‘Octavier’ by Nat Kishchuk

Front lights. Followspot on one tall microphone. Steinway. No chairs but my bench. Felty murmurings of a winter-dressed audience, a full house, deep. I’ve learned to read the room before I even try to surmise what I’m wearing, usually some clueless black. 

OK, then, this time I will be accompanying a soloist in a professional performance. Already a lot of information, ruling out several hundred thousand possibilities. What instrument? Voice or something played standing: many other possibilities eliminated. What repertoire? I step onstage, take my seat, and place my feet. 

The octaves always spit me right to the moment I must enter the stage — of course, because it’s always exactly on the hour. I can’t look behind me to see who I will be playing for. I’ve missed any program presentation and have only these few moments to figure out what my fingers and feet need to do. This is the hardest part, though. Once I get started, the rest of it is quite predictable. Hands on lap, multiplicities X potentialities.

Applause now. The soloist is entering. It’s not a huge burst of pent-up adoration, so not a top-three star, but greeted warmly — perhaps their home town. Throat clearing: a teeny tell. It’s a vocalist, contralto, therefore most likely pre-twenty-first classical. The hundred or so prospects array in my mind, and I flex my fingers. A long blue dress walks past, takes centre stage. She turns to nod at me. It’s Forrester. Ergo, we’re probably still in Montréal, it’s probably back in 1982, and I’m for sure channelling Newmark. I straighten up and position myself for the opening bars of Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos. 

At first, it was scary-strange, then just pesky. 

Then it ruined my life.