Chapter 4: Without A Doubt

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.

For the next five years, Mr. Hoffmann delivered on every promise and went even beyond that. His arrival into my life and the life of my family was so sudden that it seemed like a dream, but it was no dream. Instead, it was something so powerfully real but so intensely good it had the quality of certain photographs that seem as if they must have been touched up even though they are in their raw form; the images are simply so perfect, so intense in the way they capture life, that the human senses reject them as mere artifice.

My lessons proceeded just as Mr. Hoffmann outlined them to me during that first lesson. He opened up the world to me. Musical theory, history, reading music, listening sessions, and of course practice at the keyboard quickly made up for all the years of frustrating yearning. Playing the instrument came easily to me although, as Mr. Hoffmann had presumed, my hands were too small too allow me full command. Nevertheless, I learned as many of the proper techniques as I was able and was forever pushing the limits of my little girl hands. And when I could not play a song I wanted to, I was always told that one day I would be able to. Everything would come in time, Mr. Hoffmann told me.

How right he was. After two years of lessons, just about the time that my hands had grown enough that making proper spans was becoming easier at last, my parents and I moved to a new apartment. It was in a better neighborhood and located on the first floor. As soon as I told Mr. Hoffman, he offered my family a piano. Since we were on the first floor now and it would be easy for him to have a mover deliver it. My mother and father naturally rejected the offer, saying they couldn't accept such charity when Mr. Hoffmann was already giving me so much, but my teacher was insistent. He had several pianos and this was one he didn't use. He'd had it in storage so why not take it? He would have it delivered and even send someone to come service the baby grand so it always stayed in tune. Finally my parents agreed.

I played all the time. My parents made sure I took care of my homework for school and went outside in the fresh air, but after dark my life was nothing but music. Twice a week my mother would take me to Beacon Hill for my lessons. Eventually she settled into a pattern where she would bring me to Mr. Hoffman's house and go to work for a housekeeping client for two hours before returning to pick me up.

I don't know quite how to express this strongly enough, but the four hours I spent with my teacher every week were the most precious hours of my life. The intensity of the lessons was amazing, far beyond, I would say, any lesson I received in music school.

Mr. Hoffmann didn't just know the piano or just know music. My teacher was more than that. He had a passion for music that was contagious. I'd been born with the fever myself but still, being with him intensified my obsession because he made me aware of so much more. What was even more precious, however, was the fact that he fed my interest in a way that few teachers can. Many teachers, in my opinion, take things too slowly. Assuming their students will run into difficulties, they dumb down their lessons and work hard not to "overwhelm" their students. Not so with Mr. Hoffman. My mind was burning for knowledge and he gave it to me as fast as I could absorb it. When we were in the heat of a lesson, he didn't treat me like the young girl I was; he treated me as a person in need of an education.

For five years my life revolved around the music to such a degree that nothing in the outside world seemed to matter much. Nothing compared and nothing related. My life with Mr. Hoffman, the music I played, the special circumstances that had granted me such a privilege, all existed in another universe. Then, one day, the real world collided with that world. The collision only caused a slight dent at the time, but eventually the fissure grew.

What happened, you ask? Lying here still in my bed writing, so many years later, I remember it it with a keenness that astonishes me, especially given the drugs I have been given. The doctors haven't told me anything about the drugs but I have read the warnings and they talk about about memory loss, drowsiness, vomiting. I have been doing well lately, but still, I know eventually there will come a time when my mind and body will no longer be my own.

But be that as it may, I was about to describe the event that burst my bubble, so to speak. It happened when I was 11 years old, in sixth grade. My grade was going to be putting on a special concert and all the students were asked to either perform in groups or come and present their talents. My music classes had always bored me -- they were designed for babies, as far as I could see -- and I'd never played piano for any of my classmates, so I immediately jumped at the chance of performing. And I immediately went to Mr. Hoffmann.

Would he come to the show and let me introduce him? I had the best teacher in the world and I wanted to show him off. Would he come? I asked him at my earliest opportunity, a lesson about a week before the show. I remember sitting in the chair by the fireplace in the practice room, my plate of cookies uneaten as I spoke, and I remember being giddy with excitement, so sure Mr. Hoffmann would be jumping up and down with joy that I would be performing.

As it turns out, his reaction wasn't at all what I had anticipated. Quite simply, he told me that although he very much supported my desire to perform, he did not want it to be known that I was his teacher. He wanted to stay out of the limelight and did not want his name mentioned in public. He could not attend the show and have everyone see him. He would be flooded with students and questions. He valued his privacy. No, he couldn't do it, although he wanted to, he really did.

I was shocked but I didn't collapse into tears right away. No, instead I argued with him. OK, so he didn't want people to know his name or that he was my teacher? What if he came to the show and didn't tell anyone? I wouldn't say anything either. Couldn't he do that?

As it turns out, he couldn't. Why not? Timing, he told me. The show would be taking place during school hours, running from 1 to 2 p.m., and he simply couldn't attend. Not that day, not that time. Business matters. He hated to talk to me about "business" and never really told me what he did when he wasn't teaching me my lessons, but this time he made an exception. He'd be out of town that day. No, he simply couldn't come.

I was hopelessly devoted to my teacher and still, of course, a girl of only 11, and so I accepted his explanation with only a small amount of doubt. Still, it was enough to break the perfection that had been those first years. I learned for the first time that my teacher had his limits and couldn't always give me what I wanted. I also learned that for some reason, my teacher was afraid of being known. He wanted me to become a famous pianist, he always said, but he himself wanted to be unknown. I had a life to live, while he had only a life to give me.