We know the names of those who were called great pianists: Mozart, Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin, Clementi...
But no one really knows what his playing was like. There are no authentic records of their performances. It is rumored that there are still cylinders with Liszt recordings, but no one alive has been able to hear them.
When the fingers of those geniuses rose for the last time from the keys, their music vanished forever into thin air, leaving no trace.
And yet, there is a child... a child who can still hear them playing.
Paleontologists can reconstruct an entire skeleton from a single bone, but the same cannot be done with music. There are no fragments on which to reconstruct a lost sound.
But this guy is different. He has the ability to know the great masters through hearing. He keeps a secret that no one else knows.
'Where the hell am I?'
Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting on my father's lap, excited for my first train ride. He hummed softly, following the beautiful sounds of a piano coming from somewhere.
"Dad, I've heard this before."
My father, who kept looking at the bag on the luggage rack, worried that we would forget it, and smiled at me.
"Yes, there are piano academies in front of our houses as well."
"Piano??"
'Yes... The sound I hear right now is clearly that of a piano.' 'But it's strange... it doesn't sound like ambient train music.' 'It's too sharp, too emotional.' 'Where does it really come from?'
"Could it be that someone is playing the piano?"
'On the train? Haha... well, Dad, it's my first time traveling to Switzerland, so I don't know.'
I closed my eyes and let myself be enveloped by that beautiful performance, while I watched Dad bow his head thoughtfully. And at that moment... My whole world was turned upside down.
The basket of boiled eggs that Mom had prepared. The large suitcase that Dad was carrying, humming a melody. The doll of the black boy who was sitting next to me... Everything began to spin, floating in an upside-down world.
That's the last memory I have.
'How many times did I ride?'
I rolled countless times. But it was strange. I didn't feel pain. Just the dizziness of a world spinning without stopping. 'Please... stop.'
The unstoppable rotation finally stopped... But the world kept turning.
After lying down for a while, when I finally came to, the sound of insects chirping and the occasional chirping of birds began to seem terrifying. Every squeak echoed inside my chest.
"Eh... Eeeeeeeeng..."
Whenever I cried like that, mom or dad would run barefoot to hug me. But now, no matter how much I cried, only the crickets and the birds in the distance answered me.
"Mom... Dad...?"
'How old was I then? Six years? Seven?'
A very pale child, his face covered with dust, was crying inconsolably. Me. Squeezing the sweat and mud sticky shirt with one hand, rubbing my eyes with the other, not even daring to shake off the damp rags that stuck to my body.
'Where am I...?'
That place was definitely not one that such a young child should be in... alone.
Everywhere I look, there is only forest. And it's dark. The sky is completely covered by tree branches, blocking out all sunlight.
'Where are Mom and Dad?'
From my eyes as a child, I didn't feel like I had separated from them... It was as if they had suddenly disappeared, without a trace.
I felt my body, almost without realizing it, looking for blood, scratches, something.
'My elbow is slightly cut and bleeding, but it doesn't hurt much.' 'The wound is so minor that it is hard to believe that they threw me out of the window of a derailed train...'
I stared at my arms for a moment. Then, with tears streaming down my face, I took a step. Then another. I had to look for them.
"Mom..."
"Dad...?"
'Is my voice too weak to be heard?' 'Maybe... if I try to be a little braver...'
"Mom!! Dad!!"
My own voice echoed through the trees, as if the forest were responding with a mocking echo.
"Mom... Dad..."
The echo came back again and again, as if it were my reflection in the mirror, repeating the same thing endlessly.
I screamed loudly, and immediately, the insects and birds that had been chirping in an eerie way fell into absolute silence.
'I was suddenly scared.' 'Birds and insects don't scare me so much, but what if my voice attracts something worse?' 'What if a scary animal appears, a predator hiding in the trees?'
I held my breath. I hunched over, my shoulders tense, and looked out into the woods.
Fortunately... or unfortunately... The forest is still silent.
'What should I do? What am I supposed to do now?'
Mom taught me that if I ever stayed alone, I should stay still, and that she would come and get me without fail. But it's so dark here... And it's so cold. I'm already shaking.
I take small steps, not knowing where to go.
'If one gets lost in the mountains, shouldn't one stand still and wait for help?' 'But I'm not an adult. I don't even know what the right thing to do is.' 'I can barely speak well. And I'm alone.'
My legs move not because I understand it... but because I'm afraid of dying here. And although I don't know where they are taking me, I start walking along the most open path among the trees. I avoid closed bushes, I stay on solid ground, trusting that something... someone... appears.
'How long has it been?' 'I can't tell if it's day or night... the sky is still covered by branches.' 'I keep walking... I crossed next to two huge caves with black mouths, I passed large stones covered with moss, streams that babble between the roots...'
But everything I see is still green. Green only.
To my left, an endless bush cuts the way. I reach out carefully and touch the leaves, the branches. Luckily, they don't have thorns. They are soft. 'If I cross this way... will the road appear?'
I kicked the ground, not daring at all. 'Come on... just a little more.' After a long time, I slowly reached into the foliage. I squeeze my eyes and stretch my arms as far as I can... But I only touch leaves and branches.
'It's thicker than I thought.'
I take a step. My foot pushes the bush, and then the branches creak, breaking with a dry noise. And I stand still, holding my breath, as if the entire forest could have heard me.
I was startled and looked around but seeing that everything was still calm gave me a little more courage.
As I went into the bushes, the branches—soft in parts, rough in others—scratched at my cheeks and arms.
"Ah... it hurts..."
My eyes filled with tears, but I managed to hold them back. 'This is better than standing still in a dark forest, with no one around me.'
"Eeeek...!"
I pushed my body forward with all my might. One step. Two steps... After the third step, I felt that the branches were no longer entangled in my outstretched arm, and I launched myself with an involuntary smile.
Kkudangtang!!
I fell. A branch grazed my foot and I lost my balance, but it wasn't serious. I don't know exactly what changed, but the air here... It feels warmer than it does back there, beyond the bushes.
And, above all, there is lighter.
I got up, shook the dirt off my knees, and looked up. 'No sun?'
The sky was still covered by dense branches, intertwined like a net that does not let a ray through. 'So why does it feel different?' 'It's like I've gone from the end of autumn to the beginning of summer.'
And then he came back. That sound that seemed lost... The beautiful sound of the piano returned to my ears, just like when I listened to it with Mom and Dad.
Before, Dad said there was a piano academy right in front of the house where our family lived. And for me, who had grown up listening to that sound every day from eleven in the morning, that piano... 'That piano sounds like home to me.'
"Is there anyone there? Yes! Surely there is someone! Do you hear the piano?"
I spun around, lying face down for a moment, and then sat up suddenly.
My eyes were fixed, wide open, towards the place where the sound of the piano came from... and there they were. Three black grand pianos, perfectly aligned among the densely clustered trees.
'Why are there pianos in the forest?'
But not only that. There is someone sitting in front of one of them.
He wears black. Those clothes... 'I remember her'.
'Was it last Sunday? I went to church with Dad. There were many people gathered, all at mass... and the priest who officiated wore similar clothes.'
Although this person does not wear a robe divided into two parts like the priest. It is more of a continuous garment, like a one-piece dress.
I blinked. I stared at him. He still doesn't seem to notice that I'm here.
She has long, silver hair that falls to her waist. 'I've only seen it in comics... and always in women.' 'But everywhere you look at it, it's a man.'
The man, who until then had his head bent over the keys, slowly lifts it and looks up at the sky, hidden by the tangle of branches.
Thanks to that, her hair is slightly separated, and her face is visible.
"And..."
'He's handsome. Very handsome. More than any comic book character or TV actor I've ever seen.' 'He has serene air... he looks a little younger than Dad.' 'Tall, thin, with a pale face and small...'
My breath stopped for a second. I didn't know if it was the amazement, the mystery... or that music, which continued to float softly in the air.
Her forehead shone with a special light, as if something sacred rested on her, and her smooth, soft hair fell down her shoulders and back like a silver curtain.
But it wasn't just her appearance that left me speechless. His expression as he played the piano... it was something impossible to describe. A mixture of deep pain and a smile illuminated by an impossible joy. 'That expression... it's not human.' 'I had only seen it before in paintings, in the faces of the saviors that hung in churches.'
I stared at him, not knowing if he was even breathing. I didn't think about hiding. I didn't think about running away. I just watched, staring vacant, as if my eyes still couldn't comprehend what I was seeing.
The man's shoulders began to move slowly, and then... flowed.
A melody. But not just any melody. It wasn't like listening to the piano from the window of the house. It wasn't like the forcibly tuned exercises in academies, where sometimes you have to press two keys to compensate for an out-of-tune note. No. This... this was something else.
It was a storm.
Ladders that fell like torrential rain. Trills that scorched like hellfire. Arpeggios that fell like lightning. Chords that resounded like thunder on a mountain. All together. All at once. And yet... with an order, with an intention.
'Is it raining...?' I raised my head, without thinking, as if my senses could not distinguish whether what I was listening to was real music or weather.
The sky was not yet visible, but the storm... It was happening in music.
I remembered the last typhoon that hit Korea, a little over a month ago. I saw from my window an old man walking down the street. His umbrella flew through the air and slammed into a pole, splitting the plastic in two with a snap. It was a scene that stuck with me. And now, listening to this performance, the same nerves, the same vertigo... everything came back.
But then, he stopped.
From one second to the next, the wind disappeared as if it had never existed. The thunder vanished from my ears as if my memory had erased them. An immense silence covered everything.
Everything is silent. I used to feel confused listening to his performance, but now that he's over... The silence is so disappointing to me. 'I want to hear that sound again... that storm made music.'
I lowered my head... And then I noticed it. He was looking at me.
My body froze on the spot.
'What do I do? Should I say hello? Ask for help? What do you say at a time like this?' 'Mom! Dad! Tell me what to say when something like this happens!'
The man calmly watched me for a while. Then he got up from the piano bench.
He was very tall. And his movements... they were like music in themselves. 'It's as if I were walking to the rhythm of a violin... slow, elegant, as if floating.'
He approached with a slight sway, as if the air itself carried him. He smiled barely. A light expression, but full of elegance.
When he was about five yards away, he bowed slightly, bringing himself up to my level, and in a calm voice asked me:
"Who are you?"
I couldn't hold his gaze. 'Will he be a cartoon prince?' 'It looks so perfect... that I feel I should bow or say something formal...'
I clenched my hands, wiggled my fingers not knowing what to do, and responded with a trembling voice, my head bowed.
"Nam... Soo-hyun..."
I said it... but he did not respond immediately.
When I finally dared to raise my head, the man was still smiling. That smile was like someone who knows all the answers... And her eyes, like crescent moons, shone with an impossible calm.
"How did you get in here?"
"That... that... I was traveling with my mom and dad... and the train fell... and I fell."
In that instant, his eyes changed. They no longer shone as they used to. There was something different now... something more serious.
He didn't seem hostile. There was no anger in his eyes, but something else entirely. Feelings like pity... and repentance. A serene, deep sadness.
The man stood thoughtful, his back straight, his arms crossed, and his chin resting on one hand. He looked up at the sky covered with branches, and murmured:
"So he's dead? Or not?"
I opened my eyes wide.
'Dead?' 'Is he talking about himself?'
I didn't fully understand what it meant to die... But I remember Mom crying the day the old man who lived downstairs died. 'I guess that's what dying is... make the people who love you very sad.'
The man was silent for a long time, as if he had entered into a thought so distant that it was difficult for him to return.
Then he looked at me. His gaze fell on me as if he were seeing me for the first time. And then he extended his finger, long, white, with a gesture as elegant as when he played the piano.
"Let's go."
"Oh... where?"
"There. My house is nearby."
'His house?' 'Mom told me never to follow strangers... that I would never talk to someone I don't know...'
But there's no one else here. And I'm not afraid of him. Only... calm. 'I'll follow him. And when we get there, I'll ask her to call Mom. That's it.'
I took his hand carefully, slowly. It was warm. He smiled, saying nothing more.
My heart had calmed down a little. The trembling in his legs was no longer so strong.
"Who are you, sir?"
The man gently squeezed my fingers, looking down at the path covered in leaves and filtered light. And with a smile that sounded like music, he answered:
"Franz. My name is Franz Liszt."