Death and the Maiden

by Gerald Elias

  “Jake, aren’t you even listening to me?”

  “So,” he blustered, “what the hell did you discuss in the sauna?”

  “I just said, we talked about how in Japan we go from a hot tub to a cool room, but in Finland they do the exact reverse, going from the hot room to an ice-cold—”

  “Hey, you,” said Jacobus, momentarily forgetting his hangover. “Don’t jerk me around. You know what I’m talking about. What about the finger in her case? What about MIA golden boy husband?”

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” Yumi said. “I’ve left out the best part, and I probably should have started with it. That’s why I guess I’m being a little defensive.”

  “So what’s the best part?”

  “Annika told me she hoped I wouldn’t lose my job because of Crispin’s lawsuit—”

  “That’s nice of her.”

  “And proposed the idea that if something terrible has happened to Aaron, where he couldn’t play anymore—”

  “You mean, if he’s dead.”

  “Well, of course we hope not, but if it were something serious where he wouldn’t be able to continue in the quartet, she said I could be the first violinist and Crispin could have his old position back.”

  The market study entered Jacobus’s mind unbidden and the body in Lima, which he hadn’t yet told Yumi about. Before he could think better of it, he said, “Yumi, I think you’re being manipulated.”

  “Jake, something’s bothering you and it’s more than your hangover. Just spell it out please.”

  “Yumi, as you know, tact is not my strong point.”

  “This is already sounding bad.”

  “Yeah, but this is what I’m thinking. You discovered Annika’s little secret in her case. What if … what if that finger just happened to have once been connected to Kortovsky’s hand? What if Kortovsky’s no longer alive?”

  “Jake! You’re suggesting Annika killed him?”

  “Just listen for a minute. Then maybe you won’t think I’m totally meshuga. If she had killed him and you discovered some evidence to that effect, what would she do? She’d take off like a bat out of hell and figure out what to do next. And maybe she’d come up with an excuse why she left her precious viola there, which only a couple hours earlier she’d told me how dear it was to her, and figure out a way to make you her ally, or at least keep you quietly on the sidelines.”

  “The offer for me to be first violin.”

  “Offer? More like a bribe to keep your mouth shut. And the icing on the cake is that in return for her sexual favors—”

  “Sexual favors! Jake, we were in a sauna!”

  “That’s just the first step.”

  “First step? First step to what? Are you crazy? I think that hangover has addled your brain.”

  “Don’t try to flatter me.”

  “I’m serious. We don’t even know that Aaron’s dead, so why speculate? And why would Annika kill him anyway?”

  “I don’t know that she did, but if she did, I can think of several reasons, not the least of which is his philandering. Plus his domineering ways, plus his neglect of their child. And just maybe he did care that his wife is a dyke.”

  “I think that’s enough, Jake. I don’t care about your hangover and I don’t really care about your opinion. Maybe it’s time I did a little manipulating of my own. Artistic integrity, yes, but I don’t have to be the Virgin Mary in order to maintain it. If Annika wants to kiss me, what’s that to you?”

  Jacobus turned his head away as he heard Yumi get up and walk to the door.

  “Don’t choke on your cruller,” she said and closed the door behind her with intentional definition, but out of consideration for his state, not quite a slam.

  Did I mishandle that? Jacobus asked himself.

  When he heard the door reopen a half minute later, he said, “Personally, I don’t care whether she’s a dyke.”

  “That’s good to know,” said Nathaniel as he entered the apartment. “Are you by any chance referring to the busty lass who loved Schubert more than you?”

  “What are you doing here?” asked Jacobus.

  “If you recall, I happen to live here. Do I have your permission to come into my own apartment? Lilburn has an article in the Times about yesterday. I brought you some coffee.”

  “And a cruller?”

  “No, why?”

  “Never mind. Let’s hear the article. Wait! First give me the coffee.”

  Jacobus heard Nathaniel’s bulk ease into the kitchen chair across from him, which gave but did not break, defying the laws of physics. “‘Digital Discovery Threatens Live Performance,’” he read.

  “A finger. In a concert hall. With a viola case. The already precarious fortunes of the New Magini String Quartet took two turns for the worse yesterday. First, Aaron Kortovsky, the first violinist of the ensemble, was missing at the quartet’s rehearsal at Carnegie Hall yesterday afternoon in preparation for a make-or-break performance there on Thursday night, and had to be replaced at the last minute by the young Russian violinist Ivan Lensky. The quartet’s manager, Sheila Rathman from InHouseArtists, only reluctantly admitted that Kortovsky has not been heard from since their summer tour to South America.

  “Far more troubling for the quartet, already beset by adversity and internal strife, was the discovery of a severed finger in the instrument case of quartet violist Annika Haagen. According to New York City police lieutenant Alan Malachi, his forensic team has determined that the finger was roughly amputated from an unknown victim approximately a month ago. He went on to state that there is currently no reason to connect the finger with Kortovsky’s baffling absence.

  “Power Ramsey, artistic director of the internationally recognized dance company The Movement and of Thursday’s Schubert extravaganza, which will include photochoreography and dance to supplement the quartet’s performance of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden,’ in commemoration of that composer’s bicentennial, stated unequivocally that the concert will proceed as planned.

  “The future of the New Magini String Quartet, however, is not nearly as certain. With its string of misfortune, beginning with the messy public firing of former second violinist Crispin Short, followed in short order by his potentially devastating lawsuit, the New Magini’s Thursday performance of ‘Death and the Maiden’ may also signal the death of a remarkable institution.”

  “That’s all,” said Nathaniel. He pulled out a notebook from a drawer in the table to take notes, and over their coffee the two of them went over as many possible, if not necessarily probable, scenarios for the appearance of the finger in Annika Haagen’s viola case. Could it truly have been Haagen’s doing, keeping Kortovsky’s finger in her case as some kind of a ghoulish souvenir? Could it be the obnoxious, litigious Brit violinist, Crispin Short, who had swooped down upon Jacobus and Haagen only an hour before the discovery of the finger and issued not-so-veiled threats? Could it be Ivan Lensky, boorish, ambitious, cocksure, and more than disappointed not to have been selected as a full-time violinist in the quartet? Or could it have been Kortovsky himself, missing but nevertheless center stage, who planted someone else’s finger? That’s the theory Lensky had intimated at the Circle of Fifths, but he had been drunk, so how serious was that? If it was Kortovsky’s doing, did the finger belong to someone he killed in Lima, perhaps? If so, for what reason? Or could it have been someone else entirely, and for reasons they could not yet fathom?

  “Well, we’re certainly making tons of progress here,” said Jacobus. “Is there anything you can tell me that doesn’t end in a question mark?”

  “I found one of Martin Lilburn’s first articles in the Times about the lawsuit from a few years ago. Want me to read it?”

  “Go ahead. Martin would be happy to know that at least two people read his stories.”

  “‘Bach, Beethoven, and Bad Times?’”

  “I said no question marks.”

  Nathaniel ignored him and read.

  “The New Magini Strin
g Quartet was named after one of the first great Italian violin makers, whose instruments are renowned for their beauty of tone, impeccable workmanship, and lasting quality. Though the renowned ensemble can lay claim to the first two of those characteristics, the third may well be in jeopardy.

  “Second violinist Crispin Short, recently fired with unprecedented publicity by the other three members of the ensemble, has responded with similar wrath with a lawsuit of immense proportions and implications, one that has the potential not only to bring about the dissolution of one of the world’s foremost quartets but also to permanently tarnish the careers of its individual members and empty their bank accounts in the process.

  “Until the firing of Mr. Short, fourth son of English factory workers who, according to Mr. Short, grew up ‘on the other side of the Tube’ in London, performances by the quartet gave little evidence of the turmoil going on backstage. Yet, according to the members of the quartet, trouble had long been brewing.

  “‘Over time,’ said first violinist Aaron Kortovsky, who was raised in Great Neck, Long Island, and studied at the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute, ‘it became clear that Crispin was not working in the best interests of the group. He has his own personal ambitions that gradually took precedence. He became increasingly vocal with his displeasure of our musical goals, to the point that it was impossible to rehearse constructively. We really had no choice but to dismiss him. Painful as this was, it’s something that happens day in, day out with chamber ensembles, and for him to now sue us is not only baffling but despicable.’

  “Annika Haagen, violist of the quartet who is married to Aaron Kortovsky, added, ‘What will happen to music groups if we allow the courts to decide who we must play with? Music is such an intimate thing. Shouldn’t we have that right? After all, we were here before Crispin.’

  “Yet that may not be how the courts see it. It is certainly not how Crispin Short sees it.

  “‘Kortovsky and Haagen have a private, personal agenda,’ he stated, ‘that has little to do with music and more to do with commercial success. They’re looking for a sexed-up image so they can sell more tickets and more recordings and I just didn’t fit into their profile, so I was made a scapegoat. I don’t mind musical disagreements, but to publicly slander me is a different kettle of fish and requires an appropriately strong rebuke.’

  “It was also confirmed that the quartet sent Mr. Short a notarized letter from their legal counsel, Cy Rosenthal, demanding that Mr. Short return all quartet music, his key to their rehearsal studio, and their business credit card within twenty-four hours or risk arrest. The quartet even changed their computer passwords, citing what they claimed to be Mr. Short’s tendency toward vindictiveness.

  “The one remaining member of the original Magini String Quartet, Pravda Lenskaya, was more philosophical than her colleagues.

  “‘When we were in Russia, we had nothing, and we played for nothing except for the music, and our only enemy was government. Now here we are, free and making lots of money and big success, but maybe soon we end up out on street.’

  “In the cloistered world of classical music, such sentiments, if expressed, are rarely heard beyond the practice room doors.”

  Jacobus chuckled. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah. What’s so funny?”

  “These Russian musicians. They go on and on about how they were persecuted in the motherland. How they were followed around by the KGB when they went on tours. How they didn’t make enough rubles to buy a sack of potatoes, even if there was a sack of potatoes to buy. How they had to give up their instruments and their families, who were essentially held hostage, when they defected. Then they get here, faint when they see a supermarket that actually has food on the shelves, get a job, make a lot of money, and then tell everyone how great things were in Russia.”

  “Aren’t you being a little harsh? I mean, especially with the Jewish musicians.”

  “Am I?”

  “Pravda Lenskaya was telling me that when they were in Russia, they were always referred to as the Jewish quartet, not Russian. It was only when they came here that people called them Russian, and they would say, ‘You mean us?’ until they got used to it.”

  “So?”

  “So all I’m saying is that with all they had to give up, maybe they just want to hold on to something. To make them feel better. When you think about what it was like back in the seventies and eighties in the USSR, and then with Chernobyl, that was kind of like the Titanic finally hitting the iceberg.”

  “Yeah, well. Whatever. Anything else, Boutros Boutros?” Jacobus asked, draining the last drops of his second coffee.

  “That’s it for now. I’ve got to get over to the music school or I’ll be late. I’ve got a couple students today.”

  “Any good?”

  “Too soon to tell, they’re seven years old.”

  “Christ, how can you put up with that raspy, discordant noise?”

  “Hello! I’ve been talkin’ to you for years, haven’t I?”

  “Have a nice day,” said Jacobus.

  “Thank you.”

  “Hey, before you leave!” Jacobus said, reminded of something. “Speaking of funny names, what’s a Vaseline oat car?”

  Nathaniel laughed. “So you do remember something from last night! It’s Otkar Vasalin.”

  “Oh, thanks. That explains it.”

  “Otkar Vasalin is a violin collector.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Not surprising. That’s because he’s not a dealer. He just collects. Very private. Very shadowy. Originally from one of the Baltic states—Latvia or Lithuania or one of those ias—then lived in Russia for a while, then moved around Eastern Europe, then when the whole ball of wax melted he moseyed down to South America.”

  “And how do you know about him?”

  “There’ve been a few incidences of stolen instruments that people thought led to him that I had to track down for the insurance companies. But they were wrong; he keeps his hands clean.”

  “He knows a lot about violins, then?”

  “Actually, he knows very little. He only buys instruments that have impeccable provenance. Never a question mark. Always very quiet, but always aboveboard. He pays top dollar. And he never sells. In a way, it’s unfortunate, because every instrument that’s taken off the market makes every other instrument more expensive. Even for him.”

  “Expensive is right. Where’d he get his money? Selling blini?”

  “I don’t know. Political wheeler-dealer, maybe. Why?”

  “No reason. Why’d Lensky bring his name up?”

  “He thinks Kortovsky sold his Amati to Vasalin when the quartet was on tour so that Short couldn’t get his hands on it if the suit is successful. He thinks Kortovsky plans to live off the fat of the land in South America from the easy pickin’s off the sale of the violin and that we’ll never hear from him again.”

  “Well, it’s a theory. What do you think?”

  “It’s possible, I guess. But that’s a lot for Kortovsky to give up just to avoid a potential ruling against him. His family, his quartet, his—”

  “Fame.”

  “Yeah. That too. Well, I gotta go. What are you doin’ for the rest of the day?”

  “I was thinking of taking Trotsky for a walk. In Queens.”

  Jacobus took another shower, turning the tap as hot as it would go and keeping his head under it for as long as he could tolerate it, the theory being that it would help drain his head of the alcohol and the lingering congestion brought on by the Beethoven Ninth fiasco. Though it helped marginally in that regard, it failed to clear his head of the plethora of missing people running through his troubled thoughts—Kortovsky, his brother Eli, and an anonymous blind man. When he could no longer stand his head being scalded, he got out of the shower, dried himself off, and got dressed.

  SIXTEEN

  There was no response to Jacobus’s bell ringing or repeated knocking at Lenskaya’s front door, so he
and Trotsky trudged up the driveway to the garage adjacent to the house. Jacobus kept his left foot on the grassy divider and his right foot on the cement lanes for the car tires as a way of confirming that he was walking in a straight line toward the garage, but also partly to maintain his traction from Trotsky, straining at the leash in his left hand while he carried his cane in his right. Jacobus felt the moisture from the tall, wet grass in the divider seep through the seams in his left shoe and up the leg of his pants to his shin. The grass hadn’t been mowed for a long time, indicating to him that the garage was no longer used for cars.

  An unseasonably cold, damp wind that blustered off Long Island Sound bit at his ears. Because it was coming from behind him it was only when they were close to the door on the right side of the garage that he was able to hear the music. The voice, a mezzo-soprano of astounding clarity and virtuosity, was accompanied by a pianist, both sensitive and informative.

  Jacobus raised his hand, about to knock, but then, so as not to disturb the duo, waited silently until the aria concluded—it wasn’t Schubert by any means; it was Italian, definitely Baroque—whereupon he knocked tentatively on the door. Immediately the piano keyboard cover was slammed down. Heavy, impatient footsteps approached. The door was swung open and a menacing low growl, the opposite of the miraculous tessitura he had just listened to, began to emerge. Just as quickly, however, it vanished.

  “Lensky? Peter Lensky?” asked Jacobus.

  “Who’s dis? Moy malyenkiy! Who’s dis wittle woozie?”

  Is this person insane? was Jacobus’s first thought—he had been called many things in his life but never “wittle woozie”—until he heard Trotsky begin to groan like a bull walrus in heat, and by the rotation of the leash in his hand knew that Trotsky was rolling on to his back in order to have his stomach scratched. Jacobus let the “Aw, who dis?” lovefest continue, hoping the man he presumed was Lensky would forget his earlier pique. Finally, the location of the voice, which had descended to ground level, rose back to human height, and above. The voice was now a rich, resonant baritone.