This fifth floor studio apartment has never felt so different. Ever since my father had passed away I had touched up every nook and cranny, arranged every piece of expensive junk to perfection. Yet, regardless of the copious amounts of time and effort I had expended to recreate that last night I had seen him at home, there was an overwhelming inadequacy to it all. What had I missed? His flamboyant pink tie lay flung over the lounge room floor lamp, just as it had been on this very day one year ago. The refined portrait of an exhausted boy, slumped before an elegant jet-black Yamaha piano, hung above the slice of wall adjacent to the designer furniture. I knew that image well. It had been painted by my father, and had hung there for the better part of five years. Of course I knew it well. The boy in the painting, his frame shivering with fatigue, was me.
It had been the ending piece for any performance night, the piece de resistance. Frederik Chopin’s two ‘little’ variations in E minor, a symphony of sound with riveting resonations. Its heart-wrenching sequences had been prolonged and extended by composer after composer until its length had totalled well over 2 hours. It was the one piece of music everyone wanted to teach, the piece of music everyone wanted to play. At the conservatorium of music, it was played inside a template of perfection and students were blindly led on by markings on the score that had never been anything more than suggestions. That’s what my father had told me. Are we just music playing robots, or are we a luscious box of surprises, abounding in unpredictable leaps? I had endured countless hours of practice and frowned excessively over the complex ornamentations of Chopin’s masterpiece. My conservatorium-moulded interpretation of the song had only thrown him into a dark moodiness. On the top shelf of the cleanly bookcase lay the sole award I had won. “Runner up, Conservatorium of Music Piano Competition 2001”. It had been a long time ago, and my father had never really recognised it. I had hated him for that.
I took a deep breath and reached behind the painting, my hands working their way beneath the recesses. There it was! That very same menacing wad of stained score sheets, crinkled with frustration and time. I extracted the piece from behind the painting and returned the image of my younger self to where he belonged, playing the piano tirelessly for my expectant father and his polite guests inside the spacious, yet crowded lounge room. Walking over to the mint condition 2005 Yamaha grand piano in the next room, I sat down softly on the stool and spread the music across the steady stand. My hands were as crumbly as dry clay on the surface as they slowly reacquainted themselves with the bleached and worn keys. As I prepared to begin the piece, I hesitated. The one piece my father had tried so hard to teach me. The one piece which had always disappointed him. The stoppage was hard to describe, but I felt like the man with the little red button, that little red button that would directly initiate the New Year’s Eves Fireworks in Sydney or something of a similar scale. What was I so excited about? If music is an expression of the soul, then why should the anticipation be so paralysing? I did something I had not done in years being a pianist. I let go of perfection.
Chopin’s piece began with the daunting andante movement, with my hands sloping from treble to bass, and back again. They were sweeping motions, painting pictures of smooth rolling hills, like the kind my father would always take us to for a picnic. Just the two of us, camping out just for the night, with the Landcruiser parked just off the trail. We had been there hundreds of times, yet never taken to the bushwalking track, never done the hard yards. That was the way he saw life I suppose, leaving home in the afternoon just to enjoy the night on what he called a ‘5-star’ tent reservation on the meadows and then arriving back next morning. Of course, my pleas for a decent bushwalk for just one time gradually petered down.
“Son, life doesn’t wait for you. It’s short, so it wants excitement, you know? Why should we read the entire book with the boring bits included? Why should we wait in that line?”
I had opened my mouth to reply, but then realised that for once, I had no response. No comebacks.
The sun was starting to conceal itself behind the horizon when I was jolted from my reveries by a sudden change. The brooding melody swept into shimmering scales of majors and minors of allegro, modulating wildly. They fought against each other with neither quite achieving dominance, and yet their differences moulded them together in a twisted union. The music was so jolly, so carefree. Would Chopin have ever thought this piece would be played in hotels all over Poland throughout the 18th Century? My father had a strong dislike for taverns, bars and the like, being a non-alcoholic and a lover of classical tunes. I still remember the grimaces that had always etched his face when he was forced to enter one, as if they were drawn in permanent marker and couldn’t be erased. One day I asked him about his discomfort.
He sighed. “In wartime, people would seek shelter in the entertainment and comfort of taverns such as these. They would dance and jig to Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag until their feet were too tired to dance and jig any more. But what is it people are greeted by today? By pop? By rock? By techno? Could you imagine any of this rubbish playing amidst misery and suffering? Amongst the clobbering of gun-fire?” His eyes had gone glassy.
While my inner child shook his head in confusion as he had 10 years ago, I found myself agreeing. It was not a nod of the head, or even an utterance of ‘yes’. It was the crescendo of tonality, the climax of an ecstatic pace and the pounding of perfect chords, the blurring of fingers and tear drops of empathy. I stopped the tape recorder on top of the piano with shivering fingers. A flawless ending.
It had been a long time. Too long, most people would have thought. I navigated the forest of gravestones and flowers, heading for the western corner of the cemetery. I scanned along all the snow-covered slabs of grey stone for the chipped, mouldy granite headstone that was my father’s. I took the steps slowly as I was in no great hurry. As soon as I got as close a few metres, I felt the need to keep my distance. The fading outlines of my father’s name stared at me accusingly. My heart clenched up into a knot. And then I remembered. I smiled. Wouldn’t life be too short to want me standing here, embarrassed in front of my father? That’s what he would have said. Stop suffering and chase after your life, never let it get away. I kneeled in front of his tombstone and began brushing off the dying leaves and polishing the surface with a cloth, sweeping in simple yet intricate motions that would make any piano teacher proud. Standing up, I reached into my pocket and produced a tape.
“This is for your father. I hope you like it.”
I stood up, producing a smile as crisp as the snowy air.
I walked back to my waiting car. Life waited quietly inside. I relaxed in the interior warmth. The falling snow slowly covered the tape. Chopin was a genius.


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