by Gerald Elias
The great Malinkovsky invited me in. I didn’t know much English at the time, so he spoke to me in German, in which he was fluent, but nasal and whiny. He told me how much he liked my playing. He told me that I was exceptionally creative, especially for such a little boy. I thanked him.
“You have a good imagination,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“And so polite! Someone who plays so well, has such an imagination, and is so polite has a chance to win this competition. A good chance! Would you like to win this competition?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then come closer. Don’t be shy. Come closer.”
When I stood right in front of him, he said, “Good boy. Now close your eyes and use your wonderful imagination.” At which point he took my hand and pressed it on his crotch.
“Now, how does that feel?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” he said, chuckling. “Well, let me show you.”
He unzipped my pants and pulled them down.
I told him I thought I should go.
“But don’t you want to win a prize, son? This will help stimulate your imagination.”
Malinkovsky put his hand inside my underpants and began squeezing.
“Squeeze me just like this,” he said, beginning to sweat and to pant.
I did as he said. Then he stood up in front of me, unzipped his pants, and held his penis in front of me with one hand and caressed my head with his other.
“Now just put this in your mouth like a good boy. A good boy.”
I told him I couldn’t.
“You can’t?” he exclaimed. “Someone who can manage the difficulties of the violin so well says he can’t do something so simple? Come now! Of course you can do it. Just try. I think you’ll like it.”
So I did. But I didn’t like it. In fact, I gagged and threw up on Malinkovsky’s penis, on his legs, and all over his pants that were down around his ankles. He didn’t like that.
“What have you done?” he yelled. “I try to help you and you defile me. Get out!”
I pulled up my pants and left. Sherry O’Brien, you were wrong. I know humiliation.
* * *
I was not advanced to the final round. I received a certificate of appreciation. A talented boy named Kowolski from Poland won. I don’t know what Malinkovsky made him do. He played well, though, I remember. I’m not jealous of that. He died ten years later, in the war. That I’m jealous of. Kate Padgett came in second, and by not winning, her whole life was changed. Then again, if she had won, I would never have met her. But that’s another story.
I went home. Of course I didn’t say a word about Malinkovsky, who later fled back to Russia to escape growing accusations of pedophilia, which I didn’t hear about until much later. He disappeared during a Stalinist purge.
My parents said they were proud of me.
I returned to the U.S. in 1938 to study with Dr. Krovney at Juilliard. My parents told me it would be a wonderful opportunity, but in hindsight I’m sure they knew what was up in Germany and sent me as much for my protection as for my violin playing. I did not know at that time that I would never see my parents or my brother again.
I prospered under Krovney. I learned how to understand what I was doing on the violin, both mechanically and aesthetically, instead of just imitating or randomly trying to play “with feeling.” He made me study the music without the violin in my hands. This later helped me as a teacher. He also had some bizarre mechanical exercises. These did not help me as much.
When the war broke out, most of the male students at Juilliard—the American male students—were drafted and went overseas to serve. That left us, a handful of foreigners, overwhelmed by an overabundance of eager, lusty girls searching for nocturnal inspiration after spending the day in the practice room. During those years I devoted almost as much time practicing sex as practicing the violin. Maybe more time. They didn’t care that I was a German, or even that I was a Jew, as long as I was available.
And while with relentless efficiency I was seducing an endless stream of anonymous, insignificant others in the dark whose names I hardly knew and whose faces I can’t remember, my parents, Isidore and Alicia, were herded into the Auschwitz death camp, and Eli vanished from the face of the earth. My blindness is appropriate punishment, though hardly adequate. Along with my conscience, it is with me forever. I will never forgive myself. I have failed my family and I have failed Scheherazade O’Brien. My very survival proves my atheism. If there were a God, I’d be dead by now.
* * *
Jacobus sat unmoving in his chair for he didn’t know how long. Thoughts neither of music nor of food entered his head. He was surprised, in fact, with how few thoughts he had at all. He had anticipated that after unburdening himself of the detritus of his life, a flood of energy would rush in to occupy the vacuum. No such event occurred. There was no catharsis, no turning point, only a certain mild lassitude. An acknowledgment, not a victory.
He was still Jacobus; that had not changed. No one would say to him, “Jacobus, look at you! You’re a new man!” Maybe they’d say, in hushed tones, “Is it just me, or did you notice Jacobus isn’t as crotchety as he used to be?” “Yeah, are you sure he’s okay?” Whichever, Jacobus didn’t care. He floated in an emotional limbo; the concerns of his own life were past. He did care for the future of Sherry O’Brien and for setting that house in order. He had failed in his effort to see the damn Turner at the museum, but he was able to see with stunning clarity how things were going to turn out with Herza. Though he would do his best to alter the chain of events, the end was now inevitable. After that, he would rest.
Jacobus felt a nudge against his thigh.
“Go away,” he said to Trotsky.
Again Trotsky pressed his muzzleless bulldog face into his thigh.
“Go away.”
Trotsky backed off but returned moments later with his ball and dropped it, coated in slobber, onto Jacobus’s lap. Solid rubber, the ball was a notch bigger than a tennis ball but could still be held in one hand. Jacobus had given up on tennis balls because Trotsky had made a game of piercing and ensnaring them with his lower canines and then growling and madly shaking his head in triumph. Trotsky treated the new variety of balls with inexplicable deference.
When Jacobus still didn’t respond, Trotsky, grunting, embedded the ball on Jacobus’s lap into his crotch.
“Goddammit,” Jacobus said and stood up. Trotsky began to spin in circles.
With the ball in one hand, Jacobus found his cane and headed to the lawn, an acre or so of grass that Roy Miller mowed every week during the summer for cash under the table.
Jacobus felt the weight of the ball, balancing it in his left hand. He tossed it in the air, counted a quick “One, two,” swung the cane that he held in his right hand, and made solid contact. The ball, with Trotsky in hot pursuit, rolled about twenty yards. Jacobus knew that if he hit it any harder it would go into the woods. Trotsky was back within seconds. Jacobus held out his left hand, into which Trotsky deposited the slimy ball, then backed up, grunting for more. Jacobus hit the ball again, and again, and again, with a batting average the Boston Red Sox would envy, until Trotsky, panting, gave up and went to the pond for a drink.
Taking the dog’s example, Jacobus retreated to the kitchen for a glass of water. O’Brien’s whispered “Jacobus” echoed in his ears, and unless he answered her call it would continue to reverberate until the day he died. He was now determined to act, but his chessmen were in disarray. It was time for him to move them into position and put them into play. If he, like Lear, would be a sightless king, it would be the compassionate, decisive Lear, not the Lear of doddering senility.
Never again would he stand idly by.
TRANSFIGURATION
TWENTY-TWO
“You claim to be a reporter?” Jacobus asked.
“That’s a leading question,” said Martin Lilburn, “and, coming from you,
it sounds suspiciously ominous.”
“I want to help you with your story.”
“Help me with my … Now I’m truly alarmed. What is it you are proposing?”
“Ah, now we’re getting down to brass tacks. To your knowledge, has Vaclav Herza ever fallen afoul of the law?”
“Herza? Not that I know of. Why?”
“Anything that came close? Rumors that could’ve, should’ve been followed up?”
“Of course rumors. There are always rumors. What conductor hasn’t had rumors?”
“Such as?”
“The usual. Drugs, affairs, homosexuality, heterosexuality. But nothing ever substantiated. Conductors like him have a legion of handlers who generally do a bang-up job of keeping their charges a long arm’s length from prying eyes.”
“Like politicians.”
“Except politicians get caught a lot more with their hand in the cookie jar. From what I’ve found out about Herza, his lifestyle would be the envy of the priesthood—in the most saintly sense, that is. Again I ask, why do you want to know?”
“I’ll tell you if you agree to research this question for me. And why not? If you find anything out, it would only make your story more of a blockbuster.”
“I’m not sure if ‘blockbuster’ falls within the purview of the New York Times, but, yes, I have no problem looking into this. Now, why?”
Jacobus related the story of his encounter with Scheherazade O’Brien from bitter beginning to even more bitter end. “I want to see Herza get his just deserts.”
“You’re aware that if anything could be proved it could destroy his legacy, his career.”
“I’d be willing to let those chips fall where they may, especially if his legacy includes ruined lives.”
“And that if I were to print something about him that was ultimately proved false, it would be the end of mine.”
“You’re a music critic, so you should be used to that by now.”
“Please let me know the next time you give a concert, Mr. Jacobus. I’ll be there in the front row, with tomatoes aplenty.”
“I want you to agree to one more thing.”
“You want me to prove Al Capone’s innocence?”
“So you do have a sense of humor after all,” said Jacobus. “No, I want you to leave O’Brien’s name and my name out of your story, wherever it leads.”
“That may prove to be impossible.”
“In which case the deal is off.”
“I take exception to your dictates, telling me what I can or can’t write. No journalist would agree to that.”
“You won’t need to worry about my dictates, Lilburn, if you can prove Herza’s dick tastes.”
“Your wit astounds as it offends.” Lilburn laughed. “I’ll take your request under advisement, and if I find anything I’ll do what I can to keep your names out, but I will make no guarantee. If that’s not good enough, no hard feelings. It’s up to you. Why not do your own investigating? It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I have no contacts in the city anymore. None that would be of any help, anyway.”
“What about Malachi?”
“Lieutenant Alan Malachi, NYPD? If I ever called him about this, first he’d tell me I’m full of shit and then he’d figure out some way to lock me up. No, I’ve had more than enough run-ins with that Yiddish Eliot Ness. But I think you should call him,” Jacobus said, molding his voice into a high-pitched wheeze, “because I’m just a feeble, old, blind coot shutaway.”
“And the most dangerous man on earth.”
* * *
Jacobus inserted the cassette into his portable Kmart recorder, felt for the second button from the left, and pressed it. A few seconds later he heard Nathaniel’s voice—rather, a vague facsimile of it—reciting the complete itinerary of his European jaunt, including dates, hotels, and phone numbers. Considerate as always, Nathaniel dictated the phone numbers with progressively longer silences as the digits ascended from 1 to 9 to account for the increase in time it would require dialing them on a rotary telephone.
This Jacobus now did, and though it took almost two minutes to complete the damn number, the phone was answered after only a few brisk European-sounding rings.
“Bitte,” said a cultured voice. “Hotel Wilden Mann.”
“Zimmer zwei zwei drei, bitte. Herr Villiams, bitte,” said Jacobus.
“One moment please,” said the voice in precise English. “I’ll put you through to his room.”
Jacobus wondered whether the origin of “smug” might be Swiss.
“Hello,” said a distant voice.
“You just finish dinner?” asked Jacobus, accustomed to Nathaniel’s biorhythms.
“Jake! What’s up?”
“What’d you have? Chopped liver?”
“You mean foie gras? Not this time. I started with homemade egg noodles with a cheese and lemon zest sauce. Then I had the calves liver with—”
“Enough small talk. I need you to go to Prague.”
“Prague? But I just got to Lucerne.”
“You’ll love Prague. A cup of coffee’s only ten dollars there.”
“When do you need me to go? And why, for pity’s sake?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? You can’t be serious. I just spent a hundred and fifty dollars for a festival ticket to hear the BSO play Damnation of Faust tomorrow night.”
“Faust, eh? The hell with it. The story’s passé. You’ll enjoy Don Giovanni in Prague.”
“How do you know Don Giovanni’s playing in Prague?”
“Don Giovanni’s always playing in Prague.”
“So, is there a particular reason you need me to go there, or are you just being my tour director?”
“I need you to find out why Vaclav Herza left Prague.”
“Herza? Vaclav Herza left Prague forty years ago to escape the Communist crackdown! Everyone knows that!”
“I want you to find out specifically. What pushed him at that particular moment to leave. Something specific, not generalities.”
“May I ask the reason for this? I’ve really been enjoying this vacation—up till now, anyway.”
Jacobus mulled his response.
“Jake, are you there?” asked Nathaniel after the extended silence. “Hello? Hello?”
“Yeah,” said Jacobus, finally. “There’s someone I didn’t take seriously, and now she may be dying, partly because of me. But if we can find something in Herza’s past—something that would validate her claims of illegal behavior—maybe that’ll restore her will to live.”
“Jake, I’ve known you a long time, and I’ve never heard you so sentimental or … It doesn’t even make any sense!”
“You’re saying I’m senile?”
“No, I’m not saying that. Not yet, anyway. I’m just saying you have some ‘splainin’ to do.”
“But this is an international call! It’s expensive.”
“Go for it.”
Jacobus spent the next several minutes, speaking as quickly as he could, relating what had transpired between Herza and Scheherazade O’Brien, and how he had dismissed her complaint out of hand, and then the audition and its aftermath.
“Well, I still think it’s a needle in a haystack,” said Nathaniel. “If I do go to Prague, what can you give me to go on?”
“Your peerless investigative skills, gleaned from being the world’s number-one consultant for art and instrument fraud, who has been so successful in his endeavors that he can take annual junkets to international music festivals and buy chopped liver in Lucerne.”
“That’s it?”
“And your innate good nature. I left that out.”
“And how much time do I have, a year?”
“How ’bout a few days?”
“Piece of cake.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm?”
“Of course not! While I’m at it, would you also like me to find out why Rome was built in more than a day? Was there anything els
e?”
“Yeah. Is there any way to reverse the charge on this call?”
Jacobus winced as the phone slammed down at the other end.
* * *
Jacobus had his reasons for not asking Yumi for the phone number, so he called 411, which put him through to the international operator for an extended conversation, during which he found himself explaining, inadequately, that the person whose number he sought might be listed as either Kate Padgett or Cato Hashimoto. This confused the operator, who asked if he was seeking two parties, in which case he would have to call back to make the second inquiry since she could give him only one number at a time. No, he tried to explain, even though the person whose number he was seeking was English, she had once been married to a Japanese man, and she could be listed either way.
“So this is a Japanese person from England?”
“No, it’s an Englishwoman who had been married to a Japanese man.”
Why any of this mattered was beyond him, and his mind was still scattered when he was finally given the phone number to a home in the mountain hamlet of Nishiyama in Kyushu, Japan’s southern island. His request to the operator to connect him was not-so-politely declined, so he had her repeat the number since he wasn’t able to write it down. He hoped the dozen mnemonic devices he employed enabled him to remember it correctly. The phone rang, and continued to ring until Jacobus was about to hang up.
