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New York's Opera Society chapter 9
Chapter 9
Emails from Gosia
After having said hello to my parents l entered my room and eagerly turned on my computer in order to read what Gosia had sent me. When l finally got my email box open, l noticed that l had received 3 long emails from Gosia. The first of which told me all about her and how happy she was too finally have an American friend whom she could practice her English with. She repeated some of the things which l already knew about her, like the fact that she had spent several years in her own country studying classical music and the piano as she hoped to become a great piano player one day and make the music of Chopin even more popular through out the world. She also told me that she was from Warsaw and that her folks lived in a town on the outskirts of Warsaw called Józefów. She told me some things about her parents like that her mother, whose name was Bożena, was a doctor (she did not specify what branch of medicine she practiced) and that her father whose name was Waldemar was a lawyer who owned his own law firm. She also told me that she was one of her parents 3 children. One of these other 2 children, being her sister, Kasia, who was 25 years old and married to a man whose name was Ted and had a 5 year old son whose name was Tom. Her other sibling being her brother whose name was Alexander (as a footnote she added that this was the name of the man who was the president of Poland). Alexander was 18 years old and was already playing basketball in a semi-pro league in Poland. She told me that he stood at a towering 200cm tall or 6' 6" tall. She wrote a lot about her younger brother, she told me that she really admired the determination and the hard work he put in to playing basketball. She had no doubts that someday he would be in the N.B.A. playing for perhaps the L.A. Lakers or the Chicago Bulls or perhaps the Boston Celtics. She even told me that she got her inspiration to come to N.Y.C. from her brother who had told her that one should always try hard to achieve ones goals and never be afraid to take risks because there could be no glory without taking risks. l got the impression that she would not have come to America had it not been for the fact that she knew that her brother would also be coming to America first to play in the N.C.A.A. and then hopefully in the N.B.A..
Her second email was more about herself, she told me what musicians she liked and even gave me a list of her favorite ones which included such greats as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, and though it goes without saying, Chopin was also on this list. She told me everything about herself from her hobbies which included such things as going to the cinema to playing volleyball to football. She told me that she had had a boyfriend to whom she was supposed to get married to but had broken up with because of her decision to come to America. She told me that another one of her passions apart from playing the piano was shopping, she said that like most women in her country and she figured in every other country, she loved buying nice clothes and that was another thing she loved about America that she could go to department stores such as Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylor and buy exclusive clothes at prices that were better then in her own country. She also said she liked wearing skirts, blouses, dresses and high heels but however on several occasions she preferred something more comfortable like jeans and a t-shirt.
She also mentioned that she was the traveler in her family as she had traveled all over Europe and had even gone to such places as Tunisia, Turkey and even as far away as India.
In her 3rd email which she must have sent from the restaurant as it was sent half an hour before I received it, she told me all about her hometown Warsaw and once again thanked me for getting the tickets to the opera by providing me with a synopsis of the opera "Halka" which was the opera we were going to go see. She told me that though she enjoyed working for Pani Beata she felt that sooner or later she would have to give it up because she would be going to school during the day and what she really wanted was a job playing in a piano bar or something of the sort, her reason stated for wanting a job like this was that she had been told by a fellow piano player that she could make good money on tips playing in such places. For my part though she did not mention it I thought she might even be discovered in one of these joints.
She was motivated to giving private piano lessons because she had seen a few adds in the paper for piano lessons for as much as 30$ an hour. I gathered it was those adds that gave her reason to hope that she could find many pupils perhaps through me, as it was me whom she was asking if I knew anybody willing to pay her the low sum of 10$ an hour for private piano lessons.
Another interesting thing about this last email was that she also asked me if l knew someone who had an old piano to sell. She claimed that the reason she was aiming to buy a used one as opposed to a new one was that she could not afford a new one nor did she wish to buy one as she would have to leave it when she would eventually return back to her native Poland.
She also mentioned that she was in need of an English teacher who could help her to prepare to for the T.O.E.F.L., she told me this exam was required of all foreigners who wished to be accepted into American universities.
All this started me to thinking, and it was then that l saw a solution to the dilemma she was faced with. l could help her to prepare herself for the T.O.E.F.L. in exchange for some piano lessons as l had been considering taking up the instrument again. As for her getting students, she could always put an add in the newspaper but then l thought were would she teach these people giving the fact that she had no piano to teach these people on or should she teach people in the privacy of their own homes but then she would have to spend a lot of time going all around town or even out of town and that might not pay off so well for her, and then it hit me like a flash, it became so clear to me that l smiled to myself.
She could come to our house to use the piano for practicing as well as giving lessons, of coarse the piano would need to be tuned first, but that was no big deal as one of my mom's friends tuned pianos for a living and it was something that would have had to be done sooner or later. It was the perfect solution, she would be coming to our house when ever she had a pupil to teach or when she needed to practice on a piano which would probably be everyday, so l would get to see her just as often.
All this was fine, now all l needed to do was convince my parents to allow her to come to our place everyday to not only give lessons which of coarse would mean strangers coming into our house but to let her come here everyday as well to practice at least 6 hours a day or more. The reason l was hopeful my parents would give their o.k. was because after all our apartment was so large that we even had a music room where we kept not only the piano but other instruments as well. In that room her piano playing and lessons would not disturb anyone due to the fact that my father had had padding installed on the walls which had left the room virtually sound proof.
l was almost sure they would accept her coming to practice on our piano everyday. The reasons for my confidence was that my mother liked hearing someone play the piano well specially if they played the classics. My second reason was that someone would finally be playing the piano that no one had played in ages, this would please my father who was beginning to complain out loud that he had spent so much money on buying a "Steinway and Sons" which no one even played. My third and final reason for optimism was that l was sure my parents would love to get to know what kind of girl it was who I was hopeful of dating and who in due time would have been coming over for what my mother often referred to as "our first dinner together". This "first dinner together" was what my mother did every time she knew l had a girlfriend. What she would do was to invite the girl in question over for dinner just so that she could see as she put it "what kind of girl l was associating with". However this time things were going to be different, she would get to know my Polish girlfriend better then she had ever gotten to know any of my previous girlfriends as she would be seeing her just about everyday. As for the job at the piano bar this l felt was almost a shoe in as all my mother had to do was ask her friends some of whom owned piano bars and other such establishments where live piano playing could be heard to give her an audition. It was almost to good to be true.
The only difficulty l saw in all this was convincing them that letting her give lessons in our apartment would not be a problem as strangers would be coming to our home and there was no guarantee that something in our home would not end up getting stolen. This was going to take some pretty sweet convincing on my part but l was almost sure that we could reason together a plan that would be mutually beneficial.
