by Noel Hynd
Faced with Rabinowitz, Rolf knew enough to sit, listen, and absorb, but not to disagree yet or take issue, any more than he would have corrected grammar or punctuation. At the end, Rabinowitz made another pronouncement.
“I will take you now on as a student,” he said. “Not because I so want to. Not because I so need to. But because I see no one else alive would be capable. It will be my burden.” He paused. “Don’t ever take that to mean that I like you, because I don’t.”
Then he left the room. He slammed the door. Geiger wondered what he had done to offend the great but formidably intimidating man.
Today, years later, as he ruminated through Manhattan in the aftermath of Rabinowitz’s funeral, the image came galloping back to Rolf Geiger. He could still see Rabinowitz charging angrily out of the rehearsal chamber following their first encounter. It was an image that recurred to him a lot over the years. Sometimes on cold lonely nights, he could hear all these echoes simultaneously, wheezing through the chambers of his heart like an ill-directed wind.
Spooks. That’s what they were, he mused to himself. Little mental spooks.
They were like the unanswered questions that also resided in that quarter of his mind. Where, for example, had Rabinowitz’s soul gone? Where had the talent gone that was in the dead man’s head? Or his hands?
Was it out there somewhere, waiting to inhabit another human being? Or was it gone for good, disintegrating with Rabinowitz’s remains?
Geiger’s attention drifted back to the present. The limo driver cut through Central Park at Ninety-Sixth Street. When they emerged on the east side, they passed a small French bistro that Rolf liked. Seeing it, Geiger recalled his first trip to Europe a dozen summers ago.
There had been an overnight flight to Paris and then a plane ride to Nice. Then a car and driver had taken him into Niece, where he would compete for the prestigious Grand Prix du Piano de Nice, the French city’s most competitive musical award.
But there had been much more than the music and the competition.
There had been the sun. The excitement. The people. The sex. He had gotten his first taste of sex when he was seventeen years old and was seeing the world for the first time.
Nearing the end of the competition, he had sat on the seaside veranda of the Hotel Negresco one afternoon and gazed at the blue Mediterranean. He watched the lithe girls in bikinis walking along the beach, flirting with young men in cars, young men not too much older than he. He glanced back up over his shoulder to a balconied suite he had been blessed with in the hotel. To live a life like this it was necessary to not just have simply money, but to possess real wealth. But he smiled slightly at the time because, sitting on a terrace in the south of France, one of three finalists in the competition and the only non-Russian, he realized that his life could be different than the lives of the blue-collar drudgery that lay before his one-time tormentors.
He had sampled enough nice clothes, fine hotels, expensive restaurants, and air travel to know that there was another universe out there, one for which he now felt he was destined. This gift in his hands would take him there.
And how about all the elegant women who were always hanging around? He could already see how habit-forming all of this could become. And he knew that for Rolf Geiger, there was just one key to the vault.
Music. But not just music.
No, Geiger mused, he would have to be the not just the best alive, but the best ever. Accomplishing that, he would have to take it to an even higher level. He would have to entertain. He would have to be the most exciting keyboard artist ever to draw breath.
There were armadas of musicians in the world, and legions of fine pianists. Geiger had nothing against these other artists. They were free to live their lives and play their music as they saw fit. Many of these others had been born into musical families, having taking training from the time they were two years old. No, he would have to arrive from a different directions. He would listen to his mentor, Rabinowitz. He would entertain what the old man had to say. But he would do things his way.
Chopin mixed with Roger Daltry. Liszt mingled with Elton John.
Beethoven with Elvis. That would get him where he wanted to go in life.
Well, he thought to himself at age seventeen, why not? The previous night, he had knocked the European music world flat on its derriere.
Geiger had played Tchaikovsky with a bold sexiness that had pianists in the audience studying his fingering to try to decipher how he did what he did. The pyrotechnical conclusion had sparked the audience to its feet in a standing ovation.
But he wasn’t finished. As an encore and as a near conceit, he administered a knockout punch at the Salles des Philosophes. He treated the audience to a rousing improvised piano transcription of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever, intermingling it into the melody of Auprès de Ma Blonde, before morphing both themes into a fiery but sweetly beautiful impromptu composition based on romantic themes—eternally popular in France—of Camille Saint-Saëns.
The encore precipitated a fifteen-minute ovation to end the evening. No one present had ever seen, much less heard, anything of the sort. Thereupon, the latter-day Elvis left the building.
The next morning, as Geiger sat on the terrace of the Negresco, the daily Nice-Matin carried Rolf Geiger’s picture on its front page, breathlessly proclaiming him le jeune chevalier américain du piano, sans peur et sans reproche. And with one taste of world-class adulation, he never doubted the direction he wanted his life to take.
Rolf emerged from his memories. Their vehicle was traveling down Fifth Avenue in the Eighties. Diana nodded to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, indicating a huge sweeping blue-and-yellow banner above its front steps. The museum was one of her favorite places. The banner had just been raised that morning. It proclaimed the opening of a Renoir exhibit, several weeks hence, which she wished to attend. “Renoir! Will you go with me?” she asked. “If you’re not interested, my art teacher will go with me.”
“Is he gay or straight?”
“Very straight.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” he said. They laughed. She squeezed his hand again.
“Thought so,” she said with a wink.
Five
Twenty minutes later, the limousine came to a stop in front of Geiger’s town house. He stepped out. Diana followed. There were two photographers waiting, plus a woman with a television camera who worked for the local news.
Geiger acquiesced to giving a brief on-camera statement. His words were kind, recalling an earlier time when Rabinowitz was still Geiger’s teacher.
“In the past few years you’d been apart,” the reporter stated. “Some unkind things were said by Isador Rabinowitz about you. Do you have any thoughts on that today?”
“I’ve already forgotten the unpleasant things,” Geiger said. “Isador Rabinowitz was one of the giants of modern music. I prefer to remember him that way, just like everyone else.”
“Was he a great teacher?”
“I learned more from him than anyone, so, yes. I’d have to say so.”
“And he was the greatest pianist of his time?” she pressed.
“Indisputably,” he answered.
“And now, maybe you’re the greatest,” she said.
“That’s not for me to decide or even discuss.” Geiger tried to move away.
“One final question?” she pressed. “With all that he said about you, why do you suppose he selected you as a pallbearer?”
“I would interpret it as a final gesture of kindness and friendship from a great man,” Geiger said diplomatically.
“But he selected you in the place of his son, who’s your age,” she said. “Was he suggesting something by that?”
“I couldn’t speculate,” Geiger said, “and you shouldn’t either. Thank you.”
He finally won his freedom.
Geiger had long ago decided he would always handle himself in public with grace. He was proud to remind himself of that decision he
re. Yet in his mind, even as he was fishing his house keys from his pocket, he felt the heat of a television camera upon his back. And an inner thought was warning him.
“Rabinowitz, too, had been kind and charitable as a young man,” the interior voice said. Then something in the maestro had changed as the years had gone by. Rabinowitz had probably not set out to transform himself into the monstrous bitter man he had eventually become. But he had become it, anyway.
“I will not turn out the way he did,” Geiger found himself thinking. Thinking, but not saying. “I will not sacrifice life for art.” It was his mini-mantra and had been for years.
He and Diana entered the town house. They both drew long breaths and felt relieved as the door closed behind them. And at least this door missed his fingers by several feet.
“I don’t know why you even speak to people like that,” Diana said, irritated. “You should have earned membership in the Vatican diplomatic corps from the way you handled that bitch.”
He kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll settle for sainthood,” he answered. “Hello Edythe.”
Mrs. Edythe Jamison, his housekeeper, appeared and collected their coats. She was a nicely mannered woman in her late fifties who came in for six hours, five days a week. Today, she had a light lunch waiting.
The house felt warm and splendid. It had a large foyer on the first floor, flanked by a living room and dining room on one side and a large room behind two oak doors which Geiger had converted into a library.
The room was a library, a den and his studio, too. His personal Steinway sat in it, jet-black, dominating the room. The walls were lined with bookcases overflowing with biographies, works on music, and books about the great composers. There were also scores, and essays on theater, art, and cinema. There was even a sprinkling of books on sports—tennis and baseball in particular. Geiger had been fascinated by the New York Yankees since he was a kid growing up in West Virginia. Lou Gehrig was his favorite historical player, Bobby Murcer had been his favorite as he had grown. He loved to read about their wonderful history as it transported him into another world and another time. There was also a collection of books on world politics and an extensive collection of European graphic novels in various languages.
Geiger sometimes liked to buy books by the armful, and this room reflected that penchant. Unseen, behind all the books, Geiger had had special soundproofing installed. If he wished to, he could completely contain the sound of his music. Or he could leave open the doors and windows and fill the air with his playing.
A stairway in the front hall led to the second floor, where there were three bedrooms. One had been converted into his home office. The master bedroom was at the front of the house, overlooking the tree-lined Seventy-Third Street. The guest bedroom was rarely used. The third floor was almost empty—two large rooms whose fate had been left undecided. One room, however, had recently taken purpose with paints and an easel: Diana had begun art lessons. She studied twice a week in SoHo with a handsome Lebanese expatriate named Maurice Sahadi. Rolf liked her work and encouraged her.
Diana had appointments in the afternoon. Geiger stayed within his home, reading scores, occasionally listening to music on compact discs. He didn’t touch his piano all day.
In the evening, toward eight, he met with Diana at Audrey’s, a small pub on Madison at Seventy-Fifth Street. He sat in the back with her. The only people to recognize him were regulars, who didn’t approach him. On the jukebox someone kept playing Sinatra.
It wasn’t Upbeat Frank. It was Point-of-No-Return Sinatra. Geiger loved Sinatra and the music fit his mood almost too perfectly. Rolf fell silent. Sometimes when Geiger brooded too much, he felt that Diana was his lifeline to reality. “A penny for your thoughts,” she said, trying to draw him out. She placed a hand on his, her usual gesture when she saw that he needed support. He shrugged.
“When Isador Rabinowitz gets into your head, you’re finished,” he said to her. “You never get him out. Imagine how deeply he’s already in mine.”
“He’s gone now. Maybe it’s time to work on getting him out,” Diana suggested.
He smiled. She reciprocated. She leaned to him and kissed him on the cheek. He placed am arm around her and held her tightly, then released.
They left Audrey’s between nine and ten and walked home. The night was raw and a drizzle had begun. They shared an umbrella. Geiger had three locks on the front door of his home, but once past them, his home again felt warm and secure. This was his redoubt, his secure sanctuaries from the outside world.
Diana went upstairs and retired towards eleven. Sometime after that, as was his daily habit when he was in New York and not performing, Geiger wandered into his library.
He closed the windows and closed the doors. Tonight he would make music away from all human ears, other than his own. He sat down at his Steinway and thought for a moment. Then he began to play. He liked to play at night, when no one would disturb him.
To get in the proper mood, he played melodies from Paul Simon and Leonard Bernstein. Then he played some Scott Joplin and, to fool around, some Kander and Ebb. To mess around a little more before getting serious, he played Chopin interlaced with themes from Springsteen, and then Beethoven with motifs from Jerry Garcia.
He smiled. He felt better. Acid-natured old Rabinowitz would probably have already been kicking at the lid of his coffin if he could have heard this.
“You have mongrelized some masters!” the old man would have said. “You are a slut, young man! You have the morality of a musical whore!”
“How is that?” Geiger answered aloud.
“You go to bed with many and embrace none!” Rabinowitz raged in his imagination.
“Maybe,” Rolf answered. “But musical promiscuity is its own reward.”
He had an image of the departed maestro slamming down the lid above the keyboard. Slamming it down and locking it, lest further sacrilege occur. A similar incident had occurred at a lesson that Geiger had taken at age nineteen when he had sprinkled themes from Led Zeppelin into some Schubert, which Geiger had announced impetuously, “needs to get a life.”
The old man had stormed from the practice chamber. As Geiger thought back, he broke into a full smile for the first time that day—even though he could almost feel the old man’s hands on his neck.
Several minutes passed.
After a few measures of introduction, Geiger took one of the dramatic themes from Wagner’s Tannhauser and by degrees worked himself up into a cyclone of rain-like runs, hail-like trills, lightning arpeggios, and thunder chords. But these were mere exercises, physical and technical. Only when he was satisfied that his hands were limber enough, did he settle down to serious business, alternately attacking and caressing some Chopin.
The music soared in the enclosed room. He was pleased, though aware that he had no audience. He knew that he had picked up that one small trait from Rabinowitz—playing where no one could hear, lest there be a witness to a mistake or a badly turned phrase. It bothered him when he found himself doing things that the old maestro had done.
Now, sufficiently warmed up, he sank deeply into a major work by Chopin, The Fantasie in F Minor. He spent an hour on it, occasionally toying with or improvising on certain themes. Before he grew too tired, he switched to Beethoven. The Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major. One of his favorite works, as well as one of the composer’s favorites.
Fatigue wrapped itself around him. He thought of Diana sleeping one floor above him. He was anxious to shower and slide into bed with her. If he felt like making love, he would wake her. She never turned him down, and he loved her all the more for it.
His gaze drifted around the room. There were awards and photographs, plaques and souvenirs, loot from his many artistic triumphs on five different continents; unending testimonials to his brilliance, a thousand memories and not a bad one among them.
He took stock. He was young. He felt increasingly good about life. The anxieties and fears that he h
ad entertained earlier in the day didn’t seem so monumental now that he was back in his own place, comforted by his own possessions, secure in his Manhattan fortress.
Life was fine, he decided. Just fine.
Aside from the challenges of his few small upcoming appearances, which were significant, he had nothing in the world to worry about. Or at least, that’s what he kept telling himself. But deep down, he knew something was troubling him. He glanced at his watch. It was 1:30 a.m. He finally admitted to himself what it was.
Against all reason, he didn’t believe the old man was dead. That’s what was bothering him. There were so many things left unfinished, and not all of them were symphonies. He rose from the piano and walked quietly across his library.
His hand found the light switch. He turned it off.
Simultaneously, one of the strings within the piano—he recognized it as the A above middle C—snapped of its own accord.
Geiger flicked the light back on and turned toward the Steinway. He stared for a moment.
Strings snapped all the time, he told himself. But he continued to stare.
Uneasily, Geiger clicked off the light again. He left his library and walked up the steps to his bedroom. Diana was sleeping soundly, breathing evenly.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and gazed at her. She was the woman of any man’s lifetime. She wore a blue silk nightgown. It was bunched up high on her thighs as she slept. The neckline had fallen away and one of her breasts was visible.
Sometimes, when sleeping next to her, he would awaken slightly and look at her. He thought his emotions were the purest at these moments, before the other complexities and complications of his present life could crown in upon him. At these moments, all he could feel was his love for her. He leaned forward and gently kissed her on the lips.
