“The right hand is too heavy,” I said before I could stop myself. But he gave me his full attention.
“Too heavy?”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t criticize. I can’t even play it as well as you.” But I knew the song, and I knew that the melody should be lighter there.
“Try,” he said. “I’ll do the left, you do the right.”
I had played it that way before. He couldn’t know, but that was how I had learned the Gymnopedies, all of them. I couldn’t protest against his commanding tone, so I scooted over on the bench, and tentatively put my right hand on the keys.
“From the beginning, yes?” He breathed in expressively, his chest rising, and we fell down into the first notes together.
At first my fingers hesitated too much, then pressed down too sharply. The Bosendorfer startled me with the bright action of its keys, so unlike the practice pianos I was familiar with. The melody burst forth, too loud by a factor of ten. I started at the sound. Easy to have a heavy hand on this piano.
Eliot smiled gently over at me, but continued to play. I quickly collected myself and rejoined him, relaxing my finger muscles and applying a lighter touch to the melody. He moved from chord to chord and I moved with him, learning his rhythm as he learned mine.
By the last measure of the first page we played in tight synchrony, and I lost myself in the song. I wasn’t in the midnight piano room any longer. I was young, seven years old, and I could hear my mother humming the melody in my ear as she played the bottom chords, the extended octaves too much of a reach for my small hands.
I joined him in the last chord softly, the sound trailing off into the muffled walls of the room.
“Who taught you to play?”
“My mother.”
“Is she a musician? Professionally, I mean? You have a talent for it.”
“She’s— she was a musician. She traveled around and played for special events. Weddings, conferences.” My eyes watered at the thought of her saying goodbye to me before leaving.
“She is gone now?”
“Yes,” I said. “She died in Hungary when I was young.” A pang of sorrow shot through my heart as it always did when I spoke of her, but nothing else.
At these words Eliot raised his eyebrows.
“I’m sorry.” He put his hand on mine, and again I felt the inescapable thrill of desire run through me. When he withdrew his hand, I had to stop myself from reaching out. He looked back at the music sheets on the piano. He put his hand out and began to play the Satie again, with a lighter touch. The first chords struck at my heart now that I heard them clearly: so simple, so elegant.
“Hungary is my homeland,” he said, his voice distant.
“I thought so,” I nodded. “You sound kind of like my grandmother. Your accent.”
“I have an accent?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, his fingers continuing into the first slow crescendo. “Have you been to Hungary?”
“No,” I said. “I’d like to. Her whole family was from there. She always told me it was beautiful.”
“And your father?” The first low dissonant notes came in from the bottom.
“He’s in Hollywood with his new wife. They’re very famous.” I couldn’t help but frown, tensing as I thought about the other side of my family, and for a few moments Eliot was silent, letting the music flow from his hands. The softness of the notes relaxed me.
“Fame is not always nice,” he said finally, launching into the second part of the melody.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, although it did. “I live with my grandmother. I’m nobody to him. Or to anyone.” The bitterness in my voice surprised even me.
Eliot stopped playing in the middle of a measure, and silence spilled across the distance between us. He took a deep breath before speaking, his words tracing a slow tempo in the air.
“You are a mathematician,” he said. “And a musician.”
“I’m not anything,” I said. “I’m just—” I’m just Brynn. I cut the words off quickly, frightened suddenly that I might slip and give away my real name. “I’m normal. Not really great at music or math.”
Eliot laughed softly and began to play again. The chords sounded lighter this time around.
“You have years to become great,” he said, letting the space draw out between notes. “No need to rush. See how badly I play? And I’m even worse at math.” A sparkle of teasing glimmered in his eye, but I could not tell if he was teasing me or himself.
“Most people are bad at math,” I said.
“True. So perhaps we have a long way to go before we are satisfied. We have plenty of time.” His eyes caught mine, and the second meaning behind his words made my breath catch in my throat. I coughed and looked up at the piano score, pretending to follow along with the notes. He played the second coda perfectly, hitting the exact right balance between lightness and emotion. I closed my eyes for the final two chords, letting my heart swell as they resolved upward and faded into the air.