It’s Time to Confront the Truth
It’s time to confront the truth, the big truth, the horrible truth, the one that no one wants to hear. The heavy curtain gets lifted high up in the sky.
The audience is ready for Petra. She’s still backstage, scanning the public. Her eyes are wide open, but she feels like she’s dreaming. She’s at Carnegie Hall, it’s the dream of a lifetime. She’s the light of the day, the biggest light of all, in New York, the city that never quits.
She attempts to block the outside world to collect herself before the lights go off. At that moment, a stage assistant catches her eye to wish her good luck. She ignores her blatantly; luck has never had anything to do with her achievements. No one at her level is mad enough to leave their performance to chance. She’s undeniably gifted, but she also played and played for hours on end to reach the level of perfection she needed to be in the room. Other less commendable things also allowed her to get there.
In a few minutes, when she starts playing her special piece, everyone will finally know. She wishes she could play another piece, to forget about herself like she usually does when her fingers hit the keys, but this time has to be different; she has to face herself, she has to tell the truth, and seek forgiveness.
The room goes dark, spectators calm down. She closes her eyes, her imagination does the rest. It’s time to go, she knows it. She takes a crucial step forward and appears under the bright ivory light. Her shimmery priest gown is alive more than ever; it’s almost on fire.
The audience applauds vehemently. She gives the best fake smile she’s ever given with all of her sharp yellow teeth and walks towards her three-legged ally.
She sits down and carefully lifts her attire to place her wide ballerinas on the pedals. There’s an abrupt shift into silence, thousands of people are near her watching her, yet all she can hear is her heart pounding in her chest.
It’s time to play the piece: the Revolutionary Étude of Chopin. A solo act — of her life and fights. However, tonight she’s going to go beyond the master and play it how she wants to play it. She’ll be the new prodigy, the crowd will bow to her. Perhaps then they’ll absolve her for doing what she did.
As her ten fingers touch the keys all at once, the initial dramatic chords shake her; she feels as close to herself as ever. It hurts, but she continues.
While she plays, she recalls joining the conservatory of her small Spanish town and meeting her mentor in her teens. To him, music was emotion; when he taught her to play, his feelings transpired through his fingers — onto the keyboard and her. He felt passion for her — she didn’t. But she satisfied his desires for her future. Her Catholic mother found out and condemned her for it. War erupted between them, and with it the certainty that she had to leave home.
Bittersweet feelings run through her. Regrets start to reap, they’re blowing out of her, and they can’t be contained. Her left hand vibrates, playing semiquavers. Her fingers accelerate; anger’s coming out, and she’s plummeting inside.
Her left hand keeps playing at a mind-boggling speed, while the other one is slower, but decisive and dangerous too. It doesn’t always appear or engage forcefully, but when it does, it hits hard and it kills in just a few movements.
She thinks of her rebellion; it made her achieve great things and worst things. She spiraled between heaven and hell, but more importantly towards fame and glory, to become the pianist she wanted to be.
Her mentor brought her to Germany, where she convinced people of her talent — one mentor at a time. New mentors replaced old ones, she played the long game, prayed, and used God to market herself. Among meek female musicians, she chose to be loud to be heard; that image had to be built, and people had to know she was strong.
She pushed people aside to continue her journey; harmed, deceived, and tore families apart. Her conscience was left behind, nothing except music mattered anymore.
Her right hand suddenly leads the way; it’s determined and it knows what it wants. It’s focused on the end goal; it continues to play, at a slow pace, towards higher grounds, towards the limelight, towards the standing ovation — for the applause, money, and security, while the left hand still goes on descending runs, leading part of her astray. But she has to carry on playing.
Sin after sin, concert after concert, she stopped caring about pleasing the audience. From that moment on, she began to play for herself, to forget about herself. And it worked in her favor; her performances reached new heights.
As she steps back into the present, more emotions explode and invade her right hand. She tries to overrule her feelings, but they resist her and take her right hand far away from her. Both hands are now repeating the same notes and engaging in more deafening runs.
She drifts again in the past, remembering nefarious times, when she moved from one wallet to another towards power. More unions broke, and things escalated. Someone committed suicide because of her — not a man she was with, but his son.
Both of her hands move frantically, they flee away and precipitate into action to avoid being in the whirlwind of her mind.
What choice did she have? She needed to take one last step toward her ascent.
The left-hand goes on its last run. She has to go on; she has to keep playing.
Love was never her answer; the spotlight didn’t wait. She had to make history, quickly and forcefully, to be remembered by all. And she did.
The build-up to the main act is over; the time has come — the main act is reached. She doesn’t have much time left.
And there it was, the moment she had been waiting for; the world’s acclaim. She swiftly grabs all the rewards. For a few seconds, joy is present, yet soon the means she deployed to get here, glare out. Her success feels like a pyrrhic victory.
Tears slash her cheeks in half. She knows what’s coming next. They won’t forgive her.
She thinks of playing a different piece, at high speed, to run away. She could still save herself if her fingers pressed the keys.
Her hands don’t move, they can’t go on, the truth is out; God knows, she knows, everyone knows. There’s only one way out.
She stops playing; the piece ends.
No one applauds.
She lifts her feet from the pedals and turns towards the invisible audience to draw the bright red curtain on her life.
