by Gerald Elias
“But now I’m sounding so dark on such a sunny day! I can assure you it was not so sad. You may not believe this, but until then I had never before been outside New York City since coming to America. Other than our journey from Germany, the five-day Greyhound bus ride to Utah was the greatest adventure of my life. Really, it was like an awakening from a deep sleep. And what a beautiful bus it was! So clean! I laughed to myself, the bus was like my elevator but sideways and with windows.
“But I’m going on and on with meaningless detail when I should be the thoughtful host and giving you the tour of the city. We are now going past Abravanel Hall, the home of the Utah Symphony, a very fine orchestra, and across the street—there, to the left—is Temple Square, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
“Where is Mr. Oehlschlager?” asked Jacobus.
“You are so kind to ask, Mr. Jacobus,” said Seglinde. “My dear husband had been ill in the hospital for almost a whole year, and then he passed away last year.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Nathaniel. “That must have been a very difficult time for you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Williams. He had suffered for so long, in a way his death was probably for the better. I know this is easy for we who are still living to say, but I believe it is true. And then Ziggy came, so I have been okay.”
“He seems to have left you well provided for,” said Jacobus. “Your husband, that is.”
“Oh, you mean this car!” said Seglinde. “Yes, Ziggy and I are quite comfortable now. We are very fortunate. But here we now are at your accommodations.”
Jacobus and Nathaniel agreed to be treated by Ziggy and Seglinde at JC’s, the hotel’s restaurant, after checking in and taking a little rest. They would all have lunch together and in the evening go to Yumi’s concert at the Antelope Island Music Festival.
Jacobus, finding the accommodations comfortable and quietly air-conditioned, decided to get a few minutes of shut-eye. They had been on the road since 5 A.M., New York time.
Jacobus lay back in the bed, but he couldn’t rest. By taking this trip he was certain he was losing the race against time. This all could have been done over the phone, and Yumi would have many more concerts in her blossoming career they could go to. Half a day had gone by and he had learned nothing. He was annoyed that he had allowed Nathaniel to talk him into coming.
For a year, Jacobus had been obsessed by the haunting image of Allard’s body as described in Malachi’s report. Now it was back in his head and he couldn’t get it out, tired or not. There’s nothing natural about being murdered, he thought, but the contortions of Allard’s body in his death throes exceeded even that aberration.
Cursing, Jacobus got out of the bed.
“Nathaniel, read me the report again.”
Williams retrieved Malachi’s report from his attaché case. He knew exactly what passage Jacobus wanted, so often had he requested it in the last few days, and turned to the dog-eared pages. This time, however, Jacobus actually got down onto the lime green shag carpet, creaking himself into Allard’s contorted position, head twisting excluded, that Malachi had described in so detailed a fashion.
Nathaniel couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s your problem?” asked Jacobus.
“Only that you look like an inchworm in the grass. Sorry.”
Jacobus was not amused. “I think he was holding his violin.”
Nathaniel laughed even harder.
“What a time to practice!” he said.
After they were seated at JC’s, the four of them—Jacobus, Nathaniel, Gottfried, and his fraternal twin, Seglinde—attempted to engage in polite conversation.
“Ziggy, you seem uncomfortable,” said Jacobus. “You’re fussing even more than you used to. Spit it out.”
“Mr. Jacobus, you see right through me. That is just a figure of speech, I don’t mean this personally. But you are right. I just want to say—this is so hard to say—we both told the truth as we understood it.”
“Truth?” Jacobus pondered for a moment. “You’re talking about the trial?”
“Yes. Exactly so. I couldn’t believe the young man could do such a thing, and you couldn’t believe he couldn’t. It is still difficult for me, that such a fine young man is in jail, but I want you to know, I always have respected your opinion, even since the time you yourself were a student.”
Jacobus recalled the early days, when he could still see, going to the Bonderman Building to visit Dedubian for new strings or to have the sound post on his violin adjusted. Gottfried was there even then, the stalwart sentinel, greeting all who entered his tiny domain with polite dignity. Jacobus, along with everyone else, he supposed, had come to take Gottfried for granted, never appreciating the man’s acute sensitivity. Gottfried’s emotional outpouring at the Two Maestros trial had certainly shed new light, and Jacobus was about to comment on the unpredictability of events in life and response to those events when the waitress arrived.
“Hi, there!” Jacobus heard the fake smile in her voice. “I’m L’Norma, and I’ll be your server today! Are we all ready to order?”
When it was Jacobus’s turn, he said, “Liverwurst and onions on seeded rye, with butter.”
“I’m afraid we don’t have liver or rye bread on our menu, sir, but we do have a special today! We’re serving our signature house-crafted patty melt on freshly toasted artisan ciabatta bread!”
“L’Norma, hon, excuse me for just one sec, okay?” Jacobus turned to Nathaniel, who was sitting next to him. “What the hell is she talking about?” Jacobus whispered in his ear.
“It’s a swiss cheese burger on toast.”
Jacobus turned back to the waitress. “Okay, L’Norma. I’ll have a plain hamburger. On a bun.”
“I can’t tell you how much we are looking forward to hearing your young student perform tonight,” said Seglinde after L’Norma had made her escape.
“Former student,” said Jacobus. “Yumi seems to have a mind of her own these days. But that’s good. Shows I did my job.”
“And the chance to hear Mr. Lavender perform with her quartet!” said Gottfried. “I always thought of him only as an appendage of Maestro Allard.”
“It doesn’t seem to matter who he plays with, though,” said Nathaniel. “Lavender fits everyone like a glove. I’ll bet they’ll do fine together.”
“But he must so miss Maestro Allard, like all of us,” said Gottfried. “There were many times when Mr. Allard was in terrible poor health, when he could hardly stand up, when you almost thought he might die. But then he would have a recital with Mr. Lavender and it was like a miracle—it seemed to bring him back to life. It happened too often like that, I mean Maestro’s resilience. As long as his music was alive, so was his health, because his music was always from the heart.”
“Music can do that, I suppose,” said Jacobus, who didn’t listen to much music anymore. In his view, the way people performed these days was neither intellectually informed nor heartfelt, and a truly great musician needed to be both. Today’s concert stage was all smoke and mirrors, all visual, which did Jacobus no good, and even if he could see he considered performances like BTower’s, who had taken things to the nth degree, to be blatant foppery. So he contented himself with listening to his old recordings of Heifetz, Kreisler, Milstein, and a few others, and when the vinyl got too scratchy, he’d rip the disc off the turntable and throw it against the wall.
“You know,” said Gottfried, “most people didn’t know how close Maestro Allard came to death, even when he was still young. It frightened me. Yes, they looked the other way from his little escapades and his high living because he was so charming. What is the word? The bon vivant. But all the drinking, and the smoking, and the women, who were always on his arm, those things almost killed him.”
“Almost,” said Jacobus.
“I think here is our food,” said Seglinde.
“Yes,” said Gottfried. “And I have a good appetite. I have always taken care of my health, and wou
ld you believe, Mr. Williams and Mr. Jacobus, to this day I have never been to a doctor!”
“He is like his father,” said Seglinde.
“Mmm, yeah, good health is so important,” said Nathaniel, diving into his nachos and buffalo wings.
“Tomorrow night, Mr. Jacobus, will you go to hear the Mozart G-Minor Quintet?” asked Seglinde. “The Markner Quartet is playing with Simon Baker.”
“Sorry, but we’re just here overnight. Have to get back home tomorrow,” said Jacobus.
“Such a shame. It is the most sublime music ever written,” said Gottfried. “I remember hearing this music the first time on WNCN in New York. It was 1956 and I remember that date because it was the two hundredth anniversary of Mozart’s birth. I’m sure you know he was born in Salzburg, Austria, but what you may not know is that Schatzi and I were born only just over the border. Maybe that is why Mozart has always been my favorite composer, since we were almost neighbors. When they played his quintet at midnight it was during my shift, but Mr. Zipolito let me switch with Tom Congden just so I could hear it. I tell you, it was a miracle for me. Such music!”
“You’ve got a great memory,” said Nathaniel, inhaling an overflowing corn chip.
“Ziggy takes great pride in his memory,” said Seglinde.
“Do you by any chance remember a Rose Grimes who worked in the Bonderman Building?” asked Jacobus.
“Rose Grimes?” said Gottfried. He thought for a moment. “No, I’m afraid that’s one name that does not ring the bell, Mr. Jacobus. My great memory fails me for that name. Could you give me a hint please?”
“One of the housekeepers. According to the records she was there for a good fifteen years.”
“There were so many housekeepers, always coming and going, over the years. In its heyday they employed twenty-four housekeepers, two for each floor! Is she a friend of yours, Mr. Jacobus?”
“It’s just that she has this nice Garimberti violin, which I thought was a little strange. And with all those violin dealers in the Bonderman. Anyway, just curious.”
“I agree. It is very curious,” said Gottfried. “A bit of a mystery, certainly, for a Negro woman to have a nice violin. No offense, Mr. Williams. But I am sure you will clear it up, Mr. Jacobus.”
“Now,” asked Seglinde, “shall we have some dessert?”
TWELVE
Less than an hour north of Salt Lake City a seven-mile causeway connects the mainland to mountainous Antelope Island, rising majestically from the vastness of the Great Salt Lake. Relishing his role as the tour guide, Gottfried explained the island’s main zoological attraction, an American bison herd managed there for over a century. More recently the Antelope Island Music Festival, sponsored jointly by the Utah Arts Council, Utah State Parks, and the Sierra Club, had been attracting more and more summer concertgoers who loved the feeling of open wilderness combined with the intimacy of classical chamber music in a location accessible to a metropolitan area. Ziggy couldn’t decide which delighted him more—the beautiful music or those behemoth bison that roam freely over the island.
Arriving at the southern tip of the island, the car pulled up to the concert venue, the former Garr Ranch, originally built in 1848 by Fielding Garr and now refurbished as a museum. Gottfried insisted on paying for the tickets, after which they were ushered to their seats in the rustically appointed great room. Behind the performers, through a huge picture window, the audience could witness a splendid view of the Great Salt Lake with the sunset-lit Wasatch Mountains in the background.
The concert began with Felix Mendelssohn’s heartwarming Quartet, Opus 12, masterfully composed while he was still a teenager. It was followed by the Hugo Wolf “Italian Serenade,” a charming but deceptively difficult work. During intermission Jacobus went outside to think, to inhale the intoxicating sage-salt air, and to avoid both the small talk and the fruit-flavored punch that were flowing indoors. The second half of the concert was devoted exclusively to the dramatic and fiery Quintet for Piano and Strings, Opus 34, by Johannes Brahms. The unity of purpose between the members of the quartet and Virgil Lavender made it seem as if they had played together for years, when in fact they had rehearsed the piece only once. Such was Lavender’s legendary ability to fit with any musicians with whom he worked. As the last rays of the setting sun vanished from the shimmering lake, the defiantly impetuous final cadence of the quintet brought the crowd to its feet en masse. Even without the awe-inspiring splendor of the natural surroundings, Jacobus, normally a severe critic, considered the performance an artistic success, especially as the ensemble was newly formed and hadn’t spent years together developing a distinct, unified voice. Rarely one to express enthusiasm, on this occasion he invited Nathaniel, Yumi, Virgil Lavender, and Ziggy and his sister for a post-concert celebration in Salt Lake City. His ulterior motive was to question Lavender and Ziggy regarding what they knew about Allard’s death and when they knew it. The clock was ticking.
“I am honored,” said Gottfried, “but Seglinde and I are not the drinking type anymore, and for me the best thing after such a performance is to go home and just remember it in quiet. But many thanks, and please give my heartfelt congratulations to the musicians. They played so beautifully.”
Lavender suggested a bistro called Un Peu de Paris he had heard about from the Guarneri Quartet, which had recently performed in Salt Lake, as one of the few late-night places to drink in the still alcohol-shy state. As Jacobus and his entourage entered, a scratchy recording of Edit Piaf singing “La Vie en Rose” crooned in the background. The place was darkly lit, titillating the patrons into feeling that they were doing something mildly illicit, which in Utah was not a difficult effect to achieve. Above the bar, a nineteenth-century-style mural of a bare-breasted Winged Liberty adorned the wall, under which was printed the motto VIVE LA RÉSISTANCE. Posters by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas adorned exposed brick walls. Waiters and waitresses swirled among the tables, trying to look French, decked out in black berets, black and white horizontally striped short-sleeve T-shirts, and red aprons tied around tight black pants.
Jacobus heard a polite young man say, “Good evening. Are any of you members?”
“Members of what?” asked Jacobus.
“This a private club for members, sir.”
“So what do we need to do? Take a loyalty oath?”
“You just need to sign here, sir, and pay a one-time five dollars for temporary membership that’s good for three weeks, or a twenty-dollar annual fee, which includes parking validations.”
“No secret handshake?” asked Jacobus.
When they were finally seated, Jacobus, Nathaniel, Yumi, and Virgil Lavender discussed the evening’s performance. Though it was the same program as the one in Durango two days earlier, everything seemed to go more smoothly. Perhaps it was because they had a performance under their belt and all the butterflies were gone. Perhaps it was the setting, or maybe they just played better. In any event, a special chemistry with the audience tonight had illuminated the performance. Yumi, exhilarated by the concert and the late-night partying, was ebullient. Lavender was more reflective.
“Not too many Kansas farm boys like me have made it in this business,” he said. “I think I must’ve played that Brahms quintet a hundred times since I was a student in Wichita, and tonight was a doozy.”
Yumi expressed unabashed admiration at Lavender’s uncanny ability to fit in with her group.
“I kind of have a feel for what the other musicians are feeling,” he said. “Kind of a sixth sense. And of course there are some traditions in interpretation that everyone does.”
“Toscanini said that tradition is the way the last moron did it,” said Jacobus.
Lavender laughed. “He may have had a point, you know. But when René and I played together, we knew each other inside out. Sometimes we could get away with the most outlandish things at a performance without even rehearsing it. Partners in crime, it felt like.”
Lavender mentioned his upcoming con
cert at Carnegie Recital Hall.
“I’m nervous as a jitterbug for that one. I haven’t done a solo performance in decades,” he said. “It’s nothing like ensemble playing. Just me and the piano alone onstage. Yeesh! Please, someone put a warm body onstage with me!”
Lavender reflected upon the different styles of American and European chamber music playing. He confessed to a preference for the latter, as their objective was more to fit together as an integrated ensemble and less for each musician to project his or her own artistic vision. He didn’t believe one style was necessarily better than the other, “but just, personalitywise, it’s more my cup of tea.” Yumi said she would certainly pay close attention to the Markner Quartet from that perspective at their concert tomorrow night. It was the Magini Quartet’s one night off while on tour, and Yumi had underlined the Markner’s concert in her calendar.
Piaf was replaced by Jacques Brel on the tape loop, singing “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” and the waiter arrived.
“What’ll it be, gents?”
“What do you got?” Jacobus asked.
“You name it, we’ve got it.”
“Scotch and soda. Johnny Walker Black.”
“I can serve you the soda with a one-ounce shooter on the side. You have to mix it yourself.”
“Okay, then make it a double.”
“I’m not allowed to serve you a double, but I can serve you a second after you’ve ordered your first.”
“Fine. Just bring it today, okay?”
“No problem, sir,” said the waiter, laughing. “And to eat?”
“Nothing.”
“Sorry, but I’m not allowed to serve you liquor without food.”
“But I’m not hungry. I’m thirsty.”
