The Marble Quilt

by David Leavitt

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he answered. As it happened, there was a pianist around the studio, an immigrant called Kusnezov who, people said, could play any song without the music, just by hearing it hummed. Whenever a piano scene was required, it was Kusnezov’s hands that were filmed; in the Liszt movie his hands were substituted for those of John Ray, Jr.

  From the associate producer, Wardwell got Kusnezov’s number. He expected he would have to do some prodding, as in his experience artist types tended to be sensitive. Instead Kusnezov proved to be extremely cordial and, having first inquired with delicacy as to his fee, agreed instantly to the job—providing, if it was no inconvenience, that he be paid in advance, and in cash. From this Wardwell deduced that he either gambled, drank, or had an ex-wife pressing him for alimony.

  At seven o’clock on the evening of the party Kusnezov arrived at the Wardwells’ house and knocked, as instructed, at the service entrance. In the kitchen a dozen or so waiters were fighting their way into tight suits from the studio’s costume bank, while the cook and her assistants spooned caviar onto toast points, and cut sandwiches into the shapes of playing card suits, and emptied canned hearts of palms onto silver platters. Having first explained who he was to a man in butler’s livery, Kusnezov waited quietly by the refrigerator until Mrs. Wardwell appeared. She was a woman of heft, with a shelflike bosom and béchamel-colored hair. Her perfume commingled perversely with the cooking smells. “Mr. Kusnezov, so glad to meet you,” she said, offering a moisturized hand, and gave him the once-over. His appearance worried her. After all, though he was wearing the requisite soutane, Kusnezov—it could not be denied—was old. When he leaned forward to kiss her hand, his breath smelled of liquor. Also Liszt (and John Ray, Jr.) had those wonderful, Samson-like locks, whereas Kusnezov was mostly bald, with just a few watery hairs brushed forward over his pate; hardly what she’d envisioned when she’d planned the party.

  Still, she was determined to be game and, clasping his hand in hers, took him into the living room, which was harp-shaped, sweeping, with ribbed walls. “I’m told the acoustics here are sublime,” she said, leading him across the polished floor to the piano. Most of the furniture—Scandinavian, of light wood and leather—had been pushed up against the walls. As for the glossy white piano, it stood on a platform before a row of louvered floor-to-ceiling windows, through the glass of which Kusnezov could see a blue swimming pool refracting the sunset, a barbecue pit, an array of houses in crisp shades of pink and green spilling down the hills toward an ocean you could still make out in those days before smog.

  They stepped up onto the platform. “I trust our humble instrument will be to your liking,” Mrs. Wardwell said, positioning herself beside the piano like a soprano. “Do sit. It’s a Steinway, of course. My husband wanted a cheaper brand, but I said, ‘Frank, Steinway is the instrument of the immortals.’”

  “And do you play yourself?” Kusnezov asked, adjusting, with a finicky backward motion of the hands, the height of the white leather stool.

  “Not seriously, I’m afraid. Still, I do enjoy tinkling out a bit of Chopin now and then … Oh, I had the tuner up this morning.”

  Having first wiped his hands, which were slippery with her moisturizer, onto his handkerchief, Kusnezov sat down and played a scale.

  “A lovely tone,” he said. “Not too bright.”

  “Fine. As for the music, as I’m sure my husband explained, it should be romantic, in keeping with the film. Still, this is a party, so we don’t want everyone getting down in the dumps, do we?”

  “No, madame.”

  “So nothing dreary. I would be most grateful.”

  He bowed his head.

  “Oh, haven’t you brought any music?”

  “There is no need, madame.”

  “Of course you’re welcome to use any of our scores. My daughter Elise can turn pages.”

  “There is no need, madame.”

  “Fine.” She rubbed her hands together. “Well, the guests should be arriving in a half an hour or so. Oh, would you like a drink? Burt”—she signaled the bartender—“get Mr. Kusnezov a drink. What will you have?”

  “A whiskey and soda. Straight up.”

  “A whiskey and soda, Burt. And now if you’ll excuse me, I must check on things in the kitchen.”

  He nodded. She left. Burt brought Kusnezov his drink, which he guzzled fast. Smiling, Burt mixed him a second one.

  The doorbell rang. The man in butler’s livery admitted a group of five into the foyer—all dear friends of Mrs. Wardwell whom she had asked to come early, to “break the ice.” Sitting at the piano, Kusnezov played some Chopin waltzes. The next guest to arrive was Lee Remick. And then Mrs. Wardwell strode in, and Mr. Wardwell, who had been drinking alone in his study, and their daughter Elise, who scowled through thick glasses. Everyone except Elise chatted amiably as Mrs. Wardwell allowed her gaze occasionally to rest with approval upon the figure of Kusnezov, who had moved from the waltzes to Liszt’s late evocation of the fountains at the Villa d’Este.

  After forty minutes, he took a break. Burt mixed him a third whiskey and soda. In the meantime John Ray, Jr., had arrived, an event which had provoked the assembled to burst into a round of applause. Square-jawed, from Texas, the young actor had large hands and thick, blond hair that to his regret, he had recently been forced to cut in preparation for his next role, a navy lieutenant. Although his official escort for the evening was a lesbian starlet named Lorna Baskin, he had made a secret arrangement to rendezvous at the party with his lover of the moment, the young professor of musicology at UCLA who had served as musical advisor for the Liszt movie. As instructed, the professor came alone, and late. Kusnezov was by now taking his second break. Most of the guests—Hollywood socialites and actors, though alas no Stravinskys—were out on the patio. In the living room a group of studio executives took advantage of the lull to share Cuban cigars and cut deals. As for Kusnezov, he was leaning against the bar, talking with Burt about the dog races.

  The professor asked Burt for a screwdriver. He was a Bostonian of thirty-five, new in Southern California, having taken his position at UCLA only the year before. In the weirdly artificial atmosphere of the party he appeared himself to be in costume, with his bow tie and eastern tweeds. His face melancholic (for he did not see his lover), he peered out the door at the humming crowd, before strolling over to examine the piano. After a few minutes Kusnezov stepped past him and took his place again. They nodded at each other.

  Kusnezov started to play—a Chopin nocturne in C minor that, as it happened, was one of the professor’s favorites. He sat down to listen. All at once, and quickly, the music carried him away from that ample California living room with its ribbed walls, and into a small house, a winter house, where a coal fire was burning. There was grief in the air, not fresh, but a few years old, its presence vague as the smell of cooking. No one dared address it. No one dared acknowledge the sprite of memory that danced in the heavy, soot-thickened air. Then the professor smiled, for now he felt sure of something he had long suspected: that Chopin had written this nocturne for a sister who had died in childhood. In Kusnezov’s hands, the supposition became a certainty.

  Burt was silent. Even the executives fell silent. As for the professor, he was remembering a poem by Oscar Wilde, written also in memory of a sister dead in childhood, a sister buried:

  Tread lightly, she is near

  Under the snow,

  Speak gently, she can hear

  The daisies grow.

  From the patio John Ray, Jr., entered the room. He was talking to John Wayne. Their loud conversation dimmed only once they recognized that people were listening to the music, at which point they stopped and stood by the door, smiling respectfully.

  The professor looked at John Ray, Jr. John Ray, Jr., looked over the professor.

  Peace, peace, she cannot hear

  Lyre or sonnet,

  All my life’s buried here,

  Heap earth upon it.

>   The prelude ended. No one applauded. Once again, Kusnezov got up and got a drink, as did John Ray, Jr., John Wayne, and the professor. The lovers did not acknowledge each other.

  Only once the two actors had returned to the patio did the professor dare approach Kusnezov. His eyes revealed his knowledge—that he had heard; that he had recognized.

  “That was magnificent,” he said.

  “Yes, it was,” Kusnezov answered simply.

  “May I ask you a question?” The professor stepped closer. “Who are you?”

  “Who was I? you mean. That is the apposite point.”

  “You mean before the war …”

  Kusnezov shook his head. “The war is not to blame. I came to live in this country thirty years ago.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “What happened? What happened?” The pianist laughed. And meanwhile Jane Russell had come into the room, Mrs. Wardwell had come into the room, bringing with her a loud, invasive odor of perfume. She shot Kusnezov a glance, the meaning of which was obvious: Get back to work, and no more of the depressing stuff.

  “I must go,” he said to the professor. And putting down his empty glass, he returned to the piano.

  The Marble Quilt

  Via in Selci

  “Do you know of anyplace the professor might have gone to eat beans?”

  I look down at the maresciallo’s hands, spread languidly across the gunmetal surface of the desk. His nails are neatly pared. He wears a gold wedding ring; a brilliant gold chain-link bracelet is draped loosely over the bones of his wrist. To his left, on the edge of the desk, sits one of his deputies. To his right, another of his deputies takes down my statement on an old computer, the letters pulsing green against a black background. Other carabinieri come and go, listen for a few minutes, light cigarettes, or snap the tops of Coke cans. All of them are Roman, in their early thirties or younger, with glossy dark hair and thick wrists. This is the homicide division, and I am here to give testimony.

  “Beans?” I repeat.

  “Yes, beans.”

  “Well, I know Tom was very fond of the Obitorio—the ‘morgue’—that pizzeria down on Viale Trastevere, next to McDonald’s. Of course, obitorio is just the nickname he gave it, because of the tables. They’re made of marble, so …”

  “Oh, of course. The pizzas are very good there.”

  “They also serve beans. It’s one of their specialties.”

  The maresciallo’s deputy types; reads aloud, “The professor often ate at a pizzeria on Viale Trastevere that he called the ‘morgue,’ because of the marble tables. It was known for its beans.”

  “Is that all right with you?” the maresciallo says.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” I say.

  More than once, during this interview, I’ve asked questions about Tom’s murder, and been told, ever so politely, that I am here to provide information, not solicit it. Nonetheless, some of the maresciallo’s questions reveal things. For instance: Did Tom make a habit of drinking red wine? Had he ever mentioned a trip to Tunisia? Where might he have gone to eat beans?

  Not necessarily things I need, or want, to know.

  Other questions merely perplex me, add to the air of confusion and hopelessness that surrounds the investigation.

  “When you visited him in his apartment, did he ever ask you to take off your shoes?”

  “Did he ever make reference to someone called Ludovico?”

  “Do you know if he had friends on Borgo Sant’Angelo?”

  “No,” I answer. Repeatedly, no.

  They’ve assured me, from the very start, that I’m not a suspect. After all, I have my alibi. When Tom was murdered, I was nowhere near his apartment; I was with some American businessmen, giving them a tour of the Vatican museum.

  Still, alibis can be fabricated. Friends will lie.

  “Did he ever mention an article he was writing about the floors at San Clemente?”

  Actually, the article about the floors at San Clemente he did mention. It was part of his new life, his Italian life, in which I played, at best, a marginal role. In this life Tom taught English, and wrote the occasional travel piece, and devoted much of his time to exploring some of the more arcane corners of Roman history; thus his fascination with church floors, in which hand-cut pieces of marble—hexagons and triangles, circles and diamonds and teardrops—were arranged into precise geometries. Speckled deep red porphyry, green serpentino, butterscotch-colored giallo antico: “like the squares of a quilt,” he once told me. “Only instead of cloth, the quilt is made of marble. A marble quilt.”

  “Not only San Clemente,” I tell the maresciallo. “Also Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and San Giovanni in Laterano, and Santa Maria Maggiore.”

  His deputy types; reads. “The professor spoke to me of an article he was writing about the floors of Roman churches.”

  “He had been living in Rome for three years, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Obviously your Italian is fluent.”

  “It’s my job. I’m an interpreter.”

  “Of course. My compliments. In your view—that is, speaking as an authority on language—did the professor speak a good Italian?”

  “Not bad,” I say, “considering that he only started studying once he arrived here.”

  “Yet his mother was from Italy.”

  “She was born in Naples.”

  “Actually in Caserta. But that is very close to Naples. In your view, was the professor’s Italian sufficiently fluent that he would never have misunderstood what another person was telling him?”

  “Misunderstood?”

  “That is to say, might he have misunderstood what another person said to him, if the other person were speaking Italian?”

  “He might have.”

  The maresciallo cracks his knuckles. Then he removes his ring and polishes it with his shirtsleeve. Then he takes a cigarette from a pack lying open on the desk. “Do you smoke?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He lights the cigarette.

  “How often do you come to Rome?”

  “Two or three times a year.”

  “For work?”

  “Usually. But sometimes just for pleasure.”

  “Did you ever come specifically to visit the professor?”

  “A few times.”

  “And the last time?”

  “I was working.”

  “Where were you working?”

  “PepsiCo was hosting a conference for its European executives.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with the professor? You did on other occasions.”

  “There was no need. A hotel room was provided for me.”

  “And if a hotel room hadn’t been provided for you?”

  “I might have stayed with Tom. But probably not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, his apartment was very far out from where I was working. Also, when you used to live with someone—when for years you shared a bed with someone—it can feel awkward, sleeping on the living room sofa. It can feel … wrong.”

  His deputy—the one sitting on the edge of the desk—smiles in sympathy. Clearly he knows of what I speak.

  “How long did you live with the professor?”

  “We lived together for ten years, five years ago.”

  “In San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you live in Düsseldorf.”

  “Yes.”

  He opens a folder; examines what appears to be a list of questions; writes a note to himself.

  “When you did stay with the professor—on the sofa—did he ever make advances toward you?”

  “Good heavens, no! We were well beyond that.”

  “Did he ever bring someone home to share his bed?”

  “Of course not! Tom didn’t do that sort of thing.”

  The maresciallo raises his eyebrows. I wince.

  “What I mean,” I correct, “is that he never admitted to doing that s
ort of thing. Certainly he would never have brought anyone home when he had a friend staying. He claimed to live like a monk.”

  The deputy at the computer types; reads, “When I came to Rome, it was usually for work, in which case I stayed at a hotel. When I came for pleasure, I sometimes stayed with the professor, which made me uncomfortable as a consequence of our having once lived together, in San Francisco. The professor never made advances toward me, however, nor was I concerned that he might bring someone home to share his bed, because he never admitted to doing that sort of thing, and in my opinion, would never have done that sort of thing when he had a friend visiting. He told me he lived like a monk.”

  “Change the last line,” the maresciallo says. “I don’t like ‘He told me.’ Change it to ‘He claimed.’”

  “He claimed to live like a monk,” the deputy repeats.

  I wonder if in America cops would ever be so fastidious about their prose style.

  Oh, what a nasty business an autopsy must be! Not that there was ever a worry about preserving “the integrity of the body,” or any of that New Agey nonsense we used to hear in San Francisco—not in this case, since by the time the police broke down the door and found it, Tom’s body had very little in the way of integrity left. He was tied to the kitchen table. His skull had been smashed in. He had been rotting for seven days.

  By then, of course, I was back in Düsseldorf. During the last forty-eight hours before my flight, I must have called him a dozen times. And a dozen more times from Düsseldorf. Always his answering machine picked up. The carabinieri listened to the messages, then got my number out of his Filofax. They were very nice. They never said I had to come back to Rome—only that if I were willing to, it would be a great help to their investigation. Otherwise the German police could interview me by proxy.

  Naturally I agreed to come back.

  Tom’s San Francisco friends, those couples whose children he had babysat and whose dinner parties he had catered, started calling me. Over the phone they spoke cautiously of the need to “protect Tom’s reputation.” Obviously they’d seen the newspaper articles, the ones in which his Rome friends, the correspondents, made pretty obvious what everyone took for granted anyway: that he had been done in by a hustler, some Romanian or Albanian he’d picked up at the station and brought home. Sex, then a beating, or perhaps sex that included a beating, followed by a blunt object smashed against his skull. (Was it perhaps the obelisk of semesanto, the red brecciated with chunks of white, like pieces of fat in a salami?)