year before. We felt this last "modern" piece, while not overly familiar to our audience, displayed my
range without being overly ostentatious. The day before the Christmas show, I went through the
thirty-minute program for the nuns after school, and the choices brought nothing but frowns and scowls
from beneath their wimples.
"That's wonderful, Henry, truly extraordinary," the principal said. She was the Mother Superior of
the gang of crows that ran the joint. "But that last song."
"Schoenberg's?"
"Yes, very interesting." She stood up in front of the sisters and paced to and fro, searching the air
for tact. "Do you know anything else?"
"Else, Mother?"
"Something more seasonal perhaps?"
"Seasonal, Mother?"
"Something people might know?"
"I'm not sure I understand."
She turned and addressed me directly. "Do you know any Christmas songs? A hymn? 'Silent
Night' perhaps? Or 'Hark! The Herald Angels'—I think that's Mendelssohn. If you can play Beethoven,
you can play Mendels-sohn."
"You want carols?"
"Not only hymns." She walked on, hitching down her habit. "You could do 'Jingle Bells' or 'White
Christmas.' "
"That's from Holiday Inn," one of the other nuns volunteered. "Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and
Marjorie Reynolds. Oh, but you're too young."
"Did you see Bells of St. Mary's?" the third-grade teacher asked her fel-low sisters. "Wasn't he
good in that?"
"I really liked that Boys Town—you know, the one with Mickey Rooney."
Rattling the beads on her rosary, Mother Superior cut them off. "Surely you know a few Christmas
songs?"
Crestfallen, I went home that night and learned the fluff, practicing on a paper-cutout keyboard
fashioned by my father. At the show the next eve-ning, I trimmed half my original program and added a
few carols at the end. I kept the Schoenberg, which, needless to say, bombed. I played the Christmas
stuff brilliantly and to a thunderous ovation. "Cretins," I said under my breath as I accepted their
adulation. During my repeated bows, loathing swelled over their loud clapping and whistling. But then,
looking out at the sea of faces, I began to recognize my parents and neighbors, all happy and cheerful,
sending me their sincere appreciation for the holiday warmth generated by the vaguely predictable strains
of their old favorites. No gift as welcome as the expected gift. And I grew light-headed and dizzy the
longer the applause went on. My father rose to his feet, a real smile plastered on his mug. I nearly
fainted. I wanted more.
The glory of the experience rested in the simple fact that my musical talent was a human one. There
were no pianos in the woods. And as my magic slowly diminished, my artistry increased. I felt more and
more removed from those who had taken me for a hundred years, and my sole hope and prayer was
that they would leave me alone. From the night of the first perfor-mance, it was as if I were split in two:
half of me continuing on with Mr. Martin and his emphasis on the canon of classics, pounding out the old
com-posers until I could hammer like Thor or make the keys whisper under the gentlest pressure. The
other half expanded my repertoire, thinking about what audiences might like to hear, like the ballads
crooned on the radio adored by my mother. I loved both the fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier
and "Heart and Soul," and they flowed seamlessly, but being adept at popular song allowed me to
accept odd jobs when offered, playing at school dances and birthday parties. Mr. Martin objected at
first to the bastardization of my talent, but I gave him a sob story about needing money for lessons. He
cut his fee by a quarter on the spot. With the money we saved, the cash I earned, and my mother's
increasingly lucrative egg and chicken business, we were able to buy a used upright piano for the house
in time for my twelfth birthday.
"What's this?" my father asked when he came home the day the piano arrived, its beautiful
machinery housed in a rosewood case.
"It's a piano," my mother replied.
"I can see that. How did it get here?"
"Piano movers."
He slid a cigarette from the packet and lit it in one swift move. "Ruthie, I know someone brought it
here. How come it is here?"
"For Henry. So he can practice."
"We can't afford a piano."
"We bought it. Me and Henry."
"With the money from my playing," I added.
"And the chickens and eggs."
"You bought it?"
"On Mr. Martin's advice. For Henry's birthday."
"Well, then. Happy birthday," he said on his way out of the room.