“Seasonal, Mother?”
“Something people might know?”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
She turned and addressed me directly. “Do you know any Christmas songs? A hymn? ‘Silent Night’ perhaps? Or ‘Hark! The Herald Angels’—I think that’s Mendelssohn. If you can play Beethoven, you can play Mendelssohn.”
“You want carols?”
“Not only hymns.” She walked on, hitching down her habit. “You could do ‘Jingle Bells’ or ‘White Christmas.’ ”
“That’s from Holiday Inn,” one of the other nuns volunteered. “Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire and Marjorie Reynolds. Oh, but you’re too young.”
“Did you see Bells of St. Mary’s?” the third-grade teacher asked her fellow sisters. “Wasn’t he good in that?”
“I really liked that Boys Town—you know, the one with Mickey Rooney.”
Rattling the beads on her rosary, Mother Superior cut them off. “Surely you know a few Christmas songs?”
Crestfallen, I went home that night and learned the fluff, practicing on a paper-cutout keyboard fashioned by my father. At the show the next evening, I trimmed half my original program and added a few carols at the end. I kept the Schoenberg, which, needless to say, bombed. I played the Christmas stuff brilliantly and to a thunderous ovation. “Cretins,” I said under my breath as I accepted their adulation. During my repeated bows, loathing swelled over their loud clapping and whistling. But then, looking out at the sea of faces, I began to recognize my parents and neighbors, all happy and cheerful, sending me their sincere appreciation for the holiday warmth generated by the vaguely predictable strains of their old favorites. No gift as welcome as the expected gift. And I grew light-headed and dizzy the longer the applause went on. My father rose to his feet, a real smile plastered on his mug. I nearly fainted. I wanted more.
The glory of the experience rested in the simple fact that my musical talent was a human one. There were no pianos in the woods. And as my magic slowly diminished, my artistry increased. I felt more and more removed from those who had taken me for a hundred years, and my sole hope and prayer was that they would leave me alone. From the night of the first performance, it was as if I were split in two: half of me continuing on with Mr. Martin and his emphasis on the canon of classics, pounding out the old composers until I could hammer like Thor or make the keys whisper under the gentlest pressure. The other half expanded my repertoire, thinking about what audiences might like to hear, like the ballads crooned on the radio adored by my mother. I loved both the fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier and “Heart and Soul,” and they flowed seamlessly, but being adept at popular song allowed me to accept odd jobs when offered, playing at school dances and birthday parties. Mr. Martin objected at first to the bastardization of my talent, but I gave him a sob story about needing money for lessons. He cut his fee by a quarter on the spot. With the money we saved, the cash I earned, and my mother’s increasingly lucrative egg and chicken business, we were able to buy a used upright piano for the house in time for my twelfth birthday.
“What’s this?” my father asked when he came home the day the piano arrived, its beautiful machinery housed in a rosewood case.
“It’s a piano,” my mother replied.
“I can see that. How did it get here?”
“Piano movers.”
He slid a cigarette from the packet and lit it in one swift move. “Ruthie, I know someone brought it here. How come it is here?”
“For Henry. So he can practice.”
“We can’t afford a piano.”
“We bought it. Me and Henry.”
“With the money from my playing,” I added.
“And the chickens and eggs.”
“You bought it?”
“On Mr. Martin’s advice. For Henry’s birthday.”
“Well, then. Happy birthday,” he said on his way out of the room.