The Orchid Concerto, L. Avery Brown [best sci fi novels of all time .TXT] 📗

The Orchid Concerto

Pitney Dunkirk was a world renowned violinist. He had played for presidents, kings, and once played Barber’s Violin Concerto with the London Symphony for an astronaut celebrating a long distance anniversary on the space station. But most people hadn’t a clue who he was. However, to the music elite Pitney was an icon and lived the classical music world’s version of a rock star life.

 

A widower with no children, Pitney spent his days tending his late wife Anita’s orchids in the greenhouse he built for her years ago at their Connecticut home. And of course, he practiced his violin because in his opinion practice would make perfect but even he had not yet reached perfect. And that work ethic kept him always practicing for his next performance. At present he was playing his Amati and working through the Larghetto portion of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major for the opening of the Chicago Symphony season.

 

To Pitney the concerto was one of the best pieces ever written and he looked forward to performing it even if it meant he had to fly to Chicago. He loathed going through O’Hare airport. The last time he was there, the TSA manhandled several of his instruments and he never got over it.

 

Pitney was nearly halfway through the movement when he noticed a tremble in his left arm. It was annoying but went away. The next day, he felt the tremble again and decided it might be his tendonitis flaring and he knew his doctor would say to stop playing for at least a week to rest his arm.

 

Not one to go against his doctor’s orders, even though he’d yet to receive them, Pitney put aside his instrument and went to tend Anita’s orchids. Being in the warm space with its heady orchid and earth aroma reminded him of her. Later that evening Pitney went to dinner with some friends. He was enjoying his dinner and the fellowship but when he went to pick up his utensils, he felt the strange tremor again, only this time it was in both his left and right arm.

 

Thinking it was nothing more than his body’s reaction to the stresses of his rigorous training since he was the first to admit he was no longer a spring chicken, Pitney went to his doctor. After a short exam the doctor ordered a myriad of tests but told him not to worry. So he didn't. Three days later Pitney was given a grave diagnosis.

 

He was in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease. Dread washed over him but Pitney insisted he would not let the disease get the better of him. He took his medication and dove into his practice; forcing himself to work through the tremors so he could open the season in three weeks.

 

But on opening night, he struggled through the first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, and Pitney knew he wouldn’t be able to make it through the other two. After he played the last note in the allegro, he looked directly behind him at Katerina Aliyev and inconspicuously asked her to play out the rest of the piece knowing that as the symphony’s regular first chair, she’d prepared for just such a situation.

 

She nodded, gracefully stood, and practically floated past him so he could sit down. To the audience, unless they knew his actions weren’t standard, the concert went on without a hitch. But the critics noticed it and before the show had finished, the news was out: Something dire is wrong with Pitney Dunkirk.

 

That was his last public performance. Pitney fell into a deep depression and spent his days alone aside from occasional visits from friends which only reminded him of what he could no longer do. They told him time and again how worried they were for him because his house, like his life was in disarray.

 

They were right. Housework was the last thing on his mind. And after six months hired a full-time housekeeper, Gretchen Johnson, to live in the apartment beside the greenhouse. Gretchen was three years a widow. And her daughter, Elaine, lived in California with her husband, a US Army sergeant, and their fourteen year old daughter. Gretchen tended the house, made sure he saw and responded to mail that needed attending, and prepared his meals all while watching him sink deeper into depression.

 

The only thing that seemed to bring Pitney any happiness was his growing collection of fragrant orchids. Though there was one plant he doted on in particular; a soft lavender colored Miltoniopus Carolina. He would go to the greenhouse early in the morning and stay there for hours. And Gretchen would sit in her little kitchen, sipping coffee, listening to him talk to the plants as if his wife was there with him.

 

The medication he took to curb his Parkinson’s and to help his depression worked to some extent but Gretchen saw him struggle on a daily basis to deal with his lessening ability to do even the simplest of things like lift his fork or button his sweater or even to press the buttons on the television remote. One gray morning on a cold day in February, Gretchen heard Pitney shout in anger and despair from the greenhouse. She rushed to make sure he was alright, knocking over her coffee in the process.

 

When she found him he was sitting on the bench looking distraught. “I’ve killed them. Look what I’ve done. Anita’s beautiful Miltoniopus Carolina. I just wanted to snip a sucker leaf and I broke the stem.”

 

Gretchen patted his shoulder. “It’s alright Mr. Dunkirk. It’s just one stem. There are four more and they’re fine. Stop worrying.”

 

Pitney sloughed off her kindness, pulled his coat close to his chest, and made his way back to the house through the biting cold of winter. A few hours later, when he walked past the music room, Pitney was filled with anger and shouted, “Gretchen, Call Morty Nussbaum and tell him to take them away. I don’t want to see them anymore. Sell them. Burn them for all I care. Just get them out of here.”

 

“Mr. Dunkirk, pardon me for overstepping but you don’t want to do this.”

 

“How could you know what I want? And yes you are overstepping.”

 

“Everybody loses something they love. I lost my husband and it made me sad; so sad I thought about joinging him. But I didn't. I didn't because I have my daughter and granddaughter and they remind me of my best days with him.”

 

Pitney mumbled something and crossed his arms to show he didn’t care.

 

Gretchen continued. “You lost your wife but you have your orchids. And I’ll bet when she passed you wanted nothing to do with them either. They were easy to ignore because they were in greenhouse and you didn’t see them every day. Good thing they’re heartier than they look. Because when you were ready, they were still alive.

 

Now, I know how heartbreaking it must be to pass by this room every day and see your violins. So what if you can’t play? They don’t deserve to be tossed aside because you feel sorry for yourself at this particular moment. Don’t get rid of them. One day you’ll want to see them, maybe even hold one of them, even if you can’t play them.”

 

Pitney’s frown deepened but Gretchen was right. “Fine. But keep the door closed.”

 

“Yes, sir.” She pulled the door closed and smiled.

 

Month after month passed until it was summer once again and the warm weather, as well as his orchids, helped pull Pitney out of his funk. Then one day as he walked back from the greenhouse he heard something. Something… familiar; one of his violins; his Fischesser being played. And he knew it was that particular instrument because of its resonance. Only whoever was playing it was doing a terrible job. 

 

Pitney picked up his pace and went straight to his music room. The door was open. He charged in and saw a girl holding his violin like a lumberjack holding a rose. “Put that down. Who gave you permission to be in here?”

 

The girl turned. She held the violin’s neck with a fierce grip so as not to drop it. “I’m sorry. My grandmother asked me to come in here and dust. I… I saw the cases and just wanted to hold one.”

 

“Your grandmother? Gretchen is your grandmother?” But before the girl could answer he yelled, “Gretchen, come here!”

 

Gretchen ran from the laundry room thinking something dreadful had happened. “Yes, are you all right, Mr. Dunkirk?”

 

“This girl says she’s your granddaughter. And I caught her,” he seethed with anger, “trying to play my Fischesser. That instrument is worth nearly twenty thousand dollars and she was just… just pawing at it.”

 

Gretchen squared her shoulders and stood beside her granddaughter. “Mr. Dunkirk, you have some nerve coming in here and yelling at my granddaughter like that. I told you Anita was coming. I told you her father died when an IED struck his convoy and Elaine asked me to take her for the summer. For Christ’s sake, man, I took off two weeks last month to go to the funeral.”

 

“Yes, Gretchen, I do remember… now. I just forgot. And I thought you said your granddaughter’s name was Michele.”

 

Anita spoke up. “Grandma said I should use my middle name while I was here because she didn’t want to upset you on account of it's the same name as your wife's. Grandma asked me to do some dusting and I came in here. I saw all these instruments and I play the violin at school. I just wanted to try one 'cause I'll never get a chance to play something this nice. Never. And I’m eleventh chair so I don’t get to play with the orchestra at concerts. You have to be in chairs ten and up.” Anita’s shoulders slumped and she looked at the man whose head had a noticeable wobble thanks to his progressing Parkison’s. 

 

Gretchen interrupted. “But she’s got talent, Mr. Dunkirk. Real talent. She’s only been playing a short while. And…”

 

“Grandma, please don't do that. I'm not good. I can only kinda, sorta play.”

 

Pitney sighed. “For God's sake will you please stop strangling the Fischesser.”

 

"Oh, yeah, I'll put it back." Anita turned to put the instrument in its case only she banged it against the table. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

 

Pitney strode across the room to look for damage. “Give it to me.” He checked it from scroll to chin rest as both Anita and Gretchen held their breath waiting for the verdict. “Well, there’s no noticeable damage. But I need to hear it.”

 

He took the bow from Anita and pulled it across the strings. But instead of hearing the familiar GDEA, his ears were filled with a mish-mash of tones because he could neither hold the violin nor the bow steady. That’s the moment Pitney realized he would never ever play again.

 

But instead of crying about it, Pitney thrust the bow and violin at Anita. “Play a tuning run.”

 

"Uh, okay." Anita placed her chin in the rest and put the bow to the strings. She took a deep breath and pulled the bow across the strings. It sounded like a train wreck.

 

Pitney looked at her disapprovingly. “At least now I understand why you’re eleventh chair.”

 

Anita’s face reddened. “I’m just nervous.” She put the bow back to the strings, took another deep breath, pulled the bow, and this time the melodic tuning sound of the perfect fifths, GDEA, being played filled the air. She smiled. “See.”

 

A tingle of excitement coursed through Pitney. “Nice. But can you play anything by memory?”

 

“Umm, yeah.” Anita ran through all the pieces she knew by heart and chose the easiest one hoping she wouldn’t screw it up.

 

Pitney was expecting her to play something along the level of Bach’s Concerto in D minor. Instead he heard ‘My Darling Clementine’. He looked at Gretchen and tried to be as polite as possible. “Gretchen that was nice but perhaps your granddaughter shouldn’t pursue violin.”

 

“Hey, I’m standing right here. And you told me to