He’s always been stuck here.
She hits out hard, fast, and blood trickles down his split cheek and it’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid, but all he can think of is how he can’t turn up to August’s like this again. She’ll never get her song.
She’ll think he didn’t have the courage to come.
Which is true, isn’t it? He’s pathetic.
Stupid.
Worthless.
Schwachkopf. Moron.
‘You break my heart,’ the Maestro says, her voice cracked, crying. ‘You are nothing when you should’ve been everything. Without the piano, there is nothing left of me. Nothing. You failed me. You failed everyone.’ Her voice twists into a wail.
It’s true. She’s right. Beck fails school, life, Joey, August, Jan, the piano.
Fail – fail – fail.
‘Beck! Beck!’ Joey screams. She’s a shadow behind the Maestro, trying to grab her mother’s arm.
The Maestro’s fingers twist into Beck’s hair. ‘You are my mistake, Beethoven.’ She slams him into the piano.
His head connects with wood and paint and polish and for a second he sees nothing. It’s like floating on the sea in a cardboard box. He’s only dimly aware of Joey screaming. Of the Maestro smashing his head again. Of blood filling his ears. His eyes. Blood everywhere.
His eyes clear and he sees the piano, floating in a zigzag, smeared with his blood.
His voice is distorted, like he’s yelling through a tunnel. ‘Joey, call the police.’
‘NEIN,’ the Maestro screams. ‘You are being punished! Or are you such a baby you cannot take it?’
He’s being murdered.
He just has to hit back. Hit back. Hit back.
And be just like the Maestro?
He won’t.
He refuses.
But he’s struggling to know which way is up, where he is whoheiswhatisgoingon …
A small body presses against his legs as he sags against the piano. She’s between him and the Maestro.
‘Don’t, Mummy,’ she says.
The Maestro backhands her.
It tosses Joey’s little body halfway across the room and she cracks into the wall with a sickening thud. She lies still. She can’t be still. Is Beck screaming? He has to get to her, but the world is upside down and dripping blood.
He tries to get up but the Maestro hits him again and this time, when his head hits the piano, a sharp ringing splits his ears. He doesn’t get up.
But his swollen lips move – in a whisper? Or a shout?
‘You can’t hurt your baby, Mutter. That’s Joey. You can’t hurt your baby Joey.’ And he says it over and over and over and over
and she doesn’t hit him again.
When he cracks his swollen eyelids open, the Maestro is on her knees, pulling Joey’s crumpled body into her arms and sobbing. Huge sobs. They shake her to the core of her bones.
Beck pulls himself to his feet and staggers out of the room. He’s made out of cement and each step weighs a hundred kilos. He finds the phone in the kitchen and nearly drops it before he can get the number in. It takes him five tries to follow the line of wobbling digits on the card from his pocket.
Is the phone dead? He can’t hear the dial tone.
Until faintly, like a tiny pinpoint of light, he hears someone pick up.
‘I changed my mind,’ he says, his voice thick. ‘But Joey has to come.’
Did his uncle reply? Did he even dial the right number?
The phone tips from his hands and Beck sinks to the floor and cradles his throbbing head. It beats like a song. The song says goodbye.
They ask him to say his name. Again and again. He can’t make his tongue answer.
They shine a light in his eyes and say something about an ambulance. A stretcher? His mother? His head? Stay awake? Or go to sleep?
His mouth is still full of blood but he manages to say, ‘I can’t hear you.’
He gestures to his bloodied ears.
‘I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.’ Does he scream or whisper?
He tells them his name, through swollen lips.
‘Beethoven Keverich.’
Technically Beck isn’t allowed to go anywhere alone – safety reasons. Just until he gets used to his limitations.
But they are at his house, Jan and he, picking up anything he wants to take. Which is exactly nothing. His clothing is little more than rags, so Jan said they’ll buy some before the flight this weekend. And he’ll need advice for Joey’s clothes because he’s never bought for a little girl. He’ll ask her favourite colour when they pick her up from the hospital this evening.
As for this house? Packing keepsakes? Is there anything special he wants to save?
Beck has nothing.
So he just walks out.
To August’s house, obviously. Where else would he go? But how long has it been since he even talked to her? Over a week with his hospital stay? There’s so much to say and he doesn’t know where to begin. Does he start with hello?
Or goodbye?
Does he tell her he’s leaving? For ever. As soon as they pick up Joey with the pink cast on her broken arm, they’ll be on a one-way plane flight, her, Jan and him. Does he say he never has to see the Maestro again if he doesn’t want? How she’s signed over her children’s custody to her brother. How Jan is still pressing charges against her. How Beck will have to testify and he can’t think about that right now. He can’t face it. Maybe he can’t even do it.
Jan says they’ll decide later.
Now is for leaving.
He could tell August how the Maestro kissed his forehead, even though he flinched away from her, and, cold and precise, she said, ‘Ich liebe dich.’ I love you. And then she left the hospital and never looked back at all the things she had broken.
Does he wait till August asks about the yellow bruises on his face, the bandage on his left ear, or the stitches in his cheek? He should. No lies, this time.
While Jan tiptoed gingerly around the smashed house, Beck avoided his room with the bloodied piano and broken keys. He never has to play again, if he chooses.
But his music hasn’t stopped. He’s already scribbling new songs on the back of a hospital menu, his fingers dancing with notes on hallway walls as he walks because apparently composing is part of him and not likely to go away.
He walks slowly down his street – for the last time? – and tries not to jolt his aching limbs too much. His face feels tight beneath the stitches. That’ll make her sad. After all this time, he still hasn’t learnt to smile. Between his motley face and his new clothes, she won’t even recognise him. Jeans that fit? A lined jacket? Shoes so new they squeak on shined floors? He’s never felt so rich.
August’s house looks the same – a relief. He nearly expects the world to be different since his life has changed so much. The only new addition is several chickens in the front yard that scatter as he walks to the front door. This time he won’t lurk in her yard like some demented creeper. He’ll knock. And if she’s not home, he’ll go and never come back.
He knocks.
The dogs are probably going crazy inside.
The door opens and two feet, with bare, blackened soles and rainbow anklets, appear with a blast of cinnamon and flour. Her face is dusted with white and smudges of chocolate decorate her arms. Her lips are caught between a smile and a frown, but she doesn’t hesitate. August throws her arms around his neck and presses her face into his collar. Her body shudders beneath him. What does he do? Maybe – just – He returns the hug, holds her tight, rain hugging sunshine, and he remembers that she does care about him. She said so that night, when they ate the stars and she kissed him.
She opens her mouth, but he puts a finger to her lips. He wishes he could mentally transfer everything he wanted to say.
But that would be cheating.
Instead he says, ‘Hi,’ and pretends he’s not crying.
She pretends she’s not crying too.
He pulls the CD out of his back pocket and hesitates before he hands it to her. Can’t take it back now. He accidentally wrote something precious into that song and sharing it is baring his soul. But he’s OK with that.
This is August.
In thick Sharpie he’s written:
FOR AUGUST: ALL THE THINGS I DIDN’T SAY.