Summit (21 page)

A wrong note saved her. It was not a terribly wrong note, just a little clinker in the middle of a run. But it was enough to break through the fog. Enough to make her realize what was happening.

She believed that she understood Daniel Fulton, and once she could get past her own emotions, she realized what he was going through. He didn't look quite right, she decided. Oh, there was the surface self-assurance and glamour that made her heart race, along with that of every other woman. But beneath the surface...
This is killing him,
she thought. The way that Trofimov's machine was killing her.

But it didn't have to kill him, it didn't have to. There was a difference, if he could only understand. If he could only feel the love...

She tried to make him feel it. But her magic didn't work quite that way. Before long he hit another wrong note, and she had to simply grip the arms of her seat and pray for Daniel Fulton.

* * *

Hershohn had a towel ready for him when he came offstage after
Les Adieux.
Fulton wiped his face and hands. "I'm playing like a pig," he said.

"You're doing fine. What's a few wrong notes? Listen to the applause."

"I don't care about the wrong notes. I'm not connecting with the audience. My mind is too fragmented. There's no concept. If there's no concept, how can I communicate anything?"

Hershohn nodded. "I understand," he lied. "You're bound to settle down, though. Just don't panic."

Fulton looked at him. "Too late," he said. "Too late." And he strode back onstage to play the
Pathétique.

* * *

"Was that any good?" Secretary Grigoriev asked his wife in a whisper.

She looked at him with exasperation and nodded. "A few wrong notes, though."

He hadn't noticed. Classical music bored him. Concerts struck him as pretentious rituals designed to cure insomnia. But what could he do? This was the centerpiece of his festival; the eyes of the world were on Moscow and Daniel Fulton. He had to come.

Fulton stared for a long while at the keyboard, and then he started playing something slow and, presumably, dramatic.

It was boring, even when it suddenly became fast. Fulton, however, interested Grigoriev; people always interested Grigoriev. Fulton obviously had the idiosyncratic artistic personality that did not flourish in the Soviet Union. That sort of personality held a certain fascination, but ultimately it was unhealthy—for its possessor and, more important, for society.

Grigoriev had met a lot of people like Fulton when he was ambassador to the United States, mostly at Kennedy Center receptions like the one that would take place after this recital. Many of those actors and dancers and musicians had struck him as being so self-absorbed that their egos seemed to glow around them like those Kirlian auras Volnikov had once expounded upon at a Politburo meeting. He much preferred the easygoing—even if phony—camaraderie of politicians. He thought he could understand President Winn; he was incapable of understanding Daniel Fulton.

And yet he had to admit there was something compelling in the man as he flung his hands around the keyboard, just as there had been something compelling about Valentina Borisova, who had her own sort of self-absorption. Even if you can't understand them—even if you don't like what they do—you can feel their power.

He wondered if Volnikov liked classical music. Probably not. He probably preferred sobbing over maudlin old ballads while he swigged his vodka. And his flunky Rylev would like whatever his boss liked.

Fulton finished abruptly in a blaze of notes. Grigoriev jolted himself back to reality and joined in the applause. Wonderful, marvelous, brilliant. "Was it any good?" he asked his wife as they headed for the lobby.

She glared at him and didn't bother to answer.

* * *

"This is the worst. Oh God, I should never have agreed to do it. Why didn't you talk me out of it? My reputation is ruined. Where's my shirt?"

Hershohn handed Fulton the clean shirt. "You're overreacting, you know," he said. "You may not have reached your own standard of perfection, but you're doing just fine."

Fulton sat down and sipped the tea the matron had forced upon him. He didn't put on the shirt just yet; the dressing room was hot. "Did you hear that second movement? It was just notes, and half of them were wrong. I couldn't concentrate. I don't think I should go back out there."

"They love you, Daniel," Hershohn said. "Don't let them down."

"I already have."

"Trust me, Daniel." Little likelihood of that.

"I played it better when I was eleven," Fulton went on, ignoring Hershohn's request. "At Northwestern. My mother gave me my clean shirt instead of you. I was too young to think. I just did what felt right, and it got me by."

"People judge eleven-year-olds differently," Hershohn observed.

"You don't know my mother." Fulton sighed and closed his eyes. "But you're right. The standards change. It's not enough to play the
Pathétique
well. People are out there comparing you to every other pianist who recorded the thing for the past century. They'll go home and listen to Schnabel or Serkin or Brendel and shake their heads. 'He's lost it,' they'll say. 'He should've stayed retired.' You can't be just adequate. The stakes are too high."

"Maybe you should imagine that you're eleven again."

"Oh God, that would be even worse. The only reason I survived back then was that I was too stupid to know any better."

There was a knock on the door. Time to go back to work. Fulton opened his eyes, finished his tea, and stood up. "Chopin," he whispered. He headed for the door.

"Daniel?" Hershohn murmured.

"Yes?"

"Put your shirt on."

He wondered if he sounded like Fulton's mother. Fulton paused for a moment, then grinned at him and did as he was told. And suddenly Hershohn knew it was going to be all right. Fulton was going to make it.

* * *

Imagine that you're eleven again.

No Valentina Borisova somewhere out there in the audience to distract you. But your mother hovers behind your shoulder, her stern, pale face always unsatisfied, always demanding more from you than you know how to give. No, it wouldn't do.

Fulton stood by the door to the stage, trying to get ready. He was starting with some of the Opus 10 etudes. His mind focused on the third, in E major.
Tristesse,
it was called.
"O ma patrie!"
Chopin was supposed to have exclaimed once when he heard it played, reminded of his beloved Poland, now lost to him forever.

And what, Fulton wondered, was his
patrie
? The broad, dull suburban streets of Evanston? The practice rooms at Juilliard? The Holiday Inns and Ritzes and Intourist hotels of the world? The secluded estates of Long Island? Had any of them ever really felt like home?
I know a patriot when I see one,
Lawrence Hill had said to him. What had he seen?

There is sadness in losing your homeland; there is also sadness in not being quite sure you have one.

Fulton signaled to the stagehand, who opened the door. He waited a moment, then walked out into the applause. The eye of the TV camera followed him from upstage as he made his way to the piano. Bouquets of flowers were strewn across the front of the stage; he could only vaguely remember them being presented to him. He bowed and sat down at the piano, and for the first time that night it felt right. The keyboard smiled up at him like an old friend. He smiled back through his sadness, then ripped into the first etude.

At the end of it, for the first time he could
feel
the applause. Yes, it hadn't been bad.Together he and the audience could make the rest even better.

At the end of the
Tristesse
there was a hush that was better than applause.

At the end of the
Winter Wind
there were cheers.

At the end of the set of etudes he walked offstage to Hershohn and his towel. "Brilliant," Hershohn said, beaming.

"I know." Fulton wiped off his sweat, and then returned to the stage for another bow and more Chopin.

A scherzo, and then the
Barcarolle.
Too fast? Khorashev wouldn't have thought so if he had been in the audience. It was the right tempo for this place, this occasion. The audience was interpreting the piece with Fulton, lying in a gondola underneath a starry Venetian sky—but also seeing something more, because Fulton could show them more. The hypnotic rhythm of the left hand was not just the swaying of the gondola, it was the pulse of their lives, and hearing this music was what made their lives meaningful.

After it was over, Fulton didn't even hear the applause.

The excitement was in his fingers, and it was only going to build. He sat back down immediately to play the G-minor Ballade.

* * *

Valentina closed her eyes as he played the solemn opening octaves. She knew this piece so well; he had played it last time, and she still remembered. Duty and love, love and duty—the eternal, irresolvable conflict; that was what it spoke of to her. The harsh minor-key opening theme chillingly spoke of her duty—what she had to do to stay alive; but thank God the theme melted away, and in its place—love. Grand, passionate love, sweeping across the keyboard. The duty theme would return, more menacing, more insistent, but it didn't matter. The love existed; it too would return, and it would triumph.

Wouldn't it? Oh, she knew it wouldn't, she knew it was just a dream, but when Daniel Fulton played the piano like this, anything seemed possible. The tension of the first part of the recital was gone, her prayers had been answered, and now there was only the joy that had been missing from her life for three awful years.

When Fulton finished in a wild flurry of octaves, the audience leaped to its feet to cheer him. All except Valentina, who sat in the balcony with tears running down her cheeks, falling like raindrops onto her beautiful red silk dress.

* * *

"Now what?" Grigoriev asked his wife in the midst of the applause.

"Now encores," she said. "If we're lucky, he'll play some Liszt."

* * *

Now Fulton listened to the applause. He felt as if he had been holding his breath for two hours, and could finally exhale. He smiled. He waved. He accepted bouquets from solemn, frightened women. He scanned the audience for a glimpse of Valentina Borisova. He couldn't see her. Eventually it was time, and he sat back down at the Steinway. The audience roared its gratitude, then hushed. He waited for them to settle themselves, and then played the Scriabin D-sharp minor etude, his gesture to Khorashev and the Russians.

The applause increased. Flowers rained down from the balcony. He turned back to the keyboard for the second encore.

They were expecting some Liszt, and he wasn't going to disappoint them. He began the rippling arpeggios of
Un Sospiro,
and heard the audience sigh as if in imitation of the title. They were in love with him now.

And during the applause after he finished, he saw her—in the side balcony, wearing a red dress. His heart skipped a beat, but he looked away immediately. It wasn't time for that yet; just one more piece, and then he could think about Valentina. The sight of her made him nervous, though, and it was a moment before he remembered what that final piece was supposed to be.

Of course.
Liebestraum.
His dream of love. He had played it a thousand times, each time putting into it every ounce of virtuosic ardor he possessed. But tonight—in this hall, in front of this audience—he chose to play it simply, a statement of feet rather than a declaration of passion.
Here is my dream
, he made the music say.
Do with it what you will.
And when he played the soft chords that finished the piece, he stood up, gave one final bow, and walked offstage. The recital was over.

Hershohn hugged him as he strode back toward his dressing room. "You did it," he shouted.

"I did it," Fulton agreed, making his way through the throngs of admirers who had somehow managed to get backstage. And then there were the final rituals. Into the dressing room with Hershohn; no one else allowed inside. Then into the tiny bathroom, totally alone now, standing in his sweat-soaked shirt, letting the tension tear at him one final time until finally he had to throw up everything inside him, a grotesque physical analogue of what his mind and spirit had just accomplished onstage.

Then it was over. In a few minutes he came out of the bathroom. Hershohn was waiting with his standard after-recital nourishment: spinach salad and a glass of milk. No food ever tasted better. Fulton closed his eyes. "And now the hard part," he murmured.

"You don't have to do anything else," Hershohn pointed out immediately. "Get the next flight out. Go home. Take a vacation. This is somebody else's business."

Fulton shook his head. "It's mine," he said.
Mine alone.

He finished his glass of milk, then got up and slowly changed his clothes. It was time to go to the reception.

Chapter 19