by Frank Conroy
Her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened when he told her. She reached back and grabbed the mantel of the fireplace.
"Some childhood illness, he thinks," Claude said from the couch. "I'm perfectly normal in every other respect."
"My God," she whispered. "Out of the blue like this. Is he sure?"
"Oh, yes. Quite sure." He looked down at the floor and shook his head. "I'm sorry."
She was beside him in an instant, her arm around him. "You poor thing. There's nothing to be sorry for. It isn't your fault."
"That's what he said."
"Of course he did."
"It feels ... strange," he said. "I mean knowing. I've been this way half my life probably, but now I know, and I sort of wish I didn't." Even as she comforted him he felt a twinge of fear—another element added to keep them apart—and he got up to pace the carpet. She had passed her tests months ago.
"Do you want a drink?" she suggested. "I think we should have a drink."
"We can't pretend this doesn't change things," he said.
But she was out the door and on her way down to Esmeralda in the kitchen. He didn't know if she'd heard him. He didn't know if he wanted her to hear.
The matter was dropped. For some months there was quiet around the house, a feeling of marking time as they moved through their routines. Claude kept busy with his writing and his preparations for an upcoming chamber music recital. Lady puttered around, worked at her desk upstairs, and enrolled in some classes at the New School. When she gently introduced the idea of adoption one morning after bringing him his tray, he found himself nodding and agreeing that it might be something to look into. He felt he could hardly do otherwise. His hope was that it might be no more than a passing fancy, something she needed to cling to at the time and would release when she was strong enough. But one afternoon he came home and found her having tea with her grandfather, Senator Barnes. The old man got up with a smile to shake hands.
"Good to see you, Claude. Lady tells me you're doing a concert up at Columbia next month."
"That's right. Schubert."
"Well, I'll have to try to make that. It would be a treat."
"I hope you can, sir."
Lady fussed nervously with the china and poured Claude a cup of tea, placing it on the table so that, when he sat, he faced both of them.
The senator was getting on in years, but with his clear, intelligent, penetrating eyes, his air of physical vitality, and his deep voice he still seemed larger than life to Claude. There was a vibrancy to the man's image, as if he were packed into himself, as if the specific gravity of his body were higher than that of ordinary men.
Lady glanced up as she passed Claude his cup. "We've been talking about adoption," she said.
Taken aback, Claude busied himself with his spoon. He was aware of the senator watching him. "Right," he said.
"Grandpa knows a lot, as it happens," she said.
"That's good," Claude said. "That's lucky."
"I helped Linda with the Heuval Foundation years ago," the senator said. "One thing led to another and I wound up involved with a smaller operation up in Larchmont. Very dedicated people, wonderful people. Just the right sort of organization."
"It's the kind of thing...," Lady began. "I mean, the way it's set up, the risk is minimized."
"There is always risk," the senator said, looking at Claude. "I'm sure you both understand that." His voice was gentle.
There was silence as Esmeralda arrived with a plate of shortbread and small crustless cucumber sandwiches. She placed them on the table and left. No one touched them. As much as he admired the old man, Claude felt uneasy. The degree of seriousness in the discussion seemed premature, since he and Lady had not really talked about adoption at any length. It seemed that she was ahead of him, assuming he would somehow just come along, moved by the forward progress of events. She herself was nervous, slightly trembly, in this strategy, which he took as a warning to keep his misgivings to himself.
"But Lady," Senator Barnes said, "I want you to think about something."
She looked up at him.
"Let me speak as your grandfather now." He paused, and as a musician Claude could appreciate the timing. "You're thinking of starting a family, you two young people, and that is a noble enterprise. The future lies ahead of you, right you are, but I wonder if it's wise to fail to connect it to the past. I wonder if that's starting off on the firmest possible footing."
For one horrible instant Claude thought this was going to be yet another, albeit gentler, approach to the question of his own origins, but then he recognized that Lady was in fact the target.
"Do you mean ...," she started.
"I mean that this estrangement with your parents has gone on too long. Linda told me the whole story years ago. It was a shocking mess, of course, and Ted behaved badly. But I'm concerned that things might get set in stone here simply out of inertia." He gave her his full attention, watching her face closely, as if gauging precisely the right amount of pressure to apply. "Courage is called for now, it seems to me. Family is too important, Lady."
She said, almost under her breath, "If anyone needs a lecture on courage, it's him." Meaning her father.
The senator gave a little nod and sighed. "Well, perhaps he's learned something." He shifted his gaze to Claude. "Would it be intrusive of me to ask your thoughts on the matter?"
"Not at all," Claude said. "I've deferred to Lady, and I'll keep on doing that. At the same time, she knows I've always felt some doubts—I mean, this way everything just stays. Sort of frozen."
"I take your point," the old man said, tactfully leaving it at that.
Claude realized he wanted the senator's approval—as if it would work against the ill will of his in-laws—wanted to be included in the steady warmth that seemed a function of his strength. It was childish, surely, but in the presence of the senator he felt the quiet glow of decency he associated with the image of Spencer Tracy.
Lady stared into her teacup. She surprised both of them by suddenly saying "Shit" in a calm tone while tapping her toe on the floor.
"If it's your father you're after," the old man said, as if nothing had happened, "I can tell you it's your mother who hurts the most. She misses you."
"I talk to her."
"A telephone call every couple of months? Come now, Lady."
She sighed and leaned back.
"I wish you would consider Christmas this year."
"Oh, God," she groaned.
"If I can tell her you're thinking about it, I believe it would be a good start."
"Is it still the same?" she asked.
"Oh, yes. Eggnog at the Powerses', dinner at the Fisks'. Please do give it some thought, dear. It would mean a lot to me."
"Are you awake?" she whispered.
"Yes." It was three in the morning. He'd been watching the play of shadows on the ceiling cast by the streetlight through the branches of the tree outside.
"Me too," she said.
"Tell me about the place in Larchmont."
"He swings a lot of weight there. He can cut through the red tape. Otherwise it can take years and years, you know. A million forms, histories, interviews, and then you wait forever."
"What did you mean about risk?"
"They're very careful. It's a private organization so they can use their own procedures, and apparently they're very good at making a match."
"You mean the child and the people adopting?"
"It's only babies. The mother has the baby right there on the premises. She keeps it for four days—something about the health of the infant—and then gives it up. So you get a four-day-old baby."
"But what's this about a match?"
"Oh, you know. Background, religion, education—class, I suppose. The mother is supposed to be someone like me, similar to me. Grandpa says they're very sophisticated about that stuff."
"What about the father?"
"Oh, sure," she said quickly. "Somebody about y
our age who went to college, maybe even artistic."
He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Irony of ironies."
She rolled toward him and propped her head on her hand.
"I know," she said. "But with Grandpa handling it nobody's going to get into all that. It doesn't matter. It won't even come up. He guaranteed it."
"He's a thoughtful man," Claude said evenly.
"He's a sweetie, a real sweetie."
"And he wasn't a senator all those years for nothing."
"What do you mean?"
"He makes deals."
"Oh, it isn't really a deal. He'd do it even if I didn't see my parents."
"But you're going to see them, aren't you." It wasn't a question.
"I suppose so. It makes sense in a way. After all, they'd be the grandparents." She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling. "There's one scary thing, though, about the way they do it at Larchmont. We have to see her. Only for a minute, but the mother has to actually pass the baby over into my arms. We don't have to talk, but she has to give it to me herself."
"Jesus," he said.
"You can do that, can't you?"
"I guess. If we decide to go ahead."
They lay in silence for some time. Then she reached for his hand under the covers. "Please don't say no, Claude. Please, please." She squeezed his hand so tightly it hurt.
A week later she gave him some papers to sign, and he signed them.
Whenever Claude went to Juilliard he got lost. The layout of the place baffled him—halls stretching off in all directions, elevators that went up two floors, or three, or four, according to some mysterious plan, room numbers that made no sense—and always crowds of people rushing amid the muted cacophony of sounds from the practice rooms. It made him dizzy.
He went into the men's room and there was Fredericks standing at the urinal. Claude took the basin two over and said, "Good. I could probably never have found his office."
Fredericks shook himself delicately and zipped up. "It's right around the corner. He won't be back today."
"Does this place sometimes seem like a madhouse to you?"
"Ah, well." Fredericks smiled. "Students. They're like bees. They swarm. And everything is overcrowded."
They left the men's room and made their way to the small office, which was so filled with books and scores there was barely room for them to sit on either side of the desk. A portrait of Brahms hung on the wall.
"So," Fredericks said, "all goes well?"
"The orchestral suite I sent to Rochester got an honorable mention." He took a deep breath. "Three years now, and the best I've done is one third prize and some honorable mentions. It's depressing." He picked at the edge of the desk with a fingernail. "It's gotten to the point that I don't really want to send stuff out, but Otto says I should."
"Otto is right."
"But what's the point if I don't get to hear it?"
Fredericks swiveled in his chair to face the small window. "You know, when you were a kid I was struck by your patience. You had great patience studying piano."
"Did I? It didn't feel like that." Claude thought for a moment. "Of course, I always felt progress. I knew I was getting better bit by bit. Composing isn't like that. Every time I write something it's like going back to square one."
"Maybe that's not so bad. Maybe that's the way it has to be."
"Am I getting better?"
"What do you mean by better?"
"Now you sound like Weisfeld," Claude said.
"You've worked with progressively larger forms. Your string writing, in fact all your section writing, is getting more sophisticated. From the technical point of view, certainly you're getting better. How can you doubt it?"
Claude heard the impatience in Fredericks's voice and felt himself flush. He knew he should drop it, but something made him go on. "It's depressing," he said again.
"Maybe you need a change. Go work with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. That can be arranged, I think."
Claude shook his head. "My wife," he said limply. He did not mention the stories he'd heard about Madame Boulanger: her autocratic behavior, her dress codes, her need for constant flattery. He hadn't liked the sound of it. (Claude was unaware that he'd become more than a bit spoiled by his very comfortable life, the attentions of Weisfeld, Levits, and Fredericks, and his status as a "hot" young performer.) And New York seemed the center of the world. Had he not met Samuel Barber? Gian Carlo Menotti (at a party where, to Claude's intense embarrassment, the British poet Stephen Spender had made a pass at him) ? Had he not been to dinner more than once at Leonard Bernstein's? Leaving seemed unthinkable. "It just seems to me I should be doing better."
"I wish you could hear the sound of your voice," Fredericks said.
Claude looked up, momentarily nonplused.
"Look," Fredericks said, "composing serious music is an act of faith. You can't expect anything, that's childish. Do it for its own sake, and if that's too hard, well then, don't do it." He put his hand out in the air, palms up. "Send the stuff out, but for God's sake don't sit around waiting for the phone to ring." He leaned back.
"I know, I know," Claude said.
"If you care so much about the competitions, you should be writing twelve-tone. Are you still so naive you expect justice? Look at Bartók. Of course he's a difficult man, but he makes barely enough to feed himself. Think about Béla when you feel like complaining." Aware that he might have gone too far—Claude's face was frozen in shock—Fredericks softened his tone. "I thought you were past this."
"Past what? It seems natural enough to me."
"Sure it's natural. It's also not very important. What you are looking for is authentication, Claude. But you're looking outside, to the system, and that's the wrong place to look. Bad music gets played every day and good music gets ignored. Everybody knows that. Forget about authentication. When it comes to writing music, all you can do is sign on for a way of life, and do the work. Do the work for its own sake."
Claude looked down at his hands. Fredericks was talking sense, but the brusqueness was unsettling.
"May I tell you something?" Fredericks asked. "As a friend? An older friend of long standing who cares about you?"
"Of course," Claude whispered.
"It's taking you a long time to grow up."
After a few moments Claude said, "I feel that sometimes."
"Have you ever thought why?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I want to hold on to the wunderkind thing, just freeze everything. Some dumb part of me, self-image or something. Shit, I don't know." He got up, but there was no room to move, so he sat down again.
Fredericks nodded. "That could be part of it."
"I don't think about myself very much. At least not that way, psychoanalytically. I don't think about the past."
"Oh, psychoanalysis." Fredericks made a dismissive gesture. "All very well, I'm sure, but I'm thinking more along the lines of common sense, as somebody who's known you a long time. I may be completely wrong, of course." He fixed Claude with his eyes, waiting.
"Go ahead," Claude said finally.
"I'm struck by the fact that so much has been given to you."
Claude raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Fredericks started counting on his fingers. "First, the essential musical gift. God-given, if you will. I remember as a child how strange it felt in many ways, and I'm sure you felt the same." He folded a second finger. "Weisfeld, teaching you for twenty-five cents a week, for his own reasons." A third finger. "The maestro's generosity and his gift of the Bechstein." A fourth finger. "Leading into lessons with me, the most expensive piano teacher in the world, probably. And I forgot to mention Weisfeld giving you the basement studio." A fifth finger. "Your big break with Frescobaldi, which must have felt like sheer luck."
"My scholarships to two good schools," Claude said.
"The completely accidental but fortuitous fact that your college girlfriend, whom you subsequently marry, is a multimillionair
e well able to subsidize your musical activities."
"I agree, I agree," Claude said. "Those things, and other things have been given to me. I am and always will be grateful."
"I know that, Claude. It's one of the most charming things about you. A lesser man would resent it."
"Good Lord, no."
"It's only human nature, but never mind, I know you don't. The point is, it may have affected you in other ways. Are you superstitious, for instance?"
"I don't think so," Claude said, and then suddenly remembered his lucky piece. It seemed such a small, isolated thing he didn't mention it. "You mean touching wood or walking under ladders? No, no."
"It would be understandable if you thought of the world in somewhat magical terms, considering that so much was given to you, as if by magic, if you see what I mean."
"Sure, but I don't think so. I mean, it's true I don't suppose I know myself particularly well, but I don't recognize that. I should ask Lady."
"You should understand that only so much can come in the form of gifts," Fredericks said. "Gifts can take you only so far. Eventually we are thrown back on ourselves. It's a cliché, but it's true."
