Heart and Soul

by Sally Mandel

  Bess Stallone, David Montagnier’s new partner, has the physique of the youthful Sophia Loren and the musical sensibility of the aged Rubinstein. The combination was enough to send New York’s luckiest recitalgoers into transports. It can’t be easy for any newcomer to balance the brilliant musicianship and crowd-pleasing charisma of Mr. Montagnier, but this young woman holds her own and more …

  David started laughing. God, that happy sound I would do almost anything to inspire, except I was never sure exactly what was going to do the trick. The piece went on to rave over specific aspects of the program. It wasn’t totally accurate, but hey, I wasn’t about to quibble. Then David took his turn, reading to me with damp hands from The New Yorker, in “The Talk of the Town”:

  For those who thought Valentine’s Day was simply a strategy to subsidize the greeting-card business, think again. This February fourteenth saw the debut of a brand-new Queen of Hearts when Bess Stallone was unleashed on the music world at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. As David Montagnier’s new partner, this pianist dazzles the ear and the eye simultaneously, evoking the strapping sexuality and musical genius of the young Jacqueline DuPre.

  “Jesus,” I commented. “It’s hard to tell if it was the music or the tits.”

  “Clearly a combination of both,” David said, and reached out to haul me into the tub with him. We made quite a splash.

  But the next evening, the porter delivered The Listener along with our Chinese takeout. We’d gotten so confident that we ate half our dinner before we bothered to see if there was a review. Finally, I got curious, especially since Ears, which is what musicians called it, was the oldest and most influential of all the arts publications. There was a nice photo of both of us looking intense at our keyboards and a short article. I started reading it to David while he cracked open a fortune cookie.

  David Montagnier has either lost his musical judgment or he’s simply head-over-heels in lust. How else to explain his choice of Bess Stallone to replace the resplendent Terese Dumont?

  I looked up at David. “Uh oh,” I said.

  “Give it to me,” he said. “We don’t need to hear any more of that.”

  “Oh, come on, David,” I protested. “I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

  He actually made a grab for it, but I snatched it away and went on. Look, they couldn’t all be raves:

  The most subtle thing about Stallone’s performance was her dress, which allowed the first ten rows a tantalizing peek at what purports to be a tattoo on her left ankle. Not one for delicacy, she led Montagnier on a romp through the Ravel, trampling dynamics and nuance along the way. Montagnier backed her up in a slavish demonstration that only made more poignant the unforgettable memory of his and Dumont’s sensitive collaboration on this piece nearly a decade ago in Alice Tully Hall…

  David’s face had gone white. “Bess, throw that away.”

  “No, I’ve gotta get used to this kind of stuff,” I said, and kept plowing through, too dumb to realize I could have read it to myself later on.

  The Mozart Sonata for Two Pianos in D major at least, showed vague signs of human intelligence, and certainly no one can quibble with Ms. Stallone’s technical proficiency. Overwhelmingly, however, the impression remains that David Montagnier has traded in Audrey Hepburn for Courtney Love.

  I looked up at David. “Ooo, that’s pretty good. As it happens, I like Courtney Love.”

  I jumped as David came over and snatched the magazine out of my hands. His eyes narrowed in the hunt, as if they were looking down a scope at the crosshairs. “August Nardigger. He used to review art for the Times.”

  “Then he’s probably trying to make a name for himself in music by being clever and nasty,” I said. “Anyway, he’s entitled to his opinion.”

  “Read under the lines, Bess. This is about social class. Audrey Hepburn, my ass.”

  I smiled. “First of all, it’s ‘between the lines,’ and second, you can’t say ‘my ass’ with a French accent. It doesn’t work.” I was trying to be lighthearted about it, but I could see that David was really fuming. I had never seen his face like this, all twisted into a knot.

  “I’m going to put in a call to Balaboo,” he said, heading for the phone. “Someone needs to tell this snake you don’t be so cruel at someone’s debut performance.” He started to get up to make the call but I got to him in time to grab the phone. I held it in the air behind my shoulder and stared him down.

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” I asked him. It seemed a pity that this was how we were going to reenter the world. After a few seconds of eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation, David just sort of deflated. He plunked back into his chair. I sat in his lap and stroked his hair. “Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten a rotten review,” I said.

  “Of course, but this is different. This is your first…”

  I kissed him to shut him up, a little one, then a bigger one. “Forget it, David. If I don’t let it get to me, why should you?”

  “I’m going to remember this Nardigger,” he said, melting just a little under the warmth of the kisses.

  “We’ll take out a contract on him, but can we do it tomorrow? We’ve got important business.” I kissed him some more until the muscles in his face relaxed and pretty soon we were back in the bedroom again. Then he fell asleep but I propped myself up and looked out the window. Snow had begun to fall outside. Snowflakes swirled and billowed into fantastic patterns against the gray light. I could hear heat rising with a cozy hiss from the radiators along the floor. The world was invisible and we were safe in bed with the blizzard dancing silently on the other side of the glass. I reached down and laid my fingers across David’s wrist where his pulse was beating steady and quiet. I didn’t ever want to move from that bed and all I could think was, Okay, God, you might as well kill me right now because it’s never gonna get better than this.

  Chapter Ten

  Obviously, we couldn’t stay in our cocoon forever. Eventually, Mr. Balaboo showed up in the lobby and explained to the doorman that he wasn’t leaving until we let him come up. His scalp was fire-engine red under that perfect part and his pocket handkerchief looked like it had had a nervous breakdown.

  “Please sit down, Mr. Balaboo,” David said, and poured him half a glass of wine even though it was only eleven in the morning.

  He took a tiny sip, and looked at us with a sigh. I had to check to see if his feet were touching the floor. He was so dainty you wanted to stick him on a shelf with your other china figurines. David was always being nagged to change management, but he stayed with Mr. Balaboo because he was a gentleman in a world of sharks. I had to keep restraining myself from kissing him on the head, he was that adorable.

  “The calls are coming in so fast I can’t keep up,” he complained. “You have to make some decisions.” Mr. Balaboo kept his eyes off my outfit, which was one of David’s tuxedo shirts and a pair of gym socks. I went to find a robe. Then I stood in the doorway while they talked about dates with premier orchestras—Berlin, Montreal, Philadelphia, Cleveland—and offers of recording contracts.

  The blizzard had cleared, leaving a blue sky that was almost painfully bright and turning David and Mr. Balaboo into black cutouts against the window. Antonio Vivaldi was doing his best to drown out the discussion with his winter music inside my head and all the time I was staring at the two silhouettes and thinking, Where the fuck are you, Bess? I mean, give me a break, they’re talking Charles Dutoit here, conductor of the Montreal. I knew I would never have been invited to play with them without David, but that was exactly the way I wanted it. At least with David I had half a shot at staying conscious to enjoy the ride. By the time Mr. Balaboo left a couple of hours later we had a master plan and real soon after that I found out what it was like to become public property.

  So this is what our days were like. We practiced together a minimum of four hours a day and then usually had a taping session at the recording studio for our
first CD. David wanted me to move in with him, which I pretty much did, although it bothered me some. I’d been living on my own for a few years, and David felt like micro-managing every detail of my life. He gave half my clothes away to Goodwill and dragged me back to Bergdorf’s. It’s fine to be able to afford great clothes, but those price tags made me want to vomit. Also that manicured man who had looked at me like I was a Seventh Avenue hooker came sliding over to get my autograph on a store catalog. I almost signed it “Up your ass. Regards, Courtney Love,” but of course, David would have chucked me out the window.

  So first it was the clothes, then he made me get my first physical exam other than the usual Pap smear, which I had always been religious about, that is, if you can relate religion to a situation where you lie on a table like a dinner plate with your crotch served up as today’s special. Anyhow, David’s doctor told us I was strong as a horse, which was no big surprise. The only thing was some fluctuation in my blood pressure, which probably contributed to the fainting. He gave me a prescription and told me to use it before my concerts, and I have to say it reduced the sparkles in front of my eyes. Or maybe it was the power of suggestion. Either way, I was happy.

  David took charge of my diet, too. He thought I was consuming too much sugar and fat. I explained that Krispy Kremes were part of my body’s essential building blocks and that I would start to go downhill fast without them, like with palpitations and unsightly hives and probably even gout. He bought me these dog biscuits from the health food store that I was supposed to eat for energy. I did it, but made him pay by howling like a moon-crazed hound. David hated ugly sounds.

  Still, I was pretty good-natured about all this. I was so grateful to him that I would probably have swallowed cement straight out of the mixer if he told me to. Furthermore, I was crazed with love. However, there was that morning he overstepped. I was minding my business, brushing my teeth beside him at the bathroom sink, and David started in on my brand of toothpaste and how it was too abrasive or some such bullshit. Now, I had been a Colgate girl all my life, and there was simply no way anyone was going to malign my toothpaste. We got into a huge tug-of-war with my Total and next thing we knew, I had emptied almost a whole tube on David, decorating him like a birthday cake with stripes and circles. I have to give him credit for laughing.

  Anyhow, the point is, it was a little crowded psychologically, suddenly living hip-to-hip with a personality as gigantic as David’s. There was also the issue of money in that basically I was a kept woman. It should have bothered me more, I suppose. I know it tortured Angie to accept money from David, grateful as she was. But in my bones I believed that I was exactly what David needed, and every day there was some new thrill. Take, for instance, the morning we had just finished an exhausting practice session and we looked at one another across the pianos and both said at the very same time, “Bach never played anything the same way twice.” What is that? I never got used to it, that spooky telecommunication between us, and got delicious prickles down my back every time it happened.

  There are lots of debuts you have to get through to make it in the music world, and some of them have nothing to do with tickling the ivories. Every time you talk to a reporter or a benefactor for a concert hall or even a lowly fan, you’d better know how to handle it. I didn’t have a clue; I mean, me with the mouth. So what I tried to do was keep it shut and watch a master, i.e., David. We did a couple more concerts, one at Alice Tully and another at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, a place that shocked the hell out of everybody by being fabulous because it was in—horrors!—Newark. Afterward we’d be mobbed backstage and even out on the street an hour later. Dozens of people would wait, hoping for autographs. I took my cues from David. You did a general kind of smile and only shook a hand if one got stuck right in front of your face. It was always risky—the chance of getting your fingers mangled by some enthusiastic cruncher. You tried to keep on with whatever conversation you were in the middle of, which for me meant nodding a lot, since half the time I didn’t even know what people were talking about. I mean, couldn’t a person just say, “God, you really touched me,” instead of “I found your music simply transmogriphobicalistic?” Usually, I figured it was supposed to be a compliment and said, “Gee, thanks.”

  After the first few performances, I began to see some of the same people show up. I always kept tickets available for Angie, Mumma, Jake, and Pauline, obviously, but they couldn’t make it to every concert. And I always saved Corny a ticket. He’d come in that green suit, carrying something delicious from the neighborhood—cannoli, fresh figs, once even a big smelly sausage. He told me he always knew I’d need those multiplication tables he’d made me memorize because one day I’d be making big money. Corny had good musical sense, often picking out the best bits of the performance to comment on. It made my heart ache a little to hear him say, “You did good tonight, Bessie.” I mean, it might have been nice to have an actual proud father hanging around.

  There was Mrs. Edelmeyer, who thought she was a great concert pianist who had just never been discovered. She pretended she was my best friend, always winking at me and telling her companions things like “Bess and I prefer to play Bach with emotion.” It was sad, really. David found her beyond annoying, but I couldn’t bring myself to blow her off. There was Vernon, a young man with a deformed mouth and liquid brown eyes that looked at me with such total love it always made me melt. He would take my hand—always gently—bow and make some shy remark about what pleasure I’d given him that evening. After a while I got so I couldn’t keep track of which faces belonged to which country. Mrs. Edelmeyer really confused me once by showing up backstage in Milan. I didn’t know where the hell I was.

  Then there were the people with money and connections. David would introduce them to me and I would be charming, i.e., if they spilled champagne down my cleavage, I would make every effort not to use the “f” word. These were the types who shelled out enough money to keep the music playing year after year. I’m not above slinging the shit if it means tuning the pianos and paying for plane tickets so a hundred divine fiddlers can get to New York from Vienna.

  The bottom line was it became clear to me pretty early on that the most successful performers were the ones who could pull off the self-promotion. You could be the most talented musician on the planet, but if you couldn’t smile at the people with clout, you were screwed.

  David started taking me out to dinner in fabulous restaurants but we still always ate alone, unless you counted the maître d’ and the waiters who were always hanging around looking for tips and soaking up David’s glory. I’d watch the staff in sympathy as they scurried around. At least they didn’t have to do it on Rollerblades.

  I was also now included in some informal jam sessions. Like when the Cleveland was in town, for instance, a half dozen musicians would troop over to David’s after their Carnegie Hall gig and mess around. You’d think it would be the last thing anybody would feel like doing, but I guess music is a kind of sickness, like nymphomania. We’d put away a lot of wine and play quartets, mixing it up with a weird collection of instruments, sometimes a French horn standing in for a cello or a clarinet for a violin, whoever was around. It was a tremendous amount of fun, and I could hold my own in those situations since chamber music had always been comfortable for me. But the big test came later that summer when we were invited to a party in Southampton.

  For those of you who don’t know, for instance if you’ve been domiciled on a distant galaxy for your entire life, there are two distinct Long Islands. There’s the part I come from, which is closer to “The City,” i.e., the only city, the Big Apple. (If a New Yorker lives in Great Britain, when he says “The City,” he is not referring to London.) People who live in Manhattan don’t differentiate between people from Nassau County, Long Island, and from the neighboring boroughs and suburbs. We are collectively known as “bridge-and-tunnel,” which I assure you is not meant as a compliment. Then there’s the other Long Islan
d that includes the towns between West Hampton and Amagansett. (Montauk, my favorite, doesn’t count because it’s too far out and only has Dick Cavett. Or did. I think he sold his house for the price of a small continent.) You walk along Main Street in East Hampton and you might as well be on Madison Avenue. Same face-lifts, same bodies buffed by the personal trainer who gets to use the guesthouse twice a week, jewelry up the wazoo, and underneath the summer dresses, two-hundred-dollar swimsuits with labels that say, “Do not immerse in chlorine,” which pretty much rules out the backyard pool.

  My experience with the Hamptons crowd was limited to years of waiting on them in restaurants. Some were obnoxious and cheap, some were kind and tipped generously. Whatever; they weren’t my people and I was pretty nervous at the idea of mingling with that set out on the East End. Furthermore, David and I were invited for overnight. I assumed that meant we wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed or even the same room. What if they stuck me with some fancy Park Avenue heiress as a roommate? This prospect prompted me to ask David an important question. He was tossing clothes into his suitcase at the time.

  “So, David,” I said, sitting on the bed to watch him pack. “Do those socialite women fart like everybody else or do they get their assholes done over? You know, to prevent the unexpected.”

  He blinked and then started to laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “They get everything else surgically modified.”

  Sometimes I said outrageous things just for the joy of watching David laugh. He was pretty tired of people being awed by him. But this time, he knew there was anxiety behind the raunchy question. He tossed a pair of cotton socks into his bag and sat down beside me. “Are you dreading this?” he asked, slipping his hand under my hair to find the back of my neck.

  “Yeah,” I said.