Sophistication

It was the final piano lesson of her twelfth year of life, and Evelyn had just finished playing through the Turkish Rondo. She knew, before Mrs. Schwartz uttered so much as a syllable, that she had done it again. Too fast, too loud, too rampant—too much! But the beat of her heart and the flush in her cheeks, not to mention the way that the surrounding air rejoiced as it lapped up the final chord, allayed any stirrings of consternation. She leaned her chin on her right shoulder and knew her eyes were dancing as they focused on the crisp elderly woman beside her.

“You certainly had fun with that one, didn’t you?” Mrs. Schwartz’s sardonic tone soured the finale. “I’m sure that after six years under my tutelage, you can guess what I didn’t like about that performance.”

“I overdid it.”

As she made her impenitent confession, Evelyn watched Mrs. Schwartz’s gaze drift across the room toward the clock suspended on the opposite wall. This brief journey was traveled so often during the course of a lesson that Evelyn sometimes thought of the clock as a magnet like the ones she’d studied in school, exerting a pull irresistible for her teacher’s small lead-grey ocular shavings.

“Precisely.” Mrs. Schwartz’s eyes strained away from the clock and trained them once again on her pupil. “You overdid it. It isn’t supposed to be all one furious fortissimo that somehow incredibly manages to crescendo and accelerando every measure. You need to pace yourself, to feel the natural ebb and flow of the music. Your quarter note should be the same value the entire length of the piece. Your pianissimos should be a whisper.”

She poised her right hand above the keyboard and executed a coy trill. “Soft and disarming, like that, see?” Evelyn jumped out of her skin when the next moment Mrs. Schwartz’s left hand fell into a deep and thunderous tremolo. As the growl died out, the woman patted her student’s shoulder and smiled. “See how effective that contrast is? What you don’t yet understand, my dear, is that by pounding the notes into the ground you are actually robbing them of their potency.”

Evelyn nodded, but her face was impatient. It wasn’t a question of whether or not she understood. She did understand. It was a question of whether or not she cared. And she did not.

Mrs. Schwartz sighed. “Good. Next week, I expect you to be less self indulgent and to show a little more respect for Mozart when you take it upon yourself to perform his work.” The magnet drew her eyes up once more. “And that’s about all the time we have this week. You’d better bundle up tight for the walk home. It looks sleety out there.”

As Evelyn dutifully shrugged on her jacket, Mrs. Schwartz poised her pen above the little notepad that Evelyn was meant to consult during her daily practice sessions. Evelyn threw her scarf carelessly around her neck and embraced her stack of music books.

“Thanks, Mrs. Schwartz.”

“You’re welcome, dear.”

The girl paused with her hand on the doorknob, and then asked with impulsive curiosity, “Mrs. Schwartz?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you ever play just to see how loud and fast you can go? I mean, even though you know it won’t sound as good? Just for fun?”

Mrs. Schwartz’s face grew suddenly still. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Well now. There’s a time and a place for everything. You have to know, Evelyn, that when you sit at my piano, I expect you to be true both to yourself and to the work that you have been given to perform.” She paused, and smiled slowly. “That said, I don’t think there’s a person on the face of the earth that doesn’t push the limits every now and then, just to prove a point.”

Evelyn made a mollified face, her interest sapping away as quickly as it had been aroused. She grinned as she pulled open the door. “Well, all righty. I’m off! Have a great week, Mrs. Schwartz!” There was a ripping noise behind her back as she skipped lightly down the doorsteps. A moment later the older woman’s reedy voice arrested the girl’s escape through the wet flinty air.

“Evelyn, you forgot your notepad!”

She whirled around and retraced her steps in several bounds. “Oh, thank you! Goodbye again, Mrs. Schwartz!”
---
When Evelyn arrived home, she dropped her heap of music books on the piano bench. The notepad fell to the floor, and she knelt to pick it up. As she did, her eyes fell across the words Mrs. Schwartz had scrawled in it moments ago. Instead of the usual litany--polish these measures, master these scales, memorize this theory--a single sentence jazzed up the blank page.

"You should above all be glad and young. Happy Birthday!"

Embarrassed by her heart’s sudden leap of pleasure, Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she muttered under her breath, tossing the notepad aside. She looked down at the vacant piano.

The scrupulous ranks of black and white stirred within her an embryonic reverence.
---
Mrs. Schwartz stood in the cold for a moment and watched her ward tango down the sidewalk towards her home a block away, scarf unwinding and whipping in the air behind her. Then the old woman shut the door and leaned back against it. She looked down at the vacant piano.

The gap-toothed ivories grinned a rakish invitation.