Charles Baxter - Gryphon - New and Selected Stories

In college I made a shocking discovery: other people existed in the world who were as talented as I was. If I sat down to play a Debussy étude, they would sit down and play Beethoven, only faster and louder than I had. I felt their breath on my neck. Apparently there were other small towns. In each one of these small towns there was a genius. Perhaps some geniuses were not actually geniuses. I practiced constantly and began to specialize in the non-Germanic piano repertoire. I kept my eye out for students younger than I was, who might have flashier technique. At my senior recital I played Mozart, Chopin, Ravel, and Debussy, with encore pieces by Scriabin. I managed to get the audience to stand up for the last time.

I was accepted into a large midwestern music school, famous for its high standards. Once there, I discovered that genius, to say nothing of talent, was a common commodity. Since I was only a middling composer, with no interesting musical ideas as such, I would have to make my career as a performer or teacher. But I didn’t want to teach, and as a performer I lacked pizzazz. For the first time, it occurred to me that my life might be evolving into something unpleasant, something with the taste of stale bread.

I was beginning to meet performers with more confidence than I had, young musicians to whom doubt was as alien as proper etiquette. Often these people dressed like tramps, smelled, smoked constantly, were gay or sadistic. Whatever their imbalances, they were not genteel. They did not represent small towns . I was struck by their eyes. Their eyes seemed to proclaim, “The universe believes in me. It always has.”

My piano teacher was a man I will call Luther Stecker. Every year he taught at the music school for six months. For the following six months he toured. He turned me away from the repertoire with which I was familiar and demanded that I learn several pieces by composers whom I had not often played, including Bach, Brahms, and Liszt. Each one of these composers discovered a weak point in me: I had trouble keeping up the consistent frenzy required by Liszt, the mathematical precision required by Bach, the unpianistic fingerings of Brahms.

I saw Stecker every week. While I played, he would doze off. When he woke, he would mumble some inaudible comment. He also coached a trio I participated in, and he spoke no more audibly then than he did during my private lessons.

I couldn’t understand why, apart from his reputation, the school had hired him. Then I learned that in every Stecker-student’s life, the time came when the Master collected his thoughts, became blunt, and told the student exactly what his future would be. For me, the moment arrived on the third of November 1966. I was playing sections of the Brahms Paganini Variations, a fiendish piece on which I had spent many hours. When I finished, I saw him sit up.

“Very good,” he said, squinting at me. “You have talents.”

There was a pause. I waited. “Thank you,” I said.

“You have a nice house?” he asked.

“A nice house? No.”

“You should get a nice house somewhere,” he said, taking his handkerchief out of his pocket and waving it at me. “With windows. Windows with a view.”

I didn’t like the drift of his remarks. “I can’t afford a house,” I said.

“You will. A nice house. For you and your family.”

I resolved to get to the heart of this. “Professor,” I asked, “what did you think of my playing?”

“Excellent,” he said. “That piece is very difficult.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, technically excellent,” he said, and my heart began to pound. “Intelligent phrasing. Not much for me to say. Yes. That piece has many notes,” he added, enjoying the non sequitur.

I nodded. “Many notes.”

“And you hit all of them accurately. Good pedal and good discipline. I like how you hit the notes.”

I was dangling on his string, a little puppet.

“Thousands of notes, I suppose,” he said, staring at my forehead, which was beginning to get damp, “and you hit all of them. You only forgot one thing.”

“What?”

“The passion!” he roared. “You forgot the passion! You always forget it! Where is it? Did you leave it at home? You never bring it with you! Never! I listen to you and think of a robot playing! A smart robot, but a robot! No passion! Never ever ever!” He stopped shouting long enough to sneeze. “You should buy a house. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because the only way you will ever praise God is with a family, that’s why! Not with this piano! You are a fine student,” he wound up, “but you make me sick! Why do you make me sick?”

He waited for me to answer.

“ Why do you make me sick? ” he shouted. “Answer me!”

“How can I possibly answer you?”

“By articulating words in English! Be courageous! Offer a suggestion! Why do you make me sick?”

I waited for a minute, the longest minute of my life. “Passion,” I said at last. “You said there wasn’t enough passion. I thought there was. Perhaps not.”

He nodded. “No. You are right. No passion. A corruption of music itself. Your playing is gentle, too much good taste. To play the piano like a genius, you must have a bit of the fanatic. Just a bit. But it is essential. You have stubbornness and talent but no fanaticism. You don’t have the salt on the rice. Without salt, the rice is inedible, no matter what its quality otherwise.” He stood up. “I tell you this because sooner or later someone else will. You will have a life of disappointments if you stay in music. You may find a teacher who likes you. Good, good. But you will never be taken up! Never! You should buy a house, young man. With a beautiful view. Move to it. Don’t stay here. You are close to success, but it is the difference between leaping the chasm and falling into it, one inch short. You are an inch short. You could come back for more lessons. You could graduate from here. But if you are truly intelligent, you will say good-bye. Good-bye.” He looked down at the floor and did not offer me his hand.

I stood up and walked out of the room.

Becalmed, I drifted up and down the hallways of the building for half an hour. Then a friend of mine, a student of conducting from Bolivia, a Marxist named Juan Valparaiso, approached and, ignoring my shallow breathing and cold sweat, started talking at once.

“Terrible, furious day!” he said.

“Yes.”

“I am conducting Benvenuto Cellini overture this morning! All is going well until difficult flute entry. I instruct, with force, flutists. Soon all woodwinds are ignoring me.” He raised his eyebrows and stroked his huge gaucho mustache. “Always! Always there are fascists in the woodwinds!”

“Fascists everywhere,” I said.

“Horns bad, woodwinds worse. Demands of breath make for insanes. Pedro,” he said, “you are appearing irresoluted. Sick?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Sick. I just came from Stecker. My playing makes him sick.”

“He said that? That you are making him sick?”

“That’s right. I play like a robot, he says.”

“What will you do?” Juan asked me. “Kill him?”

“No.” And then I knew. “I’m leaving the school.”

“What? Is impossible!” Tears leaped instantly into Juan’s eyes. “Cannot, Pedro. After one whipping? No! Must stick to it.” He grabbed me by the shoulders. “Fascists put here on Earth to break our hearts! Must live through. You cannot go.” He looked around wildly. “Where could you go anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “He told me I would never amount to anything. I think he’s right. But I could do something else.” To prove that I could imagine options, I said, “I could work for a newspaper. You know, music criticism.”