Body & Soul

by Frank Conroy

  They had been at the table for more than an hour. The big man ordered fruit, cheese, and grappa, folded his great hands before him and said, "Music, food, and women. These are the great pleasures, the lasting pleasures. You will learn this, my young monk."

  "I would add books," Claude said, feeling somewhat self-conscious. "You know, good books."

  "Of course! You are a reader. That is good."

  "They don't let you down."

  Frescobaldi's big face was capable of astonishingly quick changes of expression—all the more remarkable because when he played it might as well have been made of stone—and it now became somber. He seemed to be considering Claude's words. After a moment the fruit and cheese arrived and the solemnity vanished.

  "You were very quick to understand the way I like to play."

  "I've got your records," Claude said.

  "Yes, but I never recorded those encores. Your time is very good—you play with the front edge of the beat, not just the back edge. You know how to lean, and you pick the right places to do it."

  "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me. About music I never say anything to be polite. I say what I think, good or bad. Life is too short."

  "Okay."

  They took another cab back to the music store. In the basement studio Frescobaldi went directly to the old couch against the wall and lay down, his huge belly as high as the backrest. "Call me in one hour," he said, spreading his handkerchief over his face.

  Claude went back upstairs. Weisfeld was ringing up a sale. "He's taking a nap."

  "Good," Weisfeld said. "So it's going well?"

  "I think so. Yes, yes it is."

  "I listened at the door a couple of times. It sounded good to me. The Stravinsky was terrific, by the way. Like you'd been playing it all your life."

  "It moves so fast," Claude said. "Swoosh! A jet plane."

  "I'd like to see that violin of his," Weisfeld said wistfully.

  Claude was too excited to sit still, so he went outside, drifted up to Eighty-sixth Street to look at movie posters, walked around aimlessly, replaying the morning's music in his mind, feeling the emotions for a second time, reliving his few errors and trying to figure out why he'd made them. He came back early and walked twice around the block to eat up time.

  Frescobaldi was awake when Claude descended. He handed over four folios. "I wanted to do the Franck, but it would take too much time. We will play these. Easily, without formality. Stop anytime you want to."

  Claude read the titles. Sonatas op. 24 in F Major and op. 47 in A Major, nicknamed the Spring and the Kreutzer, by Beethoven; Debussy's Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor; and Prokofiev's Sonata no. 1 in F Minor, op. 80. He knew the first two well, was familiar with the third, but had never even heard a recording of the Prokofiev, which he instantly opened. At first glance it did not seem impossible.

  "You would like some time to look them over?"

  "Yes," Claude said, "if that's okay."

  "I will go upstairs and make some phone calls."

  Claude heard the creak of the stairs and the floor above as Frescobaldi crossed it. Without wasting a moment Claude went to one of the desks, pulled up a stool, and began to read. The Beethoven and the Debussy were clean, unmarked, but luckily the violin part of the Prokofiev was sprinkled with the big man's notes to himself, which helped Claude to get a handle on the piece. He put his elbow on the desk, his head in his palm, and concentrated, slowly turning pages.

  "I can't," he said. He was lying on Obromowitz's bed, holding Obromowitz's old-fashioned telephone to his head. The sky was dark, turning from purple to black outside his window. "I have to work."

  "Well then, I'll stay too," Lady said. "I'll beg off the dinner."

  "Sugar pot, you don't understand. I wouldn't be able to see you. It's going to be night and day for me until we leave."

  "Well, you have to eat," she said.

  "When I eat I have a score in my hand. This is a tremendously lucky break for me. I can't blow it."

  "You won't blow it," she said, as if it were completely impossible, which he found both irritating and reassuring.

  "It's a lot of music. A lot of music. And there isn't much time. We're rehearsing at the store four hours a day."

  "In your studio?"

  "I have to analyze the scores, practice, get it all in my hands. Mr. Weisfeld has me on a schedule again, making me sleep eight hours, checking my food." He laughed. Despite Weisfeld's calm, methodical coaching, Claude knew how much pleasure the situation afforded him. The man fairly percolated with good cheer, which in turn gratified Claude at a fundamental level. It was rare, this ebullience. He seemed less pale, even.

  "I might as well go, you're saying," she said.

  "I'd be bad company. I wouldn't be able to help myself."

  The line hummed for a moment. "God, I hate being with them all by myself. I hate this house and I hate that house. Maybe I'll just move out and go to graduate school."

  "That's a thought," he said.

  "I don't know what Mummy would do, though. You know what happened to Aunt Millie when Catherine eloped."

  "Aunt Millie?" he said, rattled, stalling for time.

  "Yes. Mildred Fisk. Aunt Millie."

  "Mrs. Fisk?"

  "What on earth is the matter with you?"

  "Nothing," he said. "So what happened to her?"

  "Three hours after they told her, she went blind, totally blind."

  "Oh, come on."

  "No kidding. It's called hysterical blindness. Nothing anatomically wrong, but she can't see."

  "You mean she still..."

  "Blind as a bat. They can't tell if she'll get better, but of course it's been years now."

  "Jesus." He thought about it. "Do you think she could be faking? I mean, she always struck me as strange."

  "There are tests, empirical tests," she said.

  "How incredibly weird. I didn't know such a thing was possible. It's like something out of legend."

  "My whole family is crazy, except for Grandpa." She made a clucking sound with her tongue. "Well, I guess I'll go. At least I've got my own car. Riding out with them is excruciating, I can tell you."

  "I'll call you," he said. "You call me."

  As tired as he was, he did not find it easy to go to sleep. Frescobaldi's voice spun in his head: "Phrase it like this, pull it out a little bit." Or: "Ma, no no no! It's the middle voice. Bring up the middle voice!" Or: "Wait for me. Wait for me there. Write in a retard if you have to." Or: "Again from fifty-nine. Again. Again. Again." Phrases of music rose and sank in his consciousness like the backs of whales breaching in some dark sea. He saw Mrs. Fisk, clothed in a toga like Catherine at the soiree but bent over, skinny arms stretched out before her, feeling her way through a forest of notes, stave lines, and accidentals. He saw Catherine, as a girl, in her velvet coat with the silver buttons, sitting on top of the treble clef, the heels of her patent-leather shoes hooked over a full-bar rest, glaring with an evil smile, tearing the petals from a daisy one by one.

  After a long morning with the Prokofiev, Frescobaldi was about to put away his instrument when he happened to look down at some scores on the worktable. He bent over, reading, separating pages with his finger. "What's this?" he asked, picking up the loose sheets and bringing them to the piano.

  "My song cycle," Claude said. "Just an experiment."

  "It looks interesting. Let's try it." He put the music on the stand. "Your notation is very clear, at least. An old-fashioned hand."

  "Mr. Weisfeld and I used to copy together. After a while people couldn't tell who was who."

  "Very convenient. All right, give me the tempo."

  The literary material was Blake—pairs of poems, one from Songs of Innocence followed by its counterpart in Songs of Experience, six in all. Frescobaldi said nothing after the first, or the second, so they played them straight through. Claude felt something close to rapture to hear his lines played so beautifully. He had not actually real
ized how much music was in them.

  "Brother Rawlings!" Frescobaldi clapped him hard on the back, enough to move him an inch forward on the bench. "You surprise me! You delight me! These are very good. These did not come from the monastery."

  "Thank you," Claude said, deeply pleased. "I don't know what you mean about the monastery."

  "I mean it has blood! It has emotion! Sweetness, freshness, sadness. So much music today is mathematical. Intellectual." This last with special scorn. "These little pieces are at least alive. You should prepare a violin transcription." He raised his violin to his neck. "Number three. I will show you."

  They worked through the piece one small section at a time. Without disturbing the structure or the essential mood, Frescobaldi demonstrated opportunities for double stops, dramatic runs up to the bridge, broken chords based on an open G string, cleverly placed harmonics, and some supportive left-hand pizzicati. The result was to open up the sound and, without straining, to make the violin sound bigger, more elaborately playful, which worked well with Blake's image of a lamb. Claude made frantic notes, his hand almost trembling in his excitement.

  "Work on them," Frescobaldi said. "Send them to me in Rome and I will look at them and respond."

  "I will, I will. I can't thank you enough."

  "No thanks, no thanks." He rapped Claude very lightly on the head with the top of his bow. "Music, also, is a brotherhood."

  Spurred by this remark, and his general euphoria, Claude blurted out a question as they climbed the stairs. "Mr. Weisfeld would like to see your violin. Can you spare a couple of minutes? He repairs them, you know, sometimes."

  "Of course," Frescobaldi said, edging himself through the door. "It's the least I can do. I mean to pay him for the studio time before we leave for Philadelphia."

  "Oh, that won't be necessary," Claude said quickly.

  "Necessary or not, I will do it." He advanced to the cash register and put his case on the glass. "Please forgive me, Mr. Weisfeld, I meant to show you this before." He unsnapped the clasps and whipped away the silk cloth.

  "Claude," Weisfeld said, "go next door and get Bergman. Tell him to bring a large glass."

  Claude obeyed, coming back with the old, stooped gentleman, wearing his spectacles with the small, black cylindrical magnifier clipped onto one lens, a large magnifying glass in his hand. After introductions, Weisfeld pulled out a square of green felt and spread it over the glass. He lifted the violin from its case, lowered it to the felt, and adjusted the gooseneck lamp for the best light. Soon both heads were bent to the gleaming instrument, Bergman's a little closer as he peered through his jeweler's glass, a handkerchief at his mouth so as not to breathe vapor on the varnish. They made hushed sounds and exclamations to each other.

  "Maple."

  "Maple neck."

  Peering through the f-hole, Weisfeld said, "Willow blocks and linings."

  "Look at that purfling! Beautiful!"

  "Notice the archings." Weisfeld measured with a fine steel rule.

  Bergman took the rule and measured the neck. "Thirteen," he said, and then measured to the bridge. "Nineteen point five."

  They were like two surgeons examining the innards of a patient. Weisfeld looked up at Claude. "The varnish was general knowledge for a hundred years. Then around 1750 the secret was lost."

  "Does the varnish matter?"

  Weisfeld answered as Frescobaldi gave a chortle. "Oh yes, it matters very much. It affects the sound."

  Holding the instrument by the scroll, Weisfeld gently turned it over.

  "Beautiful flame."

  "Lovely." Bergman agreed, raising his head.

  "A Guarneri, maestro," said Weisfeld. "Of the later period?"

  "It once belonged to Ysaÿe, so of course I had to have it."

  All three men burst into laughter.

  Claude missed the joke and looked from man to man. Only Frescobaldi met his eye. "Ysaÿe was the only virtuoso fatter than me," he said. "Much, much too fat, the poor man. I am a sylph by comparison."

  Weisfeld lay the violin in its case.

  "I have a Strad also," said Frescobaldi. "For Mozart."

  "We are most grateful," said Weisfeld.

  "Absolutely," Bergman added. "I've never seen one before. Only pictures. Now I'll be ready if someone wants to hock one."

  "Hock?" asked Frescobaldi. "What is 'hock?' "

  "Mr. Bergman owns a pawn shop," Claude explained.

  "Aha, I see!" He nodded.

  The three men laughed again.

  After the fourth encore Frescobaldi stood in the wings wiping his face and neck with a towel, pausing every now and then to gauge the dynamics of the applause. "Are they still standing?"

  From the peephole Claude said, "Most of them in the balcony. Most down front in the orchestra. The back is thinning out."

  "All right. One last bow from the side of the stage. Avanti!"

  Frescobaldi stepped into the light and the audience roared. Claude followed. He had learned by now that the big man bowed slowly and elaborately, like a Shakespearean actor, in such a way as to milk the crowd, and he timed his own simple movement accordingly. Their heads came up together. Claude led the way offstage.

  "It is important to have a feel for the audience," Frescobaldi said. "You must time it so you can hear the applause all the way to the dressing room." He then moved off rather quickly.

  Indeed, Claude could hear a faint echo as he approached his room, still gratified to see his name on the door. Elegant calligraphy on a cardboard insert. Once inside, he fell into an armchair. The management had provided a bowl of fruit and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, with four glasses. He stared at these without seeing them.

  His body hummed with a comfortable and gradually waning tension, winding down like a gyroscope. Several things about the concert had surprised him. The piano had not been retuned despite his request from the afternoon, remaining slightly sharp in the treble. Frescobaldi had adapted smoothly and with apparent ease, but for Claude it was mildly irritating. Also Frescobaldi had been much more mobile and physical in performance than in rehearsal—dipping, bending, leaning backward, moving here and there for no apparent reason. The movements of his bowing arm had seemed almost flamboyant. For all that, his playing had been breathtaking—utterly clean and so filled with emotion, so exalted in its discoveries, the concert had the feel of a celebration of music itself. Early in the first Beethoven sonata it was as if both of them had somehow levitated an inch above the stage, held there by some indescribable force released by their communion. They had sustained this magic equipoise right through to the end, Claude fighting all the way to control his excitement. He was euphoric and humbled at the same time.

  After several minutes of sitting in mindless bliss—his state not unlike the sky-blue sunlit drift of post-coitus—he re-entered the world with the decision to get out of his tails and into civilian clothes. He was standing in his underwear washing his face when Frescobaldi burst into the room, closing the door on a number of people behind him.

  "There will be newspaper people in the green room," he said, opening the champagne. "I meant to talk to you about this on the train, but I forgot. I excoriate myself." In fact, the big man had slept through most of the trip. He had a remarkable ability to go to sleep in an instant, as if the handkerchief he dropped over his face contained ether. His snores were horrendous, the cloth puffing in and out. "The important thing is to say nothing important. They are not to be trusted, and few of them know anything about music. Just talk nice—nice audience, nice hall, nice concert, everything nice. Smile."

  "Okay."

  Frescobaldi poured two glasses of champagne, brought one over, and clinked a toast. "This has been good for me, playing with someone else. It was different. I found new things."

  With the glass in his hand Claude was going to have to stand there in his underwear longer than he wanted to. Frescobaldi seemed not to notice his near-nakedness. "I have to go with the Italian consul to some spe
cial affair. I will see you at the hotel, either tonight or for breakfast, okay? You will be okeydokey? Eat a good dinner?"

  "I'll be fine." Claude emptied his glass to be rid of it, so he could put on his pants.

  Frescobaldi ate a couple of grapes. "Tell me," he said, "when we were waiting to go on, you seemed very relaxed. Like you were waiting for a bus. Don't you get a little..." He fluttered his hand over his heart and knocked his knees together. "A little scared? All those people? A little nervous?" He looked at Claude with genuine curiosity.

  "Maybe the day before I'll be wound up," Claude said, slipping his arm into a sleeve. "But it's funny—before, maybe an hour before, I get completely calm. It's like everything drains out of me and I don't care about anything. I think it comes from Fredericks. Some kind of fatalism. He plays gin rummy before he goes on."

  "He drinks?" Frescobaldi recoiled in astonishment. "He drinks before he plays?"

  "No, no. It's a card game. A silly little card game."

  "Ah!" He was relieved, and nodded.

  "I'm not really aware of the people," Claude said.

  "For me, those last few minutes—it is like hell." He poured and drank off another glass of champagne. "Black hell."

  Claude stopped moving for a moment. "I couldn't tell," he said. "I didn't notice a thing."

  "No one can tell." The big man tapped his head. "It is all in here." His eyes seemed to bulge under the thick brows. Then he shrugged. "It is the price I pay. Not so high, really. Now I go hear them tell me what a genius I am."

  Claude finished dressing, packed up his tails, his music, and his good-luck piece in the overnight case, and went out into the corridor. He found the green room by following the noise.

  Frescobaldi was signing programs, slapping backs, kissing hands, smiling, laughing, answering reporters, and moving almost imperceptibly toward the exit. Flashbulbs went off every few seconds. In his vitality and great bulk he seemed master of the situation, sweeping people up into his own enthusiasm, touching their hands or arms quickly, like a politician or a famous cleric. As they turned away some of them spotted Claude.