The Piano Teacher: A Novel (9 page)

The garbage, an immense mass, lumbers along between HER and THE OTHERS. Someone gets a new permanent wave. Someone matches a new nail polish to a lipstick. Tinfoil twinkles in the sun. A sunbeam gets caught on the tine of a fork, on the edge of a knife. The fork is a fork. The knife is a knife. Ruffled by a gentle breeze, onion skins rise up, tissue paper rises up, sticky with sweet raspberry syrup. The decaying strata underneath, dusty and disintegrated, are an inner lining for the rotting cheese rinds and melon skins, for the glass shards and blackish cotton swabs, all facing the same doom.

And Mother yanks at HER guide ropes. Two hands zoom out and play the Brahms again, this time better. Brahms is very cold when he inherits the classics, but quite moving when he grieves or gushes. Mother, however, is never moved by Brahms.

A metal spoon is simply left in melting strawberry ice cream because a girl just has to say something, which another girl laughs at. The other girl rearranges the gigantic plastic barrette, shimmering like mother-of-pearl, in her upswept hairdo. Both girls are well versed in feminine movements! Femininity pours from their bodies like small, clean brooks. A plastic compact is opened; in the shine of the mirror, something is freshened in frosty pink, something is emphasized in black.

SHE is a weary dolphin, listlessly preparing to do her final trick. Wearily eyeing the ludicrously multicolored ball that the animal pushes on its snout—a movement that has become an old routine. The animal takes a deep breath and then makes the ball whirl like a top. In Buñuel’s
An Andalusian Dog,
you
see two concert grand pianos. Then the two donkeys, half-rotten, bloody heads suspended over the keyboards. Dead. Putrescent. Outside of everything. In a totally airless room.

A chain of false eyelashes is glued to natural lashes. Tears flow. An eyebrow is painted vehemently. The same eyebrow pencil makes a black dot on a mole right by the chin. The stem of a comb is inserted repeatedly into a very high topknot, in order to loosen the haystack. Then a clasp holds some hair fast again. Stockings are pulled up, a seam is straightened. A patent-leather pocketbook swings up and is carried away. Petticoats rustle under short taffeta skirts. The girls have paid, they leave.

A world opens up to HER, a world whose existence no one else even suspects. Legoland, Minimundus, a miniature world of red, blue, and white plastic tiles. The pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music. HER left hand—rigid talons paralyzed in incurable awkwardness—scratches feebly on several keys. She wants to soar up to exotic spheres, which numb the senses, boggle the mind. She doesn’t even make it to the gas station, for which there is a very precise model. SHE is nothing but a clumsy tool. Encumbered with a slow, heavy mind. Leaden dead weight. A hindrance! A gun turned against HERSELF, never to go off. A tin screw clamp.

Orchestras made up of nothing but some one hundred recorders begin to howl. Recorders of various sizes and types. Children’s flesh is puffed into them. The notes are created by children’s breath. No keyboard instruments are summoned. Cases for the recorders have been sewn by the mothers. The cases also contain small round brushes for cleaning the instruments. The bodies of the recorders are covered with the condensation of warm breath. The many notes are created by small
children with the help of breath. No support is provided by any piano!

The very private chamber concert for voluntary listeners takes place in an old patrician apartment on the Danube Canal; a Polish émigré family, which has lived in Vienna for four generations now, has opened up its two grand pianos and its rich collection of scores. Furthermore, in a place where other people keep their automobiles (close to the heart), these people have a collection of old instruments. They don’t own a car, but they do own a few lovely Mozart violins and Mozart violas, as well as an exquisite viola d’amore, which hangs on the wall, constantly guarded by a family member when chamber music erupts in their home, and taken down only for purposes of study. Or in case of fire. These people love music, and want others exposed to it too. With loving patience; if necessary, by force. They wish to make music accessible to adolescents, for it’s not much fun grazing in these meadows alone. Like boozers or junkies, they absolutely have to share their hobby with as many people as possible. Children are cunningly driven toward them. The fat little grandson, whom everyone knows, whose wet hair sticks to his head, who yells for help at the slightest occasion. The latchkey child, who stoutly resists, but has to submit in the end. No snacks are served during a recital. Nor can you nibble on the hallowed silence. No breadcrumbs, no grease spots on the upholstery, no red-wine stains on piano cover one or piano cover two, absolutely no chewing gum! The children are sieved for any garbage brought in from outside. The coarser children remain in the sieve, they will never achieve anything on their instruments.

This family is not going to any unnecessary expense; only music should operate here, by itself and of its own accord.
Music should beat its path into the hearts of the listeners here. After all, the family is spending next to nothing on itself. Erika has virtually subpoenaed all her piano students. The professor only has to wave her little finger. The children bring a proud mother, a proud father, or both, and these intact nuclear families fill the premises. The pupils know they would receive poor grades if they didn’t show up. Death would be the sole excuse for abstaining from art. Other reasons are simply not understood by the professional art lover. Erika Kohut is brilliant.

As a curtain-raiser, Bach’s second concerto for two pianos. The second piano is played by an old man, who, earlier in his life, once performed at Brahms Hall, on a single piano all to himself. Those times are past, but the oldest people here can still remember. The approaching reaper seems unable to prod this gentleman, whose name is Dr. Haberkorn, to repeat the marvels he, the reaper, once achieved with Mozart and Beethoven, as well as Schubert. And Schubert certainly didn’t have much time. Before we begin, the old man, despite his age, greets Professor Erika Kohut, his partner at the second keyboard, by gallantly kissing her hand—a national custom.

Dear music lovers and guests. The guests dash to the table and smack their lips over the Baroque ragout. Pupils scrape their feet at the very start, their heads filled with evil desires, but lacking the courage to carry them out. They do not escape from this chicken coop of artistic devotion even though the laths are quite thin. Erika wears a silk blouse and a simple, floor-length black velvet chimney skirt. Barely shaking her head, she eyes some of her pupils with a glare that could cut glass (the very glare her mother hurled at her daughter’s skull after Erika messed up her big concert). The two pupils were talking, thus disrupting the host’s introduction. They will not be warned a second time. In the front row, next to the hostess, Erika’s mother sits in a special armchair, feeding on a box of
candy (she is the only one permitted to do so) and feasting on the attention enjoyed by her daughter.

The light is vehemently dimmed when a cushion is propped against the piano lamp. The cushion causes the players to be shrouded in a demonic red glow. Bach rushes by earnestly. The pupils are in their Sunday best, or what their parents consider their Sunday best. Moms and dads have crammed their offspring into this Polish vestibule so that the parents can have some peace and the children can learn some quiet. The Polish vestibule is decorated with a gigantic Art Nouveau mirror depicting a naked maiden with water lilies on which little boys stand still forever. Later, up in the music room, the children will sit in front and the adults in back, because they’re above it all. The elder ones give the host and hostess a hand when it’s time to make a younger colleague stop short.

Walter Klemmer hasn’t missed a single evening here since sweet seventeen, when he started working a piano seriously and not just for fun. Here he receives inspirations for his own playing—cashlike incentives.

The Bach swirls into the presto movement, and Klemmer, with a spontaneous hunger, scrutinizes the back of his piano teacher, whose body is cut off by the stool. That is all he can see of her figure, all he can judge it by. He cannot make out her front part because a fat mother blocks his view. (His favorite seat is occupied today. During lessons, SHE always sits at the second piano.) The maternal frigate is flanked by a tiny lifeboat, her son, a beginner, wearing black trousers, a white shirt, and a red bow tie with white dots. The boy is already slouching in his seat, like a nauseated airplane passenger who only wants the plane to land. Art sends Erika gliding through higher air corridors, almost off into the ether. Walter Klemmer eyes her anxiously, because she is floating away from him. But he is not the only person to reach out to her involuntarily. Her
mother likewise grabs the string of this kite known as Erika. Don’t let go of the string! It already yanks away so violently that Mother has to stand on tiptoe. The wind howls fiercely around the kite as it always does at this high altitude.

During the final movement of the Bach, Herr Klemmer gets a red rosette on each cheek, left and right. He then holds a single red rose in his hand in order to present it afterward. He unselfishly admires Erika’s technique, he admires the way her back moves to the beat, the way her head sways, judiciously weighing the nuances she produces. He sees the play of muscles in her upper arm, he is excited by the collision of flesh and motion. The flesh obeys an inner motion that has been triggered by the music, and Klemmer beseeches his teacher to obey him some day. He masturbates in his seat. One of his hands involuntarily twitches on the dreadful weapon of his genital. The student has a hard time controlling himself as he mentally gauges Erika’s overall proportions. He compares her upper part with her lower part, which may be a tad too plump, but he basically enjoys that. He balances the upper part against the lower part. The upper part: just a tad too thin. The lower part: it has its plus. But Klemmer likes Erika’s overall appearance. He personally finds that Fräulein Kohut is a delightful-looking woman. If, furthermore, she pushed up some of her lower excess, she would be quite attractive. The reverse process would also be possible, of course, but Klemmer wouldn’t like that as much. If she planed away something below, her entire body would be quite harmonious. But then she’d be too thin again! It is this minor imperfection that makes Erika so accessible to, hence desirable for, the grown-up student. You can capture any woman if you exploit her awareness of her own physical inadequacies. Besides, this woman is growing visibly older, and he is still young. Klemmer has a second goal, along with music; and he now thinks it through. He is crazy about music. He is
also secretly crazy about his music teacher. He is of the highly personal opinion that Fräulein Kohut is the very woman a young man desires as an overture to life. The young man starts out on a small scale and climbs rapidly. Everyone has to start sooner or later. Soon he will be able to leave the beginner’s level behind him, just like a new driver, who first buys a small secondhand car, then replaces it with a new and bigger model as soon as he becomes an experienced driver.

Fräulein Erika consists purely of music, and she’s not all that old. That’s how her student evaluates his experimental model. Klemmer even starts out one level higher: no VW, but an Opel Cadet. Walter Klemmer, secretly in love, clamps his teeth into the vestige of one of his fingernails. His face is red all over, the rosettes have spread out, and his shoulder-length hair is dark blond. He is moderately stylish. He is moderately intelligent. There is nothing salient about him, there is nothing excessive. He’s let his hair lengthen a bit, so as not to look too up-to-date, but also not too old-fashioned. He won’t grow a beard, though he has often been tempted to do so. He has always managed to resist this temptation. Someday, he’d like to give his teacher a long kiss and feel up her body. He wants to confront her with his animal instincts. He wants to graze her firmly, almost accidentally, as if some clumsy oaf were pushing him against her. He will then press harder against her, but apologize. Eventually, he will press against her on purpose, perhaps rub against her firmly if she lets him. He will do what she tells him to do, he wants to profit from her, then apply his experiences to more serious loves later on. He would like to learn from a much older woman—you don’t have to be that careful with her. He would like to learn how to deal with young girls, who won’t put up with as much nonsense. Does this have anything to do with civilization? The young man must first stake off his borders; then he can cross them successfully. Soon,
he will kiss his teacher until she almost suffocates. He will suck her all over, wherever he may. He will bite her wherever she lets him. Later on, he will consciously indulge in extreme intimacies. He will start with her hand and work his way up. He will teach her how to love, or at least accept, the body she has always negated. He will cautiously teach her everything she needs for love, but then he will turn to more rewarding goals and more difficult tasks in regard to the female enigma. The eternal enigma. Someday he will become her teacher. He doesn’t like those dark-blue pleated skirts and shirtwaists she always wears, and with so little self-awareness to boot. Her clothes should be youthful and colorful. Colors! He will explain to her what he means in regard to colors. He will show her what it means to be truly young and particolored and to enjoy it properly. And when she knows how young she really is, he will leave her for a younger woman. I have a feeling that you despise your body and that you only value art, Professor Kohut, says Klemmer. You only value your urgent needs, but eating and sleeping aren’t enough! Fräulein Kohut, you believe that your appearance is your enemy, and the only friend you have is music. Why, just look in the mirror, look at your reflection, you’ll never find a better friend than yourself. So just make yourself a little pretty, Fräulein Kohut. If I may call you that.