The Blue Guitar Read online

  “How many have you won?” Trace asks.

  Armand gazes sternly at her. “Young lady, I have earned one participation in semifinals, and this is my aspiration, to achieve that level again.”

  “One semifinal in twenty-one tries?” Trace doesn’t disguise her astonishment.

  Armand gives her a doleful look while Hiro, a guitarist from Osaka, giggles. He sports a metallic toque worn over spiky hair and moves with a self-conscious grace, tilting his head just so, adjusting his collar. Toby studies him, the smooth skin, grey linen shirt. Queer? Too soon to be sure, and there are cultural differences to consider.

  Toby bolts down his food. When he’s on edge, he can’t taste anything and it’s a struggle to get it down. But food is fuel, a necessary stoking of the furnace, and it prevents death — a fact he once notoriously forgot.

  The cadets pull half a dozen tables together at the other end of the cafeteria and sit with their legs swung out, boots too big to fit beneath. Their voices pitch low, as if they’re on a secret mission. Armand eyes them and pulls up his collar, pretending to hide. Toby’s the only one who laughs, who gets the joke. The other guitarists chatter about the judges, preferences known and rumoured, and possible prejudices: one is a sucker for the lyric line and lush tone, while another craves brash modern dissonance with flamenco trimmings. Information is ammunition.

  “What you must understand,” Armand insists, slapping the table with his palm, “is that even a fantastic guitarist can have a bad day. So if you genius people make a mistake onstage, I will be waiting in the wings.”

  “Juerta’s here,” Larry says, referring to the eminent judge. “He’s not going to be put off by a few wrong notes.”

  “A few wrong notes,” Armand interrupts, “is a catastrophe if —” he lowers his voice “— you cannot instantly recover.”

  A short silence follows this remark as each musician imagines himself flubbing onstage, spotlight burning.

  “Those of us who have been around these events for years, the judges understand how we play, what we can do,” Armand says, then leans back, hands clasped over his trim belly.

  Toby calculates — twenty-one competitions. The man’s been at it for years. He must be well over thirty. Unlike most competitions, this one is open to all ages.

  Toby’s name, briefly known in classical guitar circles beyond Canada, means zip to this lot. Whatever reputation he once enjoyed has long since disappeared into the ether of flamed-out early promise. It will happen to many of these characters, too, though such a possibility is far from their minds now. They trade news of master classes attended, guitar gods glimpsed in the hallways, luthiers who use traditional fan bracing versus radial. There had been a day when Toby was in the thick of it, and he wipes his mouth with a paper napkin and waits for all this to feel different, more how it was.

  At the far end of the table a woman with tangled blond hair smiles at him. When he meets her gaze, she glances away, then back again. Shy? Perhaps. What he can see of her face intrigues him: she must be at least forty and is dressed with some care in a yellow blouse and silver necklace.

  “Where are you from?” she mouths.

  “Toronto.”

  She points to her chest and mouths back, “Me, too,” then indicates an empty chair next to her. Toby picks up his tray with the remnants of lunch and joins her there.

  “Another refugee from the virus,” she says in a too-bright voice, then holds out her hand. “Lucy Shaker.”

  They shake, and he sees milky skin under the framing hair and violet rings under her eyes.

  “I know you,” Lucy says.

  “What?” Unsettled, Toby looks down. Here goes — the moment he’s been fearing.

  “I heard you play years ago.”

  He recovers, memory spinning. “Where?” he asks, hoping it wasn’t that final recital in Toronto at the Women’s Art Association, the show he’s mostly forgotten. Legend goes that he interrupted his playing to rant to the audience, then launched into an improv that went on so long that everyone tiptoed away, leaving the rented hall almost empty.

  “That church nestled inside the Eaton Centre,” Lucy reminds him.

  Little Trinity, an urban marvel rescued from the developer’s wrecking ball, surrounded by a shopping mall. Toby smiles in relief: that concert was a triumph, broadcast on CBC Radio for its Young Artists series.

  “I played Boccherini,” he recalls. “The Grand Sonata by Sor and a set of Tárrega.”

  “You were just a boy.”

  “I was fifteen.”

  The table has gone quiet as other competitors eavesdrop.

  “You were amazing,” Lucy says. “In a world of your own.”

  “Still am.” That old self can seem remote one moment, then reappear in dazzling Technicolor the next.

  She waits a beat before asking, “Did you ever stop playing?”

  “Never.” He senses them leaning in, wanting to hear more. Most are too young to realize that a life contains detours, more detours than highways.

  “But you didn’t perform?”

  “That’s right.”

  He feels their attention burrow in and is grateful when Lucy notes his discomfort.

  “What number did everyone draw?” She turns to the group, still speaking in a brittle voice. She’s referring to the lottery that determines in what order they will play in the preliminary round, a two-day marathon that will weed out most hopefuls.

  “Fifty-one,” Toby volunteers.

  “Out of sixty?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Lucy winces in sympathy.

  “The judges will nod off,” Toby says, though he doesn’t actually believe this for a minute. His performance will shake them out of their torpor.

  “Budapest guy number one,” Hiro offers in uncertain English. “He finish early, then practise second round. Lucky guy.” He nods several times, confirming this opinion.

  “If he goes to a second round,” Armand points out.

  A cloud passes over the crew as each member enters the possibility of being cut before the real competition begins. Months of work, travel expenses, cocky assurances to those back home …

  “I can’t worry about it,” Toby says, feeling worry creep in, anyway.

  “Their ears will be numbed by repetition,” Larry adds.

  Lucy turns to him and asks, “And you?”

  “I drew six.” Larry smiles smugly, as if this were an achievement, not merely luck. Drawing an early number gives him ample time to work up his program for the semifinals. Everyone must play the same compulsory pieces plus the killer Mark Loesser sonata composed especially for competition. Finally, each artist gets five minutes to strut a favourite from his own repertoire.

  Lucy turns to Trace. “And you?”

  “I pulled twenty-something.” Her studied indifference is a cover.

  No one thinks to ask Lucy what number she drew.

  Armand checks his watch. “Important technique workshop in five minutes. Myles Boyer demonstrating cross string ornamentation.”

  The institute is topsy-turvy, and before Jasper can even hang up his jacket, Rachel, the intern, hands him a stack of papers striped with her highlighter pen. Someone wheels in a monitor so staff can watch the morning press conference. It’s Dr. Steve Rabinovitch issuing the latest statistical report and — surprise, surprise — their very own Chairman Luke stands on tiptoe at his side, offering a sober face to the camera. The disease may be gearing up into another round as the virus mutates. They aren’t front line here at the institute: Jasper and his staff sweep up after the parade has gone by, caring for survivors after discharge from hospital and the first run of rehab. Despite the fraught word epidemic, there have been fewer than eighty cases confirmed in total.

  Jasper can’t contain a snort when the camera lens flies past Luke. Look at his tidy blond hair and moustache and the way he nods whenever the good doctor makes a point. Luke is small but muscular — a ferret, Jasper decides. Soon as the ca
meras switch off, Luke will pull out his phone to issue directives that counter every decision they’ve made the week before. Sirens wail up and down University Avenue. Someone is making a fortune flogging latex gloves and surgical masks.

  “Hey, Jasper,” Rachel says. “He looks just like you.”

  Jasper glares. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  She’s not the first to note the resemblance. It was Luke himself in that first board meeting who hung back when the others left and confided to Jasper: “We’re much the same, you and I. Bodes well for our future working relationship.”

  Soon after, the freshly elected chair fired off a memo declaring that the institute must “prioritize its goals” and “the executive director’s role must be redefined within the new context.” That would be Jasper, and so he found himself thrown into the contest of his professional life.

  Now he looks around at his staff members, who quickly avert their eyes; Chairman Luke has got them thoroughly spooked.

  Slurp of cereal. Kettle whistles. Toilet flushes from down the hall. Someone farts. Elaborate humming. Please, not that song from The Titanic … is it possible to hear too well?

  Toby, lying on the narrow dorm bed, tosses an arm over, but Jasper isn’t there, and his bare hand slaps against drywall.

  Laugher from the other side of the door: his roommates are bustling into the day. He feels a rush of panic, but it quickly subsides as he recalls that this lot plays in the preliminary round today and he’s not up until tomorrow.

  That must be Hiro keeping his door open a crack so they can all hear as he charges through the allegro at breakneck pace. An old trick. Kid wants to scare them, make them question their interpretations: will the judges be impressed by such a transparent display of technique?

  Sure they will.

  But Toby won’t be swayed. A more nuanced approach is also effective. There is no finish line, no stopwatch.

  Except there is.

  At twenty minutes they cut you off, a guillotine chop midway through your soul-baring adagio. Not for the first time, Toby thinks — why the hell am I doing this? Hiro lets out a cowboy whoop when he reaches the end of the piece and gives his soundboard a smack — giddy up. Toby rises from the bed, clad only in his underwear, and stumbles into the hallway, rubbing his eyes.

  Each man gets a Spartan bedroom with a cot, a single shelf, and a desk. The shared kitchen doubles as living area. Toby grabs a thin but clean towel off the pile and pads down the hall toward the communal bathroom.

  When he returns, his roommates have disappeared into their cells, starting to rip through arpeggio and scale patterns. Still undressed, Toby draws his guitar onto his lap and starts to tune.

  Back home, Jasper insists on a morning routine of tea, fruit, and whole grain cereal, the proper balance of nutrients and electrolytes. Today Toby will grab a sugary cinnamon bun from the cafeteria and a double espresso. Meanwhile, Guitar Choir is meeting at the church to run through the Thanksgiving program, and no doubt Pamela and Matthew will duke it out for conducting duties. He twists the tuning pegs, easing a set of new high-tension strings into flexibility. By tomorrow’s performance they’ll be perfect. Glance out the window to the courtyard where the Hungarian guitarist is pacing the flagstones, hands clasped behind his back. He’s due to play in twenty-five minutes.

  Howl of anguish inside the pod: Larry.

  “Fucking Montreal humidity!”

  Toby holds his guitar tightly to his chest: too damn easy to get pulled into the drama of others.

  “What is the difficulty?” Armand calls back.

  Excitement drills through Toby: another man’s calamity might protect him from his own.

  “My soundboard split!” Larry cries. “And I’m booked to perform in an hour.”

  “Let Uncle Armand take a look.” There is the sound of footsteps, and a door pushes open, followed by a series of taps as Armand inspects the damage.

  “I believe I can fix this small but unfortunate problem,” he says. “We use temporary adhesion.”

  “Yes?” Larry frets. “How?”

  “I will press sides together —” A grunt of effort is followed by a click, then tense silence.

  Toby leans forward in his seat.

  “Better now, yes?” Armand says.

  “Maybe,” Larry says, hardly daring to hope.

  “And because I am organized German, I will obtain a tube of glue from my suitcase.”

  A friendship is being sealed along with the busted soundboard. Toby lays down a chromatic scale with crisp articulation. He won’t allow a hint of longing or loneliness to enter the room.

  Eleven

  It’s been years since Lucy travelled anywhere on her own. Faced with her departure to Montreal, the twins buried their faces in her shoulder and pretended to sob, then pleaded, “Don’t go, Ma. We’ll be good.”

  Despite the clowning, she knew they sort of meant it.

  “I’ve made a buddy,” Lucy speaks into the phone. “A sweet fellow with small hands.”

  “Small hands?” Charlie echoes. “Why are you checking out this guy’s hands?”

  “Because he’s the competition,” Mike reminds him.

  Phone pressed to her ear, Lucy perches on one of the concrete benches in the courtyard that separates the two dormitory wings. “I’m the oldest person here.” A pair of reservists wearing berets and baggy uniforms strides across the yard, shoulders rolled back, spines erect. They can’t be much older than the twins, her two wan boys on the other end of the phone. “And I haven’t a hope in hell of making it past the first round. All I care is I don’t make a fool of myself.”

  “Whoah, Mum,” says Mike. “Sounds like you’ve already quit.”

  “Sure does,” says Charlie. By his distracted tone, his mother guesses he’s texting one of his juvie pals.

  Where’s Mark? Does he have a clue what’s going on in the house?

  “Don’t be so down on yourself,” Mike says in a surprisingly mature voice.

  “Ditto,” says Charlie. “Crush the opposition.”

  “I’m sure you’re better than most of those crumbs,” Mike adds. He’s been watching old gangster movies lately.

  “Thanks, guys,” she says. Then she adds, “Where’s your father?”

  The boys confer.

  “Down cellar,” one says.

  “Something to do with laundry,” adds the other.

  “Why aren’t you boys doing that?” she says, hearing her voice squawk like the starlings overhead. “Shame on you, letting your dad wash your dirty clothes.” Lucy is on her feet now, pushing past the fountain with its murky doughnut of water.

  After a brief pause, Mike says, “Don’t you have anything better to think about?”

  The two judges rise from their chairs when Lucy enters the cramped studio. She bids them good afternoon, noting the glance that passes between them. Who’s the old bat? they’re wondering. She barely slept, burrowing deep into the hard cot, hearing every sound in the pod and beyond, every clatter of elevator, every siren and screech of brakes. Nina, the Mexican girl on the other side of the residence wall, spent half the night whispering to her boyfriend on her cellphone.

  Quick scan of the studio, because Goran’s final piece of advice was: “Take time to settle in.” She notes the chalkboard with a harmony lesson intact and five empty Styrofoam cups. A piano has been wheeled to the corner.

  “You two must be exhausted,” she says, lowering her case to the floor and snapping open the latches. She flashes the judges a concerned smile. “What a horror, listening to the same pieces over and over. I’d go mad.”

  Stop, she tells herself.

  Juerta looks pointedly at his watch.

  Smyth, the young British judge, keeps yawning as if oxygen-deprived. They just want this to be over, scratch one more name off the list.

  Crush the opposition. Charlie’s advice darts into the room. Lucy lifts the guitar out of its case, sets it on her lap, and then it happens, a su
preme furnace-stoked hot flash, a jolt of hormonal heat funnelled to her extremities, lashed by her now-fiercely beating heart. Her gleaming face must be the colour of the fire alarm set high on the wall. A tremor seizes her hands, and it’s all she can manage to adjust the tuning pegs.

  So it will be a disaster, a train wreck.

  Mark will welcome her home with a sympathetic hug, the boys will be amused by her description of the episode, and life will go on: catering receptions for the association of architects, plucking “Greensleeves” at weekend weddings.

  Flames lick both cheeks, then subside.

  “What will you play first, dear?” Smyth asks in his London accent.

  Dear? She takes a breath. “I’ll start with the Mark Loesser.”

  “Second movement only,” Juerta says, glancing again at his watch.

  She is surprised. “You don’t want me to start at the beginning?”

  “Not necessary.”

  The allegretto is a bitch to launch into without the first movement lead-in. If she’d known, she would have requested to begin with the more straightforward Italian piece. Maybe it’s not too late to change. She opens her mouth to protest, then sees two weary masks facing her. Last thing they need is a middle-aged woman who can’t make up her mind. What is she afraid of? Compared to the time she was robbed by a Bolivian taxi driver in 1985, this is nothing. Compared to clutching a bracken-hued Mike when he stopped breathing after kissing the neighbour’s cat, this is a walk in the park.

  She lifts her right hand over the sound hole — and begins.

  Jasper reaches Toby, who has finally consented to turn on his phone.

  “You haven’t played yet?”

  “I’m about to,” Toby says.

  Jasper waits to hear more, but there is silence. He’s used to such pauses in his life with Toby but still can’t help charging in with: “Not too late to change your mind.”

  More silence. Toby hangs up.

  Room bloody C. Door’s locked, which is weird, and pressing his ear to the wood, Toby hears nothing at all. It’s well past noon, and the guy before him should be finishing his audition. Time to warm up but no place to do it except this bare hallway of the Nathan Gold Fine Arts Building. Should have stayed back in the dorm, soaked his hands in a sink of warm water. Instead he’s pacing the empty corridor, a strategic error. The call from home messed him up. Jasper can never hide the edge of worry in his voice.