The Paris Mysteries (Confessions #3)(28)

“Heyyyyy, Harry.”

Then he opened his arms and wrapped Harry in a huge hug, rocked him a little bit, and said, “How ya doing, muh man? You ready to show your stuff?”

Harry grinned and gripped the man’s hand before turning to me. “Tandy, this is my agent, Michael Pogue. Michael, this is my twin sister, Tandy.”

Agent? Mystified, I shook hands with Monsieur Pogue, who said, “Enchanté, Tan-deee. Very wonderful to meet you on Harrison’s big, perhaps life-changing, day. Come in, come in. Meet some good people.”

Harry and I followed Pogue into the “mix room” and were introduced to three men arranged in comfy chairs around a plank coffee table. They were all wearing sharp business suits and had good haircuts, and one had an interesting sculpted beard. They were talking to one another, but when Harry and I came in, they all stood up. Each gripped Harry’s hand and clapped him on the back.

I could see curiosity in their faces. And naked hope.

I was also introduced. I was an afterthought, but I didn’t care. These men were all here for Harry.

I switched my attention to the wall-to-wall console at the front of the mix room, with its hundreds of sliding levers and dials. When the two men sitting at the controls swiveled around, I recognized them as the famous producers and recording engineers Yves Creole and Winter Knight. They were the brains and the engine of this first-class international chain of mix rooms called the Smart Blue Door.

They shook my hand—well, actually, Mr. Knight took both my hands in his and mumbled praise for “the great Harry.”

This was a huge moment for Harry, and I was so glad to be there for it. I watched him step through the door to the “live room.” I could see him and the entire studio through the window in front of the mixing console.

Harry took his seat at right angles to a Fender Rhodes piano and a Hammond B-3 organ, both of which had been set up just for him.

Sitting behind the drums was a thin, balding man wearing denim and checkered black-and-white eyeglass frames that had been tattooed onto his face. He began speaking earnestly to my brother, who looked both younger and older than his sixteen years.

Monsieur Pogue led me to a seat with a view, saying, “Tandy, I know you’ve heard Harry play many times, but do you know the new piece he played for us yesterday? He calls it ‘Montmartre.’ ”

Monsieur Creole had put on his headset and was speaking through his microphone to Harry and the percussionist. No one else spoke, not even the important-looking men sitting around me.

All eyes were fixed on my brother.

And then, looking right at me, Harry leaned into the microphone and said, “I wrote this for my sister Katherine. Actually, it’s for all the lost girls in Paris.”





There was a hush in both rooms.

Then Harry put his left hand on the keyboard of the Fender Rhodes piano, placed his right hand on the Hammond B-3 organ, and began to play.

From the first notes, I knew that Harry had the “it” factor, the rare and genuine real genius thing. This music of his was entirely original and entirely Harry, but with some new quality I’d never heard before.

No one had.

I rubbed my arms from the chill of witnessing his greatness unfold. But still, I listened with a critical ear to the introductory chords from the piano as they set the stage for a series of arpeggios—broken chords where the notes in a chord are played one at a time within one octave.

And somehow, tucked beneath the chords and arpeggios, Harry’s melody slowly came alive.

Oh my God, Harry. How did you do this in two days?

The melody was quiet, haunting in a sweet and beautiful way.

Sometimes, while he played, Harry seemed to be missing, lost in the folds of his mind. At other times, he swiveled on his seat to play two-handed on one or the other instrument while his drummer kept time on the skins. That was when Harry smiled. After all he’d been through, he was happy.

More than happy.

He was transported to a magical place he’d created on his own, and now the music itself was filling me up.

I felt Paris in his music. I heard Paris. I saw in the chords the grand stone buildings flanking the sumptuous boulevards while the arpeggios signaled the action: the musical embodiment of people and taxis dashing and darting about.

But I couldn’t ignore a sadness in the chords that made me think of Katherine. Of loving her, of the giant void she’d left and the tragedy that she only got to live for sixteen years.

And to tell the truth, I didn’t want to go there.

If I’d given in to that feeling, I might have had a really ugly cry, and I couldn’t do that to my brother. Just as I was biting my lip to hold back the tears, here came Harry’s delightful dancing notes, like bursts of hope and optimism that also reminded me of the Katherine I’d known and loved so much.

My sister.

And it occurred to me that Harry was also reaching into both sides of himself in this piece. Showing the sadness and the rising light. To be able to write something this strong from the heart, to be able to convey it in music, was Harry’s gift in full. And it was a gift to everyone who was hearing him play.

I looked at the men sitting around me, as well as the seasoned pros at the console; they all looked as moved as I was, and more—as though they’d been truly swept away. One of the men wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Another lay back with his eyes closed and his arms opened, taking in the sound of the music entirely.