Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

  “No, no. Just all the music, all the records and books scattered around. It all seems so … dusty. But in a comforting way … I suppose.”

  “You have an issue with that? Are you allergic to dust or something?”

  “Not at all. And I like the ivy,” she said as she searched for a flat surface on which to put her violin case.

  “What ivy?”

  “The ivy that’s grown over your windows.”

  “What the hell should windows mean to me?”

  “Seriously, I like it. Personally. It gives your studio a real cozy feel. But what about your visitors?”

  “What visitors?”

  Jacobus heard O’Brien tuning her violin. “So what are you going to play first?” he asked. “‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’?”

  “Heldenleben?”

  “Be my guest.”

  * * *

  The day had begun with Jacobus engaging in his daily exercise of listening to silence, hoping in the process to relieve his ennui. Though he had never feared death—more often than not he welcomed the possibility of its imminent arrival—or his blindness, what did petrify him was the prospect he could lose another of his senses as the clutches of old age ensnared him. Even the thought of a mild diminution of his finely honed sense of hearing, the tether that connected him to the world, sent him into fits of dread followed by episodes of despondence. So every day he practiced listening to silence, the same way he had been trained to listen to music: not passive, not for enjoyment, but disciplined, rigorous, active. Work. To hear everything, not just the two or three things that were most blatantly evident. He told his students, all of them, that if he succeeded in training them how to listen, they would have no further need for him as a teacher, and that would make everyone happier.

  So on this morning, when the remnants of dawn’s tree-shaded coolness had not yet completely surrendered to the encroaching sun, a morning on which any other person would exclaim, “My, how quiet things are!” Jacobus opened his ears to the cacophony.

  But today he had trouble concentrating and forced himself into the structure of listening to the sounds that were closest and gradually expanding his range. First, a fly—was it a horsefly or a deerfly? Hope it’s not a deerfly—those mothers bite like a bitch. More like a horsefly—deeper whir. From the basement, the click of the water heater switching on. From in front of him a bird, maybe, rummaging in the brush? Now it’s going up a tree. Not a bird but a rodent. Squirrel? Chipmunk? Too much ruckus for a chipmunk. Brown or gray squirrel? Who the hell knows? Or cares? Which tree? Sounds like rough bark. Must be the black walnut, not the ash.

  Birds calling in the trees. Thrushes, warblers. A phoebe darting by, wings flapping like there’s no tomorrow. Sociable buggers, those phoebes—nesting in the eaves and keeping me up all night. Going after that horsefly, maybe. A low-grade hum of swarming gnats, like flying tumbleweed, almost inaudible. Do phoebes eat gnats?

  From his right to his left high up in the treetops, leaves suddenly fluttered with a sound remarkably similar to the water birds, alarmed by his approach, lifting off from the rice paddy next to Kate Padgett’s Nishiyama home. It was a sound well etched in his memory; it was the moment he had first met Kate.

  A gentle northerly breeze, said the leaves, as Jacobus reflected upon the past. The breeze flowed first through the maples and ash, and then through the pine trees. No, not northerly, more westerly. Thunderstorms later, maybe, and the change in the air revived the sense of amorphous dread that he had first felt with O’Brien’s phone call and that now seemed to envelop him like the sound of the gnats.

  “Dammit!” Jacobus said, unable to concentrate. “You’ve come highly recommended,” is what O’Brien had said over the phone. “You’ve come highly recommended.” What kind of ass-backward sentence was that, especially considering that everything else she said was ass-forward? Anyone else would have said, always had said, “Mr. Shitzenburger recommended you,” or at least, “Mr. Shitzenburger suggested I call you.” So cool and collected was she. Too collected. What’s she hiding? What does she want from me?

  Something dropped next to Jacobus, from the treetop. Tree limbs shaking, way up. That damn squirrel, bombarding me with acorns.

  In an effort to dispel his foreboding, Jacobus poked around with his cane and found one of the offending acorns. He leaned over and picked it up, and gauged its density and size in his left hand. It was early in the season and the acorn still had most of its moisture content, so it retained most of its weight. He pried off its cap to create aerodynamic equilibrium, and holding the cane in his right hand like a baseball bat, with careful calculation, Jacobus prepared to toss the acorn into the air.

  At first Jacobus had resented the cane; for him it symbolized weakness and disability, even though he used it more to ease his incipient arthritis and less for his blindness. Little by little, though, he began to realize the cane’s potential, and it became almost a new appendage, a sensory device. He had discarded his first cane, the standard newfangled, automatically retractable metal variety, and replaced it with one made of pernambuco wood, out of which the finest violin bows are made. He had the cane designed to his explicit specifications regarding density, hardness, dimensions, and calibration, by one of his old Boston Symphony cronies, a percussion player who manufactured his own drumsticks. Like his bow, the cane became an extension of his personality.

  Now, imagining the arc of the acorn’s flight in his mind’s eye, Jacobus tossed it in the air and waited until it descended to what he determined would be chest level. In his best Willie Mays pose, he took a controlled home run swing—and missed the acorn entirely. He heard it land by his left foot, whereupon he cursed and stomped on it with his heel until he heard its shell crack.

  No longer in the mood to continue his listening exercise, he hastily concluded there had been nothing to indicate the day was not what people with sight would call “pleasant.” Never certainty, though, always doubt. This was what his life was—a series of inferences, guesses, assumptions. This was Jacobus’s reality. This was his despair. His prison. He went inside for no particular reason and waited for Sherry O’Brien.

  * * *

  She had arrived from the just completed orchestra rehearsal, so requiring no warming up dove into the extravagant concertmaster solo from Richard Strauss’s vast tone poem Ein Heldenleben, A Hero’s Life. The musical story portrays an idealistic, far-seeing hero besieged by, and finally overcoming, the world’s sniping, mundane forces, from critics to the hero’s mercurial wife, who is at times flirtatious or nagging, sensuous or enraged. The wife is depicted by a violin solo, one of the most challenging in the entire literature. Strauss, who claimed that he couldn’t compose unless he had a story to provide the inspiration, gave imaginative instructions in the music for the violinist to make his intent clear: heuchlerisch schmachtend (hypocritically pining), zart, etwas sentimental (gentle, a little sentimental), übermütig (high-spirited), getragen (hesitating), liebenswürdig (amiable, charming), rasender (furious), lustig (merry), immer heftiger (more and more violent). It was no secret that the hero in this musical saga was none other than Strauss himself, no shrinking violet when it came to ego, but Jacobus always wondered if Strauss had ever told his wife what the music was all about.

  “Okay, honey,” said Jacobus, when O’Brien finished. “What gives? Why are you here? Really.”

  “What do you mean? To get some pointers for the audition. I just know that Herza will want to hear this.”

  “No one’s going to play better than that at the audition,” said Jacobus.

  “What about Yumi, your former student?”

  “Is that it, then? You’re here to case the competition? Why? You know this stuff inside out. You’ve been there. You’ve got a leg up and you know that, too, so don’t jerk me around, please. You played that Heldenleben solo like it was written for you, and that’s yet one more thing you know. You need pointers like Job needed bad luck. So what gives?”

  Th
ere are many kinds of silences. Jacobus had studied them all. He could feel in the ether the essence of any given one. This particular hiatus was the time-to-fess-up silence combined with the tell-the-truth-but-tell-as-little-of-it-as-possible silence. So he waited, not sure what the words would be but knowing it wouldn’t be all of them.

  “You’re right, Mr. Jacobus. I have a problem. It does have to do with the audition, and you’re the only one left who can help me.”

  “Me, huh. Then you really do have a problem. Go ahead, spit it out.”

  “All right. This audition, this concertmaster position, means everything to me. I have to win.”

  “I don’t see that as a problem. That’s the mind-set anyone should have for an audition. None of this ‘I’m just doing it for the experience’ crap. Then, afterward, if you’re one of the ninety-nine percent who don’t win, you move on to the next audition that means everything to you.”

  “I know that what I said sounds like everyone else. But I’m different. I’ve spent my whole life getting ready to be the concertmaster of the greatest orchestra in the world, and this is my chance. If I don’t win, I don’t know what I’ll do. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s the truth.”

  “You have a family? I mean a husband, kids?”

  “No. Not that I don’t want children, but I’ve been holding off until I reach my goal. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone if I had babies, because of my practicing.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty-one. I’ll be forty-two in November.”

  “How long have you been acting concertmaster?”

  “Two years, almost.”

  “Why so long? Didn’t they have an audition last year?”

  “They did.”

  “And?”

  “I won. And I lost.”

  “Hey, are you in the fortune cookie business or something? I’m going to die of overexposure to obfuscation.”

  “Let me explain. When I was first hired two years ago, it was in the middle of the season, and the idea was for me to temporarily replace Myron Moskowitz while he was on leave.”

  “Why didn’t they just have the associate concertmaster move up?”

  “Lawrence? I don’t know. I never asked. Maybe it’s because I’m one of Myron’s former students, and Maestro Herza hired me at his suggestion. But then Myron decided to retire so they gave me a one-year contract. At the audition, a majority of the committee voted for me. No one else was close, but Herza refused to accept their recommendation, and he’s got the final say.”

  “Music directors always have the final say, especially for a concertmaster. He’s got to have total confidence in his concertmaster.”

  “I know that, and I’ve done everything he’s asked for and I’ve kept a positive attitude. But in return all he does is insult me, more even since the audition.”

  “So what makes you think there will be anything different at this one?”

  “I have to think things will be different. I played well last time. My goal is to play perfectly this time, to play so well that the vote will be unanimous and Herza won’t have any option but to hire me. It’s been a difficult road, but I truly believe it was meant to be.”

  “Nothing was meant to be, honey, except heartburn, but for the sake of argument, let’s say you do win. Are you willing to endure the way he treats you for the rest of your career?”

  “He’s tough on everyone. As long as it’s professional criticism, I’m willing to put up with it because of the end result.”

  “Well, Pollyanna, if all this is meant to be, what’s your problem and why do you need my help?”

  “I’m going to file a grievance against Maestro Herza to stop harassing me.”

  “Oy gevalt! You don’t need a teacher to solve your problems, sweetheart. You need a psychiatrist.”

  “That’s what my psychiatrist says. But I have to, Mr. Jacobus. It isn’t right, the kind of abuse I’ve gotten from him. He calls me ‘my little girl’ and ‘you blondes’ and ‘cutie.’ Once at a rehearsal of Ravel’s ‘Mother Goose Suite,’ I was playing the violin solo in ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ where the Beast is being transformed, and he stopped me and said, ‘You know what you need, my little girl?’ I asked him what, and he made this obscene gesture with his baton. It was disgusting. He demeans me in front of my colleagues, and if I’m going to be concertmaster, that kind of treatment is unacceptable.”

  “It might or might not be unacceptable, but haven’t you considered what it means to your chances of winning the audition? Maybe you’re Beauty and Herza’s the Beast, but a fairy tale’s a fairy tale. Auditions are real life.”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion the only things Maestro Herza respects are music and power. I think if, besides playing perfectly, I won’t buckle under his authority, it’ll prove to him that I’m strong enough for the position. I actually think the grievance will help me. In any event, I can’t stop from doing what’s right, regardless.”

  “Maybe Herza doesn’t like you because you’re short and feisty and it has nothing to do with being female.”

  “How do you know those things?” O’Brien asked, alarm suddenly in her voice. “Have you been checking up on me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I never heard of you until you called me.”

  “Then how?”

  Jacobus took a deep breath. He hated being quizzed on things that seemed so obvious and resented the implication that blind people were idiots.

  “It’s evident from the fingerings you chose for Heldenleben that you have small hands. Specifically, you prefer shifting positions and crossing strings to staying on one string and reaching up with your fourth finger or back with your first. That means you have small hands. With your right hand, you’re clearly more comfortable in the lower half of the bow near the frog than the upper half toward the point. As a result, you play with a sound that could obliterate the Marine Corps marching band. Conclusion: short, powerful arms.

  “I also could tell the size of your hand from your handshake and your height from the angle at which you grasped my hand when you arrived. Then there was the tempo of your stride as you entered the living room. Too fast for anyone with long legs. I’d say five two. Five three at most.”

  “Five one. But what about feisty?”

  “Again, the handshake and the stride. Not the demure type. All business. But mainly from your playing. You dare the listeners to tell you they’ve heard better. But they haven’t. Need I go on? About the way you drove down the winding driveway without hesitation even though this was your first time here and how you slammed on the brake, and—”

  “Thank you. That’s enough.”

  “Good, because playing Twenty Questions bores me. Getting back to the issue at hand, have you consulted the union about the grievance? Or the symphony administration? Isn’t there an orchestra committee you can go to?”

  “May I sit down?”

  “If you can find something to sit on.”

  Another silence. The cursory, reconnoitering kind. There was the couch, yes, but that was Trotsky’s self-appointed lair.

  “I’ll just stand.

  “The symphony’s position is that I’m technically a glorified substitute, not even up to the level of a nontenured member of the orchestra. They claim I don’t have the right to file a grievance. They won’t even acknowledge it. That protects them, because if I were to win a settlement would come out of their pockets, so they’re not real big fans of mine.”

  “Maybe it’s not so much a settlement they’re worried about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First of all, if it got into the press that Herza was nailed for harassment, think of what it would do to Harmonium’s marketing. You know who buys symphony tickets? Women. The husbands just go along for the ride and have a snooze until they can go home and watch the football highlights on ESPN. But second, and this is the biggie, sexual harassment is against the law. Harmonium could be forced to fire Herza, and he c
ould even be brought up on criminal charges. How do you think they’d feel about that?”

  O’Brien didn’t respond.

  “What did the union have to say?”

  “The union says that because Maestro Herza never actually touched me and because the criticisms were not innately sexual, even though they clearly were as far as I’m concerned, then it’s hard to prove harassment. They didn’t think there was enough evidence to warrant paying a lawyer to represent me. The attorney they have on retainer is involved in contract negotiations for the musicians, and the orchestra committee says they don’t want him sidetracked. Plus they said they’re at a critical point in negotiations with management and don’t want to rock the boat with side issues, at least until afterward. I get the feeling that they just don’t want the hassle.”

  “Why not hire a lawyer on your own?”

  “Do you know a good one?”

  “That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. There’s one guy I’ve grappled with before, Cy Rosenthal, who’s worked with musicians. I wouldn’t go as far as saying he’s honest, but deep down inside, there seems to be a glimmer of a conscience.”

  “I don’t think that will work. Rosenthal happens to be the union’s labor lawyer.”

  “So much for that idea, then. Let me go back to my first question, which I will now ask for the third time. What do you need my help for?”

  Another silence. The come-on-baby-just-let-it-spill-out kind. Jacobus took the opportunity to extract a cigarette from a new pack, light it, and take the first deep draft.

  “I’ve heard about your reputation for figuring things out and for solving problems,” she said finally. “Maybe after I win the audition, Maestro Herza and I can sit down and work things out. Maybe I’ll never have to file that grievance. But if I lose, it will only be because I’ve been cheated, and if I’ve been cheated I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure he pays for it. What I’d like to ask you is to find out about Maestro Herza’s past. Whether he’s ever done anything that I can use to support my grievance.”

  Jacobus spit out his cigarette, not caring where it fell. He heard O’Brien quickly stomp on it before it threatened to re-create the immolation scene from Götterdämmerung.