As a child, The Magician—whose given name was Marius—trained to play in the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Poland. I’d never heard of the competition until I met Marius, but for young pianists, this was the Wimbledon of piano contests, the most prestigious and famous forum for new musical talent. Contestants from all over the world applied to the Chopin Competition, my new boyfriend told me. Just qualifying to participate could make a musician’s career. After winning in Italy at age nine, he had been considered a strong candidate, and had trained relentlessly for years, memorizing Chopin sonatas and etudes, reading Chopin’s letters, trying to find a way into the mind and music of his hero.
I never understood exactly how the qualifying process worked, but there was a pre-competition concert in Sofia that determined which young pianist would be sent to Poland from Bulgaria. Reading the online rules in 2015, it appears that anyone can send an application, but Marius told me that at his conservatory in the 1980s, there was a committee of judges who determined which of their pianists could apply. Competition was fierce, but he was universally expected to win. He was by far their best player, and had already won an international competition. A date was announced for this preliminary concert and he practiced night and day. At the concert, he played his etude perfectly, and everyone in the audience—including teachers at the conservatory and other renowned musicians—declared that he had been brilliant. After his performance, he was surrounded by members of the audience and congratulated.
The judges announced that he won and would be going to Poland. But then, in some dark twist that can happen only in a communist nightmare, a Party Member, the father of a girl who had competed against Marius, overturned the decision. Marius was denied a chance to compete in Poland. He had given his entire childhood for this opportunity, and it went to a girl with less talent but better connections.
Over the years we were together, I heard this story a number of times. It was told to me by Marius himself, by his mother, and by his former piano teacher, a woman named Kalinka who had dedicated ten years of her life to training her young genius for greatness. I saw a videotape of Marius playing at the preliminary competition, this younger, the somewhat awkward and adorable teenage version of the man I loved playing his heart out. In the video, there was something hopeful and confident about Marius, something unspoiled. It was like watching a pristine forest minutes before the fire. Later, I came to see this competition as a deep wound in is psyche, the underlying tragedy of his childhood from which he would never fully recover.
Marius had left his piano career behind after losing that competition, but he still loved to play. When he felt the urge, we drove to a music shop at the edge of Iowa City, where he sat at a polished black baby grand at the back of the showroom. He didn’t own a piano any more. When he gave up playing at twenty and went to India, his parents sold his piano. “I miss it,” he said, as he adjusted himself on the bench, wiggled his fingers in preparation. “But that piece of shit was nothing compared to this.”
He hit a few keys to warm up, and then launched into a Chopin sonata, his fingers flying up the keyboard, his head held high, his patrician profile stiff and poised. He played the entire sonata from memory, as if it had been burned into him by years of practice. I leaned against the piano, my reflection pale and watery in the black lacquer, awestruck by the beauty of his playing, the complicated fingering, the speed and timing and confidence. That he could create such an explosion of beauty, something that took over my senses so completely, left me transfixed. I wasn’t the only one. Eventually, someone in the shop walked over, then another person stopped by, then another, and soon there was a crowd around the piano, listening to him play. He was giving these people pleasure, something sublime in an ordinary day, and I was part of that beauty. The last flourish of the sonata was punctuated by clapping and Marius—so obviously used to applause—glowed with pleasure. 
He was the center of attention, the star performer taking a bow. He was the bright hot center of the universe. I wanted to be near his light, to feel the glow of him on my skin. I wanted to orbit him forever.
I wasn’t used to men like Marius. Nothing in my childhood, or in all the years after I left home, could have prepared me for him. My father had been a bricklayer and a lady’s man with a great sense of humor but no education—or other cultural distinctions—to speak of. My mother went to college after she divorced my dad, got a Master’s Degree in Business, and made a good living in the financial department of a local company. Both of my parents were intelligent, hardworking people whose aspirations for their kids were that they find decent jobs. But I wanted more than just survival. In college, I took classes in anything that would help me experience the life of the mind. Books gave me a refuge and a space in which to dream. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and then started traveling. I lived for a year in London, visited France, and lived for nearly three years in Japan with The Poet. I was not a provincial little girl when I met Marius. I was not naïve or gullible. I twenty-seven years old, educated and accomplished, and still: I had never known anyone with the charm and magnetism of Marius.
When The Magician swept into my life, I was awe-struck. There are a hundred clichés I can conjure up—spellbound, entranced, hypnotized—and all of them applied to me. There just weren’t men like Marius in the Midwest, guys who spoke a handful of languages and could rip off a Chopin sonata and talk sutras with the Dalai Lama. He was so far out of my circle of reference, so foreign, so exotic, that I was utterly blinded. He may have had faults, but when I looked at Marius, I couldn’t see a single one.
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To reach Dani, email DaniTrueRomantic@gmail.com.
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Rumpus original art by Claire Stringer.
Rumpus original logo art by Max Winter.