Page Turner Pa (14 page)

"By the way, I had a real surprise coming home this afternoon," Paul said. "I ran into someone I knew in the elevator."

"Oh? Who was that?"

"Joseph Mansourian. He said he knew you too."

"Oh, sure. He's up on the twenty-third floor. Where did you meet him?"

"San Francisco."

"It's probably a good thing you ran into him," Alden said. "He could help you. No one has more influence in the piano world than Mansourian." Then he went into his study to make some some phone calls. Sitting down at the piano, Paul played, rather absentmindedly, the first few bars of a Chopin étude. The truth was, he was still trying to assess his own feelings about the encounter with Mr. Mansourian. Relief was certainly in the forefront; what had tormented Paul most in the months after Rome hadn't been so much Kennington's abandonment itself as its lack of explanation. And the ground that silence left barren, speculation filled in. Perhaps there'd been an emergency. Perhaps a message had been left, and lost. Or perhaps Pamela had scared him off with her loud neediness, or Paul himself, by making some faux pas, the severity of which he'd been too naive to recognize: the social equivalent of turning two pages at once. For months he'd known nothing. Now, however, he knew at least that Kennington hadn't said anything about the affair to Mr. Mansourian, for which he was glad. If he had, Paul would have recognized it instantly in Mansourian's eyes.

A toilet flushed. Buttoning up his pants, Alden returned. "So what do you feel like having for dinner? Chinese?"

"Fine," Paul said, suddenly abandoning Chopin in favor of a Scarlatti sonata. Meanwhile Alden took the stack of take-out menus out of the bureau drawer. "How does chicken with mustard greens sound to you?"

"Fine."

"And cold noodles with sesame sauce, of course—"

"Alden." Paul lifted his fingers from the keys. "This Mansourian, does he have a boyfriend?"

"I don't know. Probably."

"I only wondered because when I met him in San Francisco, I had the distinct feeling he was coming on to me."

"I'm sure he was."

"So he must be single."

"Ha!" Alden picked up the phone to dial. "You know the saying. When the cat's away, the mouse will play."

"Yes, but—"

"Not that the cat
has
to be away. The cat merely has to be at the office, or out shopping, or—hello, Empire Szechwan? Yes, I can. Why, even as we speak I suspect Joseph Mansourian is sitting upstairs in his boudoir, plotting how to get into your pants."

"No he isn't!"

"It makes me think how lucky I am that I got to you first." He scratched Paul's head. "Because if you ask me ... hello? Yes, this is Alden Haynes calling. How are you this evening? I was wondering if I might order some food to be delivered..."

 

The next morning Paul woke up so early that he was showered and on his way to school even before Alden's alarm had gone off. Out the revolving doors he hurried, his eyes peeled for Mansourian, whom he didn't see. Breath formed cartoon speech bubbles before his eyes as he trudged uptown, glancing now and then at the tangles of Christmas bulbs that spanned Broadway, somewhat forlorn in their switched-off state, in the greasy gray winter light. They reminded him that in just a couple of weeks he was going to have to fly home, to face his mother for the first time since summer: his mother, who had written him a letter at 4:12
A.M.
Needless to say she knew nothing of his New York life, nor was he inclined to tell her.

In a deli just across the street from Juilliard, he ordered coffee and a buttered bagel, of which he was just taking his first bite when Jen Feeney, a girl of indiscriminate friendliness, accosted him. "Hey, Paul!" she said, stabbing at the plastic top of her coffee cup. "Say, have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Thang Po's been signed on by Joseph Mansourian. You know, the kid who's giving the recital this afternoon."

Paul swayed on his heels. Of course he knew Thang, who at fourteen was the youngest student in their class. He'd just never bothered to take him seriously.

"But how did it happen?"

"Well, it's really an inspiring story. I mean, Thang was a boat person. His parents had nothing.
Nothing.
They run a grocery in Queens, if you can believe it! Then apparently on Kirchenwald's recommendation he played for Joseph Mansourian last week and the guy signed him on just like that." She snapped her fingers. "
The
Joseph Mansourian. Can you imagine?"

Paul could. Indeed, as he walked (or rather, limped) across Broadway, pangs of grief assailed him. Why hadn't Kirchenwald asked
him
to play for Mr. Mansourian? After all, he liked Paul; just last week had praised his Schumann. And yet could he have really thought Paul that good if he had favored Thang, and not him, with such a introduction?

They arrived at school. "So will I see you at the recital this afternoon?" Jen asked. "Personally, I can't wait."

"I guess," Paul answered. In fact, ever since the deli he'd been trying to figure out how to escape the recital, since Thang's newfound success had had the effect of throwing his own comparative obscurity into relief. Still, better the devil you knew than the devil you didn't; his mother always said that. So he went. In the auditorium he sat between Jen and an extremely tall girl from Scarsdale who wore pearls and was called Oona Ford.

Oona Ford had also heard the news. "My, the Schumann fantasy," she said, scanning her program. "That second movement's a pianistic Waterloo if there ever was one. If he's not careful," she added in a low voice, "Thang Po may end up being a very
po' thang
indeed."

"Oona!" Jen laughed. "That's a terrible joke. And racist!" A rebuke to which Oona responded by raising her hands into the air.

"Far be it from me to voice an unpopular opinion, but you know as well as I do that these little Asian prodigies—I mean, yes, they can manage a certain technical proficiency—but they play like robots! They're
soulless.
"

"Oona, I can't believe what you're saying! How can you generalize like that?"

"Name me one great Asian pianist."

"Asia is a huge continent. You can't lump together people from Japan and China and Vietnam and—"

"I said, name me one great Asian pianist."

"That's not the point! And anyway, since when has virtuosity been the opposite of feeling? I'm so tired of that old line! You have to be technically proficient
before
you can—"

The lights dimmed. Onto the little stage the subject of the argument now stepped. Aside from simple adjectives of race, size, and age, he could not be described. Not merely diffident, Thang was as close to abstract as any human being Paul had ever seen. Nor did his clothes—white shirt and black pants, like piano keys—improve matters. Instead they made him look as if the instrument had consumed his personality, transforming him into an anthropomorphic projection of its mechanism.

Bowing listlessly, he sat. ("Now that's what I call a soulful guy," Oona whispered.) His arms hung limp, like a rag doll's. Yet when he started to play he grabbed Paul's attention so forcefully it hurt.

Later, Paul would recall what Miss Novotna had once said about Kennington—
it was as if Chopin were waiting for this young man to be bom.
For you couldn't be envious of playing like that. It razored straight through rivalrous impulses to quicken the very nerves and fibers of the body. It vouchsafed no reaction save joy.

"God, wasn't that incredible?" Jen said once the recital had ended. "I mean, have you ever heard anything like that?"

Oona, her face discomposed, snorted, then lit a cigarette.

"You know who he reminds me of more than anyone? You know who? He reminds me of Richard Kennington."

"Well, I've got to be going." Oona put on her coat and left. And shortly thereafter Jen, perhaps recognizing she'd talked too much, left too. Paul was now alone.

Just as he was pulling on his mittens, Thang emerged from the little door at the side of the stage. He was carrying a battered black briefcase. To Paul's surprise, no one accompanied him.

"Hi," Paul said, standing as he neared. "I'm Paul Porterfield. I'm in your class."

"Hi." The hand Thang held out was damp.

"I just wanted to say that was really an incredible concert. I mean, maybe one of the best performances of the fantasy I've ever heard. Congratulations."

"Thanks. I dropped a note in the march, though."

"Really? I didn't notice."

"Uh-huh."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much. The audience loved you. Obviously."

"I guess." Thang shifted from one foot to the other. For a few awkward seconds, two boys, they just stood there.

"Well, I've got to go," Thang said eventually. "My mother's picking me up."

"Okay. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too."

Thang disappeared. Through the half-open door Paul saw a woman's face, weathered, in wait.

Afterward, walking along Broadway toward Alden's apartment, he tried to sort out his reaction to the recital. Jealousy, he could not deny it, was an ingredient, though not the primary one. Perhaps it was more accurate to say that the performance compelled him to examine and to some extent rework his definition of genius. Questions fired in Paul. What was it about Thang's playing? Was Paul, as a pianist, in the same league? With Kennington it had been different: Kennington had been an abstraction when Paul had first encountered him, a disembodied series of tones coming through his childhood record player. Whereas Thang was a peer. A colleague.

He stopped for a red light. Something crucial happened. He answered his own question. The answer was no.

He blinked. Above him the Christmas lights flashed alive. Stars and bells, frosty with glitter, haloed pockets of cold air.

"I shall never be what I hoped," he said next, as if trying on the words for fit. "Thang Po, yes. Paul Porterfield..." But he couldn't finish his sentence.

How odd! From those ethereally remote days of four months ago (he heard it "as if from a distance," like one of the indications for Schumann's
Davidsbündlertänze
) some music sounded: it was
Peter and the Wolf,
a jaunty melody of seeking into the very logic of which was woven the assurance of a happy end.
And to thinly
(Paul thought)
that once I trotted down hallways with that in my head, the accompaniment to how I was sure my life was going to go.
Yet it was the music of innocence, clear and bright and spacious. And now it was finished. Now it was done. For Thang had surprised Paul into the saddest revelation of his life. That was his gift. His playing bypassed ambition to percuss a deeper chord, a more loving chord, a chord that yanked Paul to his feet, pulled his hands (also Oona's) one against the other to make, in response to that sacred noise, a brutish, even bestial noise—like seals barking, Paul had always thought. And they were seals barking. That was why Oona had looked so discomposed. It ruffled her to see her cultivations so rudely stripped away, to be rendered as mute as the animals Orpheus charmed, wagging their languageless tongues for more.

Never mine,
a voice inside him said,
the pleasure of gathering the animals.

He was back now. At Alden's building. From where he guarded the revolving door, the young doorman winked. And did he have a dark cock with a long foreskin, that doorman? (On his finger a gold wedding band, patinaed.)

Paul got in the elevator (he sat), rode to the sixteenth floor (he stood), undid the double doors with their double locks. He smelled cooking, heard music ... but where was it coming from?

Moving cautiously down the hall, he peered through the half-open door to the living room. Apparently the cleaning lady, who was forgetful, had left the television on. An elderly cartoon was playing. Flowers with baby faces opened their petals, robins chirruped and darted, all to the tune of Mendelssohn.

Very quietly he took off his coat, slipped off his shoes, lay down on the floor.

He watched. The music changed. In the cartoon a fox appeared. The flowers zipped up their petals like parkas. The birds took to the trees.

Then the fox pounced.

A ringing sounded. At first Paul thought it was part of the cartoon, until he realized that it was the telephone, and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Alden?"

"No, Paul."

"Paul, Joseph Mansourian here! How are you?"

"Fine, fine." Sitting up, Paul muted the television, brushed back his hair.

"I hope you don't mind my calling you at Alden's."

"It's okay."

"Good. You see, aside from needing an excuse to tell you what a pleasure it was running into you in the elevator yesterday, I wanted to let you know that I was talking to Louis Kirchenwald this morning, and your name came up."

"It did?"

"Yes. I don't know if you've heard, but I've just signed on a classmate of yours, Thang Po."

"Yes, I heard. I was at his recital today."

"Amazing, isn't he? I owe Louis a favor for that. So anyway, as I was saying, he and I were chatting this morning, and I happened to inquire if he could give me the name of a student I might ask—"

"Oh, Mr. Mansourian—"

"About page turning."

"Page turning?"

"Yes. You see, on Friday Thang's going to play some chamber music with a few friends here at my apartment. Just a little private get-together. Thang and Tushi Strauss are doing the
Kreutzer,
after which Thang's playing a Liszt group. It'll be quite casual, bear in mind, just twenty people or so. Kennington may even be there, if he gets back from Tokyo in time."

"Really."

"So can you do it?"

"Sure ... I mean, thank you."

"Oh, good. I'm delighted. Well, you know where I live. It's the twenty-third floor. Why don't you come by around six on Friday?"

"That'll be great."

"See you soon, then."

"Bye."

They hung up. For a moment, having replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, Paul stared at the muted television. Then he brought the sound back up and lay down again on his stomach. Another cartoon had started. Tom and Jerry. A lion, it seemed, had escaped from the zoo and was hiding in the basement of that huge, humanless house in which cat and mouse, perpetually, tormented each other.