5. Ofelia #3
I’d never played the way I did that night before, and I never have since.
Something happened to me on stage when I locked eyes with him, something I’ve never been able to describe to others or even understand myself.
All I know is that my playing that night came from a place inside me I can’t seem to find alone, no matter how much I practice.
A wild, storm-tossed place that edges right to the precipice of chaos without tumbling over the edge.
That night gave me a reputation, one I’ve never quite lived up to since. I play close enough to it that my tutors praise me and critics admire my precision.
But I’ve never found that reckless abandonment again. And deep down, I’m not certain I ever want to.
The emotions I felt that night went on to lead me to the edge of sanity and kept me teetering there for a full year, right up until Alexei Petrovsky flatly rejected me on a darkened terrace.
And no matter how composed I’ve appeared to others since, I know just how close I came to toppling into the abyss, not just during that year but in the one that followed it, right up until now.
So I don’t look into the audience anymore. Once I’m onstage I don’t look anywhere but at the conductor and his baton. Playing is my refuge, just as Seline said, and when I’m performing, it’s a sacred one.
The overture finishes, and time slows as Dittorio leaves the stage in between pieces.
Breathe in, Ofelia. Breathe out.
I stare at a place on the polished floor, aware of the audience shifting and coughing in the darkness. Then the First Violin turns to me, and I feel the warmth of the spotlight.
I stand up, this time barely aware of the audience’s applause, and cross the stage to take my seat at the piano.
Dittorio reemerges, and the applause swells.
He raises his baton, and I lift my hands over the keys.
Breathe, Ofelia.
He lowers his baton. My hands come down onto the ivory in the triumphant opening strains of the Allegro that I’ve practiced until my fingers hurt, and we are away.
The auditorium slips away, and I lose myself under the demands of the complex passages.
Dittorio is no longer my tormentor but my trusted guide, controlling the orchestra behind me with exquisite precision, allowing me to focus entirely on the music flowing through my fingers and out into the vast darkness beyond.
The passionate Allegro soars and swoops, testing me to the limits until it ends with a final flourish and the orchestra pauses, taking a breath between movements to regroup.
I no longer need to remind myself to breathe.
I’m caught in the flow, the current of the arrangement coursing through me even in the silence.
I keep my eyes trained on the keyboard, but I’m intensely aware of the audience beyond the footlights, attuned to their every stir and cough, the vague shifting of shadows.
Then we enter the Adagio un poco moto of Opus 73, the slow but playful movement that is my favorite.
I always see pieces in my mind as I play them, and the Adagio in Opus 73 always feels to me like a scene from an Austen novel: girls in dresses dancing through a summer meadow, then running down an old bridle path.
Emotion swells inside me as if I can smell the meadowsweet, feel the warm earth beneath my feet.
I dance beneath towering beech trees in my mind, through soft summer breezes, laughter in my heart and on my face.
Then the movement ends, the orchestra pauses, and when we begin the third and final movement, in my mind we march out of the meadow and toward the distant city.
The home stretch, Ofelia.
It’s an impression rather than a conscious thought, but I feel the tension building in my body, until finally Dittorio lifts his baton. He catches my eye and holds the baton high for a seemingly endless moment, my hands paused above the keys.
Then he nods unsmilingly, and my hands drop down. Together we take the final triumphant march beneath the arches of my imagined city, the music soaring to the roof above, filling my body with exquisite sensation.
I release my breath, closing my eyes as the last note fades into the far reaches of the auditorium.
Then I inhale and open them again.
The audience erupts into applause. It takes a moment to remember they are applauding me. Color rushes into my face, and I stand and turn, bowing with my hand on my heart to acknowledge them before gesturing to Dittorio, who graciously returns the gesture, passing the applause back to me.
I bow to the orchestra, who stand to accept their due. Then, to my surprise, the audience continues applauding. I look to Dittorio, unsure what to do, and he gives me a wry smile that almost looks like approval. Rather embarrassed, I take a step forward, and the applause swells.
For the first time, I look down into the first row, at my family.
My heart stops.
It seems Mickey never made it.
In his place, clad in an impeccably cut tux that fits his hard body dangerously well, is Alexei Petrovsky.
He’s staring straight at me—and it almost looks like he’s smiling.