Natural Talent

I don’t like spending the summers with my granddad. My parents insist we get to know each other and that there’s a lot to learn from him, but neither he nor I seem to enjoy our three months of forced interaction.

My granddad spends half the year in his modest lakeside cottage, and my visits happens to coincide with that half of the year. It’s beautiful up there, quiet nature, fresh air, starry skies. I wouldn’t mind getting away from the clamorous city and perplexing people if it wasn’t for my granddad and his stringent rules, endless chores, and manual labor.

He believes hard work is the key to success and expects everything in his life to be as organized and his mind. The cottage is spotless, built with his own two hands and maintained impeccably by the same. I don’t like it, it’s cold, impersonal, and smells like hand-rolled cigarettes, just like my granddad. The only hint of vitality is the old upright piano against the wall, which is never touched lest it ignite my granddad’s wrath. I learned that the hard way.

He isn’t abusive, just very strict and utterly dismissive of the arts, another belief of his that further drives a wedge between us. I sometimes wonder if my visits would be more tolerable if there was a grandma, but she ran off a long time ago, leaving my infant dad behind. There are no photos of her and my granddad never talks about her, though, so she could have been as strict as her husband.

The only room I like is my dad’s teenage bedroom, which I occupy during my stays. It was added to the cottage later, a teaching moment between my granddad and his young teenage son. It’s relatively newer, the wood is darker, warmer. After dinner, I more often than not excuse myself to the room to escape awkward evenings sitting on the porch with my granddad, silently watching dusk rob the world of color while he casually rolls and smokes his cigarettes.

This is where I am today, sitting on the bed, sketching, and trying to pick up classical music stations on my little radio as I unwind after a grueling day. As I reach over to grab my pencil sharpener, my radio slips off the bed and crashes onto the ground, spilling its batteries and unplugging my earphones’ jack. I sigh and slide to the floor, earphones still on, and inspect the radio for damage before I crawl after the batteries.

My search is interrupted as I hear a soft melody, lively but distant. I pull out the earphones and stand up, wondering if my granddad had a sudden break in character. The melody is gone. I put the earphones back on, and it’s still silent. I assume I was imagining things and resume collecting my batteries from under the bed.

I hear the soft melody again, and this time I’m certain it’s coming from the earphones. My unplugged earphones. I pick up the jack trailing on the wooden floor, and the melody disappears. I press the jack back against the wooden floor, and the melody returns. My curiosity piqued, I press the jack against every wooden panel in the room. Only the floorboards are tuneful, playing the same vivacious melody, some louder, some softer.

I turn my attention to the furniture, but they remain mute. I try the rest of the house, testing anything wooden I come across. They are all silent. My granddad is still on the porch, so I decide to leave the outdoor testing for another day.

I return to my dad’s teenage bedroom and sit on the floor, connecting to the wooden panel with the most clarity. The tune is mellower now, but it’s the same piece. I recognize it, Debussy’s Petite Suite. It’s a piano four hands suite, my teacher had me play it with her two years ago at one of her recitals.

I listen all the way through until it starts over again from the beginning, and I realize I’m only hearing the secondo part. It sounds strange without the primo complement, like a tree without its leaves, beautiful and stark. I can’t make out the instrument. It’s definitely not a piano, it sounds more organic. I smile at the absurdity of a house having more culture than my granddad.

The next day, I test the wood on the porch and around the cottage. They are all soundless. My granddad catches me and reprimands me for skirting my chores as he rips my earphones out. He does return them after dinner, though, and I spend the evening in my dad’s teenage bedroom, listening to the floorboards as they flawlessly render the secondo part of Debussy’s Petite Suite on loop.

My granddad doesn’t believe in days off but, on Sundays, he likes to go fishing at the lake for a few hours. He used to take me along when I was younger, but my desire to sketch instead of fish led him to leave me behind instead. I never minded.

It’s Sunday, and I have the cottage to myself. I run my fingers over the forbidden piano, itching to play it. To play the primo part of Debussy’s Petite Suite. To duet with the refined aura of the cottage. To share my passion. To connect with something beyond my understanding.

I slide on the bench and strike a few keys with hesitant fingers, and the notes release me from my anxiety. I break my granddad’s rule for the second time in my life as I play, energy coursing from my fingers through my body, stimulating emotions, evoking sensations. I close my eyes, nodding, swaying, soaring far away.

My flight ends with a jolting crash as I’m thrown to the ground, my granddad looming over me. I get the belt and am sent home that same evening, a month early. My parents are not pleased at my disrespect, and I’m grounded for the rest of summer. I wouldn’t have minded if they hadn’t prohibited my music as well.

When next summer begins inching closer, I feel a mixture of excitement and dread. I’m eager to further explore the implications of the otherworldly classical rendition, but I’m not looking forward to facing my granddad, despite him having forgiven me for my insolence.

I ask my dad if he had noticed anything unusual about his bedroom as a teenager, something supernatural, unexplainable. He rolls his eyes and tells me to lay off the scary movies. I ask him what it was like building that extension to the cottage. He says it was arduous. My granddad made him do all the work, from cutting the trees to hammering in the last nail.

When my parents drop me off at my granddad’s cottage, I offer him an in-person apology at their prodding. He accepts it, then hands me a long list of chores meant to keep me busy and distracted. By the end of the first week, I’m exhausted as I crawl into bed, barely able to slip in my earphones and tune into the floorboards.

On Sunday, my granddad wants to take me fishing with him. After negotiations, I convince him to leave me on the shore while he takes his boat to the center of the lake. I plug in my earphones and explore the area, looking for tree stumps, remnants of what provided lumber for my dad’s bedroom.

Each one I come across, I press the earphones’ jack to the weathered, corrugated wood, running my fingers over the concentric rings, coaxing a melody. They remain silent. I’ve covered half the lake’s perimeter when my quest leads me to a stump at its edge, the thick, gnarled roots submerged in the murky, algae-tinged waters.

I touch the jack to its rings and the secondo part of Debussy’s Petite Suite streams through my ears with breathtaking definition. I slowly lower myself on the stump, content, as I gaze across the lake’s vastness and let the notes be my wings.

I marvel at how each repetition has its own exquisite uniqueness. The inspired variation in shifts from adagio to allegro inhale life into the melody while the notes explore the spectrum between dancing on the edge of a whisper and erupting, demanding to be heard.

The smell of hand-rolled cigarettes pulls me from my reverie as I turn to see my granddad standing behind me. The shadows are longer, hours have passed. He’s glaring at me, he must have been calling my name, searching for me. His jaw clenches when he sees the earphones in my ears.

Before he talks, I show him what I’m plugged into and he furrows his brows. I pull one of my earphones out, wipe it on my shirt, and offer it to him, willing to share my discovery. His lips become a straight line, his mouth tight, before he tells me it’s time to go.

I stand my ground, defying his order for the third time in my life as I hold out the earphone and look up at him expectantly. His eyebrows rise for a split-second before he emits a heavy sigh, rolls his eyes, and obliges, sitting next to me on the stump and placing the earphone in his ear.

His entire body stiffens the moment the earphone is in place. He snatches the jack from me, pulling it away from the stump. The music evaporates. His mouth turns down and he presses the jack against the wood again. We’re serenaded once more.

He stares at the ground as the carefree melody winds nimbly through our minds. He turns towards the lake, his eyes scanning it with rapid motions. He then turns towards at me, eyes steady now, unblinking. I look back at him, confused, slightly fearful.

He takes the earphone out, slowly stands up, and tells me it’s time to go. It sounds like he has something stuck in this throat. An hour later, the bright lights of police cars reflect off the walls in my dad’s teenage bedroom. Another hour later, they said they found my grandma.

I now know what she looks like, standing next to my granddad in the old black and white photo he placed on the piano. They are both very young, their mouths upturned as they watch me play. My granddad doesn’t mind anymore.

He gave me a soft, black leather folder and told me my grandma would have liked me to have it. It’s full of advanced piano sheet music, her recital programs, and local and national newspaper clippings with glowing reviews.

After a week of studying the intriguing contents of the folder, one program catches my eye. It’s for a man’s recital and, in the midst of five pieces, I see Debussy’s Petite Suite, where my grandma is listed as the secondo player and the man, the primo.

I ask my granddad why she would agree to play secondo on such a simple piece in someone else’s recital. He tells me music was her passion, her life, and she loved to share it. She did it as a favor for the man, who was their good friend.

She only did two more solo recitals after that before she disappeared. My granddad says he came home from work one night only to find a crying baby, empty closets, and a letter explaining how family was holding her back and that she’d gone to seek international fame.

My granddad tells me the man gained local recognition after my grandma’s support, and her absence, opened up many opportunities for him. He also tells me that the man has now been arrested for his involvement in my grandma’s drowning.

My granddad’s forehead wrinkles and a tear travels down his cheek, followed by another one, as he expresses his regret at having accepted the letter and succumbing to the bitterness it evoked in him. He then sighs, saying he now believes my grandma has found peace.

The floorboards in my dad’s teenage bedroom continue to resonate with melody, as does the tree stump near the lake, now my granddad’s habitual relaxing spot. Welcoming music back into his home has softened the lines on his face, but his chore delegations remain the same. I don’t mind, now that I’m free to express and share my passion after a long day.

Summer is over and, before my parents are to take me home, my granddad hands me a small block of wood, sanded smooth with a little hole drilled in the side, gifting me the means to enjoy my grandma’s expressive rendition of Debussy’s Petite Suite wherever I go.

Submitted August 07, 2018 at 08:47PM by starkframes https://ift.tt/2vqoPLV