01.05 — The Maestro

I

Isaac is fifteen when he returns to rehearsals with the Carlos Chávez after a visit to the emergency room. Nothing that could be called a conversion has taken place. In the hospital he has not promised to give up drugs or experienced any revelation about the fragility of his body. They have asked him questions, examined him, and finally allowed him to leave. His family is worried, and some of his teachers know what happened, but Isaac has the impression that it was all an accident that need not happen again. He has been smoking marijuana and hashish for some time, drinking with his friends, and has begun trying substances that no longer belong to those relatively innocent ceremonies in which adolescents gather to listen to music and discover that the most ordinary things can seem extraordinary. Now there are more dangerous drugs, though Isaac is convinced he knows how to use them. He has discovered that he can use drugs through the night and turn up at school the next day, study a score, or sit down at the piano without anyone noticing anything. Sometimes he has trouble concentrating, and at other times he seems to play better than ever. This reassures him, because he believes that as long as he retains his ability to play there is no reason to worry too much.

He arrives early for rehearsal. The room is almost empty, and a few musicians are talking as they take their instruments out of their cases. Isaac places his scores on the piano and wonders whether the conductor will say anything about his absence. He knows that news of his hospitalization has spread among the teachers and probably among the members of the orchestra. He is afraid they will begin treating him differently, asking him questions in front of everyone, or suggesting that he should take a temporary break from rehearsals. The possibility of losing his scholarship is particularly unpleasant. He does not need the money to live, though he insists on using it to pay for his apartment and some of his things, but he could not bear being removed from the Carlos Chávez. Going back home would feel like admitting that his attempt at independence has failed.

The conductor comes in while several violinists are still tuning. He greets the musicians and walks toward the stand, but stops when he sees Isaac. For a few seconds he looks at him without saying anything. Isaac thinks he recognizes the stern expression with which he usually receives those who arrive late or have not practiced enough. He prepares himself for a reprimand and lowers his eyes to the score. When he looks up again, however, the conductor is smiling. He comes over to the piano and, before Isaac can stand up, takes him by the shoulders and hugs him with a force that surprises him.

“Maestro,” he says.

Isaac does not know what to say.

The conductor draws back a little and looks at him again. He seems to be making sure that he really is all right, that he can stand on his own and does not need anything. Then he hugs him again, more briefly this time.

“Maestro.”

Isaac feels an embarrassment he did not experience in the hospital. There everyone was concerned with finding out what he had taken, how much, and under what circumstances. Now there is a man who seems simply glad to see him. Isaac would have preferred a scolding. He would have known how to defend himself, explain that it would not happen again, and argue if anyone exaggerated the consequences of that night. But the conductor asks him nothing. He merely points to the piano bench.

“Come on, sit down.”

Isaac obeys. He opens the score, checks that the pages are in order, and rests his hands on his legs so that no one will notice their slight trembling. Around him the musicians go on tuning. A chair scrapes across the floor, and someone asks whether they will begin with the first movement. The conductor talks to the concertmaster for a moment, checks an annotation in his score, and raises the baton. Everything seems exactly as it was before the hospitalization. Isaac finds something reassuring in that normality. The orchestra has schedules, breaks, and obligations that do not change because an adolescent has done something stupid. Rehearsal begins at ten; later there will be a break, and then they will have to go on working. The conductor waits for everyone to fall silent.

“From the beginning, maestro.”

II

The word begins to circulate among the musicians. At first Isaac thinks it is a joke, because some of the violinists repeat it in imitation of the conductor’s affectionate tone. Then he discovers that others use it quite naturally. An older cellist greets him with “Good morning, maestro,” and a woman who works in the office asks whether the maestro needs anything before rehearsal. Isaac feels uncomfortable when he hears the word in front of people who do not know him, but he also begins to expect them to use it. He especially likes it when someone says it without irony, as though they have forgotten they are speaking to a fifteen-year-old boy.

Something similar happens at Bellas Artes. A technician tells him the piano is ready and shows him where to enter the stage. He calls him maestro. A woman in charge of the programs uses the same word, and a stagehand addresses him that way while checking the position of the bench. Isaac begins to suspect that in theaters they call anyone who carries an instrument or has to go onstage maestro, but he cannot help feeling a certain satisfaction. Until recently adults treated him as an extraordinarily diligent child who needed to be congratulated on his progress. Now some of them seem to have decided that he belongs to the same world as professional musicians.

Roberto has also called him maestro, but in a completely different way. Isaac remembers the afternoon when his teacher asked whether he considered himself a genius. After thinking about it carefully, he answered yes, and Roberto shook his head before telling him he was not a genius but a maestro. Isaac still does not entirely understand the distinction. For Roberto, being a maestro seems to have less to do with talent than with the obligation to work, study, and understand what one is performing. It does not matter much to him that Isaac can play a difficult piece if he cannot explain what he is doing with it. He asks him about the composers, the poems that inspired certain pieces, and the differences between interpreting a score and merely reproducing its notes. Sometimes Isaac suspects that Roberto demands too much, though he also knows that none of the congratulations he receives in the orchestra gives him the same satisfaction as getting his teacher to listen to an entire piece without interrupting him.

The conductor of the Carlos Chávez, on the other hand, seems to have found in the word a way of telling him he is glad to have him back. He never mentions his hospitalization again, nor does he allow anyone to make the episode a topic of conversation during rehearsals. When Isaac plays well he congratulates him, and when he makes a mistake he corrects him with the same severity as before. This last fact is a considerable relief. He does not want them to forgive wrong notes because he has been ill. Much less because he was responsible for what happened.

Something else puzzles him. Some of the musicians seem genuinely fond of him. Isaac is used to being admired for his ease at the piano, but he does not quite know what to do with the affection of people old enough to be his parents. Sometimes, when one of them offers him a ride to his apartment or asks whether he has eaten, he answers with a brusqueness that later embarrasses him. He feels that accepting too much attention would call his independence into question. Yet when the conductor hugs him, he feels something he cannot explain and remembers for several days.

III

The Little Samurai does not call him maestro.

Isaac has noticed this since the first rehearsal. Yoshiaki hears the others use the word, but when he needs to speak to him he calls him Isaac, exactly as before. Nor does he ask what happened in the hospital. For the first few days he merely watches him from his place among the violins, with an expression Isaac cannot interpret. Sometimes he seems worried; at other times he seems simply to be waiting for the pianist to finish playing so that he can go on with his own part.

That calm bothers Isaac. Yoshiaki has a way of remaining motionless that seems to fit his friend’s image of the ancient Japanese samurai. He knows it is an absurd association. Japanese boys have no reason to resemble the warriors in films, and Yoshiaki is an adolescent who puts his feet up on benches, forgets his notebooks, and sometimes arrives late for class. Yet when he holds the violin under his chin and listens to the conductor, he seems incapable of experiencing any emotion the others could recognize.

During a break Isaac finds him beside a window. He is tuning a string and does not raise his head when he approaches. Isaac waits for him to ask how he is feeling or say something about his return. Yoshiaki remains occupied with the instrument.

“What?” Isaac asks.

The boy lifts his eyes a little.

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Yoshiaki stops turning the peg and looks at him. Isaac wonders whether he is going to smile, but the other boy seems to think the answer is too obvious.

“Because you came back.”

Then he rests the violin under his chin again and checks the tuning.

Isaac stays by the window, not knowing whether the conversation is over. He would like to ask whether he was worried when he heard he was in the emergency room, whether someone told him what happened, and whether he was the one who saw him lose consciousness. He would also like to explain that nothing very serious happened, that the doctors exaggerated, and that he is perfectly well now. But he does not know what Yoshiaki has heard or how much he cares.

“Well, yes,” he says at last. “I came back.”

Yoshiaki nods.

Isaac returns to the piano with the impression that he has just missed an important opportunity. He does not know exactly what for. He would have liked Yoshiaki to ask him questions, though he is sure he would have ended up getting angry if he pressed him too much. What he finds unbearable is that the boy can speak of his hospitalization as though it were simply an absence that has come to an end.

For the rest of the rehearsal he tries not to look at him. At first he succeeds, but when the violins begin one of the more delicate passages he raises his head again. Yoshiaki is concentrating on the score. Isaac watches his hands and the way he holds the bow. He seems to play with extraordinary calm, without worrying about proving anything. Roberto often says that the best performers are those who have learned not to come between the music and those who listen to it. Isaac has never entirely understood that assertion, but now he thinks he can see something like it in the Little Samurai’s movements.

When the passage ends, Yoshiaki looks up and finds Isaac watching him.

This time he gives the slightest inclination of his head.

Isaac lowers his eyes to the keys.

IV

He plays well that day. The conductor congratulates him several times, and some of the musicians comment on how easily he has recovered the rhythm of rehearsals. Isaac is particularly pleased because he feared the drugs might have affected his memory or the precision of his hands. During the first few hours after leaving the hospital he had felt an unpleasant tremor and difficulty concentrating, but now he manages to play the most difficult passages without making mistakes. It seems sufficient proof that he has lost none of his abilities.

He does not ask himself why he ended up in the emergency room. Or rather, he asks himself without dwelling too long on the answer. He knows he took more than usual and mixed substances he should not have mixed. He also knows that other boys do the same thing without ending up in the hospital. He concludes that he was unlucky. Next time he will be more careful.

What worries him most is that someone might want to intervene in his life. His parents have already begun asking questions about his friends and the people who visit the apartment. His mother insists that he should return to The Comneno Estate, and his father reminds him that a scholarship does not mean he is no longer a minor. Isaac listens to these observations with growing impatience. He does not believe his parents have the right to decide whom he spends time with or what he does after studying. Sometimes he thinks it would have been better not to accept the scholarship, because then he could go on living at home without constantly having to prove he deserves a certain freedom. But he immediately remembers Yoshiaki, who lives in the same building, and abandons the idea of going back.

Alejo cannot reassure him either. His brother wants to know what happened and why they had to take him to the hospital. Isaac tells him only what is necessary. Alejo insists that drugs can harm him and asks whether he is not afraid to take them again. Isaac replies that he knows perfectly well what he is doing.

“That’s what you said before,” Alejo observes.

“Because it’s true.”

“Then why did you end up in the emergency room?”

Isaac does not answer. It bothers him that his brother should ask such an obvious question. Alejo looks at him for a moment and then changes the subject. He tells him about a book he is reading about Saint Alexius and a man who abandoned all his wealth to live among beggars. Isaac seizes the opportunity to make fun of the story, and the conversation ends in an argument about whether there is any point in making one’s own family suffer to prove that one is willing to renounce the world.

Later, after Alejo leaves, Isaac sits down at the piano again. He practices for several hours and makes progress on a piece he found particularly difficult the previous week. He is convinced that afternoon proves something. He can attend high school, keep up with his classes at the Nacional, rehearse with the Carlos Chávez, read Homer, and go on looking for the Cypria. He can also live alone, have friends, go out at night, and take drugs without everything else falling apart.

He does not think things might deteriorate slowly.

Many years later he will spend almost a year shut away in a rehabilitation farm, without playing the piano. But he knows nothing of that now. He is fifteen, he still has his scholarship, and he is convinced that adults worry too much about things he has learned to manage.

V

At the end of the rehearsal, the conductor puts the baton down on the stand and talks to the concertmaster for a moment. Isaac remains seated as the musicians begin putting away their instruments. He is tired but pleased. He feels he has played better than before his hospitalization and hopes the conductor has noticed.

“Very good, maestro,” he says as he passes the piano.

Isaac smiles.

A cellist repeats the compliment, and someone at the back of the room asks whether he will be there the next day. Isaac says yes, of course. He does not understand why they keep asking whether he intends to return. The Carlos Chávez has a calendar that must be followed, and he does not believe his absence has changed any of his obligations.

He puts away the scores and watches Yoshiaki, who is closing his violin case. His hair is slightly disheveled, and he has removed the little blue stone from his ear. Isaac wonders where he keeps it while he plays. It strikes him as odd that he has begun taking an interest in such insignificant details. A few months ago he would have thought it ridiculous for anyone to pay attention to the way another boy puts away an earring or arranges his hair.

Yoshiaki looks up.

For an instant they look at each other.

This time the Little Samurai smiles, though barely enough for Isaac to be sure he has done so. Then he puts the case over his shoulder and walks toward the exit.

Isaac finishes putting his things away and follows him a few minutes later. In the corridor he can still hear some musicians discussing the rehearsal. One of them greets him from a distance.

“See you tomorrow, maestro.”

Isaac raises his hand.

He likes being called that. He also likes the fact that Roberto was the first to use the word, though he knows his teacher was not trying to congratulate him. But what matters most to him that afternoon is that Yoshiaki smiled.

When he comes out, the boy is already gone.

Isaac thinks he could catch up with him if he walked quickly, but decides not to. They will probably meet again in the building, and perhaps then they can talk without the others listening. He imagines Yoshiaki asking how he is feeling and himself answering naturally. He does not want to seem too interested. Nor does he want the Little Samurai to think he needs his pity.

He walks toward the apartment thinking about the rehearsal. He has managed to play well, received the conductor’s congratulations, and no one has spoken of the hospital again. Everything seems to have returned to its place.

The one thing he cannot get out of his head is Yoshiaki’s phrase.

Because you came back.

Isaac does not know why that brief phrase has made him so happy. He feels it contains a concern the boy did not want to express and that, for some reason, he is still embarrassed to acknowledge.

He thinks how little it takes to make him happy when Yoshiaki pays attention to him.

Then he remembers that during rehearsal the conductor called him maestro and everyone else began repeating it.

It seems to him to have been an extraordinary day.