Body & Soul

by Frank Conroy

  Claude became uncomfortably aware of his blue suit, green tie, and heavy black Florsheim shoes. He took off his jacket and tie. At least his shirt was white, and brand new. He rolled the sleeves to just below the elbow, like the men on the fence.

  After an hour of walking the grounds he came upon the amphitheater, which was empty. An enclosed stage, rows of benches under a large canvas of army-surplus khaki, and a gently rising hillside of cropped meadow. As he stood looking down on it a flock of large black birds flew silently overhead toward the lake behind the stage. It would be like playing outdoors, he thought, wondering how much he would be able to hear.

  He'd asked Weisfeld once why it was that after an hour or so of playing, the Bechstein sometimes seemed to warm up, even to get "hot," more sensitive, more responsive, easier to play. With a violin or a horn it made sense, but the piano was huge, weighing more than half a ton, and the action, after all, was mechanical. Weisfeld had thought for a moment, his deep-set black eyes staring at the ceiling. "I don't think the piano changes," he said. "I think it's you. Lots of echoes down there. Differences in humidity and the like. Probably sometimes you focus in on the acoustics more precisely, and it feeds back into your fingers. I bet that's it."

  Now, walking along a path that curved through a cluster of small buildings ("sheds" on the map), Claude heard the sound of a piano. He located the shed and went in through the open door. To his surprise it was a single room, the walls lined with music stands, gongs, bells, a xylophone, a set of kettle drums, and folding chairs. Under a window, his head and shoulders caught in a bar of sunlight, a gangly, blond young man was playing a grand piano with unusual ardor, bobbing and weaving, humming, lifting his arms now and then in dramatic arcs. ("All nonsense," Fredericks had said of such air-sculpting. "Show biz.") His blond hair appeared white in the sun. He broke off abruptly.

  "Well, what do you want?" he asked. "A triangle? The clack sticks? Whatever it is, get it and leave me alone. I don't have much time." He ran his hand through his hair. Even his eyebrows were white.

  "I'm sorry," Claude said, stepping back. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

  "Oh, it's all right," he said with a sigh. "Who are you, anyway? I haven't seen you."

  "I just got here. Claude Rawlings."

  "Well, I'm sorry to be—wait a minute. Rawlings? Are you the one playing with Fredericks?"

  "Yes. The Double Concerto."

  The man's attitude underwent an instantaneous transformation. He rose from the piano with a broad smile, his teeth white and regular as Chiclets, and came forward with his arm extended. "Dick Denby," he said as they shook hands. "Well, well."

  "Was that Beethoven?" Claude asked.

  "The Quintet, opus sixteen. We're playing it tonight in the South Barn."

  Claude went over and glanced at the score. "I've heard it, but I've never played it."

  "Fairly easy," Denby said. "Not like the late stuff. Have to stay on your toes in the rondo, though. It clips along."

  "Well, I'll let you get back," Claude said.

  "No, no," Denby said, touching Claude's shoulder lightly. "I was just about to break. We're having a picnic. The winds, I mean. You must join us, please. They'll be thrilled."

  Claude hesitated. There was something forced about the man's heartiness, and he had the kind of bland, blond good looks that made his face hard to read. All the same, Claude was hungry.

  "Wonderful," Denby said, taking silence for assent. "Claudia's bringing a really good pâté."

  Shortly afterward, Claude found himself sitting on the edge of a large plaid blanket spread in the dappled shade at the rim of the amphitheater bowl. Dick Denby lay, legs crossed at the knees, with his head in the lap of Claudia, a dark-haired, black-eyed girl in a white dress who played, apparently, the oboe. Claudia was very long, and she'd kicked off her sandals to wiggle her toes, the nails of which were painted red.

  "So, how are your reeds, sweetie?" Dick asked. "Are they okay?"

  "Don't joke," Claudia said. "You don't have to make the notes. You don't know what it's like."

  "You can say that again," said Jerry, the bassoonist, all elbows and knees, with a sharp chin and slightly protuberant eyes, like a young Ichabod Crane. "No offense, Claude, but it's true. Pianists can't imagine the tyranny of reeds. It can drive you nuts."

  "I know." Claude pulled his knees up to his chest. "I work in a music store. I've had some very picky customers when it comes to reeds."

  Marty, the clarinetist, and Roger, a florid and heavyset French horn player, opened the hamper and began setting things out on the blanket. They were all four or five years older than Claude, and all of them studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia during the winter.

  "Pâté," said Roger. "A Camembert. Celery. Olives."

  "Pears," said Marty. "Apples. Wine. Bread."

  "Oh, goody." Claudia pushed Dick's head from her lap without ceremony and grabbed a paper plate.

  Everyone fell to, chattering, passing food, holding out their cups for wine. Jerry offered some to Claude. "A little chablis?"

  "Thanks, but I'll pass. I've got a rehearsal pretty soon."

  "Very wise." Jerry nodded.

  "I love to watch you eat," Dick said to Claudia dreamily. "Those big romantic bites."

  "Watch it, buster," she said.

  "That little muscle working away underneath your cheekbone, changing the shadow. Your delicate oboist's fingers holding that olive like some fabulous black pearl. It's beautiful." He picked up a pear, examined it closely, and took a bite.

  Claudia ignored him. "Try the pâté," she said to Claude. "It's got truffles."

  "I'm not going to open the last bottle," Jerry said. "We have to perform."

  Groans from Marty, Roger, and Dick.

  "Good man," said Claudia.

  Like a huge cricket, Jerry rearranged his limbs as he turned to Claude. "Okay, you haven't done any competitions, you don't go to Juilliard, so how did you get here?"

  "He asked me."

  "Fredericks? But how did you get to Fredericks?"

  "I studied with him."

  There was a pause. Marty finished a sandwich and said, "I thought he only took rich—"

  "Marty!" Roger interrupted. "You've got Camembert all over your chin!"

  "I do?" he said, bewildered, touching his face.

  "And how," Jerry went on, "did you get to Fredericks?"

  "Oh, that was Mr. Weisfeld." Claude looked at them. "He was my first teacher. He owns the music store."

  "You mean where you work?" Dick asked.

  "Yes. On Eighty-fourth and Third."

  Claude watched them all watching him, as if he were expected to say more, and then glancing at one another with blank faces when he didn't. Claudia gave a low laugh.

  "That's it?" Dick asked.

  "Well, yes, more or less," Claude said. He didn't feel like telling them about the maestro, Mr. Larkin, the studio, and all of that. "Why? What's wrong?"

  Jerry looked down. Dick selected another piece of fruit. Marty and Roger began putting things back in the hamper.

  "Nothing," Claudia said finally. "People will be curious, that's all. A festival like this..." She gave a sigh. "Well, there are a lot of very ambitious musicians here. All sorts of gossip. And Fredericks is famous. This is a big deal." She waved her arm to indicate the hillside, the distant stage. "There'll be thousands of people. All over the place. And some important people sprinkled through. You can bet on it."

  He was aware they were all looking at him again. "By ambitious, you mean..."

  "Jobs, careers, who you know," she said quickly. "The pecking order. It's all people talk about."

  "Well," Dick said, "I wouldn't go that far."

  "Ha!" said Roger.

  Claude thought about it. "I don't know what to tell you. That's what happened."

  Now they all reassured him, talking over one another.

  As they folded the blanket, Claudia said, "Come hear us tonight in the North Bar
n. Chamber music. A small audience. It should be good."

  "Yes, come," the others said, as if slightly ashamed of themselves, eager to make amends.

  Claude arrived at the rehearsal shed during a break. People milled around on the lawn near the entrance, and he was aware of a few glances as he went inside. The shed was half stage and half open space where musicians stood talking, some of them with their instruments, a few playing little runs or phrases. Claude made his way up to the stage. Vladimir Popkin, a rumpled white-haired man in his sixties, was bent over the podium examining a score. He looked up quickly, his hanging cheeks—reminiscent of those of the actor'S. Z. Zakkles—swinging bluish wattles. "You must be Rawlings," he said in a heavy accent. "Is true?"

  "Yes, sir." At lunch they had told him that Popkin was concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony.

  "Good, good." He tapped the score with a broad finger. "Here it is. Tell me what he wants."

  Claude stepped forward and opened his own score, resting the edge of it on the bottom lip of the podium. Popkin, smelling of sweat and cloves, pressed up close to Claude's shoulder. "Okay, we turn pages. Tell me tempo—where he slows up, goes fast. Tell me dynamics. Aha! I see you have notes like that. Eggselent! But so many notes I can't see the music!"

  They went through the score rapidly, Popkin making exclamations, grunts, and tooth-sucking noises. Claude's quick comments were accompanied by the sound of Popkin turning pages. "So," he said at the end, "nothing radical. He plays like it is. You think?"

  "Yes, sir. He pays a lot of attention to phrasing."

  "But of course." Popkin turned and gave a great shout. "Come children! Come, come. Time to play."

  Quite a few people climbed onstage, going to their chairs, arranging their music. Not a full orchestra, but a lot of people.

  "I only see one piano," Claude said.

  Popkin didn't seem to understand.

  "I mean, who's going to play his part?" Claude asked. "Where's the other piano?"

  Popkin wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. "There is other piano. I can bring it out and conduct from other piano if you want. Not so good. I thought you play both parts, yes?" He raised his busy eyebrows expectantly.

  Claude looked down at the score in his hand, his mind racing through the music. He would have to reduce some things. There would be some awfully tricky counterpoint.

  "Leave out what is impossible," Popkin said.

  "Okay," Claude said, "I'll try." He moved away to the piano, stumbling over the leg of a music stand. "Sorry."

  "That's okay."

  Dimly, Claude was aware of a girl with green eyes smiling at him, holding her violin on her knee.

  "Okay, children," Poplin shouted, rapping the podium with his baton in a brisk tattoo. "Mr. Rawlings, give us an A, please."

  When it was over, he was astonished to find that more than an hour had gone by. The sound of the opening bars had electrified him. The power of the orchestra, the dense texture, the colors, the clarity of the different voices, all combined for an effect so strong it felt, for the first few moments, almost crude. He played by reflex. He missed the thirty-second note in the fifth bar of the solos altogether, the one Weisfeld and Fredericks had talked about, and simply cruised through with everyone else until the first crescendo at bar twelve, when he was able to collect himself and concentrate on what he was doing. The sensation had been something like stepping onto an escalator without paying attention. But once oriented, he played with confidence, and was disappointed when Popkin broke things off at the solo.

  "Horns!" Popkin said. "This is Mozart, not Mr. John Philip Sousa. Keep it light, like the sunshine, like a good musgatel. Strings, make clear the staggatos. Again. And one, and two..."

  It became clear that this was a rehearsal for the orchestra. Time after time Popkin cut him off only a few bars into the piano part, or started him only a few bars before a tutti. Popkin gave Claude no directions, making all his remarks to the ensemble. The rehearsal ended and they had not played the piece entirely through. Claude felt like protesting. There were several segments of piano and orchestra he felt needed more work, and he was certain Fredericks would have agreed.

  As the players got up for a break—chairs clattering, music rustling—Claude went to the podium.

  "This part in the allegro," he said, flipping pages, "here in the rondo, and this part in here. We should work on those."

  "Yes, yes." Popkin nodded. "No more time today. They have to do the Brahms next, and then something..." He looked through a pile of music. "Something else here somewhere. Where is it?" He looked away, then back at Claude as if surprised to find him still there. "Rehearsal tomorrow with Fredericks," he said. "We do it then."

  Slightly exasperated, Claude nodded and turned away. The green-eyed violinist stood in front of him.

  "How did we sound?" she asked, giving a little flip of her head.

  "Swell," Claude said. "Very good. Really."

  "We've worked on it more than anything else." She had a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  "Well, I guess...," he began. The girl had a straightforward air, a kind of candor in her gaze that made him self-conscious. "Well, Fredericks, I guess," he said.

  "You bet. We practically fainted when Dr. Popkin told us. Is Fredericks hard? You know, a pill? Like some of them?"

  "Oh no, he's very kind," Claude said. "Sometimes he pushes, but it doesn't make you feel bad."

  "Well, that's good to hear," she said, and turned away. As she started down the steps she said, "I could tell you wanted to play more. From the back of your neck."

  Claude had bought a pair of white tennis shoes and two pairs of white socks at a general store in Longmeadow. They did not have any pants, however, and that had been a disappointment. At the inn he mused over the problem during dinner—pork chops stuffed with prunes, baby carrots, and potato dumplings—and mentioned it to the lady with the hair net when she served him pie (blueberry this time).

  "I need a pair of white pants," he said.

  "What on earth for?" she said. "They'll just show the dirt."

  "They all wear them."

  "Over at the farm? Well, they got them in the city. You can't get white pants in Longmeadow."

  "I know," Claude said.

  She shook her head and made a soft clucking sound. "You look fine. Eat your pie." She left.

  It was dusk when he got to the North Barn. The walk after dinner had refreshed him, and his new shoes made him feel light on his feet. He looked down at them, pleased at their brightness. People were moving through the entrance and he joined them, into the shadowy interior where he immediately sought out the men's room.

  When he opened the door he heard a woman's sharp voice. "Can't come in now." Then he saw the flushed face of Claudia. The others from the quintet were crowded behind her in the small room. "Oh," she said, "it's you," and waved him in. He advanced. They were gathered around Dick Denby, who lay pale-faced with his back against the wall. He had apparently vomited in the toilet, and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were glassy. Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Claude noticed that Denby's hands were trembling.

  "I can't," Denby said to no one in particular, "I can't."

  "Of course you can," said Jerry, the bassoonist, lowering his gangly frame to get down on one knee. "You've done it dozens of times in front of a lot more people. Certainly you can."

  "It's all in his mind," said Marty, the clarinetist, and gave a sudden giggle.

  "What are you laughing at?" Roger was furious, gesturing with his French horn. "Kribbs from the Chicago Symphony is out there. Mc-Taggart from Cleveland! Grimes from Boston! Have you lost your mind? This is a catastrophe!"

  "Dick," Jerry said gently, "tell us what's happening. Let us help."

  "I can't. Everything sounds funny and looks funny. I think I'm going crazy."

  "You spineless creep!" Claudia shouted.

  "We're on in ten minutes, people," said Marty. />
  "You worthless sack of shit!" She bent over Denby to shout it in his face, trying to get him to look at her.

  "You're not helping," Jerry said, shaking his head.

  "That's it, then," said Marty. "I'm packing up."

  "I have to go home," Dick said mechanically, his voice devoid of emotion. "I have to take a hot bath."

  "Dick," Roger said, "think about it. Give in this way and there'll be psychological damage. You have to beat it now. Otherwise, before every concert, before every appearance..."

  "I have to go home," Dick repeated.

  Claudia stood erect and took a deep breath. "Yes, go home. Spend the rest of your life playing tennis at the Merion Cricket Club. It's all you're good for." She picked up the score from between his legs and thrust it at Claude. "All right. You do it. An emergency. You do it."

  Marty said, "Now wait a minute."

  "No rehearsal?" Roger cried. "He just sight-reads it? Are you kidding? It's better we don't play at all."

  Claudia was staring intently into Claude's eyes. "No, he's good. He's got to be good."

  "I don't know about this," Marty said.

  Claude took the score, broke away from Claudia's gaze, and looked at it. A few flecks of vomit marred its cover. He went to the stall and got some toilet paper and wiped it clean. A definite sense of excitement began to stir in the back of his brain.

  "It could be awful," Roger said. "How do we know?"

  "It's an emergency," Claudia said. "We'll announce it. People will understand."

  That was all Claude needed. "I'll do it," he said.

  "Oh, God," Roger moaned.

  "Oy vey!" Marty said.

  Claudia put her hand on Jerry's shoulder and the bassoonist looked up. "What do you say?" she said. "Let's just do it."