Page 54 of Sunrise By the Sea

‘No. Am I scary person?’

There was a slight pause at this as if it were possible the answer might be yes.

‘I am big person. But am I scary person?’

Yes, thought Marisa.

‘Uh, no?’

‘NO!’ roared Alexei cheerfully. ‘SO! You are not scary! And I am not scary! And there is nobody else here! So! Why are you scared?’

There was silence. Marisa felt slightly guilty but didn’t lean back or dare even start lettering again, in case she alerted them to her presence.

‘You must play like no one listens, like no one cares! If you play fast it must sound like you play slow, that you do not care.’

‘But I do care.’

‘Aha! And that is why my only job as teacher is for gettink you out of your own way!’

It was such a complicated syntax from the Russian it took Marisa – and, clearly, the boy next door – a moment or so to work out what he meant.

Getting you out of your own way. It struck Marisa forcibly. What would that be like? If she could get out of her own way?

‘Now,’ went on Alexei, ‘I want you to play. But this time you do not think nor of the notes nor of the music nor of me . . .’

Marisa half smiled, looking at her work. Nor of the heights, nor of the depths, nor of the present, nor of the future . . .

‘Think of . . . what you had for lunch three days ago!’

‘What?’

‘Play and at the end I want to know. What you haff for lunch three days ago.’

‘But . . .’

‘Do it!’

Tentatively, the boy started to play.

And, almost delighting in her own ability to tell the difference, Marisa nearly clapped her hands. Stripped of thinking about what he was playing, the boy’s fingers obeyed the part of his brain automatically while, presumably, the front bit responsible for harbouring nerves and anxiety and the world around vanished; kept busy wondering whether it had eaten a ham and cheese toasted sandwich or a pasta salad on Tuesday and whether Tuesday had been wet so it would have been a hot sandwich, or sunny in which case if would have been something lighter . . .

The difference was astonishing: the halting sense was gone and instead of it being one hand of the clock and now another, the entire piece danced together as if there was no gap between the low notes and the high notes, that they were all part of the same shimmering continuum, imbued, now, with joy and optimism.

She very nearly clapped again at the end, transfixed by the final rippling sound of the closing notes, but next door there was only silence.

‘You see,’ growled Alexei finally.

‘That’s . . .’ The young man sounded quite jolted. ‘Hang on, does this mean I have to think about lunch whenever I play?’

‘It means,’ said Mr Alexei, ‘you have to be gettink out of your own way.’

‘Thank you,’ said the boy.

There was another pause.

‘Uh. It was tomato soup.’

‘I don’t care.’

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