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Like all trends, Kaveh ignores it the first time he hears about it. He’s scrolling through his Instagram feed, past the person playing #Chopin #Etude at a picturesque Italian restaurant, past the conductor rehearsing #Tchaikovsky #SymphonyNo5 with his orchestra in Berlin, and past this post about some guy named Al-Haitham playing Bach.

Two days later, Tighnari says over the phone, “Yeah, Cyno can definitely process that audio for you. Given that I can pull him away from TCG for a minute, and that Bach recording.”

“That Bach recording?” says Kaveh.

“That recording of the Goldberg Variations. Haven’t you heard it yet?”

“The Goldberg Variations?” repeats Kaveh, bemused. He faintly remembers Dunyarzad mentioning it back in their conservatory days: a seventy-five-minute keyboard piece composed by J. S. Bach in the eighteenth century, buried by his one thousand other compositions into obscurity. Kaveh’s pretty sure Dunyarzad only knew of it because she took a Bach scholars course.

“Yeah. Some pianist named Al-Haitham. I think it’s his debut recording. You’re telling me you haven’t heard it yet?”

“Now that you mention it, I think I saw something on Instagram. But of course I haven’t heard it! Why have you? Why has Cyno?” Kaveh asks incredulously. “It’s the Goldberg Variations. You’re telling me that you voluntarily listened to seventy-five minutes of solo piano Bach?”

“It’s making the rounds,” says Tighnari. “You should listen.”

So Kaveh looks Al-Haitham up. And holy shit. It’s the rude guy.

Kaveh remembers the rude guy from the post-performance reception of Alcazarzaray’s premiere two years ago at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York. It was a particularly tangy interaction which, at the time, stood out in a sea of critical praise that tasted of whipped cream.

They’d been standing together next to the potato balls. Kaveh learned that he was a piano performance student at a conservatory, so he asked what the man thought of Alcazarzaray’s music. “It’s decent,” had been the response. “Although I don’t like musicals in general.”

“You don’t like musicals?” Kaveh had asked, naively.

The young man said, “They tend to be harmonically primitive and indulgent to the whims of the people. I believe true art is created in isolation.”

Holy shit, thought Kaveh. “I see, so you’re one of those elitist classical music jackasses.”

“Quite,” said the man.

But Kaveh had to argue. “Classical music isn’t created in a void,” he said. “Take Brahms. His famous A Major intermezzo was a love song to Clara Schumann.” Actually, that piece was one of Kaveh's favorites.

“I don’t enjoy Brahms, and especially not that intermezzo,” the man said.

“Tchaikovsky? Chopin?”

“The Romantic period is not my preference. I mostly play Bach.”

“You can’t be serious, there’s no way anyone’s this extreme,” exclaimed Kaveh, because what pianist eschewed the emotional intensity of the Romantic period for Bach’s pretentious church music, or, for that matter, didn’t like Chopin. “Okay, well, even then, Bach didn’t exist in a void. He lost ten of his twenty children. That has to have impacted his music.”

“I don’t believe true art is necessarily created in a void,” the man said contemplatively. “Just in isolation from passing desires and public opinion. Bach is better than most because his music is structured and spiritual.” With that, he took his sixth potato ball of the night and left Kaveh standing alone.

And now his friends are fans of this fucker. Cyno couldn’t be pulled away from this man’s debut recording of the Goldberg Variations. Honestly, Kaveh should have known that it would be the rude guy as soon as he heard about it, because who the fuck else is arrogant and elitist enough to debut with the Goldberg Variations? The piece is so obscure that Kaveh’s pretty sure if he asked your average concert pianist a week ago if they knew it, they’d ask curiously if Goldberg was an up-and-coming composer.

And now Kaveh is discovering, like flipping cards to reveal the same suit over and over in growing incredulity, that everyone from his NY Philharmonic percussionists to his private investigator friend Dehya knows about Al-Haitham and his Goldbergs.

“It’s just so fascinating,” says Nilou at their monthly lunch. “He plays it in such an entrancing way.”

“Nilou, you’re a Broadway dancer,” Kaveh says into his hands. “You like jazz. You like classical Persian dance. You do not like Baroque keyboard music.”

“I know, but I saw that New York Times article and I had to listen,” she says. “I’ve never enjoyed Bach like this. It’s just amazing how forty minutes can pass in the blink of an eye.”

Oh yeah, because this Al-Haitham fucker had taken such a fast tempo that he turned a traditionally seventy-five minute piece into forty minutes.

“And he’s stunning,” Nilou adds. “I mean, you hardly ever see a classical musician this young. He’s Middle Eastern, too, though he must have some mixed heritage somewhere because wow, those pale eyes.”

Dehya laughs. “He could be my gay awakening. In the sense that if I can’t want him, there’s no chance.”

“Well okay, he’s attractive and all,” says Lumine skeptically, “but he hums so loudly while playing that we can hear it in the recording. It’s kind of distracting.”

“No, I like it,” returns Tighnari. “He’s immersed in the music. It’s refreshing how much he doesn’t care about what other people think. It’s as if he’s isolated from public opinion.”

At this point Kaveh realizes that even Tighnari sounds converted and makes a final bid as if he’s at airport security trying to prevent his family from moving to a polygamous farm in Utah. “That’s not a good thing, though!” he protests. “It’s not good that he doesn’t care about what other people think.”

“Mm, I think there’s a balance,” says Tighnari.

“And his is tipped to the wrong side,” argues Kaveh. He pulls out his trump card. “You know, I had the craziest conversation with him two years ago at the premiere of Alcazarzaray.”

“He attended the premiere of Alcazarzaray?” Cyno says excitedly. “You talked to him?”

“Not the point. Cyno, he was a total elitist who said that musicals weren’t ‘true art’! You cannot imagine the levels of jackassery this man managed to attain. Also, I’m pretty sure he was just there for the food. I saw him eat six potato balls.”

“That’s a real shame, and he definitely shouldn’t have said that,” says Nilou, dejected. “I still like his piano-playing, though. I guess it’s the old debate about whether we can separate the artist from the art.”

“Well. Was he at least hotter in person?” asks Lumine.

“No!”

Dehya and Cyno burst into laughter. Even Tighnari cracks a smile. But Kaveh knows he hasn’t dissuaded them from being fans of Al-Haitham, and his incomprehension of why they enjoy Al-Haitham’s recordings makes him feel like he’s suddenly distant from everyone even while laughing together. 

And you know, fine, Al-Haitham is good-looking. But Kaveh’s matured since his early twenties. These days, on nights he can’t sleep, he imagines the kind of relationship where he and his partner schedule twenty minutes every Saturday to air out all the annoying shit the other did that week, or the kind of relationship where he’s the third thing his partner sees each morning after the pillow and the clock on the far wall. And Kaveh could never attain that sort of peace with someone who believed that his proudest work wasn’t true art because it was indulgent to the whims of the people.

🎼

The  “true art” debate has followed Kaveh around for years. His premiere of Alcazarzaray was particularly controversial because earlier that year, he’d become temporarily famous by substituting for an ailing Bruno Walter with twenty-four hours’ notice and, as a result, becoming the first American-born and youngest ever conductor of the New York Philharmonic. So Alcazarzaray’s unprecedented success led the classical music world to feel betrayed by Kaveh as “the promising young orchestra conductor who wastes his talent on Broadway musicals.”

Despite this criticism, Kaveh has consistently maintained that "true art" is whatever people enjoy. This philosophy makes his relationship with the NY Phil directors occasionally contentious whenever he’s invited as a guest conductor. Actually, it makes their relationship contentious now , when he receives a call telling him that Al-Haitham has a Beethoven concerto which they want him to conduct.

“...No,” says Kaveh, in denial.

“Two stars from the new generation,” says the Assistant in a dry tone. “With, drumroll, Beethoven’s second concerto.”

“Does he even know you’re asking me?”

“He said it doesn’t matter who’s conducting.”

“And why the second?”

“Requested.”

Al-Haitham had requested the most obscure of Beethoven’s five piano concertos. God, Kaveh couldn’t even remember the last time he’d heard it. 

“We at the Philharmonic think this would be a great experience for you,” says the Assistant, who works for the NY Phil’s music director but who has always remained nameless to Kaveh. He uses Kaveh’s momentary silence to continue: “Awesome. I’ll set up the pre-rehearsal meeting between you and the soloist.”

So Kaveh opens his office door at the rehearsal hall on Monday morning to find Al-Haitham offering one hand and carrying a wooden chair in the other.

“I usually play with this chair and I’d find any other unusual,” says Al-Haitham in explanation after a brief introduction, while Kaveh shakes his hand bewilderedly (because what the fuck) and diverts his gaze from lingering magnetically on his shoulders and jawline and pale, pale eyes. Then Al-Haitham asks to be shown to the stage.

They’re at David Geffen Hall—the gorgeous home of the New York Philharmonic. From the gleaming, waxed stage, Kaveh can see rows of seats stretching into shadow across the elliptical room. The hall is silent, because the walls are insulated against the rain-enhanced honking on the streets outside.

A polished Steinway sits center-stage like a deity framed by empty orchestra chairs. Al-Haitham moves the expensive bench aside for his rickety chair and adjusts it so low that his knees rise above his hips, at which point Kaveh asks with trepidation: “Are you going to perform in that chair?”

“If they let me,” says Al-Haitham. “I play better with it.”

“It’ll distract the audience, the aesthetics are off,” Kaveh argues immediately. Then, “Fine, you can take it up with the directors. But I had a question, if you don’t mind. I remember your preference for Bach from a few years ago, so why Beethoven this time?” Beethoven came slightly later than Bach in the scheme of Western classical music, closer to the Romantics than to Al-Haitham’s usual Baroque church music. It seemed out of character.

“Yes,” says Al-Haitham, “I remember our meeting. In response to your question, I wanted Bach’s D Minor Keyboard Concerto, but the directors preferred Beethoven.”

“Right,” says Kaveh, sighing internally. He supposes they wanted Al-Haitham to expand, and anyway Bach didn’t have the orchestral grandeur required for Al-Haitham’s first public performance following his debut. Though Beethoven’s 2nd wasn’t proper, either, and Al-Haitham must have spent some effort arguing them into it. “Why the second concerto, then?” 

“Why not?” is the only response Al-Haitham gives. He flips through the score, nonchalant.

At the time, Kaveh gives Al-Haitham the benefit of the doubt and interprets this as Al-Haitham trying nobly to revitalize obscure works in the public eye, but later he would learn that Al-Haitham only wanted to get the public used to his insane interpretations before he offended everyone by applying them to more popular pieces. (“I do depend on my performances for income,” Al-Haitham would say to him. “Therefore I cannot be too radical at once.”)

At the present, Al-Haitham changes the topic by getting to work. “I was thinking of a moderately fast tempo for the first movement.”

“Okay,” says Kaveh. “If you could play a few measures I can see if it works with how the orchestra’s been rehearsing.”

Surprisingly, what Al-Haitham plays isn’t too disagreeable. He plays with a clean robotic sound that sounds more suited to Bach, but it’s not entirely out of place in Beethoven. He takes no crazy tempos and skips no repeats as he did in the Goldberg Variations.

What really impresses Kaveh, though, to the point of almost respecting him, is that Al-Haitham has composed his own cadenza. Pianists usually stick to Beethoven’s original cadenza even when they’re theoretically supposed to compose their own, and when they do compose their own it’s not to Kaveh’s standards. But Al-Haitham’s cadenza is good, even.

He says as much out loud. Al-Haitham says, in reply, “Thank you. Now, for the second movement, I would like it twice as fast as the conventional interpretation.”

Kaveh walks away from that first rehearsal in a fucking rage. Apparently Al-Haitham didn’t only want the second movement twice as fast; he also wanted it staccato. So of course Kaveh had to protest.

“Why do your interpretations have to be so radical?” Kaveh had asked rhetorically. “Can’t you just like the things other people like? I have to admit that some people do enjoy your individuality, but it’s like you’re determined to dislike everything trendy. You can’t even adhere to a rule as natural as going slower where the music is heartfelt.”

“Rules like that may seem natural enough that even competition judges see them as fact, but in reality they limit creativity. People may get so caught up in random heartfelt moments that they fail to realize the composer’s overarching intention of having the entire piece build up to a single climax. In this case, I believe that people play this movement slowly and boringly enough as it is. I would like to try something else and see if it reveals a different aspect of Beethoven’s intentions.”

“Well, you can try it once to see if it reveals anything about Beethoven’s intentions, but if it doesn’t then please just return to what’s been tried and proven to be enjoyable. Just because it’s slow doesn’t mean it’s boring! Music can be about calmness and peace as much as it can be about going somewhere.”

Though Kaveh tries several times to convince Al-Haitham after that, his efforts are ultimately futile.

“Even if my unique interpretation hasn’t revealed anything new to me, personally,” Al-Haitham says backstage after their eventual performance, amid distant clapping, “it might illuminate others.”

🎼

Kaveh receives an unexpected call from Al-Haitham a couple of weeks after the Beethoven performance asking if he would be willing to do Bach’s D Minor Keyboard Concerto with him. He’d been under the impression that Al-Haitham hated him and his ideas, and he’d already complained to Tighnari about Al-Haitham in return, but he splutters out an agreement anyway, God knows why. (He needs the extra funds.)

Al-Haitham then asks if they can meet at Kaveh’s place for a preliminary discussion due to the inadequate rehearsal time in the NY Phil’s schedule. After a reluctant admission from Kaveh that he only has an electric keyboard, Al-Haitham offers up his own place. He also invites Kaveh for dinner afterwards.

“He invited you to dinner?” says Dehya over the phone. “Are you serious? And you said yes? I thought you guys hated each other.”

“It’s really no different from meeting with a commissioner, it’s not like he listens to me,” Kaveh says, though he’s also mildly confused. “Hey, it’s a free dinner.”

He does feel bad about not hosting, though, and there aren’t any suitable and affordable bottles of wine at the local store. So Kaveh grits his teeth and makes his mother’s potato kuku recipe to bring as an appetizer after remembering Al-Haitham’s apparent love for potato balls.

His efforts must have inspired good karma, because rehearsal actually begins well. After Al-Haitham thanks him cordially at the door and leaves the plate on the table, he plays for Kaveh an interpretation that is nothing objectionable for once. In fact, he has such strokes of genius that Kaveh becomes increasingly exhilarated. 

That is not to say they always agree, because several times Kaveh makes a protest. But even their brief arguments feel miraculously like they’re constructing something together.

In fact, Kaveh feels so good about this rehearsal that by the time they head to the dining table he has forgotten about their previous conflicts in a state of incredulous gratitude. Why did Al-Haitham pick Kaveh to conduct this piece, after their previous conflicts? How could he have known that this rehearsal would be such a success? 

Grinning, Kaveh says, “This performance is going to be so popular with the audiences.”

And that is where their meeting goes downhill.

“I don’t preoccupy myself with popularity,” says Al-Haitham, who seems to have undergone some kind of exothermic reaction of which Kaveh's comment was unfortunately the catalyst.

“Come on,” responds Kaveh lightly, trying to bring back the vibe. “Popularity is just an indicator of emotional impact. You see it on Youtube all the time, like when a performance reminds a commenter of their recently passed relative.”

Al-Haitham, unfortunately, still seems viscerally in disagreement. “I may acknowledge that music can help others process emotions but I do not have to care for it,” he says. “I chose a career in music because it is one of the only subjects that may be explored in a cabin in the woods, completely unfettered by the world. That is why there exist prodigies in music and math and chess rather than literature or chemistry; there is a sense of truth in it that is intrinsic to human nature regardless of life experience. Besides, I find that once celebrities gain popularity they often fall to the whims of the audience and become afraid to experiment with ideas true to themselves.”

“Okay, wow,” is the only reply Kaveh has. His heartbeat has been firing up with adrenaline, because like any artist he understands, with an ache in his chest, Al-Haitham’s desire to prioritize his own vision. 

But he also firmly disagrees, and now he’s lightheaded with Al-Haitham’s complete attention as he backs him up to the dining table. “Look, I understand that you want to prioritize your own creative integrity,” he says. “I do, too. But then there’s absolutely also a reason why the majority likes what it does!

“You know how I first began to appreciate classical music?” he continues. “I come from a musical family, but it wasn’t until my father died that I truly began to enjoy it as something that wasn’t just for retirees. There was this one performance that dragged me out of blaming myself for his death. I still remember it—Mahler’s fifth symphony performed at the summer Tanglewood Music Festival. Even though I’d been dragged there reluctantly by my teacher, the music Mahler created about his real struggles, along with the conductor’s accounting of the history behind each movement—it made me feel not alone.”

He swallows, which Al-Haitham observes with a downward flicker of his eyes. “That’s why I started my Young People’s Concerts and why I tried to include different styles of music in Alcazarzaray. Everyone thought I was idealistic, but I still remember the first time a teenager came up to me to thank me for healing something in her. She didn’t even say what she was dealing with—I just remember her tone of voice. And I’ve received so many trauma confessions since then that I can’t not believe in accessibility even if it means sacrificing the occasional bit of personal freedom. The more accessible music is to everyone, the more impact it can make, even if that means adhering to societal standards.”

He honestly expects Al-Haitham to be swayed by this argument, because for Kaveh it has been a core factor since the beginning of his career. Instead, Al-Haitham only considers it calmly.

“I would disagree,” he decides eventually. “Personally, I find ugly authenticity, even in the form of a piece played horribly by a five-year-old, more touching than being catered to by big-shot musical directors.” He pauses. “Besides, my music is mine. It does not need to resonate with anyone as long as it contains my own personal truth.”

Point made, he pushes himself off the table, and on accident Kaveh knocks him back. When Al-Haitham attempts to steady himself, there is a clatter as the plate of kuku falls to the ground. 

They both stare at the untouched potato patties. 

“I don’t get it,” Kaveh continues in the ensuing silence. “How can you put your personal truth above empathy? It’s just… it’s not kind.”

He makes for the door. Al-Haitham lets him leave.

🎼

Their rehearsals are stilted after that but the performance goes fine. Kaveh receives compliments from the directors. The New York Times even writes that “Al-Haitham scrutinizes the concerto with the inquiring mind of a brilliant crank.” Kaveh laughs when he sees it; it’s like they’ve taken Al-Haitham’s pretentiousness as an “I love you” and decided to respond back with an “I love you too.” Which is unfortunate for them, Kaveh muses, because Al-Haitham was never being pretentious for the critics in the first place. He’s just like that naturally.

Despite the ranting Kaveh does internally and to a long-suffering Tighnari, he finds himself coming back to Al-Haitham’s words about truth and the composer’s intentions and as he gets back to work on his Mahler symphony cycle—one of his proudest extended personal projects. He’d fought hard against the NY Phil directors for its approval, and ever since the beginning of his career he’s always hoped to eventually bring Mahler some long-deserved popularity.

That popularity, surprisingly, comes sooner than expected. When President Naphis is assassinated in November, he receives a call from Director Nahida asking him if he’ll conduct Mahler’s Adagietto at the funeral in three days.

He agrees, of course. The Adagietto—the 4th movement of the 5th symphony—was the movement that had first touched Kaveh in his youth. On the night he receives the call, he stays up until three thinking about how he’ll conduct it.

The worst thing is, Kaveh thinks to himself, he wasn’t even going to touch this movement before this. He may have tried different tempos for other movements of Mahler during rehearsal because he couldn’t stop thinking about Al-Haitham’s obsession with the composer’s intentions, but he wasn’t going to modify this movement. The way it had been conducted when he’d first heard it at Tanglewood was already perfect, and he refused to let Al-Haitham contaminate this cornerstone of his youth.

But what if Kaveh was wrong? What if it wasn’t yet perfect? He thinks about how recordings of the Goldberg Variations had been disregarded before Al-Haitham simply played it faster. As rushed as Kaveh had found it, he does think that the fast tempo gave the piece an actually coherent structure, with ups and downs of tension that were able to seduce Nilou into listening to forty minutes of solo piano Bach. So what if Kaveh did something similar, with Mahler, but opposite?

His Adagietto was supposed to be a love song. But Kaveh thought it was deeper than that and more encapsulating of the human experience. To achieve that sort of feeling with the audience he needed to create a certain sense of peace in the music, to slow it down enough that they could pick out the individual textures of the harps and winds and bass and have the slow river of music help them ruminate on death.

That’s what he tries with the orchestra the next day. When he first suggests the new tempo during rehearsal, people go silent—the flutes stop mock-playing and the cellists even stop picking their strings. “But that would bring the piece from eight to, um, twelve-ish minutes long,” says his first violinist.

“Yeah, I know,” Kaveh says.

They try it anyway. And when he takes a quick poll at noon, people are overwhelmingly in favor. 

That’s the difference between him and Al-Haitham, Kaveh thinks vindictively as he locks up the hall after rehearsal. If it were Al-Haitham he wouldn’t have cared about what perfectly rational orchestra members thought. But if Kaveh’s orchestra was seriously against his tempo, Kaveh would actually revert back.

When Kaveh gets home that night, he finds that Al-Haitham has released new recordings for three Beethoven sonatas—his first published recordings since the Bach Keyboard Concerto. They’re not very popular sonatas, but Kaveh takes a listen anyway.

Al-Haitham, unfortunately, still plays them fast and staccato, refusing to slow down even for the more emotional movements where he should. For a moment Kaveh wants to revert back to his original Mahler tempo out of spite, because while he’s taken Al-Haitham seriously despite his insults and applied his words where appropriate, Al-Haitham seems not to have listened to Kaveh at all.

In the end, though, he chooses to take the slower tempo.

Fuck Al-Haitham, he thinks after the funeral, as he shakes the hands of various senators and receives teary-eyed compliments from the family and friends of the President. Just, fuck him.

🎼

Kaveh stops keeping up with Al-Haitham’s new releases and in fact stops thinking about him at all, up until a month later when he is forced into doing so as he enters Seiko Boutique at the mall while helping Dehya shop for a watch for Dunyarzad. He tries really hard to not think about it, but unfortunately he knows in the back of his mind that the music they’re playing is Al-Haitham’s newest Keyboard Concerto recording. Which, fuck them, but it might as well have been expected because Al-Haitham is such an opioid for the elite.

It’s the 5th one in F Minor this time, so it must be a newly released recording. Kaveh only vaguely heard about it from Cyno, but he can already tell that it’s Al-Haitham just because his playing style is so fucking distinctive. Right now he’s playing the 1st movement staccato just like Kaveh told him not to. Every note is flat and fast and almost robotic.

Somehow it puts Kaveh in a trance, though, until Dehya snaps her fingers in front of him. “What about this one?” she asks.

“Dehya, you don’t need to worry,” says Kaveh, blinking back to reality. “I know you think she grew up rich or whatever, but she would love a scarab beetle if it was a gift from you. Getting her a watch because she told you that she often lost time in the hospital is already sweet and thoughtful. Just pick one you’d think she’d like.”

“I don’t know which one she’d like,” says Dehya. “When you meet with old money people for commissions, do they wear quartz or automatic?”

“No clue,” says Kaveh. “I think this one looks better than the other, though.”

“Okay,” says Dehya, and she goes and finds the shopkeeper to inquire about the price of the watch. 

In the meantime, Kaveh’s focus drifts back to Al-Haitham’s recording in the background, only to realize that it must not be the same recording anymore… because why is it so slow? It’s still the same concerto—now going into the second movement—but Kaveh had expected Al-Haitham to take this movement at a faster tempo. After all, it’s stylistically identical to the second movement of the Beethoven Concerto they first worked on together—the one where Al-Haitham insisted on playing at double speed, no matter how many times Kaveh argued with him about it.

But it really is Al-Haitham, Kaveh realizes after another minute of listening. Given the slightly-staccato notes and the completely steady tempo, it cannot possibly be anyone else.

And after another two minutes of standing in a fucking watch shop just listening to the background music, Kaveh realizes that he can’t even complain about Al-Haitham’s weird quirks anymore. Because somehow, through some magical happenstance, his stunted emotional expression pairs perfectly with the slow tempo to give Kaveh a feeling of calm.

As they leave the shop, Dehya asks, “By the way, was that Al-Haitham’s recording in the background? I couldn’t tell, but I thought it sounded kind of like Bach.”

“Yeah,” is all Kaveh can say before his phone rings.

🎼

Al-Haitham, apparently, wants to do the first Brahms Piano Concerto with Kaveh, and instead of calling Kaveh directly he decided to first inform the New York Philharmonic who in turn had to phone Kaveh. Kaveh had to ask the Assistant to repeat himself thrice before the Assistant finally said, “Yes, Brahms, B-R-A-H-M-S,” and hung up.

“What the fuck,” says Kaveh when he meets Al-Haitham at his house again to discuss the piece. “I thought you hated Brahms and the rest of the great Romantics. Did you really change your mind?”

“Do you get carsick?” asks Al-Haitham instead. “I would like for us to discuss this while I drive.”

“Uh, what? I thought this was a normal pre-rehearsal meeting like last time. What do you mean, drive?”

“Driving around New York is one of my favorite pastimes. The changing scenery calms me down,” says Al-Haitham. “I hope that putting myself in a vulnerable position will make this meeting more efficient and amicable. Our discussion won’t require a piano, regardless. What do you say?”

“There is no way I trust your driving,” Kaveh says. “We’re doing this like last time.” 

Al-Haitham concedes, and Kaveh gets back on track as soon as he steps into the warmth of the hallway. “You distracted me from my original question,” he says. “Why Brahms? Why now?”

“Your relentless debate on the subject has perhaps convinced me to give other composers a try,” says Al-Haitham, taking his coat off. “Your surprise is strange. I am human, therefore I do change my mind.”

“Ugh, but why now?” says Kaveh. “You didn’t even listen to me for those Beethoven Sonatas, and now, all of a sudden, you’re slowing down the second movement of your Bach and asking to play Brahms’ Piano Concerto.”

“It is not about a particular time. I simply apply your ideas when appropriate,” says Al-Haitham. “I decided that they weren’t appropriate for the Beethoven, while they worked better than expected on the Bach. You must have treated my ideas the same way.”

That’s true enough, Kaveh reluctantly admits to himself, given that he polled the orchestra about the slower Mahler tempo. “Well, but Brahms is a huge shift,” he says. “You haven’t played anything from the Romantic period, yet you’re willing to do so now?”

“Don’t sound so excited,” says Al-Haitham. “I’m only willing to give Brahms a try given his focus on structure and thematic development. By the way,” he says, turning to face Kaveh from where he’d been leading him to the living room. “On the topic of applying new ideas as suitable for the occasion.” He pauses, and Kaveh looks at him, wary. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for insulting Alcazarzaray and its fellow musicals the first time we met. I don’t share my past opinion on its artistry.”

With anyone else Kaveh would likely have accepted the apology with grace and immediate forgiveness. As it is, he’s so taken aback that he only says, “Huh.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t seem to expect a response, though, and the rest of rehearsal goes unnervingly smoothly.

🎼

A few weeks later, Kaveh does unfortunately end up getting into Al-Haitham’s car. He wakes up one morning about half of the way before the Brahms performance to find that his usual subway line is shut down and the bus drivers are on strike. 

He receives a call from Al-Haitham as he’s contemplating walking to the rehearsal hall. “I’ve made a few discoveries,” says Al-Haitham. “It would be efficient if we could discuss them before rehearsal, so I am wondering if you would let me pick you up.”

“You and your efficiency,” says Kaveh, wondering if Al-Haitham’s intervention was supposed to be a blessing or curse. “Yeah, alright.”

When Al-Haitham pulls up to his apartment, Kaveh is already waiting outside. “I see the bus drivers are on strike,” says Al-Haitham as Kaveh gingerly opens the car door. “How did you plan to get to rehearsal? Were you going to walk?”

Kaveh stops from where he’d been stomping on the ground in an effort not to trudge snow into Al-Haitham’s car. “I will still walk, just watch me,” he says. “We can discuss whatever you want to discuss here. It’s not like I trust your driving, especially if you’re distracted by conversation.”

“Hm,” says Al-Haitham. “Carpooling is beneficial for carbon emissions.”

“Well, so is running.”

“And yet carbon dioxide is a key product of cellular respiration.”

“It’s not like I’ll stop breathing in your car,” says Kaveh, who just knows that Al-Haitham doesn’t care about saving carbon emissions on a three mile trip.

He gets in the car anyway. After a moment of watching suspiciously as Al-Haitham pulls onto the road, Kaveh comments, “So, this is what you like to do.” It’s cozy, he supposes, driving around in the middle of winter.

Al-Haitham ignores him, which, fuck him. “Regarding the Brahms,” he says, giving a satisfied nod, “I discovered something this morning, and I called you as soon as possible.”

“...Okay,” says Kaveh, wary.

Apparently this fascinating discovery, he learns in slow erosion of the car’s cozy atmosphere, is that Al-Haitham wants the first movement to be as slow as the entire fucking concerto.

“You see,” says Al-Haitham, “it’s genius. The first and second movements are, at their core, the same movement. And therefore to make this fact obvious they must be played at the same tempo.”

Of course, Kaveh’s first instinct is to protest that Al-Haitham must be crazy. The whole point of having three movements, he wants to argue, is that there is variation between the movements. The fast-slow-fast structure of three movement concertos has been a tried-and-true compositional technique for literal centuries. Making the first two movements the same tempo would completely eliminate the point of writing a three-movement concerto in the first place!

There’s also the fact that it’s a Romantic period piece. In general, the later a piece is written, the more scandalous it is for the performer to make heavy modifications, given that composers tended to put more detailed instructions into the score as time went on. Actually, Kaveh is convinced that part of why Al-Haitham likes Bach so much is that he’s one of the earliest composers typically played in concert. Beethoven comes after Bach, and then the Romantic period, with Brahms and Mahler and such.

But Kaveh knows that Al-Haitham knows exactly how scandalous this will be. He just could not give a fuck even to save the world, because his vision is now permanently narrowed onto this singular and bizarrely exciting fact to him that the first and second movements are structurally the same. And Kaveh knows now that he will not stop at anything to show the world his own truth. Fuck, Kaveh thinks, because of course Al-Haitham still had to be quirky even when Kaveh had thought he’d given way with his agreement to play Brahms.

He has nothing to say, except, “The audience is going to leave, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham shifts his arm on the wheel with no reaction except for a faint and insufferable hum of acknowledgement. “That does not bother me,” he says.

“Okay,” says Kaveh, because he should have predicted that reaction. “We’re polling the orchestra, though.”

🎼

Unfortunately, when Kaveh counts the votes after rehearsal, he finds a sum of 45 against, 44 for.

“I can include you, but that would only make it an even split,” he says to Al-Haitham.

Al-Haitham allows Kaveh’s voice to echo in the empty hall for a moment as he considers this. Then he asks, “Do you not get a say in your own poll?”

“I mean, it’s supposed to be a democratic process.”

“A democratic process in which one citizen lacks representation.”

“Ugh,” says Kaveh, “You’re only saying that because you want to do your radical interpretation. I don’t know where you get this faith that I’ll agree to it. I really won’t. If it were just me I would not choose to conduct it this way.”

To Kaveh’s disappointment, Al-Haitham doesn’t plead or frown or react much at all. He just says, “I know.”

In the end Kaveh relents. But it’s not a sure decision, because he’s jittery with doubt in every preceding rehearsal. In fact, it’s backstage at Carnegie Hall, the day of the performance, that he finally startles one too many times at a hushed voice that could possibly be a complaint about their unconventional Brahms interpretation.

He finds Al-Haitham in his private dressing room, reading a book in his concert black like he’s an old lady waiting for the performance to start instead of being the literal soloist. “I’m going to say something so the audience doesn’t leave,” says Kaveh, resolute. “God knows they might be like you at Alcazarzaray—only there for the reception, and completely unprepared for the first movement to last as long as the entire concerto should take.”

“Okay,” says Al-Haitham. Then he pauses. “Only there for the reception?”

“Yeah, for the potato balls,” says Kaveh.

“What potato balls?” asks Al-Haitham, putting his book down.

Thoroughly bewildered, Kaveh says, “I saw you eat at least six. You don’t enjoy musicals, so what else would you be there for?”

“Oh,” says Al-Haitham, placidly. He continues, “I was there to see your work. I had admired your orchestral debut earlier that year and was curious about your new creation.” Then he sets his ankle down from where it’s propped across his knee and leans back to look up at Kaveh. “At the time, I walked away thinking that its over-romanticized perspective of the world catered too much to popular tastes, but now knowing you I understand it better. By the way, do you really believe I would waste three hours of my time on potato balls?”

Kaveh has to put his hand to his forehead for a second, as if these new revelations are a lotion he needs to rub into his pores. “What,” he says once it is sufficiently absorbed, “was I supposed to think? You didn’t show a liking for my work. And why did you eat all those potato balls, then?”

This, finally, is what makes Al-Haitham frown. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Probably it was time for dinner. I’m punctual with my schedule, and potatoes are a good starch.”

(At the time Kaveh’s mind blanked the fuck out. But later, his head would clear enough to realize and ask, “Is that why you included a dinner invitation with that one rehearsal we had? Because you didn’t want our discussion to interfere with your dinnertime?” To which Al-Haitham would respond, “What other reason would there be? Unlike you, I care about my work-life balance.”)

“The performance starts in a few minutes,” says Al-Haitham in the present. “Did you want to say something to the audience?”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. “Right, here’s what I was thinking.”

🎼

“Don’t worry, everyone—Al-Haitham is here. He’ll appear in a moment. (Audience laughter)

“As you know, I don’t usually speak at any performances except the Young People’s Concerts, but I believe that this occasion requires a word or two. You are about to hear a rather unorthodox performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto—a performance that’s different from any I’ve heard or could possibly have dreamt of, for its leisurely tempo and obvious departures from Brahms’ written dynamics. In fact, (pause), I am absolutely not in agreement with Al-Haitham’s vision.

“Which raises the question: ‘Why conduct it?’ (Audience laughter) Well, I’m conducting it because I unfortunately believe that Al-Haitham is serious enough an artist that I must treat his conception with some measure of blind faith. And it is interesting.

“This situation, though, also brings up the age-old question, “Who is the boss in a concerto—the conductor, or the soloist?’ Now, it depends on the people involved, but I would say the two usually manage to compromise whether by persuasion, charm… or even threats. (Audience laughter) Only twice in my life have I ever had to submit wholly to a soloist’s incompatible concept and those were the last two times I accompanied Al-Haitham.

“So why, to repeat the question, am I conducting it? Why not choose a different soloist, or even find a replacement for myself? Because, in the past few months, Al-Haitham and I have been arguing over whether it is the artist or the audience that determines a work’s value, and also, what it really means to understand the composer’s intentions for a work. And through these conversations I have come to respect Al-Haitham’s dedication to his own truth. He demonstrates an inexplicable conviction for curiosity, adventure, experiment—and it is in this spirit that we perform for you today.”

🎼

A couple of people boo during the hour-long performance, but at least no one leaves—partly due to Kaveh’s speech, he hopes. It is overall a decent performance, and Al-Haitham even seems to have enjoyed the booing. “Controversy is better than quiet compliance,” he says later with a little happy nod.

But what really surprises Kaveh is that, despite the booing, Al-Haitham gets a standing ovation long enough for him to play an encore.

And Kaveh has to say that he’s really not expecting an encore. Because for each of the last two performances they did together, Kaveh had been absolutely appalled when Al-Haitham refused to do any encores despite returning to bow at least twice! But apparently today is different, because as Kaveh leans on the conductor’s podium to watch him walk up the aisle for his second bow, Al-Haitham approaches the piano.

As the crowd goes quiet, he sits down and adjusts his stupid, ugly chair—which he always looks ridiculous doing, Kaveh thinks as he watches, because his chair is already so low that moving it up and down makes it look like he’s doing a squat. 

Then, amid a couple of audience coughs that are now audible in the echoing silence, Al-Haitham lifts his hands to the keyboard. And what do you know?

The first notes of Brahms’ Intermezzo in A Major ring out into Carnegie Hall—the love song to Clara Schumann that Kaveh distinctly remembers mentioning to Al-Haitham back when they first met. 

Kaveh had played it in his youth, and he remembers being shocked, as a teenager, at the sheer number of great pianists who had deemed this simple five-minute piece fascinating enough to record. Sitting on his bed, he’d listened to at least thirteen interpretations one after the other: Rubenstein, Horowitz, Lupu, Argerich, Pogorelich… It was a hallmark of the Romantic period, which was why Kaveh was so surprised on their first meeting to hear Al-Haitham say, “I don’t like Brahms, and especially not that intermezzo.”

Well, he thinks vindictively at Al-Haitham, who’s talking now. Because Al-Haitham’s touch and care are all over this intermezzo. He emphasizes all the hidden melodies in the piece as if this is Bach instead of a Romantic period piece. The notes are evenly accentuated and not wet with emotion. But his interpretation also isn’t robotic—he slows down at the soft parts, like Kaveh has repeatedly told him to, in a way that feels sentimental. So it is with a little bit of desperation and spite, and a powerful sense of exhilaration, that Kaveh just feels so heard in that moment.

Because Al-Haitham has made this piece his. And it just so happens that Kaveh’s suggestions are part of what has made the piece Al-Haitham’s. Mostly, though, it is simply a beautiful performance—so much so that even if Kaveh were still a teenager, sitting on his bed and going through recordings of this piece, this one would likely be his favorite. There is simply a steady sense of peace.

Later in the backstage hallway, Kaveh congratulates everyone before knocking on the door to Al-Haitham’s dressing room. 

Al-Haitham lets him in, of course. When Kaveh just stands there, mind blank, Al-Haitham starts to say, “Actually, I’ve found that Brahms isn’t so terrible. He writes some Baroque-style counterpoint into his music. However, you should not take this as an invitation to continue pestering me about Romantic period composers. In fact I still dislike Chopin; he has no coherent structure and noodles harmonically all over the place.”

The dressing room is clean, almost looking like a hotel, with an upright piano in the corner. There’s a large mirror and a vase of flowers whose green stems match Al-Haitham’s eyes. It’s an incredibly nice space, Kaveh muses, that is not at all suited to hosting Al-Haitham’s terrible opinions.

“Fuck you,” he says, and steps forward until Al-Haitham is backed up against the wall, right next to the piano. Al-Haitham is warm even through his suit, and there’s sweat in his hair from his performance. They are holding eye contact, so Kaveh lowers his gaze and asks, “Can I?”

Al-Haitham consents. 

Five minutes later Kaveh’s brain clears enough to realize that it was probably not the best idea to kiss here, because now he has to walk home seriously distracted. He just honestly didn’t expect to be so aroused by the constant thought that it’s Al-Haitham he’s kissing, who broke apart first so he could breathe for a second. Al-Haitham whose right leg jerked slightly after his lick into Kaveh’s mouth made Kaveh gasp involuntarily. And they’re both in their concert wear, oh God. 

“I’m exhausted,” says Al-Haitham, “and it’s past work hours.” 

His voice is uneven, which makes Kaveh briefly blank out. They stare at each other. “I can take you to my place, but only to sleep,” continues Al-Haitham.

“Mm,” says Kaveh. Then, “Yeah, alright, I don’t really want to walk home.” 

As it happens, he ends up falling asleep in Al-Haitham’s car. 

And he can imagine, to this day, what the rest of the drive must have been like for Al-Haitham: the changing scenery, Kaveh close by.

Chapter Text

After five years, the newspapers still write that Kaveh and Al-Haitham hate each other. Kaveh’s speech before the Brahms performance was initially reported as an act of spite, and despite his numerous protests that Al-Haitham was quite alright with it, the narrative never fully shifted. But Kaveh’s okay with this perceived rivalry of theirs, because he’s learned that sometimes it’s not a friend but a critic who can truly make you feel heard.

Anyway, these days, Al-Haitham has quit performing because he prefers the recording studio. He’s actually decided recently that he wants to re-record the Goldberg Variations, and he’s been badgering Kaveh for the past few weeks about not telling anyone because he ‘doesn’t want to be disrupted in his process.’

But Kaveh just can’t fucking stand it anymore. “His humming is driving me up the wall,” he groans at his friends’ monthly lunch, when they ask him how he’s doing.

“Uh… doesn’t he hum all the time?” asks Nilou. “You used to complain about it a lot, along with that chair he always performs with. Then you gradually stopped complaining about both.”

Kaveh has to admit that this is true, because he did get used to the humming. But what’s different this time is that it’s the Goldberg Variations! And it’s not that Kaveh didn’t eventually grow to like Al-Haitham’s Goldbergs. He did come around to the robotically even texture and the detailed counterpoint, and he can even tell that this new recording will likely be pretty good given that he got Al-Haitham to extend it to fifty-two minutes instead of fucking forty.

However, the variations are repetitive as fuck, and Al-Haitham’s humming has taken on an insufferable vigor that he only reserves for pieces he really enjoys. Kaveh would like to have some peace and quiet in the afternoon when he washes the dishes, thank you very much.

Although he can’t say any of that, because he’s been forbidden by Al-Haitham from telling anyone. “Ugh,” Kaveh mumbles. “It’s just that he really likes the piece he’s playing right now.” And he lets the conversation move naturally on.

Unlike the humming, though, which Kaveh had to weather with exposure therapy, he actually did have a confrontation with Al-Haitham about the chair.

In the first two years of their relationship, Al-Haitham’s response to being asked in interviews about his rickety chair was always to say, “it’s comfortable.” And Kaveh surmised that he was probably telling the truth, because he does usually adjust the chair to be significantly lower than the typical piano bench.

The problem with this conclusion was that after Kaveh moved in, he became increasingly curious every time he saw Al-Haitham sit down on his chair to practice. As someone who played the piano in his childhood, he wanted to know if the chair really was that comfortable. But he didn’t want to ask.

So one day, he took the opportunity when Al-Haitham was out checking out some volunteer organization aiming to foster an interest in music among the youth. By the time Al-Haitham came back, Kaveh was simply making dinner and minding his own business.

“How was it?” he asked Al-Haitham.

“It was fine,” said Al-Haitham, who was wandering around the house now and putting away his keys. “They wanted me to do masterclasses, and also some performances for children where I talk to them about the background context of the piece and why I like it.”

“Sounds good,” said Kaveh, continuing to chop the vegetables. 

Al-Haitham came around to the kitchen. He paused in the doorway, watching Kaveh for a few seconds, and said, “Did you play the piano while I was gone?”

Kaveh dropped his knife halfway through cutting a cucumber. “How did you know!? I left everything as it was.”

“You didn’t push the chair in,” noted Al-Haitham. “Besides, ‘sounds good’ is suspiciously non-confrontational. Clearly you are hiding something, so out with it.”

“Fuck,” said Kaveh, admitting defeat. “I was just curious about your chair, okay!”

Al-Haitham didn’t speak for a few seconds, but Kaveh could tell that he was amused. “You could have asked,” he said.

“I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction. But alright. Your chair wasn’t particularly noteworthy, and I’m sure you could get a piano bench custom-made to be that atrociously low. Why are you so attached to it?”

“If you must know, it was made for me by my grandmother,” said Al-Haitham, which was a statement so unexpectedly sentimental that Kaveh felt bad for a moment. Then he said, “And why would I spend money on a custom piano bench when I already have one? It would be an impractical use of money.”

“Your chair’s deviation of appearance from a traditional piano bench ruins your concert aesthetic, so this purchase would automatically be more practical than, for example, that ugly fucking fish figurine,” protested Kaveh, but he stepped away from the counter anyway to let Al-Haitham open the drawer at his waist and retrieve a spatula.

Nowadays, Al-Haitham still has his youth volunteer organization on Saturday, so when Kaveh returns home after lunch in the afternoon he sets about making dinner. Unfortunately, when he opens the fridge, there’s nothing left except for some potatoes, a few eggs, and assorted herbs.

Fuck, thinks Kaveh as he heads out to the store, because he’s not going to be like Al-Haitham, having potatoes for dinner at the Alcazarzaray premiere just because it was the only starch there. In fact he refuses to even touch the potatoes and instead buys an assortment of groceries, barberries, chicken, and some vegetables in hopes of making zereshk polo ba morgh and a shirazi salad.

He makes Al-Haitham add the chopped cucumbers to the salad upon coming back, at which Al-Haitham frowns.

“Did you go out for groceries?” he asks. “I don’t remember seeing so many vegetables in the fridge this morning, otherwise I would have added some to your breakfast to improve your horrific state of health.”

“Fuck you, and yes I did,” retorts Kaveh, as he sets out plates. “There were only potatoes and a few other ingredients left, and I didn’t want to just accept my potato fate like you did at the Alcazarzaray premiere.”

“That’s a shame,” Al-Haitham says placidly, “because I’ve been wanting to try your potato kuku again. You should teach me the recipe.”

“Oh,” says Kaveh. In the five years since he first brought Al-Haitham potato kuku at the rehearsal dinner, he hasn’t again made potato kuku for him specifically. Although, he did make it for several social gatherings that the both of them were required to attend as well as occasionally for his friends’ monthly lunch, so maybe Al-Haitham had gotten curious from trying it there.

They won’t have time tomorrow, Kaveh muses, but maybe they could make it together the day after that? Then Al-Haitham interrupts, “Let’s make it tonight, unless you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired,” says Kaveh, in surprise, “but seriously, what’s come over you? How can you be so regulated with your mealtimes and your not-eating-past-eight bullshit, and yet still want to make it tonight? You do know that we’ll have to eat some, because fried things are better fresh.”

“If we don’t do it tonight we won’t for a while, given that you will obviously be overthinking your schedule and panicking over the premiere of The Bridge of Port Ormos on Tuesday,” says Al-Haitham. “Tomorrow you’ll be making last minute calls, on Monday you’ll pull far too much overtime to monitor rehearsals, and on Wednesday you’ll be jumping at every critic review throughout the day no matter what I say to discourage you. Therefore we simply might as well make it tonight.”

“It’s not like you’re any better before the release of your recordings,” says Kaveh, because he honestly feels sorry for Al-Haitham’s editing team most of the time. “Wait, put that back, the recipe calls for dried mint rather than normal.”

And so they argue as such all the way from peeling the potatoes to blooming the saffron to flipping the patties over. “You take a bite, first,” says Kaveh when the first one comes out of the pan, because he’s skeptical about whether Al-Haitham will really disrupt his usual routine to eat a nighttime snack.

“I have no problem with that,” says Al-Haitham. “In fact, you will recall that I suggested the idea.”

“And because of your suggestion we now have to do kitchen cleanup twice in one evening,” sighs Kaveh, glancing at the utensils and dirty bowls strewn on the counter. But he watches Al-Haitham try the patty.

“Good,” is all Al-Haitham says. Fresh and hot, he passes it to Kaveh for the next bite.