The Silence Between

Chapter 1

Eddy tapped his foot absently to the rhythm of the Mozart. It was a serviceable performance. The bowing could use some work, the accents were too pronounced, but the tone was nice. Nice, but not prodigious. The girl looked worried after she finished the last note, which fell flat with a bit of a crunch. An anticlimactic ending. Still, Eddy gave her a nod of approval to calm her down, dispensed some suggestions and assignments, and let her go.

"Thanks, Professor Chen, see you next week," she said, scurrying away with palpable relief.

He wondered if he should be offended. It's not as if he were ever mean, or even that strict compared to some of the old profs here. Besides, he'd never been nervous for his own lessons, which he'd always found enjoyable. Though perhaps that wasn't fair. After all, his playing had always been more than just "nice."

He cracked open a window before calling in the next student. The air outside was still warm, but refreshingly crisp; New York had finally relinquished the last of its summer humidity and was tumbling headlong into orange leaves and pumpkin spice lattes. He remembered liking autumn in New York when he'd briefly experienced it ten years ago, when he was 12 and making his debut at Carnegie Hall.

So he looked forward to his first real autumn in the city. But after? He drew a blank. Julliard would let him stay for as long as he wanted, of course, but the excitement of teaching budding young musicians had worn off along with the novelty of the experience. They were all very good—some even great—and he's learned a few things by teaching them. But those weren't the things he'd wanted to learn. The sense of ennui that had plagued him for the last few years threatened to rear its head again. He would teach this semester and then he would have to find something else.

A knock at the door drew him out of his reverie. "Come in," he said, as he settled back in his armchair for another hour of good—maybe great—perfectly boring music.

An Asian boy walked in, a short one with some variation of a bowl cut and who, in his t-shirt and jeans, looked generally too young to be in college. He gave Eddy a brief glance from behind round glasses and took his place behind the music stand. There was a careless slouch to his posture and his face remained impassively deadpan.

Odd.

Eddy consulted his student list. "Brett Yang?"

The boy gave a short nod.

Eddy eyed him up and down, but elicited no response, not even a hint of nerves. Unusual for a first year student. "Well, welcome," Eddy said finally, before launching into his usual spiel—first lesson, chance for us to get to know each other, demonstrate your style, etc. "Have you prepared anything for me?"

"Was I supposed to?" the boy asked with a perplexed tilt to his head.

Eddy glanced at him in surprise. "Well, ordinarily, it's—yes. But if you haven't, that's fine. Just play whatever you like."

The boy pursed his lips and pondered.

"Anything at all," said Eddy. He had an uneasy feeling that the script was about to be derailed. "Isn't there any piece you're particularly good at?"

"I guess . . . the last guy said my Bach wasn't bad. The Preludio in E Major. I could play that?"

Bach? Eddy narrowed his eyes. Ballsy choice, but then again, the boy had been accepted to Julliard. "Sure, play the Bach."

The boy nodded, allowed himself a small inhale, and pressed his bow down.

Eddy flinched. "Stop." The barrage of off-kilter notes came to an obedient halt. "Why don't you play me an E major scale instead? Let's start with that."

"Oh. Uh. Okay." The boy shrugged unapologetically and spewed forth a series of notes that only the most generous of souls would call a scale.

"Stop." Eddy rubbed his temple. Where in the world did they find this . . . ? "Play me an open D."

The boy darted him a questioning look, but did as he was told. An unsteady D ricocheted off the walls and pierced Eddy's soul. It was too much. He rose and stalked over to Brett Yang, who observed his approach with widening eyes. "Is this a joke, Mr. Yang?"

"What do you mean?" asked the boy.

Eddy found his look of genuine confusion infuriating. "What do you mean?" Eddy countered coldly. "Bach? You can't even play a scale—not even a steady D string, in fact—and you try to play me Bach?"

The boy shrank before Eddy's towering figure, looking even tinier before. Eddy was satisfied to see that he finally lost the last of his stoicism; there was a fresh panic to his eyes and a nervous quiver to his lips. "Was it . . . really bad?" he asked.

The answer was too obvious to merit a response. Instead, Eddy impulsively grabbed the boy's left wrist and held his hand to the sunlight. "Look at these fingers," he said with a small scoff. "I've never seen such smooth fingertips on a violinist. Did you take the summer off? Do you even play the violin?"

The boy struggled to pull away, and when he found that he couldn't, glared at Eddy with the face of a small, wounded animal. He said nothing. Eddy dropped his wrist. "Look," he said, backing away and leveling a dispassionate look at the boy. "I don't know how you were accepted and what you thought you could get away with, but this is a waste of time. I want you to think hard about why you're here and come back when you have something we can work on."

Eddy watched the boy's slumped, retreating figure until it disappeared down the hall. He realized slowly that he'd somehow lost his cool, and that his actions amounted to verbal abuse and bordered on physical assault. He could be reported. But it was his first encounter at Julliard with truly, unapologetically, abysmal playing; he found it deeply puzzling.

*

Brett paused as he turned the corner of the hall and stealthily peeked back. Through the open door of the practice room, he could see the young professor pacing with a hand on his chin, his face contorted in a frown.

Brett looked down at his left wrist, pale skin now tinged with red. He could still feel the ghost of the professor's grasp. No one had ever dared do that before. Or tell him to his face that his playing was shit. He watched the professor contemplatively for a few more moments, until the next student's arrival spurred his departure.