Murder Duet: A Musical Case

by Batya Gur

  Gabriel nodded.

  Theo stood up from the wicker chair and began pacing up and down again. “I thought that he didn’t show you. You weren’t here in Israel at the time, and I thought—”

  “He showed me when I came back. In case something happened to him and you weren’t in the country. He was very worried about Nita.” Nita tightened her arms around her knees.

  “He did so we’d know if something suddenly happened to him,” Theo continued. “He had a lot of money. The last time he showed me tens of thousands of dollars in guilder. I asked him why in guilder, of all things. But he didn’t answer. That’s how he was, when he didn’t want to he simply didn’t answer.” Theo snorted and wiped his face. “Did he ever explain it to you, Gabi?”

  “No, I have no idea,” said Gabriel dully. He stared at the carpet again.

  “What I don’t understand,” said Theo, “is what they’re going to do with the painting now that they’ve got it. They can’t sell it. What did they steal it for?” He looked at Michael as if he expected an answer.

  Against his will, Michael, who was trying to keep as low a profile as possible, found himself impelled to say something. He started by pointing out that it wasn’t his field, that he didn’t know much about such things. But he knew that in cases of this kind the local police usually collaborated with Interpol. Usually—so he understood—thefts like this are commissioned by a collector. “That apparently happened with the clock collection that was stolen from the Islamic Museum here in Jerusalem.” That’s why the stolen goods are so difficult to locate, he was tempted to but didn’t say.

  “The Scotsman!” Theo burst out. “Maybe it was the Scotsman who sent the thieves because Father didn’t want to sell him the painting!”

  “Don’t be crazy,” said Gabriel, sitting up. “I’ve met him, too. We met him together, don’t you remember? He’s a nice man, you said so yourself. His wish to buy the third painting is perfectly natural. He already has the other two. That Scotsman wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “What do we know about what people are capable of doing?” asked Theo.

  “It wasn’t the Scotsman!” Gabriel insisted.

  “In the first place,” said Theo, “Father’s death was an accident. They didn’t intend to kill him, he died because . . .” He threw a glance at Nita, who showed few signs of life. “He suffocated. There was the gag and there was his emphysema.” Theo looked at Michael and looked away again. “Father was in an advanced stage of emphysema. There were days when he had to be hooked up to an oxygen cylinder.” He looked at Nita again and then at Gabriel. “And that’s why he died. There’s a medical term for it. The doctor said it last night,” he said, looking at his brother again.

  “Asphyxia,” said Gabriel without raising his head.

  Theo turned to Michael. “Your pal, the policeman,” he said, “couldn’t understand why they broke into the house while Father was there. They could have broken in when he was at the dentist, as I said, or at the concert, or at his weekly Masonic meeting.”

  “If he went to the dentist at all,” remarked Gabriel. Theo froze. Nita raised her head from her knees and looked at Gabriel. “Maybe he canceled his appointment. Maybe he didn’t have one at all,” whispered Gabriel. His voice grew stronger as he said: “Father hated going to the dentist. He wanted to be at the concert. The last thing he would have done was go to the dentist just before a concert where all three of us were performing.”

  “That’s easy enough to check,” said Michael.

  “He had to go through all he went through in his life to finally end up like this,” declaimed Theo, as if it no longer was he himself standing behind the words but rather a compulsive need to hear his own voice. “After everything he’d been through,” he said again, and again he stood up and began pacing with his hands in his pockets. “And I thought that he just didn’t have the strength for the concert,” he said suddenly, standing over Gabriel. “We have to call the dentist,” he affirmed.

  “Leave that to the police,” said Gabriel sharply. “What do we have to go running to the dentist for? Father’s dead. None of it matters now. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” His cheeks were sagging, the skin under his sunken eyes was lumpy, his breathing sounded heavy in the room. Theo bent over the pack of cigarettes Michael had left on the copper serving table. “May I?” he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he lit a cigarette. A cloud of whitish smoke enveloped Gabriel, who waved his hands to dispel it.

  “Gabi,” said Theo suddenly, “there’s something I don’t understand. Maybe . . . maybe I should wait until we’re alone. I want to ask you . . . never mind, it’s not important.” He glanced at Michael and fell silent. Nita looked at both of them. Her eyes opened wide, the dark semicircles underneath making them look even lighter. Around the blue-green gray of the irises were thin, dark rings, like lines drawn around their borders. Michael had never noticed them before.

  “What did you want to say, Theo?” she asked anxiously. “Stop treating me as if I were a baby. There’s no need to hide anything from me anymore. I’ve already proved that I can cope with . . .”

  “It’s not because of you, Nita,” said Theo, and he looked at her pleadingly. “Really it’s not. Even though for me you’ll always be my baby sister. What can I do? I just thought . . .” He turned his head toward Michael and then looked again at Gabriel. “It’s got nothing to do with anything, because . . .”

  “You can speak freely in front of him,” said Nita. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s family. I trust him absolu—I trust him.” She fell silent and lowered her eyes.

  “But he’s not close to me,” Theo argued. “I have no reason to trust him.” He gestured with his arm and muttered: “Pardon me, it’s nothing personal.”

  “Even after what I’ve said?” asked Nita, her eyes filling with tears.

  “What did you want to say, Theo? Go on, say it. I don’t care,” said Gabriel in a muffled voice that seemed to be coming from the carpet.

  Michael went into the kitchen to make fresh coffee. From there he heard Theo whisper something. He couldn’t make out the words, until he heard him call out, almost in a shout: “I don’t understand why. You can explain it to me at least!” Again there were murmurs—Michael couldn’t identify the speaker. Michael returned to the living room and put the coffee down on the copper serving table. He was aware that because of him the conversation had stopped. He put a cup of tea down in front of Nita, but she only shook her head and pointed to her throat in a gesture indicating that it was blocked. “Don’t go!” she said as Michael began to retreat to the bedroom.

  Theo picked up his glasses from the copper serving table and put them back on. He circled around the wicker chair on which his brother was sitting, stood at the French windows, and then sat down on the other wicker chair. When Gabriel maintained his silence, Theo he went on talking: “Nita’s okay. She’s got nothing to hide. Every move she makes is known because of the baby. But I, for example, do have something I’d rather have kept to myself. I don’t like people poking their noses into my business, and still I told the policeman, even though you saw that it was embarrassing to me. So why did you keep quiet? It’s all routine for him. Nobody thinks that any of us really . . .” He interrupted himself with a snort of ridicule.

  Gabriel didn’t move.

  “What are you looking for in the carpet?” Theo burst out. “Why don’t you answer me?”

  “Theo,” pleaded Nita. “Stop it, both of you. I can’t stand your bickering now.”

  “I’m only asking,” Theo said defensively. “It’s not an argument, nobody’s bickering. . . . I just want to know why you didn’t want to tell him. Why didn’t you tell him where you were?”

  Gabriel raised his eyes from the carpet. His face, surrounded by the red-brown beard that shone from the light behind him, looked like a mask of rage. His mouth twisted in a lopsided grimace. “What do you care?” he said. “All you care about is your concerts in Japan and for us not to
stop working and for none of your plans to be disturbed, God forbid. And since we’re talking about your plans, you can go ahead now with your Bayreuth, and there’s no one to stop you anymore. I want you to know that I’ll never forgive you for Father’s last attack, when you told him about the Wagner Festival. He had that attack, and you walked out and slammed the door behind you! I stayed behind and took care of the oxygen cylinder and everything. Couldn’t you wait until he . . . until he died in peace? No, you had to have your say, to tell him about your Wagner, and then you walked out. So why the hell should I tell you anything?” Gabriel buried his face in his hands, and his shoulders shook. Something between a sob and a groan came from behind his hands.

  Theo ground his cigarette out in the blue ashtray. His face was now a shade of pale olive. He folded his arms. Michael glanced at Nita. She took her arms off her knees and looked at Theo with alarm.

  “What’s this? Theo? What’s he talking about?”

  “Nothing, it doesn’t matter. Leave it alone,” said Theo. “Really, it isn’t important.”

  “I want to know!” she demanded, and something vital suddenly shone in her eyes as she said: “I’m sick and tired of the way you hide things from me. I’m thirty-eight years old, I have a child of my own. It’s time I stopped being the baby here!”

  “It’s not my fault,” said Theo, addressing his brother’s bowed head. “Father didn’t hear about it from me, and afterward, when he asked me, what was I supposed to do, lie? Say I knew nothing about it?” Theo lit another one of Michael’s cigarettes. Michael too wanted one, but he didn’t dare move from his place, in order not to draw attention to his presence. So they would go on ignoring him, he stood still and breathed carefully.

  “Heard about what? How did he hear about it? What are you talking about? Why don’t you ever tell me anything?” The end of Nita’s sentence came out in a kind of squeal. There was a note of hysteria in her voice, which had become high and thin. Her eyes filled with tears again, and again she wiped them with the back of her hand. She stretched out her long legs and gathered her skirt around them.

  “It’s nothing,” said Gabriel remorsefully. “Really, Nita, it’s nothing.”

  “If it’s connected with Father and Wagner and the emphysema it can’t be nothing!” Nita shouted. It was the first time Michael had ever heard her raise her voice. It had a sharp sound, without a trace of hoarseness. “I’m sick of playing this role. I want to know! Theo, what’s he talking about? What are you both talking about? Answer me! Now!”

  “He’s talking about an interview with me in the New York Times,” said Theo in a businesslike tone. “What I said, what I was quoted as saying, was that my dream was to have a Wagner Festival in Jerusalem, and for Israel to stop ignoring this great composer at last, and that this dream was going to be fulfilled in the coming year. It was part of a long interview in a foreign newspaper. I didn’t think Father would see it.”

  “And then,” said Gabriel, “Father did see it, of course, as he saw everything, and he asked Theo about it. Can you imagine it? Father hears about a Wagner festival in Jerusalem, after all these years when in the most musical home in Jerusalem not a note of Wagner was ever heard! Father, who hated violence so, defended the guy who broke Jascha Heifetz’s hand back in the fifties over Wagner!”

  “It wasn’t his hand,” Theo whispered, “and it wasn’t broken, and I’m not even sure that it was over Wagner. I think it was over Richard Strauss, and it was Menuhin and not Heifetz.”

  “He didn’t want to lie, he told Father the truth, all of a sudden he can’t tell a lie,” said Gabriel bitterly.

  “Someone, I don’t know who, told Father about it,” said Theo. “Well, you can imagine how he reacted. But it wasn’t that which shortened his life. I can’t spend my life not doing what I believe in just because it didn’t suit Father. If it was up to him, I’d be running the music shop now. He never accepted my opinions.”

  “Theo had to have it in Jerusalem,” said Gabriel, staring at the same spot on the carpet. “Conducting his Wagner at Bayreuth and Glyndebourne wasn’t enough for him. He had to do it in Jerusalem.”

  “Abroad I wasn’t running the whole show,” Theo defended himself. “I only conducted when I did Parsifal at Bayreuth. I don’t expect you to understand why I need to do it. You don’t have the imagination for it. You have no idea what it means to conduct a Ring cycle or even just a performance of The Flying Dutchman. That music doesn’t interest you because it has more to it than a couple of period Baroque violins. You simply can’t stand—”

  “Perverted music,” Gabriel shouted. “Perverted music, that’s what I say about Tristan!”

  “Stop it!” cried Nita, putting her hands over her ears. “Stop it! Not even a day has passed, it was only last evening . . .” She fell silent.

  Theo bowed his head. “The hypocrisy of it,” he muttered. “Do you know how many people are left here who still care about all that? They’re all dead! Fifty years have passed! Who cares?”

  “Father cared.”

  “Do you know that in recent months they’ve been playing Wagner on the national radio here in Israel? On the Voice of Music? Two or three times a week, without anyone making a fuss about it?”

  “Really?” said Gabriel. “Nobody made a fuss? The first time they played something from Tannhäuser, afterward the announcer had to apologize for the technical hitch. There was more than a minute of silence on the air, as if someone had sabotaged the broadcast. They also had to ask people to stop phoning the station. That’s how much nobody cared.” A dark flush spread over his face as he spoke, and he looked at Theo but avoided meeting his eyes.

  Theo drew on his cigarette. “It wasn’t because of me that he died,” he said weakly.

  “You shouldn’t have told him,” insisted Gabriel, but he sounded calmer, and he buried his face in his hands again.

  “I couldn’t lie to him,” pleaded Theo. “I’m not a child anymore, and I’m entitled to have opinions of my own. There’s no reason on earth . . . Wagner is too great to be ignored.”

  “From there to a Bayreuth in Jerusalem is a long way,” said Gabriel angrily.

  “That was only a figure of speech,” said Theo. “It’ll take time for—”

  “Then you should be more careful about what you say,” demanded Gabriel, and he raised his face, which was still flushed. “We have to decide about the shiva. Anyway, there won’t be a funeral.”

  Michael sensed his leg muscles tensing. Nita said: “There certainly will be. I’m not prepared to go along with donating Father’s body for medical research. He was murdered. As it is, the police will have an autopsy. I refuse to agree to donating the body.”

  “It won’t help you if he made his intention known. If he declared it officially, they have the legal right to honor his bequest of his own body,” said Gabriel.

  “He never declared it,” said Theo.

  “How do you know?” demanded Gabriel, looking him in the eyes.

  “Did you know about it?” asked Theo.

  “Yes, I did,” said Gabriel. “He spoke to me about his will.”

  “And to me, too,” said Theo. “That’s how I know that he wanted to amend the will to that effect. The question is if Spiegel knows, too. If Father consulted him at all. It’s a matter for lawyers. It has nothing to do with the family.”

  “I want him to have a proper funeral!” insisted Nita. “And not in a year’s time, either. I’m sick of all that Dutch scientific open-mindedness. I want . . . I want to bury my father,” she said defiantly. “At least let’s do that properly,” she muttered, bowing her head. “He didn’t know that he would die with his hands tied. He didn’t die decently, at least let’s bury him decently. And where’s Herzl? We have to inform Herzl!”

  The brothers looked at her and then at each other in silence. Michael felt his heart beat. If there was no funeral, if there was no obituary, if Balilty didn’t hear about the death, then maybe Nurse Nehama wouldn’t know abou
t it, either. But that, of course, was too much to hope for. Who is Herzl, he wondered, but he didn’t dare open his mouth.

  “And another thing,” said Nita in a determined and not in the least hollow voice, “there’s something else I want to say and want you to understand, once and for all! The business of not taking me into account is finished. I want to know what’s going on! Without exception! Everything you know I want to know, too. For your information, I’m thirty-eight years old.”

  “During the past year,” said Theo carefully, “it was impossible to talk to you about anything.”

  “You never tried!” she retorted. “You never came to tell me that you had a dream about a Wagner Festival in Jerusalem. Are you mad?” she suddenly asked as if she had only just understood the meaning of her words. “You talked about something like that to Father? After the Yehudi Menuhin and all that?”

  “Menuhin again!” protested Theo. “Nobody broke his hand,” he said wearily. “It’s one of those myths fostered by ideologues.”

  “I asked you: Why doesn’t anyone inform Herzl?”

  “You heard what we said to that policeman during the night,” said Gabriel. “Herzl’s disappeared. I’ve been trying to find him for two months now, in order to—”

  “What do you mean, he’s disappeared?” she pounced. “Has the earth swallowed him up? He can’t be abroad. He hates to travel out of the country. And he’s not dead, because we would have heard about it. How is it possible that after all these years, he won’t know about Father and won’t be at the funeral? Because I’m telling you that there’s going to be a funeral!”