by Batya Gur
“They took her away yesterday,” said Nita in a flat, hollow voice, as if the act of speaking was difficult for her. “And you disappeared, too.”
The young detective stood up. Suddenly Michael felt that it was not Theo and Nita the man had been sent to watch, but he himself, that he was not to be left alone with Nita. Along with the rage that surged up in him there was also a feeling of shame. He clenched his teeth, furious with the young man and with the procedures responsible for this humiliation. He almost demanded to know exactly what the man’s instructions were when he sensed with his body that the man was too close, that he was listening to every word they were saying.
“That was an amazing lecture,” he said to Nita, just to say something. Her lips parted and closed. “No? Wasn’t it amazing?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Not to me. It was nothing new,” she said in a heavy, tired voice. “I’ve often heard it before.”
“From Theo?” asked Michael, and as if to remind himself that they were brother and sister: “At home?”
“Not only from Theo. From his arguments with Gabi,” said Nita haltingly. “He worked all that stuff out in those quarrels. Part of it they agreed on. I used to love listening to them,” she mumbled and immediately put her hand over her mouth and looked at the young detective standing silently near them.
Michael looked at her steadily, hoping that he could convey with his eyes what he could not say now in words. He wanted to tell her that he was under orders, that it wasn’t by his choice. He wanted to ask her to trust him. He wanted to remind her of moments they had shared. Even to tell her about the baby, and about his efforts to renounce her because it was, however cruel to himself, the right thing to do for the little girl. And about the other times, when he had been determined to fight for her. But the detective did not move away, and so all Michael said, in a very low voice, was “Nita,” and he pressed her arm and looked into her eyes. It seemed to him that for a second they were illuminated by a great, gray pain, that she knew exactly what he felt, that she felt as he did, that she understood everything. Then he dared to give her a questioning look, asking for confirmation with his eyes. And she nodded. Very slowly she lowered her head, raised it, and then lowered it again.
At lunch the three policemen sat at a separate table. It was only then that Eli formally introduced him to Sergeant Ya’ir. They spoke little. Michael sat in a chair with his back to the red bougainvillea creeping around the window, a portrait of Lillian Bentwich on the wall beside him. At a nearby table sat Theo and Nita with a tall man with flushed cheeks and wavy, graying fair hair whose horn-rimmed glasses glinted so as to hide his eyes, but whose halting English, loud voice, and booming laughter they could hear very well. Having once seen his photograph, on an old record jacket, Michael had no doubt that this man, who had embraced Nita and stroked her curly head when she entered the main building, and who had warmly shaken Theo’s hand, was Johann Schenk.
Since they barely spoke—inhibited by the presence of the talented youngsters seated at the tables surrounding them—Sergeant Ya’ir busied himself with his food, helping himself to more of the boiled cabbage and willingly accepting a second portion of the dried-out turkey. And since Eli looked tired, and seemed preoccupied by questions raised by what he called the team’s division of authority, about which he muttered to himself from time to time, Michael was free to eavesdrop on what was being said by Theo and Nita and the great singer Johann Schenk himself. It was not Schenk on the recording of Die Winterreise Becky Pomeranz had sent to him twenty-three years ago when Yuval was born. But hearing the work on the new CD he had bought himself a few years ago, he had been captivated by this man’s warm, thrilling, and occasionally frightening voice, especially in the last, desolate song.
A few minutes passed before Michael grasped that Johann Schenk was talking about a production of Don Giovanni in Salzburg. “The Commendatore’s head is smashed to bits!” he cried out loudly and with a bellow of laughter. “And Donna Elvira! What he did to Elvira!” Here he sketched a swaying figure in the air with his big arms to depict the singer floating over the stage tied to a trapeze. Then he bent over his soup, polished it off, and went on talking. Now Michael heard him mention the city of Dresden and the STASI, the East German secret police, and some people’s names. Finally Michael heard him saying loudly that he had demanded to see his own secret police file.
“Why?” asked Theo, also very loudly. “Why did you want to know? Weren’t you afraid of what you might find there?”
Johann Schenk banged his fork on the edge of the table, his face grew very flushed, and in the big room, where everyone else was talking in whispers, the answer was clearly heard. He could no longer live without knowing, he cried, which of his friends had betrayed him. He wanted to know exactly what was there about him in the STASI files, he said in his booming voice, his eyes on the dessert tray of Jell-O gleaming redly in small glass dishes. Theo bent over and whispered something. Johann Schenk looked with alarm at the policemen’s table. Nita pushed away her dessert. She hasn’t tasted a thing, thought Michael as he saw her stretch out a trembling hand for the water pitcher, and he wondered angrily how he could have allowed her to be here today.
“Because there was nothing you could do about it. That’s what she wanted, and the funeral won’t be till the day after tomorrow,” said Eli. Only then did Michael realize that he had unwittingly spoken aloud. He looked around apprehensively. Eli studied his face. “How long is it going to take here today?” he asked.
“I have to be alone in the room with them when Theo and Nita are working with the singer,” Michael whispered urgently. “And I have to talk to this Johann Schenk by myself.” He looked out of the corner of his eye at Ya’ir, who maintained his silence.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s okay,” muttered Eli uncomfortably. “But you’d better talk to Balilty first, because Shorer told us, and especially him,” he said, jerking his head in Ya’ir’s direction, “that at least two of us have to be with them all the time,” he said apologetically with increasing discomfort. He stood up heavily, went over to the counter, and came back to the table with a pitcher of water and sat down again. So uncomfortable did he appear, his torso twisted toward the grand piano in the corner of the room in order to avoid looking at Michael, that Michael felt sorry for him and fell silent himself and stared at the side door and at the portrait of Lillian Bentwich.
“Don’t worry, I’ll phone him now,” he finally said. He rose to his feet. “I myself don’t want Nita to be left alone for a second.” Michael saw Johann Schenk’s side glance as he passed his table, wondering what Theo had told him. And then he reminded himself that a policeman nearby was enough to alarm a former citizen of the German Democratic Republic.
And it was apparently this deep fear, from which Johann Schenk could not free himself, that was the main reason for his outburst at the beginning of the master class. Only a young pianist and Theo and Nita were present in Beit-Lillian’s big hall. While the others enjoyed a post-lunch rest period, the pianist was working on lieder accompaniment with the great singer. Nita sat at the back of the hall, in the right-hand corner. The interior of the hall was unlit, in contrast to the bright light shining on the lawn outside the open doors, where Michael stood with Eli Bahar and Sergeant Ya’ir. Theo sat at the piano, turning pages for the pianist, a boy of about Yuval the violinist’s age, who was starting to play Die Winterreise.
For some minutes he repeated the opening chords again and again, the great baritone stopping each time to explain something. Theo spoke to him, too—it was impossible to hear their comments from outside the hall, only the echoes of their voices and the sound of the piano—and finally they allowed him to play the chords without interference.
Johann Schenk began to sing.
Michael stood on the lawn listening. “A stranger I came here,/And a stranger I shall leave it,” the words echoed inside him. “I cannot plan my journey,/Nor can I choose the time,/I alone must show my
self/The way in this night’s darkness.” It was broad daylight outside. The yellow sun glared on the grass, and inside the hall was shrouded in a heavy gloom. Theo turned the page quickly.
“I pass through the door . . . /I write and hang a little note on it: ‘Good night,’/So you will know I thought of you,” sang the great baritone standing next to the piano and looking at the young pianist. He paused for a moment.
Michael felt that he was singing for him alone. And standing there on the lawn outside the hall, he felt a cold hand clutching at his heart and tightening its grip on it. He felt drawn to the darkness inside and entered the hall. And since Johann Schenk was facing the piano, he did not notice Michael as he sang of the frozen tears. Only after the lament on the tears flowing from the burning heart, after singing the words “the whole winter’s ice,” did he pause, take an ironed handkerchief from his pocket, wipe his face, and turn around.
When he began to shout, the boy, alarmed, stopped playing. Theo spread out his arms. “Out of the question!” shouted the great man in his German-accented English. “Out of the question!” he upbraided Theo. Then he turned to Nita. “Them I did not invite and with them I will not sing. This is a private matter!” he shouted, banging on the side of the piano. “This is not a concert, and it is out of the question that people from outside, and Polizei”—the German word rang out amid the awkward English—“are present here!”
Michael retreated, breathless and filled with consternation, to the corner of the lawn where Eli Bahar and Sergeant Ya’ir were standing. He composed his features and calmed his now noisy breathing. At that moment he felt as if there was nothing to him but a curse. As if his very existence, here on the lawn, represented brute force and oppression, besmirching the music. None of them, except for Nita, knew how much he loved Die Winterreise. And in the eyes of the great artist the presence of a policeman at the doorway of the hall was a desecration.
Minutes passed before the baritone’s singing voice was heard again, and over half an hour before Johann Schenk finished the penultimate song of the cycle. Then there was silence.
When Michael approached the doorway again, he heard him explaining to Nita, who had not moved from her place, that he would not sing the last song, “Der Leiermann,” now, because if he did he would be unable to sing it again at the concert that evening. This song, said Johann Schenk—who now was speaking to the accompanist—should never be sung more than once a week. After it there could only be silence.
But it was precisely this song, the saddest of all, the song of the living dead man, that Michael wanted to hear now in the darkness of the hall. There was something absolutely right about it for the way he felt today. About the chilling despair and renunciation of the sad, almost frozen voice with which the protagonist asks the old organgrinder to accompany his song. How empty his own arms were now. Someone else, he thought, is now stroking my baby’s smooth skin. But then, defeated, he reflected: My baby? Why mine? How mine?
Michael bravely reentered the hall. To his astonishment the singer descended rapidly from the wooden podium, came up to him, and began to apologize.
“A rehearsal is a very intimate thing,” he said, embarrassed. “And for me this lesson with a young artist was a kind of rehearsal. Later there will be a master class, but that will be for television and not a problem. But this time!” And again he mentioned that no one had prepared him for the presence of police while he was singing, although he should have known, he said with a sigh, because of what had happened to Gabriel van Gelden. He had heard the details that morning. “What a terrible tragedy!” And now he was perfectly willing to devote a few minutes of his break to the police, if he could be of any assistance. The late Mr. van Gelden was so talented, and he had seen him not long ago in Amsterdam.
Not far from Beit-Lillian, in a corner from which the tiled roof of a tiny house was visible, Michael asked Johann Schenk if Gabi had asked him to take part in performing a Baroque work. The man looked completely taken aback, and also frightened, with the characteristic fear of contact with the authorities felt by people who had grown up under a totalitarian regime. Again he wiped his broad face with his handkerchief, cleared his throat, and said that Gabriel van Gelden had indeed, over a month ago, at their last meeting, shown him two pages, written out in a modern hand, of a work unfamiliar to him. Although Gabriel had refused to say what and by whom it was, he assured him that it was a Baroque masterpiece of inestimable importance. The part was written for a bass, but since there were no really serious basses today, he had offered it to him, even though Schenk was a baritone. Now he asked how Michael knew about it, since its existence was so strictly confidential that he had even been asked to sign a document to that effect.
Instead of answering his question, Michael asked him whether he still had the two pages. The singer, alarmed, said no, he certainly did not. Gabriel van Gelden had refused to leave them with him.
Michael asked if anyone else knew about his meeting with Gabriel.
Schenk shook his head. But he trusted Gabriel. Everyone knew what a serious musician he was. And he had worked with Theo a number of times on Wagner, and also on Mozart operas. He had the highest respect for him, too. And for Nita as well. For the whole family, a wonderful family. And whenever they performed in Europe, even when the Berlin Wall still stood—he himself was allowed to travel freely for concerts abroad because of his international reputation—he had been in touch with them. They had forgiven him for being German, he said with a half-smile, and so he was prepared on trust to undertake the commitment before he knew what it was all about. He only knew that someone had found something that would create an unprecedented sensation. Gabriel van Gelden had assured him of it, and Gabriel was not a man who made wild statements. He was a reserved person, and totally reliable.
Michael made his way back to Eli Bahar and Sergeant Ya’ir, who had remained standing on the lawn outside the hall. “Some bat must have spat out a seed here,” said Sergeant Ya’ir to Eli, and he pointed at a nearby loquat tree: “You can see that it wasn’t planted here on purpose. We have these trees on our moshav, too.”
“And what’s that tree there, the one like a Christmas tree?” asked Eli, who had not yet caught sight of Michael.
“It’s a fir,” said Sergeant Ya’ir.
Michael raised his eyes to the crest of the tree, saw the flags above the electricity wires, and coughed. They both turned at once to face him.
“How much longer are we going to be waiting here?” demanded Eli. “How long is this thing here going to last?”
“It’s supposed to go on till six,” said Michael calmly, “but I’m not staying here with you. I’m going back now. I arranged it with Balilty. There are some things I have to take care of at headquarters, and the two of you will come back with them later.”
Eli took off his sunglasses and was about to say something. But he changed his mind and put the glasses on again without saying anything.
“I want to leave with you a few questions for Nita,” Michael said to Eli. “I want you to put them to her later, but not when her brother’s around.”
“Why don’t you ask her now yourself?” said Eli with a generous wave of his arm.
“Because . . . it’s complicated. I’ll leave them for you in writing, and I want you to record them and her answers.”
“You can ask her yourself,” said Eli, “and record the answers yourself, right now.” He looked at Sergeant Ya’ir, who dropped his eyes. “Tell her to come outside for a minute,” said Eli to the sergeant.
Nita emerged from the hall and closed her eyes against the sun. She looked slender and fragile to him as she stood in the doorway. He hurried over to her. Behind him he heard Ya’ir’s footsteps, but the sergeant did not dare come close to them.
“I can’t talk to you now,” said Michael in a choked voice, “but there’s something I have to ask you.”
“Why can’t you talk to me?” she asked expressionlessly as she shaded her eyes with a big hand.
Her face hardened.
“I can’t tell you that, either. Just tell me if Gabi ever spoke to you about a requiem mass by Vivaldi.”
She took her hand down from her forehead and looked at him as if he had disappointed her in every way. “What?” she asked blankly.
“Gabi, a requiem by Vivaldi. Did he ever say anything to you about it?” he asked in a choked voice, looking at her extremely dilated pupils.
“Vivaldi never wrote a requiem,” said Nita, averting her eyes as if she was too embarrassed to look at his face. “Don’t you know there’s no Vivaldi requiem?”
“In other words, Gabi never said anything about it to you?”
“How could he say anything about it to me if there’s no such thing?” said Nita in her dead voice. She raised her hand again to shade her eyes. “Is that all you wanted?”
He bowed his head.
“They took the baby, they took her away.”
He nodded.
She looked into his eyes as if she were seeking a sign. “And that’s it?” she asked, and she stared at him for a moment as he stood silent. “So now there’s nothing,” she mumbled, starting to walk slowly back to the hall. He watched her. A few steps away stood Sergeant Ya’ir, and not far from him stood Eli Bahar, he, too, watching her walking away.
