Chapter 6 The Music Lesson
The Music Lesson
Verner taught violin at the conservatory.
To make ends meet, he also gave music lessons to elementary school students twice a week.
He was a courteous man with a fondness for food, who enjoyed dining alone in restaurants.
Married too young, he’d been divorced for years and had no regrets.
Sex had always been something of a footnote in his life, and he had no desire to meet another woman; the game of seduction seemed, to him, a phenomenal waste of time.
Beneath his cool exterior, however, he was an altogether more complex man than he let on.
Brahms brought tears to his eyes, which was precisely why he avoided playing his music for students – none of whom would have guessed that, every Saturday afternoon, their teacher took an hour-long train to a tango class.
Verner had loved the tango in secret since his married days.
He’d never dared tell his wife, who’d eventually begun to suspect that he was sneaking off every week to his mistress.
Once, she’d followed him to the station, boarded his train, and sat in the carriage behind his, so she could keep an eye on him through the window of the door separating the cars.
When he got off, she’d followed him. Verner had noticed her some time ago, but had found her behaviour more reproachable than anything she might’ve accused him of.
They never did confront each other. But when Madame Verner saw her husband dancing the tango, holding and dipping a man twice his size, she was seized with intense jealousy – made all the more irrational by the fact that she’d fallen out of love with her husband years ago.
As Romain Gary once wrote, you wouldn’t believe how many drops of water a vase can hold before it overflows.
Vexed, Madame Verner had turned round and left.
When Verner got home, he’d found a suitcase waiting for him in the foyer, neatly packed with all his things.
Verner liked to spend the two-hour train journey each Saturday reading, and his choices were as complex as he was. Ever curious, he’d developed – if not quite a friendship – a relationship of mutual respect and warm rapport with the fellow who ran the bookshop near the station.
Mitch hadn’t forgotten the music teacher’s look of disappointment when he’d been unable to fill his order.
Of Mice and Men had recently been added to the banned books list, due to its ‘lewd and vulgar dialogue’.
Verner had not taken the news well: he’d erupted, calling the censors ignorant fools, bigots and – for good measure – shit-eaters.
So when the music teacher showed up at the bookshop one Saturday morning shortly before his train was due to depart, Mitch gave serious thought to his ‘candidacy’.
As a teacher, Verner was paid by the state, which made his involvement a potential risk.
But Mitch didn’t want to let himself be deterred by preconceived notions.
Besides, after the law came into effect forbidding the children of undocumented immigrants from attending school, a number of teachers had falsified their enrolment records to keep those students in class, while others had hidden them during immigration raids.
And Verner struck Mitch as very much that type.
As Verner browsed a table display, Mitch gave a loud, deliberate cough – just enough to get his attention. One more, and the music teacher hastened over.
“Frog in your throat? I have some cough drops, if you want one,” he offered.
“Mouse under the counter,” Mitch answered, like some Cold War spy speaking in code.
“Yes, that’s becoming more and more of a problem, isn’t it,” Verner agreed indignantly.
“What can you expect, with garbage only being collected three times a week? They keep telling us how great the economy’s doing, how terrible things are across the border, but somehow ‘economy’ has come to mean tightening our own belts. ”
“I didn’t mean that kind of mouse.” Mitch kept his voice low.
“You’re acting weird this morning,” Verner commented. “What kind of mouse are we talking about then?”
Mitch looked pointedly down. For a split second, Verner thought he might be about to reach for his fly – but quickly dismissed the idea.
Mitch had always struck him as quite sane.
He leaned further over the counter to see what the bookseller was getting at, and spotted the Steinbeck cover. He shot Mitch a stern look.
“Don’t tell me you’re running a black market. I’d be terribly disappointed.”
“No, Monsieur Verner. And I don’t intend to sell this to you.”
“Ah. Now you’re haggling to drive the price up. I see.”
“This isn’t about money. I’ve been threatened with administrative closure.”
“Then why this charade if you can’t sell it to me anyway?”
Just then, a customer pushed open the front door. Mitch leaned in quickly toward Verner.
“The law doesn’t say anything against renting,” he whispered. “See what I’m getting at?”
The music teacher considered this very carefully, sensing that he was being put to some sort of test. He was older than Mitch – though not as much as he believed – but then, Verner had felt like an old man since he was a teenager.
Maybe that was why Mitch had come to him, he thought.
There was something in the bookseller’s voice, a certain need for approval.
Feeling suddenly invested with authority, Verner waved a hand toward the door, as if to say: get rid of the intruder.
This new business between them was far more important.
The ‘intruder’ in question was Madame Bergol, a regular with a fondness for steamy romances.
She wasn’t a great customer, coming in every day to read a single chapter before leaving empty-handed.
She was also nearly deaf. To reassure Verner, Mitch waited until she’d found her latest read and picked up where she’d left off the previous evening, before calling loudly:
“Madame Bergol! Feel like reading us a hot sex scene?”
She didn’t even look up.
Verner nodded, satisfied. “Well, since you’re asking my opinion,” he muttered, “I think you’re playing a dangerous game, my friend.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Verner reached out, grabbed the Steinbeck, and tucked it hurriedly into his bag.
“It would be safer for you to loan it to me. I’ll bring it back next Saturday. That’ll give me a week to mull over your idea. I’m not saying it’s a bad one, but it requires more thought. Especially if you’ve got a forced closure hanging over your head.”
With a nod of farewell, Verner brushed past Madame Bergol and hurried off to catch his train to tango class.
* * *
Luckily, the afternoon was lucrative enough to make up for how quiet the rest of the week had been.
A well-off couple just in from the countryside filled an entire bag with children’s books, all but emptied the crime fiction shelf, and picked over the general literature table for good measure.
Mitch spent the whole day rushing around, answering questions and ringing up purchases.
In the early evening, exhausted, he checked the accounts, prepped next week’s orders, tidied the tables and closed up – just as Mathilde arrived.
“It feels kind of mysterious in here when there’s no one around,” she observed.
“I’ve had too many mysterious days lately,” he replied, ushering her out the back door.
The dark courtyard had the anticipated effect.
Mathilde clung to Mitch’s arm, but instead of veering for the street her gaze locked onto the coal hatch.
She cast Mitch a sideways glance that spoke volumes of her interest in the reupholstered sofa, which she hadn’t stopped thinking about since their dinner the other night.
“Is that the entrance to the secret lair?”
“It’s just a cellar,” Mitch said.
“Tell me the whole truth.”
“Come on, we can have dinner wherever you want. I need a change of scenery.”
Mathilde pulled away and looked at him sternly, hands on her hips. “If you don’t trust me, fine. But if that’s the case I’d rather just go home. And I won’t be back.”
Her tone rang slightly false, but Mitch thought she might still follow through.
He’d missed the last train of the day by now, anyway, and he had no desire to spend the night in the shop.
The sight of Mathilde’s slim figure bent over the coal hatch sealed the deal.
Mitch accepted defeat. He pulled the keys from his pocket and opened the padlock.
“You go first,” he told her, lifting the hatch. “And watch your step. The ladder’s wobbly.”
Mathilde climbed down. Mitch followed, one hand on the hatch handle as he shut it behind them.
And on the third floor of the building overlooking the courtyard, the old antique dealer who’d sold Mitch the shop watched them from his apartment window.
* * *
Mitch flicked on the cellar lights, went to the bookshelf and pressed on the back panel.
There was a click, and the bookcase swung inward.
Mathilde’s eyes grew wide. She stepped inside slowly, almost reverently, as if entering a crypt.
She wandered the room, running her fingertips over the spines of books.
Eventually she lit a small lamp on a side table and made her way to the bar.
She hopped up on the counter, legs crossed, hands braced on the zinc.
“It’s just… magical,” she breathed.
“Yeah, guess I did alright.”
“This place deserves so much more.”
Mitch sighed. Criticism already? What’d happened to the starry-eyed admiration?
“You can’t just sneak people up and down the stairs, sharing only bits and pieces of this incredible treasure like some stingy old hoarder.”
“What do you want me to do, slap a sign in the window saying ‘Screw the Government, Banned Books For Sale in my Basement’?”
“Something like that,” she said with a smirk. “Just, you know, a bit more subtle.”
Mitch was too tired to banter. He looked pointedly at the ladder, hinting that it was time to go.
Mathilde pulled off her sweater and T-shirt, revealing her bare chest, her pale skin cooled by the night air. She beckoned him closer and wrapped her long legs around him.
“I don’t want to argue,” she purred, and kissed him.
* * *
After they’d made love, she took him to one of her own secret places – a jazz club where the mingled tobacco and marijuana smoke floating above the tables was enough to intoxicate him.
Their night ended in the dorm room Mathilde rented in the city, a tiny place furnished with nothing but a small desk, a chair, and a rumpled king-size duvet draped over a mattress on the floor.
The bathroom was minuscule but she pulled Mitch into the shower with her anyway.
Afterward, completely exhausted, he flopped into bed.
Mathilde snuggled against him, still full of energy.
“You think certain places are predestined?”
“For what?” Mitch yawned.
“For good, evil, love, hate, damnation, salvation…”
Mitch rolled his eyes. He was a dyed-in-the-wool atheist, even if making love to Mathilde was like a little glimpse of heaven.
“Haven’t you ever walked into a place and instantly felt amazing, like you never want to leave? Or the opposite – like you’re suffocating and have to get out as fast as you can?”
“Probably,” he murmured, eyelids drooping.
“Well, I think I know why that is.” She turned to face him, propped up on one elbow, her cheek resting on her fist.
“Walls absorb energy. Positive or negative,” she began. “Some places are nests for love, others are grounds for heartbreak. You can feel when something awful’s happened; at least, I can. Can’t you? Mitch, if you fall asleep, I’m kicking you out.”
He opened his eyes to find Mathilde practically quivering with impatience. She was clearly anxious to share something that mattered to her deeply – so much so that nothing could keep it inside. Mathilde always did what she wanted, when she wanted it, and she never took no for an answer.
“Back in the sixteenth century,” she began, “a carpenter built his house on the edge of a forest. At the time, carpenters were also responsible for amputating limbs, and because accidents were so common he set aside a corner of his workshop just for that. When he died, his son took over – until, one day, a fire destroyed both the house and the workshop. A few decades later, the forest was cut down to make room for a village. War had recently broken out, so they converted an old barn into a makeshift infirmary, on the very spot where the carpenter had lived. When the village grew into a small town, the infirmary became a medical clinic. And now, a century later, the small town is a big city, and the clinic is a hospital.”
“Which hospital?” Mitch asked.
“The university hospital, believe it or not.”
“Where did you find out about all this?”
“At the University Hospital. Where do you think I’m studying? That place was always destined for healing. Now, think about what you found in the cellar of your bookshop. That was no accident.”
“So you’re telling me my cellar was destined to become a secret bookshop?” Mitch asked, a hint of mockery in his voice.
“What happened there in the past, before you rediscovered it?”
“It was used to conceal stolen goods, according to the previous owner. But I think it was more than that – a hideaway to drink and dance and gamble at a time when a lot of that stuff was illegal.”
“See? What did I just say? Your secret room was meant to be a place where people fight for their freedom!”
And with that Mathilde launched into a detailed explanation of everything Mitch needed to do if he wanted to be more than just a dreamer – if he wanted to take part in what she was already calling a major battle for justice.
Mathilde had that power some have, to banish apathy, to ignite ambition in men. Ambitions they didn’t even know they had until they’d slept with her.