A Thousand Perfect Notes

by C.G. Drews

‘Are you serious?’ she squawks. ‘Beethoven? Your name is literally Beethoven? And you’re a pianist? Did your parents hate you or plan this or—’ ‘Shut up.’ He takes off, walking fast.

She dances in a world of possibilities, and he drowns in music.

She grabs Beck by the throat of his shirt and rams him into the wall. He’s not a plate. He doesn’t shatter. But the wind goes out of him in a whoosh.

‘Chocolate is a substance worth existing for,’ says the waiter.

Don’t collapse, don’t shrivel, don’t let his words cut you open.

How, after the stroke, his mother bypassed rehabilitation for the nerve damage in her hands. How she took him when he was just a toddler and left Germany without a goodbye. How she spent all her savings on the house. On the piano. How she couldn’t bear to remember her past, so she cut it away like rot on an apple. How she wanted Beck to take up where she left off, so the world would be awed by the legacy of Ida Magdalena Keverich’s prodigy son.

‘I would have liked to be a father to you and Joey,’ Jan says. ‘But, you know your mother. She wanted to be alone until she was ready.’ He turns on the sofa, faces Beck. ‘So tell me. There is madness in the Keverich line, madness and fear and grief. But does she hit you?’

‘I don’t need rescuing,’ Beck says, voice stretched thin. ‘I’ll save myself.’

Beck would prefer an OK life. Where he goes to school and doesn’t worry if there’ll be dinner on the table and never touches a piano and maybe runs to August’s house some nights to stargaze.

Beck screws his eyes shut and digs his thumb and forefinger into his forehead, massaging the ache. What does he want? He never used to think about it – until August shoved her way into his life. Now he wants so much that the cruel sharp ache of never being able to have it is unbearable.

He wants Joey to be safe. He wants to eat until he’s stuffed. He wants to walk far, far away without a care in the world. He wants every string that ties him to the piano to snap. He wants the Maestro to say well done. He wants to write the music in his head, pages and pages of it, and never show it to a soul if he doesn’t want to. He wants to own it.

He wants August. He wants his hand to fit into hers – all the time, whenever he wants. He wants to eat cake with her, listen to her teasing, laugh a little, carry her home from school when she forgets her shoes. He wants to kiss her a million times. And then once more. Because he can’t put a number on how ...

He doesn’t want her as a friend. He wants more. She is the gir...

What Beck Keverich wants most in the world is to cut off his own hands – and let a girl named August teach him how to smile.

‘You said you would save yourself – do it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. Is he crying? He doesn’t want to be crying. Stop. Stop.

‘I have never,’ he says quietly, ‘seen a student bleed over a piano. Oh, I’ve seen them bleed, but they always stop and coddle themselves because their music hurt them.’

Jan stares at him. ‘If you can compose music like this, it is a sin for you to play from other composers. You are brilliant, Beethoven Keverich.’

‘Let me take you to Germany.’ Jan’s voice turns low, urgent. ‘I am not your mother, I swear to you. You will have the best school, the best Universität. You are my nephew and brilliant and you do not deserve to be hidden.’

‘I know there is this girl,’ Jan says softly. ‘August. And she makes you play like nothing in this world. But you deserve more. You deserve a life of promise, not fear. And if you decided to come with me but never play the piano again? So be it. I would not force you.’

It’s like being beaten – but with hope instead of fists. Beck shuts his eyes, but a tear still frees itself and streaks down his face.

When he opens his eyes, Jan’s face is lit with expectation, excitement. ‘No,’ Beck says. ‘I can’t be your Beethoven.’ In his mind, it’s like cutting off his hands.

‘I’m not going to do this any more.’ Blood pounds in his ears. ‘And you’re never going to touch Joey again. Or me.’

You don’t deserve anything from me. I deserve a life away from you.

She hits him again and he isn’t ready for it, he still believes she’ll stop and say sorry and promise she won’t do it again. Every time she hits him, his stupid head thinks it’ll be the last time. She can’t mean this.

‘The piano is your legacy,’ she screams. ‘No it’s not.’ Beck shields his face with his arm. ‘It’s yours. It’s your dream, not mine.’ He tries to back away, but he’s between a wall and the piano. He’s always been stuck here. She hits out hard, fast, and blood trickles down his split cheek and it’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but all he can think of is how he can’t turn up to August’s like this again. She’ll never get her song. She’ll think he didn’t have the courage to come. Which is true, isn’t it? He’s pathetic. Stupid. Worthless. Schwachkopf. Moron.

The Maestro’s fingers twist into Beck’s hair. ‘You are my mistake, Beethoven.’ She slams him into the piano.

His head connects with wood and paint and polish and for a second he sees nothing. It’s like floating on the sea in a cardboard box. He’s only dimly aware of Joey screaming. Of the Maestro smashing his head again. Of blood filling his ears. His eyes. Blood everywhere. His eyes clear and he sees the piano, floating in a zigzag, smeared with his blood.

His voice is distorted, like he’s yelling through a tunnel. ‘Joey, call the police.’ ‘NEIN,’ the Maestro screams. ‘You are being punished! Or are you such a ba...

A small body presses against his legs as he sags against the piano. She’s between him and the Maestro. ‘Don’t, Mummy,’ she says. The Maestro backhands her. It tosses Joey’s little body halfway across the room and she cracks into the wall with a sickening thud. She lies still. She can’t be still. Is Beck screaming? He has to get to her, but the world is upside down and dripping blood. He tries to get up but the Maestro hits him again and this time, when his head hits the piano, a sharp ringing splits his ears.

He doesn’t get up. But his swollen lips move – in a whisper? Or a shout?

‘You can’t hurt your baby, Mutter. That’s Joey. You can’t hurt your baby Joey.’ And he says it over and over and over and ...

When he cracks his swollen eyelids open, the Maestro is on her knees, pulling Joey’s crumpled body into her arms and sobbing. Huge sobs. They shake her to the core of her bones. Beck pulls himself to his feet and staggers out of the room. He’s made out of cement and each step weighs a hundred kilos. He finds the phone in the kitchen and nearly drops it before he can get the number in. It takes him five tries to follow the line of wobbling digits on the card from his pocket. Is the phone dead? He can’t hear the dial tone. Until faintly, like a tiny pinpoint of light, he hears someone pick up. ‘I changed my mind,’ he says, his voice thick. ‘But Joey has to come.’ Did his uncle r...

They ask him to say his name. Again and again. He can’t make his tongue answer. They shine a light in his eyes and say something about an ambulance. A stretcher? His mother? His head? Stay awake? Or go to sleep? His mouth is still full of blood but he manages to say, ‘I can’t hear you.’ He gestures to his bloodied ears. ‘I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.’ Does he scream or whisper? He tells them his name, through swollen lips. ‘Beethoven Keverich.’

To August’s house, obviously. Where else would he go? But how long has it been since he even talked to her? Over a week with his hospital stay? There’s so much to say and he doesn’t know where to begin. Does he start with hello? Or goodbye?

Does he tell her he’s leaving? For ever. As soon as they pick up Joey with the pink cast on her broken arm, they’ll be on a one-way plane flight, her, Jan and him. Does he say he never has to see the Maestro again if he doesn’t want? How she’s signed over her children’s custody to her brother. How Jan is still pressing charges against her. How Beck will have to testify and he can’t think about that right now. He can’t face it. Maybe he can’t even do it. Jan says they’ll decide later. Now is for leaving.

He could tell August how the Maestro kissed his forehead, even though he flinched away from her, and, cold and precise, she said, ‘Ich liebe dich.’ I love you. And then she left the hospital an...

After all this time, he still hasn’t learnt to smile.

He returns the hug, holds her tight, rain hugging sunshine, and he remembers that she does care about him. She said so that night, when they ate the stars and she kissed him.

‘Oh stop it.’ She faces him, speaking clearly, and he hears her this time. ‘You are worth more than a thousand perfect notes.’

And finally, his hands stop trembling.