Theo of Golden: A Novel by Allen Levi - 53

The Bet.

Rows E and F. Beneath the dimmable light.

Left to right, facing the stage: Row E — Kendrick, Basil, Trina, Asher, Brooke, Lamisha, Theo, Ellen, Tony. Row F — Addie, Shep, Mr. and Mrs. Ponder, Mrs. and Mr. Gidley, and the Penny Loafers.

Elsewhere in the room, friends and classmates, faculty members, and others filled the seats. The packed room was affirmation of the respect and affection with which the music department embraced the young man.

A single chair awaited him at center stage. No music stand. No mics.

No props or decorations.

Backstage, with five minutes to go, Simone awaited his introduction, humming, stretching his fingers, and pulling at the sleeves of his black tuxedo and white shirt. The sartorial finery was standard practice for Simone, dating back to his earliest performances in high school. His band teacher, a bastion of decorum, had instilled in Simone and his peers that “your wardrobe is a small, visible way to honor the music you play as well as the guests who listen to you play it. Look beautiful. Play beautiful. Be beautiful.”

It was so old fashioned. But there did seem something right about it. Those sitting in rows E and F were gussied up as well, out of respect for the young musician. Blazers and starched shirts for the men, dresses for the women. Ellen was ablaze with color, a pastiche of springtime. She was an azalea bloom, astilbe and spirea, galardia and wisteria. A walking bouquet of flowers.

Incidentally, she was allowed to bring the Noble Invention into the building. After Theo assured her it would be kept safe, she agreed to leave it locked in the cloakroom under the watchful eye of a security guard.

With a gun.

Theo leaned toward Lamisha, who was sitting on his left, and spoke in a library whisper to her. “You see the big lights above the stage, the pine cones?”

She looked up. Nodded.

“Tonight, when Simone plays his songs, the music notes will come out of his cello, and they will fly in every direction. You see, all the notes are inside his cello right now. But when he moves the bow, like this,” Theo gestured, “it is like a key that opens the door, and out they come, one at a time. They look like this.”

Theo sketched quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes on the back of the program so that Lamisha could envision the flight he was describing.

“You see? The round part here is their tummy, and these are the wings. Tonight Simone will set them free, and they will fly around us so fast we might not even see them.

“And do you know what they do when they fly away? They hide. Many of them will go straight up and hide in the pine cones. And some will hide in the organ pipes. And some will hide in the curtains and under the seats.

“And then, late, late tonight, when everyone has gone home, they will all come out of hiding. And they will have a big celebration because they are free. And they will make their very own song, one only they know.

“And sometimes, if someone is in the building late at night, they hear strange sounds and think it’s a ghost, but really it is only all the happy notes at their big parade .

“So, as we listen tonight, look for the flight of the quarter note, OK? Maybe you can draw it.”

Theo pulled a number 2 pencil and a small drawing pad from his coat pocket and handed them to Lamisha. Those items would be well-used before the concert was over, to capture the flying notes — the stems, the heads, the flags. All those wings and tummies.

Lamisha knew it was a made-up story. But as the concert began, she watched the cello like one who believed.

Precisely at seven, the lights dimmed, and Professor Gobelli stepped on stage, welcomed the audience, explained the purpose of the recital, and asked that people “extinguish” their cell phones.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Simone Lavoie.”

Simone appeared through a small door left of center, cello in hand, made the short walk to the middle of the stage, stopped beside the chair that awaited him, and took a bow. There was still enough light for him to see faces in the audience. He smiled at rows E and F, the epicenter of applause, bowed again, and sat.

A man of lesser confidence might have chosen to begin his recital with a simple selection, something manageable to help him work out the butterflies or jitters. But Simone was not that man. His first song was one that most students, if they would attempt it at all, would save as the high point or finale of their set.

“Toccata capricciosa, Opus 36,” by Miklos Rozsa.

From the first forceful notes of the piece, Simone took ownership of the room. Even the disinterested and unschooled could not help but be captivated by the virtuosity of his performance.

Those in rows E and F who had previously only known Simone as a pleasant and reserved pedestrian walking to and from class each day were mesmerized by the creature he became under the enchantment of the music. And some in those same rows understood for the first time that the bulky object (“the hockey player”) he carried on his back was possessed of power no less potent than thunder and lightning. No wonder Simone was so protective of it. This cello was his flesh and bone, heart and soul, language and voice. It did not merely belong to him. It was part of him.

The demure Simone, with cello cradled in his arms, was a force of nature. Electrified. Ravished and ravishing.

Arms, hands, shoulders, neck, head, eyes, legs and feet: every part of him felt the song and brought it to life for the audience.

Or perhaps for the angels.

His face, eyes closed, displayed agony and delight, playfulness and veneration. As he played, he turned his head hard right, smiled rapturously, mouth sometimes wide open, as if gasping for breath, a captive to the splendor of the sound that swirled around him.

From Kendrick all the way to the Penny Loafers, from the quixotic mind of Ellen to the orderly intellect of Mr. Ponder, from the breadth of Theo’s elder perspective to the youthful innocence of Lamisha, all of rows E and F were under a spell. Captives themselves.

The man on the stage was a Simone they had never seen before. They were fascinated.

They were proud.

Lamisha was almost certain she saw quarter and eighth and sixteenth notes flying to freedom.

For six minutes and fifty-six seconds, the room was transfixed. But at the end of the piece, when Simone stood for a bow, the audience was already on its feet applauding, faculty members first.

Simone left the stage, took a sip of water, returned, and sat again. His face was glowing with perspiration. He paused to close his eyes, take a breath, position his fingers and bow, and visualize the next song.

The selection was the familiar “Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G major,” the very piece of music, performed by the great Casals, that had lured Simone to the cello when he was in high school. Even those in the audience who didn’t know cello music recognized the piece .

At the end of two and a half minutes, it was done, and a calm filled the room. More applause.

And then, because a recital required that esoteric pieces be included to prove a student’s proficiency, Simone performed four sections of a Sonata by Eugene Ysaye and then a four-minute passage from Attila Bozay’s “ Formazioni .” The Bozay selection was atonal, dissonant, arrhythmic, and technically interesting, but it overtaxed the attention spans of most in the audience.

Tony tried his best to listen attentively, but he also wondered what the Penny Loafers might be thinking and what they might say tomorrow about “that weird song.” He predicted at least one of them would complain, “You couldn’t even tap your damn foot to it.” A true statement.

“Or hum along either.” A valid criticism.

“I wouldn’t even call that stuff music. I couldn’t even pronounce the name of it.”

Tony almost burst out laughing at the anticipated discussion.

A member of the music faculty, on the other hand, would have said that the composition embodied “rich technical complexity in dystopic tonalities” and that it had been interpreted masterfully.

Simone finished the piece, though it took an awkward moment for the audience to figure out it was over, and then left the stage to polite applause.

When he returned, a grand piano had been rolled into place. For his last selection before intermission. Simone was joined by a slender middle-aged woman in a black evening gown. The program identified her as a faculty member, Dr. Hisa Takai, of Japan. She bowed, sat, and waited as Simone took his seat.

They played “Requiebros” by Gaspar Cassado of Barcelona, a piece Theo knew well.

“Requiebros,” a Catalan word meaning “flirtatious remark; amorous compliment.”

For Simone, it was fourteen pages of score, thousands of notes, and measure upon measure of meticulously scripted musical emotion. He had memorized every playful, sassy, and romantic detail of the song.

It was a mere four minutes and twenty-three seconds long, but it instantly pushed Bozay’s dissonance out of the room and replaced it with a melody that was joyous, danceable, even hummable for ones who, like the PLs, deemed that a musical virtue.

He executed it flawlessly, or so said the faculty members who were there to grade his work.

When the song ended with a hard stop, Simone and Dr. Takai froze — her head bowed low over the piano keys, his face bent skyward with closed eyes — as the last note slowly died.

The audience, on the other hand, clapped, stood, whistled, and shouted. Pianist and cellist thawed to the praise, nodded and smiled and applauded one another, and then faced the crowd.

Rows E and F were awash in glee.

Intermission.