Page 80 of Sunrise By the Sea

He looked down at her hand.

‘You haff very small paws. That is my bear joke.’

‘I get that.’

‘I show you?’

‘Uh . . . yeah?’

He lifted her small pale hand in his huge one. It was only when she felt it she got some sense of the sheer size of the man. Her own little fingers completely disappeared in the gap between his thumb and his second finger. The nails were very short and neat and tidy, squared away against the enormous long fingers themselves.

‘You’re hands are huge,’ she said nervously.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Tiny hands have hard job on the piano.’

Marisa frowned. ‘I suppose so.’

It felt nice, her hand in his large one. But before she had a chance to relax into it – and she didn’t feel in the least bit relaxed – he had taken her smallest finger and put it halfway down the bottom half of the piano. Then he opened the music and put it up on the stand.

‘Here are two notes,’ he said. He took her pinky up again and put it down on one. ‘This is D. It lives between two friends, you see?’

He indicated the two black notes surrounding the white one.

‘D feels very safe and comfortable here with his good friends, D flat and D sharp. They are all happy. It is cosy bed. Stay here.’

She depressed the note with her finger and it made a slippery loud plinking noise.

‘Good,’ said Alexei considering. ‘Although it is late. Perhaps he is quiet and a little sleepy and you do not have to hit him so hard.’

She tried again more tentatively and this time produced no sound at all.

‘Well, and also we continue and push maybe a little harder,’ said Alexei, and Marisa was conscious of holding her breath and found her mind wandering unavoidably – it was the vicinity of another living human being, she told herself firmly, and months and months of deprivation; it had absolutely nothing to do with just him. It could have been anyone, so there, how could she possibly be expected to control her own mind wandering?

But she couldn’t help but wonder – couldn’t help it – as he showed her how to play hard and soft, alternately pressing then lifting her finger, that if he had that much control over just one finger, what could the rest of him possibly be like?

She finally found a way to play the note, even as she felt her breath running a little faster than normal.

‘And now, give me your thumb,’ he said, and she held it up willingly, happy to be guided.

‘This is a G,’ he said, placing her thumb a little further up. ‘Poor old G. There are three friends in this group.’ He indicated the cluster of black notes above the white one. ‘Sometimes they are friends, sometimes they are mean, sometimes they make a gang and sometimes they are horrible. G is pure but she gets lost sometimes. She is a good note. Not like B,’ he continued, mysteriously. ‘B, he is absolutely bastards. ???????. So.’

She looked down at her hands.

‘Do not move your hand now. They will stay there. G is first, then D. Thumb then finger. When I say now, you play one and then the other, yes? And hold them down, keep them down, keep your hands on them.’

His voice was gentle and low, his accent less harsh and his brown eyes were boring into her, trying to make sure she’d understood. Feeling intensely engaged, she did so, one after another.

‘Good, good,’ he said, and she couldn’t help it: she felt something inside herself loosen, like a knot falling away.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We begin. I excusink myself in advance as I have to reach down over you when I play. I am sorry.’

Marisa swallowed hard. ‘That’s okay.’

He smiled at her.

‘You start. Slow slow slow. Now.’

Marisa pressed down the bottom note, and he reached down his huge left hand and, just above her, played a jumble of chords, soft and low.

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