Toby looks down. Here goes — the moment he’s been fearing.
“I heard you play years ago.”
He recovers, memory spinning. “Where?” he asks, hoping it wasn’t that final recital in Toronto at the Women’s Art Association, the show he’s mostly forgotten. Legend goes that he interrupted his playing to rant to the audience, then launched into an improv that went on so long that everyone tiptoed away, leaving the rented hall almost empty.
“That church nestled inside the Eaton Centre,” Lucy reminds him.
Little Trinity, an urban marvel rescued from the developer’s wrecking ball, surrounded by a shopping mall. Toby smiles in relief: that concert was a triumph, broadcast on CBC Radio for its Young Artists series.
“I played Boccherini,” he recalls. “The Grand Sonata by Sor and a set of Tárrega.”
“You were just a boy.”
“I was fifteen.”
The table has gone quiet as other competitors eavesdrop.
“You were amazing,” Lucy says. “In a world of your own.”
“Still am.” That old self can seem remote one moment, then reappear in dazzling Technicolor the next.
She waits a beat before asking, “Did you ever stop playing?”
“Never.” He senses them leaning in, wanting to hear more. Most are too young to realize that a life contains detours, more detours than highways.
“But you didn’t perform?”
“That’s right.”
He feels their attention burrow in and is grateful when Lucy notes his discomfort.
“What number did everyone draw?” She turns to the group, still speaking in a brittle voice. She’s referring to the lottery that determines in what order they will play in the preliminary round, a two-day marathon that will weed out most hopefuls.
“Fifty-one,” Toby volunteers.
“Out of sixty?”
“Afraid so.”
Lucy winces in sympathy.
“The judges will nod off,” Toby says, though he doesn’t actually believe this for a minute. His performance will shake them out of their torpor.
“Budapest guy number one,” Hiro offers in uncertain English. “He finish early, then practise second round. Lucky guy.” He nods several times, confirming this opinion.
“If he goes to a second round,” Armand points out.
A cloud passes over the crew as each member enters the possibility of being cut before the real competition begins. Months of work, travel expenses, cocky assurances to those back home …
“I can’t worry about it,” Toby says, feeling worry creep in, anyway.
“Their ears will be numbed by repetition,” Larry adds.
Lucy turns to him and asks, “And you?”
“I drew six.” Larry smiles smugly, as if this were an achievement, not merely luck. Drawing an early number gives him ample time to work up his program for the semifinals. Everyone must play the same compulsory pieces plus the killer Mark Loesser sonata composed especially for competition. Finally, each artist gets five minutes to strut a favourite from his own repertoire.
Lucy turns to Trace. “And you?”
“I pulled twenty-something.” Her studied indifference is a cover.
No one thinks to ask Lucy what number she drew.
Armand checks his watch. “Important technique workshop in five minutes. Myles Boyer demonstrating cross string ornamentation.”
The institute is topsy-turvy, and before Jasper can even hang up his jacket, Rachel, the intern, hands him a stack of papers striped with her highlighter pen. Someone wheels in a monitor so staff can watch the morning press conference. It’s Dr. Steve Rabinovitch issuing the latest statistical report and — surprise, surprise — their very own Chairman Luke stands on tiptoe at his side, offering a sober face to the camera. The disease may be gearing up into another round as the virus mutates. They aren’t front line here at the institute: Jasper and his staff sweep up after the parade has gone by, caring for survivors after discharge from hospital and the first run of rehab. Despite the fraught word epidemic, there have been fewer than eighty cases confirmed in total.
Jasper can’t contain a snort when the camera lens flies past Luke. Look at his tidy blond hair and moustache and the way he nods whenever the good doctor makes a point. Luke is small but muscular — a ferret, Jasper decides. Soon as the cameras switch off, Luke will pull out his phone to issue directives that counter every decision they’ve made the week before. Sirens wail up and down University Avenue. Someone is making a fortune flogging latex gloves and surgical masks.
“Hey, Jasper,” Rachel says. “He looks just like you.”
Jasper glares. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
She’s not the first to note the resemblance. It was Luke himself in that first board meeting who hung back when the others left and confided to Jasper: “We’re much the same, you and I. Bodes well for our future working relationship.”
Soon after, the freshly elected chair fired off a memo declaring that the institute must “prioritize its goals” and “the executive director’s role must be redefined within the new context.” That would be Jasper, and so he found himself thrown into the contest of his professional life.
Now he looks around at his staff members, who quickly avert their eyes; Chairman Luke has got them thoroughly spooked.
Slurp of cereal. Kettle whistles. Toilet flushes from down the hall. Someone farts. Elaborate humming. Please, not that song from The Titanic … is it possible to hear too well?
Toby, lying on the narrow dorm bed, tosses an arm over, but Jasper isn’t there, and his bare hand slaps against drywall.
Laugher from the other side of the door: his roommates are bustling into the day. He feels a rush of panic, but it quickly subsides as he recalls that this lot plays in the preliminary round today and he’s not up until tomorrow.
That must be Hiro keeping his door open a crack so they can all hear as he charges through the allegro at breakneck pace. An old trick. Kid wants to scare them, make them question their interpretations: will the judges be impressed by such a transparent display of technique?
Sure they will.
But Toby won’t be swayed. A more nuanced approach is also effective. There is no finish line, no stopwatch.
Except there is.
At twenty minutes they cut you off, a guillotine chop midway through your soul-baring adagio. Not for the first time, Toby thinks — why the hell am I doing this? Hiro lets out a cowboy whoop when he reaches the end of the piece and gives
