Apart From Love (24 page)

She scribbled something for him inside his paper napkin and, taking a quick peek, he found her name, her phone number and a little doodle of a heart. Both Leonard and Lana got up to leave at the same time: halfway through dessert.
 

Little did he know that a week from now they would be sitting at the front row of the music center hall, holding hands and absorbing a heavenly soprano voice that filled the air with
Summertime
. She would know to tell him that George Gershwin found the inspiration to write this aria in a simple Ukrainian lullaby, and Leonard would believe her. A month from now he would rent an apartment, and they would be moving in together.
 

But at this moment—on his way out, just about to open the door for Lana—he knew one thing, and one thing only: he was walking on air. So elated was his state of mind, so grand was his happiness, his heart swelled in him with such a powerful pulse, that nothing else mattered.
 

Catching sight of the host winking an eye at the other guests, and hearing some muted giggles behind his back, all that left absolutely no impression in him—none whatsoever. He ignored that wink and those giggles, and closed the door.
 

The whole thing flew right out of his mind until a full year later.

One Year Later.

Leonard ate his breakfast glancing, from time to time, at that note that Lana had left for him. He was torn between a need to unfold the paper and an urge to crumple it. Either way, he found himself suddenly with the realization that now was the first time in a long while—a full year, in fact—that he was alone. Completely alone. A certain feeling was throbbing in his heart—something between relief, anger, sadness and above all, amazement that she was gone and he was free.
 

Leonard turned on the record player and sank into the sofa, determined to spin away the hours to the tune of cheerful melodies. He kicked off his slippers, stretched his legs across the top of the coffee table and closed his eyes, so that the sight of things would not distract him from listening.
 

The room disappeared. It was
Summertime
.
 

His ears started moving at the sides of his head like agitated seismographs, registering every minute reverberation, every note. On the inside of his eyelids, space started to sway around him, gently at first. It was marked by intervals, time intervals that flowed from the lyrics and swept over him, opening and closing in an increasingly complex sequence.
 

Summertime
. It reminded him of their first date, and of the time that passed since then. True, Lana was a good companion. He loved her. He could find nothing to complain.
 

And the livin’ was easy
...
 

For a whole year, she accompanied him dutifully to the Opera. And yet, time laid bare the fact that she was bored to tears sitting there, trying to entertain herself somehow by studying the costumes, the lighting, and the scenery—everything that for him was secondary. Only now did he realize that her proclaimed love of music was as real as the blond streaks in her hair.

For him the affair had started in glory, in an illusion of a joy they could share together, and then, for some reason, gone downhill—until hitting the low point yesterday, when his boss, who was by now about to retire, came into his office.
 

“Leonard old boy! What a lucky man you are!” said the old man. “Well, let me tell you this: all good things come to an end. My last day here, you know.”

“I know,” said Leonard, not sure what should be said in such circumstance.
 

“And how is Lana? What a woman, let me tell you, what a woman! I taught her everything she knows—”

“You did, did you?”

“About the Opera, that is! Those were the days, I tell you! What a woman, what a fine woman! What a lucky, lucky man you are! As soon as she met you, that first time—remember? The very next day, she borrowed all those books from me—the
Harvard Dictionary of Music
, the
Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Opera
, a fine book I must say, just too many words, too may words! And that’s not all, she took
A Critical Biography of Puccini
, and another book, I think,
The
Memory of All That: The Life of Gershwin
—
you name it, she took it! All my CDs too—
Tosca
,
Madama Butterfly
—”

“For the love of music,” said Leonard, with an acid undertone in his voice.
 

“Hell no!”
 

“How do you mean, No?”

“It was for you,” said the old man, and then he did a strange thing. He winked.

With that one wink, something became clear in his memory, as if a cell cracked open. He saw himself standing there on the threshold—on his way out, just about to open the door for Lana—listening, attentively this time, to those muted giggles behind his back. He stood there, at that second, for what seemed like an eternity. He hated those other guests, he hated his host. They had all been laughing at him!
 

They knew, did they not, that Lana was putting on an illusion, a fine illusion just for him. There was no shyness in her blush. They knew she liked him, liked him well enough to lie to his face. That was some performance! He hated himself for being so stupid as to fall for it. He should not have shaved his mustache.

That evening, when he came home from work, she asked him about his day. He gave no answer. Later in bed, just before rolling over and facing the wall, he blurted out suddenly, “You don’t understand me. You don’t know a thing.”

“What?” said Lana.

“Nothing,” he said. “Not a thing.”

“What is it with you tonight?”

He gave her a long silence as an answer. After a while he thought he felt the stroke of her fingers on his back, and suddenly could no longer take it.

“Why the devil did you do it?” he said. “Lying to me, everything—every little thing you said, from Puccini to Gershwin. You know nothing about all that, do you. Not a thing. You and your Ukrainian lullaby!”
 

After that, he found himself unable to sleep, and was forced to listen for hours on end to the singsong of crickets filling the night air, and to the faraway noise of traffic. At sunrise, just as he started to dose off, an ambulance could be heard speeding across the street, its alarm rising sharply to a pitch, then falling away into the distance. Here and there someone banged the lid of a garbage can. Bang-bang. Then bang.
 

One thing missing from all of this was the regular rhythm of her breathing. In twelve months of living together, that rhythm for him was softer, sweeter, and more necessary than any lullaby. He turned over to find out that which he already knew: Lana was not in bed.
 

Her folded note had been left for him on the breakfast table. Now it waited there, crisp and white. He could see it even from afar, even as he sank deeper into the back cushion of the sofa. Oh, he would read that note, Leonard promised himself, he would, as soon as
Summertime
died down. No, maybe later, at noon—or even later still. Perhaps when darkness came and the crickets picked up where the music left off.
 

“For the love of music,” he said to himself as loudly as he could, for there was no one else there with whom he could talk. “What does she know. Nothing, I swear, not a thing.”

For some reason, his voice sounded hollow and unconvincing to his ears.
Don’t you cry,
cried someone inside him. He wanted to close his eyes and drift away, anywhere but here—but his curiosity would not let him do it.
 

He found the sight of that note so peculiar, so distracting that he could no longer concentrate on the lyrics. Maybe it was not her fault. Not entirely, at least. Maybe it was him. It was the music, too. Listening demanded his full attention. It carried him away, to a different place.
 

Yes, his eyes were closed for too long. Maybe he never really looked at Lana. Leonard uttered her name once or twice and suddenly remembered that to this day, if someone would ask him about the color of her eyes, he would not know what to say.
 

In spite of himself, Leonard knew he missed the rhythm of her breathing. He missed it terribly. He needed to hear the swish of her hair, the soft whoosh of her footfalls, and above all, the way she talked.
 

He wondered what Lana knew about him, having studied him so diligently from the beginning. Then he wondered if he, in turn, knew anything about her. Who she was, the inner language of her thoughts. For the first time in twelve months, he wondered if her dreams played out in heavy Russian accent.
 

It was then that Leonard got up to his feet. Perhaps that note was nothing more than a to-do list. It could happen that way, could it not? Maybe she simply scribbled something for him, a doodle or a heart, inside that paper. A great urge swelled in his heart.
 

He went over to the table, picked up the note and very carefully, unfolded it—

As Told by Ben

I
know this melody, know it quite well, and in spite of myself, it is pulling me in. I should have turned away when I had the chance, and run down the stairs. I should have left the door locked. I should have resisted the urge to cross the threshold—but now it is already too late.

I am startled to hear it, thrumming faintly inside, because for years I have imagined the piano crouching there, in heavy slumber, with no one there to touch it, no one to awaken its sound. In awe I take off my shoes, and now I can feel the hum, not only in my ears—but in my entire body, reverberating full and deep.
 

The notes are soft, hesitant, and the interval between one press of the key and another is too long here, too short there, a bit confused and inconsistent, as of someone whose mind is drifting away—or else, a beginner.
 

I have never seen a player sit by the instrument the way she does. Instead of sitting upright—like my mother—Anita is slouched. Her head is tilted to the left, close to the keys, as if she is longing to lay there, over the ivory surface, which is so cool, so calming. She lets her hair cascade, and flow down as it may, like a stream of molten lava spreading over ice. For all I know, she lets her mind be carried away, far away in a dream, to a place way down, way beyond.
 

Her eyes are closed, as if she is in a trance. The right arm drifts to the far right, and the fingers, they stroke the keys right there, in that position, in a playful sequence, one that is distinctly familiar to my ears. Her fingers fly closer, and repeat it, an octave lower this time. And again, they fly even closer, an octave even lower—and with a gentle stroke, repeat the same sequence, now for the third time.
 

Now the sound is slow, to the point of being utterly sluggish. Even so, it brings back a good vibe.
 

This is the intro, the opening for a piece of music I played a long time ago, in my very first concert, when I was seven years old: it was
The Entertainer
.

I think that somehow—without even knowing that I am standing there, looking at her—Anita can sense the draft, the rush of air from the open door. Her eyes flutter and at once, I can feel the beat of her heart, pounding there under the hum of the piano. I can see the sudden awakening, the scare, even; which is how I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she has never practiced in this place.
 

To her, it must feel hostile. In spite of having taken some lessons—who knows where—she has never played our white piano. She cannot do it here, in my presence, or in the presence of my father. I suppose I know why.

With one step I close in on her, and hang over her shoulders; which brings a shudder over her. In an instant, Anita pulls her hand away from the keys, as if she has been caught—by a bad stroke of luck—in something worse than theft.