Chapter 6: Turning Point

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.

The story remains to be told, however. I was talking about the flowers and how Mr. Hoffmann always made sure I had them for every concert. In a way, it was like he was trying to appease me, to make up for the absence of himself.

That was fine with me. I loved him deeply and truly. By the time I was twenty I was beginning to thinking of him more and more as someone who would always be there. In a way, it's not surprising. I had known him 14 years by that time. He was a fixture in my life -- the never-changing handsome man, the man who had been, outside of those three peculiarities I mentioned, perfectly willing to give me his all. To employ a terrible cliche, he was the air I breathed, that essential.

Which leads me to the end, the bit I have been working towards. It is the point where I began to asphyixiate.

I was 21 and finally, after years of working up to it, I had succeeded in one of my goals. I was scheduled to play an early summer concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I had seen the symphony so often, listened to them on the radio as a child and finally I was going to be part of them, a guest artist in my home city for one of those wonderful summer concerts that are always so full, all the seats packed with city visitors and people with ticket specials and people simply enjoying the pleasure of music. I was thrilled and perhaps foolishly, I dreamt that Mr. Hoffmann would be pleased as well.

He wasn't. Or I should say, he was pleased, but despite everything, despite the magnitude of the accomplishment I had made, when I asked him to come, he still said no. The concert was at 8 p.m. on a Friday. What could he possibly be doing, I asked him? There wasn't going to be any information about him on the program, I told him. I always had them leave that out. It had information on my teachers at Berklee, not my private tutor. He would be anonymous. Please, would he please come? After so many years, couldn't he simply come to one concert? No, he said, the timing was wrong.

It was only then that I realized the true extent of my foolishness. The concert was at 8 p.m., I'd told him. Well, yes, of course it was -- it was a standard time to begin an evening concert only since it was summer, it wasn't going to be evening, it would still be light out. And just as Mr. Hoffmann would not schedule our lessons until it was dark, he would not attend an evening concert if it was still light out. Photophobia had such a hold on him.

I felt terrible when I realized this, so terrible that I managed to say something to him. Yes, I spoke up. I asked him why he would only see me at night. Was it because he was afraid of the light? He stared at me and looked absolutely petrified. I wasn't quite prepared for that reaction and I'd never seen my teacher look the way he did then. Obviously I was getting too personal. Normally we talked about music, art, concerts, culture, not psychological quirks and certainly not his psychological quirks.

Finally, though, he managed an answer. It wasn't that he was afraid of the light, he told me, but that he preferred to exist in the dark. The light didn't agree with him. It never had and he avoided it. He was sorry to be so unbending, but that was how it had to be. My box of roses arrived right on time prior to the concert. He loved me, I knew it, but there was something wrong. I tried to look beyond it, but somehow I found it bothering me like it hadn't before. Maybe it was because I was older and growing impatient. Maybe my love was driving me to understand everything about him. But somehow after that, I felt more pain than ever over his absences.

Shortly after the concert with the BSO, I received an unexpected invitation. It came from the New York Philharmonic. There was to be a concert in late October. It was in Carnegie Hall. I had actually played there several times before as part of competitions or recitals, but this was different. I was going to play a piano sonata with the symphony. It was my Carnegie Hall debut. This is all recorded in my musical biography. It was the start of my real career. After that concert I was in demand more than I ever had been. I began to record albums and to travel all over the country.

At the time I received the invitation, however, my spirits were not as bright as they might have been. Instead, there was a weight on my heart. Of all the moments in my life, my dear Mr. Hoffmann would miss this one! How could he do this to me? I had nearly reached the apex. I was playing at Carnegie Hall! I would be through with school. Soon I would be enough and perhaps then, finally, we two could be together as more than student and teacher. Yes, at last we could love each other without the urgency to push my career or the unspoken vow that so long as he was my teacher, we would not touch one another.

Or so it could have been. Instead, I was faced with the certainty that Mr. Hoffmann would not attend. I went to see him at his house the day the symphony called me. I was pulsing with happiness of course, but underneath I felt almost betrayed. In fact, I almost felt like not telling him about the concert. Finally, though, he asked me how I was and when I saw the look in his eyes, the love there, I decided that I would give it another try, the idea of asking him again. I'd done it a hundred times before, why not try again?

I had been invited to play with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. It would be my most important solo performance so far, I told him. The concert was scheduled for late October. Another Friday concert, 8 p.m. Almost by rote, I asked him, "Would you be interested in seeing me perform?"

As I had been speaking, Mr. Hoffmann had kept the loving look in his eyes. He was happy for me, I knew it. He was always happy for me. But when he answered my question, I was unprepared. "Yes, Vera, I am quite interested. I will call and order a ticket as soon as possible."