Page Turner Pa (2 page)

She rubbed her eyes, tried to block out the fresh, intrusive memory of Diane's voice. She didn't like having to go to concerts with the Mosses, but there it was. She was not one to do things alone, and Kelso had refused. "So what if he's page-turning?" he'd said. "When he plays, I'll go." Kelso, in her view, was unforgivable, and yet his absence at least afforded her the relief of not having to worry about his falling asleep.

An enormous man with a shiny bald head now made his way to the seat in front of Pamela's. He looked at her coat, his ticket, her.

"Madame, is this yours?" he asked, indicating the coat.

"Oh, is that
your
seat? Sorry." She gathered it up.

Snorting, the man sat down. Immediately the back of his immense head supplanted the piano. In that unfortunate way of bald men, he'd grown what few hairs he had very long, then brushed them forward over his scalp.

Now if Clayton were a gentleman, she thought, he'd offer to trade places with her. But clearly Clayton wasn't a gentleman because he didn't do anything. Which was typical. Nothing ever worked out the way she hoped. Even so, she wouldn't have dreamed of
asking
Clayton to change places with her, both because she was too proud and because in truth she rather relished the prospect of a little public suffering.

The hall lights dimmed. Immediately the buzz of audience chatter shrank to a whisper.

"It's starting!" Pamela said to Clayton, and craned her neck to see. Aside from the piano and Kennington's bench, the stage's only occupants were three chairs and two music stands. Presently, no one joined them. Had the dimming been a false alarm? The collective held breath of the audience tautened as the seconds passed. It was as if an immense bubble were forming over the auditorium. Then some people stepped onto the stage. Applause popped the bubble, applause that had as much to do with relief as enthusiasm. The cellist came first, chubby and pink, his face framed by coarse curls. Next followed the violinist, a dark woman in a black skirt and leotard. When she bowed, her body went limp like a rag doll, her hair, as lustrous as the piano itself, fell forward and nearly brushed the floor.

Finally there was the pianist. A younger man than Pamela had expected, he appeared distracted, as if it were just dawning on him that he was in a public place. Pushing through the applause as if it were foliage, he moved to his bench. Paul, trailing, took the chair at the piano's left, then settled the score on the desk.

While the cellist and the violinist opened their own music, the pianist whispered something to Paul, in response to which he took off his watch and stuffed it into his breast pocket.

"Look at him!" Pamela nudged Clayton with her elbow. "Oh, but his tie! He must have fiddled with it."

"It's fine, Pammy."

The bald man turned. "Ssh!" he said, and Pamela colored. He opened a score over his lap.

Closing his eyes, the pianist clasped his hands for a few seconds, as if in prayer, then, when the theater was silent, nodded to his partners, who nodded back.

They began to play. As for Pamela, very quietly she scooted forward and pressed her knee against the back of the bald man's seat. He raised his head. A vein pulsed behind his ear. Serves him right, she thought, folding up her coat.

 

It was toward the end of the Tchaikovsky (and of course it had to be Tchaikovsky) that Kennington, much to his chagrin and surprise, began to become aware of Paul; that is to say, aware of him as more than just a black arm that shot forward every time he neared the end of a page, held the corner steady between thumb and forefinger, and in response to the subtlest of nods, with sparrowlike swiftness, turned it. Invisibility is an asset in any page turner: on stage, he must efface his presence as much as possible, make it seem as if the sheets are flipping of their own accord. And in terms of unobtrusiveness, Paul was faultless. He never turned a page too late or too early, never sniffled or shook his leg. Yes, the watch had been a mistake, but this Kennington forgave, attributing it to inexperience. In any event Paul had taken it off as soon as he was asked to do so. And still, even without the watch, Kennington found himself growing conscious of Paul, of his slightly parted legs, the folds of black wool at his crotch, the white shirting where his jacket fell open; indeed, so distracted was he that when the Tchaikovsky ended, and the boy, well versed in the ways of page turners, gathered up the scores and stood aside for him to pass, Kennington hurried backstage and headed immediately for the water cooler. Even at this distance, Paul's heavy, almost medicinal odor prickled in his throat.

When the houselights came up, he asked if there was someplace he could go by himself. He had a headache, he said. The stage manager led him to an empty dressing room, where he sat before a scratched and battered table, the lights off, his fingers on his temples. Unlike Izzy Gerstler, he was not an experienced libertine; nor was it his habit to be driven to dementia by page turners. And yet something about Paul's nervous meticulousness, his good manners, the razor-sharp part in his hair, alarmed Kennington. He could not say why, exactly. Perhaps it was the degree to which Paul seemed an echo of himself, years earlier. (As a boy, making his first
tournée
of Europe, he too must have given off that musk of animal discomfort.) Also the tingle of unexpressed need that now clung to Kennington's suit, picked up like static electricity from a wall socket.

A knock sounded. "Five minutes!" the stage manager called, and Kennington stumbled onto his feet. To his embarrassment he had an erection. He closed his eyes, tried to will it away, for he couldn't very well walk out on stage like that. And yet despite his efforts to fill his mind only with the
Archduke,
an image of Paul on all fours, with his shorts around his knees, materialized insistently on the insides of his eyelids. On the insides of his eyelids he was stroking the arched behind, the line of pale hairs that ran from the small of the back into the cleft between the buttocks. And Paul was begging him, he was saying, "Please, sir. Please." This wasn't in itself unusual. In fantasy at least, Kennington liked being begged. He liked withholding before satisfying. It was all rather like a curtain call.

No, the thing that unnerved him was that the fantasy seemed to be having him rather than the other way around.

Another knock. "Mr. Kennington?"

"Okay," he said, and pulling himself together, headed downstairs. In the wings Paul stood where he had left him, apparently not having moved for the entire length of the interval. "Feeling all right, sir?" he asked, his cheeks pink, gazing at Kennington with horrible sincerity.

"Better now."

They returned to the stage. In the orchestra the last stragglers hurried to their seats, applauding even as they ran. Opening the score, Paul tried not to look at the backs of the bowing players, the lights, the blur of human pandemonium in the midst of which, somewhere, his mother sat, probably waving at him. (It was embarrassing even to contemplate.)

At last Tushi, arranged in her chair, nodded to Kennington. The audience quieted, and the
Archduke
began.

It is the rare privilege of a page turner to hear a pianist almost as he hears himself: to hear his humming, the occasional grunts that escape through his teeth, the dull clack of his nails against the keys. And not only hear, but see; study. As Paul was learning, Kennington didn't move a lot when he performed, didn't lunge or writhe on the bench, or drape himself over the keyboard in an attitude of sublime transfiguration. Instead his face remained impassive, even expressionless. He kept his lips together, his back straight, supple. And those hands! Earlier, they had seemed unremarkable to Paul, but now, in the throes of
doing,
they revealed their rarity. Precision and unity, that was the formula, each note offered with an eloquence that somehow never distracted from the larger narrative in which it was bound. His hands were themselves a kind of music.

Forty minutes later, when the trio ended and the applause began, Paul obediently picked up the score and followed the musicians off the stage. Izzy Gerstler was wiping his mouth with a wrinkled handkerchief.

"So what say we let the blue hairs have a chance to clear out, then give them the Schubert?" he asked.

"Fine," Tushi said. "Richard, you up for it?"

"What? Oh, sure."

They did not move. From the upper tiers the music students stomped rhythmically, insistent that the musicians should now play their appointed roles in that approach-avoidance ritual known as the encore—an insistence they knew better than to oblige too quickly. After all, a certain coquettishness is expected from great artists. Not to keep your public waiting would spoil the game.

Finally, in wordless agreement, the trio filed out onto the stage, bowed, filed back. In row twenty-two Pamela Porterfield rose to her feet.

"Bravo!" she shouted.

No one else was standing.

Embarrassed, she sat down again.

"Diane, have you got any aspirin?"

"Sure thing, honey."

"You all right, Pammy?" Clayton asked.

"Oh, I'm fine. I just have this crick in my neck from stretching to see over that man's head. Thanks." She rubbed her left shoulder. "You were lucky, Clayton. You didn't have anyone in front of you."

Instead of answering, Clayton clapped. Diane put on her coat. Already most of the subscription holders were hurrying out, eager to be first in line at the coat check or the valet parking. Idiots, Pamela thought (swallowing the aspirin), the kind of people who unwrap hard candy during the slow movement, or applaud before the end, or talk. Why, once she and Paul had sat next to a man who'd actually brought along a transistor radio to a recital, so he could listen to the World Series. The management had had to be summoned.

"So what'd you think?" Diane asked. In the narrow aisle she was already buttoned up, purse in hand.

"I liked the Beethoven better than the Tchaikovsky," Clayton said.

"Really? I liked the Tchaikovsky better than the Beethoven."

"How about you, Pammy? Which one did you like better?"

Pamela, still seated, said nothing, as the trio, wearing expressions of reluctance and indulgence, stepped back onto the stage. This time Kennington led. They carried instruments, music. Those people who happened to be in the aisles grabbed whatever empty seat was closest. Chatter and applause ceased utterly, as if a vacuum had sucked away sound.

The Mosses, looking disappointed, sat down again.

Almost offhandedly, Kennington struck the first chord of the Schubert. It is a piece that brings to mind the moment of departure at a train station; that makes the fingers stretch to touch a last time; that makes you think, yes, the life of sensation, and no other. Indeed, Kennington's playing of it transfixed Paul's attention to such a degree that at one point he nearly forgot to turn the page. But fortunately he caught himself, and from then on he made certain to keep his eyes on the score instead of the keyboard.

The andante lasted a little more than eight minutes, after which the musicians got up, bowed again, and left the stage. Ritual demanded further curtain calls, further stomping for a second encore that was not forthcoming: with the exception of Izzy, who could have played all night, they were too tired.

"That's it!" the stage manager shouted as the houselights went up. Roars of disappointment sounded from the upper balconies.

People left.

In a corner of the wings, meanwhile, Kennington was drinking water from a cooler: cup after cup, gulp after gulp.

Very quietly Paul approached him.

"Sir?" he asked, holding out his hand.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just want to say that you played splendidly tonight."

"Thank you."

"I'll never forget it, not for the rest of my life. Sorry about the watch, by the way."

"Oh, that was no problem."

"Also, I realize that I nearly missed one turn during the encore."

"It was nothing. From my point of view you were perfect. Flawless, even."

"I appreciate that, sir, even if it isn't true."

"Please don't call me sir. I'm not that old. I'm not your grandfather."

"But I didn't say it because I thought you were old. I said it because I think you're great."

"Well, that's a little better, I suppose." Filling his cup again, Kennington looked at Paul, who with a kind of studied obduracy was refusing to meet his eye, fixing his attention instead on the men in overalls who were moving the piano off the stage.

"So do you live here in San Francisco?" he asked after a moment.

"In Menlo Park, actually. That's down the peninsula. But I was born in Boston." Paul smiled. "You're from Florida, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"I only mention it because I have aunts in Florida. In Hallandale."

"That's the other end of the state from me. Holmbury is near the Georgia border."

"I know where it is. I looked it up in the atlas. I'd like to go to Holmbury some day and pay my regards to Clara Aitken."

"How do you know about Clara Aitken?"

"Judging from what you said in that interview in the November 1986 issue of
Gramophone,
she must have been quite a teacher." He blushed.

Kennington laughed. "It sounds like you know more about me than I know about myself."

"What can I say? You're a role model to me, sir—I mean, Mr. Kennington."

"Richard."

"Richard." Paul grimaced, blushed.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it? And anyway, wouldn't you agree that it's much more pleasant to be called by your own name?"

Paul seemed to consider the question seriously. Then he said, "Well, I'd better be going. Good luck with the rest of your tour. And thank you. Again."

"Thank
you,
Paul," Kennington answered; yet he did not take the hand Paul held out. Instead he stepped closer. "In a way, I'm sorry you have to go."

"Why?"

"Well, I was thinking we could have a drink together, or..."

Paul's eyes widened. "A drink? But people must be taking you out!"