Your Mark on Me

Prologue

I remember that afternoon just like it was yesterday.

Half a year had passed since dad had left us — not that I was counting: weeks and month didn't mean much back then. Time was just a stream of days and nights unfolding like pages of a picture book. The cold days of January, blue with the frost, then white with snow. Later, the snow turning into grey puddles of mush, eventually melting into spring. The world becoming green and pink, then yellow with the sun that shone and shone until the strawberries in our back garden were ripe.

Bright-red strawberries, freshly washed and sitting in a white bowl on the kitchen counter of our old house, the only one where we ever lived as a family of three.  Mom and I had picked them from the garden to have them before getting ready for the concert.

I was having my orchestral debut playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, with Mom's orchestra, at the Kennedy Center.

 I was still five — six in September.

Of that period, I remember very vividly hearing the word "prodigy" thrown around very often when people talked about me. I knew it meant something good but didn't quite fully understand that most children my age weren't able to play a whole piano concerto by memory. I just knew that the piano was fun.

I was grateful dad had taken my side when I cried after yet another failed violin lesson — the teacher said I had no ear for pitch — and insisted that I try the piano. It was the best, or probably the only good thing he's ever done for me.

I remember my muslin princess dress, my hair beautifully braided with tiny flowers sprinkled in it. I wasn't scared: back then, I didn't know what nerves were. I was just a child pressing the keys of the piano, enjoying the beautiful sounds it made. 

I could read notes before I could read or write. I could follow the score, and knew that, when the man waving the baton nodded or pointed at me, that was my cue. Mom was also on the stage with us — the first violin.

If playing on my own was fun, it was even more fun when at the rehearsals the orchestra joined in. I was engulfed in the sound, music oozing all around me from the hands of so many people.I felt that they were there only to make my piano sound even more beautiful. 

Before the concert started Aunt Helen came backstage to wish me luck. She and her husband, with a few of my Mom's friends, were in the audience rooting for me. They kept a spare seat for dad.

I walked onto the stage and, at the conductor's cue, I bowed. A choir of giggles rippled through the room, the audience's reaction to my cuteness. The hall was full; I was the youngest local talent they had ever booked. I tried to see their faces, but the bright lights were blinding me.

Mom helped me on the stool and the audience giggled again.

I gave the conductor a little nod. He nodded back, then counted in. The music started, the strings bowing out their graceful melodies, reminding me of spring, or of the strawberries that I had earlier. After the introduction, the orchestra stopped and I started playing, my hands articulating the notes with clarity. I imagined littlel pearls coming from my under my fingers and rolling on the floor all the way to the audience. I finished The Allegro with a perfectly executed cadenza. 

During the few orchestral bars that transitioned to the next movement, I waited patiently, looking at the intricate patterns on the ceiling. My eyes were growing accustomed to the light.

I played my contribution of a few bars at the beginning of the Largo, then, while the woodwinds and strings were singing their calls and responses and intertwining melodies, I stole a glance at the audience to see Aunt Helen smile at me. On her right, her husband was bobbing his head lightly to the music. On her left, there was an empty seat.

Dad's.

That was when I understood. He was never coming back. He had abandoned me. He was never going to lift me in his arms again or praise me after I learned a new page. He would forever be an empty seat at every other school performance, concert, or Christmas recital.

I sat on that stool too high and too big for the body of a child so young, tears springing out of my eyes. The man with the baton was gesturing frantically towards me. Mom was mouthing something I didn't understand. The music was still playing, but the phrases were broken, thin and empty, as if something very important was missing.

Then, I realised. 

The something that was missing was the piano. I had missed my cue. My memory went blank. I couldn't remember anything of the score. I just sat there, dumbfounded, my arms hanging limply alongside my body until the music stopped.

It didn't start again.

That was the day when the people around me stopped saying the word "prodigy".