Two-Hander

For the past week the music had been tormenting him/ Carlo stopped work, threw down his hammer and chisel, and glared up at the ceiling. He had been up there several times to complain, of course, and the English girl was very apologetic and promised to stop. Yet no sooner had he picked up his chisel than the piano would start up again, as loud and insistent as ever. She was ruining his life’s work. The huge block of stone he had decided would become his masterpiece still stood barely touched in the corner.

A particularly noisy arpeggio tumbled down about his ears. He strode onto the landing and stormed up the stairs.

The music stopped the second he pounded on her door.

“Who is it?”

“Carlo.” She opened the door for him. This time, he strode straight past her into the room, crossed to the piano and banged the lid shut. Then he locked it, pocketed the key, and turned to face her squarely. “I am going to say this just once more Either you stop this infernal racket for good or I shall have you evicted.” The girl sighed unhappily and lowered her eyes. “I refuse to leave this room until I have your assurance you will not play that damned instrument again.”

“I will try. I promise.”

“Try? You need only resist the temptation to place your fingers on the keys. What do you mean, try?”

“Well, it’s rather a long story. Look would you like a drink? It’s about time I told someone.”

He weighed her up from across the room. Her present dejection only added to her appeal, and Carlo had a fleeting vision of casting her in bronze with a satyr gripping her thighs. But the moment passed when he remembered his still-intransigent block of stone downstairs.

“Very well. Scotch and water.” He couldn’t afford scotch.

The girl fetched the drinks and when they were seated on the sofa she said, “I don’t know how much of this you’re going to believe, but I think I’m psychic. It all started a few weeks ago. My music teacher, Madame Lafarge, used to play a lot of Georges Cloudon. He was a little-known composer who lived here in Paris in the 1850s. A very violent character apparently, he used to beat up publishers when they refused to take his music. No one really knew of him while he was alive, and the story goes he went mad and cut off his hands. Anyway, Madame Lafarge claimed she was receiving messages, psychically, from Cloudon and transmitting them to the piano. I’m sure you’ve read about the sort of thing – people who can paint pictures in the style of dead artists and so on? Well, now I think Cloudon has transferred his attention to me.” She paused to sip her drink. “It’s a very odd sensation. One minute I’ll be behaving quite normally, then suddenly I’m at the piano rattling off this extraordinary music. It’s something I can’t control. My hands take on a life of their own. I can’t say it’s terribly pleasant either. The music is so brutal. You can see the man must have been disturbed. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Why do you think he started using you instead of this Madame Whatshername?”

“He had to use someone. Madame Lafarge committed suicide two weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“Nobody knows. But she’d been trying to have Cloudon exorcised for some time. It’s my theory Cloudon got angry and forced her hands to strangle her.”

“Strangle her?”

“As I said, it’s an irresistible force. Hers were the only fingerprints on her neck when she was found.”

Carlo considered her while he sipped his drink. He hadn’t believed a word of it, but he liked sitting here watching her face.

“You don’t believe me do you?”

“Let me put it this way. As long as I’ve got the key to the piano it doesn’t really matter whether I believe you or not.”

“Oh please, I must have the key back. I’d hate to think what might happen if I can’t play.”

Carlo thought for a moment. Her hands reached out in silent appeal, slender, white and vulnerable.

“I have an idea,” he said. “Come and be my model for two days. If I can finish my masterpiece in that time, I’ll let you have the key back. Is it a deal?”

The girl had little choice.

Two days later, Carlo stood back from his work and sighed with satisfaction. He had managed to turn the stone into a towering monument to the triumph of art over unreason. The girl had posed, nude and uncomplaining, in a posture of abject supplication, which he had insisted was vital to the piece. She was on her knees, her head tucked into her thighs, arms stretched towards him. The hands lay palm downwards on the floor, folded one over the other.

“Is it finished?”

“One final little touch. Keep still just a moment more.”

He had gauged the distance with an expert eye the very first time he positioned her. He had ensured during the chiselling that the top of the structure remained weighty and massive, and he had lightly bevelled one edge of the base. Now, with one final little touch, the whole top-heavy structure keeled over and crashed straight down onto those diminutive unsuspecting hands…

Carlo remained at the hospital just long enough to learn that the girl’s hands were crushed beyond all hope of repair. Then he returned jubilantly to his studio.

He surveyed the shattered block of stone sadly, but consoled himself with the thought that all artists had to make sacrifices. Anyway, the debris would be good for at least half a dozen miniatures.

In the renewed silence he glanced up at the ceiling and slowly, arrogantly, curled his fingers about his neck.

“Come on, Cloudon,” he yelled, “I’ll make it easy for you.” He laughed heartily. The fingers didn’t tighten one millimetre. “She was having you on, Carlo my boy.” He chuckled and swigged down a glass of red wine. “She was having you on.”

He picked up a chisel and approached the stone. And the chisel turned in his hands and began moving slowly, effortlessly, towards his throat.

1978