Janice Lee - The Piano Teacher

“He’s surprising, that one,” she says, and reaches to turn off the lamp, plunging them into gray, a wakeful twilight where they listen to each other’s breath.

After a few long minutes, just when he is about to drift into sleep despite himself, seduced by the utter luxury of the soft bedding and the now unfamiliar warmth of another, she murmurs, “You know, when I said surprising, I meant a surprising lover. You knew that, right? He’s not a bad man. Really.” At that moment, lying there with the moonlight glinting off her shiny hair and smooth, glossy skin, he thinks she looks like a scorpion.

He cannot let it go. He sits up. She looks at him, quizzical.

“Trudy.” He stops, to think how to say this. “I need you to know there is a limit.” He raises her chin toward him. “There is a limit to how sophisticated I can be.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not the person you want me to be. Not right now.”

“I should be careful. I should take care.” She says it penitently. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m drunk. Don’t let’s quarrel.”

“Yes.”

She sits up and turns on the light.

“Sleep is not something I can do right now. Should we talk? Should we try to become who we were before all this happened, just for a moment?”

“That’s impossible.” He brings her to him, her head nestled in his shoulder. She smells of cigarettes and liquor. He tells her so.

“I smell like a whore.” She moves closer to him. “I told you Frederick died but I didn’t tell you how.”

“No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.”

“Well, he was able to get back to Hong Kong. His whole regiment had been slaughtered, and since he was the head, or whatever his title was, they allowed him his life and let him walk back, escorted. They let him come back, but they made him carry…” Her voice falters. “They made him collect the ears of all of his fellow soldiers, and he had to put them in a little bag and carry it. They said his hands were soaked in blood and the bag was drenched. And the smell… I keep thinking about it, over and over, and how it must have smelled awful and how it must have been slippery and how he must have been so tired…

“And then, the hunger and the famine right after, before they could reestablish some of the markets. The rumors, the horrible, horrible rumors. Pets disappeared. Even…” A hiccup. “Even babies, they said.”

“Trudy, there’s no end to the misery if you keep thinking about it.”

“And that dinner I told you about, the one where the local swells were trying to get on with the new order, where my family friend who had married an Australian denounced the white races, you remember that one? The one Victor organized?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I didn’t tell you but at that dinner, we were all sitting, all trying to sit in our fancy clothes without feeling too hypocritical, without feeling like we were giving up too much of ourselves and hoping we could still look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of it all, and then at some point in the evening-there had been quite a lot of drinking-Dominick said something stupid. I don’t even remember what he said, but it was silly and clever, you know, like him.”

“I do know,” he says.

“And then the man who had arranged the dinner, Ito, the head of the economic department of the Gunseicho, whose table it was, he just stood up, walked over, and he walked very deliberately, and the crowd sort of hushed because he had this sense of, I don’t know, I suppose you’d call it purpose, and he walked right up to Dommie-we had been seated at one of the best tables, his table-and he stood in front of Dommie and he slapped him across the face. He slapped him really hard.”

She works the sheet through her hands over and over.

“And that sound, you know, it sounded like a gunshot, because everyone had been watching, and it got very quiet, there might have even been a gasp from everybody, I don’t remember, and Dommie sat there, with his cheek getting red, and then he tried to gather himself, he just sort of looked away, and then he picked up his champagne glass, and took a sip. And then the whole room took a collective sigh, and we tried to pick up where things had stopped. And Victor, that bloodless leech, didn’t do a thing about it.

“But it was as if the whole room had been slapped. And Dommie, you know, he tries to be a cool customer, but his hands shook the whole night after. I know you think he’s dreadful and soulless, but you do not know him. You do not know him. I’ve known him all my life and he’s fragile, and can break at any minute, and I want to protect him and save him from himself if that is at all possible. He is my only family out here. We are looking out for each other. He can be a terrible person, but there are reasons for that, you know. Not like Victor, who’s hateful because he only thinks of himself and money. Dommie hates himself, and so he can be awful.” She pauses. “I’ve never told anyone this, but Dominick was never quite right. There was a scandal when he was younger, around twelve, something about him and the maids. He made them… do things, and he did things to them, and they were found out. Someone walked in on them. So his parents were dreadfully embarrassed and they got rid of the maids, young girls from China, paid them off, and sent him to England when he was really too young. They were never really cut out to be parents. I think he was a mistake. And although he had done these terrible things, he was still so young. And he went, and he didn’t speak very good English at the time, and he stuck out with his odd clothes and his funny accent. And then somehow, it got out at the school what he had done, and the older boys… they made him do the same things. They made him… you know. You know what it’s like in those schools. He told me this one night when he was dreadfully drunk. I don’t know that he even remembers telling me. But we’ve always been like brother and sister. So, after that, I don’t think he was ever quite the same. How could you be? And that’s why he hates the English, for the most part, although he is so damn English in so many ways. It’s very complicated. And in the end, I think, we’re all just trying to survive, aren’t we?”

“Sometimes there are things more important than survival.” It sounds self-important but he cannot help himself. He wants to warn her, not for himself but for her own sake. And to defend a horror like Dominick! She was blinded by misguided loyalty.

“Tell that to someone who’s about to go under the guillotine,” she retorts hotly. “Tell that to someone who is about to get shot. I’m sure all they’re thinking about is how to get out of the situation. I’m sure survival is quite important to them at that moment. You might even say, the only thing. You might have the luxury of pondering the dignity of the soul, but… never mind.” She stops. “I can’t explain it to you, or justify to you, or anything, so what’s the point?”

“I’m sorry you feel like you have to justify yourself to me.”

She waves her hands above her slowly, like small satellites.

“This night feels like forever. I feel like Scheherazade trying to prolong the night.”

“Do you think I’m going to kill you come morning?”

“Everything changes when the light comes, doesn’t it?”

Later, he will wonder what exactly she meant.

They go to sleep, or their approximations of it, each careful not to disturb the other.

In the morning, over coffee, she offers her feet to him to be rubbed.

“Everything seems better in the morning, don’t you think?” Her implicit peace offering. She pours cream into her cup and spills some into the saucer. Her hands are shaking a little.

“Mon amour,” she begins.