The Violin Conspiracy(88)



He realized that up until today—until he was actually playing with his accompanist—he’d just been practicing: with his teachers, alone at home, in the hotel rooms. He’d been learning the notes. The time for practice had ended, and now it was time to perform, really perform—time to connect with the audience and make them feel about this music the way he felt about it. But he wasn’t performing. He was just playing notes, almost randomly.

He wondered if it was too late to back out altogether. He’d thought that when he arrived in Moscow, being around all the other competitors would renew his laser focus, but in reality the opposite was true: he couldn’t concentrate for more than fifteen minutes. He was constantly checking his phone between pieces, watching the numbers climb on the crowdfunding site and hoping Alicia would call with news. His phone’s voice mail continued to fill with media inquiries and questions from possible donors who could fund the $5 million ransom.

Around 2:00 p.m. came a light tapping on the door: Nicole. He let her in. “Did you eat?” she asked.

“Um—well, I thought I should practice.”

“I figured,” she said, and handed him an apple and a granola bar.

“Where the hell did you find a granola bar?” he asked her.

“Never underestimate a girl from Greenwich,” she said. “I’m not giving up my secrets. Sorry, dude.”

He took the granola bar, tore open the wrapper.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“Okay. It’s aiight.”

“Really?” She was staring at him as he chewed.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Why?”

“Because you seem really wired. Really tense. You’re usually much more relaxed when you’re practicing.”

“This is the Tchaikovsky Competition, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” she said. “All sixteen hours on the plane. Come here.” She gently grabbed the back of his neck, pulled his forehead until his touched hers. He was still chewing the granola bar. But as soon as he felt the light pressure of her skin, he could feel himself relax—as if her serenity, her calm, was flowing into him. Giving him strength. “You can do this,” she said. “You’re doing it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“Well, it never hurts to be reminded now and then.” She kissed him lightly. “You get back to work. There’s this hot Russian guy that was checking me out on my way over here and I want to make sure he got my number right.”

“Good one,” he said.

She left him to practice.

By late afternoon, self-doubt had bloomed into all-out self-disgust. He decided that coming to the Tchaikovsky Competition was the dumbest thing he could have done. The rivalry with Mikhail Lezenkov was stupid, because of course Mikhail was a better player. One minute Ray was blaming himself and the next minute he was blaming the Lehman. The Strad’s absence throbbed in the air. Playing with this other violin was like playing with a prosthetic arm; it worked but was not the same. It felt lifeless. It was all the Lehman’s fault that he was fuckin’ up Christmas.

There was no use in more woodshedding. He was not getting any better and wasn’t going to get any better. He gave up. He wandered around the halls but felt like an endangered species on display. Stares from every direction. One young man actually came up and tried to touch his hair.

“Come on, man. Not cool.”

Press and fans circled him, and again he spoke to as many media outlets as he could: “If you’re watching this, know that I’m trying to get my violin back. It was stolen a month ago, and the kidnappers want five million dollars. That’s what I’m trying to raise. I can’t do it alone. I need your help.”

The afternoon rehearsal onstage went no better than the rehearsal in the practice room. If he’d held out hope that Mariamna was not deeply disapproving of his existence, that hope was dashed: he was sure she thought that his survival this far in the competition was due, without question, to a clerical error. He suspected that she was right.

Back in the hotel, he changed into his tuxedo, which felt too tight. He was probably getting fat. It would undoubtedly split open in the middle of the Paganini. He waddled up to the warm-up room to await his imminent debacle, figured he might as well warm up. Because playing for the past ten hours hadn’t warmed him up, right?

In the practice room, the Bach Chaconne awaited—one of the most difficult pieces, period, to play, because of its extensive polyphony and implied counterpoint. It was mathematical, precise, dizzying—and that’s what he’d heard all the other contestants focusing on: making the piece precise, vital, energetic. Rachel Vetter kept drilling emotion. “Never forget the rich emotional core of the piece,” she had told him.

And there, fed by the listeners, he felt himself thawing into the way he’d played for all those months of practice. Reached deep inside himself, summoning up strength and emotion and assurance. It was the audience that he tapped into. The music he knew; it was all muscle memory, and his muscles were ready. He could feel the Bach reaching out from his shoulders like wings, or a cloak, lifting into the corners of the room.

Dimly he was aware of Mikhail Lezenkov in a corner, watching coldly, and Ray could not have cared less.

He was ready. His Bach was sounding exactly the way he wanted—like himself, like all the work he’d put in, to be distinctive and original. A few heads turned as he practiced. Mariamna was there, and together they walked out onstage. He held the emotion close to him, looked out at the sea of white faces, so different from his own, and vowed that he would connect with them: if nothing else, he would connect.

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