Chapter IV

I cried myself to sleep that night, but after that good cry, I felt in tip-top condition for my piano lesson the next morning. Traces and remains of the jealousy and hurt still tore me apart, yet I was more cheerful compared to the bitterness I harboured the previous day.

I gobbled down two slices of bread with raspberry jam for breakfast. Settling down in front of my upright classical piano, I glanced sharply at the clock: Only one more hour. That’s all I had to practice my piano for only the third time in the week.

Uh oh…

I thumbed through my scales, which was mostly perfect except for a mistake or two occasionally. I couldn’t really care less. Arpeggios, Chromatic Scales, Major in thirds… what else?

Yup, scales in contrary motion. Almost forgot that.

I finished all my scales in a record time of seven minutes. Awesome, man! Next!
I groped for the next book: Jazz. That was my favourite book. I just simply loved the rhythm, the feel, the motion and the beat of jazz. And I adored nothing more than the finger-twisting trills and the odd rhythm of jazz that made counting so difficult.

Yet, nothing gave me greater pleasure than mastering a jazzy piece and observing my piano teacher’s satisfied beam.

I nodded to the swing of the jazzy piece I was playing, ‘Show Girl’.

I quickly reached for the next book, and also the one I dreaded to see each week, Every time, I tried to delay the time before my piano teacher flipped the book open. It was Chopin’s

Waltzes.

I grimaced and gritted my teeth. Setting the metronome to eighty crotchets per minute, I whizzed through the entire twelve-paged recital piece. Obviously ignoring the ‘Animato’ on top of the page, I played the waltz as if a funeral were taking place. Deathly and monotonous.
I proceeded to conjure up a silly excuse for not mastering the waltz, before continuing with the final book.

It wasn’t really a book. Just a file filled with scores from the world-class French pianist Richard Clayderman.

I ran through some old favourites like Mariage d’Amour, Nostalgy, Souvenirs d’ Enfance, and Les Fleurs Sauvages.

Next, came the piece I was currently struggling to master: A Comme Amour. I mauled the piece till it was nearly unrecognisable.

Five more minutes. He would arrive anytime now.

I leafed through my theory hurriedly, checking for consecutive fifths or eighths, overlapping, seventh notes…

So absorbed was I that I nearly jumped out of my chair when I heard the familiar knock. I grinned broadly from ear to ear.

“Whoa! What’s that grin for, Ariel? I hope you haven’t hidden rubber cockroaches under my chair!” my piano teacher, a talented young man in his mid-twenties, teased me.

“Nah,” I replied, shrugging. “Not today. But you watch out on April Fools’ next year!”

He chuckled as he slouched over to reply an SMS to his girlfriend. Straightening up again, he smoothed out a crease in his checkered blue NEXT shirt and cleared his throat.

My piano teacher’s face lit up with a smile after I had performed my scales, jazz pieces and Richard Clayderman pieces with near perfection and much passion.

…And there lay the dreaded Chopin Waltz book I had been trying to hide in the most inconspicuous corner. It was a tool of torture in any piano teacher’s hands.

“Ah… Ariel! Let’s have the waltz on Page 98, please. Remember your dynamics!” He sneered slightly.

I tried to focus on the metronome with its deathly toll and executed the waltz most unsuccessfully. Finishing off its awkward ending, I gave my piano teacher a sidelong glance.
He was distraught.

“Man! Ariel, that was absolutely, certainly, positively, undeniably the WORST waltz I have ever heard in my whole life! If Chopin were to hear it, I bet he would jump out of his grave! You are really doing injustice to its composer…”

I grimaced as he threatened to make me practice nothing but waltzes this week and even to compose one. The piano lesson was soon over and I was all too glad to change into trendy clothes and rush off to meet Emma and Isabel at the library.
Emma was already there, waiting for us to arrive.

“Hey, Emma!” I yelled a cheerful greeting as she spun round, smiling.
Suddenly, everything that happened at the bus-stop the previous day came flooding back into my memory. I felt ashamed of myself for hating Emma because of a boy… I stared at my shoelaces… I could not look into Emma’s eyes.

She seemed to read my thoughts.

“Ariel… I don’t blame you for anything that happened yesterday. I guess it was my fault… I didn’t realise you liked Gerard! Anyway, you don’t hafta worry, buddy… I wouldn’t fall for him,” she assured me gently.

“I’m sorry, Emma,” I blurted out, while gazing into her sincere eyes. “I’m really sorry, ok?”

Emma squeezed my shoulder as a gesture that my apology was accepted. Isabel came, shortly afterward. They decided to write a story about the life of a poor violinmaker whose enchanting music led him to enter a fantasy world of princes, princesses, knights and dwarfs.

After the mind-mapping session, we decided to have tea in Pizza Hut and catch a short movie in a nearby cinema. It was evening.

I headed home for dinner, feeling light-headed and happy. The feeling of being forgiven was simply wonderful!

I completed two projects and went to bed at half past midnight. Despite being sleepy, I did not nod off immediately. I lay, staring up at the ceiling, thinking.

Thinking of Emma, of Isabel and of the poor violinmaker in our stories.