Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

  SIX

  Yumi had a lesson the next day. She had just finished the Sarabanda from the Bach Partita in D Minor.

  “Tell me about what you just played, Yumi,” Jacobus said quietly. He felt himself ready to explode. He wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t help himself. The iris blooms, unwatered, had wilted and smelled more like shit than ever. Yet he left them to wither in the vase. Maybe, he thought, it was the relentless heat that was igniting him.

  “It’s a kind of dance. Isn’t it?” Yumi asked.

  “Yes, it is a kind of dance. So are the hokeypokey and the bossa nova. Isn’t there anything you can add that might enlighten us a bit further?”

  “I really don’t know, Mr. Jacobus. As my teacher I trust you to tell me all I need to know.”

  “Well, isn’t that awfully kind of you? Let me tell you something, Yumi, that I regularly inform my students,” said Jacobus. “If there is one thing I hate more than bullshit, it’s sugar-coated bullshit. Now, would I really be doing my job if I just told you everything?”

  “Aren’t I supposed to learn from you?”

  “I should hope so, but as a teacher my goal is for my students not to need me anymore. I knead your brain—you don’t need me. You don’t get that? Never mind. That means, number one: I have to teach you not only physical skills to play the instrument, but more important, number two: I have to teach you how to think on your own. If that is at all possible. So when Bach, arguably the greatest musical genius who ever lived, writes a sarabanda, as opposed to a minuet, giga, or even a sarabande with an e at the end, don’t you think he must have had a damn good reason? If he’s willing to go to that much trouble for us, don’t you think the least we can do—the least we can do if we consider ourselves serious musicians—is to try to understand the basic characteristics of that dance form? Once we do that, then maybe we can start playing music. Now, yeah, you play in tune and your sound is just dandy, but lots of people can do that. Musically it was as much of a sarabanda as I’m Mickey Mantle, and, surprise! Guess what? I’m not Mickey Mantle! I suggest, Yumi dear, you do a little sleuthing and bring this back next time.

  “And one more thing.” Jacobus was almost shouting. “You remember when we spoke about bowing as a symbol of respect? Remember that? Yeah? Well, maybe bowing is a symbol of respect and maybe it isn’t, but it is never any more or less than that: a symbol. The real respect, the true respect, not the symbol, is in what goes on up there!” At which point Jacobus (with uncanny accuracy) suddenly pointed his violin bow, like a rapier, directly at Yumi’s temple.

  His crescendo broke off with a sudden, jagged silence. The only sound was the indifferent drone of Jacobus’s old oscillating table fan, bringing little relief to the heat and none to the tension. Time seemed to be suspended, as in the climax of a great symphonic finale—Beethoven’s Third or Tchaikovsky’s Fifth—when the audience has been given no choice by the composer but to hold its collective breath to the limit of endurance, waiting for an unknown denouement after the grand pause.

  Finally, “Sermon over. What else do you have for today?”

  “Mendelssohn Concerto,” choked Yumi, hardly able to speak.

  “What?” he hollered.

  “Mendelssohn Concerto!” she hollered back reflexively.

  Good, Jacobus said to himself, I’ve got her yelling at me already. Starting to break through. Starting to free her from a lifetime of ingrained behavior. And only the second lesson.

  “Play it,” he muttered.

  He heard Yumi take a deep breath.

  See if she can focus now!

  She managed to make her way through the first page of the concerto relatively unscathed, Jacobus stopping her at the point the orchestra takes over.

  “Yumi,” he said, almost in a whisper, “I ask this question, which I ask of all my new students, not out of anger, but only to know you better, and perhaps so you will know yourself better.

  “Yumi, you play the violin very well, no doubt. But let me ask you this. Why do you play the violin?”

  She took some moments before responding.

  Jacobus wondered why she was taking so long. It wasn’t such a hard question. Was she afraid of another lecture—she didn’t seem to be afraid of anything—or was she trying to come up with a reasonable answer? Or part of an answer?

  “Your question, Mr. Jacobus, is so basic and simple, but I truly had never thought about why.”

  Hearing Jacobus’s incipient growl, she quickly added, “But I think there are several reasons.”

  He said nothing, only leaned back and cocked his head to hear better.

  “First, because my mother and her mother played the violin. In fact, it was my grandmother who was my first teacher and sent me to Furukawasensei when I was ten. So it really was not my choice.”

  She paused suddenly, in a way that to Jacobus seemed almost as if she had said more than she wanted. So many kinds of silence, he thought. This one puzzled him. Hers was a common enough story.

  “Anything else?” he asked, breaking through her contemplation.

  “Yes. I love music. When I was young . . . younger,” she corrected as Jacobus quickly stifled a smile, “I listened to music all the time. Not because it was forced on me but because I always wanted to hear more. It is as much part of our life as eating.”

  “Our?”

  “My family.”

  Another pause.

  “Is that the correct answer?” asked Yumi, without sarcasm.

  “Correct? Is there a right or wrong answer to that question? I don’t know, but your answer is as good as most. I once had a student, Rachel Lewison, who had only one reason for playing the violin: to win competitions! I asked, ‘How about the beauty of the music? How about the pleasure of playing?’ Blank. How about ‘Isn’t it fun for you to get together with other young musicians?’ Didn’t register. Zilch. For her, music was a means to win a prize. A goddam prize!” He shook his head, muttering, “You’d think the music would be prize enough.”

  “And did she?” asked Yumi

  “Did she? Did she what? Oh, did she win? Afraid not. In the long run I don’t know whether that’s fortunate or unfortunate for her. I am sure that one reason she always came in third or fourth, if that, was that she had no conception of beauty, let alone her ability to create it. Maybe you’ve got it in you, Yumi. She didn’t. It was all manufactured, a physical skill honed only to win a contest. Put a finger here, put a finger there. A finger here, a finger there. Press the buttons. Paint by numbers. Tried for a couple years to get through to her that there really was more to music—and life—but then I threw in the towel. Yeah, I gave up. I sent Rachel over to Victoria Jablonski, figuring she’d fit right in at that factory.”

  “Isn’t Miss Jablonski Kamryn Vander’s teacher? Her students always win competitions!” Yumi stopped suddenly, almost choking on her last words.

  Jacobus laughed bitterly.

  “Ah! We’ve made a faux pas, have we! The truth comes out! Good, good, good!

  “No, my students haven’t won as many competitions as Victoria’s, but then again look what happens to her students and mine over a whole career. Hers go up like rockets, Fshhhh! Fame and fortune before they can shave! Pretty good, huh?

  “But then just as quickly back down to earth. Splat! Chronic physical problems—tendinitis from overpracticing the wrong way before they’re fully developed. Or worse, nutcases from being pushed too hard, way too hard—produce, produce, produce! Or under the control of some well-intentioned adults—some not well-intentioned adults, yeah, some real assholes who don’t allow the poor kids to have a childhood—agents, managers, recording companies. Parents! Or sometimes they burn themselves out just when they’re reaching a point in their lives when they should only be beginning to put the whole ball of wax together.

  “One of the greatest violin talents of the century, Michael Rabin, gave his Carnegie Hall debut when he was thirteen and died at the age of thirty-five. There were rumors of emotional
problems, drug use, unstable personal life. He developed a fear of falling off the stage. One day he fell on a parquet floor, struck his head, and died. So much for prodigies, huh!”

  “And your students?”

  The phone rang. Jacobus let it ring, this time waiting patiently for it to stop.

  “My students,” continued Jacobus. “A lot of my students don’t even become performing musicians, I’m proud to say . . .”

  As Jacobus talked he heard something. Something very quiet and furtive. It took him a moment—Yumi quietly slipping out of her shoes? Gliding on her bare feet?

  Ah, a little experiment! Jacobus thought. So you want to try your luck, huh?

  Jacobus calmly picked up rosin from the coffee table next to him as if he were about to engage in the routine task of rosining his bow, when suddenly in one motion he hurled it at Yumi, hitting her squarely on the shoulder.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he screamed. “Are you testing me? Are you testing me?”

  Yumi froze.

  “You think this is a game? You think music is a game?” the rasping voice shot at her. “Are you testing me? Fool the blind man! Blindman’s buff?”

  His face distorted in anger.

  “Get out of here! Get out!”

  “I’m so sorry! I’m . . .”

  “There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. Sorry!”

  Sudden silence descended upon them, broken only by the fan and Jacobus’s panting. He clearly heard her walk toward the door.

  “And don’t come back!”

  SEVEN

  But she did come back, the next day, to Jacobus’s surprise and grudging admiration. Of course, Jacobus didn’t express that sentiment to her. His only explicit acknowledgment of her courage and tenacity was to tell Yumi that she must be “even more meshuga” than he was.

  “Some of my students became doctors, some teachers,” Jacobus continued, as if neither his rage nor the intervening twenty-four hours had ever transpired. “One of my students was a great physicist and another an equally great floor-covering installer. But for the most part they got jobs in symphony orchestras or played in string quartets . . . or taught. Often had nice long careers, and if I could, I tried to instill a love—believe it or not—for what they do, for whatever they do, that will last longer than the next competition.

  “Some of them did very well in competitions, though I never encouraged them too much. I’ve had prize winners in the Naumberg, Montreal, Queen Elizabeth, among others, though I don’t broadcast it as well as Victoria. No, not nearly as well. But I never, ever, allowed one to enter that despicable Grimsley Competition. The people who run that menagerie—the whole bunch of them—should be locked up.”

  Jacobus seemed ready to explode again, so Yumi quickly responded, “But do you not think it important to succeed in the beginning? I am already nineteen and I’ve not yet won anything. It seems so many younger students are better than I am.”

  Jacobus cackled, but it was more jeering than joyful.

  “You think Isaac Stern worried if he was as great as Heifetz? Or Perlman if he’s as great as Stern? Who do you think you are? You think you’re different? You think you’re special? Either you’re dedicated to making something beautiful or you’re not. Period! Not comma! Not comma! Period! If you love it, that’s the reward. Who’s better than who! So please don’t give me this ‘I’m so terrible’ victim bullshit. Okay?”

  Before Yumi could reply, Jacobus changed the topic. He was still trying to figure out this kid. There was something about her, something different. The way she talked. The way she reacted. He liked it. And he didn’t like it.

  “Question. Why do you play the Mendelssohn Concerto? After all, everyone and his uncle has either played it or heard it.”

  “You change subjects so fast for me, Mr. Jacobus.”

  Don’t want prepared answers, he thought. That’s why.

  “Tell me why you play the Mendelssohn.”

  “Well, it is a beautiful piece and it gives me pleasure to play it,” said Yumi. “Is that not enough?”

  “Maybe. But is it enough reason for two thousand people in the audience to want to listen to your performance? There are dozens of great performances already recorded. Do you intend to give pleasure only to yourself? There’s a name for that, I think.”

  Blushing, Yumi? he thought. Tired of being embarrassed and bullied? Maybe now I’ll get some gut answers. I want to see your mind work, not just your training.

  “I suppose for someone to want to listen to my performance, I need to understand that there is something special about the music I’m playing, so that whoever is listening is hearing it in a way that is different from other performances.”

  “And what might that be?” asked Jacobus, guiding her.

  “Perhaps,” said Yumi, “perhaps that would be the way that I think the composer wanted it to be heard.”

  “Which time?” Jacobus pursued.

  “Which time?” asked Yumi.

  “Are you deaf or something? Which time?”

  “Which time? I don’t . . . Yes, of course! Which time? Of course, the first time!”

  “And why the first time?”

  “Because, I think, the first performance is when the music is full of surprises for the listener, when only the composer and the performer know which way the music will go. Yes, if I can play it that way, then even the Mendelssohn Concerto can be new!”

  “Tell me some things that are special about the beginning of the Mendelssohn Concerto, Yumi.”

  “I’m not quite sure I know what you mean, Mr. Jacobus.”

  “Hey, philosophy’s fine, but you gotta back it up. Mendelssohn may not be Mozart or Beethoven. But this concerto, this Mendelssohn violin concerto, is a masterpiece. No surprise it’s played so often . . . too often. It’s so damn familiar”—don’t overlook the familiar, Jacobus thought in a flash of perception—“that if you haven’t done your music history homework, you don’t realize this concerto begins unlike any violin concerto before it and in a way that many composers after him copied. Tell me what’s different.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me!”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Of course you know!” Jacobus yelled, losing his patience. She’s smart but she’s damn stubborn, he thought. Not as stubborn as I am, though.

  “It’s just never registered with you. You’ve just never thought about it. Why not? You said you love music. Tell me. Now, how do all the violin concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms begin? With a little tweety birdie?”

  “No, they all begin with the orchestra first.”

  “So, you do know! You do know! Why do you say you don’t know when you do know? You just had to ask yourself the right question.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Come on, Yumi, Jacobus thought. It’s in there. Just puke it up.

  “Yes, you do. Tell me. How does the orchestra begin in those other concertos?”

  “With a long introduction.”

  “And what’s in the introduction?”

  “All the melodies. It’s almost like an entire exposition.”

  “And the Mendelssohn?” asked Jacobus, now perched on the edge of his seat.

  “Yes! I see,” Yumi said slowly, then with increasing animation. “All those details I’ve worked on without seeing it. Yes, I see what you mean.”

  “I don’t see anything. I hear. Tell me what you hear.”

  “Yes,” she pondered aloud, “the Mendelssohn has no introduction. Rather, just two measures, only soft but turbulent.”

  Ah! She knows the answer now.

  “Yeah, and what’s so special about that?” Jacobus prodded.

  “Because the violin comes in after only those two measures, which no violin concerto had ever done before. It’s a surprise. It means that the music needs to sound urgent, almost as if the violinist can’t wait for a whole introduction. Mendelssohn indicates it to be played soft—”

&nbs
p; “But he writes ‘Molto appassionato’!”

  “—so it wouldn’t be right to just barge in.”

  “And the key!”

  “E minor. It’s dark and brooding.”

  “And the melody!”

  “It reaches up over and over again but never seems to reach high enough to be able to grasp what it’s reaching for. It makes sense now. It’s incredible”—Jacobus heard Yumi’s voice break—“and I had never seen it.”

  “Better late than never. After all, you’re already nineteen,” said Jacobus, sitting back in his chair. “But aren’t you leaving a little something out?”

  “Something out?” asked Yumi. “Yes, I suppose so. But I don’t know. There is so much to think about now, isn’t there?”

  “Just the small matter of how to play it the way you now hear it in your head.”

  At that moment, the phone rang again on the small table next to Jacobus. Finally, he answered it after first mistakenly grabbing the cup of day-old coffee sitting next to it.

  “Yeah,” he said into the receiver.

  “Jake!”

  “Nathaniel!” said Jacobus, immediately recognizing the voice. Another of his few remaining friends, Nathaniel Williams had once been a colleague but changed in midstream to pursue a more lucrative career in the insurance industry.

  “What’s it been, three years?” Jacobus continued. “Good to hear your ugly voice again. And I’m not going to help you find the Piccolino Strad. Good-bye.”

  Jacobus began to hang up.

  Nathaniel stammered just in time, “Well, Mercy Circe, Jake, how could you possibly know that’s why I called?”

  “Hold on a second.” Jacobus covered the receiver with his hand. “Yumi, that’s enough for today. Put your fiddle away but stick around for a minute. My friend wants to badger me about the Piccolino. You may be interested.”

  Jacobus returned to the phone. “Okay, Nathaniel. Nathaniel, are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I think.”

  “So you think you can fool me after all these years? You don’t think I know how to put two and two together? My only surprise was you didn’t call sooner.”