But Who Was Chopin?, Patrick Sean Lee [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

me under anyway. And then there was the merciless current that further pulled me downward and then threw me outward, deep beneath the surface of the water.

 

I remember looking up, my arms spread wide, and I recall the folds of my gown turning in and out on themselves. In and out, in and out, over and over. Far above me the surface of the water had a crystalline shimmer to it. I knew I was going to die, and I was somehow unafraid.

 

I thought of Yung-Jae’s song as the darkness of death began to cover me, and I was sad beyond measure that I’d never, ever hear it.

 

                                                        *

 

My journey seemed eternal; planets, stars, and galaxies racing by, until like an arrow shot into the sky loses momentum, turns, and plummets back to the earth. At the apogee—had I been flying upward? Sideways? Backward? I cannot say. But at the outward end I saw nothing but blackness, except for a tiny dot of light. Whether I came to it, or it to me…who knows?  I felt no further sensation of movement. But there I was suddenly, inside some place, or thing.

 

All living things return to Hwan-in when they break the bonds of mortality. Into his heart, for that is where the source of love and life originate. If only for an instant we reside there, at total peace, until the next step in our never ending lives begins. So there is where I hesitated and rested and listened to music I have no power to describe. Perhaps I fell asleep, if sleep is possible in death.

 

And then I was off, a ray of light with no distractions. Off to begin again in another place and time. A blank sheet of paper, but with fibers holding fast to tiny threads of memories of a girl named Ae Cha-Min…and a boy named Yung-Jae.

 

The clouds of rebirth have covered most of that journey in and out of death, but it’s all there, written in the fibers of my soul, if not my consciousness.

 

                                                        *

 

Yung-Jae died twice. The first was when I left him and ran unwittingly to my death. The second was when he was arrested and dragged into the palace court and hastily tried.

 

He swore his innocence, but that was pointless. As my father sat wailing silently, holding back the ocean of tears in feigned dignity, the spy named Yak Dom related a tale not only of murder—committed brutally by Yung-Hae he said—but of a consummated love affair between myself and the beggar prince. It was after I informed my lover that our relationship must end that the murder was committed, my royal ring stolen from a lifeless finger, and my body thrown into the Hangang River. As proof, Yak Dom yanked Jung-Hae’s bound hands upward, exposing the evidence that sealed his fate. He met the sword within the hour, and his soul raced toward the center of heaven encircled by a trillion galaxies.

 

I don’t know where I was at that instant. Perhaps a hundred million light years ahead of him. Perhaps by his side. Time and the fabric of space die in that dimension of passing from one body to another. But we missed one another in our journeys. At least for a time.

 

                                                 

 

TWO

 

 

San Francisco  January 2, 2013

 

It was cold, raining, with fog rolling off the bay in a shroud. I had taken the rail from the Mission station, downtown to begin classes for the new semester at the Korea Cultural Center.

 

My name is Anne Wa. I am twenty-two, and until two weeks ago my life was just one bad note after another.

 

 I walked down Geary Street with my backpack and umbrella, and stopped at the Starbucks three doors away from the Cultural Center entrance, expecting to grab a quick cup of coffee, and then be on my way again.

 

We had no money, Father and I, but because I had shown an interest in music early on in my life, he managed to get me enrolled in music classes at the center when I was six years-old. I think my musical education was more his desire to one day see me standing onstage, rather than my desire to master any instrument. I would much rather have been outside playing, but no. “Listen, daughter,” he would say, “Did you know that Rachmaninov’s fingers could stretch two entire octaves?” Untrue, I learned much later. Only an octave and a half. But this pronouncement by Father pointed to his observation, and the dismal fact, that my fingers were destined to grow. By the time I had matured, they would be “…the length of fine and delicate Jasmine branches,” he said. “Just think of it! Now, once again, practice.”

 

I dreaded the image. I was a small girl, thin, even gangly. I prayed that my fingers simply stopped to let the rest of me catch up. But they did not. Father was right. I was destined to be a musician, if for no other reason than one day my fingers would dangle down to my knees. The problem was, I had no talent.

 

“Just a tall House. Leave room for cream, please,” I told the barista.

 

“I’ll pay for that,” a voice said from behind me as the man on the other side of the counter scribbled on the side of the cup.

 

I turned.

 

He was tall, impeccably dressed in a gray blazer, light pink tee, and—well, I didn’t get the chance at first to see what color trousers he was wearing because my eyes landed and stuck on the beautiful features of his face. Dark Asian eyes smiled down at me. Perfect tawny skin. High, prominent cheekbones. Someone off the cover of GQ.

 

“Thank you, but I can manage,” I said.

 

He was too pretty, probably too aware of it, and I sensed in which direction the conversation—if it ensued—would go should I accept his seemingly innocent offer.

 

I paid for my drink, waited the few seconds as the cashier filled my cup, and then grabbed the coffee and left. Such had been my life, I suppose. Filled with missed opportunities. For all I knew the guy’s purpose back in the coffee shop was simply to buy my drink, offer me a “Good morning,” and then let me be on my way. What, Dear God, is my problem? Why has my perception always been so wigged out? I wondered.

 

I was suspicious of talent—mostly because I felt I was not. I was suspicious of handsomeness. I was suspicious of wealth. I was doubly suspicious of those last two things in one person, and the guy, I suspected, was blessed and dressed in both.

 

Moments later I entered the Center, and the strangest feeling overwhelmed me as I stomped my feet and shook the water from my hair, considering my latest scrape with happiness. It was as though through the shedding of water I had shed my skin. A lightness struck that contradicted the sullen atmosphere outside; that mirrored in a way the drop-dead gorgeousness of the guy in the Starbucks. A warmth in my heart that raised me like a modern day Lazarus.

 

I wanted to play. I wanted the fingers I had always loathed and tucked into fists to extend themselves for the first time in my life, to wed the right hand to the left and let them soar across the black and white keys of the Center’s Steinway in a concerto of such beauty that heaven itself would weep. One that I would write, and one that I knew was inside me, waiting to take wings.

 

Did I stand there dazed for several moments? It seems I did because Ms. Hyu called out to me softly from her seat behind the reception desk.

 

“Are you okay, Anne?”

 

I was. Embarrassed, yes, but a door had opened and I’d drawn up something new from deep inside, determined to enter a higher universe.

 

“Yeah, I’m good, Sammi. Is anyone in the hall this morning?” I asked.

 

Sammi. Hyu Sam-We with her melodic, adolescent voice and short black hair, pulled her reading glasses downward and gazed over the rims momentarily before answering. “No one scheduled until noon, Anne. Are you a little under…”

 

I simply smiled at her and crossed the tiled floor to the far end of the hall without answering, having cut her question short.

 

                      하나님의숨결

 

 

Clearly marked above the double doors, and clearly correct in the beautiful language of my countrymen.

 

                      Breath of God

 

Yoonjung Han, one of Korea’s brightest new stars, performed onstage two years ago. I sat mesmerized by her performance that year, yet defeated. Not this time. I do not know what spirits rule this world, whether they are those of my ancestors or those of an omniscient god, but I was captivated by one thought as I stared up at the placard above the doors: There is a river encircling my planet, set to flow by some beneficent mind, and in it is the genius of South Korean Han, Russian Rachmaninoff, and Pole Chopin. I was free to step in, but with the warning that the waters can run swift and deep when I searched their eyes and fingers for my notes. And so would the union be formed.

 

The auditorium was vast, at least for a city performance center. I stood inside the entry for a moment surveying the curl of seats stepping down terrace by terrace. Beyond the orchestra pit stood the stage, empty now except for the Steinway in the center. Bright spotlights shown down on it. I made my way hastily down the main aisle steps, across the orchestra pit to the stairs at the right, and then up onto the stage.

 

I sat down and surveyed the lacquer-finished keys, then dove into the water. Rach’s 2nd Piano Concerto—as though I was technically advanced enough to do it any kind of justice. I went quickly to the adagio, the least difficult, and began. 

. My fingers were one with the keyboard, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on technique. I was many measures in, lost in my own and the masterpiece’s internal passions. Again, as at Starbucks, a voice interrupted my thoughts. I missed a C sharp, and my foot slipped off the sustain peddle. I stopped abruptly.

 

“What in GOD’S NAME are you playing?” he asked. An elegant man. A gentleman by appearance, dressed in a Lord and Taylor suit. By appearance, not manner I must add. He stood ten feet behind me with a look of arrogance and dismissal written on his face, waiting, I assumed, for my answer.

 

“It’s Rachmaninov’s…” I began.

 

“I know what it is, or what it is supposed to be. You’ve butchered it. How long have you been playing, or trying to?” he asked. He didn’t wait for my reply. “You shouldn’t even attempt a piece of this magnitude. Get up.”

 

My euphoric feeling vanished just like that. Stunned and cowed by the vitriolic words he’d spit at me, I obeyed. My fingers began to shake as I rose meekly, and my heart sank back to my feet where it should always have been.

 

He sat down, looked up at me scornfully for a brief second, and then brought his fingers to the keys.

 

“Sostenuto. Do you know what that means?”

 

“Yes,” I answered. “Sustained.”

 

“No, you don’t know. Slowly! With passion—but slowly.  You do sustain. You hold those notes, but not while playing at breakneck speed! You play as though you’ve never seen the score. Watch and listen. You might learn something.” He motioned haughtily for me to get up.

 

No introduction. Nothing at all kind. Whoever this man was, he continued to belittle me as though