I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar Page A

teacher laughed: That’s what it smells like when someone dies. He indicated a half-open door. My wife, a roaring laugh, lies dying. It struck me to the core. Time is precious, he laughed again. Now let’s see what you can do. I tinkled listlessly up and down the scales. The teacher, directing his gaze fiercely at my hands: What is this? You are playing as if you had no life in you! Even a dead man has more life in him than you! He laughed again. I thought: How heartless. This man is made of stone. How is it possible for him to laugh while there his wife. Speaks of feeling and has none himself. I thought it with a natural, yes, a matter-of-fact, unquestioning contempt.
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    One time the bell rang, the teacher ran to the door and I, sitting at the piano, squashed a fly. I was in the process of dissecting it, starting with the legs, when he returned and suddenly let out such a piercing cry right behind me that I thought he’d seriously injured himself. He pushed me off the stool. Slammed the piano lid shut. Screamed: What are you thinking, you little devil, to kill an innocent animal in my house. Stiff as a rod I stood before him. In shock, since his face was distorted. I felt anger bubbling up at him, as he ran back and forth still screaming, reproaching me for such a trifle. He struggled for breath,I took advantage of the lull. My lips trembling with rage I said: You’re the one who laughs when your wife coughs out there. Eerie silence. He was frozen in mid movement. Looked at me eventually, after what seemed like an eternity. Released me from what seemed like an unending stare. Took one step towards me. Halted. Said quietly, very quietly: That’s exactly why you won’t make it as a pianist. You hear nothing. You have no ear. You hear only what is on the surface, not what lies within. Pack up your stuff. The lesson is over. Tell your parents you are the least talented student I’ve ever had. It’s a complete waste trying to teach you what music is. Someone who only hears laughter in a laugh is deaf, I tell you, deafer than deaf. I laugh for her. Do you hear? He laughed. I laugh because I know she loves it when I laugh. I put sadness into it. Do you hear? He laughed. He laughed once more. She needs to know that I’m sad she is going. I put gratitude into it. Do you hear? He could not stop laughing. I put everything I feel for her into it. She knows that. She hears it. My laughter is supposed to keep her company. He sank, laughing, to the floor. I turned to him, no longer angry at all. And there I saw, he was crying. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he laughed and cried at the same time.
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    The teacher was right in the end. I wouldn’t become a pianist. Yet I remained his student for a whole year. I spent most of the lessons listening to him. Mozart. Bach. Schumann. Chopin. In between I had to describe what I had heard, and how. I developed a sensitive ear, as he called it. His favorite word: Kanjou* . He used it in almost every sentence.
    Shortly before the death of his wife, when you could hearshe was doing badly, I asked him to play me a waltz, but just as he began a terrible wild coughing, hardly human in its wildness, came from the room, behind the half open door. The teacher, his shoulders slumped, laid his fingers on the keys and began to play, slowly, to the rhythm of the coughing. He did not mask it. He accompanied it. He played how his wife coughed. There is no recording of it, sadly. Although. I don’t know whether such playing could be recorded. After he finished he said: If there is anything for you to learn, it’s only that you should not be ashamed. Don’t be ashamed to be a person with feelings. No matter what it is, feel it tenderly and deeply. Feel it more tenderly, feel it more deeply. Feel it for yourself. Feel it for others. And then: Let it go.
    I first saw his wife at the funeral. In a white kimono, her head pointing to the north, she lay in a coffin bedecked with sweet smelling lilies.