The stage lights turn on so suddenly that the blazing beams nearly burn through my skin. I’m trembling already, but not externally. I can feel my stomach turn and twist as I see all those glowing eyes watching, judging, and waiting from afar. Their stares feel like sharpened spears through my skull.
Each note and each key is engraved into every crevice and folding in my brain, and each precise finger placement is just muscle memory to me. The audience erupts into applause as I take my bow, and I turn to the piano. I sit and watch as the piece unfolds out in front of me in my head, and the moulds for my hands float just above the keys. The piece I’ve chosen is Liebestraum No.3 in A-Flat Major. In pressing the first key I can already feel myself taking my first step into my second vessel. This vessel is taking all of my overflowing emotions from my brain and converting them into vibrations and sounds that bounce and spring from wall to wall in this dome-shaped void. The keys move for me and only for me, portraying everything I can’t. Slowly, as I’m coming towards the end of my piece, I’m sucked back into the reality of that daunting stage. The applause from the audience can be heard from miles, and I take my last bow.
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“And the pianist who will be advancing to the final of this year’s Chopin competition will be …” I can feel my heart in my mouth. The room seems to be floating or spinning around me, but I can’t tell which. “...17-year-old Fiona Baker.” At this moment, all that I can think of is my sleepless nights and tiring days of the past eleven years, all flashing before my eyes. All the harsh and cruel words my mother hurled at me flicker before me too. And as I turn to look for anything, pride, joy, satisfaction from that fiery woman, I see nothing. Her eyes are looking at me but say nothing. Her deep and prolonged stare tells me that it’s not enough. Those dark eyes are only saying “more, more, more”. I walk along the stage, but my head feels like it’s under water. I walk to shake the hands of men in slick black suits. My hearing is fuzzy, all of their voices merge together into one blurred ball in my ears, and I nod my head as if I’m listening. By the time every hollow “congratulations” has been exchanged, I walk out the elegant glass doors of the concert hall to see my mother waiting for me beside the car. Her eyes have a little more sparkle than before, but I think that that’s just the sun’s doing.
The morning sunlight sneaks through my window, spreading to each corner of my room. I lift myself up from my bed and walk over to the piano. “Are you gonna practise anymore?” I jump. “How long have you been standing there?” I say, ignoring my mother’s question. “Only long enough to see you gawking at your piano instead of actually playing it,” she says, kissing her teeth. I ignore her insolence once again and sit down on the stool. “The final is in two weeks,” I utter. “Of course I’ll practice more, Mum.”
“Good,” she declares. “Well, I have a few critiques to share about your, well, sort of sloppy performance.”
“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” I say to myself, although I can start to feel a lump in my throat, like a thick ball of disappointment.
“Your tempo was very off,” she starts. “At your age, I basically had a mini metronome in my brain, never missed a cue.”
“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” I insist to myself, but the fuzzy ball is still sitting like a rock in my throat.
“Fiona! Are you even listening to me?” she roars, glaring at me with blazes in her eyes. “Y-yes, I need to work on my tempo.” Why am I trembling? “Are you crying right now?” I’m crying? Why am I crying?
“You didn’t seriously think that was a good performance from you?” Now she’s behind me, looking down on me. I say nothing, weeping. “Answer me!” She’s staring into my eyes. “Did you, or did you not think of that performance as ‘good’?” I bite my lip.
“I won, Mum.” I mumble. “I got through to the finals.” She begins to laugh.
“And you think that makes you great? Ha!” She smirks. “All you got was a head start Fiona, you’re lucky I started you off young. That’s it.” She slams the door behind her, leaving an unbearable lingering scent of her perfume. I bury my head in my hands. My salty tears roll off my cheek onto the keys, and all I can do is play.
My eyes are glued to my ceiling. As I lie on my bed and stare at the cosmos infused in the ceiling, I lie in the present. In these precious moments, I only think of now. Not yesterday, and certainly not tomorrow. But something stares at me from the corner of my room, and as I look up, I see the vessel I live for. My draining work and effort over these past two weeks all orbit around this very day. I pace over to the mirror and stare at the girl who peers back at me. She’s frail and weak, and her deep, scarlet dress contrasts with her pale skin so much she looks as if she could fade away at any moment. I turn from my reflection to see my mother standing in the doorway, her eyes searching every corner of me. “You look nice,” she says. I try to say something but nod my head instead. “You know,” she adds, clearing her throat, “your grandfather won this competition on this day 48 years ago. And, on this same day 22 years ago, I lost everything I had ever wanted.”
He never gave me a simple direction. How was I supposed to know what I needed at 17?
She’s coming closer now, and my eyes go straight to the floor. “And do you know why that is?” She’s staring down at me. “I needed one thing. One thing Fiona, do you know what that thing was?” My arms feel limp and my skull feels heavy. I shake my head. “Guidance. Guidance was all I needed, and it was the one thing your grandfather never gave me.” The floorboards of my room creak under her fury. “He never gave me a simple direction. How was I supposed to know what I needed at 17? I didn’t know anything. All I needed was a map.” She’s kneeling before me now, staring right at me. “And that’s what I’ve given you Fiona, a map. And if that is not enough after whatever happens today …” She stands up. “I’ll have nothing more to give to you.” I watch as that slender figure walks through the doorway. The clicks of her heels off of the floor rattle through my brain as I sit on this stool, hollow and used, as I’ve always been.
The birds are chirping louder than usual today, and the scent of morning dew tickles my nose. I wave goodbye to my mother and swing open the car door. As I begin to drive, my eyes start to fill with tears. As each drop of sorrow and disappointment flows heavily down my cheeks, almost silently in the background, Gymnopédie No.1, the piece I’ve practised over 100 times for this day, plays softly as I weep. As my eyes begin to blur, I press my foot down harshly against the pedal. With each passing tree I shoot past, I think not of every cruel thing she gave to me, but I think of everything she didn’t. Everything young me never got, and everything I still have never got. Words of encouragement, admiration and pride, a warm body to hold when mine was like ice, a shoulder that I could cry on. All of these thoughts rush through my head, and the screeches of the car blow like bullets through my brain as my body is hurled through the windscreen.
The image of that crossing van races through my head as I’m already bleeding on to tarmac and shattered glass. I can hear shrieks, but they all sound so far away. As I lift my hand, I can feel an aching pain in my side. All I see is red, and my eyes have gone blurry. Lying on this road, with the pounding of my heart and the stinging in my chest, still all I think of is her. Her careful and cruel gaze that could kill, and the warmth and burn of her words. I think of her, hoping and praying that she may also be thinking of me. I think of her, as my eyes go dark and my hearing goes silent. I think of the mother that she never was, and the daughter that I’ll never be.
