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Authors: James Patterson
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said that he would be playing Bach’s “Partita no. 1 in B-flat.”
Harry strode confidently out from the wings, looking so handsome I could hardly believe he was the same boy who’d been staring up at his ceiling, wracked with grief, only an hour before.
Harry took the bench at the Steinway grand and paused for a moment with his fingers on the keys. Then he started to play. The audience was silent. In awe. Transported. I don’t know very much about music—I’m the only one in the family who can’t sing or play an instrument—but even I knew that what I was listening to was sheer magnificence.
Harry had told me all about Bach. He’d explained that Bach’s music has a measured grace, an inherent tranquility and lightness, and that it is precise, almost mathematical. “That’s why you’d like Bach, Tandy,” he’d said. “He’s not bombastic like Brahms, or romantic like Chopin.” At which point I probably kicked him in the shins. But he was right.
Bach was a kind of expression I could connect with.
Harry had told me that Bach should be played very softly, and very loudly, to exaggerate the phrasing, becausethe pieces themselves are so ordered that the emotion needs to come through in the playing.
I listened for these elements as Harry lost himself in the music. I lost myself, too, as the music captured me in the way that only great music can.
I thought I felt a catch in my throat, and I caught myself.
And I thought of Harry as a little boy of three, sitting at the huge piano in the bay window of the living room, his legs too short to reach the pedals and his hands too short to span a chord. And still, he practiced. Four or five hours a day, every single day, without fail.
I was brought back to the moment by the man sitting to my left, who seemed overcome by Harry’s rendition of the piece. His eyes were wet and he tapped his fingers on his knees and moved his head in time to the music.
I looked back to the stage. I knew that the climax of the piece came on with the gigue, the lively, fast-paced finale, and Harry was rendering it perfectly and faithfully, but with the brilliant accenting that the critics had always acclaimed as uniquely his.
As the last notes of Harry’s performance rang through the auditorium, the man to my left turned to me and exclaimed, “That Harrison Angel is a true genius! Perhaps our greatest pianist. And he’s only a young boy!”
I said, “I know. I know.”
I stood up to applaud, along with two thousand other admirers. Harry dipped his head in a bow, and then again when the audience continued clapping.
It’s possible that my twin was the brightest of all the Angel kids. The one of us with the most potential. Why couldn’t my parents see this? What was wrong with them?
And was that why they had been murdered?
24
We were feeling exhilarated
after Harry’s magnificent performance, and we were also starving.
The five of us rode up in the north elevator, taking turns listing the goods stored in our pantry by food group. Whoever named the fewest foods would have to cook. This is the way we Angels play.
“Get ready to make dinner, Sam,” I told her. She didn’t know the pantry like we did. Most kids from a family like ours wouldn’t know the first thing about the kitchen, either, since it was usually the territory of the cook or housekeeper, but Malcolm had us all regularly cooking from the age of seven.
“You’ll be sorry if I do,” she said. “You know me. I’m the microwave queen.”
“Never too late to learn to be great,” Hugo said, and we all laughed. Another quote from our father.
We exited the elevator on the top floor and found the front door to our apartment wide open.
Samantha got out her phone and said, “I’m calling nine-one-one.”
Matthew’s chest, arms, and forehead seemed to expand, and the muscles in his neck thickened. “Stay here, all of you. I’m going to see who’s in there.” His bluer-than-blue eyes blazed like guide
Harry strode confidently out from the wings, looking so handsome I could hardly believe he was the same boy who’d been staring up at his ceiling, wracked with grief, only an hour before.
Harry took the bench at the Steinway grand and paused for a moment with his fingers on the keys. Then he started to play. The audience was silent. In awe. Transported. I don’t know very much about music—I’m the only one in the family who can’t sing or play an instrument—but even I knew that what I was listening to was sheer magnificence.
Harry had told me all about Bach. He’d explained that Bach’s music has a measured grace, an inherent tranquility and lightness, and that it is precise, almost mathematical. “That’s why you’d like Bach, Tandy,” he’d said. “He’s not bombastic like Brahms, or romantic like Chopin.” At which point I probably kicked him in the shins. But he was right.
Bach was a kind of expression I could connect with.
Harry had told me that Bach should be played very softly, and very loudly, to exaggerate the phrasing, becausethe pieces themselves are so ordered that the emotion needs to come through in the playing.
I listened for these elements as Harry lost himself in the music. I lost myself, too, as the music captured me in the way that only great music can.
I thought I felt a catch in my throat, and I caught myself.
And I thought of Harry as a little boy of three, sitting at the huge piano in the bay window of the living room, his legs too short to reach the pedals and his hands too short to span a chord. And still, he practiced. Four or five hours a day, every single day, without fail.
I was brought back to the moment by the man sitting to my left, who seemed overcome by Harry’s rendition of the piece. His eyes were wet and he tapped his fingers on his knees and moved his head in time to the music.
I looked back to the stage. I knew that the climax of the piece came on with the gigue, the lively, fast-paced finale, and Harry was rendering it perfectly and faithfully, but with the brilliant accenting that the critics had always acclaimed as uniquely his.
As the last notes of Harry’s performance rang through the auditorium, the man to my left turned to me and exclaimed, “That Harrison Angel is a true genius! Perhaps our greatest pianist. And he’s only a young boy!”
I said, “I know. I know.”
I stood up to applaud, along with two thousand other admirers. Harry dipped his head in a bow, and then again when the audience continued clapping.
It’s possible that my twin was the brightest of all the Angel kids. The one of us with the most potential. Why couldn’t my parents see this? What was wrong with them?
And was that why they had been murdered?
24
We were feeling exhilarated
after Harry’s magnificent performance, and we were also starving.
The five of us rode up in the north elevator, taking turns listing the goods stored in our pantry by food group. Whoever named the fewest foods would have to cook. This is the way we Angels play.
“Get ready to make dinner, Sam,” I told her. She didn’t know the pantry like we did. Most kids from a family like ours wouldn’t know the first thing about the kitchen, either, since it was usually the territory of the cook or housekeeper, but Malcolm had us all regularly cooking from the age of seven.
“You’ll be sorry if I do,” she said. “You know me. I’m the microwave queen.”
“Never too late to learn to be great,” Hugo said, and we all laughed. Another quote from our father.
We exited the elevator on the top floor and found the front door to our apartment wide open.
Samantha got out her phone and said, “I’m calling nine-one-one.”
Matthew’s chest, arms, and forehead seemed to expand, and the muscles in his neck thickened. “Stay here, all of you. I’m going to see who’s in there.” His bluer-than-blue eyes blazed like guide
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