Rhapsody

by Mitchell James Kaplan

  The crowd that had gathered… No, crowd was not the word. Group, perhaps? Cluster? New York City was not storming the gates to hear Kay Swift perform. The box office was not bursting. She was not yet the star that her instructors at the Institute of Musical Art had predicted she would become.

  Of course not. Yet she could not help feeling she was disappointing them. Walter Damrosch. Gustav Mahler. Her father. Yes, of course these feelings were irrational. But weren’t all feelings, by definition, irrational?

  By the time she stepped over to the piano fifteen minutes later, perhaps a third of the seats were occupied, most of them by her friends. They smiled when their eyes met hers. But they were scattered. Her goal was to inspire them, to carry them on a zephyr of music to new places. She wished she could wave them down to the front rows, where enthusiasm might spread like ink in water, but that was not the way classical musicians behaved. A jazz musician, perhaps. But jazz was not on the menu this evening.

  Wearing a black shift and her Cartier necklace, she bowed to light applause and sat at the Steinway, feeling a little unnerved. This was no high society cocktail party. Nor had she ever before played her own compositions in front of a paying audience.

  On with it.

  She raised her hands but before she began playing, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two people strolling down to the front row: George Gershwin, accompanied by Adele Astaire, the most revered danseuse on Broadway, who lugged a capacious Gladstone leather bag.

  No one had reached out to George. His decision to attend Kay’s performance, in a venue where he could not insert his hands onto her keyboard and mess everything up, was personal. It had to be. And he had brought along one of his closest and most glamorous friends.

  In addition to being so fleet and spontaneous in dancing shoes that she sometimes threw her brother off, Adele was tall and svelte with a pert nose and large eyes. She wore crimson lipstick and face powder the palest shade of apricot. Kay knew she had befriended George as an adolescent vaudevillian soon after she and her brother had come to New York, years earlier. The three of them had rejoiced in each other’s triumphs and matured together. Then again, thought Kay, perhaps “matured” was not the right word…

  With no written music on the stand, she began playing. A tad nervously at first, but then closing her eyes and allowing the music to speak for itself. To sing and dance for itself. She had planned the evening so that one piece would contrast with the next, waves of intensity breaking upon sands of repose and reflection. Her fingers skipped and capered across their ivory-and-ebony proscenium. She played for an hour that felt like mere minutes, and concluded with “Something Different.”

  Her audience applauded vigorously. Kay smiled and bowed. Someone threw flowers. Small and large blooms in a variety of colors, tied together with a yellow string, from which a card dangled. And then another bouquet, this one composed of lilies, encyclias, and cattleyas with large leaves that caressed Kay’s neck as she hoisted them for everyone to see, and maws so gaping she feared they might bite her.

  George and Adele rose to their feet, still clapping. The rest of the audience followed suit. Flushed with joy, Kay smiled at George. She saw a glint in his eye. He heard it. Her new piece. “Something Different.” He had recognized its unusual quality.

  She noticed Adele Astaire’s leather bag on the seat beside her, open and empty. So that was how they had snuck the flowers in! The famous dancer smiled at Kay with all the warmth of a new best friend.

  * * *

  When George had hugged her that certain way, the morning after Fats Waller’s rent party, she should have known what awaited them. Actually, she did know. She knew the what. And she had done some pretty serious thinking about the why. As for the how, that was just mechanics. What she did not know, but itched to find out, was the when.

  The night of her performance at the Hotel Astor. That was the when.

  In her apartment they banged on the piano and drank Prosecco for an hour and a half. He improvised melodies, she played chords, and they switched around, and around again.

  Perhaps it was the alcohol. Maybe just giddiness. Her mind floated. Her fingers erred recklessly. Now her hands and his were not competing, but playing in harmony, adorning each other’s musical statements, offering witty comments and asides, predicting each other’s moves.

  “Wait,” George called out, waving. “That progression! What the hell was that, Kay?”

  “G seven, C seven…” She tried the chords as they came back to her.

  George twirled his index finger counterclockwise. “Before.”

  “Hmm. D seven, and then… D diminished seven…” Why’d I do that? she wondered.

  “Do it again.”

  One chord more dissonant than the other, on top of which George struck two notes. D to E and back again. The second note, present in neither chord, added more dissonance so that when he returned to the D it sounded like a resolution—though an incomplete one, since diminished seventh chords suggested restlessness and further motion. “You hear that? Again.”

  She played the chords. He repeated the two-note melody. Now she heard it. It was little more than a hint. A door ajar. But it made her wonder. What is inside that room?

  In his ebullience, George took her in his arms and kissed her. Kay stared at him, tears in her eyes. “George, where have I been, all these years?”

  “Write that down,” he said.

  They both knew, though. She had been in purgatory, waiting for the clouds above her to part. So had he. It had begun the evening they met at her party, when they first sat at the piano together. A tear spilled onto the music. She had no idea why. He gently kissed another off her cheek.

  Later, in her bedroom, he undressed her one button at a time until she stopped him, gathering his hands in hers. “George, I’ve never—”

  He pushed her hair aside and kissed her. “Forgive me, Kay. I’m such a cad.”

  She held him close. “No. That’s not—”

  He interrupted her, caressing her hair. “With Jimmy gone so often, I assumed the two of you—”

  “Jimmy does play around,” said Kay. “Me? I’m not playing. That’s the problem.”

  George looked at her, his dark eyes warm, his expression unreadable. “Neither am I,” he said.

  * * *

  Well, that’s that, Kay thought as the thrill of sexual climax dissolved in a calm euphoria. There was no going back. But the question remained, what does forward look like, from here?

  She lit a Marlboro as they lay together. “I’m taking the train to Bydale next weekend. Care to join me?”

  “Bydale?”

  “Our country home, in Connecticut. Can you ride a horse?”

  “Long answer or short answer?”

  “Long answer,” said Kay.

  “No.”

  “It isn’t complicated. You just sit.”

  “That I’m good at. Ask my piano bench.”

  “We have two Arabians, Klyde and Ella. But with Jimmy away, poor Ella’s bored out of her little equine head.”

  “I have a date with the Coney Island roller coaster.”

  “Who are you going with?” Her voice was tinged with anxiety. Coney Island had lost its title as the world’s capital of first kisses, having ceded that laurel to movie theaters everywhere, but it remained a privileged venue for laughter and romance.

  “Let’s see, there’s my brother Ira; his fiancée, Leonore; my pal Dick Rodgers; and his girl, Dorothy Feiner. Dick’s an Institute boy, like you. And then there’s his songwriting partner Larry Hart. Larry’s blue as a Curaçao Monday. The whole point? To cheer him up. You see The Girl Friend?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh, you gotta see it. These guys are on their way.”

  She blew a cloud of smoke. “After Coney Island, head up to Bydale. Spend two weeks with me.” She ran a finger over his cheek. “No butler. No maid. Just the two of us.”

  He scratched his head. “Two weeks,
you must be goofy. Four, five days maybe.”

  “Eight days and we seal the deal.”

  “You got a piano up there?”

  “A new Steinway grand. Bright and lively. And a tennis court. You play?”

  “Only racket I ever got near? The music racket. And that one’s rough enough.”

  “Perfect,” said Kay. “We’ll learn together.”

  She held his head to her breast as he drifted into sleep.

  * * *

  In the morning she reached for him. “Good morning, George.” Where his head had been, her hand detected its imprint in the pillow. He had risen, dressed, and slunk out without saying goodbye.

  As she went about her morning routine—robe, coffee, news—she remembered her concert, the audience’s enthusiasm, the night with George. She wanted to exult in the memory but something was troubling her.

  Jimmy had organized the evening, rented the theater, and attempted to lure an audience. And how had she repaid him?

  Damn these scruples, and damn my Christian upbringing! He gave me permission, she reminded herself. More than gave me permission, he led by example.

  And then again there was the exploding conundrum called George. What did last night mean to him? Why had he crept out like a thief? Or had he? Maybe he had considered waking her. Maybe he kissed her goodbye while she slept. She closed her eyes and thought she remembered the touch of his lips on her eyelids. But perhaps that was wishful thinking, or wishful remembering.

  She tried to practice piano but her fingers were stiff. She attempted reading but her mind loped away. She napped, half dreaming of her night with George, especially the comfort they had felt with one another, as if they had known each other all their lives. Then she noticed Adele Astaire’s calling card dangling from the vase in the drawing room.

  * * *

  “I am positively delighted to hear from you,” said Adele through Kay’s dumbbell-and-cradle salon telephone. “George thinks the world of you. We so enjoyed your performance.”

  “I was wondering,” began Kay. “Forgive my presumption…”

  “Not at all!”

  “Perhaps you’re free for lunch?”

  “I’m afraid lunch isn’t possible,” said Adele. “But why don’t you trot over to my place this afternoon, say four thirty? I’ll let the doorman know.”

  Kay showered. She sat at her vanity wearing a towel around her chest and a second as a turban. She applied cream and makeup and chose a dress and hat. She walked to the Park Avenue address on Adele’s calling card, announced herself to the doorman, and rode the elevator up.

  Adele’s apartments were swathed in Persian rugs and silk curtains with braided ropes. A painted frieze of grape clusters and leaves in faded gold edged the tops of the high walls. She wore a sheer maroon robe over a green tunic. Her demeanor was as flighty and sparkling off-stage as on. She addressed Kay with an easy familiarity, as if their mutual friendship with George justified an instant affinity. “Let’s play a game,” she suggested as they sat down in the parlor, where her butler served tea and cookies. “You tell me one thing you know about me, and I’ll tell you one thing I know about you.”

  “That sounds amusing,” Kay acquiesced, stirring sugar into her tea. She preferred milk in her tea as well but dared not ask. “I know you and your brother are George’s closest friends,” she said.

  “And I know you are in love,” said Adele.

  Kay sipped. “What makes you think that?”

  Adele giggled, covering her mouth. Kay had heard her cackle pouring down from the stage at the Liberty Theatre but her drawing-room laugh differed, much as the sound of a harpsichord differs from that of a piano. “Oh, just the tinge in your cheeks, darling,” she said. “Not to mention that sparkle in your eyes.”

  “Darn,” said Kay.

  “What could possibly be wrong with being in love?” asked Adele.

  “I’m married.”

  “How shocking!”

  “Go ahead, make light of it,” said Kay. “But really, my husband doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Well, what does he deserve? Surely he deserves something. All husbands deserve something.”

  “He deserves a moment of jealousy,” said Kay. “All right then, more than a moment. But not to lose my affections entirely.”

  “Has he lost your affections entirely?”

  “Well, no. No and yes. But yes. And no.”

  Adele tasted her cookie. A nibble, more a gesture than a gratification. “The way I see it,” she said, “we’re given a choice. We can embrace life’s complications—sorrow, joy, laughter, even treachery on occasion—or we can lead safe lives. We can’t do both, though.”

  “And which do you choose?” asked Kay.

  “Once upon a time I chose the former, but now I yearn for the latter.”

  “I suppose once upon a time I chose the latter, but now I yearn for the former,” said Kay.

  “You see,” said Adele, “we always want what we can’t have. Which leads to my next question.”

  “Which is?”

  “Would you like milk for your tea?”

  “Why, that would be marvelous.”

  Again, Adele tittered. “I’m sorry, we’re out of milk. This isn’t a full-service restaurant, you know. Oh, Bobby!” she called to a servant. “Would you mind running downstairs to fetch a jug of milk?” She turned back to Kay. “Now do tell me more about how miserable you are.”

  “What good is talking about it?” asked Kay.

  “Probably no good at all,” said Adele. “But you need to anyway, don’t you. And I enjoy hearing about it.”

  “You enjoy hearing about my suffering?”

  “Why, yes,” said Adele. “It helps alleviate my envy.”

  “You envy me?”

  Adele smiled. “Why should that be surprising?”

  “Because I envy you. We can’t very well both envy each other, can we?”

  “You have nothing to envy, foolish girl,” said Adele. “You are exceptionally talented and elegant. And you’re rich. Well, yes, that counts too. If it’s my celebrity that impresses you, I assure you it’s nothing but hocus-pocus. Teasing the world into admiring you, when they’re the ones with families and stable lives and beautiful children. And all you’ve got is bunions and a painted mask staring back at you from tired backstage mirrors late at night.”

  “Then why do you do it?” asked Kay.

  “Because unfortunately, I have no choice,” said Adele. “Just as you have no choice about being in love with George. We artists are powerless against our passions.”

  Kay tasted her tea. “I love Jimmy, too,” she said sadly.

  “How could you not? But you have to choose. It’s your marriage and stability, or George and music.” Adele snapped her fingers. “As simple as that. But no looking back. Keep moving. I know, I know. It’s heart-wrenching.”

  Kay finished her tea just as Bobby arrived with a pitcher of milk. He refilled her cup but Kay was feeling dizzy and thought the caffeine might be part of the problem. As simple as that, she told herself. No looking back. Except that not looking back was not simple. She visualized Jimmy tossing coins at the window of her mother’s apartment, reciting Keats’s ode “To Autumn” as they walked in the park, reading to the children. And she remembered that night, outside Felix Warburg’s mansion on Fifth Avenue at Ninety-Second Street, when Jimmy learned that he would not be flying over Belgium with his friends in the Naval Air Force. His passionate disappointment. The way he looked at her. His kiss.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BYDALE. JULY 1926

  Kay and George wandered on horseback through the leafy canyon. They crossed the brook and climbed into craggy hills. “Do you hear that?” George pulled back on the reins. His horse, Ella, snorted, shook her head, and paused.

  “Hear what?” asked Kay. She stopped hers, Klyde.

  “That music,” said George.

  She listened. “I hear the stream. The leaves in the breeze. Is th
at what you hear, George?”

  He stared into the forest. “All that, yes,” he said. “And that damned music.”

  “As in… a melody?” asked Kay.

  “An entire orchestral setting,” said George.

  She shook her head. “It’s in your mind.”

  “All music’s in your mind,” said George. “Otherwise, it’s just sound.”

  They spread their blanket on a cliff overlooking the gorge and the creek. “Think about it,” George elaborated. “What is a melody? A string of notes. But you only hear one at a time. By the time you hear the next note, the one before is gone. And the rest of the song doesn’t exist yet. The whole song never actually exists, except between your two ears.”

  “And on paper,” observed Kay.

  “Yes, but that’s not music,” insisted George. “That’s a representation of music.”

  “And a painting is a representation of a thing,” said Kay. “But that doesn’t make it not art.”

  George shook his head. “No. A painting is not a representation of a thing. A painting is a thing.”

  Kay shook her head at the absurdity of this debate. “In any case, if there are no instruments, there’s no music.”

  “That’s not true, either,” said George. He bit into an apple and changed the subject. “I paint, too, you know. One day we’ll fill a gallery with my oils. And folks will flock to it. Don’t laugh.”

  She did not laugh. She smiled.

  * * *

  He set up an easel in the front room and began work on a new portrait. “I’m going to paint someone everyone will recognize,” he told Kay, propping a mirror next to the easel while she warmed up at the piano playing scales and arpeggios.

  As the painting took on the form of a self-portrait, Kay had to admit he had talent. Using broad strokes in blues, grays, beiges, and maroon he sought to shed light not on his playful nature but on his darker, contemplative side.