"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Except the Music" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

"Well, I'm trying to learn hers," Max said, a little more defensively than he had planned.

"I believe Maria knows," Otto whispered as the next group of performers filed across the stage for the
Bach cantata.

Max slipped away from him and went in search of Maria, the board chairman, and Otto's answer to
everything.
****
But no one knew the woman's name. Max had gone from local volunteer to local volunteer, all of whom
claimed they had no idea whom he was talking about. One of the volunteers used most of intermission to
check the computer records of the ticket sales, hoping to find the woman by seat number, but there was
no name, only a record that someone had paid cash for that seat for the entire festival.

He didn't think of her while he was on stage. That night, he was playing a series of piano concertos, first a
Schubert, then an obscure piece by Prince Louis Ferdinand, and ending with a rather frothy Chopin
work, familiar and popular with the festival audience.
Max had gotten so lost in the music that as he stood for the final bow, he realized Otto was looking at
him in surprise. Usually, Max held part of himself in reserve at these smaller concerts. The venue was too
intimate for him, the audience too close.

In larger halls, like the Carnegie, he could lose himself, pretend he was playing alone in his room just as
he used to do as a child, and when he gazed toward the audience (if he accidentally did) he would see
only darkness. Here, he saw faces, and the faces reminded him that he was not by himself.

But here, he had gone to that place, that place that had made him an international sensation, and he could
tell just from the quality of the applause that Otto wasn't the only person he'd surprised. He had taken the
audience, held them in that place where only music could go--that place between simple emotion and
rapture, the place that was beyond words.

It surprised him that the moment of ecstasy came this night, and surprised him even more that it had
happened through him. The audience sensed it, and found that rhythmic pattern in their applause where
their hands seemed to speak with one voice. They were on their feet, clapping in unison, a spine-tingling
sign of affection that he had missed more than he realized.

He bowed, then rose, following the other musicians off stage, in a daze. The applause continued,
stronger, and Otto shook his head as if he couldn't believe it. The festival audiences were appreciative,
sometimes embarrassingly so, but never like this.

Otto sighed, then swept his bow in a come-on sign. He led the musicians back to the stage, where the
applause got even louder.

Max followed, stood beside the piano, his hand on its frame, and bowed again. As he did, he felt his
back muscles knot with tension. Otto would yell at him when the applause ended. They would go
backstage, and Otto would remind him, as only Otto could, that Max should give more of himself in all
of his performances.

Max had been so young when he'd met Otto that any criticism from that man felt like the criticism from a
parent. Max rose out of the bow, saw the audience still standing, saw the faces, saw...

...her. She was clapping like the others, only it seemed as if she believed that he had played that music