by Batya Gur
He gave her a hard stare. “Are you working with me or not?” he gambled.
Tzilla blushed. After a moment of silence she said: “What kind of a question is that? Of course I—”
“Then please get to work.” Her face fell. “Let’s all get to work and stop wasting time,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “Let me worry about the rest. After all these years you can give me a bit of credit. And I promise you I’ll talk to Shorer. I’m not trying to deceive anyone. But meanwhile get hold of Balilty for me—and send her away,” he said, nodding in the direction of the skinny girl with the eager look in the tight jeans and long T-shirt. “Now I’m going to Theo Van Gelden’s office.”
6
His Majesty Sent for Me
Theo van Gelden stood over Nita, who was still lying huddled in the same position. When Michael knocked once briefly and immediately walked in, Theo started back with an expression of alarm on his face. “There’s no change,” he said, touching her arm. “It’s like a coma, she hasn’t moved at all, I don’t know—”
“There’s no point in trying to wake her,” said Michael after holding her wrist and feeling her pulse, which was still weak and slow. “The doctor said it would take a few hours, so why don’t you just let her sleep?”
“I thought we could go home,” said Theo, and he bit his lower lip. His gray hair emphasized the yellowish tinge of his face. He took off his glasses and parted his handsome lips: “I . . . I can’t stand being cooped up here for hours, I’ve got a terrible headache, and the thought . . . I wanted . . . And I can’t leave her here alone.” He looked at Michael as if asking for permission to leave her, but Michael only shook his head. “We’ll take her home soon, but meanwhile you stay here with her,” he said.
Theo nodded. His face took on a look of ostentatious resignation. He looked at Michael and nodded again, staring at him as if expecting praise for his obedience. Finally he put on his glasses again, pushed his hands into his pockets, and began to pace from the door to the window and back again, with the measured steps Michael remembered from the time in Nita’s living room after Felix van Gelden’s death. He paced to and fro, stopped at the couch, rubbed his cheek as if scraping his hand against the several-days-old bristles, and rubbed his forehead. His fingers lingered on the small dimple on his chin as he said: “I have to notify . . . cancel . . . I don’t know what . . . Japan . . . the concert the day after tomorrow where Gabi was supposed to play in the Brahms Double Concerto . . .” again he looked at Michael expectantly. “You must think I’m a terrible person,” he said, “but I can’t help thinking about these things. I don’t know how I can think about them now,” he apologized, “but I’m not responsible for my thoughts,” he announced, raising his hands defensively. “I’m not used to it, so much death at once, someone should tell me how. . . . What can I do? I feel like a person watching a horror movie . . . as if I’m not here at all.”
As Michael removed the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, took one out, and went over to the big window, Theo sat down at the desk, clasped his hands, and looked at the portrait of Leonard Bernstein, his face contorted in pain and pleasure, his head thrown back, and his crossed hands holding a baton against his chest. The photograph hung on the wall next to the window, opposite a photo of a sizable orchestra during a concert; only the back of the conductor, who was sitting in a wheelchair on the podium and waving his skinny arms, was visible. It looked as if the trembling of the arms had been caught by the camera.
The window at which Michael stood overlooked the Old City walls and one end of the King David Hotel. He gazed at the view and at the smoke escaping from his mouth, and for a moment he felt completely at a loss. He knew that he, too, should be in the lobby, beginning to conduct the interrogations, examining with his own eyes the string players’ knuckles for cuts.
Two police cars were already parked at the end of the street, and in the one closest to the building he could make out the blurred figures of two uniformed policemen waiting in postures of bored anticipation. He thought about the body, wrapped in a shiny black plastic bag, strapped to a stretcher, being carried to the ambulance where no doubt Solomon would sit in the front seat, humming insights on life and the world into the ears of the driver. But Michael went on lingering by the window, next to Theo, waiting, to tell the truth, for Danny Balilty, as if his arrival would signal the beginning of the real action. Why he should be waiting so expectantly for Balilty, as if his coming would solve his problems, he had no idea.
He turned his back to the window, stood opposite the big photograph of the orchestra with the conductor in the wheelchair, and looked at his stooped, hunched back. “Who’s the conductor?” he asked, and Theo looked up absently: “Stravinsky, here in Jerusalem, more than thirty years ago, in sixty-one,” he said, and he looked at the photograph as if it were an old acquaintance he hadn’t seen for years.
“I didn’t know he’d been in Israel,” said Michael, surprised.
“Once, near the end of his life. He conducted the Firebird. I was eighteen then, almost nineteen.” Theo smiled and looked at his hands. “They carried him up to the stage like a sack—until he began to conduct. Then he was . . . well, not a sack,” he said with a giggle. “He was amazing—everyone was stunned. Because of that concert—okay, not only because of it, but it was definitely a turning point—I finally made up my mind to become a conductor.” He shook his head, as if trying to banish the memory, and looked at Michael, who now gave him a short summary of the facts, taking care not to describe Gabriel’s, position before he was murdered, and not to mention the word “string.” Among other questions, he slipped in one about Nita’s cello. “I understand that it’s a very valuable instrument,” he said, and he stole a glance at Theo, who said: “Of course, there are very few like it in the world.”
“I didn’t see it in the hall,” said Michael. “Did she leave it somewhere?”
“It’s here, in the cabinet behind the door,” said Theo with dreamy indifference. “She put it there after the rehearsal, before . . .” and Michael, who was afraid that any question about the strings could expose what he was trying to suppress, ground out his cigarette stub in a rusty lid on the windowsill and went over to the cabinet. He opened the brown sliding door and looked at the piles of scores threatening to spill out. On the floor of the cabinet, which covered the wall behind the door, under the hem of a big coat, lay the familiar case. He pulled it out and removed the instrument, ignoring Theo’s stare as he silently and attentively followed his movements. Michael kneeled down next to the case, which he laid on the soft carpet, close to the chair on which Theo was sitting, and rummaged inside it, touching the cube of rosin, fingering the green felt lining of the case, and removing the semitransparent envelope. There were two strings coiled up inside it. Before his eyes he saw her fingers threading and pulling, and with all his might he tried to remember how many spare strings she had then in the living room, but all he could see were her busy, competent hands and the expression of concentration on her face. Only she would be able to tell him how many there were to begin with. He spoke in a dry, indifferent tone as he asked Theo about the instrument.
“No, it’s not a Stradivarius,” Theo confirmed, and he bent over the cello lying between them. “But a 1737 Amati from Cremona is something, too. Amati specialized in cellos.” Theo turned to look at Nita, who did not move, and he sighed. “A Jewish millionaire who was very moved by her concert with the Chicago Symphony gave it to her. I remember it as vividly as if it was yesterday.” A spasm of a smile crossed his face, and once more he launched on a compulsive monologue: “She really did play it well, the Elgar Cello Concerto. Do you know it?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued: “The piece Jacqueline du Pré made so famous. Maybe you saw her play it on television, a brilliant performance, no doubt about it. In my opinion,” he said, scratching his head, “the concerto itself is an irritating piece of no special significance, but Jackie really made it. When Nita performed it, Jackie
was no longer able to play. And the truth is that I thought that our father should have given her a cello like this long before that concert in Chicago, and I told him so, but—well, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve heard Nita play, you know what she’s capable of, when she actually gets down to playing, that is, because for the past year she hasn’t been playing, she canceled engagements—never mind, yes, she deserves this cello.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Michael, stroking the reddish surface. “I understand it’s a special wood.”
“It sure is,” Theo murmured. “Years of drying, with special processes. It’s a big deal.”
“Are the strings special, too?” asked Michael, carefully plucking the strings one after the other, pinching the thinnest string twice.
Theo narrowed his eyes and gave him a penetrating look. “In the old days they used to be gut and the thinner strings were sometimes made of silk. You could tell which string belonged to which instrument. Every cello, every violin had its own strings. You could even tell who had made them. But in this century they began to make them of metal and plastic. For years now we’ve had standard strings of two types, concert and normal, and there are only a few factories that produce them.” He rose from his seat, shook his legs, pushed his hands into his pockets, and resumed his tiring walk from one end of the room to the other.
“Does Nita have concert or normal strings?”
“Concert, of course,” said Theo.
“There are only two spare strings here,” said Michael.
Theo did not stop. His head was bowed, as if he were measuring his steps, and he muttered something unclear.
“How many spare strings does she usually have?” asked Michael, keeping his voice was casual as possible.
Theo shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t have a clue,” he said absently. “I haven’t been privy to Nita’s habits for years. I suppose she must have a few more at home.”
A loud sigh and a single sob rising from the couch froze them both. But Nita’s eyes did not open after the sob, although she straightened out her legs under the blanket and then clasped them to her stomach again. There was a suspenseful silence for a few seconds, and after it became clear that she had gone back to sleep, Michael asked, in a low voice, the question that always grated on him: “Did your brother have any enemies? Anyone special that you know about?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for the last hour—who could have done . . . who could have wanted . . . I haven’t any idea,” said Theo, and he sat down on the padded chair behind his desk. He spread his hands out and looked at them in turn, feeling his knuckles, which were big and broad like Nita’s. Michael stole a glance at them, automatically checking for signs of scratches. But Theo van Gelden’s hands, like Nita’s and those of the concertmaster and the other two string players, were smooth and unmarked. “You saw him yourself,” said Theo, shrugging his shoulders. “You couldn’t say he had any real enemies. I, for example, have a lot more,” he said, snickering. “The wonder is that nobody did it to me, that I’m not the one lying there,” he said, nodded toward the door. Then his face grew grave again. He rubbed it with both hands, and then once more he spread out his hands and looked at them. “There’ve been all kinds of pressures lately, because of changes he wanted to make in his ensemble. You know that he’s started a period instrument Baroque ensemble. He was a great perfectionist, and there was great competition for places in it. You can’t imagine the fuss and commotion. And he was full of plans about it, about who would play and who wouldn’t. How they’d be paid and how much. He picked up and considered all kinds of payment methods, one from a London ensemble, which pays its members in reverse: the fewer rehearsals needed, the more they’re paid. It’s an incentive for them to practice hard at home, which is something that never happens here. Nobody here does any work at home, because the more rehearsals, the more overtime. There were hard feelings, definitely, all kinds of grievances—but real enemies? To account for something like this?” His hands went up to his throat.
“The Double Concerto you were working on—wouldn’t Avigdor, the concertmaster, normally have played the violin solo?”
“The concertmaster doesn’t necessarily play the solo violin part. It’s actually quite rare, especially in Romantic music, for the concertmaster to play solo, even when he’s one of two soloists. Anyway, I see the solo parts in this Brahms concerto as so individual, so soloistic, that I would never give them to an orchestra’s concertmaster and principal cellist, however good they may be.”
“But in your previous concert, the one with the William Tell Overture, Gabriel acted as concertmaster.”
“So what?” said Theo indignantly.
“Don’t you think something like that could give rise to bitterness in the regular concertmaster? Avigdor is your regular concertmaster, no?”
“Yes, yes,” said Theo impatiently, “but several other of the best violinists sometimes act as concertmaster, and in any event Avigdor is always paid the same. In fact, he was delighted when Gabi was concertmaster. He saw it as an honor to give way to him.”
“Sometimes I wonder how people in an orchestra feel when the notes they play are swallowed up again and again by the sound of the other instruments or when they have to play the same two notes over and over. How much frustration must there be in waiting for their turn to play, and to play whatever everyone else is playing.”
Theo interrupted him: “You have a very romantic idea of how these things work. I’m not saying that people don’t burn out after twenty thirty years, but on the whole things go well. When there’s an atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm, people forget things like that. You can see it in the Chicago Symphony, no one feels superfluous there. That’s how it is in a really good orchestra. In Berlin, well, there the members get paid by the concert, and they share in the orchestra’s profits. And they pick their conductors themselves. That’s unusual. But sometimes, especially here, orchestras behave like government bureaus, and naturally there’s a lot of routine, and it’s a job like any other. There are grievances, complaints, and demands for change, and backbiting and scores to settle. But not in this orchestra, and in general a lot depends on the conductor. A good conductor can raise an orchestra up, sweep it along. Anyway, have you seen Avigdor? Could he kill anybody? And certainly not like that.”
“I don’t know anything about Gabriel’s private life,” said Michael. “Nita hasn’t told me much about him. I don’t even know if there’s anyone who has to be notified. All I remember is that he was married once, a long time ago, and that he doesn’t have any children. But maybe he lives with someone, maybe there’s a woman he’s close to. In any case, family has to be notified.”
“What family?” said Theo dismissively. “We’re all the family he has.”
“Perhaps his ex-wife then?”
“She’s been living in Germany for the past seven years,” said Theo, “and there’s no contact between them. And certainly not with us. She’s a terrible woman. Vulgar, greedy, all she ever gave him was trouble. None of my wives was anything like her, thank God. And you should know,” he said, raising his voice and waving a finger, “I’ve had a lot of wives. I’m an expert on wives,” he announced without a smile. “He never had any children, and there are no relatives worth mentioning, either.” Then he lowered his voice to a hesitant whisper and dropped his eyes. “But there is . . . someone . . . maybe we should tell Izzy.”
“Izzy,” Michael repeated. “Who’s Izzy?”
“He . . . he lives with Gabi, in his apartment,” said Theo, rising to his feet and pushing his hands into his pockets.
There was no room for delicacy now. “Your brother lives with a man? In the sense of living together, of having a homosexual relationship with him?”
“I think so,” said Theo, and he resumed his pacing. But this time, instead of keeping his eyes on the ground, he stared at the window and cleared his throat before saying: “I’ve never asked him directly, but they weren’t just apartm
ent mates. I have no problem with it. No problem at all. Live and let live, it doesn’t bother me, and a lot of artists . . . musicians . . . you wouldn’t believe how many. . . . When I first came to New York I couldn’t believe it. Copland, Mitropoulos, and of course . . .” He looked at the photograph of Bernstein. “In short, it’s quite natural in our profession, maybe it’s even somehow connected with it in essence.”
So natural and obvious that no one had ever mentioned it, not even Nita, thought Michael as he asked: “Is that the man I saw after your father . . . when you were sitting . . . who came to Nita’s with Gabriel. The fair-haired, short one?”
“That’s right,” said Theo, nodding with an expression of relief. “So you’ve already met him. They’ve been living together for over two years now,” he explained, “but we’ve never spoken about it, we never made a thing of it, even though I’m sure that it wasn’t easy for my father.” He sighed. “Now the whole thing seems silly,” he whispered, and he chuckled hoarsely. “Death always puts things in the right proportion.”
“So your father knew.”
“I’m sure he knew,” said Theo. “But he never talked about it.”
“Nita’s never said a word.”
Theo shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe because he hasn’t been around recently. And anyway, do you two talk about everything?”
“Who? Who hasn’t been around recently?”
“Izzy. But maybe she just didn’t think about it,” he said, and it was obvious that he didn’t believe it himself. “Izzy was away at a conference, I think, of mathematicians or computer people. I don’t understand that stuff. After that he went on a trip, and he came back . . . he came back the day that our father . . . or the day before that. He was in Holland, actually. And Nita’s so shy anyway, she’s not a big talker at the best of times.”
“If they lived together he has to be notified,” said Michael. “And I’ll have to talk to him, of course.”
