by Gerald Elias
“That is a remarkable story,” said Gottfried when Jacobus had concluded. “Poor Rose. She has had a troubled life. But neither of us believes that fairy tale. Do we, Mr. Jacobus?”
Suddenly, Jacobus found himself on the ground, reeling from a concussive blow to his forehead. Through pain and dizziness he felt blood seep between his nose and eye.
“I should also have mentioned, Mr. Jacobus,” said Gottfried, “I have a gun, my father’s beautiful Pistolen 08, what you call a Luger here. My father fought with it during the war. It is of course mainly for shooting, and for shooting it is wonderful accurate, but as you have just experienced, it is effective in more than one way. You seem to be bleeding, Mr. Jacobus. The gun must be heavier than I thought. Here, take this.” Jacobus felt a handkerchief being pressed into his hand. “This should stop it,” Gottfried said, as he hauled Jacobus by the collar back into his chair as if he were a rag doll. The final pieces now fit into the puzzle. Jacobus fully comprehended the scene in which Allard was killed and realized that trying to escape now was futile.
“As you can see,” Gottfried said, “fairy tales don’t interest me. Anytime I hear a fairy tale it upsets me, and I don’t know what I might do if I hear another. Now, Mr. Jacobus, please tell me a real story.”
“When did you start smuggling violins, Ziggy?” asked Jacobus. “Or did that come with the elevator job?”
Gottfried laughed. “So is that what you wish to know?”
“For starters.”
“So. I had only begun my elevator boy job a few months before. Other than a pleasant nod or a polite hello, Maestro Allard barely acknowledged my existence. And why should he? Someone so famous! Nevertheless, I always responded as politely as I was addressed, even more politely, in the way I had been trained by my mother. Then, one night when there were no other passengers, out of the blue, Allard said, ‘Ziggy, I have this violin. Of course, it’s not anything special,’ he said. ‘Just a modern Italian violin that’s been sitting around my apartment.’ Allard stopped talking, and I asked myself, am I supposed to say something?
“ ‘I like you,’ said Allard. ‘You’re polite and you’re discreet.’
“ ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said.
“ ‘This violin,’ Allard continued, ‘since I don’t need it, and since you know so many people from going up and down in the elevator all day, every day . . . well, I thought to myself, maybe Ziggy would know somebody who would like a nice new violin.’
“I found this a very strange statement coming from René Allard. I assure you, Mr. Jacobus, at that time I didn’t know one person in the world who could afford such a fine instrument, except of course the people in my elevator who already had one!
“ ‘Ah!’ said Allard. ‘These violins, they are good but they are not, how shall we say, in the same league as a Stradivarius, a Guarneri, nor even a Gagliano. But they are good, nevertheless, for the advanced student, maybe even the young professional.’
“Allard was so famous, so dashing, already the most sought-after violinist in the world. And not only that. He was always doing such nice things for people. For charities. For countries. He was an ambassador of goodwill. But as you know, in very reduced health. Probably from all that smoking and all that fast living. When he talked to you he often had to stop between sentences, even words, to catch his breath. What is the name of that disease, Mr. Jacobus?”
“Emphysema.”
“Ja, just so! Emphysema! I believe you have a bit of that too. I myself had no such bad habits, but on the other hand I was a young nobody. So here we were, two people in the same elevator, yet a world apart. At least here in this one place Maestro treated me like an equal. I responded as I thought Allard would want.
“ ‘Maestro Allard, sir,’ I said. ‘I will keep my eyes open, but if I find someone who would like the instrument, how much should I say it costs?’
“ ‘I think five hundred dollars would be a fair price,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
“Why was he asking me this question, Mr. Jacobus? He must have known I knew nothing about violins.
“ ‘That seems like a reasonable price, Mr. Allard,’ I said.
“ ‘That settles it,’ he said, as I opened the elevator door. ‘And if you should be so fortunate as to find someone who buys the instrument, I will give you twenty-five dollars for your trouble.’
“That was half a week’s salary for me, Mr. Jacobus! You can imagine I would look very hard for a buyer.
“I was very proud of myself for finding a Juilliard student who had outgrown his inadequate German violin. I had discovered him by keeping my ears open in the elevator—the teachers, they come and go all the time to the dealers—but it wasn’t easy for me. To begin with I didn’t have much free time, and searching for a buyer almost eliminated entirely my time to eat and sleep. So I was quite pleased that it took me only five days to sell the violin for Allard, who in turn was equally pleased. I received the twenty-five dollars with sober dignity on the outside, Mr. Jacobus, but inwardly you can imagine how giddy I was. I wish you could have seen my face, but of course you can’t.
“At first I wanted to spend all my new fortune at a great restaurant like Delmonico’s, but then I heeded my dead father’s admonition to save my money and spend it wisely. Since the money was a gift from heaven, I decided to put it away until I either needed it or, God willing, I had so much that it didn’t matter. So I put the money in my little metal box that you were so kind enough to return, Mr. Jacobus, along with the other money I was saving. Am I boring you, Mr. Jacobus?”
“Go on. Please,” said Jacobus. “You’re fascinating me.”
Gottfried was silent. It was like the silence before a thunderstorm, made all the more ominous by Schubert’s music dancing merrily along in the background. Jacobus decided to refrain from further sarcasm.
“A few months later I was working my shift,” Gottfried finally said. “Again it was late at night.
“ ‘Up, please. Floor twelve, Ziggy,’ said Allard. This was very strange because there was nothing on the twelfth floor that would be open so late. Dedubian’s shop would have closed hours before, and Allard lived on the fourth floor.
“ ‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he said, ‘and since it’s late at night I trust no one will be discommoded.’
“I pressed the lever forward, and so up we went.
“ ‘Slowly, Ziggy, slowly,’ said Allard. ‘We have much to talk about.’
“I said nothing, though already my mind was racing.
“ ‘It seems,’ Allard said, ‘that I am able to procure additional violins. Violins of similar quality to the one for which you recently found a buyer. I was very proud of you for that, Ziggy. I’m sure the young man at Juilliard is very pleased, and it is no longer wasted just sitting around unplayed, taking up space. It is being put to good use, maybe creating a future Allard, eh? And you have been rewarded—I hope you will agree, reasonably rewarded—for your efforts.’
“At that moment, I remember the buzzer went off in the elevator. A passenger in the lobby was waiting, but I kept going upward.
“ ‘There is a man, an Italian man,’ Allard continued, ‘who can bring me as many new Italian violins as I may wish. From Bologna, from Cremona, Brescia, Venice, Naples, and so on. These are all first-rate instruments. No ‘schlock,’ as the Jews say. So I was thinking, Ziggy, perhaps you have more friends who would be interested in a purchase.’
“My father, Mr. Jacobus, had taught me to always be on the lookout for new opportunities, to think sharp. Now I saw the previous favor I did for Mr. Allard in a new light. It had been a test, I realized. You see, I had done the right thing—worked hard, kept my mouth shut, asked no questions. All the things my father had taught.
“I was good at doing sums in my head. The violin I had helped sell for five hundred dollars. I had been given twenty-five. That left four hundred seventy-five. Assuming that Maestro made some money—and why would he really do it if not for money?—so then I
think he probably paid only about two hundred fifty to three hundred dollars for the violin. Three hundred fifty, tops. But now Maestro has just told me there was this ‘Italian man.’ So this go-between man must have his portion too, leaving the poor maker probably only somewhere between one hundred to two hundred dollars. I didn’t know where all this was leading, but it helped me see things clearly.
“As I brought the elevator to a stop at the twelfth floor, I had a sudden thought somewhere in the back of my brain. I couldn’t yet put my finger on it but I knew it was big. I had never had such excitement from only a thought, and such a vague one at that. Then the idea vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, passing like a puff of air, but I knew it would return.
“ ‘I think I might be able to find some more friends,’ I said to Maestro. ‘I will certainly do my best. Perhaps it may ease me in my retirement someday.’
“Allard laughed at my little joke, perhaps a little too hard. ‘Thank you, Ziggy,’ he said. ‘You are to be congratulated.’
“ ‘I try my best, Mr. Allard. My father always told me, “No matter what you do, you must do your best. In such a way you will never disappoint yourself.” ’
“ ‘That’s good to hear, Ziggy,’ Allard said to me. ‘We will work out the details soon. You may now take us back down to the fourth floor.’ Then, I remember, Allard began to cough his terrible cough, and he was still a relatively young man. ‘I might not make it to retirement, myself,’ he said, doubled over by that terrible body-racking cough. I could hardly understand his words.
“ ‘Shall I get you some water, sir?’ I asked him.
“ ‘Doesn’t help,’ Allard wheezed. He was barely audible. ‘It will end, sooner or later. We can go. Please go.’
“ ‘Yes, sir. I hope you feel better.’ ”
“And that sudden thought you had,” Jacobus interrupted, “the one that went poof, was to somehow sell a really valuable old violin actually owned by Allard. No middlemen, no five percent here, ten percent there. A violin that to begin with is worth a hundred times more than the stuff you were peddling. And with all the chatter going on in your elevator over the years, you’d have to be deaf not to hear a lot about how the market value of such an instrument would be that much greater if it had been owned by someone famous, especially if the famous violinist had just died. So when Allard was in the hospital, seemingly on his deathbed, you were there by his side, the loyal servant. Except you weren’t there to console Allard. Just like Lavender thought, you were there for another reason. But Lavender didn’t know it was to blackmail Allard to get the ex Hawkins del Gesù using the photos you took of him raping Rose Grimes.”
“Rose!” said Gottfried. “Oh, Rose! Of all the housekeepers, she was the one I liked the most. Always a smile for everyone. She dressed so neatly and always wore a hat and gloves to work and always on time. She took pride in her work, Mr. Jacobus! That is a very important way to judge character! If she arrived during one of my shifts and there were not too many people around early in the morning, even though she was Negro I would give Rose a ride in the elevator so she wouldn’t have to walk up all the stairs. I must say that I am kind to people of all races, and here I am more like my mother than my father. No one can help it if they were not born white, so what good does it do to remind people of that by being mean?
“Rose and I became good friends. I knew always when her shift was, so that I could say hello and good-bye. We gave each other small Christmas presents, and I gave her a little present for her husband too. It was so sad that her husband was wounded in the war. War is such a terrible thing.
“Mr. Jacobus, on your way here, did you perhaps notice the changing room?”
“Our secret voyeur heaven, you mean? Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“I don’t understand this word ‘voyeur,’ Mr. Jacobus.”
“I’ll be happy to explain, Ziggy,” said Jacobus, “because I literally fell upon it when I tripped on the stool my last visit to your little world here. Us blind folk are so clumsy, aren’t we? I reached out to get my balance, and that’s where I found that small screen that lets out the steam from the shower. There it was, high up on the wall, the one separating the changing space from the furnace area, on the side away from the elevators and the washing machines. I cut my finger on it when I grabbed on to it. Knowing your height, I would say that it was on that stool and through that screen that you took your pictures. That explains the weird angle and the blur in spots that Nathaniel couldn’t figure.”
“Just so, Mr. Jacobus! Just so!” said Gottfried. “But this was not so easy because I had to stand on my tiptoes, as you Americans say, and lean against the wall, and even so I could only see down about halfway, because as you know I am not very tall.
“I did this because I liked to watch Rose change her clothes, especially at the end of her shift when she took off all her clothes for her shower. She was very careful to hang them up or fold them neatly so that she never looked liked she had been working. She was very pretty. Her underclothes were white and it made her dark skin, the color of Bavarian chocolate cake—I see you think that is funny—look especially lovely. As I said, I could not see all the way down, so even when she was totally with no clothes I could only see her top half. I couldn’t see her remove her stockings because she would sit down for that, but I could imagine it. I liked watching her remove her undergarments and then lift her arms to hang them up and then pin her hair up so I could see her large bosom. I also liked to watch her dry herself off when she was wet. Sometimes she would rub herself with an ointment.
“I know when I say things like this you say to yourself, ‘What a deranged, sick, lonely man.’ I know that’s what most people would think, but I say that I was harming no one, and who wouldn’t want to see Rose, or another beautiful woman, without her clothes on? I believe all men think the way I think. I am just being honest. Look at all the people today who buy the magazines and go to the movies to see people doing terrible, obscene things to each other. Well, I don’t want to go on and on now, but I took my pictures and looked at them on my wall. It was harmless.”
“And how long did your innocent fun go on, Ziggy?” asked Jacobus, holding his teacup. He hadn’t really drunk any, thinking he might have to throw it at Gottfried at some point if all else failed. Somehow he would have to escape and notify Malachi if BTower’s life were to be saved. Tomorrow was the last tomorrow for him, and tomorrow was almost today.
“I watched Rose change her clothes whenever I could,” said Gottfried. “Of course, most of the time I was busy with the elevator, but over the years I watched her dozens of times, at least. You would have envied me, Mr. Jacobus.”
“I’m sure I would have, Ziggy. But then one day things changed, didn’t they?”
“One day everything changed, Mr. Jacobus. It was a spring day because she was wearing my favorite of her dresses, with a big pattern of cherries and bananas with a white background, and it had those big shoulders that women once believed fashionable. It was the end of Rose’s shift and she had removed her uniform and had taken her shower, and she was putting her dress back on. As she was buttoning the dress—it had big red buttons going from top to bottom—there was a knock at the dressing room door. I could not see who it was since I was around the corner against the side wall with my Leica.
“ ‘Who is it?’ Rose asked. I could tell by her voice she was immediately nervous.
“ ‘It is me, Allard. Something was left in the apartment. Perhaps it is yours.’
“ ‘I’ll be out in a moment, Mr. Allard.’
“Rose continued to button her dress, faster. But before she could finish, Allard opened the door. I strained to see what I could. Rose’s brassiere was still showing.
“ ‘Mr. Allard, what are you doing?’ There was fear in Rose’s voice that made me angry at Allard.
“Allard didn’t say a word but grabbed the top of Rose’s dress and pulled it apart. And then . . . but now I don’t need to describe the detai
ls, do I, Mr. Jacobus? You have seen the photos.
“Finally, when Allard was finished with her, he said, ‘I must have made a mistake. It must belong to someone else.’ After he said this he just left.
“Rose stood there for a moment. Then she sat down on the wooden bench and cried. I couldn’t see her but I could hear, and it was an interesting thing that it wasn’t like usual crying, which everyone knows. It was almost not human. It disturbed me greatly and made me feel too sad.
“I had to get back to work so I was ready to get down off the box when Rose stood up. She turned on the shower and walked into it without even taking her clothes off. I wanted to say to her, ‘How will you get home with wet clothes?’ She was not thinking straight but it was too late, she was already wet. Now it was time for me to go to work, so to this day I do not know how she got home.
“When I was back in the elevator I was thinking there was something I had learned from what Allard did to Rose, but I wasn’t sure what. Of course I wasn’t going to say anything about what happened. Ah, you are thinking again, I am a terrible person for doing nothing, but think again. Who was I going to tell? And what was I going to tell? I don’t like to speak unkindly of the dead, but if I told Mr. Zipolito, our boss, he would shout at me, ‘Keep your rotten German mouth shut! It’s none of your business! Mr. Allard is a famous man and has paid his rent on time for years! Those Negro women are all the same and get what they deserve . . .’ Am I not right, Mr. Jacobus? Isn’t this what people in this country say? Or if I confronted Allard himself? Then what? He would have a quiet chat with my boss and Rose would be fired and I would be fired. And I knew that this is what Rose thought also. She and I had much in common, being at the bottom of the ladder. She would say nothing and she did say nothing. No, no! I know when to keep my mouth shut, Mr. Jacobus. That is what my father taught me.”
“You’re such a thoughtful guy, Ziggy,” said Jacobus. “And when Rose was eventually fired for stealing Allard’s music, you felt so bad that you gave her the Garimberti, one of the violins that you were fencing, just so she could make ends meet.”
