Chapter 8: The Coda

At seven forty the house lights went down, and Zhe heard Hanjing's voice come out of the speakers over his head.

"Ten years ago I had one idea and a rented desk."

The hall laughed warmly.

Zhe sat in the booth with the monitor glowing grey at his knee and his hands in his lap.

On the screen Hanjing stood at the lectern in a black suit, one hand resting on the wood, saying thank you in the order he'd practiced.

Staff.

Investors.

His board.

Then he stopped, and the pause went on too long.

"Nine years ago I nearly died in the sea at Shipu," he said. "A boy pulled me out. He kept me alive until the ambulance came."

Zhe's mouth went dry.

"I looked for him for a long time. Tonight he's here, and he's going to play for me."

The hall rose in a long wave of applause.

On the monitor the spotlight found Jiang Yu at the Steinway, in white, one hand lifted in modest greeting.

He looked exactly like what Hanjing had waited for.

Zhe waited until the clapping died.

Then he put his hands on the keys.

Clair de lune came out of him gently, and in the dark hall four hundred people sighed.

Yu's hands floated over the silent grand, a little late and very graceful.

Zhe played the whole of it, and nobody could have told that he had cut his finger.

It had happened in the last rehearsal, the right ring finger, a hairline split in the pad.

By the end of the first piece the keys under it were slick.

He changed to the middle finger for the high notes and went on.

Then came the lantern song.

He took it slowly.

The tune climbed, and fell, and climbed, and held its long note over the dark hall.

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