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was what he'd gleaned from magazines and liner notes: that Kennington had grown up in Florida (teacher Clara Aitken, herself a pupil of Dohnányi); that he'd started performing at fourteen, made his first recording at sixteen ("one of the few piano prodigies,"
Gramophone
magazine said, "to survive the difficult transition from
wunderhind
to superstar"); that he lived (alone) in New York.
    When his lesson ended, Paul gave Miss Novotna a rose that he'd brought in his satchel. "And now you are off to Italy," she said. "Oh, my dear, how I envy you."
    "I'll send you a postcard from every city I go to."
    "Italy! I remember it as if it were yesterday. The Pergola, the San Carlo." She shook her aristocratic old head. "Well, you are young, and you deserve it—and yet age has its pleasures too. Remember that as you make your way. I went through it all with Kessler. First they crown you a young king, and then you turn thirty and find you can do no right with them, and then when years have passed of struggle and disappointment, suddenly you find yourself an old man, and the crown on your head again. Horowitz went through it. Kennington may be going through it now."
    Paul became brave. "Tell me more about Kessler," he said.
    She lifted her hands in a gesture of questioning. "What's there to tell? The music says more. That was why I stopped playing. Because he needed me in order to write. And if I hadn't, you realize, Paul, there would have been no Second Symphony. There would have been no Third Symphony." She folded her white arms atop the table. "The feminists will say I had no business to do it, and I'm sure in principle they're right. And yet a world without that music ... well, it simply can't be imagined, can it? Whereas what contribution I might have made..." She laughed bitterly.
    "But you were a great pianist."
    "No, no. I might have been..." She closed her eyes. "Every great artist is a vampire, Paul. Remember that. They will suck you dry."
    "What an amazing life you've had, Miss Novotna. It's like a novel."
    "I often thought of writing one. And now Kessler's biographer sends me nagging little letters every other week. What was Kessler's opinion of York Bowen, Miss Novotna? Do you happen to have the program from the 1961 Maggio Musicale, Miss Novotna? Is it true that Kessler left sketches for an opera based on
The Good Soldier,
Miss Novotna? Oh, she bores me! But speaking of boredom, this old lady has probably tired you enough for one day. Now go, go to Rome." And she patted him on the behind.
    "Thank you. Good-bye."
    "Say
ciao
to the Campidoglio from an old friend," she called, while the surly-looking maid held the door open.
    Out on the street, the sun warmed the top of Paul's head. He tried to absorb Miss Novotna's final advice for future use and contemplation; and yet the troubles of thirty can mean little to one for whom twenty is still an unimaginable horizon. Nor can the fate of a woman who gave up her career for love of someone greater seem very real to a boy who has never touched, never kissed, another body.
    Well, that's that, he thought, as he climbed on the bus to the train station. The last piano lesson. The last bus ride home from a piano lesson. Very possibly the last time he'd see his old teacher, whom he loved dearly. At the thought of her dying, a quiver of loss registered in his bones. His heart broke a little. It was interesting. Though Paul possessed the full complement of emotions, most of them were as yet untested. Now, in a controlled way, he flexed the muscles of grief; imagined himself attractively mournful at Miss Novotna's funeral; planned the oration he'd deliver, the music he'd play: Schumann, of course; and maybe that Brahms intermezzo she loved so much...
    At the station, as was his ritual, he bought a candy bar. Then he threw it away uneaten because candy bars were one of the desperate consolations of his adolescence, and his adolescence, which he had loathed, was as of today officially over.