by Cary Fagan
A week. Two. Four. “Well, of course,” Frida said. She was knitting a shawl while stroking their blind dog with her toes. “There’s an old-boy system at work. And look who they hire these days? Has-been rock stars. To write shows about superheroes. Something like Dreyfus, that finds relevance for our times, of course it’s going to be a tough sell.”
“Maybe the work’s no good.”
“It’s good,” she said.
“You don’t even like musicals.”
“That’s right, and I like yours.”
He noticed she was wearing her puff-sleeved top, with the lacing that criss-crossed the open bosom. She wore it when she wanted to have sex; she liked him to undo the lacing. But he felt no rise of desire. When she was looking down at her knitting he put his hand over his groin, to judge whether he might coax some life into the thing, so as not to disappoint her.
ARRIVING HOME THE NEXT DAY, he found Frida in the kitchen, adding beets to her vegetarian hotpot.
“There’s a letter for you on the dining table.”
“What do you mean a letter?” He was already moving through the doorway, picking up the envelope, reading the return address.
Cohn Musical Entertainment
107 Fourteenth Street, Suite 3B
New York, New York
10375
His hands started to tremble. Frida came up beside him, licking the wooden stirring spoon. “So? Open it.”
Dear Mr. Spearman,
Dear? I ought to cry, Hail Spearman! For you are a true musical genius. Do you have any idea what your Dreyfus in Wichita means to a man like me? A producer can wait years, a whole lifetime even, and never make a discovery like this. Scores we get in the hundreds, thousands even. But to find one with such depth, such seriousness of intent, which manages nevertheless to entertain as it transforms its story into the idiom of the American musical — ah, how rare that is, Mr. Spearman, how rare!
Mr. Spearman — may I call you Michael? — I kiss your hands. Let me bring your masterpiece to the Broadway stage and the public it deserves. Please call me. Collect.
Yours in awe,
Mort Cohn, President
They danced, they laughed, they declaimed the letter aloud, first Frida and then Michael, and carried it triumphantly over their heads. After they had collapsed onto the afghan-covered sofa, Frida said breathlessly, “Go ... ahead ... and ... phone.”
“Phone? Now?” The smile evaporated from Michael’s face.
Frida just gave him a look. Then she reached to the end table and handed him the phone.
The other end picked up at the first ring. “Cohn Entertainment Group.”
“Is Mr. Cohn available?”
“Who is calling?”
“Michael Spearman.”
“Michael! I can’t believe I am actually speaking to the composer of Dreyfus in Wichita. Let me assure you, I don’t usually answer the phones around here, but the secretary’s got strep throat. My God, you should see me — I’ve got tears in my eyes. I haven’t cried like this since Lenny Bernstein died. Michael, listen to this —”
Michael heard the thin humming of Sadie’s theme. Just as abruptly it stopped. “You hear, Michael? Already seared in my memory.”
“Mr. Cohn, I’m amazed. I’m overwhelmed.”
“As soon as I’m off the phone I’m going to talk to Hal and see how his schedule looks.”
“Hal Prince? He’s still working?”
“Hang on, Michael. Nancy, you’re back. Start working on that Spearman contract. We’ll FedEx it overnight. And make sure you get the names spelled right.”
THE CONTRACT ARRIVED, NOT BY Federal Express, but regular mail. Along with the signature, it required a cheque for eight thousand dollars in U.S. funds. “Absolutely standard practice for a first-time composer,” said Cohn himself, when Michael called. “Besides, read the whole clause. You become an investor in your own work. A percentage of the receipts goes to you, and not after we recoup but from day one. Everybody knows that Sondheim made almost nothing until he wised up. Do you want to be one of those shmucks who makes everybody rich except himself? You’re a long term investment for me.”
For three days Michael dithered, but he knew he would send the cheque. Frida refused to help him decide, but she looked sorrowful — “And not because of the money, honey,” she said. He had to take out a loan against the equity in their house. Even as the envelope slipped into the mail box he knew it was gone forever. Shortly after he found Mort Cohn’s phone to be disconnected, and mail sent to Fourteenth Street was returned “address unknown.”
In June, Frida got arrested at the G20 protests and spent a night in jail. Michael was at home, sprawled on the sofa watching a DVD of Rent while absent-mindedly tossing grapes to the parrot. He didn’t watch the news and so missed seeing Frida get dragged into a police van.
IN SEPTEMBER THE SCHOOL YEAR began, when most of the students had to be retaught the simplest fingerings of their instruments. He performed his teaching duties with grim conscientiousness.
“You know who I am in class?” he said to Frida. “I’m the guy in that Edvard Munch painting, The Scream.”
She was boiling pectin-free rhubarb jam in a cast-iron pot. “Boy, are your students lucky to have you.”
“I don’t care about my students anymore.”
“Then you’re in worse trouble than I thought,” she said, stirring with the wooden spoon. “Maybe you ought to quit.”
“We couldn’t afford it.”
“Yeah, well, your students can’t afford you either. Now taste this and tell me if it’s too tart. You must be good for something.”
AS SOMETIMES HAPPENED, A NEW student enrolled in the school after the year had begun. Laura Appelbaum, a first-rate violinist, had started on the Suzuki method at the age of four. She took to visiting Michael in the music room at lunch hour so they could play duets. She had a natural ear, a fluid bow, an excessive love for the Romantics, premature acne, a retainer, pigtails, and didn’t seem to care about being considered a freak by her peers. At home, Frida became weirdly jealous listening to Michael go on about her, but she solved the matter by inviting Laura for dinner. The two hit it off instantly; they were, Michael could see, kindred spirits. They split their sides laughing over Laura’s imitations of the Beth Shalom teachers, sparing only Michael himself because, as Laura put it, “You’re not exactly the sort who can laugh at himself, are you, Mr. S.?”
For a month he held off telling Laura about his musical. Naturally, she asked to see the score. “I don’t think so,” Michael said gently. “I don’t feel like disappointing you.”
“Come on, Mr. S. I really, really want to see it. Pweeze?”
He sighed and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. She pulled it from his hands, gave it a friendly pat, and ran out of the music room.
Michael could not sleep because a twelve-year-old girl named Laura Appelbaum was reading Dreyfus in Wichita. He drove to school and sat in the music room limp with regret. It was three minutes to the bell when she slid through the doorway, the score under her arm.
“We’ve got to do it, Mr. S.!”
“Do it?”
“You know what I mean. It’s great. It drags a little in the middle of the first act, and Sarah’s ballad in act three is weak. But otherwise it’s amazing. We can do it here at Beth Shalom. We’ve got the orchestra. Miss Litvak can direct and you can conduct. I’ll be first violin, naturally.”
“Wait, wait. This isn’t a Garland and Rooney picture. First of all, it’s too musically sophisticated for kids. The syncopation, the minor keys, the harmonies —”
“Okay, so it’s not Grease. But they’ll get it. And if they get to skip some classes for rehearsals everybody will want to be in it. All we’ve really got to do is convince the principal.”
“Yes, well, that ends it, doesn’t it. Rabbi Pinkofsky won’t possibly agree. He wants the school to concentrate on its academics and Jewish learning. He won’t even give me a cent for n
ew strings.”
“Exactly. Which is why my Dad’s idea is so good. He says that if we make the performance a fundraiser for the school, the Rabbi will go for it. Dad says —” she lowered her voice to a whisper “— there’s asbestos under the ceiling tiles.”
“I don’t know, Laura.”
“You’re just like my little brother. You have to be asked ten times before you’ll agree to something you want.”
RABBI PINKOVSKY ASKED MICHAEL TO stand before his fellow teachers and give a synopsis of the work. He was saved only by the intervention of Ellen Litvak, who’d been dying to put on a musical for years. “In my view there’s a real advantage in putting on Michael’s show. Sure, we could do Fiddler, but we’d have to pay for the rights and that’s not cheap. We don’t have to pay Michael a dime.”
In the end, the faculty voted in favour, with only the gym, mathematics, and Halacha teachers against. At home, Michael tortured himself over the decision. “My life’s turning into a parody,” he said to Frida.
“If you didn’t want it you could have said no,” Frida replied. “But I think you doth protest too much. You’re secretly thrilled.”
“Do I look thrilled?”
“You hide it. Disgust you’ll show. Annoyance. Long-suffering weariness. Occasionally mild pleasure. But you never look thrilled, ecstatic, or blissful.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh yes, you can also look appalled, as now.”
THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS FELT to Michael more like a caricature of the production process, a kid-sized version of The Producers. During the auditions he heard a dozen girls belt out “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or songs by Lady Gaga, whoever that was. In the end he chose thirteen-year-old Shoshona Zeiss, who had taken singing and tap lessons. In the first rehearsals, Ellen Litvak had to simplify her choreographic ideas, especially for the boys who could hardly tell their right feet from their left. Michael held separate orchestra rehearsals in the basement, halting every two bars. At least he didn’t have to worry about Laura’s violin solos, or the banjo, which Frida would play. Shoshona projected sincerity, but was rather one-note and of course any underlying hint of sexual passion was lost entirely. The heavy boy cast as the mayor brought some energy but was a little too Guys and Dolls. Hardly their fault; they were modern kids, used to surfing internet porn and hearing lectures about STDs. They weren’t mystified by the contradictory yearnings he had worked so hard to capture; they were simply unaware of them.
Michael arrived at school one morning to find the walls covered in posters.
WORLD PREMIERE!
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Beth Shalom Day School presents
DREYFUS IN WICHITA
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Michael Spearman
Directed by Ellen Litvak
Saturday, December 21, 8 p.m.
Tickets $10. Available in Rabbi Pinkovsky’s Office
Three days later, the posters had red banners pasted across them. SOLD OUT. Shoshona Zeiss and the other leads were strutting around like celebrities. Laura Appelbaum reported that the stage crew had taken to eating in the cafeteria only amongst themselves and that at least two actors were going to arrive on performance night in hired limousines. “O what hath thee wrought?” Frida teased, but it wasn’t funny to him.
Rabbi Pinkofsky himself came down to the music room to offer his congratulations. Michael had always been nervous around the Rabbi, afraid (as he had been as a boy) to be asked a question or made to recite a passage from the Torah that he didn’t know. “Mazel Tov,” the rabbi said to Michael. “You’ve given us a new roof. Now it doesn’t matter if it’s a hit or a miss.”
THE MORNING OF THE PERFORMANCE found Michael retching into the toilet. “Perfectly normal, honey,” said Frida, bringing him a wet cloth. “I hear Kauffman did it all the time. Or was it Hart? Anyway, it brings good luck.”
At school, Michael retched in the staff washroom while Laura Appelbaum stood in the doorway with her violin case under her arm. “You okay, Mr. S.?” she asked when he emerged, pale and trembling. “You want me to get Mrs. Kofsky?”
“No, I’m all right now. There’s nothing left inside me.”
“The dry heaves, that’s the worst. I can’t wait for tonight!” Somehow he held himself together through the teaching day. At two o’clock an announcement over the P.A. called the actors and crew from their classes for a final tech rehearsal. A rented Klieg light fell, missing the big city reporter by inches and causing Shoshona Zeiss to burst into tears. The sets were taking an excruciatingly long time to change.
“I wanted Peter Pan,” said Ellen Litvak, “and you’ve given me The Ring of the Nibelung.”
Back at the house, he lay on the sofa as if it were a berth on the S.S. Mauretania in a heaving sea. What did he want from it all? He hoped it wasn’t a sick need for unconditional love, because he really didn’t want it, he didn’t want anything from anybody or anybody to want anything from him. He had, after all these years of teaching in a parochial school, no prayer on his lips.
He woke to the touch of Frida’s fingers caressing his face. “Time to wake, Maestro,” she said gently. “Come and see what I’ve got you. Ta-da!”
It was a tuxedo. With tails. “Frida, I can’t wear that. I’ll look ridiculous.”
“Of course you can. Make the most of it, Michael. Embrace the moment.”
She had to help him with the tie and cummerbund; she had to drive the Tercel up to school, her old Stella banjo rattling in the back seat. It was already dark when they arrived and a light snow was falling into the glow of lamps surrounding the former car dealership. In the first classroom they passed, mother-volunteers were powdering faces and applying rouge and eyeliner. Orchestra members were corralled in the teacher’s lounge; they gave a ragged cheer when Michael and Frida entered. He set to work tuning the instruments.
Ralphie Neugeboran, headset on, looked into the room. “Okay, orchestra. Follow me.”
“Show time,” Laura said. She pulled Michael down by his tuxedo sleeve and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good luck, Mr. S.” They filed down the hallway to the rear door of the cafeteria, where the lunch tables had been converted to benches. One of the flute players knocked over a music stand, but somebody else caught it. In the audience there was a jostling for the last seats. The lights dimmed. A spotlight came up on the conductor’s stand and Michael began to walk up the aisle. The applause sounded muffled and far away. He reached the stand and had a sudden moment of panic over his baton, but there it was in the inside pocket. He smiled gratefully at Frida, who winked at him. Now Laura played her A string and the other instruments pretended to tune up. He held out his hand for silence. He raised the baton, took a deep breath, and cut the air for the first, discordant burst from the brass section.
THREE HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES later, the baton came down for the last time, drawing a fading note from the first violin. On stage, frozen in their final poses against the background of the town square, were all the major characters: the mayor holding back his anguished son, the father clutching his heart, the jealous girl with her hands clenched as if in supplication to a higher power, the newspaper man with his notepad discarded at his feet; and young Sadie Joseph, collapsed in the arms of her fiancé, hair trailing down, eyes closed, face bloodless. The only figures moving were a ghostly chain of bearded men in hats and long, dark coats, and women in kerchiefs and shawls, prefigurations of the larger tragedy to come. They had been Ellen’s idea and he had argued against them, but their appearance had drawn gasps from the audience.
The stage went dark. He looked down at his exhausted musicians. Laura Appelbaum was visibly panting, her face glistening with perspiration. The applause had already begun. He turned to the audience — the fathers rising stiffly, the children sprawled asleep in their mothers’ arms — before turning back again. Only now did he look to Frida with her banjo, chagrined that he had not sought her out first, but she was smiling up at him, her eyes shining. He co
uld not keep his eyes on her and looked upwards towards the temporary grid of lights, feeling so bereft that he wondered if somebody close to him had died, somebody he could not at this moment remember. There were whistles and cheers in the audience, as if they were at a ball game. He felt hungry and thought with a wolfish anticipation of the boxes of limp Kosher pizza and cans of ginger ale. His gaze descended to the actors bowing, standing in a row and holding hands, children again. Shoshona was motioning to the orchestra and for some reason to him. The applause swelled. He turned and smiled, touched his finger to his brow, and remembered who had died.
Lost at Sea
AT SIX IN THE MORNING, the first Sunday of June, 1979, he stood with his suitcase at the corner of Bayview Avenue and York Mills Road. There was no traffic: the one car climbing the hill he recognized by the red and yellow panels and the painted rectangle obscuring the name of the former taxi company. She pulled over. He tossed his suitcase into the trunk and got in.
He kissed her. “I picked up coffee and muffins,” she said, smiling as she pulled out again, towards the ramp to the 401.
“What time did you get up?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sleep. You know, I could have picked you up at your house. I wouldn’t have come in.”
“Please, Nadia, don’t start.”
“I’m not, really. I can’t believe we’re on the road. Can you find that oldies station on the radio? I want to sing in a very loud and out-of-tune voice.”
“You got it,” he said and relaxed.
They were both twenty-three, both recent graduates from the University of Toronto. He was going to do an M.A. in political science, but would probably end up in business or law. She had been a scholarship student in French, but had surprised and vaguely disappointed him by applying to a chiropractic college in Ottawa. She was still undecided. He understood that she might be hurt by his not introducing her to his parents. But her family was Ukrainian. During the war, Ukrainian peasants had murdered his mother’s aunt and uncle and their three children, who had been hiding in the woods. It wouldn’t matter to his parents that Nadia’s family had been educated leftists living in Odessa. Nadia’s father had been a journalist, her mother a high-school history teacher. After arriving in Toronto in the late fifties she had raised the children while he had begun a new career — driving a cab. Lively, engaged people, they had welcomed Jeffrey into their small house in the east end. Surely, he thought, Nadia could understand the difficult and unflattering position he was in.
