Danse Macabre

by Gerald Elias

  “That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is what the defense would have you believe. The State’s case rests, confident that you will believe what you will believe.”

  BTower, sitting next to Rosenthal at the defense table, said, “I know what the jury will believe they believe. I just hope they give me death and not life without parole.” After just under four hours of deliberation, the jury found BTower guilty of the murder of René Allard. He was also right about the sentence.

  VALSE

  FOUR

  ONE YEAR LATER

  DAY 1: THURSDAY

  Even for August, the morning was unseasonably hot and humid. The relentless droning of the horsefly and of the NPR pledge drive competed to send Jacobus’s irritability over the edge. He lay inert and panting on the musty sofa to which his back was sticking, his head perched awkwardly on the plywood exposed by the couch arm’s frayed fabric. He shifted his buttocks, seeking a less uncomfortable position for his increasingly arthritic, aging right hip. The fly landed in his left ear with a pugnacious tzzzt. Jacobus instinctively responded, boxing himself painfully as the fly, satisfied with the annoyance it had achieved, calmly sought greener pastures.

  “Here’s a good one,” said Nathaniel, finishing a bag of Cheetos. “Seven letters. ‘Leopold, Arturo, or Lenny.’ M blank blank S blank blank blank.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?” wheezed Jacobus, blowing cigarette smoke out of his mouth. He crushed the butt in his favorite ashtray, what once might have been a back of a Stradivarius violin, which sat on a folding bridge chair next to the couch on which he was lying. Beside the ashtray was his favorite mug, a toby jug of a blind pirate. The coffee in the mug, abandoned shortly after it was brewed at dawn, was beginning to be reheated by the day’s quickly increasing temperature. By now the flavor would be bitter and rancid, reflecting Jacobus’s mood.

  “Like what? Killin’ myself on nicotine?” replied Nathaniel.

  “Hey, it’s my house. I don’t believe there are any No Smoking signs posted here.”

  After his testimony at the trial of BTower, Jacobus concluded he had had enough and decided he would gradually withdraw from decades of full-time violin teaching. The trial had, unpredictably, left him feeling empty and unfulfilled, unable to commit himself with full energy to his students’ needs. He had continued working with his current students until they went on to bigger and better things, or quit, while not taking on any new ones. By this method of attrition he’d winnowed his studio to only a few stalwarts—masochists, he called them—and even those came to see him only intermittently. He hadn’t yet concluded, though, which was worse: telling one faceless student after another what his or her problems were, or not having students to tell them what their problems were. In any event, in his semiretirement he was feeling restless and even more ornery than usual.

  “Schmuck,” Jacobus said.

  “Say what?” asked Nathaniel. He was frequently surprised but rarely offended by Jacobus’s out-of-the-blue remarks. Williams had been Jacobus’s longtime friend from the time they had performed in a trio as Oberlin conservatory students after World War II. They were an improbable pair: Jacobus—blind, eccentric, haggard, an iconoclast; Williams—a large (very large) African American, thoughtful, organized, congenial. Their paths had diverged when Williams became a freelance consultant to insurance companies in the field of musical instrument theft and fraud. Jacobus, whose promising career as a concert violinist was nipped in the bud when he was stricken by foveomacular dystrophy—a complex term for sudden adult blindness—had became a renowned, if unorthodox, teacher.

  “You said seven letters,” said Jacobus. “Three conductors—Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein. The answer is schmuck.”

  “Ah! Wait a minute; you’ve got the M and S backward.”

  “No I don’t. The puzzle’s wrong. It’s ‘schmuck.’”

  “I’ve got it,” said Nathaniel. “It’s ‘maestro.’”

  “Whatever.” Even lying semicomatose on his back on his frayed and mildewed couch, in the dingy living room of his Berkshire home—what others might call a shack—Jacobus felt hot and prickly. The blades of his 1950s-era double window fan were caked in grease and dust. One of the fans was inoperable; the other was ineffectual except in regard to the volume of noise it made. It had two speeds, loud and loud, so Jacobus, who hated noise, never turned it on. Though his brown flannel shirt was fully unbuttoned, Jacobus could feel the sweat already beginning to pool on his belly.

  “So,” began Nathaniel, “what’s a four-letter word beginning with O for ‘Business is up and down?’ ”

  “‘Otis.’ Where’s Yumi? She’s late for her lesson.”

  “Tanglewood traffic’s probably holding her up,” said Nathaniel. “She’ll be here. She’s never missed a lesson yet. Uh-oh.”

  “What’s ‘uh-oh’? You get another word wrong?”

  “No, just here in the Arts section. Lilburn has a story about BTower. ‘Rarely has a star fallen in as precipitous and calamitous a degree as BTower’s. Just a short time ago, at the zenith of stardom in both the classical and pop music galaxies, the onetime darling of the concert stage now finds himself a burned-out supernova, close to his own extinction. BTower’s legal team, headed by Cy Rosenthal, confirmed that BTower has adamantly refused to allow death penalty attorney Thomas O’Neil of the Long Island law firm Palmese, Leibowitz, and O’Neil to request any further appeals delaying or preventing his execution. BTower’s dyed-in-the-wool fans have nevertheless organized round-the-clock candlelight vigils outside Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, and in front of Carnegie Hall, demanding clemency from the governor, and vowing to stay there until BTower’s scheduled execution, seven days from today. A prevalent claim from his supporters is that the trial and punishment of BTower was racially tinged from the outset; others simply lament the imminent loss of yet a second musical icon as a consequence of the ongoing tragedy of the René Allard murder. Rosenthal says—’ ”

  “Never mind what that shyster says!” Jacobus barked. He was up and pacing. “When he calls, tell him I’m out.”

  “Why would he call you?”

  “To go governor groveling with him. For clemency. The blind man who taught the con, hat in hand. ‘Please, Your Excellency! Please spare the life of this poor young man. I know he’s done a terrible thing and he should pay, but please let him live. You are his last hope. What a tragedy it would be, blah blah blah.’ Forget it.”

  “Well, if he does call—and I’m not saying he will—why don’t you just tell him that?”

  “Because,” Jacobus said, hearing the knock on the door, “I’ve got better things to do.”

  “Like what? Lyin’ there swattin’ flies?”

  Jacobus was saved from a response when the kitchen door with its torn screen creaked opened on rusty springs and then slammed shut, and his prize student, Yumi Shinagawa, entered without ceremony, secretly filling Jacobus with pride. When years earlier she came to him for her first lesson from a small mountain town in Japan, she had bowed in the traditional Japanese manner. He had impressed upon her that as a violinist the only entity she had to bow to was the music, and now, finally, she understood. Yumi had become as much of a daughter to Jacobus—who had no family—as if she were his own, though at this point she was less of a student and more of a young professional whose playing just needed an occasional spit and polish from Jacobus. At first she had all the attributes of a good student: intelligent, hardworking, dedicated, and extremely talented; a rough-hewn teenager with boundless potential. But she had something else too: a perilous family secret. Not only did Jacobus develop her exceptional aptitude on the violin, he had unraveled her secret and ultimately saved her family from ignominious exposure in their role in the theft of the infamous Piccolino Stradivarius, and she in turn had saved his life.

  “Sorry I’m late, Jake,” said Yumi. As she headed directly into his cluttered study he grunted, buttoned up his sh
irt with only moderate inaccuracy, and followed her footsteps. Yumi hunted for a flat surface to put her violin case and found one atop a precarious pile of LPs on the floor. “I had to finish packing. This is my first tour with the quartet and I couldn’t decide what I need to take.”

  “That’s not my problem, is it?” said Jacobus. “What are you playing today?”

  “Beethoven. ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata.”

  “Play, then.”

  Yumi tuned her violin, then, without even warming up, dove right into what may be the most taxing sonata in the violin repertoire, a sonata that Beethoven himself, on the title page of the music, wrote “like a concerto” for violin and piano. Starting with the Adagio sostenuto and throughout the relentless Presto, Yumi played with flawless and dynamic energy.

  “Very impressive,” Jacobus said after the final tumultuous A-Minor chords of the movement echoed into silence.

  “Thank you, Jake,” Yumi said, out of breath.

  “But not very musical.”

  Yumi laughed. “I knew there would be a ‘but.’ What didn’t you like?”

  “First of all, why the hell are you moving around so much? Trying to put on some kind of show?”

  “How can you tell I’m moving around if you can’t see me?”

  “Just by listening, my dear hyperactive one. When the sound goes in and out like an AM station in the middle of the night, it means you’re twisting your body and changing the orientation of the violin to the audience. Your sound is suspiciously inconsistent, which means you’re changing the angle of your bow arm in relation to the instrument, causing the bow to slide all over the place, which means you’re raising and lowering the violin to the extremes. When you stomp all over the floor—”

  “Okay, Jake, I think I’m getting the message.”

  “But worse than that, I got the feeling that you were using the music as a vehicle for you to try to impress the audience. That’s ass backwards. You should be a liaison between the music and the listener, not the center of attention. For example, you shouldn’t vibrate like crazy in the second theme. It’s a hymn, not a scream. Beethoven wasn’t a religious guy, but he knew where his bread was buttered so he’s not going to yell when he prays to the almighty, is he? And the way you whacked at the eighth notes. What’re you trying to do, kill the violin? In the end it’s not impressive. It’s oppressive.”

  “But what about the idea of musical personality? Isn’t that what you always said separated violinists like Allard and Heifetz from ‘the rabble’?”

  “Personality, yes. Caricature, no. Interpretation, yes. Imitation, no. Isaac Stern, yes. BTower, no. People like Stern and Allard did their homework. Allard studied with Eugene Ysaÿe, the greatest violinist at the beginning of the twentieth century and a damn fine composer too, and went to the Paris Conservatory. You think they would have let him get away without doing his counterpoint homework? Just think for a moment about Allard’s accomplishment. He played exactly the same program at Carnegie Hall once every ten years, from 1942 until the night he died: Leclair, Debussy, and Franck sonatas. Then, for encores, his little improvisations and finally ‘Danse Macabre’—people came to expect it, like the Boston Pops playing ‘Stars and Stripes.’ Most musicians, they play the same program twice, the second time you yawn, but with Allard, it was always a different interpretation, yet somehow always in good taste and always distinctly Allard. You know, there’s a commemorative CD of all six concerts that’s just come out on Vanguard. I suggest you listen to it. Guys like Allard knew the music inside out, so their personality was just a natural extension of the composer’s.”

  Jacobus heard the phone ring in the living room.

  “Sorry, he’s out,” Jacobus heard Nathaniel say.

  A voice at the other end of the line continued to jabber.

  “I told you to tell him to forget it!” Jacobus shouted.

  Nathaniel put his hand over the receiver and whispered, “I think you’ve blown your cover, Jake. It’s Rosenthal. He said he’s relieved to hear you’re no longer out.”

  “Gimme the phone, dammit.” Jacobus reached out and Nathaniel shoved it into his hand.

  “Forget it, Rosenthal,” rasped Jacobus, declining to indulge in pleasantries. “I’m not going to help your client get his sentence reduced.”

  “Mr. Jacobus,” said Rosenthal.

  “Don’t ‘Mr. Jacobus’ me,” said Jacobus. “I said no way.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking for. Please give me a minute and then you can hang up on me,” said Rosenthal.

  “Okay, but only for the pleasure of hanging up on you.”

  Jacobus lifted his index finger to Yumi to signify she had only a minute to wait.

  “Thank you,” said Rosenthal.

  “Fifty-five seconds,” said Jacobus.

  “It’s been almost a year since BTower was convicted of killing Allard. Both great violinists in their own right. The murder weapon was never found. No cause of death.”

  “Yack yack yack. So what else is new that we haven’t known for, what, ten, twelve months?” asked Jacobus. “Forty seconds.”

  “Just this, Mr. Jacobus,” replied Rosenthal, speaking faster. “My team’s used up every chance we had for effective appeal. The guy’s innocent, and there are just so many parallels to when the cops were after you for killing Victoria Jablonski.”

  “Wait a minute, Rosenthal. Are you meaning to tell me”—Jacobus was shouting now—“you’ve got the chutzpah to ask me to try to get BTower totally off the hook? Look, Counselor, the difference between your guy and me was I was innocent.” Jacobus understood that people sometimes got killed. He read it in his Braille New York Times every day. In certain cases homicide seemed almost justified to him. But when the greatest violinist, and perhaps the greatest humanitarian, of the twentieth century is cut down in so vicious a manner as Allard was, and for such a petty reason as professional jealousy, Jacobus had a difficult time finding any sympathy.

  “Your guy was convicted, and if you remember, I was a witness for the side that put him where he is now.”

  “Look, Mr. Jacobus,” said Rosenthal, speaking with the speed of a prescription medication disclaimer, “if you gave me more than a minute I’d explain to you why I think he’s innocent, but between you and me, I’m grasping at straws.”

  “Well, you can make me the last straw,” Jacobus said. “And you’re the camel. Nineteen seconds.”

  “If we don’t find who did kill René Allard, not only will the true murderer still be on the loose, but an innocent man, and another great violinist—whatever your own personal opinion—will be lost to the world.”

  “If the cops haven’t been able to find this phantom killer for how long—almost two years, what makes you think I can, assuming he or she actually exists?” asked Jacobus. “Five seconds . . . four . . . three . . .”

  “How would you have answered that question, Mr. Jacobus, when the cops were after you?” replied Rosenthal.

  That stopped him. Jacobus thought for a moment. He’d give Rosenthal another minute. “Why do you think he’s innocent?”

  “Because there was no evidence! Just supposition. BTower was convicted because the weight of public opinion was totally against him. I’ve negotiated for the unions enough to know what that means. The only thing that keeps management bargaining and keeps us from getting locked out is when we’re able to convince the public that we are the good guys. I wasn’t able to do that for BTower. The deck was totally stacked against us. Shit!”

  Exhaling cigarette smoke into the phone, Jacobus asked, “What is it you want me to do?”

  Rosenthal took a deep breath. “Just meet with my client. Talk to him. See what you think.”

  “How much do you charge per hour, Rosenthal?” asked Jacobus.

  “What?” Rosenthal yelped into the phone.

  “Hey, you’re the fancy shmancy lawyer. You understand English, don’t you? What do you charge?”

  “My firm’s fee is three hundred
fifty dollars per hour. Plus expenses, of course.”

  “Then here’s the deal. If I meet with BTower and I decide he’s worth helping, from that point on you get zero per hour. Plus zero expenses, of course.”

  “Do you really think I’m in this for the money? You think I would risk my reputation on an almost impossible undertaking trying to prove a convicted man innocent, for profit?”

  Jacobus relished the incredulity in the lawyer’s voice. He almost laughed. Then he did.

  “Well, considering that the reputation that’s so dear to you went down the toilet at the Two Maestros trial and as a result you might not have such an easy time getting new clients, I would say yes, I do think you would risk it. So now you make a decision. You want me in? Then it’s pro bono for you. Rosenthal, I’ve got a deserving student standing here in front of me waiting expectantly for my pearls of wisdom and you’re wasting our time. What’ll it be?”

  “Very well. You’ve got a deal, Mr. Jacobus. I’ll set it up.”

  “You do that,” said Jacobus, hanging up.

  “See what you can accomplish in a minute?” Jacobus said to Yumi. “BTower innocent! They should have also convicted him for first-degree aestheticide. Usually I think I got a raw deal going blind, but after what I’ve heard about BTower’s stage visuals I think I’m better off. Moving around so much that the orchestra had to back up ten feet from the conductor!”

  “But isn’t that what audiences like these days?” said Yumi. “BTower filled Yankee Stadium! For classical music! Isn’t that a good thing? And he played the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata and they went crazy for it. These days people want to see musicians showing they’re into the music. Emoting.”

  “These days! Those days! It doesn’t matter what days. Do you know that Bach was considered provincial and out-of-date during his own lifetime? Who did they like back then? Stamitz! But we’ve learned, haven’t we, what good taste is. Who listens to Stamitz today? Maybe just some moldy musicologists in the basement of the archives. No, good taste is what lasts. When the original Bridgetower premiered the ‘Kreutzer’ with Beethoven, you can be sure he didn’t have go-go dancers behind him. BTower is just another fly-by-night, and he’ll be remembered for murdering a man who had taste and not for his dubious contribution to the music world.”