Everything went smoothly until I came to a “Music Box.” I had slid my bench a bit toward the upper register so I could play more comfortably and was sprinkling out the first notes like raindrops, certain that I was doing no worse than before, when suddenly there were murmurs in the theater and I even thought I heard some laughter. I started to shrink like a worm, feeling clumsy and unsure of myself. It seemed to me I had also seen a long shadow slide across the stage. When I managed to sneak a glance I found there really was a shadow, but now it was motionless. I went on playing and the murmurs continued. Now I could tell, without looking, that the shadow was moving. I wasn’t about to imagine a monster or even a joke at my expense. During a relatively easy passage I saw the shadow stretch out a long paw. I looked and it wasn’t there. But when I looked again I saw a black cat. I was near the end of the piece and the laughter and murmurs grew louder. I realized the cat was grooming his face — and what was I supposed to do? Pick him up and take him out? A ridiculous idea. I got through the piece and when I stood for the applause I felt the cat brush against my trouser leg. I was bowing and smiling. I sat down again and found myself stroking the cat. I had let more time than was prudent go by before starting on my next piece and I still didn’t know what to do with him. I would have looked insane chasing him around the stage in front of the audience. So I decided to let him sit next to me while I played. But now I couldn’t think of any more shapes to mold or ideas to run after — my mind was on the cat. Then I was seized by a terrifying thought: halfway through my next piece there was a spot where I had to claw out the notes with my left hand. The cat was on that side and might well spring up on the keyboard. But when I was coming to the spot I said to myself: “If the cat jumps they’ll blame him for my bad playing.” So I decided to take my chances and really let myself go. The cat did not jump and I wound up with a flourish, and that ended the first part of the concert. I looked all around the stage during the applause, but the cat was gone.
My friends came to see me during intermission. They had not been able to wait until the concert was over to tell me of the praise I had been receiving from the family that sat behind them, the same one that had been so critical of the previous concert. They had spoken to other people, too, and decided to give a small lunch for me afterward.
All ended well, with two encores. And on my way out I heard a girl in the crowd say:
“He’s the music box!”
The Dark Dining Room
For some months my job was to play the piano in a dark dining room. An elderly lady was my only audience. She didn’t care who played for her — and I can’t say my heart was in my playing. But during the pauses between pieces — when neither of us spoke — the silence set my mind to working in unusual ways.
I had landed the job through the Pianists’ Association. The boys there had often helped me find work with pop music bands. Recently they had even sponsored one of my concerts. Then, one afternoon, the director had called me aside:
“Hey, I’ve got a little something for you. It’s not much, but, who knows” — I had already noticed the wicked gleam in his eye — “it could lead to bigger things. A rich widow wants you to play for her twice a week. The sessions are to last an hour each and she’ll pay a buck and a half a session.”
He broke off and slipped out for a moment because they were calling him from the next room.
He had expected I would find it depressing to work for such low wages and had spoken half-jokingly, but also cajolingly, because work was scarce and I would be wise to grab the first opportunity that came along.
I would have loved to be able to tell him how happy the offer made me, but it would have been difficult for me to explain, and for him to understand, why entering unknown homes was so important to me.
When he returned I was on a cloud, all puffed up at the thought that the widow must have heard my concert, or my name, or seen my picture or articles about me in the papers, and I asked him:
“Did she say it had to be me?”
“Not really. She just wanted a pianist.”
“To play good music?”
“I don’t know. You can discuss that with her. Here’s the address: ask for Miss Moppet.”
It was a two-story house with marble balconies. I was impressed by the oversized entrance hall with walls of even finer marble than the balconies, their shades of color indistinct, as if they weren’t really living there but were still in their faraway country of origin.
A pair of beveled windows watched me. It was the double door to the patio, with twin panes extending far down the slight frame: I thought of a lady in a low-cut or low-waisted dress. The curtains on the door were so flimsy it seemed I had surprised it in its underwear. Through the curtains I could see a swaying fern almost as tall as a palm.
A good while after I had rung the bell, an enormous woman emerged from the depths of the patio. Until she had opened the door I could not quite believe she had a cigarette dangling from her lips. Without greeting me, she asked:
“You the one from the Pieanists’ Association?”
When I nodded she let me in, turned on her heel and led the way back across the patio. The image of her talking mouth stuck with me: I kept seeing the lit cigarette twisting between her fleshy lips. We had reached a corner of the patio that was invisible from the entrance hall. Lowering myself into an armchair to which she had directed me with a look through half-shut eyes, I asked:
“Are you Miss Moppet?”
“If Miss Moppet heard you call me that she’d fire us both. But never mind, I was expecting you.”
She opened the door to the dining room. Its glass had a scene with storks etched on it. Her blonde head was at a level where it coincided with the head of a stork that was about to swallow a fish it held in its beak.
I barely had time to look around the wide patio full of plants and lined with colorful glazed tile when the big blonde reappeared with a dessert plate. She sat in a chair next to my armchair, laying the plate on another chair, and said:
“She won’t be long. I’ve taught her to ring the bell whenever she comes in from the street. I told her if she left the door open she’d have thieves.”
For a long moment I couldn’t find my voice, as if I had to search my pockets for it, until I managed to say: