It’s the rhythm of the island
And like sugarcane so sweet,
If you want to do the conga
You’ve got to listen to the beat.
“Thank you, you saved me.” Levadski, still standing on the table, shakes the piano player’s hand. “
You are welcome,” he smiles, and a white curl falls out of his mouth.
The dog! shoots through Levadski’s mind. In order to gain a few moments, Levadski asks the piano player for the time. His mouth twists itself into a smile again. Levadski desperately tries to think what it is that he actually wants to gain time for.
“I — don’t — wear — a — watch,” the piano player says. With every word another curl of hair flutters out of his mouth. Weakkneed, Levadski returns to the bar. His diversion tactic is still a mystery to him.
“Well danced, Professor,” Mr. Witzturn, who is now back, says in praise. His head is a dog’s head, his body is Levadski’s drinking stick, inside which a dark liquid is rising and falling.
“Stop the thief!” Levadski hears himself call, while his dentures take on a life of their own and leap from his mouth. With a smacking sound they bite through Mr. Witzturn’s waist, which is made of glass.
“Mr. Levadski, hello! Your bread is getting warm.”
“Sorry, I drifted off for a moment.”
“Microsleep can be dangerous for drivers and people sitting at the bar.” Mr. Witzturn scrutinizes Levadski with a tired smile. “You didn’t miss much. We are still sitting here without electricity, isn’t that so, maestro?”
“The guests are slowly getting nervous,” the bartender observes, filling several glasses with vodka. “Everybody would like to be in their rooms, but nobody dares to go to the upper floors in the dark.”
“The steps can be fatal.” Mr. Witzturn’s forefinger ascends an imaginary spiral staircase. “One step too many or too few, and you are in paradise. Not a certainty of course,” he adds after taking a generous swig from his glass.
“Tell me about your piano teacher instead!” Levadski bids him.
“You know …” Mr. Witzturn says, closing his eyes. “Oh, it’s such a long time ago.” Mr. Witzturn forces open his eyes again and turns toward Levadski’s barstool. His gaze staggers over Levadski’s face, like after a thousand-year sleep. “This evening during the concert I remembered a dead man, and suddenly … oh, everything is unspeakable!” Mr. Witzturn repeats.
“And suddenly?”
“And suddenly for the first time in my life I am sure that I have lived.”
“Oh, Mr. Witzturn,” Levadski pulls a crumpled handkerchief from his trousers. A family of dust bunnies has used the darkness of his trouser pocket in order to multiply shamelessly. Their wool bodies are soft.
“Oh, Mr. Witzturn, don’t say a thing like that, you are alive. Still alive.”
“Just a memory,” Mr. Witzturn shakes his head, “a single memory, resurrected as if by magic, is sufficient for answering all questions, for airing all secrets that have tormented you, you understand?”
Levadski places a hand on the cool glass of Mr. Witzturn’s wristwatch.
“A single memory appears to be sufficient in order to close the circle of life,” Mr. Witzturn says, carefully with-drawing his hand. He pulls a checked handkerchief with a large ink spot from his suit trousers. Levadski wrestles with himself for a few seconds before deciding it is best not to point out the ink spot to Mr. Witzturn, so as not to disconcert him.
“This evening my life has come full circle,” Mr. Witzturn says, wiping a tear of pity from his left and then his right eye. “I have, if you like, been liberated.”
“Let’s drink to it!” says Levadski, vigorously blowing his nose, in which nothing worth mentioning is to be found.
“Lucky you!” Mr. Witzturn smiles. With his inky eyes he looks as if he had been hit with a potato masher. “I wish I could blow my nose like you.” Mr. Witzturn taps his plastic nose three times.
“Touch wood,” Levadski jokes.
“Well,” Mr. Witzturn continues, “my piano player was an eccentric old man. If he were sitting here at the bar, here between the two of us,” Mr. Witzturn brushes his hand over the impressive hunchback of the absent man, “if he were here, he could easily be taken for our son. I mean for one of our sons,” Mr. Witzturn corrects himself.
“You mean the son of one of us,” Levadski gently corrects him.
“For our mutual son,” Mr. Witzturn stresses. “While we are on the subject of it, what role do biological parents play?”
“By all means.” Levadski presses a hand to his chest, while making a dismissive gesture with the other.
“At some point,” Mr. Witzturn whispers, “you are so free, so high, so …” — his eyes of India ink scan the ceiling — “so, how should I put it, hhmm. Where was I?”
“Your piano teacher,” Levadski comes to the rescue.
“Yes, my piano teacher sometimes had the habit of naming the piece being played after hearing only a few bars. How often we went to concerts together. I was a flourishing meadow of pimples, my master an elegant devil. Nothing was too difficult for him. Not even the most obscure compositions. He knew them all. As if he had written them himself.” Mr. Witzturn gives a snort and mops his brow with the inkstained handkerchief. “His hearing was as remarkable as his tonal memory and his knowledge of compositions. He could isolate every single instrument from even the most boisterous orchestral clamor. While I contentedly devoted myself to the music, he would say, That’s all very well, but the clarinet played G sharp instead of F.”
“Unbelievable.” Levadski is amazed and slides back and forth on his barstool several times.
“The best thing,” Mr. Witzturn slaps his hand on the bar, “ha-ha-ha! The best thing … ho-ho-ho,” Mr. Witzturn is rocking on his seat, “was his spyglass. It was a heavy Victorian telescope that my piano teacher was in the habit of taking to concerts. Perhaps my imagination is deceiving me now, but I could swear it was a telescope.”
“How eccentric!” It warms the cockles of Levadski’s heart. “A telescope!” “
Or an ear trumpet, hm, one of the two.” Mr. Witzturn’s eyebrows shoot up. “Of course it was a telescope!
We mostly sat right at the front, in the wrong seats. This was of no consequence to my piano teacher. If someone arrived who had the right tickets he would be sent away with the words, ‘Look for another seat, you don’t know anything about music anyway.’”
“Delightful!” Levadski taps his thighs. To be on the safe side I am getting off the barstool, just in case he gets more amusing, he thinks, placing his feet on the ground.
“And then,” Mr. Witzturn sprays Levadski’s eye with spittle, “from one of the front rows, my piano teacher would stare through his very conspicuous instrument at the virtuoso’s fingers, embarrassing the poor man completely. After being dealt the devastating blow of ‘Wrong!’ he would then turn as white as a sheet. ‘Wrong’ and ‘Bad,’ he would mostly add, and that was that.”
“What do you mean, that was that?” Levadski asks, doubled over with laughter.
“Well,” Mr. Witzturn smirks, “he made them all uneasy that way. Anybody who remained practiced on the quiet, until they really could play. Play elegantly, as if they were drinking a glass of water. The more difficult and unplayable a piece in the music was, the faster and more easily a survivor like that would play it.”
“What happened to the others?”
“The others were unable to cope with the unreasonable demands of my piano teacher, I assume. No loss, God forgive me. Anyone who like a shrinking violet sways in the wind of great art ought to jump in the lake!”