Returning to the empty flat, Toby decides he’ll work on a bravura Paganini sonata for tomorrow’s performance: why not charge fearlessly into Conti’s home territory — la bella Italia? No one accuses Paganini of being a great composer, but he’s a riot to play. Stepping off the streetcar and veering into the familiar lane, Toby sees that the clinic is dark except for a single light that blinks to life as he passes. One of the iron street lamps is dead, its bulb shattered by a rock. An angry patient has been turned away: no OxyContin for your headache, Jack.
Jasper’s switched on the porch light so that Toby might easily fit key into lock: Jasper the Anticipator.
Play the same passage many times, changing tiny elements. Accent the second beat, then the first, diminuendo just before pickup to the new phrase. Dampen the bass note. Do it all backward.
Eat me, the mushroom demands, placid little fungus.
But I’m only practising, Toby insists, keeping an eye on the clock and the hour of Jasper’s return — hardly entering some cyclone that will require rescue.
To memorize is not a mysterious process: stuff a sock in the sound hole so the strings make dull clinks. Don’t depend on notation, the visualized map of marks on a page. He pencils in fingerings so the score becomes even more of a hatch work. He played this same piece in master class a dozen years ago, dazzling the guest artist who’d flown up from Savannah. Gabrielle Someone, a young woman with huge hands. The episode is shaky in his mind: didn’t they snort a line in her hotel room afterward, view of the CN Tower lit up at night?
Upstairs, Polly the bull terrier thwacks her tail against a wall. She’s apt to take a bite out of somebody one day and slurp gratitude the next. Jasper says the girls need to bear in mind that Polly is animal, not human, and must set limits, advice they happily ignore.
Toby left the window open a crack so he’ll have warning when Jasper comes waltzing up the path, giddy with post-meeting wine.
Grab an apple and a Sprite for fortification. The fridge stinks from something hidden under a layer of foil. Toby’s taste buds function; the nose hasn’t gone AWOL.
Right-hand fingers sink into the strings: place, pressure, release.
Jasper and his crew are drinking wine and eating tapas at the usual place near the institute. The joint is otherwise empty, so the solo waitress hovers, swabbing down menus with Vim and a damp cloth. Hygiene is very big these days. She clears her throat, then stops, mortified, as Jasper’s administrative assistant drops a napkin over her salad, anticipating particulate matter. An early indicator of the virus is a neck flush. Victims display it when they’re feeling fine, then note, appalled, as it spreads from pulse point to pulse point: wrists, temples, the crease behind the knees. Easy to dismiss: who wants to believe that a blush is prelude to neurological chaos? Jasper gets patients after they’ve been sprung from hospital and the first stint of rehab, which means they are the lucky survivors. Time to get their brains up and running, add memory where it has been scoured clean.
Toby sets his instrument down when he hears the four quick steps up the stairs to the front door. He snaps off the light and dashes into the bathroom. The bed is carefully mussed, as if he’d just left it to take a whiz. He’s punched a dent in the pillow, head size.
Five
Fashion masks are the latest things. Girls glue plastic butterflies and dollar store insects onto theirs; boys add superhero stickers. Toby left his at home, wrapped over the gooseneck lamp: forget breathing through gauze. The epidemic has spiked: orange alert due to a rogue infector who jaunted about asymptomatic but is now known to be sixteen years old, female. She swept through the transit system coating handrails with viral sweat and is now quarantined at East General, surrounded by medics decked out in chemical suit regalia, busy draining fluid off her brain. It’s a horror, Jasper says, but we must keep things in perspective. This is nothing compared to the polio outbreaks of the 1950s.
Toby shows up at the Conservatory for his master class, striding past a warning sign posted on the front door (do not enter if you suffer from any of the following symptoms …), marches down the corridor feeling a prickly dryness in his eyes. It’s a massive Victorian building, solid but creaky with age. A second poster curled at the edges diagrams the progress of fundraising for the reno — stuck, it seems, at two and a half million. An open door reveals a class of students working at electronic keyboards with headphones clamped to their ears. Everyone seems better dressed than they used to be in the old days.
Toby used to practically live in this place and knew all the office staff by name. He speeds past the glass doors, not in a mood to be recognized. Retaining focus before a performance is crucial; what used to come so naturally now takes a studied effort.
Master class runs in room 108, and he spots Tess hovering at its entrance, directing traffic and checking names off the list. Her glasses are set low over her nose, and she waves at Toby. “You’re up third,” she tells him. “Make it snappy. We’re ready to roll.”
She’s always been bossy, and he slips by her, ignoring the pump of disinfectant lotion sitting on a table. Last thing he needs is to slime up his hands and watch them pucker dry; playing requires a degree of moisture. He sits to one side of the room, guitar case tucked between his knees. Did Tess look at him with just a hint of concern? For all she knows, Toby might be out on a day pass, about to start speaking in tongues or to noodle through some incoherent improv.
He has done these things in public, or so he has been told.
Musicians make their way into the studio, nodding at each other in muted recognition. Several cast a glance at Toby, wondering who he might be.
Toby stares back with his blank game face. He spoke not a word to Jasper about this performance; he’s headed for a makeup class with Guitar Choir, story goes. A small lie to prevent a familiar anxious look from crowding his lover’s face.
He reaches to touch the crease at the side of his nose, dabbing enough sweat to moisten his fingertips. Nerves turn skin to parchment. This jittery anticipation is so familiar, something he’s missed and even craved without realizing it. He feels fully alive on this hard chair, coiled energy, all he can do not to bob his knees up and down.
A couple of dozen folding chairs contain participants and observers. Up front is a music stand plus a footstool and two more chairs — one for Conti, the other for the performer. Most, if not all the other musicians, will be senior students from the Glenn Gould Professional School or the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. Behind, a Steinway baby grand perches like a raven, wings aloft. Overhead ventilation ducts create a distracting racket, but if you switch them off, airs turns to gravy.
Conti isn’t immediately recognizable as he strides in, guitar case plastered with airline stickers. He seems smaller than last night and rounder, his features less distinctive. Conti hasn’t bothered to shave, which gives him a sleepy look. He removes his leather jacket and tosses it onto the piano lid, zipper skidding across its buffed surface. Tess grimaces, knowing there will be complaints, for the guitar isn’t seen as a serious instrument by certain members of the Conservatory faculty — too troubadour or folksy, hint of the coffee house or plantation. Conti makes a joke that no one understands, though they titter nervously, two dozen young men and a couple of women. Tess strolls over to confer about the program, and after a moment Conti glances up. His eyes find Toby’s and he nods.
Has he been warned, and if so — how? Others turn to look: Toby must be somebody, but who?
Focus. Don’t let them unsettle you.
Setup for a master class is simple: the student’s name is called and he performs a piece of his choosing. This is followed by a half-hour public class where the guest artist offers critique and suggestions, and, with luck, praise. Toby’s performed in many such classes. He understands that it is possible to temporarily fool the body, and that to appear outwardly calm is to invoke inner calm. He sits very still