The Flautist. Part Eight

Not much was said backstage. Michelle took a cookie offered by the organiser and bit into it as if it were her personal enemy. 

Their friend, a violinist called Benigna, came to congratulate them. A musician herself, she immediately sensed the atmosphere and stood at the door, unsure of what to do. 

"Come in," Michelle said sombrely. 

"Guys, you were great tonight", Benigna was honest in her opinion, but this time it was not much appreciated. 

"Come on," Michelle waved her hand.

"Why? What happened?"

"Should you ask? I . . ."

"We made an ad libitum vide in Handel's fugue," Kate explained. Michelle looked at her. Loyal to the core, that was the way Kate was. 

"So we did," Michelle confirmed. 

"Really?" said Benigna. "Even if you did what you said, and I am sure you did, I did not hear anything, and neither did the audience. People listen to music, not mistakes". 

"Oh, Beni, Beni . . ." Michelle shook her head. "I know you mean well, but that was a disaster." 

"Oh, OK . . . I'll leave you then. Hope to see you around."

"Sure, thanks for coming. I mean, really. Just sorry to spoil your evening."

Benigna looked at the girls one last time, deeply concerned. But she could not think of anything she could do to cheer up her friends. She left.

"You know, Kate, it is quite early. I think I will cancel my room at the hotel and take the train home."

"Good idea. Why don't you go with me? I'll drive you to your door."

"You are tired and I think you should stay here for the night and get some rest. Promise me you will drive home tomorrow. And, Kate . . ." Michelle looked like a puppy beside the wet spot on the floor. "I'm terribly sorry about what happened. I have no excuse and no explanation for it. Maybe you were right, I was in need of more rehearsals. Thanks for solving the situation anyway. You saved my ass."

Kate looked at her and tried to hold her hand, but Michelle was careful to avoid any contact. 

"You've saved mine so many times before. And we are a team. Don't kick yourself. Shit happens, we get through it. Sure you don't want to come home with me?" 

Michelle shook her head. She took her flute and scores and left. 

***

Kate was sitting on the bed in her hotel room. She did not turn on the lamp. The city lights were enough. It was quiet in that silence that was typical of hotel rooms. There was something artificial about it, almost unreal. Yet it was a comforting, calming, caring silence that enveloped the blonde. 

It was always the same, whether the concert went well or badly. You ended up in the hotel room, alone, a stranger in the city. Even if there was an after-party, you ended up in the empty room, with absolutely nothing to do, with the obligation to rest. 

When they toured with Michelle, they were in it together, so to speak. But they had separate rooms whenever possible. The hours after the concert are always alone, the more people around you, the more lonely you are. You can't get the music out of your head. You cannot wash off your tiredness in the shower. On stage you controlled people's emotions, you led your audience through moods and feelings, you puppeteered their souls. And that comes at a price. All the emotions, feelings, affections that you have unleashed are now after you, trying to catch you in the dark, when you are lying in a bed that is much too big for one person, listening to the air conditioning turning on and off.
***

"Michelle?"

"Paul."

"I wasn't expecting you so early. Are you all right?"

Michelle walked into the room. She put her flute and scores on a table, dropped her bag on a chair and fell onto another. She shook her head. 

"Damn it, Paul, I fucked it all up."

The cup of Earl Grey magically appeared in front of her. Paul had another one while sitting on a sofa. He placed the cup on the small table beside him. 

"I've made a terrible mistake."

Paul didn't say anything and waited for Michelle as she tried to pull herself together. She sipped the tea, hissing with pain. The tea had just been made, it was too hot to drink. 

"I'll get you some ice." 

"Paul, I . . . I . . ." The ice melted, giving the girl some relief. She crushed the cube with her strong white teeth.  "I entered at the wrong moment after a break and Kate had to cover my bum. She did a great job, I don't know how. People didn't notice, but people usually don't notice anything. Even Benigna didn't hear anything wrong."

"So what was your problem? If people did not notice . . ." 

"That's how we are trained. We are not magicians, we are mediums, and our job is to connect the composer with the audience. We do not trick the audience, we have to play it right. That is one thing."

"Go on."

"This mistake was so big. The small mistake, you can deal with it yourself. But the big one... you spoiled it for everyone. You know what the worst thing is? Sometimes, more often than not, people think it was not you who made a mistake, but someone else. It is so unfair, but tonight even Kate was convinced that she had hit the wrong note, because I was already playing and she came in with the wrong chord...".

"Did she?"

"I'm trying to tell you. I was in the wrong place, but I had no chance to communicate that to Kate. She entered the right place, but as she was second to the party, it sounded wrong."

"I see."

"After the concert, Kate was sweet, caring, comforting. She was perfect. I couldn't stand it."

"You couldn't stand your friend supporting you?" 

"Fuck Paul, try to understand. I deserved something else. You know, you are only as good as your last concert. Kate should be angry, upset, I don't know. She should reproach me for not wanting to rehearse. For allowing myself to lose my concentration. For being overconfident on stage. She should say something like 'we need to practise more'. Instead, she was just so comforting. But you know, I think that was kind of selfish of her."

"OK . . . you lost me."

"She was so proud of herself for solving the situation, she was so happy after the applause we got, and she was so appropriate afterwards."

"A-ha?"

"She wouldn't even let me tell Beni, the violinist, you know, the one I told you to date, what I did. And I skipped about twelve bloody bars of music, that's what I did. And Kate was like "we made an ad libitum vide in the fugue. She took responsibility. Oh, fuck you, Kate!"

Michelle's eyes were wet as she looked at her brother. 

"That doesn't make any sense, does it?" 

Paul said nothing, his deep brown eyes were sad and full of sympathy. 

"Paul, what have I done? I just ran away . . ." 

***

Kate wrapped herself in a sheet and lay there without moving at all, trying to relax all her muscles and breathing slowly and evenly. The best way to warm up quickly. The night, a raven-haired angel, caressed her body. The distant flute brought a gentle breeze and light. Kate was sitting on a terrace, sunbathing. On a coffee table in front of her was an almost finished jigsaw puzzle: the picture was a reproduction of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies by Van Clomp. There was only one piece missing, the one that would complete the model's left boob. The shape of the piece was funny, it looked like a curvy girl with a flute. Kate took the piece out of the box and leaned forward to put it in place and finish the job. As she reached forward, she knocked over a glass of peach juice, spilling it all over the puzzle. The picture began to melt, turning into a black smudge. A French maid appeared, a funny girl with round thighs and a small nose. The maid quickly wiped the mess off the table. The sun went down. Kate closed her eyes and fell asleep without a dream.

***

They did not call each other. They were busy with the new academic year, pursuing their own projects. There was no duo concert in sight and they had no time for anything but work. Autumn, the busiest time of the year. Then came the carnival craze. Even busier. 

They met a few times in a corridor at the academy. 

"We have to go out sometime."

"Sure, maybe next . . . month?"

"That would be nice. Gotta go now."

Work! The perfect way to patch up the holes, to forget that there was a hole in the first place. Michelle got a job in a chamber orchestra, Kate started a project with Benigna, who was founding her own string quartet at the same time. 

"I have something for you," Beni said one day. She placed a small block on a table. 

Kate took it. A pendrive. 

"The organisers made a recording of your concert for their archives. I forgot to tell you, I have a copy. It's illegal, of course, so don't ask me how I did it."

Benigna. The name spoke volumes about her parents, but to their credit, their hopes were not misplaced. Benigna was beautiful in that quiet, unobtrusive way, so that most people did not even notice her attractiveness. So she could not use her sex appeal to steal the record, Bond-style. And she was such a nice person that she certainly did not use violence to get the record out of the safe. Bribe? The girl was broke. Kate gave up. 

"So, that's the bloody concert? Have you heard it?"

Beni nodded. 

"This is an unedited raw recording. I swear I can hear nothing wrong with the fugue. The dominant may be a little crisp at one point, but that is all." 

"Well, thank you, Beni. But . . ."

"Yes?"

"Why?"

"I can see it has hit you hard. I can see that you have let it grow inside you. It will help you get over it and move on." 

"Oh, Beni . . ." 

Benigna waved her hand. She took her bow and violin and asked to start two bars after the letter B.

***

Michelle agreed to come to Kate's to listen to the recording. They fast-forwarded to the point of the disaster but could not find it. Kate tried again, but it was not there. Michelle was upset. She took out the score and told Kate to find the very beginning of the fugue. Then they listened with their eyes glued to the notes. That was it! They stopped, went back a few seconds and played it again. Then they looked at each other in shock and surprise. The moment of complete failure, which sounded to them like Boulez's music (and lasted as long as his typical symphony), was almost imperceptible. It took Kate only two crotchets to recognise the problem and deal with it. The first chord sounded awful, with unprepared dissonances, but then everything resolved beautifully and finally clicked into place. For performers, time slows down, which is perhaps why musicians tend to live long lives. Recognising the problem, communicating with each other, solving the situation, it only took two quick notes. To them it was an eternity, but the objective reality was different. A simple mistake. A simple, stupid mistake that nobody noticed! And the way they dealt with it... if it was not for Michelle, who was able to tell Kate what had happened with her eyes, Kate would not have found the solution . . . They were ideal partners on stage, understanding each other instantly. 

Kate got up, happy and relaxed. The relief was enormous. Now they could finally move on. They could plan for the future. 

"I've got a scholarship, Kate. I'm leaving for Antwerp tomorrow."

"Great! I am so happy for you! How long will you be there? A whole semester?"

Michelle took Kate's face in her hands, looked deep into her eyes and said seriously:

"It's three years, Kate." 

"I'll take you to the airport . . . "

Michelle's sapphire eyes were sad and misty. 

"Please don't. Don't make it any harder. I will go now."

Kate was about to give Michelle a casual goodbye kiss on the cheek. Instead, the brunette kissed her passionately on the lips. Then she started to pack her things. Kate looked at her with a sad smile. The flautist was as adorable as ever. Her every move was perfect. 

Michelle picked up her music, her flute, and looked around to make sure she had left nothing behind. She met Kate's eyes. She shrugged as if to say "what?" but smiled and walked to the door. 

Kate locked the door behind her and stepped out onto the balcony. Handel's minuet played in her head. That penultimate movement, the most beautiful of the whole sonata. The masterpiece, consisting of the quiet beginning, the stormy fugue, the slow, sexy part and the courtly dance. And the most touching notes were saved for near the end - the last few bars were casual, a typical, conventional ending. The real message was there, a few bars earlier. No matter how long Kate studied those bars, she was unable to compose herself as she listened to them. She knew what the old master was doing there, and how he was playing with her emotions, but that knowledge did not help. It worked every time, she had goose bumps, her heart pierced. So tragic, so beautiful . . . 

The same flute motif was repeated three times, one after the other, like a wounded bird desperately trying to get airborne. Each repetition was in a different harmony as the treacherous bass approached from below, step by step. But before it could catch the bird, it flew away one last time, only to die in the cadenza.

The single warm tear ran down the blonde's cheek. So that was it.

The end.