She glided past me and set herself regally on the black bench I had vacated.
“Who is your favorite composer?” Her glasses slid down her nose as she tipped her face forward, peering at me above the rims.
“I don’t know any of the composers,” I confessed sheepishly. “Most of the music I know I hear at church or on the radio. I do love to hear the organ play the hymns.” Thoughts of Jane Seymour moments before brought a memory to mind. “There was this music in a movie I saw once. It was my mom’s favorite, and she cried whenever she watched it. The movie was called ‘Somewhere in Time’ ... do you know it?” I rushed on when she didn’t respond. “There was this beautiful song that kept playing.”
“Ahhh, yes,” she sighed. “That is one of Rachmaninoff’s creations. Was it this?” She started to play the romantic strains of the music I remembered. I sank to a nearby chair and listened to the soul-stirring piece. I felt my heart swell to bursting and the tears rise in my eyes just like before.
She turned towards me as she finished and must have seen something in my face, must have seen how the music touched me.
“How old are you, child?” she asked quietly.
“My birthday is September 1st. I’ll be ten on Tuesday,” I answered shyly. I knew I looked older, and I always felt funny when I confessed my age.
“How does the music make you feel?”
“Alive,” I responded immediately and without thought, and I blushed a little at my answer.
She seemed oddly satisfied.
“Would you like to learn to play?”
“I would love to!” I exclaimed, exuberant. “I’ll have to ask my dad…but I’m sure he’ll let me!” A thought clouded my happy musings. “How much does it cost?” I worried.
“The only cost is the pleasure of your company, and the solemn promise that you will practice very hard.” She shook her finger at me sternly. “The child who does not practice does not proceed with further lessons.”
“I will practice harder than anyone has practiced before!” I promised sincerely.
“Has school started?”
“Yes, ma’am. It started last week.”
“Then I will see you Monday after school, Josie.” She held out her bony hands and clasped mine gently, sealing our deal. It was the best birthday gift I ever received.
Sonja Grimaldi had been a professor of music for thirty years. She had met and married her husband Leo, aka Doc, later on in life, and though Doc had a son from an earlier marriage, they had never had any children together. It had been a series of strange events and coincidences that had brought them to Levan – it was not a place that typically attracted retiring academics. Doc had been a friend to the senior Mr. Brockbank since they’d gone to school together as young men. He’d been the family physician since he’d graduated from med school. Both Sonja and Doc were in their seventies but still spry and ambitious. Doc had always wanted to write, but while he practiced medicine he’d never found the time. Sonja had the notion that she might like to compose a little as well, and Tuckaway Hill had seemed the perfect writer’s retreat.
I combed the Penny Pincher classified ads for a few weeks until I found a piano for sale. It proved to be old and ugly, but it had a rich, lovely sound. I contributed all the money I had been saving from selling my chicken’s eggs at the weekly farmer’s market and paid for it outright. My dad grumbled a little when it cost $75 to have someone come all the way to Levan to have it tuned, but he paid for it, warning me that I had better practice.
Practicing wasn’t my problem. I couldn’t tear myself away from the keys. Sonja was an unconventional teacher, and I was a gifted student. Instead of lessons once a week, like most students, I had a lesson every afternoon. I flew through the rudimentary lessons, quickly grasping musical concepts and theory, graduating to intermediate books and songs after only a month. For a while I even stopped reading - pushing everything aside for my music. I practiced for hours on end. Luckily for my dad and my brothers, they were outside more than they were in the house, and I rarely disturbed anyone with my obsession. Sonja said I was not exactly a child prodigy, but close. I had deep passion and appreciation for the music, and I quickly absorbed everything she taught me.
I learned that the music that had so frightened me the day I had followed her white Cadillac home was a piece by Wagner. She pronounced it Vah gner. I didn’t care much for Wagner, but Sonja said it got her blood boiling, and she used it to give voice to her “savage beast.” She smiled when she said this, and I smiled with her. I didn’t think Sonja was ever ’beastly.” Sonja said we all had a little of the beast in us.
If Wagner spoke to the beast, then Beethoven gave voice to the beauty. Beethoven’s ninth symphony became my lifeblood. I made Sonja play it each day at the end of our lessons, and each day I would leave full of hope, the beast vanquished.
Ten-year-old girls without mothers should not have to bear the burden of early puberty, but be that as it may, I started my period not long after I met Sonja Grimaldi. I believed myself stricken with some sort of terrible malady when I discovered the blood in my underpants, and overwhelmed, I had cried out my fear of certain death to Sonja. She had been playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and the beauty and melancholy of the music had me drowning in self-pity.
“I think I’m dying, Mrs. Grimaldi,” I had wept. She had gathered me to her wispy self and coaxed further confession from me. When she realized what was actually happening to me, she sighed and put me away from her, tears glittering in her eyes.