I want to see the music ripple out of you. That’s when we know that you truly know the piece. When we have stripped it to its core, asked what it is, why it is, what it needs to tell us, and then step inside.’
Alba looked at Signora Elias and allowed herself to smile in spite of a sinking in her stomach. When would these exercises become instinctive?
‘It’s about learning to control every minute movement of your body to produce the precise tone the piece requires,’ Signora Elias began, ‘and then, in performance, being able to shift that focus on control alone, and simply allow your technique to be in place, so your musicality can soar. We want to hear the music, not the practice. Music is about control and the loss of it at the same time; a beautiful contradiction. At this moment, from your flushed cheeks I see you are still grappling with the sensations of losing control in the first instance.’
The past seven years Signora Elias had sat beside her each and every morning leading her down these waterways of her music. Now, at eighteen, as Alba approached her final year at school, their lesson together was a cool balm before class. After it, Signora Elias would permit her to practise unguided.
‘I want to apologize,’ Alba replied, her voice dry.
‘I know. Hold onto this thought – my corrections are leading you towards your music, Alba, they are never criticism alone, however it might feel.’
Signora Elias invited the silence for a moment, as if it were an unexpected yet welcome guest. Alba lost herself in it. Her breath dropped down into her abdomen, warm, deep. She felt her lower back unlock, each vertebra separating a little, rising up out of the top of her head. Her fingers lifted back onto the keys. As she exhaled, they became heavy, assured, curious. The first few measures tumbled out effortless, precise. Alba stopped, then began again, each time her breath deepening a little more, each time her feet finding the reassurance of the wooden parquet rise up to meet them. As the cascade of notes became equal, controlled, her hands began to relax, speeding up without tension. Her fingers sank into the ivories, weighted but free. The glorious symmetry of the sounds and patterns washed over her, shining light. She was no longer in Ozieri. She was far beyond the plains, above her turquoise coast. She was deep in the forests of Gennargentu, beneath a gushing waterfall, icy cold electrifying her body. She was everywhere but here. And the feeling lit her up from her feet and lifted up out of her head. She was inside her body and far beyond it at the same time.
The final run descended and landed, in perfect alignment, both hands announcing the last chord. The vibrations lifted out of the piano thinning to a faint blue glow somewhere in the air above the strings.
And then it was over.
She returned to a stark awareness of the room, once more a piano student surrounded by the landscape paintings on the wall around her, the promise of the spring morning outside sketching hope. She looked over at Signora Elias. Her eyes appeared wet, or perhaps it was the morning light, which caught a spiral dance of dust motes in the space between them.
‘You and I both know our lessons will reach their end after the summer. Your father has made it quite clear that you will be working at the officina. That will leave little or no time for you to be coming here.’
Alba nodded. The thought of the minutes ticking away towards a time when the piano wouldn’t be part of her daily life made Alba feel like she was suffocating.
‘It’s time at this crucial point in your training that you are allowed to perform. At the very least once. Every performance I gave taught me something I needed to learn, and stayed with me forever. I want to give you that.’
Alba felt her chest crease into a tight knot.
‘Don’t look so terrified, Alba. Perhaps in preparation you might play for my friend first? She is staying with me at the moment and her favourite thing is to listen to piano music. Would that be all right? After next lesson would be the perfect time.’
Alba nodded, though the idea sent a sliver of terror scorching through her.
Signora Elias looked into her. ‘When you practise in the way you have today, Alba, anything is truly possible. When you can acknowledge that fire and channel it with humility and passion, this instrument, and you, will sing.’
The next morning Signora Elias instructed Alba to use their lesson time to warm up and run through her repertoire. ‘Take all the time this morning to repeat whatever you need. What have I told you?’
‘A piece soars only when it’s shared.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s then that we find out what we really feel about it, how much careful time we’ve given it. Whether our practise has been well directed.’
‘Which, of course, it has. You have the most wonderful teacher, I hear.’
They laughed at that.
‘We’ll be down in a little while so you aren’t observed during practice. I have a gentleman coming to work on my car shortly, but he shouldn’t make too much noise; I’ll look out for him so he doesn’t ring the bell.’
‘Grazie, Signora Maestra.’
Signora Elias closed the door behind her as she left. The doorbell clanged soon after. ‘I spoke too soon! I’ll see to it, you carry on.’
She thought about the anticipation brewing in her house for Marcellino’s upcoming wedding. The way her mother insisted they practise her make-up. The way every breath of life seemed to be directed towards their first-born, the boy who could do no wrong, now set to marry the most beautiful young woman in town. The town was electric with the imminent nuptials. Alba was tired of the incessant talk of it after the first day back in the freezing fog of January, when all of a sudden, both families had agreed the marriage should go ahead sooner rather than later. Her mother clawed at her attention now, the picture of her demanding she return at a good hour today to help set up the luncheon with the closer family members as they sampled all the food the caterer was planning on providing. Giovanna, Grazietta and several other women would already be at their vignia now, setting up a long table in the one-room cottage, the wood heaving.
With a breath, Alba wiped her thoughts clear. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the surrounding vines, the gnarled rows that grew to eclipse the terror of what first happened there. The grapes had exorcised those memories and now the vignia would be the centre of more celebration for the boy who was kidnapped in place of his sister. She pictured the cottage behind her as she walked through the vines, down the hills towards the plains, across them, past the Nuragic towers, onto Lake Coghinas, its glassy surface urging her to step in. She imagined turning around in the water with the jagged mountains surrounding her, breathing in the juniper and toasted thyme air.
Her breath fell deep, down into the watery bed of her thoughts. Her hands lifted. Her fingers stretched along the piano keys. Her left hand began a wave rolling deep currents of passion and longing whilst her right soared above. She was a bird swooping towards the lake from above, ripples shooting out from the flick of her tail upon the crystal liquid. The music tugged her deeper into thoughtlessness. She was diving into her sea, unfathomable, powerful, free. Her skin flushed, her arms hot and fast as they stretched up and down the keys. Now she was the lover yearning to be understood, to be forgiven, to be heard, to be loved with every fibre, to be touched, tasted, savoured, honoured.
The door creaked. Her fingers lifted.
A shattering silence: Mario’s face was in
