Chapter 6: The Anatomy of Tears
The rain on the walk back across the river was neither gentle nor romantic. It was a freezing, late-autumn downpour that turned the soot on the pavement into gray slush and soaked straight through the shoulders of Maya’s woolen jacket.
Sam walked beside her, his large umbrella held almost entirely over her head, letting the freezing water drench his own denim jacket and neck. Neither of them spoke for six blocks. The only sound was the synchronized slosh-tap, slosh-tap of their boots and Maya’s cane.
When they reached their apartment building—a four-story walk-up with a broken buzzer and a stairwell that perpetually smelled of fried onions—Sam unlocked the rusted metal door and guided her up the narrow wooden steps.
Inside their third-floor room, the quiet was absolute.
Their apartment was tiny, furnished only with a lumpy second-hand sofa, a low wooden dining table with one leg propped on a folded cardboard coaster, and a two-burner electric hotplate. On the small counter stood the framed, black-and-white photograph of their mother—her smile frozen in paper, surrounded by a ring of plastic lilies.
Sam pulled a coarse towel from the rack and gently draped it over Maya’s soaking hair.
"He's a pompous, arrogant bastard, Maya," Sam said, his voice thick with raw anger and helplessness. He sank onto the edge of the sofa, running both hands over his face, leaving grease smudges across his forehead. "I should have jumped on that stage and knocked his glasses down his throat. You played circles around everyone there. I saw the faces of those rich folks—they were terrified of you."
Maya sat at the table, her hands flat on the cold formica surface. She did not take off her damp jacket.
"He wasn't entirely wrong, Sam," she said. Her voice was remarkably steady, but it sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of an abandoned well.
Sam dropped his hands, staring at her in disbelief. "What are you talking about? He insulted you! He called you a street performer!"
"He said I play without pedigree. He said I mimic sounds without knowing why they are built." Maya touched the edge of her collar, her fingers tracing the frayed threads. "He thinks because I cannot read his paper, my world is small. He thinks music is an exclusive country where you must show a golden passport at the gate."
"And you believe him?" Sam asked, his voice cracking with protective fury.
Maya turned her face toward him. In the dim light of the window, her sightless eyes caught the gray reflection of the streetlamps outside. There were no tears on her cheeks; her expression was completely, terrifyingly still.
"No," she said softly. "I do not believe him."
She stood up and walked toward the small window facing the alleyway. She placed her forehead against the cold glass pane, listening to the rain drumming against the fire escape outside.
"Every raindrop that hits the iron ladder makes a different pitch, Sam," Maya murmured, her breath fogging the glass. "The small drops hit in high E-flat. The fat drops on the railing ring in G. The gutter below carries a heavy rumble in low D. The world is composing a symphony every second of the day, and Julian Vance is completely deaf to it. He only hears what someone printed on paper two hundred years ago."
She turned around, her small frame standing tall against the gray evening light.
"He called my playing a parlor trick. He thinks he can lock the door and keep the grand pianos for himself and his students."
"Maya..." Sam looked at her, sensing a fierce, unfamiliar resolve radiating from her quiet posture.
"I am going back to the community center," Maya said.
"It's past six o'clock, Maya. The bingo group is using the hall. And you're soaked to the bone."
"Then I will sit in the corridor and wait until they leave," she answered, picking up her folded cane from the table. Her voice held a weight that made Sam close his mouth and step back. "I am going to practice. I am going to learn the architecture he speaks of, but I will not learn it his way. I will learn it until every piece of wood in this city answers to me."
Twenty minutes later, Maya stood in the dark, water-stained basement hallway of the Maple Street Community Center. The laughter of the bingo players drifted muffled from the main recreation hall down the corridor.
She did not turn on the light in Room 4. In the pitch-black storage room, Maya sat before the chipped upright Baldwin.
She lifted her cold, stiff fingers and pressed the naked spruce wood of middle D.
The hammer struck the string with a hollow, mournful chime.