Disturbances in the Field

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

“Okay, we might as well get right to it and take a break later,” Jasper said. “You ready, Howard? Lydia?” I guess.

  Rosalie and Jasper and I took turns with the opening, slipping the temperate melody from hand to hand. A certain restraint in the strings gave it an exploratory sound—a snaking path. Rosalie’s notes were rich as ever but slightly tense; Jasper was radiant. Soon he and I took up a dialogue, tossing the theme back and forth, chasing each other like shadows. Our timing and repartee worked perfectly. Except that beyond the accuracy, his notes were calling out to mine, eliciting, rousing them. It was not for nothing that Victor had imagined Jasper liked me: Jasper’s sounds virtually yearned toward the piano like a creature with a mating call, or a great ship listing to slice the waiting surface of the sea. It had nothing to do with the flesh, though. It was another sort of yearning, selfless. I wished I could answer him in kind as I had in the past. But I couldn’t afford to yearn towards anything with such abandon. Suddenly, just before she was due to pick up the theme, Rosalie stopped.

  “I’m sorry, but something is wrong with the piano. Lydia, are you there?”

  “Of course I’m here. What do you mean?”

  “You sound awfully, I don’t know, retiring. I think you need to be more forthright. It’s a piano quintet, after all. Why include a piano if we’re not going to hear it?”

  Jasper passed a hand over his face as if to hide. “We’re just running through to get it set, really. But as long as we’ve stopped … It’s also a trifle fast, I think.”

  “I know,” I said. “I started fast on purpose. When it’s slow it starts to sicken and die.”

  “No, he’s right, Lydia. I’ve heard it done at this tempo. Pretty soon it gets all tinkly and bright. It sounds like nothing.”

  At the slower tempo my solo, a simple unassuming bit, sounded moribund. As Jasper was about to take it up, Rosalie stopped us again. Howard emitted a few more turgid notes—perhaps he was hoping to charm us back. “I’m sorry, really. But, Lydia, this is the first time you really appear. So appear.”

  “Look, Rosalie, this is how I rehearse. I know exactly what’s needed and I’ll do it for real when the time comes. You keep stopping like this and we’ll never get anywhere.”

  “This is not how you rehearse. You always go all out.”

  “Is this group therapy or are we playing music?” Carla Roby asked in her soft high voice.

  “Quite right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “From letter D,” Jasper murmured. There was a clumsy silence till I realized letter D was my part alone. While I played, Rosalie sulked for her nine-measure pause.

  “Maybe we’d better take five minutes off,” Jasper said at the end of the first movement. He went out to the coffee machine with Carla. Howard closed his eyes, practicing his bulbous notes. Rosalie removed the cello from between her legs and came to sit on the piano bench.

  “This is not personal, Lydia. But a little feeling, you know, might help? Passion? Real, I mean, not Liberace. It gets us all down. What’s the matter, are you sick or something?”

  “I’m not sick. What’s with you? We never get this way at rehearsals.”

  “I’m nervous. It’s a big concert, we have a lot at stake. The ensemble has to mesh right. Otherwise it is trite. It might as well be a wine commercial. You know that.”

  “I’m tired. I worked on Stravinsky all morning at that church in the Village. It’s a benefit for their draft-counseling program. Two years of festivals for poor Stravinsky—by the end no one will ever want to hear another note. But okay, passion. Feeling. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Jasper is weak. He should be taking over more.”

  “Jasper sounds fantastic. He has never played this well.”

  “Yes. I meant he should be getting the group in order more. I shouldn’t have to do this.”

  “So don’t,” I said curtly. “Jasper has faith. He was never one to spell things out. He waits for them to happen.”

  The Andante was lyrical and wistful; I was spiteful. Feeling? I gave it to her with a vengeance. I let the notes drip from my fingers till they bordered on parody. Howard raised his formidable gray eyebrows. But no one stopped. I had gotten myself in a nasty bind—either they made demands or they made allowances. And in private, It’s gotten to Lydia’s playing, they would say.

  The Scherzo was easier: short and glittery, all speed and color, controlled force and grace. Pianists can flaunt a kind of superficial verve that impresses an audience. Musicians are not impressed. I was overpowering the others, smothering their delicacy, without which the speed and color became crude fireworks. Jasper could have competed, fought fire with fire, but he was too good for that. He frowned, played with his eyes lowered.

  The “Trout,” for all its apparent ingenuousness, is a secretive work. When I first played it in college I was too ingenuous myself to confront all of its secrets—I played it as the lyrical, life-affirming piece it is reputed to be—and now I didn’t choose to. One of the secrets is a strain of sadness—nostalgia, mourning—emitted covertly, like a leafy scent you have to bend close to catch. A great and magnanimous composer, but a composer of ambiguity, is asked to write a simple rosy evening’s entertainment and tries to comply; despite his efforts the scent of ambiguity pervades the rosy entertainment. Another secret is the strikingly democratic meshing of the instruments, even the uncustomary bass. In all chamber music each voice speaks according to its abilities, but here each makes an equal contribution on its own terms, like the working of a perfectly ordered community. A Utopia. No one stands alone for long; nothing individual is accomplished without the deferential support of the rest. Not that the five play much in unison. More often they play in contrast, sometimes in heated melees, with contradictions and digressions, one voice after another seizing the airwaves for a thrilling moment. But never tyrannically; it is a community of equals. The piano part is not technically difficult. The task is in the phrasing and the pauses, the pressure on each note that yields the precise quality of sound the group needs to stay buoyant, no more and no less. And then that harmony, that clasping of hands like Matisse’s dancers in a ring, gives the quintet its irresistible vigor as well as its sweetness: love made audible. That was what Rosalie was seeking; without it our separate talents were barren.

  It was the fourth movement I had been dreading all along, the theme and variations using Schubert’s song about the trout. Jasper introduced the melody. His sound was pure and lucid, a narrow band of light. I almost didn’t come in on time, he so captivated me. I had the first variation and it couldn’t have been simpler—single treble notes, an isolated melodic line. All any pianist needed to do was allow it to emerge without impediment. Some Chinese sage, I think, told a writer who aspired to write a perfect book: First make yourself perfect, then write naturally. I played but my mind was helplessly elsewhere: on that guileless trout darting in the glistening brook, unaware of the angler on shore who waited to trap him and finally, impatient for the prey, muddied the water so the trout could not see his right path. And on how I had longed to be chosen to play this in college and George said you don’t die if you don’t get what you long for, but I did get it in the end. And then Victor came in during the rehearsal and we went to that bar near the unfinished cathedral. “You might get to like me. It’s been known to happen.” I was not subtle, but the way I played the “Trout” was, he said. “I loved the way you played it. I loved what you kept back as much as what you put in.” His hands shook but he pressed on. “Do you think it’s easy to talk to you like this?” I played what I dreaded and it was far from perfect, or subtle. It had a querulous sound.

  “Now, Lydia,” Jasper began, as we stopped by tacit consent. “This is all yours. This is an opportunity.”

  “I’m not looking for opportunities.”

  “You have to!” Rosalie said. “We’re not playing games here.”

  “I will when I have to. Just lay off.”

  “Wait a minute. Is there something g
oing on here we two should know about?” Carla asked. “Or is this how you three always—”

  “No. There’s nothing.” Jasper locked eyes with Rosalie. His nod was barely visible and they began as one. I had to give what they wanted this time. It was mere stubborn pride rising, a cold professional pride—what could Carla and Howard be thinking? I forced the naive, poignant melody inside, breathed it in like acrid air and breathed it out fresh and resplendent as it was meant to be, though it burned my chest like hell. The others took their turns with it, balanced and equitable as in a Utopia. And for the rest of the movement we lovingly badgered that little melody, sent it up in the air and caught it, twirled it, twisted it and wrung it, squeezed every ounce of juice from it. Rosalie was elated. She wanted to do it all again so I could have my opening solo, but I refused. I didn’t want to be out there alone. It was hard enough being in the group, being part of that audible love and putting mine in.

  The last movement took the little Utopia on Hungarian holiday; it was laced with dashing exuberance and my part was showy. I didn’t mind brash romanticism—that didn’t touch any of my untouchable places. I even enjoyed sweeping through a stretch of furious trills; during the brief lyrical calm that followed, I heard the click of the door behind me. Too early for any custodian to be rushing us. It was Victor again, I knew it. Uncanny how he could figure out where to find me. Come to replay history, correct the paths of atoms? Take me to a bar? Offer me a beer? I clenched my teeth and kept hold, finished my triplets with Jasper in a fine flourish. And then I made a mistake. I wasn’t even sure what I had done but I was sure enough in the wrong key.

  “Oh Lydia!” Rosalie practically flung the bow at me. “We repeated that already!”

  “Shit. I’m sorry. That was dumb.”

  She wiped her forehead on her wrist. “And we were going along great.”

  “I said I was sorry. Those repeats are so confusing.” I turned around. It wasn’t Victor but Rosalie’s ex-husband, Karl.

  “Hi there, hon,” she called. “Have a seat. Just a few minutes, okay?” Karl made a gesture of all right with both hands, like patting down a billowy cloud.

  “Twelve measures from the break,” Jasper said mildly, raising the violin to his chin. “And then straight on. No repeat, Lydia. Carla, you could be a trifle louder with those thirds.” He looked at me appraisingly and ten measures later whispered, “No repeat here.” Sixteen after that, “Repeat here.” My protector.

  “Well, praise the Lord,” exclaimed Rosalie at the final chord. “We only have a week and a half more. The whole thing is balance. We must get that right.”

  Karl shook hands all around. He was dressed in a suit and tie; he must have been coming from his office. Karl, it struck me anew, bore a remarkable resemblance to Sigmund Freud, his spiritual ancestor, with the trim, graying beard, the kindly yet somewhat dismayed set of his features. He had a kindly stance too, leaning a bit forward as he greeted us.

  “Nice to see you again, Lydia, and looking so well.” The last time I had seen him was February—he came with Rosalie to pay a condolence call. They brought marrons glacis, which Victor and I finished in bed, watching some late movie. I noticed even then that they consorted a good deal for a couple who had ostensibly separated.

  “Thank you. It’s good to see you too, Karl.” Unfortunately, thanks to Rosalie, I could not see Karl without an accompanying image of greasy pots and socks left on the floor, and yet he still appealed to me. He seemed right for Rosalie, ballast without which she might whirl off somewhere, hanging on to her bow.

  “How’s the ‘Trout’ going?”

  “Oh, you’d better ask Rosalie that. She’s afraid I’m going to ruin everything, even though I assure her I’ll come through.”

  Rosalie approached, swirling a Mexican poncho over her head. We stepped out of range. “It’s just that I don’t get how you can withhold it or ration it out. Give and you’ll have more. Loaves and fishes.”

  Besides the facial resemblance to Freud, Karl is also a Viennese Jew, one who managed to get to this country during the war as a teenager, all alone. It is possible that he too clawed his way through the forests of Poland, or rather Austria, leaving behind him a broken, doomed family, but he never speaks of it, at least not within my hearing. That journey is inside him, however, and may be why he once found the vagaries of Rosalie so alarming, as well as why he can now resolve to endure them.

  “Are you ready, dear?” He is positively courtly. I can’t believe it, about the raised bread knife.

  “Lydia, want a lift?”

  “I’m going with Jasper.” I give a frosty glance. She shakes her head and mutters under her breath as we part.

  Jasper and I drive in comfortable silence. He is probably hearing Schubert and hardly aware of my presence. Through the glasses his myopic eyes squint at the twilight streets. His profile is angular, the cheek concave like a medieval stone saint’s.

  “Want a cup of coffee?” I ask as he pulls up at my building. This is a formality. He never does.

  “Thanks, but I’d better not. Frank is waiting for me. He cooks fancy dishes. Can’t let them spoil.” He grins boyishly. Jasper, lately, has begun to reveal details of his private life. Perhaps he didn’t have one before.

  “I thought you’d gained some weight. You look terrific.”

  “Thank you. How are the kids doing?”

  “Fine. Althea’s having a great time at school so far. Phil is coming to the concert. You’ll see him. Are you worried too?”

  “Lord no.” He turns to face me. His mouth is stern, but I’m used to that by now. “How long have we been playing together, Lydia? Nine years? Ten? I’m not worried. Carla is very good, and Howard of course. It’s a matter of trust, isn’t it?” The stern lips relax into a wry smile. “I trust that if you need to collapse you’ll have the good grace to do it afterwards.”

  “Jasper.” I can actually feel my heart speed up in response. “Thanks.” I lean over and kiss him on the mouth, close-lipped but sweet. God knows why I felt compelled to do that. We move apart and stare. He kisses me in return, the same brief way, and we start to laugh.

  “Is Rosalie back with her husband?” he asks.

  “Looks like it.”

  “You women. You certainly do flit around. It’s beyond me.”

  “You’re becoming a wonderful type, you know? You’re going to be the most straitlaced middle-aged deviate anyone could imagine.”

  He makes a face of mock offense. “I beg your pardon, I’m only thirty-six.”

  “Oh God, a wit besides. What are we coming to?”

  “So are you going to do the ‘Spring’ Sonata with me up in Massachusetts? We’ve been talking about it for two years. It’s so gorgeous. And you know it’s perfect for us.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re both such romantics underneath. What could be more romantic? All that ripply, sinuous stuff. What a chance to indulge.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I am any more. I played it with Greg Parnis years ago. We were not bad—I still have the tape. Well, maybe we should, why not? It’d be fun to work on.”

  Jasper whistles the opening theme of the last movement, a jaunty bit where the violin and piano echo each other half a slippery beat behind. I whistle my part too and for a few seconds we manage to keep the thing aloft, but it’s awfully tricky, whistling to that funny, disjointed beat; our whistles start tripping and stumbling over each other and we end up dissolved in laughter.

  “We’ll do better than that, I trust.”

  “Thanks for the ride, my dear. Till tomorrow.”

  “Do you need any help with that?” He points to my bag of fruit.

  “No, I can carry it fine. See you.”

  Before I even reach my door I hear it: not the usual early evening stillness I can’t get used to, but a flurry of young voices. Jabbers and giggles. I hang my jacket in the hall and stand listening.

  “Oh, but the way she said it. I thought I’d die!” A girl’s bubbly v
oice.

  “I honestly don’t know how she can keep a straight face.” Phil, loud and exhilarated.

  “I don’t think she can move the muscles of her face. I think she has paralysis of the face, if there is such a thing.”

  “Masturbation. No. ‘Mas-tur-ba-tion.’” The girl’s voice goes deep and nasal and takes on a pseudo-cultivated accent. “‘This afternoon we will discuss mas-tur-ba-tion. I’m sure we all know what that is.’”

  Howls, screeches, groans.

  To deposit the fruit and get to the bottle of Scotch in the kitchen I have to walk through the living room. I don’t want to spoil Phil’s party. I’ll glide through invisibly, wave if necessary. I make it to the doorway.

  “Oh hi, Mom.” Surrounded by allies, he’s not at all abashed that I should come upon this secret face of his, the genial face kept in reserve. I have to control my own face, smile back as if he gives me this greeting every day with eyes wide open and frank. It’s I who feel bashful meeting them. “This is my mother,” he declares without irony, in a voice that has shed its choked constraint. “And this is—let’s see, starting at the bookcase—Nick, June, Toni. Ilana you already know.”

  “Hi, Ilana.”

  “Hi, Lydia.” A pert, chorus-girl flick of a flat hand, palm front. I like Ilana the informal, the gray-eyed, freckled, and red-haired, bosomy in her salmon-colored T-shirt.

  “David and Jose,” he winds up.

  “We have this sex education course,” Ilana tells me. “We’re not sure we’ll make it through, though. We might die laughing first.”

  I sneak a glance at Phil, who doesn’t even blink, but dips his hand along with the rest into an immense bowl of gorp on the floor in the center of their circle. The living room is strewn with sweatshirts and knapsacks and sneakers. It is wondrous. The kids themselves are a World Federalist’s dream, a medley of the races of the earth, drinking egg creams. George brought over two bottles of seltzer the other day, but Phil must have gone out and bought the extra milk himself. That too is wondrous.

  “Don’t mind the mess, Mrs. Rowe,” Toni, the Oriental girl, says. “We’ll clean it all up before we go.”