Chapter 3: First Lesson

Notes: See the In The Dark home page.

Disclaimer: Although this is inspired by the Vampire Chronicles, all characters and situations are MINE. However, if you want to use them for non-commercial purposes, *I* won't sue you, I promise. ;)

Writer Contacts: To contact Wiebke (and especially if you would like to link to this site or any of the stories), email wiebke@juno.com.

Early childhood memories are often hazy. Images and smells and flashes of faces are all adults have left to them as the years go by. There are no continuous scenes and often, stories are garbled, one circumstance blending into another, all of it made worse by the fact that even at the time, everything was a mystery. Adults don't explain things to children and so children make up their own explanations. It's only afterward that the children grow and their minds begin to ask the inevitable question: What really happened?

My own memories are somewhat different. There are plenty of details I have forgotten or have been clouded in a haze. I don't remember much from my days at kindergarten or grade school, where I received above average grades even though I was not particularly interested in anything they had to teach me. I remember flashes of times spent with my grandparents, trips to the beaches in New Hampshire, digging tunnels in the great mounds of snow piled up by the plows as they cleared the winter streets of Boston. I suppose these are the typical sorts of memories.

Altogether separate from these memories, however, are the memories of my teacher. In my mind, I can reply certain scenes, conversations, images with perfect clarity, just like I'm watching a video or have stored photographs in my mind. I don't remember every single lesson, but I remember the sum details of what was said, what was learned. The memories stretch out like quilt spread out on a lawn in summer and whenever I like, I can lay on my stomach and examine each piece of patchwork, going from one to the other, everything coming together to form a seamless whole.

The first day of lessons was the second patch in this quilt, the first being the initial meeting at the showroom. My mother and I took the subway to a stop near the Common. It was after dark, perhaps around 8 p.m., when we emerged into the blast of December cold. Hugging our winter jackets and pulling our hats over our ears, we hurried over to the address Mr. Hoffman had given my mother over the phone.

My teacher had a home in Beacon Hill. These days, the neighborhood is among the most exclusive in the city and also the most photographed. With its stately brick townhouses and hilly, crooked streets, it doesn't look anything like part of an American city. More than anything, it looks like a part of London or a window left open on the nineteenth century. At the time of my first lesson, however, just at the start of the 1970s, the neighborhood wasn't a particularly desirable one. City planners were in the midst of tearing down a large swath of Downtown, sweeping north from the State House, knocking down all the old and replacing it with concrete and brick civic structures, inhumanly barren plazas. Beacon Hill was a relic and at the time, people were talking about bulldozing it as well. Fortunately it managed to survive and thrive, putting the modern ugliness to shame.

But as I was saying (and forgive me if my mind wanders, which it does more and more often), my teacher lived in Beacon Hill, and so my mother and I trudged up one of the narrow sidewalks of one of the steep cobblestone streets to reach the broader east-west street near the top of the hill. This street was lined with the larger houses, the ones with the private gardens out in front, gates of stone or iron, ivy running over the facades. Even then, in its run-down state, it was magnificent and, to the child I was then, walking through it was like taking a journey to another world.

The house was two stories of heavy stone, the first floor fronted with tall paned glass windows hung with heavy drapes, framing an interior filled with light and, we hoped as we approached the front door, warmth. The leafless bushes and evergreen shrubs were neatly trimmed, with a stone fountain frozen over in the area to the left, a sun dial standing in the nighttime shadows off to the right. My mother and I mounted the front steps. Standing before the Roman-style pediment, my mother took the brass knocker on the door and rapped it against the door.

My mother checked her wristwatch and smiled. "Right on time," she said to me, dropping her hand to straighten up my jacket and hat, to wipe off my face with her gloves. Little girls tend to get messy and she wanted me to look my best.

Just as my mother was straightening, the door opened and there, in his near-princely glory, stood Mr. Hoffman.

I still have not described him physically, so as I describe my first impressions, let this serve as the impression for all time, since his appearance never really changed.

Mr. Hoffman had a marvelously handsome, masculine face, something like that of a 1930s film star. Wonderfully pleasant and regular it was, the arched eyebrows and the strong, straight nose. There were two lines in his forehead and a tiny dimple in his chin. His eyes were light brown and edged with fine brown lashes. The frame around his face was lovely dark brown hair, filled with gentle, pampered waves and parted to the side. He was tall with a graceful figure, neither too thin nor too thick, with the strong and muscled hands of a pianist.

All these details I recall so well from looking at him over the years are ones I may have missed on that very first night. In that first appearance at the door, the light to the right of the door had his face half in shadow as he smiled and ushered us inside with a greeting. He closed the door and at once I felt the warmth of the house surround me. He took our coats and hats and offered us a seat so we could remove our boots. Every action was so thoughtful, instilling me with a sense of trust even though he had scarcely spoken.

Once we were finished with our boots, Mr. Hoffman led us to a sitting room that rivaled anything my mother or I had ever seen. The walls were covered in solid wood paneling and the decor was such that I felt, as a child, that I might not be permitted in its presence. Mr. Hoffman did not hold the room as a museum relic, however, and he promptly invited my mother to have a seat so he could take me to the music room to begin our lessons. A small table had been provisioned with all the trappings of tea, including an antique tea set and a plate of cookies. My mother shook my teacher's hand and sat herself down to read the book she had brought with her.

Mr. Hoffman took my hand in his as we walked down the hall towards the back of the house. His hands were always wondrously cool and smooth. The floorboards creaked as we walked along and I wondered how old the house was. I assumed it was very old and that Mr. Hoffman was very rich. He was giving me free lessons after all, and why would he do that unless he didn't need the money? I was only six years old, but I had a practical mind and already understood quite a bit of the operations of the adult world.

My teacher slid back an inset door and ushered me into the music room. At the center of the room was a grand piano more beautiful than any I had ever seen at M. Steinert and Sons. I asked Mr. Hoffman if he was really going to let me touch it, and he told me yes. I could hardly believe it. Imagine, there I was, finally getting lessons from a master pianist with a wonderful fancy house and all of it was for free!

Like every lesson, this first lesson began with a treat. Mr. Hoffman ushered me into a chair by the flickering warmth of the fireplace and gestured to a plate of cookies. I took a seat, thanked him and asked him if he would like any. He said no but took the seat opposite me and began to talk. He explained the way the lessons would work. Because I was so young and my hands were still so small, it would be difficult to teach me all the proper techniques, but he would begin to teach me everything there was to know about the piano and music. He would explain to me all the technical details as well as the finer points. He would teach me to read music. He would play piano for me himself and let me observe his technique and experience live performance. By the time were we were through all the basics, he told me, I would be big enough to start hands-on learning.

My cookies were long gone by the time he finished talking. While he had been speaking I had been taking in the details of the room, its dark molding and the heavy red drapes that masked all the windows except for one, which had been left half uncovered, giving a glimpse into what I assumed was the backyard beyond. I also turned my eyes to the piano and thought of what playing it would be like. I wouldn't been an showroom and I would be learning how to do it right. Soon I would be able to make the sounds I had always dreamed of.

That first lesson was a time of testing. Mr. Hoffman wanted to see what I knew. First he asked me questions about music, composers, instruments. Having spent so much time listening to records, and after all the books my mother and I had read together, I knew most of the answers, which seemed to make him happy. After the "verbal exam" my teacher sat down at the piano and gave me a listening test. He played bits of music and asked me to name the composer and the piece. Not all my guesses were on target, but quite a few of them were. I'm sure he played mostly famous pieces of music, things he was sure I would be familiar with, just so I would feel I knew something.

Finally came the real test. Adjusting the piano stool to my height, he told me to have a seat and play for him. I had played so often in the showroom but in that setting I felt a little shy. Still, a piano was a piano and I couldn't resist for long. I hopped up on the stool and did as he asked. I played. I was only playing with a few fingers -- my hands were still too small for much else -- but I managed to play the melodies for quite a few tunes my teacher asked for. Bach minuets, themes from piano concertos by Mozart, simplified versions of Chopin's nocturnes.

All along, as I played, Mr. Hoffman stood by the curve in the piano with his right hand on his chin, the other set on his hip. He was listening to me, judging my ear for music, for rhythm, trying to gauge what sort of teaching I would require. He didn't seem displeased at all, and in fact several times in between pieces I saw him smile. Still, by the time he told me to stop, I was still rather doubtful that he would be impressed by what I had done. After all, he was a great pianist and I was only a six-year-old girl who performed with two fingers and learned to play using a plastic toy piano and listening to records from the library and Goodwill.

Thus I was surprised when I stepped down from the stool and looked up to see my teacher looking down at me. He offered his hands and I put mine out for him to hold. He smiled at me and said the words with which he ended so many of his lessons with me over the years: "You are the perfect student."