APPASSIONATO

   “Sanity is a cozy lie”

     - S. Sontag.

So,

“Let me go mad in my own way.”

      -Sophocles, Elektra.

Music from the very beginning became the refuge that my seven-

year-old mind and body needed desperately. Like every seven-

year old, I tried to make sense of the world and me in it and wasn't

succeeding. I felt too special, too emotional, lost, and in need of a

savior. God was too far away and, it seemed, didn’t like me very

much.

Music opened the door to the Magic Universe that I never

expected to exist. It was the place where I not only could, but was

even required to express my feelings, the most intimate

thoughts and desires that were pent up inside of me and probably

would burn a hole in my soul or make me explode. I was very shy

and socially awkward, but playing music I was bold, strong,

confident, and enjoyed myself.

Much later, HE told me that Oscar Wilde once said: “Man is least

himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he

will tell you the truth.” That’s exactly what was happening to me:

playing somebody’s music, behind the mask’s protection, I allowed

to be as sensitive and romantic as Chopin, bold and explosive as

Beethoven, tempting and passionate as Liszt, playful and

breathtakingly beautiful as Mozart. But at the same time, it was the

truth I had inside of me. To get it out in the light of the day, but

safely, under the mask’s protection became my real passion and

greatest joy. Music became as necessary as breathing.

I was progressing with mind-boggling speed and was playing

solo recitals at eleven. As a fourteen-year-old, I was accepted to the

School for Gifted Youth.

And that’s where I’ve met HIM.

To say that I fell in love at first sight wouldn’t be an

exaggeration, but to be precise, it was during our first lesson.

His gentle eyes, when he looked at me, made me feel I was the

most important person in his life. They warmed up every part of my

body, including parts I wasn’t too fond of. When he was playing the

song, I was studying, he looked directly into my eyes, engulfing me

in a magic sphere of understanding, acceptance, and love. It melted

my heart away and made me dizzy with emotions which I couldn’t

fully understand or name because it wasn’t anything in my life to   

compare it with.

Finally, I found GOD who loved me!

I hardly slept the night after that lesson and made a promise that

I would make him proud of me, whatever it took! Since then, it was

some kind of miracle sensation of his physical presence next to me:

the touch of his hand, his breath close to my face, his voice singing

along. From that day I never felt alone at the piano: we were making

exciting journeys through music together.

Everything had miraculously changed!

          Soon the feeling of his presence spread out through the rest

of my life: I felt his hand holding mine, and his loving, mesmerizing

eyes, looking at me in every moment of it! I was obsessed, I was

possessed, I was in love with my God! I was in Heaven!

          Alas, returning to Earth felt like hell and hurt like a bitch.

The day my world crashed, I had come to our piano room early.

He was still working with another student. To my dismay, I realized

that what I took for Our Special Relationship was nothing special at

all! That warmth and love wasn’t just for me — it was the way he

communicated with other people! I was just one of dozens of his

students!

          If somebody told me that morning that I would hate him by

night, I would laugh. I wasn’t laughing then…I quietly slipped out of

the room and cried in a bathroom stall, covering my mouth with

both hands, trying not to make a sound. After, I cleaned up myself,

thinking about a reasonable excuse for leaving and maybe never

coming back. I didn’t even have to make something up — all my

insides were burning and hurting like I had been kicked in the gut,

in the groin.

      I returned to the room and told him I had to leave because of

the stomachache. He looked at me for so long with his damn

penetrating eyes that I was terrified he might see right through

me. He came closer, put his hand on my forehead and said,

“You are burning, you are probably running a fever! Let me

get a taxi for you.”

When a cab arrived, he hugged my shoulders and led me

through the long hallway and the staircase to the car. One part of me wanted to

forget about everything and wrap myself around him. Another—to push him away and

scream,

“You don’t have to pretend anymore! I won’t believe you ever again!”

For the next several days, I could not touch the piano. I couldn’t even look at it—in

that direction was only my pain and sorrow.

The pain gradually subsided to a bearable level, and I returned to the piano. But I

wasn’t a boy anymore. I emerged from this situation as a man on a mission, a man

with a Plan! The plan was simple. I have to make him fall in love with me as

desperately as it gets, for him to see nothing and nobody but me!

The plan was simple but not an easy one. At my age, I still looked

like a toad with a hint of a mustache. For now, I could make him fall

in love with me only as a great pianist. So, every single morsel of my

energy, time, and effort I pushed in this direction.

To everybody’s and my surprise, I won two international

competitions for young pianists.

Only then did I realize that my love of music, combined with the

love of Marson could create real miracles!           

His reaction to my winnings was driving me crazy when he said,

“You have that magic wand that hundreds of musicians are

dreaming about. It’s turning your audience into your devoted fans

with the first touch, with the first note! You even can’t grasp how

unique is this gift given to you!”

I wanted to shout hearing it,

“It is you, who holds this magic wand!"

Some day I will tell him everything. But for now: back to practice,

Chancel, back to practice!

We were preparing for the Big One– the competition where

I’d compete on the same level with the world’s best pianists from

the age of seventeen to thirty-one.

The great news for me was that my body and face were changing

overnight, and I didn’t look like a toad anymore.

Since last year, there has been something more added to our

communication. Sometimes our time together, the usual three-

hour lesson, immersed in music didn’t feel like enough. So,

when we had a little energy left in us, he didn’t take a taxi to the

place where he parked his car. Instead, we walked to it at a leisurely

pace for about forty minutes. And then, he would drive me to my

dorm for another twenty minutes, so, it was an extra hour near my

God. Each one of those hours I’d remember for the rest of my life

because it was a window to the Universe I was getting through his

eyes. It was my university education.

Only years later I could fully understand and appreciate that it

was the history of mankind in its absurdity and deepest wells of

wisdom that I had been given during those hours I spent with him.

And it was not raw knowledge, but processed and well-organized

by the ideas that he could trace through centuries and nations, how

they were transformed and interplayed in the different fields of

human study, like music and literature, science and philosophy.   

But then, like a little chick, getting from his mom’s beak all the

necessary nutrients for life, I, with my eyes and my mouth wide

open, was getting from him all the necessary nutrients, all the

necessary information for my searching mind and hungry for

experience heart.

It was a match made in heaven—he was eager to give, and I was

eager to absorb.

In the process, my God was expanding to the size of the entire

Universe: everything I ever needed was in him! And I needed him

as the air I needed to breathe. And I knew that no force in the world

would deviate me from my obsession to have him only to myself! No

sharing would be possible! It was my mantra day in and day out:

Mine only!

At this point, it was clear to me that I was not one of dozens

anymore. I was pretty special: he worked with me as long as I could

handle. I noticed he looked at me differently — It's not as openly

loving as it used to be or as smiley as usual. His hands were staying

on mine a bit longer, his eyes were questioning when I pretended I

wasn’t looking, and his accolades to my playing were more

reserved. Though he mentioned a few times that I had an unusually

strong sensual quality in making music. I wanted to scream:

  “Dah, my dear professor, it’s because every time I play for you, I

make love to you! Don’t you feel it?!”

I knew I was special to him, but was I special enough for my plan?

I didn’t want to believe it, so, I wouldn’t get crushed like in the past,

but I wanted to check.    

We were in the middle of one heated lesson preparing for the

competition. When he wanted to show me something in music and

bend over me, I, exactly at the same, strategically calculated

moment, turned towards him “by accident”, and my open lips

brushed against his lips and cheek. Needless to say, I felt dizzy and

aroused. He didn’t look cool either. He didn’t pull away at first, and

for a moment, I hoped he would kiss me back. But what I saw in his

wide-open eyes were confusion and fear. Still bent over, he turned

around and excused himself from the room.

When he came back, he said, not looking at me,

“Sorry, Chancel, my wife had called me, and I have to go home.

Would you like to have a lesson tomorrow?”

I refused and left, cursing him under my breath with the dirtiest

words that I knew but never expected to use.

 I skipped next week’s lesson because I was afraid even to look at

him. Instead, I practiced like I was possessed, inflicting physical

pain to dull the pain in my heart? I was at the piano all the time,

except for six hours of sleep and some time for food. And

sometimes, I found myself passing out, closing my eyes just for a

second and opening them twenty minutes later.

A day before my next week’s lesson, which I was going to skip as

well, I got a message from Him, asking me to call him.

His voice was distant and official when he asked if I was

going to come tomorrow for a lesson. I said,

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I am practicing like never in

my life."

“That’s great! But since the competition is in less than two

months, I have to see what you are doing.” And then, much softer, “I

have to see you tomorrow.”

“Just tell me you missed me, damn it! And I’ll be there in twenty

minutes!”, came from me out of nowhere, out of the blue. But that

“blue nowhere” I should contribute to Scriabin, which I just had

finished practicing.

“I missed you,” he said after such a long pause that I thought he’d

never answer. “And I’m afraid we have to talk.”

“And I’m not afraid of anything!” I flew out of the door, and

started running towards the school.

When I stormed into the room, he was playing Schumann but

seeing me, stopped, and got into a defensive position behind the

piano, like a barricade.

“Chancel, my dear boy…” he started, but I interrupted him,

trying to catch my breath:

“Can you please, be quiet just for a minute, I want to pretend that

it was you who said, “I missed you.”

  “Yes, it was me, and I can repeat it over and over again, but it

can’t change a thing. The reality is we are behind different sides of a

stone wall, or that’s what we’re supposed to feel for at least another

year.”

“Oh, so you can just order your heart to shut up and stop

bothering you, right?”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Chancel."

  I interrupted, “Yes, I know, and you’re playing it safe and wise.

But you’re just a fool, just a goddamn coward! And I don’t even want

you anymore!” I whispered and left the room. I was saying goodbye

to my dreams, but just could not leave. Standing in the shade of the

parking front of the school, swallowing my tears, I waited for

the windows of our piano room to get dark, and for him to come

out. I had no idea what I would do, but I just had to see him again!

The windows stayed lit for some time, then went dark, but he

didn’t appear.

After a while, I returned to school and checked the register

downstairs. He hadn’t brought back the keys either. So, was he still

there? It seemed unlikely but the only explanation. So, I went

upstairs.

When I stood at that door, I felt that by passing its threshold, I

was burning all the bridges to my old life. But the pull of his

presence behind that door was so immense that it didn’t give

me the slightest chance of giving up and leaving. I pushed the door

gently open.

His silhouette was dark against a slightly bluish window. He

turned towards me but didn’t say a word until I stood in front of

him. In the dim light, I could see his face, puffy with recent tears.

That was the very first time I could think not only of myself but of

him and about the drama he was going through because of me.

When I touched his face with the tips of my fingers, he looked up at

me with his eyes in tears and asked helplessly,

“So, what do we have to do now?” I hugged his shoulders and slid

over his body to my knees, saying,

“I am sorry, I am so sorry!”

I even wasn’t sure what I was “sorry” for: loving him as my

only God every moment since forever, or for messing up his normal

life and making him suffer?

“At first,” he said, “I was praying for you to come back, then,

that you would not. And then I got so scared like never in my life

that you would come back, and then, that you wouldn’t…”

I buried my face in his lap, and it gave me such a jolt of

electricity through my entire body that I started shivering

uncontrollably. He lowered himself to the floor, put his legs around

me and started warming, consoling my shaking, feverish body. I felt

his warm tears on my face and started wiping them with my hands,

then, with my kisses, at first – gentle, then – passionate, fierce, to

the blood on his lips. Soon our bodies were clutching to each other

for dear life.

Suddenly we froze. Someone opened the door halfway, closed it

and (thank God!) moved away, whistling. We were invisible behind

the pianos in almost total darkness. But just the flip of a switch –

and we would be in unimaginable trouble! This near accident

helped us to regain consciousness.

He very quietly said words, which seemed to cost him a lot of

effort:

“I can make a reservation… in a hotel nearby. Do you want to

come…with me?”

I licked off a trace of blood coming from his lower lip and

asked, smiling,

“Are you sure you want to get more injuries?”

He touched his cut-open lips lightly and looked straight into my

eyes before exhaling,

“Yes. I do.”

His serious response shocked me to the core of my being.

In the taxi we were holding hands, then I took one of his and put

it on my bulging groin. He did the same with mine, and this felt like

we were mischievous partners in crime. Even though for me,

looking at us from some distant future, it was a chaste, almost

platonic gesture, it was more like a seal of approval, or a permit of

“ownership” for the body of another human, or as a promise of the

future that begins with a story where everything was possible. A

story, where I saw us as tempestuous lovers, then – a married

couple, still insanely in love with each other, adopting a beautiful

baby girl, an orphan from Ukraine, traveling together, settling down

in the…

Suddenly He said,

“We are here. Are you sure?..”

Instead of answering I put his hand on my burning lips.

We were quiet until we got to our hotel room: a totally magical

place with the privacy of four walls around us! A place where for

the first time we weren’t in danger of being too transparent,

without hiding our actual feelings behind lies not only to other

people but also to each other. I was so overwhelmed that I jumped

on the bed, singing, and doing crazy dances.

He was looking at me with a happy smile and then took off

his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt, but I shouted,

“No! Let me do it! I’ve done it already a thousand times!”