out and tried to imagine each person in the room playing the Mozart concerto.

The paper was a questionnaire. How long have you been playing the violin? Why did you choose the violin? What are your chief interests besides music? What is your favorite subject in school? Do you have any pets? What is your advice to young people today? How do you see yourself ten years from now? Some words were crossed out and retyped. I think it was a first draft.

A very short, skinny man wearing a huge wristwatch that wobbled around on his arm hurried in and collected our papers but left the pencils. He said we'd be going to the studio in about four minutes, and said, “Just relax.” He hurried out.

Karen said, “They set a terrific example around here. They're all so relaxed they're gone—till we have to do something, then they get all tense.”

We laughed. “What did you say for ‘advice for young people today'?” Christine asked us.

“Never play a violin sonata for a Rotary Club in a lumber town,” Myra said.

“I said twenty-three hours of TV a day is too much,” Christine said.

Everybody except Steve Landauer was laughing.

The skinny man walked in again and hesitated in the doorway. “Well, I see you're all having fun. That's the bottom line here at KORV, having fun. They're ready for you on the set.”

In the studio we stepped over big thick camera cables. They sat us in chairs; they wanted the oldest first, and we had to sort ourselves out. I was last, of course. We were very crowded. The skinny man said to us, “Folks, meet Larry Ladley. He'll chat with each of you, it'll be fun. Just be yourselves.”

Larry Ladley was wearing makeup. “We always tell you to just be yourselves with thousands of people watching,” he said. He was smiling but not really looking at us. He was skimming our questionnaires, and he looked as if he was holding his breath. He had very bushy eyebrows.

Suddenly the whole studio lit up with bright lights. A man with headphones and a cord hanging from him said, “STAND BY!” Then the whole studio audience clapped, and a man shot his arm straight down through the air. Larry Ladley said, “These are the six finalists in the second annual Ernest Bloch Competition. The competition is limited to young people from Oregon. The maximum age is twenty-one, and these young people were selected from a field of eighty-five violinists. Let's get right to the music makers. I don't think I've been surrounded by so many geniuses since I flunked third grade.” He laughed. A camera moved to aim at Christine.