Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [17]
“You have a nice house?” he asked.
“A nice house? No.”
“You should get a nice house somewhere,” he said, taking his handkerchief out of his pocket and waving it at me. “With windows. Windows with a view.”
I didn’t like the drift of his remarks. “I can’t afford a house,” I said.
“You will. A nice house. For you and your family.”
I resolved to get to the heart of this. “Professor,” I asked, “what did you think of my playing?”
“Excellent,” he said. “That piece is very difficult.”
“Thank you.”
“Yes, technically excellent,” he said, and my heart began to pound. “Intelligent phrasing. Not much for me to say. Yes. That piece has many notes,” he added, enjoying the non sequitur.
I nodded. “Many notes.”
“And you hit all of them accurately. Good pedal and good discipline. I like how you hit the notes.”
I was dangling on his string, a little puppet.
“Thousands of notes, I suppose,” he said, staring at my forehead, which was beginning to get damp, “and you hit all of them. You only forgot one thing.”
“What?”
“The passion!” he roared. “You forgot the passion! You always forget it! Where is it? Did you leave it at home? You never bring it with you! Never! I listen to you and think of a robot playing! A smart robot, but a robot! No passion! Never ever ever!” He stopped shouting long enough to sneeze. “You should buy a house. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because the only way you will ever praise God is with a family, that’s why! Not with this piano! You are a fine student,” he wound up, “but you make me sick! Why do you make me sick?”
He waited for me to answer.
“Why do you make me sick?” he shouted. “Answer me!”
“How can I possibly answer you?”
“By articulating words in English! Be courageous! Offer a suggestion! Why do you make me sick?”
I waited for a minute, the longest minute of my life. “Passion,” I said at last. “You said there wasn’t enough passion. I thought there was. Perhaps not.”
He nodded. “No. You are right. No passion. A corruption of music itself. Your playing is gentle, too much good taste. To play the piano like a genius, you must have a bit of the fanatic. Just a bit. But it is essential. You have stubbornness and talent but no fanaticism. You don’t have the salt on the rice. Without salt, the rice is inedible, no matter what its quality otherwise.” He stood up. “I tell you this because sooner or later someone else will. You will have a life of disappointments if you stay in music. You may find a teacher who likes you. Good, good. But you will never be taken up! Never! You should buy a house, young man. With a beautiful view. Move to it. Don’t stay here. You are close to success, but it is the difference between leaping the chasm and falling into it, one inch short. You are an inch short. You could come back for more lessons. You could graduate from here. But if you are truly intelligent, you will say good-bye. Good-bye.” He looked down at the floor and did not offer me his hand.
I stood up and walked out of the room.
Becalmed, I drifted up and down the hallways of the building for half an hour. Then a friend of mine, a student of conducting from Bolivia, a Marxist named Juan Valparaiso, approached and, ignoring my shallow breathing and cold sweat, started talking at once.
“Terrible, furious day!” he said.
“Yes.”
“I am conducting Benvenuto Cellini overture this morning! All is going well until difficult flute entry. I instruct, with force, flutists. Soon all woodwinds are ignoring me.” He raised his eyebrows and stroked his huge gaucho mustache. “Always! Always there are fascists in the woodwinds!”
“Fascists everywhere,” I said.
“Horns bad, woodwinds worse. Demands of breath make for insanes. Pedro,” he said, “you are appearing irresoluted. Sick?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Sick. I just came from Stecker. My playing makes him sick.”
“He said that? That you are making him sick?”
“That’s right. I play like a robot, he says.”
“What will you do?” Juan asked me. “Kill him?”
“No.” And then I knew. “I’m leaving the school.”
“What? Is impossible!” Tears leaped instantly into Juan’s eyes.