I wasn't sure about the words "capodaster" and "barré". If there are musicians among you, do you use those words?
Hope you like it!
He played his ass off that night.
The room was stuffy; where there was any air left for breathing, it stank of that mixture of smoke, sweat and beer that I had become so fond of. I never would have thought I could possibly become fond of that smell. This was one of the few places around town where smoking was still allowed. He liked that, of course (though he never smoked on stage), and so I stoically endured my hours of passive smoking night after night.
The band launched into a new song. I had never heard them play it here, but it awoke a memory of another room, an ancient, elegant room with walls lined with dark red velvet. A polished wooden table, some golden-framed mirrors, an ornamented fireplace. A conversation chair. I asked him if they were really called like that.
“No,” he said, “I just made that up.”
When Timothy was called into the concert hall to rehearse with the prof, that left the two of us alone in the red room. We didn’t talk. He picked up his guitar and ran his right hand through the brown jungle that was his hair. I must have shown some sort of expression on my face, for he started explaining.
“It helps to get a better grip,” he said. “On the strings. Just a bit of this, you know, grease.”
I gave a nod of understanding, pretending to have never heard of this practice before, realizing too late that I could have turned this into a conversation. I might have said, “Chris does it like this,” or something of that sort.
He played a few bars of Bach, then stopped.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Naw. My hands are just a bit sweaty.” He wiped them on his jeans. Jeans. We had been told not to overdress on those concerts, but he was the only one to actually play in jeans. Without batting an eyelid.
“That band of yours,” I said, “what kind of music do you play?”
“Songs of our own, mostly.”
“And what are they?”
“Well…” He thought about it for a moment, then started to play. Just for a few seconds. “That kinda stuff.” And smiled widely.
Now, sitting in the dirty, smoky downtown bar, I recognized the song. He was using his acoustic guitar, just like he had in the red room. And he was playing his ass off. I could see little drops of sweat flying from underneath the brushwood on his head.
I had not realized that Sarah and Madeleine had been talking about leaving.
“Hey, are you coming, or what?” they shouted at me over the noise of the people and the band.
I considered it for a moment, looking to and fro between the girls and the stage.
“No,” I hollered back at them, “not now.”
So they stooped and hugged me and left me alone at the table. There was a bit of beer left at the bottom of my glass. I drank that and concentrated back on the music.
He was completely gone. I knew he couldn’t see the rickety stage or his band mates or the people in the audience. He had that stoned look on his face. I knew it well. He would look stoned even when playing Bach.
The song had an incredibly difficult guitar part, I could hear that with my violinist’s ears. Not a show-off piece, but a true finger-twister. He must have written it himself. I found myself smiling at a very cunningly used diminished chord in the bridge. (I was very proud to be able to distinguish diminished chords with my violinist’s ears.) The harmony hovered elegantly in the unpredictable, then smoothly glided back into the rhythmic, dissonant verse.
When the song was over, I was surprised at how well people responded to it. After all, they didn’t exactly get to hear stuff like that on the radio every day.
He grabbed a microphone, looking at the audience as if he’d just realized they were there.
“Thank you,” he said. “We’ve got one last song for you, and then let’s call it a day, how about it, guys?”
Supporting shouts from his band mates, and they started playing my favorite, laid-back version of Sunny. He gave a decent, sophisticated solo on the electric guitar, the way I liked it, then let the other members of the band take over, backing their solos in that subtle, unobtrusive way that was so seldom heard these days.
Needless to say, it was a stunning performance to me, that night. Which was not unusual. But something was different. I’d had to fight the tears earlier on, when they were doing Michelle. That was not surprising either; by now I had gotten used to it happening at some point during the shows. But today, the hurt was stronger. Watching him taking his bow, jumping off the stage (which had no stairs), his hair a mess and sticking to his temples, my fingers tightened around my empty glass and I started blinking.
The place was emptying quickly now. It seemed like most of the people had really just stayed for the band to finish. I knew the boys would be around for a time, and I sat on my chair unmoving, clenching my glass. I could leave – I could sneak out quietly without a word. He knew I was here, but he wouldn’t mind me taking French leave. Provided that he hadn’t forgotten I was here, anyway.
I was undecided. If I left, I would have to deal with the might-haves and should-haves. I knew that from experience.
I turned around on my chair. To my surprise, he had not followed the other guys into the small cubbyhole which the owner of the bar called “backstage area”, but was sitting on a chair at a table beside the stage, cigarette in his mouth, the acoustic guitar on his knees, absent-mindedly plucking the strings, occasionally looking up or batting his cigarette on the brim of the ashtray on the table. I knew who it was he was waiting for even before she came into view.
She was wearing tight-fitting blue jeans, high heels, and had her long flaxen hair tied up in a knot at the back of her head. A natural peroxide blonde. She was hot, I could see that. And yet not in a bitchy way, but so genuinely and sincerely that even I could not find a single flaw about her appearance. Moreover, she had read Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, and Joyce. (Joyce, for heaven’s sake!) She knew Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding. She was fun. She was polite. She was intelligent. There was absolutely no reason to hate her.
Yet I did.
The smile on his face as he saw her approaching…I doubled up on my chair.
She stopped a short distance in front of him. No kiss? Well, they had most likely seen each other before the show.
They were too far away for me to hear what she was saying, and every now and then my sight was blocked by people walking by.
But the way his smile wavered and then waned was alarming.
I straightened up, my knuckles whitening as I gripped the back of the chair. He now had his head bowed, his face was in the shadows, and I couldn’t discern his expression. She turned her head away from him so that she was looking in my direction. She had stopped speaking, her face showed no sign of affection. Then one of her girlfriends walked up to her and took her by the hand and led her away. When she passed him, she ruffled his hair – just a friendly gesture, but the way she did it almost made me puke. I felt hot anger rising up in my throat. He seemed to feel something similar, he jerked away from her touch as if her hand had burned him.
Then she was gone, and he got up quickly, leaving his cigarette in the ashtray, passed his fellow musicians who were just emerging from the dressing room without even looking at them, and disappeared backstage.
The band had been in high spirits, laughing and chattering, but now they stopped in their tracks. Timothy had his hand on the knob of the door, which had just slammed shut behind their lead guitarist, but the drummer caught him by the elbow and whispered something into his ear. The four of the guys then went to a table close to the counter, and soon a waitress appeared bringing a tray with glasses of beer.
I took only a minute to make my decision. (This about corresponds to what would have taken normal people five seconds. I have got something close to a neurosis when it comes to decisions.)
I got up and went for the dressing room. I was seething with rage. I knew what had happened. It had been nothing but a friendly gesture. How dare she? And just after he had done such a great show! The look on his face…
If I had been in her place…
I opened the door and stared into the narrow, bare corridor. I took a deep breath. Was I right in doing this? Was I intruding into his private sphere?
The door to the left stood slightly open. I hesitated for a second, then went in and silently closed the door behind me. The walls were concrete and as bare as those of the corridor, except for a mirror opposite the door. There were neon tubes on the ceiling. All in all, it represented the classic ugly dressing room.
He was sitting on one of the white chairs that belonged with the oval table in the mid-dle of the room. He did not look up, although he must have heard me entering the room. The guitar was on his lap again, he was crouched over it as if it was the only support that kept him from crumbling into pieces. It looked so forlorn, I had to swallow hard; and the urge to do something to comfort him became so strong that I put every doubt aside.
Slowly, I approached him.
I couldn’t see his eyes under the dark brown curls, but right then a drop was falling down onto his knee which certainly wasn’t sweat. All the while he kept on quietly strumming along, jumbling different chords together at random, it seemed.
I extended a slightly shaking hand, and brushed back the hair from his forehead. He still did not look up, but stopped playing, and silence engulfed us. His shoulders were shaking faintly.
My mind started wheeling. I did the same motion again, trying to think several things at once – he was tolerating my touch – why – the feel of his skin, hot and damp, moved me deeply – was he annoyed – should I talk?
Then I just took the guitar from him. Took it, and sat down on the table behind him, my feet on an empty chair.
And out of the blue, the song came into my mind.
I took the capodaster from above the saddle where he’d left it and put it onto the first fret. Years ago, I had listened to the CD and the song had caught my ears and I had tried to make out the chords. Now, as I started gently brushing the strings with the flesh of my thumb, I knew them all. I started humming first, then singing.
I can’t stand to see you cry, I sang, I love you too much, that’s why.
I never really sang, except when I was alone, so now I kept it soft and quiet and controlled.
Your love is so precious and rarely found.
The words flowed out of my mouth. The song had been waiting right in the back of my mind all the time.
No longer can I stand back and watch your life fill with pain.
The lyrics did not apply perfectly, but pretty well. Pretty well.
I can’t stand to see you cry, love you too much, that’s why.
It was the right thing to do. I knew it was.
I realize there’re few with your love around.
He had to be listening. He made no sign, but he could only be listening.
Now I’m gonna devote a love for life that’s true, ‘cause that’s how serious I am in wanting you…
Here, finally, my voice failed and died away.
He was still sitting with his back towards me, my left hand was clutching the neck of the guitar in the twisted barré position, C minor still hanging in the air, my breath shallow.
I had had dreams about him, sleeping and waking, dreams so vivid that sometimes I had feared I was losing my mind.
But the expression on his face – as he turned around and looked at me – surpassed them all.
