The Soloist (26 page)

The Kims’ apartment was in a dull, flat area of Long Beach surrounded by strip malls and shabby one-story office buildings. Almost all the store signs were written in Oriental characters, and everyone I saw, including the people in cars, was Asian. The Kims lived in a small house with badly rotted eaves overhead, a rusted van with an underinflated tire parked out front and a battered chain-link fence encircling the property.

Every square foot of the tiny front yard was used for cultivation, although there were no flowering plants visible—only beans growing up stick frames, eggplant, peas, carrots, rosemary, parsley, watercress and several other herbs I couldn’t identify. The other houses on the street, I noticed, either had practical gardens like the Kims’ or had been allowed to go completely to weeds and wheel rims.

When I knocked at the door Mrs. Kim answered, let me inside and called for Kyung-hee. While waiting I glanced around the living room, noticing that it was spotless. The furniture, though of the ghastly Sears-showroom variety, all looked either brand-new or meticulously cared for. The centerpiece of the room was the sofa, upholstered with crushed velvet and trimmed with elaborate antimacassars on the arms, all of which was covered with plastic and looked as if no one had ever sat on it. Two framed silk embroideries hung above it, each showing a pair of mandarin ducks swimming under the drooping branches of willow trees. A dark, heavy coffee table in front of the sofa supported a bowl piled high with oranges. I could see through to the kitchen, which looked more lived in than the living room. The house was fragrant with a mixture of incense, garlic, bitter herbs and a smoky, burned-cooking-oil smell.

Sitting at a little Formica table in the kitchen, behind a pile of magazines, Kyung-hee’s sister was hunched over some books. “Homework,” Mrs. Kim said proudly, noticing my glance. The daughter did not look up at me. The kitchen walls were practically wallpapered with long, scroll-type calendars that appeared to serve as advertisements for Asian business establishments; the few English words I could see on them proclaimed, “Great Ocean Auto Repair” or “Bul-Koki Barbeque Sauce,” and each calendar featured an Oriental girl
posing as if she were chasing butterflies. Worst of all was the noise. A television was turned on loud in the living room, even though no one appeared to be watching it, and a smaller one—the second set Kyung-hee had been so proud of—was on in the kitchen, tuned to a separate channel. Kyung-hee’s sister seemed to be oblivious to both of them as she worked. The thought of Kyung-hee having to hear this racket nauseated me. Mrs. Kim yelled for Kyung-hee again, and at last he walked into the living room, wearing his sport coat just as I’d pictured. His mother sent him into the kitchen and he returned with a cup of tea in a large mug that had a ceramic lid, which he set down on the coffee table in front of me.

“You sit down, have tea first,” Mrs. Kim said cheerfully, showing a rare smile and pointing at the sofa. I obeyed and had my cup of tea. Kyung-hee sat on a chair across the room with his feet dangling above the ground, and Mrs. Kim disappeared into the kitchen, only to reappear with a tray covered with pieces of several different kinds of cake. “Mr. Kim sorry he not here to see you,” she said, speaking with her hand in front of her mouth in what appeared to be a gesture of remorse. “He so busy!”

After eating a piece of cake, I thanked her for the snacks but said that Kyung-hee and I should really get on the freeway as soon as possible if we wanted to beat traffic and have time for dinner. Mrs. Kim responded by refilling my cup from a large teapot resting snugly in a box lined with red velvet, then disappearing into the kitchen again. This time she came out with sliced fruit, elaborately arranged on a round serving plate.

She said something to Kyung-hee, who translated, “My mom says Americans don’t like skin, so she peeled it for you.” I thanked her for going to all the trouble, but she
shook her head and said only, “No, no! Nothing!” Then she sat down next to Kyung-hee, folded her hands in front of her and watched me. I ate as much as I could and complimented her in particular on the pear slices, which were unusually crisp, but then regretted it when she leaped up from her seat, disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a plastic grocery bag filled with them. “You take home,” she insisted. I tried to say that I could never finish them on my own, but she only shook her head again and waved her hand as if she were fanning a small fire.

When I had finished the second cup of tea I stood up as a signal that we should be going. Mrs. Kim looked almost alarmed, bolting upright and holding the teapot out toward me as if to assure me that there really was more in it, but when I assured her I’d had plenty she put the teapot back in its velvet case, gave Kyung-hee some final instructions in Korean, then allowed us to go. When we got in the car I saw that somehow she had managed to give Kyung-hee a second bag of pears for me.

On the drive to Los Angeles I asked Kyung-hee how he liked school.

“It’s OK.”

“What subjects do you like best?”

“They’re all OK, I guess. I like math.”

“Do you have some good friends at school?”

“I guess.”

Every response was on that level, and he never initiated any conversation. It made me feel defeated; I wanted him to have a good time, to enjoy himself, to brighten up during our road trip so that I could be cheered up, but I couldn’t seem to make it happen. By the time we reached Los Angeles I was beginning to wish I were at home in my own room drinking;
the cost of the tickets was seeming less and less important. But when I brought up the subject of dinner, Kyung-hee became more communicative. When I asked what kind of food he liked, he turned and glanced at me for an instant, then looked down at his lap.

“I like …” he said, his voice trailing off to an inaudible mumble.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you—what do you like?”

“I like Wendy’s,” he repeated, grinning sheepishly.

“You mean the fast-food place? We have plenty of time; we don’t have to rush through dinner.”

“OK.”

“Do you like eating in restaurants, Kyung-hee?”

“Yeah. But we have to eat at home every day. My friends at school get to eat out all the time, though.”

“I’ll bet your mother’s a good cook.”

He nodded, and then said, “I like American food sometimes.”

“Would you like to try another kind of Western food, then? How about French—have you ever had that?”

“No,” he said, but he looked interested.

“France is where Debussy, Rameau and Ravel were from, and a lot of people think French food is the best in the world. Would you like to try it?”

“OK.”

In fact I had already made a reservation for us at a quiet place I knew near the concert hall; I wanted all aspects of his first night at the symphony to be memorable. But when we sat down and he looked at the menu, instead of seeming impressed by all the strange dishes, he looked gravely worried. When I asked him if anything was wrong, he pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of his jacket pocket and said,
suddenly fighting back tears, “My mom didn’t give me enough.”

I told him to put away the money, that I was treating him and that he could have whatever he wanted. He still seemed afraid to order, however, so I took his menu away and asked what he liked best—chicken, beef or seafood. He said chicken, so I ordered him coq au vin and a shrimp cocktail appetizer.

While waiting for our food, I noticed that Kyung-hee kept sneaking glances at something going on behind me. I asked what was catching his attention, and he whispered to me, “That man walks funny.” I turned around to see the maître d’ seating a pair of women. I couldn’t see anything unusual in his walk, but Kyung-hee couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“What’s funny about the way he walks?” I asked quietly.

“Look!” was all he would say. I turned around again, but from what I could tell, the man’s gait looked perfectly normal.

“Not just his walking!” Kyung-hee said. “Everything’s slow!” Now I realized that he was referring to the man’s deliberately smooth movements, which one expects from maître d’s and waiters in good restaurants. Apparently he had never seen someone who took pride in moving gracefully for the sake of creating a subdued atmosphere.

I explained to him that in a good restaurant the staff tries to make everything about the experience relaxing and beautiful—that was why, for example, our silverware and glasses were so carefully arranged in front of us. Just then our appetizers arrived. His shrimp were spread out on the plate in front of him in a circular pattern.

“You see?” I said, pointing to the shrimp. “The chef took time to put them all in the right place. Isn’t that nice?”

His open mouth signaled that he was appropriately impressed. When he did not make any sort of move toward eating the shrimp, however, I worried that perhaps I had made too much of the presentation and frightened him into thinking it would be shameful to disturb the dish by actually eating any of it. When I urged him not to be polite and to eat, though, he turned red with embarrassment and asked, “How?”

I showed him how to use the tiny fork to dip the shrimp into the cocktail sauce.

“How come the fork is so small?” he asked me.

“Because it’s an appetizer fork. The appetizer is a small meal before the main course, so the fork has to be small too!” I thought it was a clever answer, but he argued that the shrimp on his plate were the largest he had ever seen, so shouldn’t the fork be even bigger than normal? I confessed that perhaps there was no good reason for the fork to be so small but that he shouldn’t be bothered by it. He shrugged and took a tiny bite, which he held in his mouth without chewing; I was afraid he might spit it out, but that fear vanished when he stuffed the rest into his mouth and speared the next shrimp before even swallowing. Likewise his entree—he gobbled it up as if he might never have the chance to eat again. He had an impressive appetite for a nine-year-old.

However, the highlight of the meal came when the maître d’ wheeled a fancy tray next to our table and introduced the desserts for the evening. When Kyung-hee saw all those slices of cake and pie, the custards, fruit tarts and cups filled with chocolate mousse, I thought he might have an insulin fit. He looked at each piece carefully, and, as I might have guessed, chose the one that looked biggest, a layered chocolate cake
with chocolate truffles on top. He finished it so quickly that I worried he might give himself an upset stomach, but he felt well enough to ask if he could order another piece. I agreed, but on the condition that the waiter pack it up so that he could take it home and have it the next day. It would have been an awful setback, I thought, if he got sick during the concert and had to be taken home early to spend the night of his first concert throwing up in the bathroom.

On the short drive to the concert hall, I described the program to Kyung-hee and told him that he didn’t have to think about any pictures this time; he was only to listen and enjoy. The first half would be Berio’s
Sinfonia
, a modern piece that I’d never heard, and the second half would be Strauss’s dramatic tone poem
Also Sprach Zarathustra
. When we took our seats in the hall, he looked around him in undisguised wonder. The clothing of the audience, particularly the women, seemed to impress him, as did the high ceiling, the chandeliers in the lobby and the bright, polished wooden floor of the stage.

Like most music in the classical tradition written since the First World War, the first piece was disappointing. The orchestra and singers did a heroic job trying to do justice to it, but no matter how well you play or sing, you can’t make disappointing music sound inspiring. References to Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Berg appear in the piece, along with musical depictions of Martin Luther King and the Paris student protests, in what was charitably described in the program notes as a “fascinating collage.” Because of the debacle of the night before, I was especially impatient; I could hardly wait for it to end. Also, I was anxious to hear Kyung-hee’s first impressions of a live symphony performance. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed
he sat completely still during the piece, his face taut with concentration. During the applause he turned to me and said excitedly, “There are seventy-three people in the orchestra!”

“Yes, a big group, isn’t it? And what did you think of the music?”

“Good!” A positive response, to be sure, but I had been hoping for something more specific.

As we strolled in the lobby during intermission, Kyung-hee tugged at my sleeve several times to point out sights that he found interesting. “Look at that lady’s dress!” he said, staring at a woman in a gold lamé outfit. “It must be worth a million dollars!”

“No, not that much. Probably only a thousand.”

“A thousand dollars! Wow!”

I bought him a Coke at the bar, and for myself a shot of whiskey. An older man standing next to us asked his companion, “How’s your drink?” She replied that it was a little dry. I asked Kyung-hee, “And how’s your drink?” He straightened up, seeming to appreciate the chance to talk like a grown-up. “Good,” he said, which was what he had said about the Berio piece. Since the
Sinfonia
purports to depict the events of the 1960s, I decided that comparing it to a popular soft drink was probably appropriate.

The main treat of the evening was
Also Sprach Zarathustra
. It was conceived as a musical complement to Friedrich Nietzsche’s book
Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All or None
, although Strauss later said about the piece, “I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray Nietzsche’s great work musically. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious as well as scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman.”

The dramatic opening, with its low pedal point in the orchestra and its distinctive trumpet call—known to so many people now as the theme from the movie
2001
—made Kyung-hee’s body go rigid. The first section depicts people who seek comfort in religion, as Zarathustra himself once did. In the second section, Strauss uses the cellos and bassoons to represent “great yearning” with a haunting, ascending theme. The third, called “Of Happiness and Passions,” refers to a passage in Nietzsche’s book in which Zarathustra reflects on how, thanks to strenuous self-discipline and wise direction, his dark passions have been turned into sources of virtue.