THE MOONLIGHT SONATA

by

CARO SOLES

I have never lived in such an elegant place as this. It’s like being in another world here, with the gold-braided doorman and echoing black-marble vestibule. Up we go, Mother and I, in the golden cage to the fourth floor where more marble awaits. Two large vases stand on either side of the entrance, holding huge ostrich plumes more suited to be waved in front of some Egyptian pharaoh like Tutankhamen. There’s even a second floor inside the apartment, with wide banisters and a curving stairway with shallow carpeted steps. The red runner has brass rods holding it in place. I stare at them sometimes, almost hypnotized. The rooms here are large and filled with shadows, the long windows hung with heavy lace and velvet drapery. There are oil paintings, suspended by long ropes, on the walls.

Of course, this isn’t our apartment. We could never aspire to anything this grand. It belongs to my Aunt Esmé and Uncle Robert. We’re just the poor relations. When Mother ran away with an Italian musician years ago, she was disowned, but now that he’s dead in the war and I am so good at what I do, it seems much can be forgiven, if not forgotten. “If only he had been an officer, like Robert,” Aunt Esmé would say, “you would have been taken care of.” Everyone knows Uncle Robert was never anywhere near the front, but Mother says nothing, just bites her lip the way she does and then changes the subject. Mother swallows her grief for me, so that I can perform during their musical evenings. Perhaps someone will notice and remember me, and take me away to study and perform elsewhere. And bring her with me. I spend a lot of time practicing on the square grand piano my aunt and uncle are so proud of. It is lovely to look at with its mother-of-pearl inlay, but its tone leaves something to be desired, a fact I keep to myself. It is, Mother says, the ship that will sail us out of bondage. She says things like that sometimes.

Today Aunt Esmé swept out the door in a formidable velvet hat with a tassel hanging down on one side like a bell pull. Mother thought her dress shockingly short, halfway to her knees, but Aunt Esmé says this is the fashion now. She is meeting her lord and master for lunch at The Club. At least that’s what she says. I followed her one time a few weeks ago when she said the same thing and found out The Club was not her true destination. But I digress. Mother went out as well on some errand or other for my aunt, so there is no one here but the maid and Cook. My shoulders gradually relax as I start up the stairs.

The grandfather clock in the marble foyer wheezed into its job of striking the hours and was followed in short order by the French clock on the mantel in the main salon, the Ivan Mezgin Russian monstrosity and all the other lunatic timepieces so beloved of Uncle Robert. The man was obsessed with time, or perhaps only with timepieces, since he hired a clockmaker to come once a week to look after them all. Amusingly, he claims not to have the time himself, but I think he does not have the patience. I was upstairs and out through the French doors onto the terrace before the clamor ceased.

Out here, the extravagant blooms have died in their cement urns, trailing skeletal remains over the edges. No one has come to clean the dead leaves from the stone floor. I walk through them to the low railing, leaning over to greet the leering gargoyle I can just make out over the entry. If I lean over far enough, I can see into the neighbor’s apartment that joins this corner, forming the small courtyard. They’re new here, having moved in with all their goods and chattels a mere few weeks ago. I had watched as every settee and sideboard, hamper full of crockery and roll of Persian rug, Tiffany lamp and pier glass made its way inside. Last, but not least, came the grand piano, a real Bösendorfer. A girl began to practice on it the very next day.

She was lovely, this girl, with long dark-gold hair almost to her waist, held back from her face with a huge hair ribbon that never seemed to go limp. She was like an illustration in an old book. I watched her every move avidly, drinking in her grace, the dimple in one cheek, the way she tossed back her hair with one hand as she played. She came to the window one time, and I saw she had eyes the color of lavender. Her mouth smiled, as if she saw me and liked what she saw.

I soon discovered that I could see and hear her even better from our music room if I pulled the drapes way back and opened the window. I began to spend a lot more time there. No one but the maid ever came into the music room, so no one but Mother noticed. When I heard her at the door today, I jumped down from the wide window seat and slid onto the piano stool.

“A little chilly in here, isn’t it?” Mother closed the window and pulled the drapes closer together, the brass rings rattling like a rebuke to my ears. “We don’t want them complaining about the heating.” She sat down on the ottoman near me and folded her hands. I noticed she was wearing one of Aunt Esmé’s old dresses, which she must have altered, since she was smaller than her big-boned sister.

“I know things are not easy for you here,” she began, and I tensed. “You must study and practice and do well, my dearest. It is our only chance of getting away from here. You are my lodestar, my hope.” She looked at me in that intent way she had, and I felt my insides turn over and my heart swell with love.

“I will,” I promised, tears in my throat.

“Esmé is having a big dinner party next week, and she wants you to play beforehand. Nothing too modern, mind.”

“Don’t worry. No Russians, I promise.” I grinned, trying to make her smile.

“Thank you, dear.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Now I must go. Esmé wants me to help with the flowers.”

I sat there for a long time after she left, thinking about how things used to be, in our small walk-up apartment that was always full of music and laughter. No one here laughed much, I noticed, and the only music was provided by me. And that wonderful girl next door. I got up and opened the window again.

At once the flowing strains of the Moonlight Sonata filled the dim room. I laid my head against the wooden casement of the window and pulled my legs up to my chin. The melody was like a balm to my heart, although her technique was far from perfect. Somehow, the erratic slowing of the chords or speeding up when she felt more confident was endearing. “What is your name?” I wondered.

When she stopped, I closed the window again and began to practice. At first, just for fun, I played the Moonlight Sonata, like a distant echo of the girl across the way, only slightly faster as it should be, and I played the whole thing. Then I began to practice in earnest, thinking hard about what pieces I should choose for next week. Beethoven? Chopin? Perhaps just a little Scarlatti for a change of pace? A lot depended on who would be there, so I decided to prepare enough that I could choose seemingly on the spur of the moment—opting for technical difficulty, feeling, interpretation, depending on the audience.

I kept pestering Mother to find out who was invited, but she was not very forthcoming. So, I waited, and practiced, and watched for another appearance of my golden muse. I dreamed about her sometimes. In the dreams, we were playing duets and laughing together. In reality, it nearly happened one day when I left the window open as usual and she was playing Für Elise. I joined in and we finished together, but in truth, I’m not sure she was even aware of our shared performance.

The days passed, and I was getting anxious. I had performed for these parties before, but Mother said this one was special. For one thing, it was bigger than usual. For another, Aunt Esmé had started calling it a musical soirée, which was a bit alarming. It meant there might be other performers. It also meant there might finally be someone important in the audience who might mentor me.

At last Mother confessed. She had been in charge of writing most of the invitations, so she had added three of the musical luminaries of the city: Godfrey Rider the impresario; James Untermeyer, the music critic for the Herald; and Carlo Sanders, the talent agent.

“What will you say to Aunt and Uncle if they come?” I asked.

“That they were friends of your father. After all, he did play in the orchestra in several theaters Rider does bookings for. And he did meet Sanders one time.”

“They won’t come,” I said glumly.

She smiled at me knowingly. “I think they will,” she said. “I enclosed a short note in each one.”

I stared at her, but she refused to tell me what was in the notes.

“Don’t be nervous,” she said, just as she was leaving. “The others are just amateurs, and you are my star.” She blew me a kiss.

The next day, she appeared again to reassure me about the competition. “Cousin Sally will sing, I’m sure, and the Samson brothers will do their clever patter songs. Fred Lynley will recite some amusing drivel, just as usual. But you will have a chance to really shine in front of some people who matter.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. The more amateurish the others were, the better I would sound.

The day came. The house began to fill with flowers and the chatter of extra housemaids preparing the silver and dishes. The kitchen was a steamy place of mouthwatering magic, and Cook chased me out with a shout. Although I’m sure she had done this many times before we arrived, Aunt Esmé seemed to need Mother by her side at every turn. It occurred to me for the first time that Mother had been used to all this as a girl, that she had arranged flowers and ordered the maids about, inspected the laying of the table and sparkle of the crystal. She had loved my father, Francesco Martino, enough to leave all this luxurious servitude behind her. And she expected another Martino, me, to take her away from it all again. Maybe even tonight.

I straightened my shoulders and went to inspect my new clothes. I don’t really enjoy dressing up as many do, but admit it does make one feel that the event is more of an occasion. And this event truly was. Even as I finished getting dressed, I could hear the tinkle of glasses, the scrape of chairs as the guests took their places, the buzz of conversation, the bass tones of the men droning an accompaniment to the lighter voices of the women.

I went down the stairs slowly, gathering my thoughts. They had moved the piano into the grand salon, where all the tuxedoed men in their sparkling patent leather shoes and satin striped trousers sat with their ladies, strings of pearls draped over their chests and feathers in their bobbed hair. I was glad Mother had not given in to this latest style and still had all her lovely long hair that Father used to love to brush when he came home from a job late at night and they thought I was asleep.

As I walked through the door, I almost stumbled. There she was. My dream girl. My muse. Standing in the front row, leaning against a stylishly flat-chested woman I assumed to be her mother, her long pale mauve dress with the wide, low sash echoing the color of her eyes. She was even more beautiful close-up than seated at her piano 30 feet away.

No one paid any attention to me as I hung back in the shadows. I had meant to take an inventory of the crowd, look carefully to see if any of the three people of importance to me had actually come, but seeing her there had thrown me. I suppose it was sensible to invite the new neighbors. My aunt and uncle might even have known them before they moved here, for all I knew. They might even be great friends. I hadn’t thought of that. I never thought of her in relation to anyone but me. When I saw her, she was always alone, with only occasionally the shadow of her music teacher in the background.

The evening proceeded along the lines that Mother had predicted, people chatting together softly during the singing and recitations, the occasional laugh smothered by a lady’s hand, until Aunt Esmé stood up and introduced me, “without whom no musical evening would be complete.” That was warming, but the fact she used an anglicized version of my last name was not. I was not Martin, but Martino! I glanced at Mother as I stood by the piano, but she gave a slight shake of her head and her eyes warned me to ignore the slight. Carry on, they said. You are my star.

I sat down, shook out the tension from my hands and swept into the Scarlatti, my fingers rippling along the runs, bringing out the brilliance of the melody. After that, I had planned on Chopin, Nocturne Opus 9—much slower, with a depth of feeling to show I was not all technique.

I stood to acknowledge the applause, caught Mother’s eye and saw she was smiling a genuine smile that made my heart sing. Then I saw the smile fade as Aunt Esmé rose to her feet.

“Very lovely, but before you go on, I would like to invite our young neighbor Lillian to sing something for us. Her mother tells me she is quite talented musically. You could accompany her, if you will?”

I smiled and sat down again, glad that I at least still had control of the piano. She would sing, and then I would continue.

Lillian seemed quite self-possessed as she came to the piano and asked me if I knew “Annie Laurie.” I tried not to look insulted and asked her what key. That gave her pause but only for a moment.

“The right key for me,” she said, and her dimples flashed.

I felt a flash of annoyance, but everyone else was laughing so I smiled back and made a stab at what I thought it might be. I had heard her sing it, after all.

As it turned out, I was right, and she sang it with a purity of tone that was quite lovely. The audience was very enthusiastic, more than her rendition deserved, I thought, but she was very sweet and pretty.

I was flexing my fingers to continue with my program, when she spoke up, her voice high and childish, carrying to the back of the room.

“I would love to play the opening of the Moonlight Sonata for you, too,” she said, her childish hands pushed against her flat chest. Even before she had finished speaking, she was moving around to the keyboard, looking at me pointedly, expecting me to move.

What could I do? “That would be lovely,” I said, getting to my feet. But I did not move far.

“Lillian is preparing for a recital soon,” her mother said, smiling indulgently.

I gritted my teeth as she began the opening, much too slowly. In her excitement, she seemed to have forgotten it was supposed to be pianissimo. None of the first movement ought to be more than piano. It was a poem that should linger in the mind, but this interpretation should be forgotten as quickly as possible. I noticed the tip of her tongue appear between her sharp little teeth in concentration as the piece went on, her hands slowing even more from time to time as she focused on reaching the right notes. I sat down against the wall and looked at the audience. They were all smiling tolerantly. I sighed. At least this travesty wouldn’t take long. I had never heard her play the whole first movement all the way through and suspected her teacher, that shadowy presence I had never seen, had suggested the cuts.

When she finished, the whole room stood up and applauded, led by my aunt and uncle. Of course, Mother had to stand as well. What would it look like if she had not? I stood, too, and moved my hands as if I were clapping, but I made no noise. My hands did not even touch. She was doing a pretty curtsy now, her cheeks unusually pink from pleasure.

My hands clenched. Lillian had, in effect, stolen my night. She had a recital coming, to which her family would invite all the swells and cognoscenti in the world who might help her. This was supposed to be my night! My mother had connived and even lied (if only a few little white lies) to get three people here who might help me. Me. Someone who had no wealthy parents to pay for a musical debut, no influence to put me on any program where I might be seen and hired. I had this one night. She had stolen it.

Everyone was chatting now, taking champagne from the maids passing though the room, the ladies using their fans to punctuate their conversations and flirt. Lillian stood alone, still by the piano.

“Were you very nervous?” I asked, moving to her side.

She nodded. “I was. I really was. But you know, I was also really happy at the same time.” She looked straight into my eyes. “Isn’t that strange?”

“I think we feel the most happiness when we’re doing something really difficult, and doing it well,” I added, giving her what she would deem a compliment.

Sure enough, she blushed in pleasure.

“I’ve been listening to you play for a while now, you know,” I said, watching her.

“No,” she said. “You can’t have.”

“But I have. Do you want to see how?”

She nodded and took the hand I extended to her.

We went up the stairs side by side, leaving the chattering and laughter behind us. I was only a little taller than she was, I noted. I felt so very much older that this discovery was a surprise.

“You have a terrace,” she exclaimed as I opened the door and the cool breeze touched our faces. “We have a balcony but it’s over the street. Funny, I never noticed this.”

I suspected she was not one to notice anything that had no relationship to her.

“Look,” I said, leading her to the low stone balustrade. “See?” I pointed to the window of the room where her beautiful piano sat in the shadows.

“Is that the right room? Really?”

Above us the moon slid into view, sending a shaft of moonlight into the courtyard, where the shadow of the gargoyle crept into sight.

“There! Now you can see.” I slid my arm around her waist as she bent over, her long blond hair falling over one shoulder.

“Yes! I see it now! And your window is just kitty-corner?”

“Lean over a bit more. There. See?”

“Yes, but––let me go!”

And I did.

As she slid into the night below, the moon ducked back behind the clouds. I left the terrace door open a crack and went back downstairs. I noticed that people had moved around, some changing their seats to sit beside another friend. They were settling down now, almost ready to listen again. Mother still sat in her place. She nodded to me, her smile gone. Your time is running out, her nod said. You are going to lose them.

I sat down at the piano and quickly scanned the room. I still couldn’t tell if the big three were here. It didn’t matter. I would play for them anyway. For them and for my mother. As soon as there came a brief lull in the conversation, my hands crashed down on the keys, and I rushed headlong into the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata. The one filled with passion and dark fire and breathless hope. The one Lillian could never play.