The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations (26 page)

I took heart from the stories of the lives of Zhu Da and Zheng Banqiao. Instead of being destroyed by the poverty, the anonymity, and the scorn that they both suffered—they grew stronger.

My attempts to withdraw in my thoughts to the mountains, as they had done, helped me to achieve a long-sought goal: to disappear behind the composer. In doing so, I feel as though I no longer exist, and therefore cannot willfully place myself between the composer and the music. All I can do is show the composer’s genius.

The range of musical climates and moods in the
Goldberg Variations
reminds me of the concept of the “golden mean,” which Professor Pan first told me about. Through this work, I think I now understand what he meant. The point is not to take a middle path that is a type of compromise resulting from a refusal to choose extremes. Rather, it is about finding a point of equilibrium that allows one to bring out every dimension of the work. What is special about the
Goldberg Variations
is that it calls on every human emotion, every feeling. This is what makes it one of humanity’s greatest masterpieces, and why it speaks volumes to an audience. In this work, Bach has put life itself to music—life in all of its infinite variety.

Buddhists always depict Buddha smiling. There are always two aspects to everything, to every being. There is no single truth—everything depends on the way in which one wants to see reality. That is life, and that is the
Goldberg Variations
. Through it, I also now understand why polyphony, Bach’s in particular, affects me more deeply than any other type of music. By means of its various voices, it alone is capable of
simultaneously
expressing multiple and contradictory emotions, without one necessarily taking precedence over another.

And then, of course, there is the mystery of the aria that introduces and closes the
Variations
. Western musical masterpieces that employ such a structure are rare indeed. And none of them are as essentially Taoist as Bach’s composition. It reminds me of what Laozi said about the Tao, that endless, universal movement infused with the breath of life: “Returning is the movement of the Tao.”

The water of the initial aria gives birth to the river of variations; it flows, evaporates, and returns as a shower of fine rain. Water is present in Bach’s very name—
Bach
in German means “brook.” The water of the closing aria is that of the opening aria, and yet it is not the same. We are witness not to an eternal return, but to a transformation.

The end has joined the beginning, but it is different.

When I had received my US passport, I was finally able to leave the United States for Paris. I bid farewell to Mary and Ryan.

Madame Aalam welcomed me like her own daughter.

“Now we can look after you properly,” she told me.

And indeed, my second stay in Paris would be characterized by the occurrence of one miracle after another. I met extraordinary friends, I became acquainted with France and the rest of Europe, and I discovered what respect for artists means.

To begin with, I finally started to explore the city. I love the weather in Paris, the colors of the sky, always a bit over-cast and melancholy. I wandered along the banks of the Seine and through the streets, enchanted by the beauty of places I stumbled upon—the Place Dauphine, the Place de Furstenberg, and the Place des Vosges, where the memory of Victor Hugo still lingers. There are many churches that offer a glimpse of heaven as soon as you enter them: Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, Saint-Germain-des-Prés. I discovered a former residence of Marie Curie—a role model for me—as well as places where Chopin, Picasso, and others had once stayed. With every step I felt that my life was becoming linked with humanity’s guiding lights. I went to the Père-Lachaise cemetery to see the Communards’ Wall, imagining the final battles of the Commune. I visited museums and exhibitions—where else in the world do people stand in such long lines waiting to get into shows? I lingered in cafés; I liked watching the people who work in them, the swift, elegant waiters moving like actors on stage. Paris seemed marvelously beautiful to me. The only thing that shocked me was the way Parisians can lock themselves up in loneliness, the indifference they often display, the haughtiness of certain shopkeepers. But take it all around: is it possible to imagine a better place to drop anchor?

Madam Aalam put me in contact with a couple she knew—Jean-Luc Chalumeau and his wife, Estelle—whom I had met at her place before my departure. They both sensed my secret desire to finally have a place of my own, and it was Jean-Luc who helped me find my first real apartment. It was just a little studio on the second floor, and gave onto a fairly dark courtyard, but it was in a building on the Quai de Conti where he and his wife lived, and the rent was affordable. I moved there in the early fall of 1988. It was my own home. Something I’d never had before.

However, if I were to settle in, I had one final task: I had to buy a piano. A real one, a grand piano. Not a Steinway, certainly—that was beyond my means—but a solid instrument on which I could practice in a professional manner. Then came the delivery day for the piano. I couldn’t help thinking about that
other
piano, the one that had been delivered to my parents’ house when I was three years old. What had become of it, the Robinson, my faithful companion at Zhangjiakou? For the first time in my life, I was deliberately unfaithful to it. I had replaced it. Would it be upset with me when I confessed what I had done?

My neighbors soon became friends. Estelle found me my first students. Josette Devin, a member of the French Resistance in World War Two, was a great source of moral support. I learned from her that it is possible to have “known the smell of fear” and still live happily. The American painter Marion Pike, who painted stupendous portraits of André Malraux, Coco Chanel, and others, gave me several of her paintings—in time, she suggested that I sell them to pay my rent, which of course I refused to do. Laurence Rousselot, my first student, not only suggested that I join her in the south of France but also offered me a train ticket to get there. Thanks to her kindness, I took the first vacation of my life.

Anna Kamp was drawn to my apartment by the music she heard coming through the thin walls that separated our two flats; she insisted on introducing me to her painter friend Gérard Fromanger, a well-known figure on the French cultural scene. Thanks to him, I met the cellist Alain Meunier. Alain spontaneously suggested that I play with him at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Sienna. One of the works that we interpreted together was Beethoven’s Sonata No. 5 in D Major for Cello and Piano. The score had not been on my music rest since my chamber music sessions at Zhangjiakou with Like. I started to play it: D–F sharp–E–D, D. On my old Robinson, the string for high D was among those that I had replaced with wire; this was the first time I was able to hear the note as it should sound! A few months later, he invited me to perform with him at the Paris Conservatory. Alain’s wife was Annick Goutal, the well-known perfume creator. She was very beautiful, the embodiment of French sophistication. Her elegance was matched only by her generosity: a good example of this was how she invited the street person who lived outside her building to come wash up in her bathroom when he needed. He thanked her with bouquets he put together using flowers salvaged from a nearby florist. Since her death in 1999, I’ve never stopped thinking about her. I often pass by her house. The street person is also no longer there.

During my first stay in Paris, my intimate circle consisted mainly of foreigners. This time I also had French friends—and what friends they were!

Each individual filled me with courage, and this allowed me to believe in myself. One day I asked Estelle if she wouldn’t mind helping me organize my first real concert in Paris. I intuitively thought of my two favorite churches, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. In the end, it would be the latter. My choice of program was already clear to me: the
Goldberg Variations.
After all the years, I sensed the moment was right: I felt ready.

Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre is in the center of Paris, but it feels like a country church, with its lingering Romanesque touches, its heavy buttresses, and its small, round chapels. The intimate atmosphere it creates reminds me of Chinese architecture, a contemplative space that perfectly matches Bach’s music.

Sue Fleisher kept her promise and was there for my first concert in France. Even though she was battling terminal cancer, she wanted to be present with me one last time, in the country of her childhood. She arranged for a program to be printed in which she explained the history of the church and the legend of Julian the Poor as told by Flaubert in his
Three Tales.
Flaubert—the bourgeois writer whom I had been forced to denounce during my self-criticism at the Conservatory. I thought back to the second of the
Three Tales
, “The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier,” which is another name for Saint Julian the Poor. I remembered the scene in which Julian slaughters an entire herd of deer, and is cursed by a great stag who intones: “Accurst! accurst! accurst! one day, ferocious heart, thou shalt murder thy father and thy mother!” Julian’s two parents wander in search of him, and finally arrive at his castle, “an old man and an old woman, bent and dust-covered, wearing coarse linen garments, each leaning on a stick.” I thought of my mother and father, whom I had not seen in nearly a decade, and I wished they could have been present.

I spent some time visiting the church in order to connect with its spirit; I felt entirely at ease there. Preparing for the concert seemed superfluous. This time I trusted myself.

The following Wednesday, the weather was a bit brisk as I headed over to Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The church was full. All the seats in the nave and the aisles were occupied, and the audience was starting to sit on the floor, up against the platform that my building’s caretaker had insisted on putting up himself, out of friendship. My friends had gone to great lengths to help; without either a poster or any kind of advertisement, word of mouth had brought everyone together. Yet another miracle. Estelle informed me that the parish priests had prayed that my concert would be successful.

It was after nine thirty when I was told that I could begin the concert. I sat down at the piano and began the aria. Everything was so simple, natural, and easy. After everything I had been through, the time had come. The silence that reigned in the church let me know that I was in communion with the audience. I played the final notes of the closing aria as if transported.

My first real public success. At forty years old.

Ever since that evening, Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre has remained for me a place of solace, contemplation, and protection. Whenever I feel my spirits flag, or before a concert, I go there to pray or meditate: whatever word one uses, the act is universal. You don’t have to be a Christian to experience the special atmosphere of this little church. I prefer it to its larger neighbor, Notre Dame, which is magnificent, but much less intimate.

The concert was my salvation. I began to plan projects, and I was regularly asked to give concerts. However, I still needed to take on French citizenship. Once again, my friends did their utmost, taking turns helping and accompanying me through the process. Nasi often got up with me at five a.m. when I had to wait in line for six hours. Another friend, Blandine Gravereau, helped to prepare my citizenship application with so much care that it became a model file within the Prefecture. Madame Aalam took the matter in hand in her typical Middle Eastern fashion, thanking the government employees in charge of my application with Gucci bags!

And finally, one friend from this small circle helped me to buy the Steinway piano I had always hoped for.

When the piano tuner made his first call to my little studio, he said straight out:

“I’m sorry, but this will be my only visit. It makes me heartsick to see your piano installed here. Look, it’s right next to the radiator; that’s going to damage it.”

He was barely out the door when I switched off the heat. I had a cold most of the winter, but the Steinway stayed in tiptop shape. Another piano tuner, Helmut Klemm, took care of it. This simple, unassuming man, who tunes pianos for renowned musicians, agreed to do the same for me. During our first meeting, when our conversation turned to the
Goldberg Variations
, he took from his briefcase a photocopy of the twenty-first variation: he carried it along with him everywhere he went. With only a few words, a friendship was born.

In 1990, yet another miracle occurred. A small record label offered to put out my first CD, a recording of the
Goldberg Variations.
My friends encouraged me: “Accept the offer,” they said. “Without the publicity that a CD offers, it’s going to be hard to give concerts.” However, I wavered: “Don’t leave any traces on the earth.” I recalled with a smile the story about Laozi that my American seatmate had told me on the flight to Los Angeles. Laozi, who all his life had refused to write anything down, and had done so only under duress, right before he vanished forever. At the risk of overstatement, I enjoyed the parallel: I would record the
Goldberg Variations
and then I, too, could disappear. I would leave behind the thing that was, for me, the most important.