Great.
Beck screws his eyes shut and digs his thumb and forefinger into his forehead, massaging the ache. What does he want? He never used to think about it – until August shoved her way into his life. Now he wants so much that the cruel sharp ache of never being able to have it is unbearable.
He wants Joey to be safe. He wants to eat until he’s stuffed. He wants to walk far, far away without a care in the world. He wants every string that ties him to the piano to snap. He wants the Maestro to say well done. He wants to write the music in his head, pages and pages of it, and never show it to a soul if he doesn’t want to. He wants to own it.
He wants August. He wants his hand to fit into hers – all the time, whenever he wants. He wants to eat cake with her, listen to her teasing, laugh a little, carry her home from school when she forgets her shoes. He wants to kiss her a million times. And then once more. Because he can’t put a number on how many times he wants to hold her, to feel safe next to her, to feel possibilities.
He doesn’t want her as a friend.
He wants more.
She is the girl his songs are for.
None of these are answers he can give Jan, or even say aloud.
‘I want to be a good pianist,’ Beck says. ‘I want to be a true Keverich.’
Disappointment crosses Jan’s face and Beck feels ashamed.
‘I thought you’d be honest with me, Beck.’
‘I was,’ Beck says, without thinking. ‘I mean—’
‘Do not worry.’ Jan’s smile is sad. ‘I cannot demand your full trust when you barely know me. Unless—’ He hesitates. ‘Are you sure there is nothing else you want?’
What Beck Keverich wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands – and
let a girl named August
teach him how to
smile.
‘Yes,’ says Beck, ‘I do want something. I wrote a piece, a song –’ a confession of everything inside me ‘– and I want to play it and record it.’ He hesitates, his face burning. ‘Please.’
He knows it’s not what Jan means, but this is a chance, a request, and if Jan is claiming to be a fairy godmother, he can give Beck this.
‘Who is it for?’ Jan asks, but his tone is curious, maybe even smudged with excitement.
‘A – friend,’ Beck says.
‘The girl from the concert?’
Well, there goes that.
‘August,’ Beck says. Her name tastes like earth and sunshine. ‘I know people have iPods and all that, but I want to make a CD.’
Jan’s nod is slow at first, then vigorous. He bounces off the chair, enthusiasm sprouting like wings. ‘I have a video camera. The quality will not be excellent, but the acoustics in this room are not bad. Good. We can do this. Right now.’
The worm of doubt has come – he hasn’t even ever played the song before without stopping. And Jan will hear it.
‘It’s a mess,’ Beck says, ‘just – um, just know that the middle is rubbish, and I don’t have the ending sorted so—’
‘Nein! Nein!’ Jan claps his hands together sharply. ‘That is not how a creator talks about his music. I refuse to believe your music is wrong or rubbish. Someone has told you that and you believe it. Believe yourself.’ He leans forward and taps Beck’s chest. ‘You said you would save yourself – do it.’
Jan gets the camera.
Beck gets hit with nerves and a thousand regrets.
As Jan sets up, Beck slides on to the piano seat and gets a feel for it. The keys are always deeper on a grand, and he works them with the pedal and feels the rich, moody tone. His scribbles are at home, in the bin, crumpled under his pillow, scattered over the floor where Joey’s drawn on them.
Beck closes his eyes and remembers.
‘It is recording,’ Jan says. ‘Play whenever you are ready. Viel Erfolg.’ Good luck.
Beck plays.
He stumbles. Seriously? His fingers are going to feel like worthless splinters today, of all days? The entire first movement comes out thick and messy. He stops, drops his hands into his lap, and hates himself.
‘Maybe,’ Jan says, his voice soft, ‘you should play this for August. For her, not at her, not to her. For her. Play what August means to you. Play it as if you love her. As if you …’
All Beck can hear is –
play
as if
you love
her.
So he does.
Jan, the camera, the room, even the oddness of the white piano, all shrink into microscopic factors. Beck’s life is a flood of music, a kaleidoscope of blue and yellow and pink and orange, the smell of summer and rain. His fingers race away and he doesn’t trip. Not once.
He plays for August.
And about her.
Then his fingers tremble, and the staccato bass line runs to the higher register, and he plays like he has the courage to kiss her when he absolutely doesn’t.
He plays as if he loves her.
And some time while his heart breaks and skids across the universe like diamond beams of starlight, his thumb catches crookedly on a key and splits. Winter makes for dry skin and easily ripped nails. And now? His fingers dance bloody fingerprints over the white keys, as if the piano and Beck have finally become blood brothers, and then the song is finished.
Beck puts his hands in his lap.
He leaves a smudge of blood on his new jeans and he totally just ruined a millionaire’s piano.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says.
Is he crying?
He doesn’t want to be crying.
Stop. Stop.
The recorder beeps as Jan shuts it off. Then he slides on to the stool next to Beck and they sit there, shoulders touching, admiring the reddened piano keys.
‘I have never,’ he says quietly, ‘seen a student bleed over a piano. Oh, I’ve seen them bleed, but they always stop and coddle themselves because their music hurt them.’
‘It always hurts me.’
‘Ah.’ Jan smiles. ‘We are being honest now. But Beck, you – you wrote this. I – I am in awe.’
Beck puts pressure on his thumb before he, well, dies or something awkward.
Jan stares at him. ‘If you can compose music like this, it is a sin for you to play from other composers. You are brilliant, Beethoven Keverich.’
And for once, Beck doesn’t correct his name. He just swallows the words, lets them fill his heart, his lungs, his soul. It’s not his name he hates. It’s what people think it means.
Jan sounds like Beethoven and Beck are the same – not the dream versus the failure.
‘Let me take you to Germany.’ Jan’s voice turns low, urgent. ‘I am not your mother, I swear to you. You will have the best school, the best Universit?t. You are my nephew and brilliant and you do not deserve to be hidden.’
‘I-I can’t.’
It’s like Jan didn’t hear. ‘I am often away on tours, but I have trusted friends who would check in on you while you get your bearings in the city and then, eventually, you’ll have your own apartment. Your own life. I will give you the world and you will be my protégé.’
You could be away from the Maestro.
You could be free.
‘I know there is this girl,’ Jan says softly. ‘August. And she makes you play like nothing in this world. But you deserve more. You deserve a life of promise, not fear. And if you decided to come with me but never play the piano again? So be it. I would not force you.’
It’s like being beaten – but with hope instead of fists. Beck shuts his eyes, but a tear still frees itself and streaks down his face. He’d never see August again. And what about Joey? He couldn’t leave her with the Maestro, for her life of glitter and gumboots to be cut from her soul while the piano took its place. The Maestro would never let her go. She’d never let Beck go either, if she knew Jan planned to be kind to him instead of chaining him to the piano. Beck could tell what she does to them. But she’s his mother and she might still love them – she might she might she might she—
Jan clears his throat. ‘I don’t expect your decision immediately—’
‘I already know,’ Beck says.
He can taste the blood in his mouth from when she’ll hit him. He can feel the tremble in his bones as he stands between her and his baby sister.
When he opens his eyes, Jan’s face is lit with expectation, excitement.