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Fiction, © Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
This was going to be the most important day of my life. And maybe it is. I have prepared all my life for this day. I am a concert pianist. I have practiced for hours, every day, since I was a small child. The piano was easy for me. But nonetheless, I worked. I was about to say that I worked my fingers to the bone. That is an amusing exaggeration. But sometimes it seemed that that was no exaggeration. My entire life pointed towards today. For today is the first day of the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, here in Moscow.
Although I was perhaps the best pianist in the Competition, I was not the favorite, for I was not Russian. This was a handicap that I was determined to overcome. If you are not Russian, you must be obviously superior to the others, in order to win. It is hard to be objective about such a thing, but I felt that I had a very strong chance to win. One can but humbly try.
This evening I performed Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, B-flat, Opus 106, very long, very difficult. One must show off at these competitions. And this piece is how I show off. I know the Hammerklavier better than I know the streets of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live. I know it better than the back of my hand. I know it as well as I know the B-flat major scale. I was the fourth competitor to perform in the evening. I strode onto the stage, nervous but little concerned. There was applause from the audience, loud but restrained. I smiled to myself; perhaps I could win over a few loyal fans tonight. I sat at the piano, limbered up my fingers from unnecessary habit, and began. It went very well. I did not notice the audience. There were no coughs. No one dropped a pair of scissors, or whatever it is that audiences drop.
There was only Beethoven. Not a very delicate piece of music. You have to pound on the piano when you play the Hammerklavier. Beethoven filled the air. Beethoven insinuated itself into the cracks in the walls. Beethoven was everything in the world, everything that ever was. There was nothing else, ever. The rest of the universe had become a forgotten hallucination.
And then I forgot what I was doing. I stumbled. I didn't know what to do. The audience was in shock. There was silence. My hands hovered over the keyboard. My hands did not know what to do. I don't remember standing up. I don't remember walking from the stage. I don't remember exiting the building. I know that it is raining. I know that I am walking on a sidewalk in Moscow. I see the headlights of cars as they drive by in the rain. I am just walking.
Author's note: This story is a rewriting (since I cannot find the original) of a story that I wrote for an English class at Montana State University. English was my worst subject. I had gotten F's since grade school. We had an assignment to write a short story. After midnight, a few hours before the assignment was due, I hurriedly wrote the above story, proof read it once, and went to bed. I received an A, and the instructor asked me if I had cheated by copying the story out of a magazine. I replied, "No." I felt that I had arrived in heaven, for I never dreamed that I might have a talent for writing.