Read Online Acquainted with the Night by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - Free Book Online Page A

densely complex. It would never have occurred to me that reality could also be my mother serving Mr. Simmons home-baked layer cake or my father asking him if he had to go so soon, couldn’t he stay and have a bite to eat, and my mother saying, “Let the man go home to his own family, for heaven’s sake, he’s just done a full day’s work.” I also felt afraid at the anger in Mr. Simmons’ voice; I thought he might be angry at me. I thought that if I were he I would at least have been angry at my parents and possibly even refused their coffee and cake, but Mr. Simmons didn’t.
    When I was nearing graduation from junior high school my mother suggested that I go to the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. I said no, I wanted to stay with my friends and didn’t want to travel for over an hour each way on the subway. I imagined I would be isolated up there. I imagined that the High School of Music and Art, by virtue of being in Manhattan, would be far too sophisticated, even for me. In a word, I was afraid. My mother wasn’t the type to press the issue but she must have enlisted Mr. Simmons to press it for her. I told him the same thing, about traveling for over an hour each way on the subway. Then, in a very grave manner, he asked if I had ever seriously considered a musical career. I said instantly, “Oh, no, that sounds like a man’s sort of career.” I added that I wouldn’t want to go traveling all over the country giving concerts. He told me the names of some women pianists, and when that didn’t sway me, he said he was surprised that an intelligent girl could give such a foolish answer without even thinking it over. I was insulted and behaved coolly towards him for a few weeks. He behaved with the same equanimity as ever and waited for my mood to pass. Every year or so after that he would ask the same question in the same grave manner, and I would give the same answer. Once I overheard him telling my mother, “And she says it’s a man’s career!” “Ridiculous,” said my mother disgustedly. “Ridiculous,” Mr. Simmons agreed.
    Towards the end of my senior year in high school (the local high school, inferior in every way to the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan), my parents announced that they would like to buy me a new piano as a graduation present. A baby grand, and I could pick it out myself. We went to a few piano showrooms in Brooklyn so I could acquaint myself with the varieties of piano. I spent hours pondering the differences between Baldwin and Steinway, the two pianos most used by professional musicians, for in the matter of a piano—unlike a high school—I had to have the best. Steinways were sharp-edged, Baldwins more mellow; Steinways classic and traditional, Baldwins romantically timeless; Steinways austere, Baldwins responsive to the touch. On the other hand, Steinways were crisp compared to Baldwins’ pliancy; Steinways were sturdy and dependable, while Baldwins sounded a disquieting tone of mutability. I liked making classifications. At last I decided that a Baldwin was the piano for me—rich, lush, and mysterious, not at all like my playing, but now that I think of it, rather like Mr. Simmons’.
    I had progressed some since the days when I refused to consider going to the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan. If it was to be a Baldwin I insisted that it come from the source, the Baldwin showroom in midtown Manhattan. My mother suggested that maybe Mr. Simmons might be asked to come along, to offer us expert advice on so massive an investment. I thought that was a fine idea, only my parents were superfluous; the two of us, Mr. Simmons and I, could manage alone. My parents showed a slight, hedging reluctance. Perhaps it was not quite fair, my mother suggested, to ask Mr. Simmons to give up a Saturday afternoon for this favor. It did not take an expert logician to point out her inconsistency. I was vexed by their reluctance and would not even condescend to think