Madame Sousatzka Read online

That night after supper, Mrs Crominski wanted to talk about Madame Sousatzka. But Marcus only wanted to think about her.

  ‘Such a fine woman,’ Mrs Crominski said, ‘and only the best she takes, I’m told. You should be grateful. And for nothing she takes him too.’

  ‘Why did you have to talk about money, Momma?’

  ‘A lie I should tell? Don’t you worry. With the piano you will make plenty of money. You will pay back. A hundred times you will pay back.’

  ‘Isn’t she pretty, Momma?’ Marcus was talking almost to himself.

  ‘Pretty I wouldn’t say. Striking, perhaps. Very funny English she speaks. Not like us. A refugee she is of course. And they can be all their lives in England, they never speak like real English people. Yes,’ she mused, ‘she’s very, very foreign.’

  ‘Let’s see her card Momma,’ said Marcus, reaching for her bag. Mrs Crominski took the bag from him. ‘What’s so special about a card?’ she muttered, undoing the clasp. She spread the fold of the bag on the table. A brown picture of Marcus’s dead father was clipped under the inside mirror. ‘He should know,’ Mrs Crominski said sadly. ‘But he knows. Always, he said, you shouldn’t worry, Sadie. When Marcus is big boy he’ll take care of you.’ Marcus was always being reminded of his father’s promise on his behalf. He hardly remembered his father, who had died when Marcus was only three, but Mrs Crominski always kept him by her. ‘Your father would be proud of you,’ she often said, or, ‘Thank God your father can’t see you, God bless him, so ashamed he would be.’

  ‘What’s so special about a card?’ she mumbled, fumbling among the handkerchiefs and papers. She drew it out, already crumpled and stained.

  ‘Madame Sousatzka,’ she read, ‘132 Vauxhall Mansions, W.2. A long way from Stamford Hill it is,’ she said, ‘near Hyde Park. Very smart.’

  ‘Let me have it, Momma,’ Marcus said, stretching out his hand.

  ‘You’ll lose it. Only last week, didn’t you lose the housekey?’

  ‘I’ll keep it in my room, I promise.’

  ‘Have it,’ she said, slightly disturbed by his enthusiasm, ‘Too much you shouldn’t expect. Madame Sousatzka is a fine lady, a fine refugee lady, but only a human being she is.’

  Marcus was staring at the card, transfixed.

  ‘Like me, Marcus, she is, a human being. D’you hear?’ she said, though she knew he wasn’t listening to her. ‘Nothing special she is. Give me the card. I’ll keep it.’ She snatched it from him. ‘Go to bed now. Is late.’

  Marcus left the table and went out of the room. She waited for him to reach the stairs before she shouted, ‘You forgot something, Marcus?’

  ‘No, Momma,’ he shouted back. He’d remembered to kiss her good-night, but he’d deliberately not done so.

  ‘Too busy thinking about Madame Sousatzka, I suppose,’ she shouted back.

  He went to his room and blew a kiss down the stairs. This was as far as he was prepared to go. He took off his counterpane and turned his pillow over. He lay in bed thinking of the card. 132 Vauxhall Mansions. He imagined a vast castle on the outskirts of the park. And inside was the mistress of the castle, Madame Sousatzka. The walls were hung with tapestries and chandeliers shivered from the ceilings. Marcus sat in a bird-cage on the piano and Madame Sousatzka was stroking his hair through the bars. At first gently, the skin of her palm caressing his forehead. And gradually her hands grew hard and she pressed them deeper and deeper into his scalp. She was hurting him, but he didn’t want her to stop. He was consumed with a curiosity as to how it would all end. And suddenly the bird-cage melted around him like a ring of birthday candles, and he woke, sweating, with the strange and terrifying feeling that he had discovered what no one else in the world at any time had ever known.

  He heard his mother coming up the stairs. Quickly, he turned his pillow over and pretended to be asleep. He felt his mother bending over him, stroking his hair, her rough lips on his forehead. ‘Tomorrow,’ he thought, ‘tomorrow, I’ll make it up to her.’

  2

  The week passed as slowly for Madame Sousatzka as it did for Marcus. When Friday came, she sat restlessly in her studio thinking of Boris. Normally at this time on a Friday, Boris would be coming for his lesson. But this was the sixth Friday that he wouldn’t come. She decided she would give his hour to Marcus. Boris’s music still lay in a neat pile on the piano, a few studies, scales and an album of melodies from the ‘classics’. He had had inexorably bad taste, had Boris, but among other faults, she had allowed for that one, too. And even if she thought exclusively of his shortcomings, the pain of his rejection would not leave her. Twelve weeks ago today, he had come to her for the first time. He begged her to take him as a pupil. Madame Sousatzka only took children, but in Boris’s case she decided to make an exception. He was a good deal older than she was, and he’d told her he’d played the piano practically all his life.

  But practice does not always make perfect, and during his first formal audition, Madame Sousatzka recognized his musical shortcomings, but she was attracted to him, and she kept him on as a pupil, for what he lacked in piano technique he compensated for in other ways. His lessons were on a Tuesday until he decided he needed more of them, so he came twice a week, on a Friday as well. Madame Sousatzka lived for these two lessons.

  It was the first and last time in her life that music became of secondary importance. He was her first love, and striking her as it did when she had already reached the age of forty-five, she had a nest-egg of passion to invest in him. He would woo her over the piano, crossly shutting the lid if the keys hampered his gestures of affection. He would tell her stories of the old country and of his mother he had tearfully left behind. At this point, Madame Sousatzka would warm to him in sympathy. It never failed, the old mother bit. Boris had used it a hundred times before. He told her vivid stories of his childhood that he’d read somewhere or other in a book. He proposed marriage, a castle in the old country, servants, droshky rides. And as an acccompaniment to his proposals, he would play the ‘Volga Boatman’, a piano piece that at the time was popular in pubs and an infallible encore at amateur recitals. He could really shoot a line, could Boris. Then he suggested a week-end in the country, and when Madame Sousatzka promised many such week-ends after their marriage, he raised one bushy eyebrow and decided he was barking up the wrong tree. Then suddenly, on a Tuesday, he didn’t turn up for his lesson. Nor on the Friday. Madame Sousatzka waited patiently each week, until she could no longer remember what he looked like, and all that remained was his voice that echoed from the strings of the grand piano whenever she thought of him. Which was continually.

  She took away his pile of music, leaving a dust-framed square on the piano, and buried it on the bottom shelf of the music cupboard. She was excited at the thought of Marcus’s coming, but the fact that his mother would come with him disturbed her a little. She had known over-ambitious mothers like Mrs Crominski. Her own mother had been the same, shamelessly pushing her daughter into the public eye. For Madame Sousatzka had not always been a teacher.

  As a young girl in Germany she’d enjoyed a career as a concert pianist, well known in her own country and considered to be of great promise. But the war put an end to all that, and when she came to England as a refugee just before the outbreak, she had to shelve her career in order to make a practical living. She was twenty and alone. Her parents, along with millions of others, had sat with their backs to the engine in the one-way trains that tip-toed across Europe.

  With the help of numerous committees, she managed to find a room in a boarding house run by one of her compatriots who had seen the red light a few years previously. She had begun by giving lessons to children, going to their houses, traipsing along unknown streets from recommendation to recommendation. On the side, she helped out in shops and cafes, and after a few years was able to buy a piano. Meanwhile, she picked up her English, not from any recognized authority, but from other refugees of longer standing. Her voice was laced with a mixture of several European a
ccents, culled from certain and varied relationships of her English apprenticeship, and mixed unsubtly and disproportionately together like a bad salad dressing. The ingredient of German was a foundation to which was added an element of French. This she had acquired from her own piano-teacher in Germany, a Monsieur Laramie, himself not genuine, so by the time it had reached Madame Sousatzka, the Gallic influence was distinctly mongrel. A soupçon of Yiddish she had borrowed from a Mr Bronstein, who ran a delicatessen shop round the corner from the boarding house, and for whom she worked between teaching.

  Over the years she had saved a little money and was able eventually to put down a deposit on the three-storeyed letting-house off the Bayswater Road. She changed her name from Süsskatz — it was an obvious mutation — and nailed a brass plate to the door, with the simple inscription, MADAME SOUSATZKA. The change of name doubled the number of her pupils amongst those who sought a foreign caché and gradually her reputation as a teacher grew. She now specialized in prodigies. Marcus would be her tenth current pupil, and the eldest.

  It was past three o’clock. Madame Sousatzka had a horror of unpunctuality. It was another fault she had forgiven in Boris. She went over to the window and looked across the square. Mrs Crominski and Marcus were standing against the railings in the centre of the square, looking up at the house. It wasn’t the isolated castle Marcus had envisaged. It wasn’t in any way different from any of the other houses in the square. It had its equal share of dry rot, damp, bitumen-patched walls; like the others, it shivered on a diminishing leasehold. It was like any other Victorian house that had three years to run and hopelessly faced a full-repair clause. But Marcus was not put out by its appearance. The excitement of seeing Madame Sousatzka again completely overshadowed his concern for how she lived. He tugged at his mother’s sleeve and held on to it, because he didn’t want her holding his hand, and they crossed over to the house.

  Madame Sousatzka welcomed them both equally and she sat them down in the studio. Mrs Crominski made a quick evaluation of the room’s furnishings and decided that her imagined estimate of Madame Sousatzka’s way of life was grossly exaggerated. She felt a lot better.

  ‘First of all,’ Madame Sousatzka was saying, ‘it is necessary to forget everything. Everything you learn by your teacher, it is necessary to forget. We start from beginning.’

  ‘Everything?’ Mrs Crominski gasped. ‘Is impossible. After six years with very fine teacher he should start from the beginning?’ This certainly wasn’t Crominski economics.

  Madame Sousatzka decided she might as well nip Mrs Crominski’s participation in the bud. ‘Also,’ she went on, ‘in the lessons, no mothers. This is by me a rule, a strict rule. Not only for you, Mrs Crominski,’ she smiled at her. ‘All the mothers must suffer a little.’

  ‘You are talking to a woman who knows,’ Mrs Crominski warmed to her. ‘About suffering I know plenty.’

  Madame Sousatzka didn’t want to make an issue of it. ‘I would like the boy twice in a week,’ she said. ‘I am very busy,’ Mrs Crominski gave a heave of understanding, ‘so only time I am able to give lesson is now, three o’clock punctual Friday, and Saturday ten o’clock. Also punctual.’ Mrs Crominski heaved again. ‘Very close, I know,’ Madame Sousatzka went on, ‘but each lesson very different. Each lesson we make progress.’

  ‘Is very long way from Stamford Hill,’ Mrs Crominski said. ‘Also I am not allowed to stay in the lesson. Adds up every week to four journeys, to bring and to take.’

  Marcus stared at his mother’s brown hat. Not that he needed a bait for his anger. Not only was Madame Sousatzka going to give him one free lesson a week, but two, and here was his mother finding fault. He looked apologetically at Madame Sousatzka. He realized suddenly that recently he had spent a lot of time apologizing to people on his mother’s behalf.

  ‘I have solution to problem,’ Madame Sousatzka said. She’d worked it all out beforehand. ‘Friday night, Marcus stay here in 132 Vauxhall Mansions.’ She announced the address as if it were a stately home. ‘I have a room. Very nice little room. You will see, Mrs Crominski. Later, I show you. I give him supper and breakfast. After the lesson, Saturday, you come to bring him.’

  Now Mrs Crominski was herself a generous woman. And she naturally suspected generosity in other people. Apart from that, the prospect of Marcus staying away from home for even a single night disturbed her. He had never been away from her, but her friends had often mentioned that Marcus was in danger of becoming a mother’s boy. Perhaps not a bad thing it would be. ‘Is all right that I telephone, every Friday night?’ she asked humbly. ‘Simply to talk to him,’ she said.

  Marcus had expected that his mother would refuse to entertain Madame Sousatzka’s suggestion. He was so happy with her timid acquiescence that he tried not to look at her brown hat again. He knew well how it would hurt him.

  ‘This week, of course,’ Madame Sousatzka said, ‘he goes home. We begin next week the two lessons.’ She wanted to make some concession in return for Mrs Crominski’s agreement. Mrs Crominski was glad for the respite.

  ‘I wait outside now, for the lesson,’ she said standing up. She was being painfully obedient and Marcus felt his love for her killing him. Tonight, on their way home, he’d tell her all about his lesson; he’d hold her hand, he’d kiss her good-night. ‘But you must, you must,’ he said to himself, knowing how fickle were his self-made promises.

  ‘Come,’ said Madame Sousatzka, ‘I show you the room for Marcus.’

  Marcus was not curious about his room. The thought of two lessons a week, a bed, a breakfast and supper with Madame Sousatzka was already too exciting for him. He felt suddenly that the house and Madame Sousatzka belonged to him; that he had never at any time of his life not known her. He sat down at the piano with a sense of ownership. He was surprised to find a metal elevation on the loud pedal that facilitated its use for a short-legged player. He’d never seen one like it before. The stool was very low — Madame Sousatzka’s last pupil must have been a dwarf — but he found he could twiddle it to a more suitable height. He wound the knobs on full, rising above the keyboard until his feet dangled helplessly above the pedals. And he thought that if ever he could accommodate that stool-height, he would be fully grown. He didn’t hear Madame Sousatzka come in, but he suddenly felt her standing behind him. She turned the knobs and he felt himself descending.

  ‘This height I think is for you,’ she said. ‘Is comfortable?’

  At last he was alone with her, and frightened. ‘Yes,’ he said, knowing that he would have said ‘yes’ anyhow.

  ‘Now we will make a beginning,’ she said, sitting beside him. ‘We will start with the scale. C Major.’

  ‘Which hand?’ Marcus asked her. He was staring at the keyboard, afraid to look at her.

  ‘Only one hand you have,’ she said. ‘The right and the left, they are one hand. They cannot work on their own. You understand, my darrlink?’

  Marcus trembled. He didn’t understand it at all. He could make a circular movement on his stomach with one hand, and pat his head with the other, both at the same time. It was a favourite pastime during geography lessons. He was tempted to prove to her that she was wrong. But he suspected that there was some truth in her theory as far as being a pianist was concerned. He lifted his hands to the keys. She put her hands over his.

  ‘You must forget everything you have learnt. You want to play for me only with the hands? The hands are nothing, my darrlink. I want in the hands the whole body. When you begin to play, you start in the belly. You must feel it swell, and then the chest, and at last the head, rising, rising.’ She paused, her eyes shut, smiling a little. ‘You are now at the top of the mountain, Marcus, you relax, you stretch out the hands, and it begins to play.’ Madame Sousatzka opened her eyes and relaxed her body, exhausted, her shoulders drooping, her hands limp in her lap. ‘You understand?’ she said after a while. ‘We will try again.’ She put her hand on the top of his head, and pressed down. ‘Now we will climb the mountai
n together,’ she said, ‘rise and push away my hand.’

  Marcus lifted his inner body, stretching high, until he could no longer feel her hand on his head. His hands rose involuntarily and without any trembling, he started to play. After one round of the scale, he stopped.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ she begged, ‘to a scale there is no beginning and no end, a scale is a circle that turns around for ever. Pianissimo,’ she whispered on the third time round. He took his hands from the keys. ‘Pianissimo, my elephant,’ she beamed at him. ‘But you must remember, you will not bring the pianissimo from the fingers. Nothing you will bring from the fingers. Nothing,’ she thundered, closing Marcus’s little fist in her ringed hand, obliterating it in her grasp. ‘Nothing,’ she repeated. ‘They don’t know how to do, and who will tell them, these ten poor little worms!’

  Marcus felt suddenly sick and he swallowed.

  ‘And where,’ said Madame Sousatzka, pointing to his throat, ‘and where has the swallow gone, my darrlink? Down, down, down,’ she gulped like a novitiate mermaid, ‘and it is here,’ she prodded his abdomen triumphantly, ‘it is from here that the message will come to the fingers. Open the belly,’ she cried, ‘let it get through. The poor message. It struggles!’ Madame Sousatzka let fall a home-made tear. ‘Open, breathe, expand, drop shoulder, it comes, it comes,’ she screamed, surprised as a successful spiritualist. ‘Let it out, let it out!’ At this point she released her grasp on Marcus’s hand so that his fingers were free.

  This system, in which the abdomen was the seat of piano technique, and the anatomical route by which it reached the fingers, was known as the Sousatzka Method, and cost £1 12s. 11d. an hour. And what’s more, she didn’t take anybody. Not Madame Sousatzka. Her love and respect for music was unquestionable and she was consequently discriminate in her services. Her pupils were talented, some terrifyingly so; all were children, and most of poor parents. Few of them paid. The price was a mere formality. You had to be worthy of Madame Sousatzka’s dedication.