Body & Soul

by Frank Conroy

  "I will. I promise."

  "Feeling a bit better, I hope?"

  Claude nodded. "Paragraph twenty-three woke me up, I think. I'll be all right now."

  Coming around the corner onto Third Avenue, he was brought up short. The massive, dense, shadowy el was gone, the trolley tracks and cobblestones replaced by smooth asphalt, the sidewalks narrowed. Tall, futuristic aluminum streetlights soared upward and bent over the street like the antennae of some buried insect. And everywhere sunlight, a weirdly ominous brightness revealing the small, squat buildings lining the avenue. They looked like rotting teeth.

  As he approached the music store he saw the large signs hung at the second-floor level of the adjoining buildings.

  BUILDINGS

  To be Demolished

  New 16 Story Apartment

  House will be erected.

  J. B. Luris

  148 West 57th St. PL7-6376

  Moving to the edge of the sidewalk, he saw that the signs were displayed all the way to the end of the block. Except for Cunningham's Bar and Grill at the south corner, all the stores were closed—the butcher, the candy store, the fruit and vegetable store, the upholsterer, the television repair shop, even Bergman's pawn shop—windows boarded up. The entrance to Mrs. Keller's building, which had no street-level store, was open, but the developer's sign hung over the doorway. So Weisfeld had been wrong, she had sold.

  He let himself into the music store, which looked different because of the flood of light inside it, and immediately went outside again to unfurl the awning. That made things somewhat more normal. He sat down on Weisfeld's stool behind the cash register and tried to absorb what he had seen. It seemed impossible that so much could have happened in so short a time. There was something unsettling, even scary, about the speed and the scale of the change. The essence of Third Avenue—the sights, sounds, and smells he had known all his life— had simply disappeared from the face of the earth. What had appeared to be substantial was revealed as having been, in fact, an illusion.

  The basement studio was exactly as he had left it. The score of Bartók's Concerto for Two Pianos, which he had been studying during the winter, lay open on the Bechstein. He glanced at his marks and notations with casual curiosity, as he might have had they been written by another person. The book on tympani was on his worktable. He couldn't remember now why he had wanted it, nor did he feel any need to remember.

  He went upstairs into the apartment, which still smelled of paint, and wandered from room to room, making a mental list of the things he needed to get right away—a bed, a few chairs, a table, some lamps, simple stuff for the kitchen. He imagined an arrangement no less spartan than Weisfeld's.

  Back outside, locking the door, he saw Bergman emerge from his shop. The guild sign of the three brass globes had been removed.

  "I saw the awning," Bergman said. "I figured it was you."

  "We should talk."

  "The Automat? You got time?"

  They walked up to Eighty-sixth Street.

  "You know what it looks like to me?" Bergman waved to indicate the avenue. "Like a naked ninety-year-old woman. It hurts to look."

  "They did it fast."

  "Boom." Bergman clicked his fingers. "Like that. The only thing that slowed them down were the posts. The posts holding up the el. They went deep, bolted into big concrete pilings, but they figured out a way. Six-foot jackhammers, special torches, big cranes, different crews for each step. It was something to see."

  In the Automat they drew coffee from the brass dolphin and took a table against the wall. Bergman stirred in sugar and blew across the top of his cup. He gave Claude a quick glance, as if loath to say the first word.

  "I'm not making excuses," Claude said, "but something strange happened to me. Like hibernation. I just went into a cave for a while there."

  Bergman nodded.

  "I didn't know what to do," Claude said.

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know."

  "Listen. The best thing—you were with him. That's what matters. Believe me, I knew the man."

  "That's part of it," Claude said. "I didn't really know him. He told me what happened in the end, but all those years he didn't say a thing. I don't understand it."

  "That's easy. He wanted you..." Bergman sought for the word. "Separate. He had to start his life all over again, and you were part of that. When you were just a kid he'd talk about you all the time, getting excited. When I first met him—in 'forty-two when he opened the store—the man was like a whadyacallit, those things in the movies, like a zombie. He never showed any emotion of any kind. You know what I mean? Just one foot in front of the other. Then you, a skinny little kid he's giving lessons to. He needed to keep you separate. You were new. This new good thing, and gradually he started acting like a halfway normal human being."

  Claude stared down into his coffee, afraid to speak.

  "You see," Bergman continued, "with you there was no guilt. You were separate."

  "Guilt?"

  Bergman sighed. "I know it's hard to understand. He felt guilty he wasn't in the car with them. He never said it, but I know it. It's crazy, but there it is."

  At a level deeper than thought, deeper than logic, Claude instantly recognized the truth of Bergman's assertion. He knew it in his bones. "You're right," he said.

  "Okay. Now you understand. You shouldn't worry."

  "Jesus," Claude whispered, and shook his head.

  Outside, walking back to the avenue, Bergman asked, "So, what'll you do, sell?"

  "He thought Mrs. Keller would never sell."

  "What could she do?" Bergman threw his hands in the air. "The city condemned the building right out from under her. At least she got a good price for the land."

  "How about you?" Claude asked.

  "No complaints. What I bought for six thousand I sold for seventy. I can retire in Florida, play mahjong with the widows."

  "I don't think I'll sell," Claude said.

  "Not even for that kind of money?"

  "I'm going to live there for a while."

  "You what?" Bergman was stunned. "But I thought you married a rich girl."

  "Looks like that's over."

  "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." He moved closer so that their shoulders were touching as they walked, and inclined his head toward Claude, talking out of the side of his mouth. "Listen, I know everything's different these days, but don't be in a rush. Give it some time, maybe things will work out. You never know."

  Claude smiled. "Aaron used to say, 'You never know till it's over—and then a lot of good it does you.' "

  "Well, he knows now."

  Claude stopped, his hand on Bergman's shoulder. "You believe that? You really believe that?"

  "Absolutely." He held Claude's eye for a moment, and then they continued walking. "It's funny, me and Aaron. The fucking Nazis. We both lost our families, lost everything. He was high, and I was low, from the slums practically, but we had a lot in common. But what happened, it affected us differently. Sure I was a Jew, but I became a serious Jew. You know what I mean? It's what got me through. Aaron fell away. He lost God. Not just because of what happened to him, but the death camps, all the other stuff. I suppose I could've gone that way, but for some reason I didn't. Go figure."

  It took two days to move in. From Al he got the name of a reliable man with a truck and a helper. He bought a bed from Mrs. Keller, a desk and chair from Mr. Bergman, and a few small pieces from other people on the block preparing to move out. He got some lamps from a furniture store a few blocks down the avenue at a going-out-of-business sale. Finally he drove over to the old house and took his clothing, his books, and his papers.

  "Ain't you taking nothing else?" the older man asked. "This is fine stuff here."

  "Nope. Everything stays."

  "She kick you out, right?"

  "Not exactly."

  The old man shook his head. "Life is a bitch."

  For the time being he kept the store cl
osed and spent his time going over the stock and checking the books. In the evening he would either go out for supper or struggle in the small kitchen to make himself something. His helplessness irritated him, and he bought a copy of Joy of Cooking and read it cover to cover. It was a fascinating book, much more than a list of recipes, and in its explication of the basics assumed total ignorance on the part of the reader, which was in this case all too true. Claude found it oddly cheering, and read late into the night, feeling a mild echo of the excitement he had known as a child with the Blue Book. He learned to his amazement that hamburger meat would keep only a couple of days, while eggs were good for more than a week. He learned to beware of a high flame, how to make Wiener schnitzel, and the difference between a fast and a slow oven. The book was full of surprises, and seemed addressed directly to him.

  One morning he awoke and knew, even before he opened his eyes, that he had to go down to the Bechstein. It was as if something had happened in his sleep, as if forces higher than himself had waged a debate while he was unconscious and the matter had been resolved.

  In the basement he sat on the bench and stared down at the keys. In the past twenty years he had never gone more than three or four days without playing, and then only because of illness, travel, or some circumstance beyond his control. Now it had been many months, and he had no idea of what to expect. He was not afraid, but slightly bemused by the novelty of the situation. It felt at once familiar and exceedingly strange to face the keyboard, to reflexively adjust his posture, and to raise his hands. His hands wanted to play Bach, the little Fugue in G Minor.

  The first three notes—the root, the fifth, and the minor third—seemed entirely magical. In their simplicity he heard the implication of the whole piece itself, and from that, from his awareness of the fugue, came an awareness of all-of-music, as if all-of-music were the overtones of any small part of music, as if all notes were contained in any single note. The perception was evanescent, but so powerful as to wipe away thoughts of himself. Music is here! Music has been here forever and always will be here! It was so much larger than life, so ineluctably strong, so potent an indicator of a kind of heaven on earth, that all else was swept before it. He saw this in a flash. In a nanosecond.

  He took a random stack of music and placed it on the treble end of the piano—like the old days—and played one piece after another, moving them to the bass as he finished. He played all day, taking breaks every half hour as his hands stiffened up. He noticed a tightness in the muscles from his elbows to his wrists, and even a bit of lower-back pain in the afternoon. (He made a mental note to resume his exercise program.) His wrists were not as supple as they should have been, and his finger dexterity during fast passages left something to be desired, but he seemed not to have lost as much as he had expected.

  After a pasta dinner upstairs ("And now we build the lasagna!"—Joy of Cooking), he called Otto Levits at home and apologized. He tried to describe what had happened to him, some kind of retreat, some kind of sleep.

  "Okay," said Levits. "So now what's happening?"

  "I played today. I'll need a month to get back in shape, but then I can work."

  "In a month you can work! I'll get on this right away and send press releases to the musical capitals of the world. Maybe somebody will be nice and give you a job."

  "Otto, I said I was sorry. I mean it. I couldn't help it."

  "The tsuris I had on that record contract, you wouldn't believe. Five hundred phone calls with angry people. Actually, I got Feldman, so it all worked out. But how do I know you're not going to go to sleep again, or whatever it was? You can't do that in this business, you know what I'm saying?"

  "I do, Otto. I truly understand." Claude took a deep breath. "It's over, Otto. I'm okay now. It won't happen again."

  A long pause. "All right, all right. I believe you."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "I didn't touch a piano. I didn't listen to records or the radio. I just got as far away from all of it as I could. But I can tell. A month for the hands. Maybe less. Probably less."

  "Good. I'm glad to hear it."

  "But this afternoon—I don't know how to explain it, it almost seemed worth it. I had a moment..."

  "What? What are you saying?"

  "When I began to play. I expected everything to be gradual, and yes, the technical part will be gradual, but the music, Otto, the music, all of it came back in a split second, in a rush, just pouring into me. It was indescribable."

  "Okay," Levits said tentatively, drawing out the word.

  "It really was."

  "Ahh...," he continued, still tentative, "during this period you wouldn't by any chance have been fooling around with that stuff they're all taking, that LSD stuff? I mean, this is me, Claude, this is Uncle Otto here on the other end, Uncle Otto you can tell anything, whatever it is, you know it's okay. What're you laughing?"

  Claude straightened up and controlled himself. "I don't take drugs, Otto. And if I ever did, it certainly wouldn't be LSD, which is Nazi boots in the brain. Drugs scare the shit out of me, to tell the truth."

  "Just asking. These days, I don't know, people seem to be going crazy. The hair, the clothes, this free love stuff. Kids saying the world started fifteen minutes ago. It's amazing what's going on. I got a cellist likes to play with her bazoombas showing, can you believe it?"

  "Yes, I can."

  "And she gets good jobs!" He gave a great sigh. "Well, what can you do."

  Claude had indeed taken care of the mail, including a response to the Luris Corporation, in which he thanked them for their offer to meet for a discussion with regard to their possible interest in buying 1632 Third Avenue, but suggested that the meeting was unnecessary since the building was not for sale. He had thanked them again, and remained, et cetera. Nevertheless, he knew that the two men in blue suits who showed up one afternoon to tap incessantly on the windows of the shop were not there for violin strings. Claude unlocked the door and held it partially open, blocking the way with his body.

  "We're closed," he said. "You can try Swann's over on Lexington and Seventy-third."

  "Mr. Rawlings?" He was a young man, not much older than Claude, with a friendly smile on his square, rather handsome face. "Actually it was you we were hoping to get a word with. We're from Luris. My name is Tom Thorpe, and this is my associate, Ed Folsom."

  "I did answer," Claude said. "I wrote last week."

  "So you did," Tom's eyes crinkled slightly. "I hope we haven't caught you at a bad time. It'll only take a minute."

  Claude opened the door. "I'm working on something downstairs," he said, automatically going over to Weisfeld's stool behind the cash register. Tom and Ed stood on the opposite side of the counter. Ed was middle-aged and heavyset, gazing about with dark, watery eyes.

  "This is kind of you," Tom said. "I just thought it would be appropriate for me to introduce myself. Letters are so ... impersonal. Person to person is the way to do business, as I'm sure you'll agree."

  "Sure."

  "Now, I read your letter. Very clear, and I thank you for it. Frankly, I came over to test the waters a little bit, you might say. See if we can find the tiniest bit of room to move around in, with an eye to working out some mutually beneficial arrangement."

  "I understand, Mr. Thorpe, but—"

  "Call me Tom. Please."

  "I want to hold on to the place. It's meant a great deal to me for almost as long as I can remember."

  "Oh, I see," Thorpe said, surprised. "I'm sorry, I had no idea. I thought you only recently, ah, I thought it was only some months ago that—"

  "Mr. Weisfeld left me this place," Claude said. "He was my first piano teacher, and I worked here all through my childhood, as his assistant, sort of." Claude could see an emerging glint of impatience in Thorpe's eye and decided to speed things up. "I don't really own it, you see. It's more like it was left to me in trust."

  "You are, however, or shortly will become, the legal owne
r, with every right to sell if you want to."

  "Legally, yes."

  Thorpe appeared to be pondering this.

  "I thought," Claude said, "you could build around me. An inconvenience, but surely a minor one. I don't know much about these things. I hope it doesn't cause a problem."

  "No, no," Thorpe said quickly. "Absolutely, we could build around. Certainly we could do that. It's just that from the architectural point of view—aesthetically speaking—there's a certain look we're after. The uninterrupted flow of the lines."

  "Well, I'm sure it'll be a handsome building."

  Thorpe seemed not to have heard him. Ed stood motionless behind Thorpe, his arms folded, leaning back against the huge mahogany display case, his dark eyes watching Claude.

  "I do believe," Thorpe said, "in the light of your perfectly understandable emotional attachment to the place—we didn't know about that until today, which just goes to show you that face to face is the way to do business—in the light of that, I may well be able to prevail on the corporation to amend the original offer." He held Claude with an expectant smile.

  "I'm sorry," Claude said. "I guess dealing with so many people, the different situations, you might think I was trying to jack the price. People probably do that. I can imagine. But that isn't the case here. It isn't money. I'm holding it in trust, or at least that's the way I see it."

  "Sure," Thorpe said. "The problem is, money comes into everything eventually. That's how the world works. Some things make you money, other things, well, other things can lose you money. Cost you money. There's an up side and a down side." He shook his head at this sad state of affairs.

  Claude leaned forward and put his forearms on the counter. The other two men waited. "So my lawyer has advised me," he said finally, stressing each word.