Fiction | Short Story

Music, Night

One didn’t come all this way in the careful study of the instrument to play it safe.

Aiden Chang had always had an unease for the stage. A concert was like preparing for an exam, a long exam, with numerous parts. A Beethoven sonata, Chopin polonaise. The Brahms Concerto. This was how he described performing to his pupils—and why the concerts were far, few in-between. Teaching was like traveling back in time, a recapitulation of what took hold and could even cripple him. There had been the review of his recital in The World Journal. Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. The autumn. He had been twenty-three. Years later, phrases from the article still came to mind. “Too much spice, too self-indulgent.” “An extra layer of icing on a cake, already too sweet.” “One longed for a phrase clearly stated.”

The critic was Pritchard Xu, the then rising star pianist. Aiden had watched the man come into his own as a virtuoso. It was a kind of private indignity, but an all too human one. The man had had a blossoming career as a critic as well. An opinion that mattered. One could say that they came from parallel beginnings. More or less the same age, both born in Taipei. Parents from China, who had fled the mainland during the Civil War in 1949, resisting communism, and years later emigrated to the United States, embracing something akin to hope, prosperity, inspiration. At least this was what Aiden had thought. Taiwan was poor then; there seemed to be no opportunity. New York City became the greater home, a downgrade of a life in terms of the loss of friends, a sense of not belonging, but also a necessary evil. One had to make the most of what little they had to work with.

It had been another era of Aiden’s life, a time when such words as “too self-indulgent,” “too sweet,” not only mattered but lingered, and he was susceptible to what the failure to meet an expectation could do to someone, still coming into one’s own. Such things were not so easily rectified, not for Aiden. Did Pritchard Xu—a few years ahead, further into his own career—see something that Aiden thought had been hidden from the world? That he believed that no one else could recognize? Not exactly terrible, the review stood out as one that preceded all the others. It had done the deed on his ambitions. It had made Aiden tentative in his playing, unnecessarily reserved—for a time. One didn’t come all this way in the careful study of the instrument to play it safe.

*

At one time he had practiced eight, nine hours a day. It didn’t matter if his hands would hurt. He had studied at Juilliard. In fact, so did Pritchard Xu. Both, their master’s degrees. In those days, it was rumored that envious classmates would fit razors in between the keys of the pianos in the practice rooms, though Aiden never found any. Maybe it was the rumors themselves that were supposed to be its own weapon—to instill more of that tentativeness, that opposition to musicianship.

A series of anti-climatic concerts throughout Europe left him exhausted. It was like jet lag. The high-energy life of recital after recital. It took its toll. It showed in his face. He had done a stint playing on several cruise ships. Almost thirty, for the first time, Aiden knew that he could not do everything he set his mind to, as if there was not enough life to see it all through. He gained weight. Premature grays began to settle in his hair, once entirely dark. He wore glasses. He bit his fingernails. It became a terrible habit. He didn’t even do it because he was nervous anymore.

The break was a welcome undertaking. Besides teaching, it was the afternoons of long walks, instances when he ended up downtown. Sometimes he took the subway. But he preferred to walk. He played chess in the park with strangers; they later became friends. The game kept his mind active in between practicing. On days when it was too cold or when it rained, he found himself in one of the chess stores on Sullivan Street. He took up smoking, used to smoke a pack a day, but that ended when a friend died of lung cancer. There were love affairs, men whose faces he would later want to forget.

But he always returned to the piano—the love that wouldn’t disappoint, if he kept at it. The proof of the lasting human presence. Was this not what was available to someone like Pritchard Xu too? Even though people had been doled out unequal talents, the “coda” was more or less the same—disparate ways of coming to terms with the fact that the ordinary was not enough. Music-making allowed one to step out of the everyday in order to gain an awareness of one’s true sense of being. A part of it was the breaking up of a life as a means for not yielding to loneliness. Because it did get lonely. More so, it was a way for Aiden to discover evidence of the unseen, of what had yet to be articulated. It was like the pilgrimage of one’s own—a path, once carved, that led back to something like the beginning of all things.

*

Some days he walked along the Hudson River. Other days, past Lincoln Center, where he might see one of his former Juilliard classmates, smiling on the poster beside their instrument, an upcoming performance date. It wouldn’t be jealousy he felt. Then there were several occasions when he came upon the poster of Pritchard Xu, next to a piano, who always seemed to look handsome, tender lips, and beautiful hands, happier—and somehow, less alone with the world. Even younger as the years went by. Maybe it was all the Photoshop.

The Upper West Side, 79th Street. Aiden lived on the eleventh floor. His view was of the apartments across, most of the windows, dark. His piano, a Steinway. It was what they called a “baby grand.” He had chosen the model specifically, delicate to each touch, responsive to every variation in sound, every intention.

He had chosen the model specifically, delicate to each touch, responsive to every variation in sound, every intention.

In his mid-thirties, when still considered young, he gave a recital in Shanghai. And in fact, he had just missed Pritchard Xu, who had given a concert of the Chopin Concerto with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra only a few weeks prior—to a sold out show. And then there was the day after Aiden’s own recital, when he walked the Old City with a friend, a woman who he had known in his Juilliard days, now a conductor. “They say that Shanghai is the Paris of the East,” she said. She was joking. He replied, “I think that Paris is the Shanghai of the West.” They had gone to Yuyuan Garden. A damp day, humid. Spring, but already starting to feel like summer. They dined on xiao long bao. Later they had tea at the teahouse overlooking the large pond, and talked over scores of Bach and Prokofiev. It was a beautiful kind of day to talk about playing and music. One longed for such days, and then one longed for such days not to end. Out of the limelight. Just the simple collaboration between like minds.

*

Yet there was still the work to regain the trust in himself, even after Shanghai. The review in The World Journal, still somehow at the back of his mind. At home, he would meditate for great lengths of time, watch the light change in his apartment as the dusk settled. Strike a key on the instrument until the tone finally made sense—resisting sweetness, indulgence, perhaps more like Pritchard Xu’s line of playing even. It would be like holding one’s breath under the ocean. And once Aiden had discovered this, he realized that he would only need another lifetime in order to harness some of the excess. It both thrilled, terrified him. It was like the discovery of new land—entirely unseen but having always been there in the night.

He listened to the recording of the greats. They were like guides through the dark, little confirmations that he had made some of the right choices. Horowitz, Rubinstein. Joseph Hoffman. Rachmaninoff himself, performing the first and fourth concertos. He listened to the Supremes. John Coltrane. Alice Coltrane’s Turiya and Ramakrishna. Nina Simone, Jimi Hendrix. All of them, his teachers.

The Upper West Side, still a haven for him. He still lived in the one-bedroom, rooms that were now Spartan. There were potted plants by the window, and as a tic, he’d pluck away the dead leaves, cast them to the floor to be swept up later. One took the elevator to the eleventh floor and would more likely than not hear the ghostly runs from a Schubert Impromptu or Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words.

“Don’t stop,” his neighbor, Jennifer, would tell him. Her accent was Israeli, warm, lovely. “Keep playing. Don’t worry if it’s midnight. It doesn’t matter. In fact, the music puts me to sleep.”

But he also practiced by going to the coffee shop. It was down the block. He’d sit on the bench outside, watch the street, passing cars. He would only have to set his eyes upon a piece of music, run it through his mind’s eye. When he sat down at the piano, he’d play it—to the amazement of his students. But to Aiden, it was only that initial effort, the least that he could do. It wasn’t that he was a perfectionist—not anymore. Perfection was a young person’s game. Age was the contrary of certainty. It was reaching for sounds that were not yet there, sounds that came into being as if out of their own volition. After all, wasn’t that what Pritchard Xu meant? Only the capability of such things existed, and he forever on a quest—the further one went, the deeper one felt, the more difficult it was to return. And in this realm of the imagination, one could remain protected from the accumulating heartaches and potential heartaches—the solitary life, the desolation. The promise of that alternative destination though, enough to keep one working, afloat in the Dead Sea where one didn’t have to sink or swim, suspended in disbelief.

*

And yet, there came finer moments of rediscovery. One day he had gone into Steinway Hall. He only thought to pass by, peer through the window display. As a student, he used to dream of coming to the showroom, seeing the magnificent pianos. The black and white photos of some of the greats along the wall of fame: Martha Argerich, Yuja Wang, Hélène Grimaud, and of course, Pritchard Xu, smiling, his teeth perfectly straight and white. It was like a palace, rooms that were lit by chandeliers. Inside, he tried the first piano. The salesman came over. “Can I help you?” he asked. The man had a pronounced mustache. His suit was charcoal, the pink bowtie somehow matched.

Aiden tried another, playing a scale, better this time around. Then he played more seriously. He played Chopin, the first Etude, open arpeggios. He followed with the chromatic second. He was giving an impromptu performance of sorts. The third lullaby of an Etude, the panicked fourth. It wasn’t long before a handful of people were crowded around, watching in astonishment.

The salesman then said to him, “Who are you, and where have you been all my life?” He was the kind of man who made a spectacle of small things, and was likely very good at selling pianos.

Then Aiden played the Nocturne, something he had even been known for in his day—not the night music of Chopin, but of Fauré. Now aware that he was being watched, and more so, being heard, he felt a momentum which hadn’t existed on the day-to-day basis, but had been pulsing all this time. One had to honor the inner rhythms of their lives in order to deliver. For Aiden, it wasn’t about meeting the moment. So much of performing was the obsession with meeting the moment. But he had come to accept that he was rarely ever going to do the impossible, rather to make do—to be the maximum of all of one’s good fortune, and make it look like the hand of fate.

*

Alice Tully Hall was his return to the stage. This time, there would be no reviews—no critics. No Pritchard Xu, no one like Pritchard Xu. The performance would be its own kind of success, on its own merits. He took risks. Some paid off. Oftentimes, it was such attempts that gave way to permissions of the self. And then he couldn’t help it any longer. He was over-indulgent; sweet, excessively sweet. After all, it was Debussy. An over-enthused listener might have thought that such extravagances were practically mistakes. But in the end, he gave in to what had always been in his inner ear—the move towards entropy. Rhythm, not tethered to precision. And the metronomic beat, only guidelines, like a heartbeat, only an approximation of human experience, of the spirit, of life.

In the end, he received the standing ovation, the encore. A second encore, the slow movement of Mozart. And for a brief moment, it could feel like it was all worth it. Flowers cast upon the stage. Many of the people in attendance were his friends, colleagues. A former lover, now on a second marriage. And soon after the experiment died down, he returned once again to the work. He had resolved that instead of going after attention, he could go after infinitude. He would mine for verisimilitude after verisimilitude.

Life would soon settle into its own equilibrium again. All the highs would settle back into something that wasn’t quite lows, but the quotidian, and it would be enough. More than enough.

Life would soon settle into its own equilibrium again. All the highs would settle back into something that wasn’t quite lows, but the quotidian, and it would be enough. More than enough. 

*

Only early one morning, he found himself further downtown. Mott Street, a gentrifying Chinatown. Breakfast at a café. It was near the courthouses. He considered wandering over to the park for a game or two of chess.

It was when he paid the bill that he spotted the man. Pritchard Xu, actually alone at a table. Here was the man who had always felt too far ahead, his attention, unattainable even. Only now it felt as if Aiden had finally caught up to him. It was like everything he had once hoped for and avoided. The man’s face was remarkably the same too, though he must have been pushing sixty, and yet handsome still. Clean shaven, someone who likely smelled of aftershave as a rite of passage. He sat upright, as if held to a different standard all his life. Something akin to coming into privileges, who believed in the illusion, and also lived for it.

In fact, Aiden had seen Pritchard before, several times. New York City wasn’t so big after all, especially their world of musicians; one passed from one circle after the next until they passed each other and flitted away. He’d read more of Pritchard’s reviews, the symphony, concerts in Central Park. He had gone from reviewing concerts to writing articles on politics with a liberal slant. But Aiden never thought to approach the man, nor would he ever think of talking to him, let alone introducing himself to someone who had purported to know a version of him. He had never felt ready, sure of himself. Pritchard was a family man too; there were a host of reasons why he had always felt off-limits.

“The name’s Aiden.” He stood over Pritchard and didn’t mean to overextend his hand, but it was what it was—the kind of move one went with, hoping that another wouldn’t notice. “Aiden Chang.”

Pritchard leaned back; he looked as if he were perusing a long sign. It was not so unfriendly a manner. “To what do I owe the pleasure.” He didn’t mean it as a question.

“A fellow musician.”

The man’s energy seemed to shift a little. “I don’t usually get to meet a fan at this early hour.” Then, “But have we already met?”

“Not officially, I suppose. No.”

“You’ve heard me play then.”

“Actually, it’s the opposite.” There was no easier way to say it either. The World Journal. Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Pritchard then pointed at him. His hands, still beautiful. But it was as if he were aiming a gun. And then he fired: “Bingo.”

Moments later, they were engaged in talk about the genius of John Corigliano’s song cycle Mr. Tambourine Man, based on the seven poems of Bob Dylan. Forever Young. How the Brentano String Quartet was unmatched in their performances of Beethoven. And Lang Lang’s anticipated recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations; the 26th variation was astounding. Aiden had helped himself to a seat. He could see that Pritchard was the kind of man who, when caught unaware, would rather be polite than embarrass them both.

“I can see a little of myself in you,” Pritchard then said, sitting back.

Aiden felt himself smile. “That’s very kind.”

The man seemed to consider what he’d said, not a hint of a change in expression on his face. “I have to be honest. I don’t remember at all, actually.” And then, “What did you say your name was again?” He told him. Pritchard then shook his head. “No, it doesn’t ring a bell.”

It was then that Aiden pulled out his phone. He only had to retrieve the article now. In the search engine, he typed their names. The review was the only thing that linked them to each other, and it surprised him that he could actually find it so easily. And yet, it wasn’t exactly what he remembered. Where had he read “too much spice?” Where had he read “cake that was already too sweet?” He had been so sure once. For a time, he had even kept The World Journal cut-out taped to his wall, like a to-do list. Like an undo-list, an exercise in restraint. Now it was left in a shoebox on a shelf in his closet like forgotten mementos, if it was even there still.

“Well, if it isn’t like looking at yourself in a mirror and barely recognizing the reflection.” Pritchard had put on his glasses in order to give the article a closer read. The glow in his eyes diminished slightly as they ran back and forth. “Yes, I see now,” the man then said. “I do somewhat remember you. You were tentative, uneasy even. A newbie.” Then, “At least according to what I wrote here. Well, I can see that that’s not true anymore, is it?”

A waiter came by and set a glass of water upon the table. They became suddenly quiet.

Finally Pritchard said, “I’ve reviewed them all. It’s amazing how many people you end up knowing. I’ve had the chance to perform on the greatest stages. Carnegie Hall, you name it. The thing with PBS. And the non-stop accolades, one after the next. Performance after performance. It’s all too much. I’ll tell you a secret. I hate the limelight, I really do. I’ve been lucky, very lucky. And I’m extremely grateful for it all.”

“Yes, I see.

“But I do apologize. I mean it, about the review. It’s scathing, isn’t it? What was I thinking?”

“You don’t have to.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Not to say that it would’ve changed anything, but still.”

He was going to be honest, he then said. He had been younger, trying to impress. He admitted that it wasn’t a very balanced critique. He had done him a disservice. But he had been given an opportunity then, as it was earlier in his career. He had intended to make the most of it, because at the time, it felt necessary. He would’ve done it differently if it were today. For one, he knew how to say these things better. More importantly, he knew what was at stake—and how to reconcile one’s ideals for the finer things, along with the awareness of one at the start of a journey, and the delicacy of a moment like that. But he had been on his own way, so to speak. So how could he have known? What the future held? In many ways, he had been a first of firsts, and he was going to run with it to the bank.

So how could he have known? What the future held? In many ways, he had been a first of firsts, and he was going to run with it to the bank.

Now he would never dream of doing such a thing to a musician who was starting out. He would never imagine pulling the rug out from under one’s feet, setting someone up for a kind of failure. It was more than honesty. It was a crime of art. It should have been the greater goal of a universal generosity, the foresight of bestowing upon another the benefit of the doubt, and not merely looking at the surface of things. It should have been passing the torch, as opposed to hauling the ladder up behind them. The sanctity of potential. But he imagined that he did not know that then, at least not yet. And so he imagined that he had done the worst. “When we are young, we can be so protective of what we think we have, or what we think we might go on to having—what we confuse with what we think we deserve. In truth, none of it is deserved. It’s all an accident of sorts, I suppose. And then all you’re left with is gratitude.” And then, “I don’t mean to ramble . . .”

Only there was more. The man reiterated the fact that he had not recognized their commonalities—refused to recognize them even. Instead, he had followed the messy instinct for self-sabotage, self-abnegation, and ultimately, the other art of self-preservation. The willful ignoring. The guilt of advocating instead for those where one could make the most gains for oneself. Appearance was everything, and nothing. The stakes were much higher then, too. People wouldn’t understand. There were dissonances in likeness, of being seen as too much alike, the human conspiracy when there wasn’t supposed to be one, but at the same time, was also there. It was the systems that were already in place, internalized. Few knew what representation even meant. And one was looking to prove themselves. A performance for the rest—the ultimate rest of them, judge, executioner. It was a reality of the world they knew, even though such things were largely overlooked, and prone to misinterpretation. “In the attempt to appear unbiased, one inevitably will be biased.” Then, “But I don’t mean to ramble again. And yet, here you are.”

“And better on the other side for it.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“I only came to introduce myself, and to thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

The late nights. Being lost in the dream-like state, and then on some perpendicular axis, felt like a heat that pulsed, and not at all tangible—this was the effect of what Aiden was saying.

“You’re not making any sense.” There was a change in Pritchard’s expression; the man looked as if he was sorry, suddenly aware of the different choices that they had had to make in the landscape that was to be the rest of their lives. It was also the look of how in another time and place, they might have been colleagues, mentor and mentee, even friends. It was like a missed opportunity of sorts, like seeing someone who one didn’t realize that they had gone to school with, all those years ago, for all that time.

“In fact, I graduated from Juilliard too,” Pritchard said, making light of things.

“I know.” All of a sudden the café seemed empty, desolate.

“What do you do now? Did you say you teach?” Then, “It’s not true what they say.”

“About what?”

“About those who teach . . . never mind. I bet you’re a great teacher.” Pritchard then glanced down. It was his phone, though there was no message. “Well, I should be going. Busy day ahead. Another performance to plan. We’re doing the Ravel at the ML—That’s the Morgan Library. ”

“Of course,” Aiden said. How could he explain? Retrospectively, it all seemed to add up, even if it wasn’t the intention in the first place, even if it was chance upon chance.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for you. Do let me know if you have any concerts in the near future. Perhaps I’ll write a review.” Then, “Say, I know someone whose son is always in need of a new piano teacher. Here, I’ll give you my card.” He reached into his breast pocket, but couldn’t find one. “I don’t know where I’ve misplaced them. They’re usually here. Take my email instead.”

“It’s all right.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll find it when the time comes.”

“Well then, good luck to you, the best of luck.”

*

At one time, he had lived in Paris. He had lived on the Île Saint-Louis, an apartment on the island with a view of the murky waters of the Seine. He was told that he had lived on the same street as Baudelaire. He had been nineteen and had been offered to study under Greta Dupont. For those in the know, she only took on students who she saw had something remarkable to contribute to the ongoing conversation that was concert music. The woman was in her late eighties by then. She sat hunched over in her chair, and would nod to the beat of the music when she agreed, and conducted with her right hand when one lagged. She took Aiden on at a time when she had already proclaimed her retirement. But she had made an exception, and it meant something. It made him feel as if he were the exception to the rule, and it felt something like purpose.

He had run through a Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt. Then Fauré. Nocturne. The woman nodded. After some time, she even fell asleep. But he continued to play. It brought back some of that happenstance of creation again, a life at the service of the fantasy, one that would always be there, never gone. He had already grown protective of such instincts—one had to protect their way of seeing it. It was like returning to a primordial state. To cultivate a kind of garden, and then to not be afraid to let it go, to give in to the wilderness again. Of disabling proportion in favor of meaningfulness, and then vice versa. After all, the power of economy would always be there. It would be on his side, the story being told, the linear narrative, and all that was not told otherwise left to oblivion—which was what one had to work with. Or else, what would have been the point? One couldn’t think too much about it either. It was the fight that started to go away the instant one became aware. And then the ultimate fight that started to go away the moment one became aware of one’s own being. One could only continue to play on, for the alternative was a descent into darkness, the ultimate sleep. When next he looked up, he had not even realized it, so much that had already passed, unbroken.