A ritual backstage

30 June 2018, 17:21

A stubborn muscle in his cheek spasmed, and his mouth, apart, expelled one short breath after another like a guppy’s would.

As he rolled his fingers back and forth on his temples, he felt his underarms lubricated by perspiration.

He felt like he was under water.

Julian Lee sat in one of the plastic foldable chairs set backstage of a piano concert hall in Berlin, Germany. To his right and left were other contestants- younger and older, decked out in the usual formal dress or bow tie suit.

In the rare few seconds he could stop thinking how the long streak of yellow light spilling from the stage looked like the path to his death, he caught the occasional looks of his fellow contestants. They were the faces of village people who seemed to have grown sick and tired of the shepherd boy’s lies. Even as he pressed and pounded on his chest Julian thought how he’d look like a liar.

Putting on an act of anxiety and on stage, playing as if possessed.

20 June 2018, 08:13

“By coming in first for practically every piano competition you participated in, you’ve made a mark for yourself. But you started playing the piano when you were ten- which is quite very late for pianists- and now you’re only eighteen. You only started to gain the title ‘prodigy’ just two years ago, magically. Really, what is your secret?”  

His unruly black hair tamed down with a gel, his cheeks aflush from having finished playing in a competition just minutes ago, Julian Lee in the video sat in the waiting room across a journalist, looking like he wanted to run out of the room.     

Rubbing the back of his neck, Julian Lee, his leg jiggling up and down, blinking, meekly muttered, “Oh. Thank…you. For the…compliment. There…there are many other pianists…whom…who…are much better than I am and I don’t think I’m particularly… I’m just grateful. I’m not…sure. But I think it’s the support of my mum. She...she always cheered me on. And…and hard work. I worked hard."

With a painful groan, Julian’s mother, Hannah, hit the pause button of the YouTube video. The real life Julian Lee sat in the kitchen of a hotel room, chewing on a piece of toast.

“It’s been a question people have been asking for two years. How can he be a lion on stage and a lamb offstage?” Hannah shook her head, smiling a little proudly.

 Julian, pulling his cardigan closer to his body, smiled wryly. “More coffee?”

“No, thank you. It’s sort of good for media attention.” Hannah remarked, as Julian poured himself more coffee. “ Some people say it’s cool how you’re different on-stage and off-stage. They say it shows your passion for piano and nothing else.”

“It’s not really cool for me when I feel like I could stop breathing any moment before the performance,” responded Julian, his voice laced with some hurt.

 As it was the case most of the time, conversation between the Lees took place in two perfect asymptotes.

“Well, I for that matter think doing something we love really changes us.”

 At that, Julian felt the toast churn in his stomach. Changes. Of all words.

He felt Hannah’s eyes turn from her butter knife to his face.

“The keys that you play amazingly wrong every single time during practice are all perfectly played during a concert. The piece that you play like it’s a nursery rhyme becomes electrifying when you’re on stage.” Hannah shrugged. “The explanation seems pretty obvious to me.”

 Swallowing, Julian looked up to meet her eyes. “You’re just made for the stage, not the practice room,” she simply said with a satisfied grin.

 Julian let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and laughing along with Hannah, nodded distractedly. “Right.” 

“But we should do something about your pre-performance nerves. Just two years ago, you weren’t sweating and shaking so bad.”

30 June 2018, 17:29

Anna Jung had been playing the piano even before she could properly understand German. She’d gone to enough concours to even enjoy the slight rebellion of butterflies in her stomach before stepping onto the stage. She’d also gone to enough concours to know that something about that Julian Lee didn’t make sense.

Sitting just a seat away from him in the back-stage of the concert hall, she had seen the strain of his toes against his shiny black loafers- not that the shoes were too small for him. He had been in a state of such extreme tension that his toes had curled up, in a fight-or-flight way.

With his blazer removed and draped across his laps, she had seen almost impressively large patches of perspiration on his bent over back and under his arms that made his white button-up shirt almost see-through.

After minutes of rocking back and forth, Julian Lee had suddenly stood up, and escorted by a hardly alarmed backstage manager, hurried into the men’s washroom. When he had returned to his seat next to Anna, although he busily chewed on a mint flavored gum, Anna had caught the faintest whiff of something acidic and sour.

This was no show or the usual few minutes of anxiety before a concert. This was something like a full blown allergic reaction to being on stage.

Sitting in the audience row after her own performance, Anna Jung watched, as Julian Lee, blazer on, stepped up on to the stage.

His back straight but his whole body relaxed, a faint smile playing on his lips, he looked like he was suppressing a grin of ecstasy. Just minutes ago, he’d been like a mimosa, shrinking from the glances of his concert mates, shrinking from the stage light trespassing the dark of the back-stage. Now, he was a proud sunflower, basking in the stage light.

Rhythmically walking up to the front of the stage, he seemed to sway to the sound of his own heels penetrating the thick silence of the concert hall.

He took a bow, and his eyes boldly looked into the audience, at the three judges sitting in semi-darkness. Then, he sat on the piano chair, and closed his eyes, his hands folded on his laps.

The few seconds of silence pianists took before playing in a concert were used differently by pianists. Some took the time to replay the music in their heads, and some used the time to calm their nerves.

Seeing Julian Lee in the spotlight, closing his eyes with a triumphant smirk, Anna saw the ritual of someone who paused for a joyfully painful wait before biting into something sweet and rare.

 Anna could be sure of one thing the second Julian Lee began to play. The person who’d been back-stage trembling like autumn leaves was now on stage playing like he was mocking Mozart. 

2 July 2018, 14:21

Two deep lines were paved into the cheeks of Dr. Brown, making his cheeks and jaws look like they were separate parts put back together, somewhat like a nutcracker soldier’s.

Julian wasn’t so sure if they were dimples or wrinkles, or both. It was his first time facing a counsellor, and this forty-something year old man was the cliché picture of a counsellor he’d had in mind. Warm eyes that were waiting to listen. That was probably why sitting across this man, Julian desperately wanted to leave.

“Extreme perspiration to the point that your shirt becomes drenched,” said Dr. Brown, stoically looking down at the list of symptoms he’d scribbled down on a small piece of foolscap, the kind that looked like it could get lost under pizza receipts or utility bills. “Uncontrollable trembling of hands. Dry mouth even with hydration. Heart palpitation. Sometimes you can’t even focus on your surroundings. Is there anything else I should know?”

“Um-“ Julian started.

“Well, he does play well, as you might know, Dr. Brown.” Hannah emphasized. “He is absolutely brilliant. It’s just that his pre-performance jitters are so bad.”

“I see.” Dr. Brown glanced at Hannah, and then turned his body slightly toward Julian. “There seems to be a big difference between you that I see now and the you I saw on the screen when you were on stage. Perhaps we could go through your emotional and mental process when you were walking up that stage, and playing the piano. How did you feel, going up the stage?”

 “Very nervous.” Julian replied hesitantly, rubbing his fingers. “Nervous that I would make a mistake.”

 “Then when you sat on the piano, and began to play?”

“…Very excited and happy. I love playing the piano.”

Dr. Brown had been working for a little more than twenty years. That meant he knew enough to sense that this boy spoke as if reading off from a script he hadn’t exactly agreed to. He’d seen the smile on this boy’s face in the video as he’d walked up to the stage. It was the smile of someone who had the answer sheet to a test, the smirk of a victor.

Hannah Lee seemed to enjoy her role as spokesperson for her eighteen year old baby boy Julian, but she didn’t seem to have a controlling, domineering position in the mother-son relationship.

Julian was quiet, easygoing, a little taciturn and easily seemed to yield to his mother’s whims, but he seemed far from feeling domineered or forced into playing the piano by his mother.

Dr. Brown couldn’t help but look into Julian’s eye. This was a really curious boy, a curious case. Looking away and reverting his gaze to the paper on the table, Julian nodded again.

“Really, I do. Enjoy playing the piano.”

30 June 2018, 17:29

“...Julian Lee.”

His stomach sunk and twisted. Julian took in a breath, and looked down. The points of his loafers were at the boundary between the dark of the back-stage and the interrogation light of the stage.

Then it happened.

His right foot stepped onto the stage, the clear knock of his heel against the wood echoing clean through the thick silence. Feeling his consciousness fade into some recess of his brain, Julian sighed in relief.

This time too.

30 June 2018, 17:36

Perfect timing.

Julian’s consciousness returned the moment his foot stepped back into the darkness of the back-stage. His ears were filled with the applause of an audience he knew was blown away by his performance.

Placing his hand on the cold metal railing, he steadied his balance and made his way through the clutter of chairs, pianists, concert staff and food supplies.

He was sure he was being talked to by some people, but he was too dazed to care about anything until he could return to the waiting room where Hannah was.   

30 June 2018, 18:00

“What was up with you, honey?”

Julian started.

He found himself sitting in the passenger seat of Hannah’s Volvo. A landscape of tall, slender trees with crispy orange leaves and grey roads stretched out for miles. They had driven minutes away from the concert hall and were heading back to their hotel.

Hannah had stopped at traffic. One hand on the steering wheel and the other crunching on a cereal bar, Hannah hummed to Fantasie-Impromptu Op 66 by Chopin. Just two years ago, she couldn’t even distinguish between Mozart and Beethoven. Now, she fancied herself a classical piano connoisseur.  

“What do you mean?” he managed to ask, swallowing.

Bright red digital numbers of 18:00 blinked on the dashboard. The last time he’d walked into the waiting room had been at least twenty minutes ago. He was starting to lose himself even when he wasn’t sitting on the piano chair.

“You killed the interview, that’s what I mean. You were so…different that even I was shocked. You were like a completely different person. The counselling must’ve done something.” Hannah grinned. “Smiling confidently, joking with the interviewer. Your performance, of course, was perfect, as always. Now that’s what I say is brilliant. We should celebrate all this and your birthday when we get home. We’ll get us your favorite cheese cake…”

 As she expanded on her plans for their celebration, Julian looked at Hannah. The smiling eyes but the haggard face from scheduling plans and driving him to concerts overseas, the jeans that she’d bought nineteen years ago, the cereal bar that had been her dinner for nearly two years.

 Raising Julian by herself in a flat that leaked once every few months, paying mortgage for at least ten plus years. The sudden victories at concerts he’d been getting since two years ago made everything worth it. Of course, the sudden influx of five-digit cash prizes helped too.

 Julian’s mouth parted, and his breath started to come a little faster. Pre-performance jitters. It wasn’t the first time the symptoms had started to come away from the piano concert hall, and Julian then had a feeling that Hannah might find him different for a long, long time.

10 December 2018, 14:00

“What do you think is your secret to overcoming your pre-performance nerves?”

Hannah watched her son Julian, surrounded by a few reporters and fans. He sat with his legs crossed, looking into the camera lenses.

“Oh, I don’t overcome it. I accept the nerves.” Julian’s mouth quirked into a smirk. He gave a shrug, and spread out his arms theatrically. “For me, it’s not a symptom of anxiety. For me, it’s like a…ritual that comes before the possessing.”

“The possessing?”

“You know, before I’m possessed by the ghost one of the greatest pianists around.”  

The public simply loved Julian Lee. A handsome young man who was highly talented, had abruptly and magically started reaping what he sowed from two years back, and now, he’d even shed the painfully awkward and taciturn persona to become a charming, humorous pianist who delighted tabloid journalists, too, with his generous share of arrogant statements that were perfect for headlines. 

Feeling a little sick for some reason she couldn’t fathom, Hannah Lee wondered if it was a fad for young people nowadays to speak differently than they used to before. Her son was starting to sound like he was from someplace in Ireland.

Epilogue

10 December 1994

A stubborn muscle in his cheek spasmed, and his mouth, apart, expelled one short breath after another like a guppy’s would.

As he rolled his fingers back and forth on his temples, he felt his underarms lubricated by perspiration.

He felt like he was under water.

No one in the backstage of the piano concert hall paid much attention to the sixteen year old pianist Ronan Ryan who’d flown from Ireland.

It was his first official big competition. This kind of a mild breakdown was like a ritual for the newbies.

Besides, word had it that this was some stuck-up newbie who went around professing he was going to be one of the greatest pianists around.

But no one had the chance to figure out if he would stay true to his word. Minutes before his performance, having his first and last panic attack, Ronan groped his way down a flight of stairs backstage for some water, had a bad fall, and died.