The Last Concerto. Sara Alexander
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Signora Elias’s piano room smelled of vanilla and almond. Giovanna agreed to let Alba go ahead of her, whilst she waited for Bruno to accompany her a little later. Alba arrived to practice to find the kitchen counters topped with several baking trays. There was a neat parade of fig jam–filled tiricche, fine white pastry twists cut with a serrated wooden wheel leaving edges like lace. In a ceramic dish Signora Elias’s famed sospiri were laid in a circle with a tiny space between each so that the heat wouldn’t melt them and make them stick together. These were Bruno’s favourite, but Alba knew no amount of sugar would sweeten the betrayal they were about to reveal.
‘Don’t hover in your nerves, Alba. You leave this all to me. All you must do is warm up and play. Everything else rests on my shoulders, do you understand?’
Alba wanted to but she knew her father better than that.
‘At some point our secret had to come out, no? This is the nature of secrets. They have a lifespan of their own. Eventually they too must die, as they shift from the dark into the light.’
Alba felt her eyebrows squeeze into a frown.
‘Goodness, my metaphors will do nothing to ease your mind I’m sure. Off you go, I have things to do here now.’
Alba let herself be shooed back out towards the piano. She took her seat as she had done for all those mornings up till today. Her scales began a little slower than usual. Her mind began to percuss the fragment of space between the notes, the middle quiet where one note ends and another begins, the subtle shifts in frequency urging her towards the instrument and away from her rattling nerves. As her fingers spidered up and down the keyboard Alba felt the warmth of that wordless place, one she was always being criticized by her father for living in most of the time but the very strength this instrument required. She didn’t hear the bell ring until it jangled for what must have been the fourth time. Her fingers lifted off the keys as if scalded. Signora Elias appeared at the kitchen doorway wiping hers.
‘You stay exactly where you are, signorina. I will let your parents in.’
Every sound thrummed like a chord cutting across a silence: the creak of the door, its solemn close, her mother’s footsteps along the shiny floors, tentative clips towards the piano room. Giovanna entered. She registered Alba seated upon the ottoman.
‘Please, do get comfortable, Signora Giovanna,’ Signora Elias said, leading her into the room she cleaned once a week. ‘The coffee is just about ready. Alba, do help me with the sweets, si?’
Alba was relieved to be asked to do something other than sit beside her mother, who looked stiff. She scooped up two plates and returned to the table in front of the ottoman. Giovanna gave her a peculiar look, swerving embarrassment or perhaps pride, Alba couldn’t decide which.
‘And Signore Bruno?’ Signora Elias asked without a trace of emotion, though his absence made Alba feel more uneasy than before. She placed the coffee pot on a holder and poured Giovanna a dainty china cup and handed it over.
‘He’s got caught with a terrible customer, signora,’ Giovanna replied, breathy. ‘I stopped by at the officina. It’s awfully busy. There was simply no way he could get away. He sends his apologies. It’s just us women together. Probably best. You know how he is, signora.’
Signora Elias smiled, unruffled. Alba shifted along the velvet, which prickled her bare legs below the hem of her cut-off shorts.
‘Do have a sweet, Signora Giovanna, I made them especially. It’s wonderful to have someone to bake for. Try one of each.’
Signora Elias and Giovanna performed the ritual dance of refusal and insistence, and, as always, age won out and Giovanna ate as ordered. Watching her mother do as she was told filled Alba with hope that what was about to happen might not be the disaster she anticipated.
‘Very well, Signora Giovanna.’
‘Please, signora, just call me Giovanna.’
‘You’re not working today, signora, today you are the respected mother of this wonderful young woman. What I would like you to enjoy now is the fruit of my time with Alba. She has helped me a great deal, and I know there have been times over the years where you have considered taking her job away as punishment, an understandable measure considering, but first of all I want to thank you, from the deepest part of my heart, for not doing so. When I came to you after the Mario debacle you listened to my plea, and, as an old woman living alone, I can’t tell you what that meant.’
Giovanna shifted in her seat. Alba saw her eye the sospiri. Signora Elias lifted the dish right away and insisted she take another. Giovanna had let Alba believe that she’d permitted her to continue working for Signora Elias out of the goodness of her heart, and for a while, Alba had believed her mother understood her friendship with Signora Elias was the most important part of her life. Now she watched the subtle shadow of betrayal cast a grey over her mother’s face. It made her own lighten for a breath.
‘But enough prattling from me. I invited you and Signore Bruno to hear something quite marvellous this morning and I can only say that I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do. It is my wish, that when Alba has finished what she has prepared, you will understand what a wonder it has been working with your daughter.’
Giovanna took a breath to speak. Signora Elias interrupted. ‘Do get comfortable. And enjoy.’
Signora Elias nodded at Alba. The metallic ache in her stomach piqued. She stood up and took her seat at the stool. As she pushed it a little further away with her feet she caught sight of her canvas pumps. They were the ones she’d worn that day she’d had sex with Raffaele in the pineta. Giovanna forced her to scrub them clean once a week, but Alba felt like a little of the pine dust always remained. No amount of water could take that away.
She caught Signora Elias’s eye. It sent a wave of calm over her. She let her breath leave her chest and deepen into her lower back. The soles of her feet rooted onto the floor. The room shifted into her periphery. Her fingers sank down onto Chopin’s notes she had played countless times. A purple melancholy swept over her. Wave after wave of measures rolled on with ease, the notes a cocoon around her and the piano, dancing light. The mournful melody swirled out from her, weighted, familiar, describing the longing and silence she could not articulate with words alone. The ending trickled into view, an unstoppable tide urging towards the shore.
And then it was over.
Alba lifted her fingers with reluctance, holding onto the space before reality would have to be confronted. She placed them on her lap and looked at her mother.
Giovanna’s eyes were wet. Her breath seemed to catch somewhere high in her chest. Signora Elias didn’t fill her silence. Alba looked at her teacher. Her eyes glistened with pride. Whatever happened now, that expression was one Alba would cling to. In the golden gap between this moment and the next, Alba felt like her mother cradled her life in her lap, petals of possibility that might tumble and crush underfoot if she rose too quick, or be thrown into the air, fragrant confetti of celebration.
‘Signora Giovanna,’ Signora Elias began at last, ‘in return for all the errands your daughter does for me I offered what I could, besides money, in return. You see, the moment she sat at my instrument I knew I would be failing my duty as a teacher if I didn’t protect and nurture her talent.’
Giovanna opened her mouth to speak but her thoughts remained choked.
‘Your daughter has become an exceptional student and pianist.’
‘I’ve never heard anything like that,’ Giovanna murmured.
‘Alba has been offered a full scholarship in Rome to pursue her studies further. She has what it takes to become a professional, Signora Giovanna.’
Her mother’s expression crinkled through confusion, pride, concern, a troubled spring day between showers.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Giovanna replied after a beat.
‘I can’t tell you what