THE AUDITION
The door snapped shut behind Nick like a sprung trap as he sloshed absurdly into the front lobby of the music school’s performance hall.
He found himself enclosed in a space dominated by high-ceilings and dull marble tile, where haphazard architectural anachronisms came together to create an overall impression of stolid severity while a faint but deep-seated odor of mildew hinted at decades of slap-dash housekeeping.
His breath came in labored gasps as he collapsed onto a bench just inside the entrance, his sides aching from the exertion of his sprint through the rain.
Rainwater had drenched his hair and clothes, soaking him to the skin, chilling him. And so as a burst of cool, air-conditioned air passed by, he started trembling. Or were his nerves playing tricks again?
Either way, his first priority now had to be getting himself cleaned up. He couldn’t show up for the audition in this soggy state.
It was lucky he’d reached the hall with extra time to pull himself together. Roughly a half-hour remained before he was scheduled to present himself to the audition jury, time he’d hoped to spend preparing psychologically. He would need every minute, now, just to make himself presentable again.
He found a restroom around the corner and slipped inside. Looking into the mirror above the sink, he set about cleaning himself up. His clothes hadn’t been much to start with, but at least they’d been dry. He took his t-shirt off and stood at the sink, squeezing water out of it. He did the same with every other article of clothing he wore, leaving only his shabby boxer shorts in place. He used the electric hand dryer systematically to dry each article, and soon, he was dressed again and looking only a little worse for the wear.
It was then, with this latest mini-crisis barely behind him that he realized he no longer knew where his canvas tote bag was. Frantically, he retraced his steps in memory.
He felt sure the bag and its crucial cargo had still been in his possession when he first came in out of the rain—or had it? Was it possible he’d already lost it in all the haste and confusion of his dash across campus?
The only place he could think of where he might have left it was on the bench near the entrance, so he rushed back to check there. But his heart sank as he approached the heavy concrete structure; he saw no sign of the bag. He was sweating now, his mind racing.
What were his chances of making it through the audition without the sheet music? He knew the pieces well, but did he know them that well? Besides, he was supposed to bring copies of his music for each of the jurists evaluating his performance.
But that didn’t matter now. He would have to make do. The time for his audition had arrived. There was barely enough time left now to make his way through the maze-like series of hallways to the rehearsal room where he was expected.
******
“Ah—I assume you are Mr. Faustino. I’m Dr. Steinhertz, chair of the graduate piano department. My colleagues and I are glad you could join us,” the lead jurist dead-panned, his fingers absently working one leg of his steel-framed eye-glasses. “We’re holding auditions today, you know.”
Nick had arrived five minutes late. His stomach-lining seemed to fold in on itself as he stared into the skeptical faces of the jury.
“I’m sorry, I—I got caught in the rain during the walk here. I’m afraid I also lost my sheet music somewhere along the way. But please, I’d like to proceed with the audition, or reschedule, if that’s in any way possible. This really matters a lot to me.”
“You’re prepared to perform without sheet music?”
“Yes. I think I am.”
“Let’s hope so. Well, then, since the selections listed here on your application are all fairly conventional ones—” Nick thought he detected a note of condescension in Steinhertz’s tone. “We’ll make a special accommodation and allow you to proceed with your audition. But please don’t disappoint us. If you start noodling and improvising, this audition is over.”
Any relief Nick felt was short-lived because in the same instant he also realized there was no turning back. The all-important moment had arrived. Everything else depended on this, on what happened next: he was at the crossroads.
He seated himself uncertainly behind the massive, black grand piano that stood at the focal point of the room, his mop of coppery blonde hair giving him the appearance of a mad scientist sitting down to work before some infernal machine.
Summoning up all the resolve he could muster, he opened the keyboard cover, stretched his fingers, and began to play his first piece, a well-known Beethoven piano sonata.
What happened next caught him completely by surprise. He suddenly felt as if all the self-doubt and uncertainty he’d built up in his mind that morning—over the entire last year, for that matter--had suddenly been transformed into a feeling of absolute and totalizing freedom: in an instant, he felt released from all the ordinary burdens of human existence, transformed into a living musical instrument being played by an infinitely more rational power, as if he could do no wrong, each note flowing flawlessly into the next without a trace of hesitation or self-doubt.
He had often heard his fellow students describe classical musical performance using lofty terms like “transcendence” and “liberation,” but in truth, music had always seemed like just a more abstract variation on arithmetic. Wasn’t it all about ratios and technical tricks? Until now, he’d never thought of musical performance as a particularly profound activity. It was a labor of love, to be sure, but it was first a labor. What he was doing now was not labor. It was Art, with a capital ‘A,’ so to speak.
By the time Nick concluded his audition performance, he had convinced, if not the jurors, then at least himself, that he was a shoo-in for admission to the program.
This performance had showcased exactly what it needed to showcase: Both his technical proficiency and his attention to the more subtle interpretative nuances of the music. He felt elated, rejuvenated.
In anticipation of a favorable audition outcome, he’d already begun the financial aid process. He’d likely be granted a substantial scholarship award upon full admission to the program; this was a customary courtesy in cases of financial need such as his. And he was eager not to take out more student loans. His father’s annual income—despite their estrangement—disqualified him from participation in needs-based financial aid programs, so he’d depended on subsidized student loans to pay for his previous four years of education.
He owed a substantial sum already.
