Second Star by Philippe Delerm

Author:Philippe Delerm [Delerm, Philippe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2023-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

En Route Virtuosos

In the waiting area, they’ve installed a piano. There’s one in each of the big Paris railway stations now, but you never know how that will go. In the Gare du Nord the other day, an older woman set her suitcase down beside her and then played, with great application, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring before melting back into the crowd, aware that no one had stopped to listen. She left without looking around, suitcase in hand, a little smile on her lips, of annoyance or contentment.

At Saint-Lazare, the level of playing is consistently high, in a wide variety of registers. Passersby interrupt their journeys for a few minutes and thus create an ever-replenished circle. Nothing at all like the line for burgers.

Pianists of all ages. While one plays, two or three others wait, standing near the instrument or leaning on the railing. They show no impatience, nod their heads to a ragtime rhythm, offer an approving smile to the virtuosic sweep of a Chopin waltz, acknowledge with an air of complicity the jazzed-up version of a film theme.

It’s nice, this courteous association of players who follow one after the other, exchanging a friendly word as they take the bench, sharing the exultation and the vanished dreams—life.

It’s all very delicately civilized, how the pianists wait. They know that their turn will come—it will be decided intuitively, about fifteen minutes to perform, they can play again afterwards if they have the time. They have the time.

They almost succeeded in their profession; they could have, all they needed was a bit of luck, something distinctive about their talent, the chance to work. It’s strange. The waiting area seems to float, suspended. If you listen long enough, you see what you haven’t seen, the restored stained-glass windows in brown tones along the upper walls: Rouen, Le Havre, Dieppe, Deauville. You see all the pleasure of the pianists at ease before their keyboard, playing for a faithless audience—who, in the onrush of commuters, nonetheless stopped. And those stolen seconds are beautiful.

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