A Thousand Perfect Notes(16)

Beck stares at his hands, his useless hands. He should’ve cut them off years ago instead of fantasising about it. Saved the world from hearing his agony made into music. Saved himself from the Maestro.

Something’s definitely stuck in his eye.

The Maestro is in front of him, hauling him to his feet. She jerks his suit jacket straight, murmuring indecipherable German. They’re leaving? Joey trots anxiously behind. They move through the maze of rooms and tunnels and down the stairs, out of an exit, and the cool night clasps Beck in its comforting arms.

He won’t go to school tomorrow. He won’t even move. He’ll just fade into his bed and he won’t exist.

It’s late. The night has a wintry bite. The bus stop is nearly a kilometre of walking away, and their tickets are for midnight. Joey will want to be carried. Beck just needs to locate his feet, his wits, his strength, and get through this.

The walk is silent, brisk, with the Maestro holding Joey’s hand so her small legs fairly run to keep up. No one can tell a dead boy walks with them.

What will she do?

They are a street away from the bus station and they pass the gate of a city park with huge heavy branched trees. Shadows hug their shoulders. The Maestro stops. She jerks free of Joey – who stumbles back, tired, surprised – and the Maestro turns on Beck.

He opens his mouth, but what’s there to say?

She has height on him, strength, weight. Somewhere there is a man who is Beck’s father and he must’ve been a skinny bean, because Beck sure didn’t inherit his mother’s physique.

She shoves him against the park gate with a clang. The air goes out of him.

Joey whimpers.

The Maestro has no words – not even a deluge of curses to outline his worth. She grabs him by the hair and slaps him. The sound of striking flesh is crisp, too loud, in the emptiness. Someone will see. Someone will stop her. Call the police, a mother hates her son.

The pain in his eyes must be encouragement, because she slaps him again.

Again – again – again.

Beck’s lips splits, his mouth fills with blood, he’s probably bitten his tongue in half. ‘Mutter, please,’ he whispers. ‘Not here.’ A dribble of blood escapes his lips.

The Maestro must see the sense. She lowers her hand and releases Beck’s hair so sharply he falls back and hits the gate again – this time with his skull. He grabs his head, spits blood, sinks to his knees. There’s probably blood on his only good white shirt, so what’ll he do next time? She’ll be furious because of his shirt and it’s not his fault. Not his fault.

The tears come in a blur, hot and heavy with hatred.

Joey is crying and whispering, ‘Don’t hurt Beck.’ It comforts him, just a little.

‘Steh auf,’ the Maestro snaps. Get up. ‘There is no word for what I think of you. You have destroyed me.’

Beck wipes his nose and smears wetness across his cheeks. Blood, snot? Does it even matter? He keeps his mouth closed, so nothing embarrassing can slip out.

The Maestro closes her hands into fists, but the shaking is ferociously visible.

‘You are my disease,’ she says, her voice eerily calm. ‘You will kill me with your disgrace. But it will never happen again, will it?’

If he opens his mouth, an ocean will escape and he’ll drown. He’ll drown. Please don’t make him answer.

She steps towards him, voice like a viper. ‘Will it?’

Beck’s lips part and the last of his music slips free and dissolves in blood and tears.

‘Never,’ he says.





Beck decides to rebel.

And by ‘rebel’ he means mostly lying in bed for two days straight, not making a peep, minding his manners, and cleaning the entire house for the Maestro, but still – defiantly – not playing the piano.

On the third day, he’s still burrowed under the quilts when Joey invites herself in with breakfast in bed for him. She has one of her pink plastic toy trays with tiny pots of her infamous concoctions. He spies bread crusts on the tray and feels a stab of guilt. While he sulks, who takes proper care of Joey?

Her brow puckers, concentrating on not spilling anything. ‘I’m cheering you up since you’re sick.’

Beck scoots into a sitting position as she lays the tray on his lap. Then she vaults on to the bed and nearly upends the whole thing in his face.

‘Then we can go back to school.’ She peers at him and squints. ‘Do we have to wait until your face feels better?’

Beck picks up a teaspoon and prods one of the pots – is that uncooked rice and peanut butter? ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

Any other parent would’ve hauled their teenage son out the door and lectured him about school. But Beck can skip three days and the Maestro won’t say a word. In fact, the Maestro is ignoring him and thereby ignoring Joey. The message is loud and clear – her children are worthless brats.

And the Maestro won’t walk Joey to school – as far as Beck knows, the Maestro hasn’t left her room much either – but how long before someone asks questions about the absentee Keverich kids?

Beck cautiously eats sour yogurt sprinkled with flour.

Joey pokes his cheek. ‘How much does it hurt?’

He glares. ‘It hurts when you touch it!’ The purple bruises cover his right cheek and his split lip has crusted in a scab. He just can’t smile, really, which is fine by him.