Maria stood inside the door for a moment, with Gray hardly noticing the disturbance behind him. She cleared her throat, but still failed to catch Gray’s attention, finally just letting the door swing shut rather noisily. Smiling to himself, Mr. Birch gave a slight nod of his head, inviting his new visitor over to join him at the piano. “Very impressive.” She began, stepping over to stand behind his shoulder, “You don’t mind if I listen in, do you?”
Gray recognized the voice from earlier without needing to turn around, “Why thank you, Miss Wolf, I am truly unworthy of your praise. Please, do join me.” He smiled without breaking stride. “It’s a privilege to play on a work of art like this, I really must thank you for the opportunity.” At that moment, Felix entered the room as well with wine bottle in hand, “Oh, Monsieur Dubois! You have excellent timing! Would you please bring out another glass for Miss Wolf?” As he spoke, he drifted off into a casual set of deep, moody chord changes, now running more or less on autopilot, his concentration finally broken.
“Of course, sir,” With that, Felix set down the bottle on a nearby table and quickly headed off back to the bar in order to fetch another glass.
“Ah, here comes the climax!” Gray exclaimed, seemingly excited by the prospect of discovering his own work. He spoke as if he were not the creator himself, but rather beholden to the instrument, holding his breath in anticipation as his fingers suddenly grew alive, building up to a dark, stormy crescendo. At its peak, Gray slowly transitioned from the height of the harrowing tale’s violent conflict into its soft, woeful denouement with a beautifully timed fermata. Soon Felix returned with the second glass, as Gray slowly faded out, gracefully shifting the pacing to match Felix’s steps as the man crossed the room, and finally striking the last key as the bartender placed the glass down on the table. The note hung lightly in the air and the room gradually fell silent.
Throughout Gray’s performance, Maria had remained silent except to chuckle at Gray’s musical joke, not least because it had made Felix fell quite awkward on his way out the door. Upon his return, just as the piano began matching him, he tried to adapt back, which ended up completely ruining the posture and pace of his gait as he made his way over. It was nice to see that he wasn’t entirely perfect after all. After a short pause to regain his composure, Felix retrieved the corkscrew from his pocket and opened the bottle with a satisfying pop and began pouring the wine. “Will that be all, sir?” Felix asked, finally breaking the silence.
“Yes, thank you Felix,” Maria answered with a polite, yet dismissive air, eager to have the pianist all to herself. She turned back to Gray as Felix handed them both a glass of the rare vintage. “Carry on - please.”
“Mmm… Thank you, Monsieur Dubois.” Gray said, raising the glass to his nose, “You are truly a God amongst men.” He smiled, both in delight with Felix, and amusement with Maria. Bringing the glass to his lips, Gray took his first taste of the wine, savoring it across his palate, “Could there be anything more fine in this world?” He asked, more to the sky than Maria, laying his fingers on the keys as he spoke, “Than a superb vintage, a beautiful instrument, and a lovely young lady to share it with!”
After a dozen or so bars, Maria interrupted, asking, pretty much rhetorically but also with a sense of wonder, “Are you improvising?”
“I am merely playing the song she’s asked me to play,” Gray replied, indicating the piano, “We’re very similar, she and I. Just a pair of old souls, products of a different time; relics of a forgotten age. She knows her place in this world is to feel for those who can no longer… I’m simply showing her how to express those feelings. Music is nothing more than the countless emotions stored in all our hearts, manifested and given shape in this world; and so too, it is nothing less…” Gray trailed off a moment, continuing to play out another few chords of melancholy before shifting back into full swing as he stared out into the sky, the slowly sinking sun casting the last remnants of this day’s light through the window. “But that’s enough of that,” He smiled, “Tell me more about yourself, or how about your family?”
“We’re old souls too,” Maria laughed, simultaneously managing to say something, while also saying nothing. “We’re old Bavarian aristocrats, Mr. Birch: you’re not the only one that’s a product of a different time,” Catching Gray off guard, Maria suddenly switched topics, “Go to the ces here,”
“I’m sorry, I’m not quite familiar with the term.” Gray said, immediately regretting it. She was more clever than he had anticipated, diverting his line of questioning before it even really began. Perhaps the Wolfs were not exactly the open books they had sold themselves as being. He would have to wait a while now, if he wanted to press the issue further without seeming rude.
“Here,” She explained, leaning over and hitting a C-Flat chord, seeming a little confused at the misunderstanding. “What do you think?”
“You mean like this?” He asked, switching into C-Flat major,
“Yeah, then you can go to the- and the- and then-” Maria said, tapping out a progression of chords over his shoulder.
“I see you’re not unfamiliar, yourself!” Gray smiled, “You know, Chopin wrote in this key for his contredanse? Pleyel was his favorite pianomaker, so I suppose it’s only be fitting to take inspiration from him.” Switching to a 6/8ths time signature, Gray completely changed tune to a much more lively sounding dance piece. As he finished up, Gray lightly fingered the C-Flat chord playfully as he reached for his glass with the other hand.
“It’s nice to see a man who can play classical. Sol plays, but he’s dreadful. He says he doesn’t like classical so he doesn’t have to play it but he’s - what’s the word?” Maria complained, pausing for a moment to find the best phrasing possible, “Full of shit?”
“Now that is just a shame.” Gray laughed, “I imagine he must be a very interesting sibling to have. Is he always so excited about everything?”
“Everything,” Maria sighed with mock weariness in her voice: he annoyed her, but she didn’t resent him for it. “He’s our little ray of sunshine. Every breakfast is a party, every swim in the lake is a spiritual awakening. You can probably guess it’s hard to stop him, even when he wants me to sing the fucking Beatles.”
“I’m sure you sing it well.” Gray said, jokingly playing out the opening lines of Blackbird “How long have you been singing?”
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night!” Maria sang, clearly emphasizing her skill by using some incredible vocal fluctuations in transition between notes, open vowels and the like.“Take these broken wings and learn to fly…” Even with her serious take, the excessiveness was clearly intended to be humorous, a dichotomy that Gray enjoyed greatly. He had always been of the opinion that especially when being serious, it is of the utmost importance not to take oneself so seriously.
“You have a lovely voice.” He laughed.
“I took lessons when I was a girl, and, well, you have to do something during the year. It’s not the Summer Solstice every day!”
“Does it get boring around here during the rest of the year? Perhaps that’s why you’ve invited us all up here then?” He joked, “To spice things up a little, for your own entertainment?”
Maria laughed at his suggestion, though its tone was so incredibly ambiguous and neutral that Gray had a hard time figuring out what it meant. He had a vague inkling that she was almost impressed, but whether it was because he was clever, or just simply daring Gray could not tell. However, there was something about the maddeningly long sip of wine she took before answering that suggested he may have been right.
“We like to share the wealth,” She finally said after taking a moment for thought, “Obviously not in any real way like giving our actual money to charity - that would be ridiculous,” She complained, irony then suddenly shifting into a more serious tone, “But we have a rich culture here as a family and also as Bavarians. Most of our guests can’t point to Bavaria on a map. Once a year, we open our doors to a selection of perfect strangers and show them a little bit of our lives,” She said, rather matter of factly, “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy each other’s company.”
“But, no, it can be dreadfully dull. We give you a guided tour around the house and heritage of the family, and you do the same for us.” Maria added, despite the fact that Gray had experienced no such thing, at least not yet. In fact, it seemed quite the opposite; the manor was filled with locked doors, and so far he had heard nothing about the family’s history. Even Maria herself had been evasive about the subject.
“Your generosity is impressive.” Gray teased, poking fun at her mention of charity. Though he was beginning to see that it would be difficult to get a straight answer, amidst the Wolf family’s game of smoke and mirrors. “Regardless of the circumstances that have brought us together, I see no reason we shouldn’t enjoy our time together.” He winked, taking a drink of wine for himself.
“Since you’ve brought a bit of class,” The graceful aristocrat remarked, raising her glass, “I expect we will.” Gray followed suit, as the pair locked eyes in the typical German way, and clinked their glasses together. Subsequently remembering the evening’s agenda, she tacked on, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, speaking of enjoying ourselves, are you coming to the ball tonight?”
“And miss my chance to party with Bavaria’s finest?” Gray answered, with an air of mock incredulity. “I only hope you can dance as well as you can sing!”
“I’ll let you be the judge later,” She said, playing back. “You must be a dancer, too? A musical man doesn’t only play the piano.”
“For a man like myself, I’ve found that being a good dancer can open many new doors.” He teased.
“Which doors are they?”
“Doors to places you never expected. Exciting places. Life is full of mystery, you know.”
“I really hope not: I prefer certainty. I don’t like surprises and can’t even keep a secret.” Maria said, smiling as she spoke, knowing full well that nobody in the room believed those words.
“Oh, but a good mystery is what makes this world so fun to explore. After all, what fun is reading an open book? The thrill of turning the page is just so tempting, is it not?”
“Ah, but only because you want to get to the end. Nobody likes the mystery: they like it being solved.”
“As humans, it is in our nature to explore, and to test the boundaries given us by God, is it not? We have been solving mysteries since the dawn of time. We love turning the page, not because we think the answer will be on the next page, but because we take delight in the process of solving. Otherwise, why not skip right to the end?”
“I do! But it’s funny you mention God. God is what happens when mankind can’t find the last page, so write it themselves. We’re intelligent people - we can see that the whole history of God is to explain the world, because not knowing is torture. When science emerged and challenged that certainty, what did we do? We locked up Copernicus, Darwin hid his own research, and some people still think the Earth is flat because they can’t face the mystery of it all.”
“Religion was created as the common man’s Philosophy, in an age when the word was synonymous with science. Even a biologist today can not accurately describe the workings of a quantum particle, but he believes in the common conception, trusting in the work done by those more knowledgeable than he. God is little more than a stand in for complex metaphysical concepts, incomprehensible to the masses. Perhaps the goal of religion was once to increase their knowledge of science, and it was devotion to that science that backfired. But that kind of devotion to perceived truth is nearly universal.” In fact, Gray had written a relatively well regarded paper on the very same topic during his tenure at Columbia University. “Einstein went to his grave denying the principles of quantum mechanics, after all. He thought that he had found the solution, and refused to accept that existence is the process of solving life’s mysteries, and not the solutions themselves. Is that so different from those who cling to God?”
Maria took another large sip of wine, “Not at all.” She admitted, “He couldn’t bear not knowing and so insisted that he did know after all. It’s all the same thing: lying to yourself and denying the world. Enough of lying old men, though - the world has plenty of them. Here I am sat with wine and a beautiful pianist, talking about Einstein and God. Don’t you think that would be a wasted opportunity, if you were me?”
“Oh, it surely is, Miss Wolf. In any case, I fully intend to keep turning the pages of any book placed in front of me.” He replied, taking a drink of wine and placing his hands back the keys. “Fortunately, the one I’m reading now seems quite engaging.” He smiled, deviously. As his fingers began to play once more, the opening of Chopin’s Nocturnes emerged from the beautiful instrument. “But for now, I am content to leave those pages alone, at least long enough to enjoy this one we’re on together.”
