What I was thinking the first morning I woke as a guest in Erik’s house was that I should go back to sleep. It was still pitch black outside, and couldn’t be later than four in the morning; too early for even me to start stirring.
But the softness of a real mattress under my body, and the complete and utter blackness of my surroundings, beyond that of nighttime in the countryside made me reconsider, and my body began waking quite without my permission. But, it was only when the horrendous ache of my bruises hit me as I tried to roll over that the previous day’s events began to reassert themselves in my mind.
I am under the Opera! I couldn’t help thinking. Today I have a music lesson with Erik, and it is pitch black in here because I left only one candle lit. I have no idea what time it really is. Feeling no great hurry, I relaxed a bit and assessed my situation. Despite my pains (I hurt like all seven levels of hell, and a few extra for good measure) I felt rested. My worries from the night before were still nagging at me, but the only way to lay them to rest was to go and get to know Erik. I was eager for my first singing lesson ever. And I knew my aches would dull as I used my body.
And quite aside form all of that, I was just eager to be with Erik again. I forced thoughts of blue eyes and flawless gestures out of my head and told myself he was just the most interesting person I’d ever met. And I understood him more than anyone else probably had bothered to. We could be good friends.
Since everything pointed it being a good idea to get out of bed, that’s what I did. Or, attempted to do. I went to throw my covers back, but the pain was so great, a feeble shove was all I could manage. Take today like a sport, Sorcha, warm up slowly… So, I slithered out of bed and into a sitting position on the floor, amidst a lot of groans.
I then spent what was, in my opinion, the most painful half-hour of my life, forcing my protesting body through a series of simple stretches. Eventually, I began to feel less tight and marginally less sore, and I assayed standing. It was a little difficult to get to my feet, but once there, I felt remarkably steady. A few shaky steps away from the bedpost and to the table brought the lamp to my questing fingers, and I finally got a light on.
Being able to see my surroundings brought home the reality of my situation once again, and despite myself, I smiled. This week was going to be quite an adventure, and I hoped to come out of it well, whole and with a new acquaintance to write about my later adventures.
The next step towards that, however, was a shower. Still moving slowly, I gathered my robe from where I had left it and moved unsteadily towards the bathroom. I turned the shower on hot, let my nightgown fall wherever it chose and stepped into the water.
The steamy water pounded against my back and shoulders, warming and massaging sore muscles. As I turned in the water to let it hit every part of my body, I began to notice the bruises, some just beginning to purple, some an already ugly shade of green, and a few of the smaller ones, mercifully already fading.
And then the music began. It was hard to hear at first, until I determined that it was coming through the walls. Then I knew how to listen for it, it was only half there, half heard, muffled by the thick walls, but what I could hear was bewitching. I stood, absentmindedly, with the water beating on my chest, closed my eyes and listened.
I had ever been one who found deep emotion in music. It didn’t have to have comical lyrics to be funny or a human voice to weep. What I heard stunned me to stillness.
There was an aching beauty that had an undercurrent of anger. As that swelled more and more to the surface, I found myself clenching my fists, in anticipation of giving or receiving a blow. The music raged for some time, torrents of notes flowing out faster than I could follow, sharp and staccato, suddenly morphing to a slow, treacherous build and then speeding like thrown knives again. I found my self wracked as if the music were solid and flowing through me instead of around me. I had always been affected by music, but never before exposed to such passion in it.
Just as I nearly could stand no more, as a violent sob was about to wrench itself from me in sheer self defense, the tone of the music changed again. The anger began to cool to a deep sorrow. A mournful, high melody, almost Celtic in its wailing simplicity wove out of the fury and became foremost, and the fury faded to a deep, syncopated counterpoint. And now I did sob. It was as if every sorrow of the universe was being pored through me. If a single child’s weeping could ever have that much audible sorrow in it, no one would hurt another ever again. As I began to feel I could never smile again, the original, pure melody came back, like a faint glimmer of purity and hope, the last glimpse of the sun before a doomed night.
When it ended, I found myself leaning against the wall of the shower, the water still pouring over me, unheeded. My eyes ached. My soul ached. My body, however, felt better. I was able to shut off the water and towel myself dry with barely a groan, and I donned my robe quickly, seeking to cover my inner vulnerability with clothing.
I wanted to hurry out of the bathroom, away from what I had just experienced, but the sight of Erik’s bottle of tonic on the sink stopped me, and I dutifully used it as my new Maestro instructed. It tasted of woody herbs and nothing sweet. Being used to my own herbal concoctions, it honestly wasn’t all that bad.
I was in the process of choosing clothes when the music started again. Luckily, this time the tune was a little more playful, though it still had a dark undercurrent. I couldn’t decide if I was hearing treachery or forced jollily, but it was better than the raw, untempered emotion of the first movement. It took a great effort of will, but I forced myself to concentrate on choosing an outfit instead of the music. I pushed it to the back of my mind and let my deeper thoughts deal with it, and what it meant about Erik.
There was never any doubt in my mind that it was Erik’s composition and playing.
I chose a pretty lace trimmed shirt I already knew Erik was hurt and a pale blouse to go over it. And if I had eyes in my head I’d know already he longed for beauty and a pair of pants he lives in an OPERA HOUSE for the god’s sakes that matches with a scarf. I forced myself to brush my hair he has every reason to be angry for how he’s treated and put it up out of the way, and then I was done. I have determined nothing new about Erik from his music, except the fact that he has the power to move me more than every other experience in my entire life. The conclusion, or perhaps it was the still only half-heard music, made my knees weak, but the only cure would be to go into the hallway, and then the music room and face the music, literally.
Everything I had heard so far still could not prepare me for the power of the fully heard song. When I opened my door, it hit me like a wall, and I froze on the spot. Again, I felt like it was physically pouring though me, like I had gone as clear as glass and the music were pure light.
It was several ragged, deep breaths, before I could cross the two dozen or so steps that separated my door from the opening to the music room. I was fighting not only deep emotion to make those steps, but myself. I wanted to give in to that music and the composer. I wanted to be helpless to the sound and the mind, and it would be so easy to let go. But I forced myself to hold onto my self, concentrating on the tiny knot of worry deep in my gut. Eventually I gained the music room door.
Watching Erik play, I couldn’t tell if he was in the music’s power or it was in his. He swayed and rocked so violently, I feared he would lose his seat on the organ bench. He bent deep in thought over the keys, or leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling, every movement still as graceful as I remember him being, but so much more powerful. Music was Erik’s element and he was fully immersed in it. I could not force any more steps forward; I hoped he would soon realize I was there.
Slowly, the music wound to a stop. Not as if he were too tired to finish playing it, more as if there were a built-in pause in the music, a place where each phrase was content to wait until it could be completed. His fingers rested motionlessly over the keys for a moment, head bowed, before he turned to face me.
I feared his deep eyes would still hold the madness of the music, or that his mask would startle me and begin another strange fight like the one on the lake, but neither of these things happened. Erik turned and he looked to me just as he should. I couldn’t help but smile. I felt shaky and breathless after such a flood of music and emotion, but I felt I had to say something.
“Good morning. Am I going to be singing that?” I felt incredibly foolish as soon as the words left my mouth. Erik, however, was un-slighted.
“Hardly. Maybe if I had you for a few months, but not in a week.” The thought of a few months in Erik’s household made me surprisingly pleased, but I shook the thought away. “Did you sleep well?”
After the emotional turmoil he has put me through this morning, even unintentionally, I couldn’t help a bit of a jab in his direction. “Like the dead. And waking, I felt like the dead, as well. I kind of look like it, too. My ribs are the most interesting shade of corpse purple….” I trailed off, my hand straying to my side, afraid from the expression on his half face that I had angered him.
“I’m sorry,” he said a moment later, not what I had been expecting. “How do you feel now, better after your shower, I hope?”
That little knot of concern practically leapt into my throat. Was he spying on me? Had he been in my room while I showered, watching me? I had assumed he was a gentleman. “How did you…” I couldn’t bring myself to ask the whole question.
“Organ pipes aren’t the only ones running through that wall. I was here, planning our first lesson when the water started. You do feel better, don’t you?” Of course. He heard me showering, and decided to play to pass the time until I was done. I doubt he knew what an affect his music would have on me.
“Yes, I feel much better now, and I used the serum you gave me, like you said.”
And then I watched a slow transformation come over Erik. He became not the joking, friendly host I knew from the tour of his home last night, nor the ghost from the below stage confrontation, nor the angry man from on the lake. As surely as if he had put on a cloak, his whole demeanor changed. He became more self assured, more in command of the room and himself. He became almost feral, and for the first time since I entered his home, I was a little afraid.
He rose from his seat at the organ and stalked past me, holding an unusual instrument. He passed close enough he could have touched me easily, but did not. I turned around to keep my eyes on him. “Excellent. Then, let’s begin. Sing this note.” He brought the instrument to his lips and blew a soft, low tone that had all the breathy quality of a flute without the earsplitting high pitch.
Then I knew this ‘new’ Erik was his way of teaching. In this room during this time, he was totally superior and all knowing, like the toughest, but most respectable teacher in any educational institution in the world. He would make me hate him and love him, all at once. He was the Maestro, my Maestro, and there would be no arguing and no failure. At least, this, I understood.
I opened my mouth and sang as best I could manage, “laaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
His “No!” was instant and abrupt. “No consonants. When I ask you to sing a note, or a scale, use the syllable ‘ah.’ Now, again.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.” From the look on his face, I knew it was going to be a long morning, and as painful in its way as my misadventures from the day before.
He pulled a slim conductors baton out of his pocket and used it to tilt my chin up a degree or two. “Again.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah.”
And so the morning went. There would be a correction or instruction, and the implacable “again.” He played the single note on his flute countless times, walked entirely around me and poked, prodded and whipped at me with the baton to correct my posture, breathing, angle of the throat, and any other thing I could think of and several I couldn’t. He was never cruel, just insistent. Occasionally he would have me walk around the music room, get a small drink of water, come back to him and get myself back to perfect.
My hearts dearest wish changed several times over the course of our first lesson. My starting wish was a cup of coffee. Then, as the lesson woke me, I wanted to sing a beautiful song. Then I just wanted to sing ANY song. After that came a desire for a simple scale, or arpeggio, and then the desire to sing any note but the same one over and over. Eventually, sore, tired and totally frustrated my hearts deepest wish was to steal that little white director’s baton away from Erik, poke him in the stomach with it and then break it and throw the pieces in a corner.
But still came Erik’s “again.” Eventually, my strange new positions and ways of holding my body became more comfortable, my note surer, and the prod of the baton less frequent. After one particularly long and stable “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah,” that must have lasted twenty seconds at the same pitch, volume and stability Erik said, “Enough.”
Having heard “again” so frequently, I had forgotten that there were other two syllable words in the world. I had already taken a deep, and correct, breath to sing out the not again when I realized the lesson was over.
Erik’s Maestro persona had dropped and he sat back on his bench and gestured to the white armchair, indicating I was to sit. I wanted to flop into it exhaustedly, but decided some more time in my new posture might seal it more solidly in my muscles and sat carefully.
Erik was smiling at me over steepled fingers. “You are a far better student than I thought you’d be.”
That snapped my thin thread of patience. “Good student?!” I exclaimed. “How can I be a good student? Obviously, I’m not even good enough to progress beyond singing one note, much less being a good student! It seems quite clear to me that I am an exceptionally bad student!” I wanted to cross my arms over my chest, but held in the impulse. I felt upset, not contrary.
Erik’s smile was broader now, and it suited him. Despite my exhaustion, I cooled a little bit under his genuine happiness. “That is precisely what I mean. We have accomplished in today’s lesson what would normally take a week, with none of the theatrics, ranting, cursing, complaining, pleading or whining that would accompany any other singer being forced to sing a single note over and over. I had expected you to snap at me quite some time ago. I was pleasantly surprised.”
Guiltily I stared fiercely into the corner and kicked my toe against the boards of the floor. “I wanted to break your baton so badly I could taste it.”
There was no surprise or anger in his voice. “I had figured you’d want revenge and desire to prod me with it.”
I looked up into his eyes and a naughty smile quirked the corner of my mouth. “That too.” I shrugged.
“Entirely understandable,” Erik nodded in mock seriousness, and carefully put the baton away as if he were afraid it would animate on its own and assault him.
“I have a surprise for you, having done so well. Close your eyes and listen.” Remembering the music from earlier, I was wary, but wanted to prove to Erik that I trusted him and he could trust me. I closed my eyes.
“Laaaaaaaaaaaaa.” My own first note from the day came forth from hidden speakers. It sounded, as it always did: adequate.
“Now, hear this.”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah…” The note seemed to ring out forever, strong as stone and perfect as a cloudless sky. Whoever this singer was, she was leagues beyond me in pitch control, sustaining breath, purity of tone. Maybe one of the divas from upstairs.
I couldn’t help myself. Disappointed, I leaned back in my chair, wanting to cry. “Erik,” I breathed, “can you really make me sound like that?”
His voice came close, and when I opened my eyes, he was crouched at my side. I had not heard him move. “You already do.” His eyes were sparkling and his voice earnest.
“But I can’t…” My protests died on my lips as he held up a hand.
“Sorcha, that was a recording of your last note, only a moment ago.”
I could have kissed him in that moment. All the hate and anger from the lesson drained away from me and was replaced instantly by a boundless respect and gratitude. I felt so purely happy.
The Maestro returned, briefly. “But of course, that was only one note, and one note does not a song make. Tomorrow, using everything you have learned today, we will begin work on scales and dynamics.” He looked as if he was waiting for an objection or argument to try something more.
“That sounds wonderful,” was all I could say with a broad grin.
Erik smiled his understanding. He had won my respect as a teacher, by miles. He would not get any arguments or drama out of me. I was his totally willing student, trusting his skill and his gauge of my skill.
“Then,“ he said, rising to his feet, “let’s get some breakfast going. I imagine you would about kill for a cup of coffee now?” He looked back over his shoulder to see if I was following.
“You have no idea.”