The Last Samurai

The Konigsbergs all despised the piano, there it was all the notes conveniently divided up into a keyboard you went away and when you came back there it was the notes all still attached to the keys just where you left them, how boring, a child of four could play it (they all had). They also hated sight reading, & it is a tiresome feature of piano music that (since 10 or more notes may be played simultaneously) it involves anything up to 10 times the amount of sight reading of any other instrument. It was an instrument no Konigsberg would play if someone smaller could be made to play it instead, & since my mother was the youngest she never got the chance to hand it over to someone else. It may seem odd that the youngest got the part with the most sight reading, but as four brothers & sisters a father and a mother pointed out if she got in trouble she could always play it by ear. It wasn’t, anyway, that she couldn’t play the violin, viola and cello (not to mention flute, guitar, mandolin and ukulele)—it was just that she never got the chance.

Buddy argued that he didn’t think her technique on any of the stringed instruments was up to the Juilliard, & Linda said how would you know when was the last time you heard me.

At first she wanted to take everything to show what she could do, but at last she agreed to take just a violin because she could play some hard pieces, a viola because she got a better tone on it for some reason, a mandolin because it was quite an unusual instrument to be able to play and a flute because it never hurts to let people know you can play the flute.

Buddy: And you will tell them you want to audition on the piano.

Linda: Don’t you tell me what to do.

My father: Do you mean to say you’re not planning to play the piano? You’ve got this fantastic talent and you’re not going to play it? What about that piece you were just playing, you’re not going to play it for them?

Linda: Do you know anything about music?

My father: Not really.

Linda: Then mind your own business.

My father said: Well we’d better go if you’re going to catch that train.

Buddy said again that he would come along for the ride & Linda said he could explain she had gone to look for a sweater why did he always make such a production out of everything & Buddy said yes she had gone to look for a sweater & had taken along a violin a viola a flute & a mandolin just in case he thought he would come along for the ride.

My father said as a matter of fact he needed to talk to him, so they all three drove down to the station.

Linda got on the train. She had the violin case & the viola case in one hand, the mandolin case and her purse in the other, and the flute under one arm.

The train pulled out & my father commented to Buddy: You guys are amazing. I always thought a musician would take some music or something along to an audition.

Buddy said: Oh. My. God.

It was too late to do anything about it, though, and anyway she could always buy some music in New York, so they went to a nearby bar, and my father said: Let’s buy that motel.

Buddy said: What if that guy was wrong?

My father said: If he was wrong we’ll have a worthless piece of real estate. On the other hand, old Mrs. Randolph will be reunited with her widowed daughter and spend her declining years under the sunny skies of Florida, so at least someone will be happy.

To the sunny skies of Florida, said Buddy.

To the sunny skies of Florida, said my father.

My father and Buddy decided to drive down immediately to clinch the deal. They left in my father’s car, Buddy driving, my father asleep on the back seat.

My mother meanwhile reached the Juilliard. She found her way to the general office and demanded an audition. This was not a simple matter to arrange, and she was told many times that it was necessary to apply and fill in forms and be given an appointment; but she insisted. She said that she had come all the way from Philadelphia. She was very nervous, but she had an inner confidence that if she could only start to play for someone she would be safe at last.

At last a homely man wearing a bow tie came out of an office and introduced himself and said he would find a room. The Juilliard had its forms and applications and procedures, but people there were no different from people anywhere: they loved a story, they loved the idea of a brilliant young musician getting on the train in Philadelphia and going to New York and walking in off the street. So my mother (carrying violin viola mandolin handbag & flute) followed him to a room with a grand piano, and the homely man sat in a chair down the room, one leg crossed over the other, and waited.

It was only now that she realized that she had overlooked something.

Under my father’s urging she had walked straight out the door. In her excitement at the idea of just walking out the door she had walked out the door without stopping to practice and without even her sheet music, and now she had nothing to play from and nothing prepared.