Eva Hoffman - Appassionata

See her there, among the perpetual crowd, moving through the routines of check-in, security control, departure lounge. Shes an attractive woman, with her stylishly cropped, reddish-brown hair, her clearly delineated features, and large, nearly transparent green eyes. She cuts her way through the airports bland spaces with some impatience, her slim tall figure clad in jeans and short leather jacket, her head bent slightly as if to avoid notice. But theres something about her that attracts notice nevertheless: perhaps it is a certain concentration of expression, or of being; perhaps it is the pale, light-absorbing eyes. What cannot be seen, as she pauses to buy her bottled water, or look around some insipid airport shop, is that shes filled with a force of expressive meaning, a power of significant sound that enlarges the space within her to an immeasurable degree. Intimations of Schumann and Beethoven are always just below the surface of her mind and at the tips of her fingers, ready to emerge. Shes trailing a comets tail of music, a repertory of beauty and shaped feeling and strenuous human effort. Shes barely conscious of it, this lived history of the soul; but it is always within her reach, almost audible in the stray motifs, rhythms, musical suggestions that inform her movements, and speak to her as eloquently as any sentences.

What she cannot see fully is herself, as she cuts her way through the old-new world, or as that world cuts through her. She does not discern the vectors of power within which she is held, or the currents of strife and change that may pass through her too, for good or ill. After all, the world through which she travels doesnt yet have a shape, and she is a new kind of creature in it. The forces pressing on her from within blur her own outline to her vision. She doesnt yet know what the music inside her is driving her toward; she is on the border of herself; of the present.

She closes the book on her lap, and thinks, this is only a transitional passage. The passage one hardly hears, the neutral arpeggio meant to get you from one theme to the next. She straps herself into her seat, wills herself into a kind of inner immobility. She thinks, only seven hours The great machine rumbles and churns, and then crescendoes into unnatural speed. Even through the shield of the airplane, something runs down her spine like the uncanny: a power of velocity and sound that could crush her in a mini-second. Then the stunning artifice of lift-off; the swoop above Long Island Sound; and as they leave it behind, the unending expanse of the resistless sky. She stares at it for a while, the vast blue space with no shape or horizon. Somewhere beneath the white noise of the airplane, phrases of Schubert rise up from within, with their lovely, fluent motion. Scraps of music, scraps of thought. To anchor herself, she reaches for her briefcasethe touch of sleek leather is a kind of reassurance; she is, among other things, a person with a sleek leather briefcaseand looks through the folder with her schedule. An anticipatory excitement simmers, the lit-up excitement of the tour ahead. A string of city names extends itself on the page with a still glittering allure: Paris, Sofia, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, Stockholm, Budapest, Barcelona Magical metropolises, her generations fantasy of worldliness; of adventure. What is Sofia doing in that awkward place, though, and why didnt Anders get her Moscow or Rome? She thinks, how strangely arbitrary, and does it mean she is slipping, that the big cities will stop wanting her. That might happen, she knows, through some imperceptible elision, one never knows how or when. She peruses the file for the name of her Paris minder, and notes that it is Rougement. Well, thats nice. He has been around forever; he will cushion the first moments. There are some publicity materials in the folder, and she looks at a photo of herself briefly and with some dissatisfaction. It was taken three years ago, and she didnt like it in the first place, its staged pose or the smooth fake flow of her hair on which the publicity people insisted.

She feels the attention of the man in the next seat turning in her direction. He is corpulent in a forceful, packed way, and he is staring at her quite intently.

Excuse me, he finally brings out, with a careful respect. I just couldnt help noticing Youre Isabel Merton, arent you? I mean, I know its strange to recognize a person from a photo, but Ive seen you on posters, you see, or maybe in the newspapers.

She says yes, she is, and smiles politely, though not too encouragingly. She isnt sure she wants to get into a long conversation. Well, I cant tell you how much Ive admired your recordings. Especially your Schumann, the Davidsbndlertnze So mercurial, so true. True to the music, he adds, as if to assure her he doesnt mean anything trivial. Hes speaking in a diffident rush. Youve given me so much pleasure, you see. In fact, I just got you on CD. His large, not unintelligent eyes look moony. Hes face to face with one of Them, the veiled ones, an Artist.

Oh, thank you, she says, and smiles more openly this time, sensing his difficulty, as well as her own. She has emerged from behind the veil, from the impersonal closeness of recorded sound, into this pseudo-intimacy of an airplane seat. Its undoubtedly disconcerting, this disjunction between her rather tired, embodied self, and the brilliant, disembodied sound by which he has known her.

Are you going to be playing in Paris? the man asks. You see, Ive listened to you so much, but Ive never been to one of your concerts.

Well, yes, I am scheduled at the Champs-Elyses on Saturday, she tells him.

Ah, thats wonderful, he says with enthusiasm. I was going to go to Prigord for the weekend, but Ill stay to hear you, what a great coincidence.

My heavens, that seems rather extreme, Isabel says, feeling oddly small in the face of such dramatic appreciation. She isnt sure she wants to be responsible for his change of plans.

Oh no, I wouldnt miss it for the world, he declares with obvious sincerity. Especially now that Ive met you.

But she must have somehow reinstalled the remote look in her eyes, because he looks rebuffed. He says, It must be very hard, all this touring and airplanes

She says yes, sometimes its quite hard, and after a few more polite sentences mutters, Please excuse me, I need to read this before and opens Ernst Wolfes Journal of a Summer. Oh, Im sorry, please, dont let me the corpulent man says in a flattened tone, and unfolds his Financial Times.

She tries to read, but is still too restless, too distracted. Images skivvy through her mind in no particular sequence. A lesson with Wolfe all those years ago This mornings hurried preparations, the long room of her downtown loft, covering up the Steinway against the sun, and Peter, picking her up to take her to the airport, from his apartment, from their old home. She can envision him exactly, waking up in the high-ceilinged, dusky bedroom, with its fraying Turkish carpet. Still, by now she doesnt know: was he alone before he came to collect her, and would she mind if he wasnt Sotto voce, she admits she would, even though she has no right to, none at all She couldnt ask, of course, it would have been too unfair As it wasnt entirely fair to accept the endless ride to Kennedy this morning. Ahead, the aleatory sequence of the cities, and the absolute glow of the music. A hard life, the man said Its a formulation, a view. Though how can her life be hard, by what possible standards? She does what she most loves. Shes free, free as a woman has ever been. Freedom is the element through which she moves, and she peers into it as into a milky fog, trying to discern what she is moving toward, what she so restlessly, so keenly desires. And yet maybe the man is right, maybe theres something hard about her life, in its deluxe late-capitalist way. She thinks of the stages she will have to cross before reaching the piano, the interviews shell have to give, the dinners shes promised to attend. Bourgeois heroism is what Peter calls it, the acrobatics of being in so many places practically at once, and doing so many amazing things in one day, and then conversing over dinner with unflagging energy. Shell have to be on the qui vive, it is expected. You must never be tired. You Must Love Your Life.