Down the corridor the clock struck three with metallic melancholy. He blew on his fingers, took a spotless handkerchief out of his pocket and ran it lightly over the yellowed keyboard. It was dark in the empty assembly hall, with its neat, cramped rows of wooden benches, its small platform covered with a Gaza rug and high, bare yellow walls.
He jumped down from the platform, ran to the door and tried all the light switches for the fifth time, but there was still no electricity. As he walked back along the platform, up the single wooden step towards the old upright piano, his footsteps made hollow sounds. Sitting down on the long wooden bench, he took off his glasses and, after hesitating a moment, pulled a small mirror out of his pocket and gazed into it anxiously. Large faunlike black eyes lent a pale fragility to this face. He checked to see that his brown hair was neat, his shirt and tie spotless. Then he replaced the mirror, put on his glasses, and waited.
It was Sunday, and three minutes to three. Outside, one of the boarders was riding his bicycle, circling the cement courtyard of the empty school and sounding his metal bell at every corner. He jumped up at the sound of footsteps. A canvas-covered cello case came in, hanging from a very white, very thin bare arm; feet in clean, worn brown shoes; bony legs, snake-like in wrinkled stockings; a long, thin body; and then a face, empty of expression.
He stood very stiff beside the piano bench, smiling with desperate fixity, watching her come to the platform and lean the case against one of the straw chairs. ‘I’m sorry there are no lights,’ he laughed. She looked at him once, then up at the dusty dark bulbs, and began to unpack her instrument without any further reaction.
She was the ugliest human being he had ever seen. Her body was a cage of thin white bones, slightly hunchbacked, from which short legs and long arms dangled, and a small, thin neck curved up. But it was her head which made people stare with incredulous fascination: she had thin black hair growing low on her forehead and pulled back into a severe bun, revealing that the back of her head was flat. In contrast, the whiteness of her skin seemed dead and clammy. Her eyes were small, black and round, half-shut under eyebrows that formed one straight, thick black line from temple to temple; a fainter line emphasized the upper lip of a thin, wide mouth; her nose was long and uneven, her ears large. She was not more than twenty-five years of age, but the expression on her face communicated a grim agelessness.
He looked at her with a sense of outrage – it was the same helpless anger that made him walk quickly past the dirty, bright-eyed beggar children on the street.
‘There’s no music stand, I mean,’ he laughed nervously, cursing himself as his ears reddened.
‘I see.’ Her voice was harsh. She was wearing a lacy white blouse and a black skirt, and the blouse had come loose at the back. He turned away and began to go through the music books he had brought. They fell to the floor with a rustling clatter, one by one. He scrambled to collect them darting an embarrassed glance at her. She was tapping the bow of her cello against her shoe with unhurried precision.
‘I have the Beethoven variations on “The Magic Plot”,’ she said coolly, when he had finished. He nodded with exaggerated enthusiasm, rubbing his cold hands together and wishing he could vanish from the room. ‘May I have an A, please?’
‘A what? Oh! Oh, yes!’ He laughed again, dashed to the piano and hit a wrong note.
‘Oh, sorry! I … I …’ The sound of her instrument, nasal and pompous, suited her so well that he had to fight a hysterical temptation to giggle.
‘Here is the piano part.’ Her gesture was brief and slow. She was exasperated and despised him beyond endurance, yet he had been brought up to be polite. He set the music up hurriedly, turned to the first page and waited.
‘Page fifteen,’ she said dryly.
‘Oh – is it?’ He gave another inane laugh and found the page. ‘Thank you.’He waited.
‘I am ready.’
‘But we need a music stand.’ ‘I play by memory.’
‘Will you begin, please?’
He did not know the piece at all, and the humiliation seemed to disturb his vision. When she came in, after the first two bars, he switched to a major key and waltz time, but she went on playing, and after the first few jangled moments, he began to listen. There was a professional quality about her playing, a controlled and sustained concentration, an authority of phrasing which surprised him so much that he pushed his glasses halfway down his nose. She was playing calmly, her eyes half-shut, swaying gently to the beat. He turned back, scanned the notes, and joined her.
In the sustained silence afterwards, he turned towards her with enthusiasm.
‘Beautiful! I’m sorry I …’
‘May we repeat?’ He thought he saw a slight smile touch her face as she said this. It intimidated him immediately and he pushed his glasses up roughly, turned back obediently and began to play. He was concentrating so hard that only towards the end did he realise he was playing alone although the cello should have come in. He stopped at once, his hands flying to his shirt collar.
‘Continue please.’
After a brief moment of hesitation, he continued.
‘You play well.’ She delivered this token with characteristic dryness. His hands trembled on the keyboard, as he thought ‘now she’s going to expect me to play like – like Gieseking’.
‘Shall we continue?’
By the time they had played each variation twice he was flushed and tense with excitement. A faint tinge of pink appeared on her cheeks, although her grim self-possession remained the same.
‘It was beautiful,’ he stammered, wanting very much to let her know how pleased he was, how very beautiful it had been for him.
‘Not bad.’ She addressed the back of the hall laconically.
After a pause, during which he stared at her, he sprang down and tried the light switch. An involuntary triumphant laugh cascaded from him as the naked bulbs blazed. Her reaction was to frown once against the light, before shading her eyes. He was instantly chilled.
‘Does – does it bother you?’
‘Somewhat.’
He switched them all off immediately. It was dark.
‘Just extinguish this one and leave the others on.’
He did so with sulky obedience. When he looked at her there was a smile on her lips. He thought she looked unbearably ugly. Hostility gripped him. What was all this about anyway? He hadn’t asked to play with her. She had barged in on him yesterday while he was playing a Mozart sonata and said she had some pieces she would like to play with him. In that stilted manner of hers she had made him offer to come on a precious Sunday afternoon out of sheer politeness.
‘I have a slight headache,’ she announced.
He muttered that he was sorry.
‘I teach kindergarten here,’ she continued, in the same austere tone of voice. He murmured that he knew.
Ignoring him she went on, ‘My brother works at a bank. I live with him and his wife; they have two children – twins – two years old. My sister-in-law is expecting another child.’
He looked up in sudden contrition. She looked lonely, with her cello between her knees.
‘Maybe you know my father,’ he suggested timidly. ‘He teaches mathematics here.’ She nodded, looking past him.
‘My brother also works at a bank.’
She nodded again. ‘The same bank.’
‘Really? How funny!’ he laughed nervously. ‘I … I also have a sister … younger.’
‘So you are a middle child,’ she remarked dryly, leaving him with nothing more to say.
After a heavy pause, he cleared his throat. ‘I … er … I apologise for my, my behaviour about the lights.’ And he turned away anticipating another long silence.
‘What are your plans after graduation?’ Her calm question and hoarse voice set his nerves on edge.
‘I’m … undecided,’ he spoke defensively. ‘I must … excuse me … I have to go now.’
‘I do not enjoy teaching,’ she continued, addressing the back wall, ‘and I do not enjoy older people. But children are different.’
He expressed polite interest, took out his handkerchief to polish his glasses, and, since she was not looking, surreptitiously wiped the sweat off his face.
‘There is something about children which is open and clean.’ She looked at him, and he produced a guilty artificial smile; she looked away again, slowly. ‘It is good when you know if …’ Her voice grew harsh. ‘If you are busy, don’t let me detain you.’
‘No, not at all. I’m quite …’
‘Oh, it’s four o’clock. Will you excuse me? You play well.’
She packed her instrument, and marched out.
He did not see the cello-playing kindergarten teacher very often, but when he did, he smiled with tense eagerness in response to her cool nod. One morning, he came across her in the cement courtyard. She was surrounded by fifteen very young children who were playing ‘Oranges and Lemons’, forming tunnels and trains, clapping and singing. She skipped and clapped and sang with them, her ugly face shining and her black shirt flapping in the wind. He passed them, walking slowly, fascinated by her face. A feeling of pity for himself, for her and for the whole world hurried his steps and made him stumble.
He returned to class but was suddenly revolted by the dull monotonous routine, the bored teachers and the meaninglessness of it all. That afternoon he read her unsigned note.
‘My pupils are rehearsing some songs for the May Day festival. Could you please accompany them on the piano?’
The next day he met them during break. The children were noisy and excited. He sat at the piano and surveyed them self-consciously and apprehensively. She briefly indicated the order of the songs. Then she clapped her hands and there was instant silence.
‘Now we’re going to sing, “The Mulberry Bush”: one, two, three, four …’
The children were shrill and loud in their enthusiasm. He played the song with solemn correctness, stealing surreptitious glances at her. They went through the songs one by one with short interruptions that consisted of one tantrum and three fits of giggling, all of which were coolly ignored. Her attitude towards the children was wonderful. He felt humbled – children had always intimidated him.
The class was dismissed half an hour later. He gazed intently at the piano while she rearranged the benches, jumping up just as she finished to apologise for not having helped her.
‘We shall be having three more rehearsals,’ she announced. ‘Is this time of day convenient for you?’
‘Yes. Any time is fine.’
‘Thank you.’ She put out her hand. He took it and held it for a moment. When he released it, he was trembling. ‘This is very amiable of you,’ she added, still studying him. He realised that she had never looked directly at him before. ‘If you like, we can meet here again on Sunday at three o’clock.’
He nodded, stammering incoherently. She gave him a single nod and walked away.
On Sunday she unexpectedly walked in while he was playing the Waldstein and insisted he continue, which he did, with a proliferation of mistakes hurriedly trying to get the ordeal over with. His eyes were glittering when he finished.
‘You sacrifice expression for speed.’ She spoke harshly, unpacking her cello. He saw that her elbows were sharp and bony, and the hair on her white arms was dark. ‘You play as though someone were chasing you.’
He laughed nervously.
‘Otherwise you play well.’
He wanted to reply in the mocking tone his brother would have used. Instead, he studied his hands and frowned. He was tremendously vulnerable. It hurt.
‘I have brought some Bach.’ Without looking at him, she placed the music on the bench beside him.
Sunlight streamed into the dark hall. He looked up from a sunlit square on the stone floor and found her small round eyes scrutinising him. As though his glance were a signal, she began to tune her cello. The loud, nasal sound awoke in him a sudden desire to jump on her instrument and break the bow over her head. He felt a bitter desire to crush her bony body with his hands. The violence of his emotions terrified him and he leaned away from her, stiff and silent.
She glanced at him briefly and then drew her bow across the strings in a long melody, her left hand a thin claw vibrating slowly, grotesquely. Finally, she looked at him, but he did not speak.
‘Your sister is a beautiful woman,’ she said finally. ‘Perhaps she takes after your dead mother.’
He sprang to his feet, but she continued.
‘You have sad eyes; you do well to wear spectacles.’
He stared at her, trying to understand the emotion within him. A ray of sunlight fell across her shoes and then dissolved.
‘I think it is well to veil beauty.’ A strand of hair fell over one of her large white ears.
He sat down again with his hands clasped tightly together. He was beginning to understand.
‘There is beauty in little children, you see.’
Her harsh voice sounded as though she were conversing with a hidden person. If he bent forward, he could touch her hair.
‘I was wondering,’ he said dreamily, almost inaudibly, ‘if you would like to see a film with me tonight?’ He threw his head back and waited.
She laughed.
She laughed in a loud, rough cascade that became softer and softer. It sounded as though she did not laugh often. The laughter loosened her bun, for all at once a sheet of straight black hair fell to her shoulders, hiding her face.
‘Would you?’ he repeated carefully.
She straightened, and her gaze focused on the back wall.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Very well.’ He did not move. The room seemed to be swaying from side to side. ‘Very well,’ he repeated in a whisper. He shut the piano lid and walked past her as she sat with her cello between her knees, her hair silken and black like the sudden flowering of a poisonous plant, her expressionless face white – a monstrous figure, majestic in its ugliness.