by Gerald Elias
Nathaniel understood Jacobus’s unswayable idealism underneath his crustaceous exterior. He also understood Jacobus’s almost pathological inability to discuss any issue which might reveal fragile inner sensitivity.
‘Masterclass didn’t go well?’ Nathaniel asked, slicing an onion bagel.
‘It went fine,’ Jacobus said. ‘Pass the cream cheese.’
Nathaniel didn’t ask any more questions. They spent the evening comparing various performances of the Mendelssohn Octet and concluded it was such a masterpiece it didn’t matter who played it or how. It simply couldn’t be ruined.
On Saturday, they planned to go for a walk in Central Park to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, but instead of sunshine, morning thunderstorms rattled the windows of Nathaniel’s apartment, followed by a persistent downpour. With time on their hands, Nathaniel set about working on his tax return and assisting Jacobus with his. Jacobus’s wasn’t very complicated as he received little in the way of Social Security benefits, and what income he did accrue was from increasingly rare private lessons and occasional masterclasses such as the disastrous one the day before. Nathaniel, with his contacts in the insurance industry, was able to obtain a substantial reimbursement for Jacobus’s burned-down house by claiming that a lot of the accumulated junk that had been destroyed were priceless, irreplaceable antiques. Though some of them actually were – his eighteenth-century Gagliano violin being the prime example – most of his belongings would have been rejected by secondhand stores. In any event, the income from the insurance company wouldn’t have to be claimed until the following year’s return.
Much of Sunday was spent in their traditional manner. Over coffee, Nathaniel read sections of the Sunday New York Times out loud, after which the two of them bemoaned the sorry state of the world, a therapeutic exercise which generally made Jacobus feel better. In the afternoons they listened to the radio broadcast of whatever opera the Met was performing and then talked about that. By the time they finished their critique, the day, and the catharsis of dispensing with a week’s worth of complaints, were over.
On Monday morning, Nathaniel left for an appointment for a consultation with an insurance company over a claim for a missing Fabergé egg, leaving Jacobus to his own devices. Over the years, Jacobus had become almost as familiar with Nathaniel’s two-bedroom apartment as with his own house. He navigated the narrow corridor from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen, where he poured a cup of coffee from the Mr Coffee machine on the counter, and from there to the living room to listen to the radio news on the hour. Then back to the kitchen for more coffee and back to the living room for a repeat of the news.
By midday, claustrophobia began to set in. How can a blind man be claustrophobic? he asked himself. Yet confinement was driving him crazy. Even his gargantuan bulldog, Trotsky, had it better than this. They didn’t allow dogs in Nathaniel’s building, so Trotsky had to stay elsewhere until Jacobus’s new house was built. The Millers, his neighbors in the Berkshires, were kind enough to take Trotsky in. According to their reports, the slobbering canine had made a successful transition, spending entire days on the porch, lying inert – the one thing he was expert at – and soaking up the salubrious spring sun.
Jacobus thought of his house in the Berkshires where he had lived for over thirty years. The square footage was probably less than Nathaniel’s apartment and clutter-filled. But he had never felt hemmed in like this. He could always open the door to the woods and the comforting silence. It was a silence softened by birds, breezes, and brooks, but even without sight he reveled in the sense of space. When he opened the door to Nathaniel’s apartment, what was there? Another corridor, an elevator, a lobby, and then what? The grimy groans of an impersonal city as unseeing to him as he was to it.
SEVEN
Saturday, March 28
It had been more than two months since Jacobus moved in with Nathaniel, and over a week since the disastrous masterclass. The adrenaline from the intensity of the moment had long since worn off, and the withdrawal left him listless and at loose ends. Jacobus was bored. And when he was bored he was intolerable, which might have been why Nathaniel was spending increasing amounts of time away from the apartment, consulting on cases.
‘There’s nothing to do around here,’ Jacobus grumbled.
‘Listen to some music,’ Nathaniel said and turned his attention back to the Times.
‘I’ve got Mendelssohn coming out my ass. I don’t need any more music.’
‘Listen to the news, then. Go for a walk. Make some coffee. Eat a sandwich.’
‘Some friend.’
‘My lord!’ Nathaniel said. ‘Shall I arrange a playdate for you? Or a babysitter?’
‘Smug son of a—’
‘All right! All right!’ Nathaniel said. Jacobus heard him slap down the newspaper. ‘I do declare! Would a game of checkers make you happy?’
‘Happy? No. Modestly lessened sense of ennui? Yes.’
Nathaniel set up the board on a folding table between the two of them.
As Nathaniel was about to make his first move, Jacobus asked, ‘What about some music?’
‘Jake, I’ve never said this to you, but—’
‘OK. Never mind. Just go.’
Nathaniel moved his checker with Jacobus’s finger on it. Jacobus could have done it himself, since Nathaniel started out every game the same way. He released Jacobus’s hand after making his move.
‘It’s strange,’ Jacobus said.
‘What do you mean? It’s the same move as always.’
‘No. Not that. Just that business about the mushrooms and that kid both happening at the same time.’
‘Jake, let it go. You’ve been obsessing for a week. There’s no connection. Some people got sick from bad mushrooms. And a hyper young lady got sick from you. You do have that effect, you know.’
‘But Schlossberg was an expert. His wife said he went to great lengths to make sure the mushrooms were good. And the way he talked to the girl. There was something not right. Some innuendo I wasn’t catching.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I don’t know. Just that there was a connection.’
‘You know what I think?’ Nathaniel asked.
‘You think I’m a doddering old fool who can’t admit he was a prick to an eager student in front of her peers and who is just making excuses for his prickiositude.’
‘Uh-huh. I couldn’t’ve said it better. Your move. I’m getting the guacamole from the fridge.’
Jacobus grunted, a combination of acknowledgement and disapproval.
As the game proceeded, Jacobus gradually gained the upper hand. His ability to remember the location of all the pieces on the board was in part a fringe benefit of his training as a violinist memorizing dozens of concertos, sonatas, and concert pieces. At first he accomplished this in standard fashion, as most students do; then, after becoming blind, he was by necessity forced to memorize everything simply by the laborious process of listening over and over again.
‘How do you remember where all my checkers are?’ Nathaniel asked.
‘Not hard when you only have three of them.’
There was a buzz on Nathaniel’s intercom. Yumi was downstairs. Nathaniel buzzed her up. She hadn’t spoken to Jacobus since unceremoniously dumping him off at the curb the week before. He prepared himself to be harangued and started planning parrying retorts.
Nathaniel went to the door when the bell rang. Jacobus remained seated at the table, considering his next move. He heard his two friends enter the living room.
‘Schlossberg is dead,’ Yumi said. Terse and tense.
If there was a pause in Jacobus’s response, no one noticed it.
‘King me!’ he said, advancing his square checker to Nathaniel’s end of the board.
‘Is that all you have to say? This is terrible news!’ Yumi said.
‘No more terrible than anyone else who I hardly knew.’
‘Jake, what’s happened to you? Just becau
se Aaron Schlossberg didn’t have the honor of your profound friendship didn’t mean he wasn’t one of the most important people in the music world. You’re heartless!’
‘Am I?’ Jacobus slammed down his doubled checker. ‘Am I?’ he repeated. ‘Did you by any chance notice the beggar sitting on the curb outside Nathaniel’s building? I can smell him a mile away. I’ve heard the rattle of his tin cup for years, rain or shine, winter or summer, and whatever I put in it he probably spends on booze. When he dies, which mercifully will be very soon, will that also be terrible news? Or is the death of someone who’s not “one of the most important people in the music world” of less consequence? Tell me, are you going to mourn for him?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Yumi said, but the wind in her sails had been reduced from gale force to a zephyr. ‘I didn’t know Schlossberg that well, either,’ she conceded. ‘And maybe he was on the pompous side. But he was a colleague on the faculty and he brought a lot of recognition to the conservatory. They said he would have been the next Philip Glass.’
‘That’s a motive for murder if I ever heard one.’
‘It wasn’t murder. He died of natural causes.’
‘Burst swollen ego?’
‘Not funny. Complications due to his diabetes.’
‘Pass me some of that whack-a-moley,’ Jacobus said to Nathaniel. He wasn’t hungry but he was going to show them his opinion of dying of diabetes. ‘Heavy on the chips.’
‘You might be disappointed to know that guacamole is healthy,’ Yumi said. ‘Avocados have good cholesterol.’
‘All cholesterol is good cholesterol. When did he die?’
‘A janitor found him yesterday, but they think he died Thursday. In one of the prefab practice modules at the conservatory.’
‘Didn’t he have a studio in his house? What was he doing in a module?’ Jacobus asked. ‘I thought those were for students.’
‘They think he must have been working on his latest opera. He was slumped over the piano. He had been working hard on it.’
‘Didn’t his good wife wonder where he was for all that time?’
‘She said she assumed he was off in the woods on one of his foraging excursions. That he did it all the time, and since it was spring break—’
‘Ah, his Beethoven reenactment. What opera was he working on, The Life and Death of Me?’
‘Anwar and Yitzhak. It’s about how Sadat and Rabin forged peace between Egypt and Israel only to be assassinated by their own people. The Met was going to premiere it next year.’
‘Who’s singing the role of Jimmy Carter? Pavarotti?’
‘Can’t you take anything seriously?’ Nathaniel asked.
‘Certainly. Have the police interrogated the fat lady to find out when she stopped singing?’
‘You’re ridiculous,’ Yumi said, a little too indignantly. Jacobus perceived laughter about to bubble to the surface.
‘Well, since no one’s taken anything I’ve said about the mushrooms and the girl seriously, why should I bother to be otherwise?’
‘This has nothing to do with any of that! Audrey is Audrey and Aaron is Aaron. And Sybil apologized to me about the mistake with the mushrooms just like she apologized to you and everyone else.’
‘People got sick.’
‘Yes, people got sick. They had bowel problems, just like you. But no one is worse for wear. Jake, didn’t you hear me say Aaron died of natural causes? He had a serious diabetes problem and didn’t take care of himself. It was just a matter of time.’
‘All right. Whatever you say. I’m just a deluded old asshole who happens to see connections between—’
‘I wouldn’t say deluded,’ Nathaniel chuckled.
Jacobus felt Yumi’s arms around his shoulders.
‘You’re not that old, either,’ she said.
‘What would I do without friends like you two?’
‘So I’m going to Kinderhoek to sit shivah with Sybil,’ Yumi said.
Jacobus turned his head.
‘Didn’t realize sitting shivah was a Buddhist tradition,’ he said.
‘We Japanese are equal-opportunity mourners.’
‘I was under the impression Schlossberg was a nonbeliever. And I’d place a large wager his wife ain’t Chassidic.’
‘There’s still a Jewish community at Kinderhoek from the old days, and they’re helping out. He’s already been buried – his parents are Orthodox. They still live in Brooklyn and insisted on doing everything according to tradition.’
‘Doesn’t a wife usually have greater say over such things?’
‘Tallulah told me that Sybil went along with it to get them out of her hair, even though she said he wanted to be cremated.’
‘To have his ashes scattered throughout his beloved woods?’
‘How did you know?’
‘My sense of poetic injustice.’
‘So, do you want to go with me or not?’ Yumi asked.
That caught Jacobus by surprise.
‘Didn’t think you’d want to be seen with me. Especially up there.’
‘Well, I don’t really.’
‘Then why do you want me to go?’
‘You’ve got me thinking. Just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘In case you’re right.’
EIGHT
Sunday, March 29
In times of tragedy, communities come together. Adversaries lay aside their animosities and embrace like long-lost brothers. Claws are retracted. Fangs are unbared. When, at eleven a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 the guns were silenced on the Western Front, implacable foes crawled out of their miserable trenches and shook hands. It’s the human condition. Most of the time.
Sitting shivah, a centuries-old Jewish religious and cultural rite, was conceived as a comfort to the bereaved. Prayers are intoned. Food is served. Stories of happier times are told every day for a week-long period of mourning. For the devout, a garment is torn. On this occasion there was no need for a tailor.
Jacobus, in a white shirt, black tie, and gray yarmulke, sat next to a glassy-eyed whitefish. Nathaniel had loaned him the tie. Yumi had washed and ironed the shirt, having scavenged for it, unworn for years, from a closet Nathaniel had cleared for Jacobus’s use. The yarmulke was provided upon arrival, courtesy of Congregation Beth Emanuel. Unlike the delicacies Jacobus had sampled on his previous visit, the whitefish had not been foraged from Schlossberg’s woods. Rather, it had been delivered from Bialy Stock in Kinnetonka Crossing in a carload of cold cuts and pastries, staples of a proper Jewish shivah. When he had arrived, Sybil was again greeting visitors, this time absent the high-spirited frivolity. She gave Jacobus a desultory hug, handed him the yarmulke with rabbinical solemnity, and told him to help himself to the food. He had mumbled something that he supposed sounded like condolences and propped the skullcap on top of what remained of his unruly, uncombed hair. As far as he was aware, it might have fallen off, but frankly he didn’t care.
Yumi assembled a plate of food for Jacobus that she knew he would enjoy – pastrami, corned beef, thinly sliced beef tongue, Swiss cheese (available as it wasn’t a strictly kosher affair), and a dab of liverwurst on a cracker. He hadn’t been eating much lately, and she expressed the hope that the allure of high cholesterol, unhealthful food would restore his appetite. She told him she’d be back after ‘doing a little schmoozing’ and would replenish his plate with slices of lox, smoked sturgeon and sable, and a scoop of his new friend, the whitefish.
Jacobus, who always had two reasons for doing things, sat next to the smoked whitefish partly so he could easily help himself. He liked whitefish, one of God’s miraculous, though expensive, creations. He considered having Nathaniel read the Times obits to him in the future so he could offer his condolences at shivahs more often.
He also sat next to the whitefish because it was strategically positioned. At the near end of the long tables of food, anyone who fed at the trough would have to pass him. Aw
are of his penchant for getting into trouble, he knew it would find him sooner or later, and his chosen location enhanced the likelihood it would be sooner.
Jacobus recalled that Sybil had exchanged piquant words with Harold Handy at the party the previous week and, wondering whether that was a one-time spat carried over from the symposium, mentioned that to Yumi.
‘Oh, they’ve had a running feud for years,’ she said. ‘Harold thinks Sybil doesn’t see the big picture, and Sybil calls Harold a dilettante and a shoddy researcher. Elwood told me she once said to him, “Harold might see the forest, but he wouldn’t see a tree if one fell on him.”’
‘The English do have a way with words.’
‘Yes. And as they say, ta-ta.’ Yumi began to wander off.
‘And don’t forget a bialy!’ he called after her. It was hard to find a good bialy anymore. Unlike bagels, which were ideal when topped with cream cheese, for some reason butter was the preferred spread for bialys. Also, whereas a bagel was perfectly fine either fresh or toasted, a toasted bialy ran a distant second to—
‘Mr Jacobus?’ said a female voice. Latin inflection.
