Excerpt: Daughters of Song

Excerpt from Daughters of Song (Random House 1995)

Cornelius Toft stands in the hallway, smoking; he does not do it the way Peter does—gracefully and with pleasure—but pecks angrily at the end of his cigarette. Smoke puffs from his narrow nostrils; he is eighty-four years old but has not given up either his cigarettes or, worse yet, his cigars. Sylvia, waiting fearfully inside the practice room for her lesson, can see him just outside the door.  He has been talking to someone. Now the door bursts open, making her jump, and he strides into the room, trailing smoke. "Tell him he’s a fool," he barks over his shoulder. "Tell him I said so."

"Oh, certainly, Cornelius," says a woman’s voice, sweetly sarcastic—Miss Haupt? Perhaps—the two of them are great friends, anyway, in spite of Toft’s long-established reputation as a misogynist. Miss Haupt is old, though not nearly as old as Toft, and she is also a piano teacher at the conservatory. The story is that she often cooks for him. They are both ex-Berliners; Sylvia has heard that Miss Haupt studied briefly with Toft before either of them left Germany. She must be very brave, Sylvia thinks, to tease him that way.

Toft, muttering, marches to the window without glancing at her. She waits at the bench, flushing hot and cold. Whenever she is in his presence, all of Peter’s lessons about courage evaporate. Why? she wonders. How can Toft do this to me—make me into nothing just by walking into a room? She is ashamed at his power over her—but she has to admit that her father has the same kind of power, though in a different way; together, they determine what she thinks of herself. It’s not me deciding how good I am, or even if I am good—it’s them. It’s always the two of them, Ross and Toft, her father’s tense and handsome face, her teacher’s glowering looks.

She risks a peek at Toft; he is standing beneath the tall mahogany window frame, one hand cupping the opposite elbow, finishing his cigarette. She is the farthest thing from his mind, and she knows it, though this gives her little comfort; all she has to do is blink and he could turn on her, crackling and spitting into blazing life. She cannot relax for a moment.

Schubert’s Little Sonata in A Major drifts through the room—Brandon? Colette?—and Toft listens, cocking his head, then shaking it as he tosses his burning cigarette to the street five stories below. Clearly, he is not pleased. Her stomach tightens.

"So," he says, turning. "And what is the news from the clouds?"

Sylvia swallows, touching a key with her finger. What is it about her that disgusts him so? The way she cringes, maybe? Peter, though he would never say it directly, has implied as much. She thinks of herself on the windowsill, clinging to the frame. She cannot even do that the way Peter does it; she is too careful, too afraid of being hurt.

Of course she cannot play Opus 111. What has she been thinking of, with all her Beethoven books, her research? Who is she kidding? The first movement especially, with its enormous, crashing chords, was meant for Toft, not her—it is pure power, pure will.

But he’s the one who’s making me play it, she thinks. And he’s never even told me why, and besides that, he isn’t helping me a bit—isn’t this his responsibility too?

The words, however, sound weakly ineffectual and she knows she will never say them out loud even if she is right. Cornelius Toft is an institution, as her father reminds her in his intense way. The very best, Sylvia. The best that money can buy.

Instead of feeling grateful, she dreams of Toft at night, his querulous nasty voice with the power to freeze her cold, and then she listens one more time to his magnificent recording of Opus 111 and is flooded with disbelief. I am his student, she thinks. Me, Sylvia. Impossible.

"Are you in love with some longlegs, or what is the story, miss?"

Here it comes. She forces herself to lift her head until she is looking directly into his eyes. There is no point in answering questions like these; she can only wait him out. Her palms are slick with sweat. Peter, she thinks, Toft is your teacher too—how do you handle him? But she can’t compare herself to Peter. He’s too good—he’s in a class by himself.

Toft’s eyes are very dark and round and he can make them as hard as marbles when he holds a stare. In spite of her fear of him, she has noticed that there is something monkeyish about the puckered old mouth, those quick eyes in their nest of wrinkles, the blue-veined hoods he can raise and lower at will.

"Ah well, " he says, shaking his head. "Come. Let’s get on with it. We are already behind schedule."

"What"—her voice breaks—"do you want first?"

He crosses the room to his chair, ignoring her, and she crosses her fingers, hoping that he will ask for Schumann or Ravel or even the Scarlatti sonatas—anything but Beethoven first. If he did not frighten her so, she would find him amazing. In spite of the military bearing, his spine is beginning to cave in; he has to tuck his chin to stand up straight. But his shoulders are broad and he still has the muscular forearms of a pianist. He settles himself, fussing a little with the angle of the chair, then once again bores into her eyes with his.

"Scarlatti."

She swallows. None of the little sonatas are ready yet, though she has been working very hard. "Which one?" she asks

"Three fifty-six."

She turns back to the keyboard, looking down as though it’s the first time she’s every played. Eighty-eight keys, the long sweep from bass to treble. In spite of Toft, she has never stopped loving this big black monster, loving the battle between her small hands and the cold ivory.