Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [4]
“For the six-string,” I say. “Other composers wrote for lutes, mandolins, vihuelas, and baroques.”
“Interesting,” Beezie says. “I like the title … ‘Who’s Your Daddy? Tracing the Musical DNA of Amadé Malherbeau to Jonny Greenwood.’ ”
“Thanks. Vijay came up with it. He said my old title—‘Amadé Malherbeau’s Musical Legacy’—was nowhere near pretentious enough.”
Beezie ignores that. She puts the folder down and looks at me. “Why no progress?”
Because I don’t care anymore, Ms. Beezemeyer, I want to say. Not about Amadé Malherbeau, my classes, college, or much of anything. Because the gray world I’ve managed to live in for the past two years has started to turn black around the edges. But I can’t say that. It’ll only get me a ticket back to Dr. Becker’s office for the next tier of mind-numbing meds. I push a piece of hair out of my face, stalling, trying to think of something I can say.
“My God, Andi. Your hand,” she says. “What happened?”
“Bach.”
She shakes her head. “It’s all about the pain, isn’t it? The truancy, the bad grades, and now you’ve even found a way to use your beautiful music to inflict pain on yourself. It’s like you’re doing eternal penance. You need to stop this, Andi. You need to find forgiveness for what happened. Forgiveness for yourself.”
The anger starts up inside me again, red and deadly. Like it did when the Slater kid touched the key. I look away, trying to wrestle it down, wishing Beezie would just jump out the window and take her ugly pots with her. Wishing I was hearing notes and chords, not her voice. Wishing I was hearing Bach’s Suite no. 1. Written for cello and transcribed for guitar. I’m supposed to be playing it with Nathan. Right now.
“How’s my crazy diamond, ja?” he always says when I come into his classroom. His favorite musicians are Bach, Mozart, and the guys from Pink Floyd.
Nathan is old. He’s seventy-five. When he was little, he lost his family at Auschwitz. His mother and sister were gassed the day they arrived because they weren’t strong enough to work. Nathan survived because he was a prodigy, an eight-year-old boy who could play the violin like an angel. He played in the officers’ mess every night. The officers liked his music, so they let him eat their leftovers. He would go back to his barracks late at night and throw up his food so his father could eat it. He tried to do it quietly, but one night the guards caught him. They beat him bloody and took his father away.
I knew what Nathan would say about my hand. He’d say that bleeding for Bach was no big deal. He’d say that people like Beethoven and Billie Holiday and Syd Barrett gave everything they had to their music, so what was a fingernail? He wouldn’t make a tragedy of it. He knew better. He knew tragedy. He knew loss. And he knew there was no such thing as forgiveness.
“Andi? Andi, are you hearing anything I’m saying?”
Beezie is still at it.
“Yes, I am, Ms. Beezemeyer,” I say solemnly, hoping if I look contrite I might get out of here before midnight.
“I’ve sent letters home. About your failure to hand in an outline for your thesis. You probably know about them. I sent one to your mother and one to your father.”
I knew about the one to my mother. The mailman dropped it through the slot. It lay on the floor in our front hall for a week until I kicked it out of the way. I didn’t know Beezie sent one to my dad but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t open his mail. Mail is for lesser mortals.
“Do you have anything to say about all this, Andi? Anything at all?”
“Well, I guess … I mean, I just don’t see it happening, Ms. Beezemeyer, you know? The senior thesis. Not really. Can’t I just get my diploma in June and go?”
“Completing the senior