Every Wednesday morning an hour after my husband kisses me good-bye and heads off to work, my doorbell rings. The dark-haired man whom I’ve been seeing for the past eight years smiles and follows me upstairs.
Conversation comes first. Politics, religion, climate change, books, movies, world events, or the precise meaning of a particular word in the English language. We move easily from pondering the world’s problems… to sharing our own stories... to talking about music....The conversation always ends with the music, as I flick the black switch on my keyboard to the “on” position, and my weekly piano lesson begins.
My teacher, Anibal Vergara, left his home in Chile over 30 years ago with little money, big dreams, and an even bigger talent. In the United States he worked, studied, performed, and taught others how to coax beautiful music from 88 black and white keys, developing his own unique brand of creative instruction. His teaching method, coupled with his natural ability, classical training, and gentle temperament created a potent mix, turning him into a much-loved and sought-after music teacher.
And now, after hours and hours of Anibal’s patient tutelage, I no longer have to reach for my iPod or a CD in order to hear the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan songs of my youth. I can play them! Over the many years that we have shared a piano bench, Anibal, while still my teacher, has also become my friend. But it wasn’t until several months ago that I discovered another of his many talents. Magic!
It started with an invitation disguised in the form of a simple sentence. “Francine, I want to show you something,” Anibal said to me after one of my lessons.
He pulled three red ropes from the pocket of his jacket. After I had ascertained that the pieces were of different lengths, he folded each of them in half and asked me to yank down on several of the loose ends. Voila! Three equal lengths of rope dangled from Anibal’s clenched fist.
I tilted my head. How did he do that? I thought silently, deciding not to ask a question that the “magician” standing across from me might not want to answer.
“Do you have a coin?” he asked.
I dug through my bag and plucked a nickel from my wallet.
“Check the year,” he said.
“2007.”
He marked the coin with a drop of Wite-Out and slipped it into his pocket. After a few magic words and a couple of finger snaps, he took a rubber banded box from his pocket.
“Open it,” he said.
I unwound the band and opened the box, revealing another one of smaller size.
“Look inside.”
Repeating my actions, I opened the next box. A nickel, marked with a dot of Wite-Out rested inside. I checked the year. 2007.
“Anibal,” I said. “I didn’t know you could do magic tricks!”
“My father did tricks for our family and friends. At first, I learned from him. As I got older, I went to shops where I exchanged tricks with other magicians.” He smiled. “Magic builds relationships. I do tricks for my younger students. It relaxes them, and it makes them smile.”
I felt my own mouth stretch into a grin.
“Francine, do you want me to show you?”
And whether it was the challenge to develop a new set of skills, the appeal to my imagination, or the simple desire to make someone else feel the childlike sense of wonder that Anibal had evoked in me, my answer was “Yes!”
Under Anibal’s guidance, I have found magic in a deck of cards, a book of matches, a scribbled list of numbers, and a fluttering handkerchief. I’ve learned to make a rubber band “jump” from one of my fingers to another, and I can “guess” the identity of a specific card by “feeling” it. I know how a rabbit is pulled out of a hat, although I can’t do it. Yet. Tricks depending upon mental math and audience misdirection come easily to me, but I struggle to perform sleight-of-hand feats gracefully.
Over the past year, Anibal has shared so many of his “magical” manipulations with me. In return, I have been an eager student and a delighted audience, and although I have scoured the library and searched the internet for tricks that I could share with my generous teacher and friend, it has never been an even exchange.
I often think about Anibal’s words on the day he showed me how to transform three unequally sized ropes into a triad of uniform pieces. “Magic builds relationships.” So each time a snap of my fingers and the appearance of a coin in an unexpected place makes someone smile in wonder or laugh in amazement, I think of the dark-haired man who visits me each week. My teacher, my friend.
But now, about that rabbit…