Veda played a few more chords, and he carefully played them after her. Then he nodded. “Yes, it could have been written that way. I really think Mr. Rachmaninoff’s way is better — I find a slight touch of banality in yours, don’t you?”
“What’s banality, sir?”
“I mean it sounds corny. Cheap. It’s got that old Poet and Peasant smell to it. Play it an octave higher and put a couple of trills in it, it would be Listen to the Mocking Bird almost before you knew it.”
Veda played it an octave higher, twiddled a trill, did a bar of Listen to the Mocking Bird, and got very red. “Yes sir, I guess you’re right.”
“But — it makes musical sense.”
This seemed so incredible to him that he sat in silence for some little time before he went on: “I got plenty of pupils with talent in their fingers, very few with anything in their heads. Your fingers, Veda, I’m not so sure about. There’s something about the way you do it that isn’t exactly — but never mind about that. We’ll see what can be done. But your head — that’s different. Your sight-reading is remarkable, the sure sign of a musician. And that trick I played on you, making you improvise an accompaniment to the little gavotte — of course, you didn’t really do it well, but the amazing thing was that you could do it at all. I don’t know what made me think you could, unless it was that idiotic monkey-shine you pulled in the Rachmaninoff. So—”
He turned now to Mildred. “I want her over here twice a week. I’m giving her one lesson in piano — my rate is ten dollars an hour, the lesson is a half hour, so it’ll cost you five dollars. I’m giving her another lesson in the theory of music, and that lesson will be free. I can’t be sure what will come of it, and it isn’t fair to make you pay for my experiments. But, she’ll learn something, and at the very least get some of the conceit knocked out of her.”
So saying, he took a good healthy wallop at Veda’s ribs. Then he added: “I suppose nothing will come of it, if we’re really honest about it. Many are called, in this business, but few are chosen, and hardly any find out how good you have to be before you’re any good at all. But — we’ll see... God, Veda, but your playing stinks. I ought to charge a hundred dollars an hour, just to listen to you.”
Veda started to cry, as Mildred stared in astonishment. Not three times in her life had she seen this cold child cry, and yet there she was, with two streams squirting out of her eyes and cascading down on the maroon sweater, where they made glistening silver drops. Mr. Hannen airily waved his hand. “Let her bawl. It’s nothing to what she’ll be doing before I get through with her.”
So Veda bawled, and she was still bawling when they got in the car and started home. Mildred kept patting her hand, and gave up all thought of a little light twitting on the subject of “Sir.” Then, in explosive jerks, Veda started to talk. “Oh Mother — I was so afraid — he wouldn’t take me. And then — he wanted me. He said I had something — in my head. Mother — in my head!”
Then Mildred knew that an awakening had taken place in Veda, that it wasn’t in the least phony, and that what had awakened was precisely what she herself had mutely believed in all these years. It was as though the Star of Bethlehem had suddenly appeared in front of her.
So Monty was vindicated, but when Mildred snuggled up to him one night in the den, and wanted to talk about it, the result left a great deal to be desired. He lit a cigarette and rehearsed his reasons for thinking Veda “had it”; they were excellent reasons, all in praise of Veda, but somehow they didn’t hit the spot. When she tried to break through his habit of treating everything with offhand impersonality, saying wasn’t it wonderful, and how did he ever think up something like that, he seemed uncomfortable at her kittenishness, and rather curtly brushed her off. To hell with it, he said. He had done nothing that anybody couldn’t have done that knew the child, so why give him any credit? Then, as though bored with the whole subject, he began stripping off her stockings.
But there was a great hunger in Mildred’s heart: she had to share this miracle with somebody, and when she had stood it as long as she could she sent for Bert. He came the next afternoon, to the restaurant, when the place was deserted and she had him to herself. She had Arline serve lunch and told him about it. He had already heard a little, from Mom, who had got a brief version from Veda, but now he got it all, in complete detail, Mildred told about the studio, the Rachmaninoff prelude, the sight-reading, the accompaniment to the violin selection. He listened gravely, except for the laugh he let out over the “Sir” episode. When Mildred had finished he thought a long time. Then, solemnly, he announced: “She’s some kid. She’s some kid.”
Mildred sighed happily. This was the kind of talk she wanted, at last. He went on, then, flatteringly reminding her that she had always said Veda was “artistic,” gallantly conceding that he himself had had his doubts. Not that he didn’t appreciate Veda, he added hastily, hell no. It was only that he didn’t know of any music on Mildred’s side or his, and he always understood this kind of thing ran in families. Well, it just went to show how any of us can be wrong, and goddam it, he was glad it had turned out this way. Goddam it he was. Then, having polished off the past, he looked at the future. The fingers, he assured Mildred, were nothing to worry about. Because suppose she didn’t become a great pianist? From all he had heard, that market was shot anyhow. But if it was like this guy said, and she had talent in her head, and began to write music, that was where the real dough was, and it didn’t make a bit of difference whether you could play the piano or not. Because, he said dramatically, look at Irving Berlin. He had it straight that the guy couldn’t play a note, but with a million bucks in the bank and more coming in every day, he should worry whether he could tickle the keys or not. Oh no, Mildred needn’t worry about Veda now. The way it looked to him, the kid was all set, and before very long she’d be pulling off something big.
Having Veda turn into Irving Berlin, with or without a million bucks in the bank, wasn’t exactly what Mildred had in mind for her. In her imagination she could see Veda already, wearing a pale green dress to set off her coppery hair, seated at a big piano before a thousand people, grandly crossing her right hand over her left, haughtily bowing to thunderous applause — but no matter. The spirit was what counted. Bert spun her dreams for her, while she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and Arline poured him more coffee, from a percolator, the way he liked it. It was the middle of the afternoon before Mildred returned to earth, and said suddenly: “Bert, can I ask a favor?”
“Anything, Mildred.”
“It’s not why I asked you here. I just wanted to tell you about it. I knew you’d want to hear.”
“I know why you asked me. Now what is it?”
“I want that piano, at Mom’s.”
“Nothing to it. They’ll be only too glad—”
“No, wait a minute. I don’t want it as a gift, nothing like that at all. I just want to borrow it until I can get Veda a piano that—”
“It’s all right. They’ll—”
“No, but wait a minute. I’m going to get her a piano. But the kind of piano that she ought to have, I mean a real grand, costs eleven hundred dollars. And they’ll give me terms, but I just don’t dare take on any more debt. What I’m going to do, I’m going to open a special account, down at the bank, and keep putting in, and I know by next Christmas, I mean a year from now, I can manage it. But just now—”