by Frank Conroy
"The octopus? Sure."
"What do you call the long things? Long arms like snakes?"
"Tentacles."
"Okay, tentagles. Some tentagles playing fiddles, some tentagles playing different horns, different reeds, big drums, little drums. All those tentagles wiggling around, playing like crazy, trying not to bump in. You see? Is magic. Is a miracle they play music! So we go very easy with the octopus. Big dumb beast trying hard, he shouldn't get confused, he shouldn't get angry. We go easy. We say nice octopus. Sometimes we say beautiful octopus. Sometimes to the audience we say this is my dear, dear friend the octopus, please clap for the octopus. You see?"
Claude felt ashamed of himself. "Yes. I understand. It won't happen again."
"Is natural," said Popkin, rising. "Back to work."
Claude walked back in with his head down. Just before lowering himself to the bench he turned to the orchestra. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to—"
Popkin interrupted from the podium. "Fredericks isn't here. Remember how much pressure is for this young man. Is not easy. Now we play. We are together, we are all in this together. We will do this."
Claude didn't know how much of it was in his mind, but the rest of the rehearsal—still working on fragments—went better. Once he did not expect a quick response, he began to hear how the phrasing seeped into the sound of the orchestra bit by bit, like shapes solidifying in mist. He felt grateful to Popkin, and made a point to go and shake his hand when it was over.
"They all hate me, I guess," Claude said. "Well, so be it." His head was crooked against the headboard. Eva lay beside him, her cheek on his shoulder. When she spoke he could feel her warm breath on his chest.
"I wouldn't say that," she said. "They assumed you were experienced. I mean the way you play, and Fredericks picking you. After you left, Popkin said you'd never played with an orchestra before. Some of them felt bad when they heard that."
"I'm glad you came. I didn't think you would."
"Music is music, but this"—she kissed his nipple—"is this. And it's our last night."
"Yes. I go back tomorrow too." He was astonished at how quickly he'd gotten used to lying naked in bed with a naked girl. He felt as if he'd been doing it all his life, so natural did it seem. They'd made love twice in as many hours, less rushed but no less powerful than the previous night. His body, which had seemed, in the act, like a rag doll in the hand of a giant, now floated calmly in the darkness, warm and serene. He drifted.
Later, they both woke to the sound of voices in the hall outside. Bumping of luggage. Key in lock. Muffled talk, instructions, hushing noises.
"They're here," Claude said.
Eva sat up. "Fredericks?"
"Anson Roeg too."
She slipped out of bed, went quickly to the door, and knelt down to peer through the keyhole.
"What are you doing?" Claude whispered.
She waved her hand in the air behind her. She stayed at the keyhole for several moments, until the noises stopped, and then tiptoed back to bed.
"Again," she said, with rapid kisses across his chest. "Again."
***
"One should eat lightly before a performance," Fredericks said as the food was rolled into his suite on a little cart. The young waitress draped a cloth over the table and set three places. "I took the liberty of ordering," he went on. "Consomme, toasted cheese sandwiches, and mineral water. Will that be enough for you, my dear?" he asked Anson Roeg.
"Of course."
They took their places and unrolled their napkins.
"The food is pretty good here," Claude said.
Fredericks took a sip of soup. "Lemon," he said to the waitress. "Some cut lemon."
"Yes, sir." She bobbed in a half curtsy and left.
"That's sweet," Anson Roeg said.
"What?" Fredericks looked up.
"Her little curtsy. We could be in Austria."
"Austria before the war." He touched his lips with his napkin. "You can bet they don't curtsy now. Not to us, at any rate." He ate fastidiously. "So, Claude, have you been enjoying yourself?"
"Yes, indeed." Claude nodded, trying not to smile.
"My apologies for yesterday. It was unavoidable. What do you think of the orchestra?"
"I guess it'll be okay. Dr. Popkin really worked them. It's hard for me to judge."
"Just so," he said. "We heard about the Beethoven this morning. It's the talk of the festival."
"Very courageous of you," Roeg said with a trace of archness.
Claude blushed. "Well, I just thought, what the hell."
"Indeed," she said.
"I mean, he sure couldn't do it. He was shaking."
"Did you have any time at all to prepare?" Fredericks asked.
"Forty-five minutes. I sat in a car with the score, and then maybe ten minutes with the bassoonist, going over it. He was great."
"Good," Fredericks said. "They say you brought it off quite well."
"It was scary, but it was fun."
Anson Roeg leaned forward a bit and stared into his face. "You're different," she said.
"My dear?" Fredericks asked.
Claude stared into her gray eyes, trying not to show his feelings, which were that he agreed with her.
"Something," she said. "Something's different. He has a certain air about him, a certain ... I don't know, but he's different."
The waitress re-entered and served lemon wedges.
"The Beethoven," Fredericks suggested. "Trial by fire."
"Perhaps," Roeg said.
"Do you feel different, Claude?" Fredericks asked.
"I guess I do, yes. I'd have to say that. It's been an amazing couple of days. Feels like weeks." He realized he was eating too quickly, and slowed the pace.
Fredericks put his napkin on the table and gazed out the window. "A beautiful, calm summer afternoon. A fine day to play Mozart."
"I hope Mr. Weisfeld is all right. I've tried twice to call him," Claude said.
"It's just the flu," Roeg said. "He'll be fine, and you shouldn't worry about it." She reached up suddenly and grabbed Claude's chin to hold his face for a close examination. "What is it?" she said as if to herself, exasperated.
Claude could not stop the slow smile from appearing on his slightly swollen lips. Her eyes came up from his mouth and he saw the shock of recognition. Her head jerked back a fraction of an inch. "Oh," she said, taking her hand away.
"What is it?" Fredericks asked.
"Nothing," she said.
"You've been reading Yeats again," he said.
"That must be it," she said, and finished off her mineral water. "Yes, that's it."
As they drove slowly to the amphitheater shell Claude saw an entire hillside of people scattered over the grassy expanse with blankets, sun umbrellas, folding chairs, pillows, and picnic hampers. Nearer the stage the crowd was denser, and the rows of benches were completely filled.
"Good turnout," said Roeg.
"Hmmm." Fredericks was reading a newspaper.
The Rolls glided silently through the parking area—hundreds of cars in neat rows on the meadow—and pulled up behind the shell. An attendant ran forward to open the door of the car while another held open the rear entrance door to the building.
Anson Roeg got out first, followed by Claude and then Fredericks, who stretched his arms and took a couple of deep breaths before going inside.
Mrs. Chatfield and her assistants greeted Fredericks effusively and led the way to the green room, where Popkin and a number of others immediately surrounded him. Claude felt Anson Roeg take his elbow and lead him to an empty area in the corner. Couch, table, a few chairs. They sat down.
"He'll get rid of them in a few minutes," she said, retrieving a silver case from her purse. She withdrew a small brown cigar and held out a silver lighter to Claude. He accepted it and took a moment to figure out how it worked. Flashbulbs were going off. Claude lit her cigar.
"Thank you," she said, and took back th
e lighter. She leaned back on the couch and sent a thin plume of blue smoke toward the ceiling.
"Is it always like this?" Claude asked.
"This is nothing," she said calmly.
Eventually a buzzer sounded and the room began to clear. Fredericks came over, with Popkin at his elbow. "So you do the Brahms now. That is, what, fifteen minutes?"
"Very close," said Popkin. "You will get two buzzes, then you come." He reached out and caught a young man in a white coat by the sleeve, never taking his eyes off Fredericks. "You would like something? Coffee? Tea? Perhaps the lady? Something?"
"A pitcher of water and three glasses," said Fredericks.
Popkin nodded to the young man, who went to get it. "Fine," he said. "I see you out there." He caught Claude's eye. "You do good."
Claude didn't know if it was a prediction or an instruction, but he thanked him anyway and reflexively touched the wooden cross on his chest, under his shirt.
Finally they were alone, sitting three around the table with their glasses of water before them. Fredericks folded one leg over the other as, very faintly, they heard the beginning of the Brahms.
"You know that stock he talked me into," Fredericks said, "the pet-food company? It went down four points."
Anson Roeg tapped some ash into the ashtray. "People must have heard you bought it."
"Exactly." He gave a small laugh. "If I want it to go up, I should sell."
Claude started to run down the Mozart in his head, repeating the first phrase several times. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sense memory of playing the music, of the sound of it, the feel of the keys, the changing positions of his hands. He was a hundred bars in when suddenly he lost the thread. His eyes snapped open. He stood up and began to pace, humming to himself to find the place where he'd stumbled.
"Claude," Fredericks said, "sit down."
"What?"
"Come back and sit down."
Claude obeyed, noticing that Anson Roeg was rummaging in her bag again. What was that? A deck of cards?
"Stop thinking about the music," Fredericks said. "Do not think about the music before you go on. It's too late. There is nothing to be gained, and it will only make you nervous."
Anson Roeg was shuffling the cards.
"Do you know how to play gin?" Fredericks asked.
"Yes." Al had taught him.
"Fine. We play a half cent a point. You may deal, my dear."
"I'm two dollars up on paper," Roeg reminded him.
"I know. Now make a column for Claude."
And so they played gin rummy, in silence except for the odd remark. While Claude was shuffling—the soft sound curiously reassuring—someone opened the door, peeked in, and closed it quickly. Claude dealt.
When the buzzer sounded Fredericks said, "Wait a minute. Let's play this out, we're close." He threw down a four of hearts. Roeg picked it up, rearranged her hand, and discarded a seven of clubs.
Claude picked up the seven. "Knock for two," he said, placing the fan of his hand on the table, upside down so they could see it.
"A club run?" Fredericks laid down his cards. "But you sloughed the jack!"
The young man in the white jacket opened the door, stepped in, and held it open. "Gentlemen," he said.
Fredericks and Claude stood up.
"I'll be in the wings," Anson Roeg said. "I have to tally up the score."
Fredericks and Claude followed the young man down a corridor.
"Why did you slough the jack?" Fredericks asked.
"Well, the queen was dead."
"It was?"
"The second or third discard," Claude said. "Really. I should have remembered that."
It was bright at the end of the corridor. They paused for a moment. The stage was flooded with sunlight, angling in from over the top of the hill. The orchestra, and Popkin, were in shirtsleeves.
"Off with your jacket, Claude." Fredericks removed his own and dropped it to the floor without looking. Claude did the same. Then they walked onstage.
Claude glanced briefly at the audience—what seemed like thousands of people making sharp movements that he eventually recognized as clapping—and then found the piano. With a kind of tunnel vision he stared at the instrument, which grew larger as he approached. It filled his consciousness as he sat down, and then, almost with a click, he saw Popkin, Fredericks, the orchestra, and Eva staring at the floor. His ears opened as the applause faded. He took a deep, sighing breath and the music started, instantly there, like some enormous flower blossoming out of nothing in a nanosecond, big as a house. The air was thick with music.
After the staccato chords of the tutti, after the heartbeat rest of silence, when he and Fredericks laid in their double trills as one, together shaped the grace notes and announced the unison E-flat with the same firm touch, after the bar and a half of descending sixteenths flowing like grains of sand in an hourglass, Claude removed his hands from the keyboard and listened to Fredericks play the next eleven bars. It was clear, spirited, and apparently effortless. Claude found himself playing the response, an octave below, with willful concentration, consciously controlling the sense of euphoria he felt building in his breast. It was launched, it was loose, it was free, and they would play right through to the end, a great sailing ship running with the wind.
Trading off with Fredericks, he felt almost outside himself, listening to the magic flow, the shift of colors, hearing the pulse, watching his hands do their amazing work. As he shaped the music in his mind and played it, he felt Fredericks shaping and playing right along with him, their souls joined in harmonious enterprise, like two old friends who can talk without words, who can communicate a thought even before it has fully emerged, because the same thought is nascent in the other. Claude knew he was on the stage, at the piano in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, but at the same time he was somewhere else, somewhere he could not describe even to himself—nor did he have the faintest urge to, so heavenly did it seem. Watch it! Watch it! Listen! Concentrate! Here it comes. Here it is. This!
***
They took their bows facing full into the sun. Claude watched Fredericks from the corner of his eye and copied his movements. The applause from the benches and the hillside sounded like heavy rain, and he could hear the orchestra behind him tapping their music stands. Popkin embraced Fredericks, and then Claude, and the two pianists went into the wings.
Anson Roeg stood with a towel in each hand. She gave one to Fredericks and tossed the other to Claude. "You're drenched," she said to Fredericks. "It must be a hundred degrees out there."
"Thank you, my dear." He wiped his face and neck, and opened a couple of buttons on his shirt. He looked at Claude. "I hardly noticed, it went so well, I thought. How about you?"
"I wish it had gone on forever," Claude said.
"It was exquisite," Roeg said. "There's no other word."
"I wonder if there's a shower in the green room bathroom." Fredericks held the front of his shirt with two fingers and flapped it in and out.
"No," Roeg said. "We'll have to wait till we're back at the inn."
"Well then, let's get through this as fast as we can. I don't like to see people like this."
As they walked down the corridor various people backed up against the walls to let them pass. They were all clapping. Fredericks nodded and waved his hand as he went by. Someone touched Claude on the back and said "Bravo."
More flashbulbs as they entered the green room. People thrusting programs to be signed. Claude followed Fredericks's lead and scribbled his signature on a dozen or so.
"Where's Popkin?" Fredericks asked.
"He's coming," Roeg said.
The short man with the white beard who had asked Claude about the Beethoven stepped out of the crowd and shook hands with Fredericks. They put their heads together and talked for a moment, but Claude could hear only the end of the conversation, when Fredericks invited the man to come back to the inn with them.
Suddenly Popkin was t
here, his dewlapped cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. "Wonderful," he said to Fredericks. "A joy! I've never heard it better. I hope the children did not get in your way."
"They did well," Fredericks said. "My thanks, and tell them I said so."
"Here is the wunderkind!" Popkin hugged Claude. "Very good, very good. He helps me also prepare the orchestra. But you played like an angel!"
"Thank you, sir." Claude repressed the urge to wiggle free, and was finally released. "And I'll remember about the octopus."
"Time to go," said Roeg.
They made their way slowly through the crowd, signing a few more programs, and went out the rear door. A small crowd applauded as they emerged, and opened up before them as they went to the Rolls.
Suddenly an astonishingly loud, high-pitched whistle cut through the air. Claude turned his head to see Eva, twenty yards away, removing her fingers from the corners of her mouth. She stood on the bottom step of an orange school bus. She put one hand on the door frame, jutted her hip in a little vamp, and blew him a kiss. Blushing and laughing at the same time, Claude returned the gesture. Eva smiled and disappeared.
"Mystery solved," Roeg whispered to him as they entered the Rolls.
It was blessedly quiet inside the enormous automobile. Claude and the gentleman with the white beard sat on the jump seats.
"Claude," Fredericks said, "this is my manager, Otto Levits."
"Sir," Claude said as they shook hands.
"Perhaps if you have a few minutes," Levits said, "after you clean up. I'd like to discuss something with you."
13
ON THE SIDEWALK in front of the music store, Weisfeld looked up at the gray, overcast sky. "It's getting darker. Maybe I'll roll the awning out a couple of feet." He reached for the iron pole.
"Here," Claude said, "let me do it." He took the pole, connected it, and rolled out the awning.
