Rubato

CW: intimate partner violence.

Twilight music streamed through the neighborhoods Alita walked. Short stretches of street were still life with manicured yards, birdsong, and distant traffic, followed by longer stretches where the houses sat close together and evening news from various sources competed for her attention. Then block after block of bikes overturned and strollers parked outside front doors. Parents yelling, kids screaming, dogs barking—the sounds of life flowed effortlessly, invitingly, leading her on.

Alita’s favorite, though, was the piano house. The windows of the modest Cape Cod were often open, and classical music stormed or marched or pitter-pattered into the street at the whim of the pianist's fingers.

Tonight, the notes rose and fell in an impossibly rapid dance. Alita imagined the fingers expertly moving up and down the keys as they produced this kind of magic, imagined her own fingers doing the same. She lost herself in ecstasy in front of this house the way some people get lost in good conversation or great sex or a religious experience. She was in holy communion with this piano’s music.

Her watch buzzed, and she sighed. Five minutes. She had already stood here for five enraptured minutes. She took a deep breath—one last inhalation of this house’s oxygen—and continued walking.

“You like?” Alita turned at the sound of the voice. A slightly disheveled-looking academic type leaned out the front door of the piano house. He was wearing a navy cardigan over a button down, and his sweater had pockets, a pair of glasses sticking out the top of one.

“I love,” she admitted.

He smiled and her heart did a flip flop, then began to race. Danger. There was danger here. She turned to keep walking.

“It’s Edvard Grieg.”

“Sorry?”

“That song was ‘Puck’ by Edvard Grieg. I give lessons. Are you interested?”

“No.” She turned away and walked faster, then slowed. Keep your normal pace. Everything is normal, everything is fine.

But when Enzo got home that night, something on her face must have been different.

“Who’d you see on your walk?” he asked lightly.

She steeled her face to behave appropriately. “No one . . . ummm . . . one guy walking his dog. Old guy. And a mom pushing a stroller. Cute kid, little pigtails.” She twirled her hair on both sides to demonstrate. Just enough words, then stop. She knew too many words was a tell. She speared her carrots and ate, forcing herself to chew slowly.

“How old was the old guy? George Clooney-old or Jason Momoa-old?”

“Richard Simmons-old.”

He chucked and she breathed. No woman had ever been attracted to Richard Simmons, except perhaps for what he could do for the waistlines of her grandmother’s generation. She felt like she had won something. Was it only peace? She was figuring him out. One day she would figure out how to leave. Last time she had tried, she hadn’t left again for weeks and had become uncomfortably familiar with the inside of their closet. Sometimes the most important thing was staying alive, her body intact. She would figure out the rest soon.

On her next walk, she knew she should skip the piano house. There was danger there. But her body betrayed her. She was standing in front of it before she realized where she was. The music was slower and melodic today, dandelions floating on the breeze on a perfect summer day, happy children chasing wishes.

“‘Nocturne.’ Edvard Grieg.” The voice came from the open window when the song ended.

She held up her hand in a wave, then continued walking. Danger averted.

The next evening, the music was an elderly couple dancing cheek to cheek in the park, steps long-matched to perfection, comfortably familiar with each other’s cadence and adapting easily to any change in tempo.

When the music stopped, she called, “Edvard Grieg?”

There was silence for a moment, then the front door opened.

“Yes. ‘Scherzo,’” the pianist smiled. “My studio,” he gestured behind him through the open doorway. “Kids come and go through here all day. Come see the space. Maybe you’ll change your mind about lessons.”

Her feet had followed him inside before she realized it. The small room was encompassed by a grand piano that faced the windows. He would have seen her every time she stopped out front.

“Have you ever played?” he asked.

“Lessons for a couple years as a kid. I never played like that.” She gestured to the street as if that’s where the music had come from.

“Come. Sit. Play.”

He was so endearing, so sincere, and the piano so inviting, that Alita found her butt sliding across the bench before she realized what she was doing, and her fingers instinctively went into position. She picked out an old song saved in her muscle memory, something from The Orange Book she had played for a recital, and the keys responded with a love she had forgotten an inanimate object could emote. Her watch buzzed, and her heart raced.

“Thank you. Thank you for showing me.”

“This time slot is open, if you’re interested.”

She raced out of the room and down the street, heard his words following her but blocked them out with the sound of her pounding feet. She willed herself to slow down. She had to get home at the same time every day, within five minutes one way or the other.

When she returned the next evening, she knew she was dead, knew it was the beginning of the end; she was now living on borrowed time. But she had to feel the keys under her fingertips again, had to create the kind of magic that her life was missing. She went right up to the door, and he opened it before she knocked.

“Edvard Grieg,” she said. “Can you teach me Edvard Grieg in five minutes a day?”

“Yes,” he answered simply and wasted no time getting started, retrieving sheet music for “Morning Mood” and walking her through the steps.

She knew enough about piano lessons to know this wasn’t how they typically worked. Thirty minutes, maybe an hour, once a week, that’s how piano lessons went. But he was kind. Maybe he recognized the caged animal trapped in her human form.

“How much?” she asked when her watch buzzed.

“First month’s free.”

She smiled. She didn’t have any money. “Thank you.”

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Alita.”

“Miles.” He held out his hand and she took it; he held rather than shook, turning her hand gently and placing his other hand over it. She looked down at his long slender fingers and perfectly groomed nails—pianist’s fingers—then up at him, and her breath caught. Danger. So much danger. She pulled her hand away and fled the house with the speed of someone escaping a fire.

The next day Miles had sheet music for her to take home to practice, and Alita assured him she had a keyboard at home. When she got home, she tore sheets of paper from a notebook and taped them end to end, used a ruler to draw piano keys to the most exact measurements she could muster. She was practicing when Enzo got home.

“What are you doing?” he laughed.

“Practicing. Don’t I sound amazing?”

“Do you even know how to play the piano?”

“Oh, yes. I was quite the child prodigy,” she said, then remembered he wasn’t one for jokes unless he was the one making them. “My mom had me in lessons for a year or two,” she clarified. “I found this on the ground near some garbage on my walk today.”

She had wrinkled the sheet music, torn an edge, and poured coffee on it, then dried it with her blow dryer.

“Babe, that's amazing. I had no idea.” He sat in the chair next to her. “Play it for me.”

She’d been practicing since she got home and had it pretty well, hummed as she played the paper. When the song was over, he kissed her and took her to bed, dinner in the oven forgotten.

***

“I’ve never had a student learn a song in twenty-four hours,”

“Well, how do you know if you only see them once a week?”

Miles smiled, and Alita’s heart skipped. She looked down at her hands folded in her lap.

“Do you want more of a challenge? Something faster?”

She nodded. She wanted speed, vitality, momentum. Not the burden of barely surviving but the challenge of fully living.

Miles gave her sheet music for “Puck,” and she took it home, made it look like garbage, and began to practice.

***

Enzo brought home a full-length keyboard, slid it out of the box and plugged it in with a flourish.

“You bought me a keyboard?” Her heart softened just a bit toward him. “Enzo, thank you.”

“Play it for me, now, for real.”

She put away “Puck.” She had been working on it on her paper piano since she got home, but the tempo was definitely a challenge for her out-of-practice fingers. She played “Morning Mood.”

Enzo grinned. “Babe, why’d you never tell me?”

This question didn’t always end well, so she spoke carefully in spite of his smile. “I just never thought of it. Until I saw the music on the ground.”

He went to the kitchen, and she switched back to practicing “Puck.”

“Whoa, that seriously sucks," he complained.

She nodded to herself, put it away. “I’ll practice more tomorrow.”

***

Alita’s lessons continued, five minutes a day, and she worked her way through “Puck” one measure at a time. It was her favorite, and once she finally had it, she played it over and over again, speeding up, slowing down, making the beat her own. Enzo hated it, even when she had it perfect. He liked legato, one note flowing smoothly to the next with no surprises, songs that made good lullabies. “Puck” was allegro molto, quick and lively, with many staccatos. Enzo hated staccatos.

Alita had known the end would come when she had begun, had known Enzo would eventually notice the five-minute stops, her watch in one location too long, too often, but she didn’t expect to look up and see his truck while she was learning Grieg’s “Scherzo.” She paused only momentarily, then continued to play. Her watch buzzed, and still she continued to play. She knew this would be her last lesson.

“Should I call the police?” Miles' voice was quiet in her ear.

“No.” She had had more time with him, with this piano, than she had thought she would, and she was thankful for it. She finished the song and took a last look at the gorgeous piano, the kind man, the simple studio.

“Thank you,” she said as she stood.

“Alita, you don’t have to go with him. The police can help you.”

She knew they couldn’t, knew Enzo would find her when released from custody. She kept her back straight and her head high as she walked to the truck.

Enzo didn’t speak, didn’t speed, didn’t squeal tires or show any other indication of anger. This was his most dangerous mood, his smash-your-phone, smash-your-laptop, smash-everything-until-you-wake-up-in-the-closet mood. Would he break her keyboard? Her heart stilled. She was done with fear. He had just taken the best five minutes of her day, the only thing that made her feel alive, playing on that grand piano. He could kill her now.

“Who is he?” he finally asked when they were safely inside their house.

“Piano teacher.”

“What’s the piano teacher’s name?”

“Miles.”

He chuckled like the name was funny. She looked longingly at the keyboard, wanting to escape this reality through her fingertips flying over the keys.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Miles?”

She looked at him, his hands, his sneer. There were so many reasons she hadn’t told him about Miles. “I didn’t want you to make me stop going.” Her reply acknowledged his governance, which sometimes worked, but it wasn’t the right answer.

“Why would I make you stop going? Unless you were going for something other than lessons?”

“I was there for five minutes, Enzo. What can anyone do in five minutes?”

He produced his bowie knife, and her breath quickened despite her best efforts. He frequently liked to remind her this was the weapon he would kill her with. She didn’t fear death, but she did fear the knife.

“When I find out, I’m going to cut him to pieces so slowly that he cries like a baby for hours before he dies. And then it’ll be your turn, babe." He held the knife between them like an offering, touched the side of the blade gently to her collarbone.

She looked into his eyes one last time then went to the keyboard. She began to play “Puck,” the piece he hated, because while he could punish her in a thousand ways, she only had this: a song that drove him mad.

“Stop,” he said as the first notes rang out, but she continued to play. Her kill-me-or-set-me-free song rang into their relationship like a vendetta. Why did you goad him? Her mother’s voice in her head.

“Stop,” he said louder, and her fingers quivered slightly, but she used the adrenaline to play louder and faster, a note traded for every moment of pain or fear since she'd known him. When he shoved her head down and the keys played the cacophony of her face, a black fog of pain rushed immediately from the front of her head to the back. She tasted blood.

He paced the room, determining further punishment, she imagined, so she shook off the pain, swallowed the blood, and lifted her hands to start the song over. She played con fuoco, and loved feeling the fire in her fingertips, her final dance.

She was stunned when the crash landed across her hands. She had expected death, not this. She felt nothing at first, but then heard animalistic howling as the pain overwhelmed her. Stupid brat, look what you made me do. Her boyfriend stood over her with a golf club, but it was her stepfather’s voice she heard as she curled into a ball on the floor, clutching her hands to her chest.

Enzo disappeared as she wailed and then reappeared with water and a handful of pills. He shoved them into her mouth, and she swallowed, knowing they would knock her out, knowing she would wake up in the closet. She longed for the release of oblivion, even in the darkness of the closet.

She was confused when she later woke in the passenger seat of Enzo's truck. Her hands and arms hurt. They were stiff in splints from fingertips to elbow. Their modus operandi was the pain, the pills, the closet. Waking up in the truck didn’t fit.

“Do I need a hospital?” she asked groggily. “I fell hard. I used my hands to break the fall.”

“Nah, I got you some splints from Wal-Mart. You’ll be fine. You’re lucky I care enough to take care of you.” His words were slurring, one into the next.

A car blared its horn as they almost hit it head on before Enzo swerved back into their lane.

“Let’s go home, babe.” She would leave him; all threats of a slow and agonizing death upon doing so no longer mattered. He would pass out and she would escape, call one of those hotlines she always saw on the inside of ladies’ room doors.

“Don’t wanna go home,” he said.

“Please, Enzo. I just want to lay with you, in our own bed.” Forgiveness sometimes got her out of the closet. It worked. He drove them home, sometimes doing seventy, sometimes thirty, always swerving. He finally pulled into the garage, and she waited for him to turn the truck off and open her door, her hands useless, but when she finally stole a glance at him she realized he'd passed out.

She raised her feet to her door to open it, using one foot to pull the handle and the other to kick the door open. He slumped over in the front seat at the sound of the passenger door closing.

She approached the door to the house but stopped for a moment to watch the exhaust from the truck exhaling freely out the open garage door like an evil entity escaping justice. She finally lifted her arm and used the side of her splint to push the button on the wall that would close the garage door. Then she went inside the house, closing the door behind her, and collapsed into bed.

***

After emergency services came; after Enzo’s death had been ruled an alcohol-induced accident; after Alita's hands had been properly splinted—four fingers fractured on her left hand, her wrist on her right; after the pain was tolerable on NSAIDs and she was given encouragement to use her fingers on her right hand, Alita walked back to the piano house at her usual time.

Miles answered the door slightly disheveled and looked at her splints with concern.

“It’ll be awhile before I can play with my left hand again, but can I practice with my right for now?” she asked.

“Yes,” Miles answered simply. “I can be your left hand for as long as you need.”

Alita’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation. She went to the piano and scooted for him to sit next to her on the bench. Side by side, they gradually found their rhythm, and their finger steps their tempo, and with Miles playing the left hand and Alita playing the right, Edvard Grieg’s “Scherzo” cascaded invitingly into the street.