Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

  “Somehow, Nathaniel, you always manage to come around to having us listen to your Ella tape.”

  Jacobus reached back into the glove compartment and rummaged around for the tape, removing it and a small booklet as well, a booklet with a moldy feel and earthy odor. Williams had an uncanny knack for getting his hands on one-of-a-kind recordings of ancient live concerts, out-of-print tomes, autographed manuscripts. If the Library of Congress didn’t have it, Nathaniel Williams did.

  “Ella?” asked Yumi.

  “Ella Fitzgerald, honey,” said Nathaniel.

  “Is she a famous violinist?” guessed Yumi.

  “Ella Fitzgerald,” answered Jacobus, “was a jazz singer.”

  “The greatest,” added Williams.

  “Mr. Williams seems to believe you’ll hear a lot of what you hear in Heifetz’s playing in terms of intonation and rhythm, tone, and—”

  “Soul,” Nathaniel finished. “Heifetz had it. Ella had it. Jake, hand me the tape. Yep, you got the one this time. It’s got a song with your name on it: ‘Mr. Paganini.’ ”

  “Before I do that,” asked Jacobus, “what’s this book? All I can tell is that it’s only about twenty pages and the cover’s frayed almost all the way through.”

  “Something I found for our investigation. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Let’s listen to this first.”

  Nathaniel pushed Play on the tape deck. The number was upbeat, a big-band dance tune with Fitzgerald at her jazziest. Within moments Nathaniel was beating the jaunty rhythm on the steering wheel and singing scat with his idol. Yumi chimed in on the second verse, humming the melody, making up words. Jacobus almost found himself tapping his toes until the lyric, “Mr. Paganini, now don’t you be a meanie, what have you up your sleeve?” brought him back to reality. Try as he might to stem the tide of his obsession with the Piccolino Strad, everything, even this innocuous, decades-old jazz tune, conspired to harass his tortured mind.

  “Jascha or Ella, it doesn’t matter to me,” Nathaniel said when the song ended, “as long as it gets to you.”

  “I think we’ve paid due homage to Lady Ella,” said Jacobus. “Now tell me about this book.”

  “La Vita e la Morte di Piccolino,” responded Nathaniel. “The Life and Death of Matteo Cherubino, by Lucca Pallottelli.”

  “You must be kidding!” said Jacobus.

  “Nope,” said Nathaniel, triumphantly. “The one and only biography, and the baby you’re holding’s a rare first edition of the English translation by Jonathan Gardner in 1846. Pallottelli’s original—the Italian version—is from about 1785. Pretty colorful stuff, but I have to admit I’m not sure how he got some of his information, since the only two people present to provide it at the end were both murdered. I guess you could call it ‘fanciful.’ ”

  Jacobus heard Yumi shift her weight.

  “I guess you could call it bullshit,” said Jacobus. Why should a writer of soap operas like Pallottelli be of value? A nineteenth-century romanticized translation of eighteenth-century fiction of a seventeenth-century phantom midget violinist? You must be kidding.”

  “But as you know, Jake,” said Nathaniel, “Pallottelli wrote a whole series of pamphlets about the great Italian Baroque violinist-composers: I Maestri del Barocco. Corelli, Locatelli, Tartini, Geminiani, and some others. They all turned out accurate, even if he did get a little flowery.”

  “Because they’ve been corroborated. Piccolino’s hasn’t.”

  “But Pallottelli’s Vita di Vivaldi wasn’t corroborated either. Vivaldi had been totally forgotten, but based on the information in his book they rediscovered all of Vivaldi’s music and his whole life.”

  “Bah,” said Jacobus, his final argument. He tossed it into the backseat. “Here, Yumi, why don’t you read us a fairy tale to pass the time?”

  Yumi picked up the booklet and read out loud.

  “The wintry midday light, cold and unforgiving, passed through the stained-glass image of the Madonna high above, casting the bloodred of her velvet-covered bosom onto the sleeping face of Matteo Cherubino. The unnatural ray harshly highlighted its features—deep, worried furrows etched in his brow; darkened shadows of his unshaven cheek masking faint scars of youthful smallpox; the latent insolence of his protruding chin and its resultant underbite. Indolent dust particles floating in the chamber were momentarily radiated as they strayed without purpose into the column of pale crimson.

  “ ‘Porca Madonna,’ muttered Cheurbino.”

  “ ‘Porca Madonna,’ my ass,” said Jacobus. “That’s enough. Yumi, turn off the overhead light, if you don’t mind.”

  “But how did you know I had that light on?” she asked.

  “Must we always play this game?” Jacobus was tired. “You tell me. How did I know?”

  “Did you feel me lean against the back of your seat to reach the light?” asked Yumi after a pause.

  “That’s number one.”

  “Did you hear the sound of the light switch when I turned it on?”

  “Number two.”

  “There’s more?”

  “Three and four.”

  “I know! I read the old print too fast for it to have been dark.”

  “Good!”

  “But I can’t think of another.”

  “Well, as soon as you started reading, Nathaniel slowed down from his normal breakneck speed. I concluded that the overhead light was impairing his night vision. That’s really why I told you to turn it off.”

  “Thanks,” said Nathaniel.

  “You’re welcome,” Jacobus said to Nathaniel, but what he was thinking was that Yumi was passing all of his tests.

  When they eventually exited the Cross County Parkway, Nathaniel said, “We’re almost in the city. Here’s one more Ella for the road. ‘Angel Eyes.’ This one’s somethin’ else.”

  The song began, a slow, sad bluesy ballad of mistakes made and loves lost. The purity of Fitzgerald’s voice, transparent as air, cast a spell in the night.

  Jacobus said, “Yumi, you might have heard how she—”

  “Shush your mouth, Jake!” said Nathaniel. “Ella’s still singin’.”

  The trio listened in dark silence. Nathaniel quietly hummed the tune.

  “Angel Eyes, that old devil sent, they glow unbearably bright.”

  A few hours earlier, when they had begun the drive, there had been a moment when Jacobus felt his life returning, the prospect of redemption a fragile flame beginning to glow inside him. Now, as the approaching lights of Manhattan undoubtedly became brighter and the scope of his task loomed ominously larger, Jacobus wondered whether he could possibly feel any blacker.

  NINE

  Phones rang. Computers hummed. Even though the press office was air-conditioned, reporters sweated as they rushed around to meet deadlines. Daily life. Martin Lilburn was insulated from the tumult by a Plexiglas wall, one of his perks from his employer, the New York Times.

  It was through this wall that his gaze found Jacobus wending his way toward him through a maze of desks, avoiding collisions as adroitly as if he could see. Jacobus even somehow dodged a couple of reporters with copy in hand darting to the editor’s desk, following his ears toward the recording Lilburn was playing of the Adagio from Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, faintly audible through the wall. Lilburn pressed Record on the cassette player in his desk drawer.

  “Welcome, Mr. Jacobus. Good to see you again.”

  “Martin.”

  “Have a seat. Please. I’m sorry this Plexiglas doesn’t keep all the racket out, but it’s the best I could do to keep my sanity around here. Coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Black’s fine.”

  “Mr. Jacobus, I don’t mean to sound inquisitive . . .”

  “Why not? It’s your job. Mind if I smoke?”

  “Sorry. Company rules.”

  “Shit. So?”

  “I was wondering how you managed to evade those two reporters just n
ow. And without a cane!”

  Jacobus barked out a laugh.

  “No cane. Able! And on a day as hot as this you can smell a reporter on a deadline a mile away.”

  “I know what you mean,” Lilburn chuckled as he poured coffee for each of them in delicate porcelain cups. He placed one in front of Jacobus, deliberately clicking on the glass-covered wooden desk louder than necessary so that Jacobus would know precisely where it was placed.

  Jacobus picked up the cup without spilling a drop. He said, “Thanks, Lilburn, but no need to coddle me.”

  Lilburn sat back down, unnecessarily combing back his carefully managed but thinning gray hair with his fingers, revealing even more of his increasingly furrowed forehead. He adjusted the jacket of his poorly fitting blue suit. Jacobus, in his threadbare corduroy pants and tattered flannel shirt, looked much more at ease in Lilburn’s own office than Lilburn himself.

  “Well, then, Mr. Jacobus,” said Lilburn, clearing his throat, “what is it I can do for you?”

  “Brendel?” asked Jacobus.

  “Good ear, Mr. Jacobus. Yes, it’s Alfred Brendel’s Beethoven recording from 1968. Good ear for a good year.”

  “A fine pianist and a fine musician, Alfred Brendel. Very fine. If I remember correctly, you also gave a convincing performance of the same concerto.”

  “You do? How kind of you to remember! You flatter me. Those were the days before the anxiety of performing—of being onstage alone, without music, with thousands of notes to play, hundreds of ticket-paying customers awaiting a perfect performance—made it impossible for me to keep going. But that was another lifetime ago.”

  “No,” said Jacobus, sipping his coffee, “it’s the same lifetime, Lilburn. Only one lifetime.”

  “I would love nothing better than to discuss philosophy with you, Mr. Jacobus, but I understand you’re here to discuss . . .”

  “Those kids.”

  “Those kids?”

  “Yeah, those kids that MAP foists on the public. The Grimsley Competition. All it is is musical child porn for weak-of-heart yuppies. Why would someone like you be a part of it?”

  “Mr. Jacobus.” Lilburn stood up, his chair screeching as he pushed it back. “I see now that your compliment was only a setup. It was my understanding from Mr. Williams that you were here to discuss the disappearance of the Piccolino Strad. If I am mistaken in that understanding, then I must ask you to leave.”

  Jacobus sat there. The warm glow of muted strings continued in the background.

  “Mr. Jacobus, I said—”

  “Sorry,” said Jacobus. “I was listening to the music.

  “You know, Lilburn, you’re the best music critic I’ve ever read,” he continued.

  “I don’t see what that—”

  “Most critics know nothing about music or writing. Some know a little about music but can’t write. Others write with a certain style, but what they write about is pure bullshit.”

  “That may be, but—”

  “You know more about music than most musicians, and you write as well as any journalist on the Times. Better.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Lilburn, sitting down, “but—”

  “What concerns me,” continued Jacobus, “is that someone of your intellect should pander to commercial interests.

  “What is the essence of music, Lilburn? It’s subjective. The skill of the performer—that’s secondary. If the music doesn’t get you in the gut, it’s simply not music but a glorified carnival act.”

  Lilburn tried to interrupt.

  “Please, Lilburn, let me finish. When you listen to a truly great violinist—Milstein, Oistrakh, Szigeti, the list goes on—behind every phrase, every nuance there’s an intent, an affinity, a meaning to the music. It goes far beyond ‘happy music’ and ‘sad music.’ In fact, most of the time there are no words to define music’s meaning. Yet when it’s performed properly it’s very clear to every listener exactly what the meaning is, and the greater the performance the more powerful the meaning.”

  “Mr. Jacobus, I could not agree with you more, and I applaud the sincerity and dedication with which you have conducted your entire career,” said Lilburn. “I’m sure you richly deserve all the kudos you have received. However, you must agree that people who may totally share your philosophy of music, myself included, while listening to exactly the same performance, may have a different reaction. Some may love it, others may be thoroughly disgusted, even though they’ve all been listening to the exact same notes.”

  “And it’s precisely because of that, Lilburn, that it’s so important your reviews make the distinction between different perceptions of a truly great musician’s performance versus glossy theatrics of highly skilled, well-meaning, but essentially ignorant toddlers who ultimately are communicating nothing.”

  “Mr. Jacobus, you are a nuisance, but it is rare for me to find someone with whom to have an intelligent conversation, so I will bear with your bullish style a little longer. More coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  “But I don’t see that that’s a particularly significant distinction.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Lilburn. That’s where you’re wrong. Because if we, as a culture, start listening to musicians who have nothing to say—”

  “Then in the long run the music itself will become meaningless? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “And we will have lost some of the greatest achievements in human history. Even worse, they will have become irrelevant.”

  “You’re afraid we’re losing the connection,” said Lilburn.

  “That is why I’m concerned, for instance, that since MAP started, you’ve given highly positive reviews to its clients more than ninety percent of the time—including toddlers like Vanderblick—but less than forty percent to non-MAP musicians.”

  “You’ve been counting?” asked Lilburn. “I must say I am astonished.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then,” said Lilburn, “I will be happy to explain, because there is a very good reason.”

  “Go on,” said Jacobus, sipping his coffee, the piano’s meditative cadenza in the background.

  “It is quite plainly evident,” said Lilburn, clearing his throat again, folding his manicured hands on the desk. “MAP is so highly selective in choosing its artists, its standards set so high before taking on the serious obligation of assembling a new career—don’t smirk, Mr. Jacobus—that it is almost a fait accompli that the performances of MAP artists will be on a level far superior to those of your ordinary concert artists. And please understand, I use the term ‘ordinary’ in no disparaging way. In my sincere opinion, MAP artists do have the ability to convey the meaning of the music, as you say, to the listener.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Jacobus. “I seem to recall a quote from your review of a recital by Yung Cheng in 1979? Or was it 1980?”

  “My God,” said Lilburn, “the one review of them all that I would most like to forget, and you’ve remembered it! Mr. Jacobus, certainly you can’t expect me to accurately predict every artist’s future! I’m not a fortune-teller.”

  “ ‘Mr. Cheng,’ recited Jacobus, “ ‘if not the embodiment of the young Yehudi Menuhin, is no doubt his spiritual equivalent, if not his superior.’ ”

  “Verbatim!”

  “Martin, where is Mr. Cheng now?”

  “I can’t help it if—”

  “And the other concert agencies?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, why your predisposition for negative criticism of other agencies’ artists, other than because of your association with MAP?”

  Lilburn took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a handkerchief.

  “I can’t speak for other agencies,” he said “but apparently they’re not so discriminating in the selection of their artists, to the dismay of the public as well as to me as a critic. Their philosophies, perhaps, may tend toward win some, lose some in determining whom their clients will be. Any negative re
views on my part simply reflect the results of their philosophy.”

  He put his glasses back on and picked up his cup of coffee, accidentally dripping some onto his white shirt.

  “Damn.”

  “Do I hear contrition?” asked Jacobus.

  Lilburn laughed. “It will take more than spilling coffee on my shirt to solicit absolution from you, Mr. Jacobus.”

  “So those reviews have nothing to do with the philosophy of knowing where your bread is buttered?” asked Jacobus. “After all, it is speculated that you and your MAP cohorts receive—”

  “That’s enough,” said Lilburn. “I’ve tried to be civil throughout your bullying, but you’ve just crossed the line. Mr. Jacobus, even though as a journalist I’m trained to let people talk, I’m going to cut you off right there. We have a standard of ethics in this profession—”

  “Is that so?” interrupted Jacobus. “Well, Mr. Lilburn, let me tell you something about the ethics of your profession. Last year, Mr. Lilburn, a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless for reasons you’ll understand in a moment gave a recital in San Francisco. A major critic there wrote a negative review based upon the program that my colleague had submitted to the paper. Only problem, Mr. Lilburn, was that the music on the program had been changed at the last minute. The fucking critic hadn’t even gone to the concert! So what were you saying about the standard of ethics, Mr. Lilburn?”

  “If that truly happened, then it’s an exception.”

  “And you’re not an exception, I take it. Why, for instance, does the Times keep you on when there is so clearly a conflict of interest? What about those ethics?”

  “You’re giving me a headache, Mr. Jacobus. I don’t have to answer you.”

  “But you will, won’t you?”

  “Yes, and only to put a stop to your insinuations—which are beneath contempt—in their tracks. The Times, and its readers, have apparently determined, year after year, that my opinions are unbiased, fair, and—all things considered in a very subjective field—accurate. I’ve made no secret of my association with MAP to my employers and they have determined, after great soul-searching on their part, that my volunteer efforts are sufficiently detached from individual MAP clients so as not to pose the conflict that seems so obvious to you. If they had determined otherwise, you may be certain I wouldn’t be sitting in this office today.”