Concert in the Attic

After my family fled from their native country, Estonia, via Sweden, to escape communist domination, I soon made friends in Canada, where we settled. In the 1950’s Canada and the U.S. were flooded by refugees from European countries and we all had a difficult time at first. I missed the friends I had left behind in Sweden.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. And there were highlights. I had two great loves, reading and music. While I was an avid reader, I was a lightweight on the piano. I admired anyone who could play a musical instrument well.

Dating sometimes occupied my time. I was an attractive girl then, but I was choosy and had high standards.

Since I didn’t enjoy the company of young men, most of my dates were “older”. There was Oskar, a Czech composer and pianist. We spent just one evening together. He too was a refugee, but unlike my family, his had managed to retain much of their fortune. They lived in a large house in Forest Hill, one of the more expensive areas of Toronto. Oskar was a professor of music at the University of Toronto.

One time he told me “if you come to my house, I will play the piano for you, which I know you like.”

I took Oskar up on his offer. He kept his word, and I had a lovely evening - until the end. I had to slap him then, because he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. I never went out with Oskar again, and later he married another pianist. The marriage failed, I read in the newspapers, as Oskar became more and more famous in Canada.

Another time, I was asked out for supper by Paul, who also played the piano and gave recitals. Paul was in his late twenties and studied engineering in the hopes of being able to support himself and his widowed mother. He invited me to their flat, where he would play the piano for me. I accepted, of course, anticipating the type of evening I enjoyed.

Paul’s mother was a tall, elegant woman, and she brought us tea and sandwiches on a tray.

“Why don’t you take the tray to Paul’s room, where there’s an upright piano,” she said.

Their flat consisted of two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, on the top floor of a nice house. It was located in an area populated by European immigrants and refugees. Most of these refugees were good workers and were working hard in order to afford down payments on houses of their own.

On this evening, I was to be treated to a private concert. Paul began by playing some Swedish music, familiar to us both.

“Paul, please play some melodies from my favorite Viennese Operettas, by composers such as Franz Lehar, Emmerich Kalman, Johann Strauss, and Karl Seller, among others?”

As Paul’s fingers danced over the keys, I sang along in German, which I spoke quite well. To me, it was exciting and wonderful. Now and then, Paul’s mother would stick in her head to see if we needed anything and to smile at my absorption with the music.

“Could you please play some classical music now?” I asked.

He played Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Dborak, and Tchaikovsky. I urged him on, suggesting Chopin, Grieg, Liszt, Rachmaninov, and many others. It was a warm summer evening, and the music that filled the room floated out the open windows. I heard voices outside, and assumed they came from the usual passers by.

Then Paul played the difficult “Fantasy Impromptu” by Frederic Chopin. His hands flew up and down the keyboard. In the hush of the aftermath, from outside there came a sudden clapping and cheering. I rushed to the window, and saw a crowd had gathered on the street below.

I motioned for Paul to come to the window to take a bow, which he did despite his reluctance. The people on the sidewalk applauded, and called up requests.

“I’m from Poland,” one man said. “Play the Chopin Polonaise”.

As Paul played the passionate Polonaise, the crowd grew larger and larger.

“Now play Lizt’s Hungarian Rhapsody Number 2,” a woman called, and Paul obliged.

The throng in the street was wild with excitement, as Paul played request after request. They were refugees like us, and they longed for the music of their homelands. The evening was no longer mine alone.

Various languages could be heard, and Paul and I spoke some of them. A heavy-set man asked for some Russian folk songs, and Paul played Stenka Rasin, Kalinka and Ochi Chernye. The man and I sang along in Russian, which I had spoken since childhood having been taught by a Russian governess. As I stood by the window, I watched many pull out handkerchiefs to wipe away tears of emotion.

“Play some Viennese songs,” a woman said in German.

Paul played simple songs, such as “Vienna, City of my Dreams”, “You Will Remember Vienna,” and melodies by Johann Strauss. For him, these melodies were easy, and his fingers seemed playful on the piano keys. But down in the street, people wept. The air seemed charged with electricity. What had begun as a private event became a shared celebration, one that I would never forget.

The evening with Paul was a lustrous pearl added to my string of memories. In later years, I have often taken it out, evoking thoughts of a magical summer night and a special concert in an attic.

© Amy Thompson. 2010.