Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music

by Blair Tindall

  CHAPTER

  14

  Unfinished Symphony

  AT THE HOSPITAL, Margo Garrett was waiting outside the cardiac recovery room. “They only let in immediate family,” she whispered, pushing back her blond hair. “You’re his fiancee. I’m his niece.” Niece? Margo didn’t in any way resemble Sam.

  I hadn’t seen Margo since she coached me on Bach cantatas in college. One of Sam’s best students, she now traveled the world with sopranos Kathleen Battle and Dawn Upshaw, cellist Sharon Robinson, and violinist Jaime Laredo. Like any great collaborator, she had arrived at a crucial moment.

  Sam’s brother had finally left early that morning, after it was clear that Sam had survived the surgery. Around town I’d heard Sam’s circle of friends grumbling that Martin should send Sam money. What would five or, better yet, ten thousand dollars be to Martin? I seemed to be the only one who saw how Martin privately took care of bills, attending to the financial burden of each of Sam’s surgeries like Sisyphus eternally laboring uphill. I wasn’t immediate family, but my daily visits had made Margo and me the next best thing, given the dearth of visitors otherwise.

  I washed my hands, like Margo had, and donned a gauze mask to protect Sam’s vulnerable immune system. His body would always identify the new heart as foreign matter and try to destroy it one cell at a time. For the rest of his life, Sam would take powerful antirejection drugs like cyclosporine that suppress the immune system’s T-lymphocyte cells. The drugs, which were already being administered to him intravenously, also lowered his defenses to germs.

  Flat on his back, Sam resembled a vibrating cadaver. A ventilator was rammed down his throat. Fluids, antibiotics, and the antirejection drugs snaked into his body through enough tubes to resemble a dish of spaghetti. The respirator shook his frail, inert body, and his eyes were taped open and coated with opaque gel. His head looked like the marble death masks I’d seen in Italian museums.

  I sank helplessly into a chair. “I felt the same way,” Margo said. “The nurses say if you talk to him he’ll hear you.”

  Margo fussed with something outside the room in order to give us privacy. I covered Sam’s limp hand with mine. Bandages were plastered across his chest. Blip, ping, whir went the machines. My own breathing sounded conspicuous, irregular, but Sam’s heart monitor beat in strong peaks, instead of its old ragged pattern. His ball bearings were gone.

  I stayed for about fifteen minutes. I babbled on about the weather and the Allendale, but it was as if I were talking to myself. I told him Bobby White said he’d come up later in the day. I didn’t imagine anyone else would be visiting except Martin, since I hadn’t seen anyone else at the hospital before. I needed to get home and ready myself for an afternoon rehearsal, so I slipped on my jacket, said goodbye to Margo, and went into the waiting room.

  Outside the sterile area, a polished brunette dialed the pay phone. I recognized her from Sam’s parties; she was an arts publicist and journalist. Sam had spoken often of her before going into the hospital, but he hadn’t mentioned her in weeks.

  “I’m just back from vacation.... Yes, the beach,” the brunette said into the receiver, inspecting her manicure. “Of course I felt justified in telling the nurse I was family; how else could I get in?” As I left the waiting room, I heard her begin saying something about the healing properties of touch.

  Two weeks after the operation, Sam was able to sit upright. He transferred his relentless practice discipline to recovery: setting up rehearsal schedules on the phone—”If I’m still around”; he guffawed—ordering ice, water, and Jell-O he couldn’t yet have. He wanted the sports pages, his Walkman, a real shirt, and fewer male nurses.

  “She can blow my shofar anytime,” he whispered, as a young aide arrived. Sam unbuttoned his shirt as she readied a new dressing; I could see purple skin blooming around his incision. Sam explained that the new heart beat so strongly, it bruised him from the inside out. He pulled his shirt aside to show me a wire sprouting from the middle—standard procedure in case he needed a pacemaker.

  I sat down once again, feeling faint.

  “Tell Brunhilde I’m not dead yet,” Sam said, with mock bravado. “You’re coming tomorrow?”

  I shook my head no. Between this week’s visits, I’d driven two hours to Bard College every day, then two hours back, rehearsing as soloist for the American premiere of British composer Nicholas Maw’s Little Concert with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. With only three weeks to prepare, I’d used Sam’s method of practicing first fast, then slow, then with different rhythms, and finally at half speed with a metronome. The boring routine programmed the virtuoso piece into my fingers.

  “Sunday, then?” He looked meek and, suddenly, very small.

  I nodded. Yes, Sunday. On Saturday, though, Sam called, his voice wavering. Divorce papers were being delivered to the Allendale. Couldn’t I just drop them off for him to sign? Wasn’t I driving right by? The envelope came late in the day, as afternoon edged into rush hour. I double-parked my Honda and ran into the hospital, my blue silk concert gown flapping around my ankles.

  “Thanks for coming,” Sam said, squeezing my hand and clutching the packet. “They’re moving me to a regular room tomorrow.” He paused, swallowing, as if he wasn’t sure how to continue. “Without all this,” he said, and gestured to the transplant unit’s control center, where closed-circuit screens monitored each patient. His forehead furrowed. I held his hand tight, snatching glimpses as the wall clock. Its second hand circled relentlessly.

  Nearly six o’clock. The concert’s at eight, ninety miles away. Damn! Where are all his friends?

  “You’ll be fine. Promise,” I said, kissing his cheek and rushing for the door. If I ever was to endure what he had, I thought, I hoped there would be more people around to help me.

  My own heart pounded as traffic on the Saw Mill crawled. Finally, whipping around the curves near Cold Spring, I bit off a chip of Inderal, washing it down with yesterday’s flat Diet Coke. Sam could never use Inderal like he once did; his heart’s severed nerves would probably render beta-blocking drugs less effective.

  Screeching into the Bard College parking lot, I was greeted by the stage manager. He parked the car while I ran backstage, where I heard the orchestra begin Joseph Joachim’s Elegiac Overture. I was on in ten minutes.

  The piece was so well-rehearsed, my notes spilled out precisely, fluidly. After all that preparation, it was over in ten minutes. I stayed at the reception for an hour, chatting with Bard professors and the conductor, Leon Botstein.

  The trip home was far more arduous than the few minutes I’d spent onstage. I backed over something in the parking lot. Getting out of the car, I saw it was the principal trumpeter’s straight mute, one of those conical fiberglass plugs that changes the instrument’s timbre to a softer sound. I promised to replace it. Once I was on the road, snow started falling on the Taconic’s curviest section. When I finally reached New York, a midnight squeegee man threatened to smash my windshield at 96th. A parking spot right outside the Allendale was a small yet welcome comfort.

  My new neighbor, a Russian tenor named Slava Polozov who’d just sung at the Met for the first time, followed me into the elevator. He was still shaken up after a disaster at the opera house that afternoon. Standing in the wings during intermission, waiting to go on again as MacDuff in Verdi’s Macbeth, he’d seen something falling eighty feet from the very top balcony; then he heard screams and a loud commotion. An old Bulgarian man, someone Slava had studied with as a vocal coach, had jumped to his death. The performance was canceled and a tape replaced the live nationwide radio broadcast in progress.

  It wasn’t the first recent tragedy at the Met. A stagehand had killed violinist Helen Hagnes back in 1980 and thrown her naked body down an air shaft. She’d been Sam’s au pair, and the police hauled him to the station for questioning.

  I said goodbye to Slava at the door and went inside to call Sydney. I’d seen her light on while I was parking. I invited her fo
r a glass of wine, which was our code for at least a bottle’s worth. I looked in my bare fridge, then scrounged Sam’s keys from my collection. I hustled upstairs, borrowing a bottle of Far Niente.

  What the hell. I took a bottle of Sonoma Cutrer too.

  When I woke late the next morning, the anchovy pie Cheesy Pizza brought at 1 A.M. was congealing in my belly, with a layer of furry lint coating my tongue. I was so thirsty. Ugh, why did I drink so much again?

  The phone jolted me awake.

  “Who is this? Can you come now? I need help.”

  “Sam,” I mumbled, “it’s Blair. You called me.”

  “Just come now,” Sam said, his receiver clattering back into its cradle.

  The phone rang again, and this time it was Bobby, calling from next door in the annex. He’d gotten the same strange call from Sam, just before mine. “Go ahead, Blairiekins, I’ll meet you there.”

  I climbed out of bed, harvesting clothes from the floor. I tried brushing last night’s wine smell off my teeth, then hurried to the elevator. In the lobby, Angelo squatted at the decorative Italianate arches beneath the balustrade. “Cats.” He grinned, smearing mortar over the heating grille between the 1910 marble columns. The fetor of piss and rat carcasses permeated the foyer. Brunhilde supervised, leaning on the banister.

  “Mr. Sanders had his operation?”

  I guessed that Brunhilde wanted to know if Sam had survived or if perhaps his apartment would be available soon. I didn’t answer her. Outside violin scales mixed with a grating flute on the second floor, which I could tell instantly was not Sydney. Her beautiful tone was distinctive and sweet, played on the valuable old Powell flute that was perfectly suited to her musical style.

  An hour later, I stumbled into Sam’s new hospital room. A strange man, Sam’s new roommate, slept in the bed nearer the door. Without monitors, LEDs, blips, or pumps, stillness filled the space. A second bed, empty, faced the George Washington Bridge.

  Sam slumped on a potty chair, the phone receiver dangling off his forearm. I touched his shoulder. He glanced up but looked right through me, as if his eyes were still coated with gel. I stared at him, paralyzed by the gravity of his situation.

  Just then, Bobby White strode in, all business.

  “Sam,” he said, scolding. No response. “Sambo,” Bobby said, more gently this time. Sam trembled, reaching up for Bobby like a lost toddler. These two had known each other longer than I’d been alive. Bobby’s arms encircled Sam, pulling the hospital gown around his skeleton. I slipped into the hall.

  Bobby edged out the door, and stood beside me.

  “Blairiekins,” he said. “He needs twenty-four-hour nurses. Go arrange it.”

  I’d seen Sam’s November Chemical Bank statement, which dipped far into the minus side. I didn’t even look at the medical bills, sending them to his lawyer unopened. I stared at Bobby incredulously. He knew there was no way Sam could pay.

  “Dear heart, worry not,” Bobby said theatrically, pointing my way down the corridor. He’d seen Sam recover twice over the last twenty-five years. “Survival first, bills second,” said Bobby, with the same burst of upbeat energy I’d seen from Sam in his most difficult moments. I headed toward the nurses’ station, grateful for Bobby’s booming stage bluster and Sam’s endless joking. They’d made an art of his illness and vastly improved on the reality of his situation.

  A nurse dialed the extension, handing over the receiver before darting off to answer a patient’s buzzer. I made the arrangements with a coordinator for the twenty-four-hour nurse service. Full-time care would cost thousands for the time he’d need.

  “Call Martin,” Bobby instructed when I told him the sum, but Sam’s brother was unreachable for hours, aboard a flight to Tel Aviv. The nurse coordinator was on her way with a contract to sign, and we had no money for her.

  I returned from the nurses’ station to Sam’s room and opened the door. Sam sat up in bed, wearing his Yankees cap and goofiest grin, basking in Bobby’s attention. “Sambo’s pitching next season,” Bobby boasted, as if nothing were wrong. I beckoned Bobby to come into the hall, so I could tell him the bad news, but Bobby had already solved the money problem.

  “It’s all set,” he said quietly. “Don’t tell anyone. Alice Tully is sending up a check.”

  Sam improved quickly. Sitting with his nurse in the same hospital room a few days later, he barely seemed sick. The nurse sat quietly in the vinyl chair as Sam finished opening his mail and then flipped through cartoons in the New Yorker I’d brought him.

  To pass the time, I’d brought a paper bag of more books, CDs, and magazines. I perched on the windowsill, holding a newspaper clipping. “Want a laugh, Sam?” I asked, reading aloud from my concerto review in the Kingston Daily Freeman. “In addition to sounding serenity against string angst, and calling with the plaintive haunt of a passing wild goose, oboist Tindall sported one of the most appropriately revealing gowns —”

  “You’re making that up,” Sam accused, snatching at the paper. I held it out of reach and continued.

  “Behind the prim jewel neckline of her floor-length royal blue satin sheath, Tindall flashed a fine back to the waist and great leg to the same point—”

  “Stop, stop! It hurts!” Sam laughed, clutching the bruise on his chest. “Critics!”

  That blue dress should take center stage, I thought. Even though a friend sewed it as a gift, the materials cost half my concert fee of $500. These solo gigs weren’t financially rewarding. Once I added in a hundred hours of practicing, five hours of orchestra rehearsal, and twenty hours of commuting, the pay worked out to less than minimum wage.

  Sam said he could relate. Itzhak earned $33,000 a night but paid Sam only $1,000 to accompany him. Still, Sam’s price was double the highest mentioned in a Wall Street Journal story about accompanists, which estimated that most earned 5 to 10 percent of a soloist’s fee. The star’s manager got 20 percent for filling out a few forms. Sam said that at one point accompanists organized to set minimum fees, but agents threatened a Standard Oil-style antitrust suit.

  “I would play your debut for free,” Sam said. Suddenly, I noticed a tiny blonde standing in the door. Sam blushed, beckoning her in.

  “Sue, meet Blair.” Sue had first met Sam in the hospital a few weeks ago, through one of her doctor acquaintances. The two were clearly sweet on each other. My guilt over rejecting Sam as a lover eased as Sue bent over to kiss his forehead.

  * * *

  D-day had arrived.

  My debut recital expenses mounted quickly. Because it was my project, I didn’t receive a performance fee but, instead, paid to produce the event. Anyone can rent Carnegie Recital Hall by simply calling the booking office, and in 1991 the rental was $1,200. Fees for the quartet and pianist came to an additional $2,000. Bobby White wouldn’t take payment, so I bought him a Barney’s gift certificate. I found a tea-length dress, more appropriate for the late afternoon concert than the sexy blue number, at Fowad for $79. The recital manager, Lee Walter, whom Sam had recommended, charged $2,000 for recital management, worth every penny. With decades of contacts, he easily handled printing and designing the flyers, tickets, and programs, which were the recitalist’s responsibility. Sydney, with her eye for detail, ordered reception platters from Fairway, bringing the total to $8,000.

  Carnegie Recital Hall was in its final stages of a 1991 renovation. The changes were underwritten by Sanford Weill, chairman of Citigroup and of Carnegie Hall, and the recital auditorium had recently changed its name to Weill Recital Hall. The regular dressing room behind the hall was gutted, so I crowded into another one upstairs, near the Kaplan rehearsal space on the fourth floor. It was a standard dressing room with makeup lights and a private bathroom, and it overflowed with cards and flowers. The dozen red roses came from Sam, who wasn’t well enough to attend.

  I started soaking a few reeds in a film canister of water and unzipped my garment bag. The gown was a stunner, midnight-blue silk chiffon over a slip dress. I sl
ipped it on and zipped up the back. It fit perfectly, the sheer bodice just skimming my body. A shirred satin sash cinched the waist, and the skirt fell to the ankle in the back, and draped asymmetrically like a theatrical curtain in the front. I inhaled sharply. It was the magic dress I’d been searching for! The whole day reminded me of Arleen’s triumphant Magic Flute debut in Vienna.

  Playing a few scales, I breathed deeply and tried a long tone. I’d taken twenty milligrams of Inderal, this batch from the apothecary in Bangkok, but still felt clammy and confused. I may have looked good, but I was scared to death. A friend, manning the box office downstairs, stuck his head in the door.

  Debut recital flier. (Christian Steiner)

  “Times picked up their ticket,” he said, catching my eye in the mirror. My pale reflection stared back. Bombs away! I grabbed my reed case, oboe, and music and headed for the door. Together with Brian, the pianist Sam had recommended, I picked my way down another iron stairwell, past the audience entrance, to the recital hall, and down the narrow corridor to the stage door. A kind stagehand, who came as part of the rental package, wished us luck and switched on the hall’s substandard recording system. We weren’t allowed to bring in our own engineers and would have to take the tape recorded on this cassette deck as a memento.

  Brian followed me onstage as applause filled the auditorium. Weill Hall glowed in three shades of ivory, its chandelier crystals shimmering in the silence. If only life could always be as lovely as this room, I thought, sliding the reed in my oboe and glancing over the audience. There was Sydney, my brother, Dad’s editors, and lots of strangers, one of whom was a critic. Trembling from head to toe, I took a breath, giving Brian the upbeat to the Telemann Sonata.