Rhapsody (18 page)

Nice change after the street outside, he
thought, punching the elevator call button.

Central Park South was one of the most
prestigious addresses in New York City, but ironically, it nearly
always smelled of horse manure. Like today, in the warm spring
weather. Misha felt sorry for the pathetic old horses, most of
which should have been put out to pasture long ago, pulling their
tackily decorated buggies. They lined up along the length of the
street here, day in, day out, waiting for the tourists who took
rides in the park.

Like everything else in this city, you had to
take the good with the bad. Like horseshit on Central Park South,
Misha thought. Every pleasure has its price. It was a city of
extremes, existing side by side, and no matter how insulated you
thought you were, there was no escaping the realities that New York
inflicted on you.

The elevator arrived, and he stepped back,
allowing an elegantly dressed woman to step out. Her hair was all
dyed blond flips and waves and twirls, firmly cemented into place,
and her almost totally unlined face— a plastic surgeon's
playground—was a palette of colors from the various concoctions
skillfully applied to it.

"Good afternoon," Misha said, flashing a wide
smile.

Her sharp blue eyes surveyed his sweat-soaked
gym clothes and his long, still damp hair. She lifted her chin
perceptibly, then grandly stared straight through him and hobbled
out.

He idly wondered why she hadn't spoken, why
she never did speak to him, for he ran into her occasionally, and
she had yet to acknowledge him. Was it the way he was dressed?
Probably not. She'd seen him in everything from white tie and tails
to torn-up blue jeans. Did she know who he was—and he was almost
certain she did— and want to pretend that she didn't?

He didn't really know, but his curiosity was
piqued. The more well known he had become, he'd discovered, the
more bizarrely the people around him reacted to him. He didn't
really believe that celebrity had changed him all that much, but he
knew that it had definitely changed the behavior of those around
him.

He stepped into the car and punched the
button for the penthouse, relishing the very word. Penthouse. On
the very top of the building, with a view of the entirety of
Central Park, the East Side across the East River to Long Island,
and the West Side over the Hudson River to New Jersey. It seemed to
be on the top of the very world.

Like me, he thought with a smile of
satisfaction. On top of the world.

The elevator car bobbed to a halt, and Misha
got off, fishing in his gym pants for the keys to the apartment.
Before he unlocked the door, he rubbed the silver metal mezuzah on
the door frame with a fingertip, then brushed it lightly with a
reverent kiss. It was the mezuzah he'd bought to replace the one
Arkady had given him all those years ago in Moscow.

Twelve years, Misha thought. Arkady is long
dead and buried, and I'm eighteen years old and living in New York
City.

Russia often seemed like a dream to him
now—he'd only been six years old when they'd left—but Arkady was
firmly imprinted in his mind forever, in every detail of physique
and dress, every nuance of speech and manner, every loving little
piece of advice, every little lecture. Misha would always remember
him, and with a deep and abiding love, of that he was certain.
Arkady was his only loving memory of Russia.

He stepped into the enormous mauve entry
foyer to the grand old apartment he shared with his parents. He
tossed his keys into a heavily carved Russian silver bowl set on a
console—also Russian—in the entryway, then went through the tall
double doors into the vast, double- height living room, its ceiling
soaring to over twenty feet.

No one was about, and he skirted around the
twin Steinway concert grand pianos set back to back in their ebony
magnificence, and stepped over to the wall of windows, which faced
north, over Central Park, straight ahead. The view through the
floor-to-ceiling windows was breathtakingly beautiful and never
failed to impress him with its majesty. He sometimes imagined that
this view—his view—encompassed his park and his city, spread out at
his feet, paying homage to the great artist that he was becoming.
This was a thought, however, that he kept to himself. He knew that
his family and friends would surely accuse him of a dangerous
hubris.

"Misha!" It was his mother.

He jerked involuntarily, so rapt had he been
in the view that he hadn't heard her approach.

"Where have you been?" Sonia asked. "I've
been worried to death. My God, the concert tonight! And the party
afterward!"

Misha turned from the window. His mother was
already dressed for the evening, wearing a simple long black gown
with a tailored silk-satin bodice and chiffon skirt and sleeves, a
dress she'd had made several years ago for his concerts. She wore
tiny diamond studs in her ears, a gift from Dmitri, and a small
pearl and diamond brooch, a gift from Misha, on her bodice.

"You look beautiful, Mama," Misha said.

"Thank you, Misha," she replied, her anger
somewhat mollified by the compliment. Sonia Levin at fifty-seven
was almost totally white-haired, but she was a tall and regal
woman, erect as a girl, who wore her age well. Those dark eyes set
in her lightly lined but clear skin still flashed with youthful
vitality, and her attitude toward life was unwaveringly
optimistic.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

"I met somebody at the gym, Mama," Misha
said, "and we got to talking and before I knew it . . ." He
shrugged.

"Look at you!" she cried. "You're filthy from
that place!"

"I didn't take the time to shower at the
gym," Misha said. "I hurried on home to get cleaned up here because
of the time."

"And who did you meet that made you forget
the time?" she asked. "Who is so important?"

"A guy who's a musicians' agent," Misha
replied. "He handles classical musicians. Manny Cygelman."

Sonia, arms akimbo, regarded him
thoughtfully. "An agent," she said.

"Yes, Mama, an agent," Misha answered.
"That's what I said."

"You can have any agent in the world," Sonia
said. "You have agents beating down the doors to handle you. So why
are you wasting your time with this Manny ...this Manny Whoever
that I never even heard of?"

"I like him, Mama," Misha said. "I like him a
lot."

Misha sank down onto a couch and started
unlacing his sneakers.

"Good, so you like him," Sonia said. "But I
wouldn't think about him representing you. Not if I were you. I
don't remember his name on the list we made of the top agents." She
strode over toward the couch, then sat down in a chair facing
it.

Misha grimaced. "I didn't say he was going to
represent me, Mama. But I like him. He's young and he's hungry. You
know what I mean."

He held a sneaker up in his hand, gesturing
with it. "He's got to earn his living, make his way in the world,
you know? He's not like a lot of those people. Old and tired and
bored. Just going through the motions."

Sonia was becoming irritated. "Misha, Misha,"
she said. "Who have you been talking to? This Manny person?"

"Nobody!" he said defensively. "Everybody in
the music business knows this."

"Listen to me," she said. "Please. Don't do
anything rash with this ...this Manny ...this Manny Whatever. He
might be somebody out to rob you. This city is full of unscrupulous
people. You know that. You're getting to be a famous pianist. This
guy smells money. He comes on to you—"

"Mama," Misha said with exasperation, "it's
not like that, okay? Just cool it. I like Manny as a person. And
his name is Manny Cygelman. Emmanuel Cygelman. I didn't say he was
going to be my agent, did I?"

"No. Not in so many words," Sonia conceded.
"But I know you, Misha Levin. I know how you like to be different.
I know how you like underdogs. And I also know you're headstrong
and in too much of a hurry sometimes. I say—"

"Mama," Misha cried. "Cool it! For God's
sake, Manny and I just met, okay?"

"Okay," Sonia said, "okay. If you say so."
She squirmed slightly in her chair, not really wanting to drop the
subject yet, but realizing that to pursue it now was not wise.
Misha might storm out of the room and remain incommunicado for a
while. She couldn't have that. Not now. Tonight was too
important.

"Listen," she finally said. "You'd better
start getting ready. And don't forget, we have to go to the Bunims
after the concert tonight."

"I know," Misha said.

"Your clothes are all laid out up in your
bedroom, ready for you," Sonia said. "Your father is getting
dressed now. All you have to do is shave and shower. Okay?"

"Okay, Mama," Misha said. He stood up,
grabbing his sneakers and gym bag, and headed for the stairs up to
his bedroom. "They won't mind if I bring a friend or two, will
they?"

"A friend? Or two?" Sonia's eyes widened with
alarm, and she stared after her son as if he was mad.

"Yes," Misha said easily. "I asked Manny to
come along after the concert. And I told him he could bring his
friend Sasha."

"You ...you asked this ...this
stranger
to come along to a party at the
Bunims'?
'
Sonia sputtered. "And to bring his friend? What's with you, Misha?
Have you lost your mind? To the Bunims', of all people." She threw
her arms into the air dramatically. "I don't believe you."

Misha started up the stairs. "It'll be okay,
Mama," he said, turning to face her. "They won't mind at all. It's
not like it's a sit-down dinner or anything."

"Misha, we have to do everything
perfectly
for them!" she cried. "These people expect nothing
but the very best from all of us! After all they've done for us.
Don't you understand that?"

"You bet I do, Mama," he said in a cynical
tone of voice, turning his back to her. Then he disappeared down
the second-floor hallway. "You bet I do," Sonia heard him
repeat.

She sat mute, gritting her teeth in
frustration. Misha was beginning to show signs of ... of rebellion,
she thought. He hadn't been himself for the past few months now.
Oh, sure, he was basically still the same sweet and dutiful Misha
who practiced relentlessly, pleased his teachers, and played as if
he'd been kissed by an angel, but his behavior of late was
definitely beginning to take on a kind of edge, a kind of
cockiness, sometimes a sullenness, that she found disturbing.

Though she hated to admit it, this attitude
change she'd witnessed lately, this growing arrogance, was a
character trait she truly found unlikable. In some ways, she
thought, Misha was becoming a stranger to her— and to his father.
This she knew because she and Dmitri had discussed it at length,
and she had discovered that he was as perplexed as she. When Dmitri
had tried to discuss his son's behavior with him, Misha had simply
clammed up, shutting his father out, really wounding Dmitri, who'd
thought the two of them could discuss anything.

We've been wonderful parents to him, Dmitri
and I, doing everything in our power to see to it that he realizes
his ambitions. Could it be that we've been too smothering? she
wondered. Too demanding? Were our expectations for him too
high?

She didn't think so. He had always asked for
more, begging for challenges, never being satisfied.

When they had first arrived in New York seven
years ago, Misha had begun lessons with one of the world's greatest
teachers, Joachim Hess, and he had worked indefatigably, startling
Hess with his talent and hard work. Word quickly spread among the
close-knit international classical music community that there was a
new wunderkind in town. After his first public recital at
Juilliard, he had become the toast of the New York music world,
extolled as the most exciting pianist to come along in years. The
praise only drove him to work harder.

At that point Sonia, Dmitri, and Misha put
their heads together to decide on the best strategy to use in
handling his career, and a very clever one it turned out to be.
Without the advice of agents, producers, instructors, or other
luminaries in the music world, Misha himself had come up with a
master plan, one that they now saw in retrospect as a stroke of
genius.

"I'm not going to go to any of the
competitions," he'd told them in no uncertain terms. "Not the Van
Cliburn not the Tchaikovsky, not any of them."

"But why?" Dmitri had asked, amazed at this
piece of news. "This is unheard of, Misha. Every up-and-coming
young pianist like yourself uses the competitions to get his name
out there, to build an audience and a reputation."

"
No
competitions," Misha reiterated.
"For the same reason that I'm not going to allow any recordings to
be sold yet," he added.

"No recordings! But this is suicide!" Sonia
had cried at the time. "What are you thinking of? They could be
your biggest source of income! And make your fame!"

"
No
recordings sold," Misha repeated.
"Not yet. And," he continued dramatically, seemingly paying no
attention to their dumbfounded expressions, "for the same reason
I'm only going to play in public on very rare occasions for very
small audiences, at least for the next three or four years."

When he was finished speaking, he sat looking
at them with a feverish gleam in his eyes.

Dmitri and Sonia were temporarily stunned,
unable to grasp what he could possibly be thinking.

Misha abruptly jumped to his feet and began
to pace the room excitedly. "Don't you see?" he said, stopping and
turning to them. "This is the best way in the world to generate
international interest in me. To have a hungry audience in the
wings, just waiting for my concerts, begging to hear me play,
begging for my CDs. They'll have heard all the rumors about me, and
they'll want to find out for themselves."