Death and Transfiguration

by Gerald Elias

  “And you think I did what? Commit murder?”

  “If not you, who else?”

  Herza is silent for a long time. Finally he exhales a long sigh.

  “I might as well come clean, Mr. Jacobus. I have not told anyone, ever, what I am now about to tell you. I have tried to keep this a secret, but obviously you will not rest until you hear the truth.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was Lubomir on the bridge. He pushed Jürgens into the river.”

  “Lubomir?”

  “Yes, the poor, misguided fool. He felt he needed to protect me. One time—yes, I admit this—I had an argument with Jürgens. A serious argument. When he walked out on me, I was beside myself. I was angry, perhaps too angry, and I shouted—to no one in particular—‘who will get this meddlesome musician off of my hands?’ Or something to that effect. It is difficult to translate exactly from my native language, you see. It was pure frustration, nothing more, as you, a musician, might understand. But loyal Lubomir, he must have misunderstood my ranting—yes, I know, I am prone to do this—and taken me literally, because it was that very night that Jürgens died. When Lubomir told me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. I told him what a terrible thing he did, but what could I do? He was so devoted, and I felt so guilty he had committed a horrible crime on my behalf. I told him not to worry, that Jürgens was on his last legs anyway, and I would never tell a soul. That is the story, Mr. Jacobus. The whole story. There, you have it. To tell you the truth, I feel much relieved to have finally gotten it off my chest after all these years.”

  “And O’Brien? Was that a ‘misunderstanding’ too?”

  “Now that you raise the possibility in this context, I would not discount it, Mr. Jacobus. You are an astute analyst.”

  “Well, I suppose we should be getting Lubomir in here to get his confessions.”

  “Yes, we should, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because Lubomir inconveniently died during the concert, Mr. Jacobus. And now I am leaving. Feel free to stay as long as you wish, but please don’t steal the ashtray.”

  Jacobus is speechless at this unforeseen counterattack. Herza rises and walks past him. Jacobus has one final weapon in reserve on the chessboard, only one more move to play. Herza opens the door. Jacobus hears him gasp.

  “And who are you?” Herza asks. “How long have you been listening?”

  Getting no response, he asks Jacobus, “Who is this woman? Your wife, perhaps?”

  “Take a closer look.”

  “I don’t know this woman,” says Herza, but Jacobus hears an undercurrent of doubt. Maybe even fear. The endgame begins.

  “You shouldn’t have pushed him,” says the woman.

  Jacobus hears Herza stagger.

  “Yes, it’s me,” she says. “Sonja.”

  “I think you need to sit down,” Jacobus says to Herza.

  “What is it you want?” Herza asks.

  “It seems,” says Jacobus, “that my good friend Sonja has a slightly different version of your fairy tale. The truth is it was you on the bridge with her and Jürgens, not Lubomir. Lubomir was in the car, waiting. He never knew what you did to Jürgens.”

  “And why would I have killed him if, as you say, all I wanted to do was torture his existence?”

  “Because,” Sonja intrudes, “he was telling people you were an informer for the KGB and was going to expose you for the swine that you were. That you are. He was going to tell everyone what he knew.”

  “It was all lies! It was trash.”

  “Yes, you and I knew it was a lie. Probably even Klaus knew it was a lie, at least when he wasn’t drinking. You wouldn’t have gone that far. But Klaus frightened you, because if the mere rumor of collaboration circulated, your position, your fame, would be jeopardized. It was the only power he had against you—you, who were young and arrogant—and he was only going to use it because of the cruelty you had inflicted upon him, year after year, even when he was old.”

  “Cruelty? I thought only of the music! And Jürgens would slander me because I was tough? Because I was demanding? I defended my honor!”

  “You defended your position. Who would have hired the great Vaclav Herza if they thought you were an informer? Who?” she lashes out at him.

  Jacobus has Herza backed into a corner, cut off from any escape route. There is silence. Not a truce. A reassessment.

  “Since we seem to be playing a game of questions,” says Herza, “now I have a question for you. Who are you? I have never seen you in my life.”

  “What?” There is alarm in Sonja’s voice, sensing that the serpent has not yet been slain. “You deny you were on the bridge with me the night you pushed Jürgens over? You deny you came to my bar every night to talk politics? About changing the world? That is why they all came to Sonja’s Bar. But then, you and me, we both fled in different directions. You to become famous and rich, and me to tend a bar in Mount Vernon, New York, where they talk only of football and breasts.

  “You, Vaclav Herza, a man of the people! What a joke. Jürgens was the true Socialist, the true idealist! He stood up to you, and you couldn’t bear it. You were the tyrant, just like the Russians.”

  “He was a drunk.”

  “You made him so. That night, when Klaus got drunk at the bar like he did every night, his tongue got the better of him. He said things he shouldn’t have and I gave him even more drink so he would say such ludicrous things that no one would believe a word. That would have been the end of it, but not for you. You feared exposure more than you feared murder, and Jürgens paid the price for his foolishness.”

  “So, if you are who you say you are, and what happened happened, why then were you on the bridge?”

  “You know why.”

  “Why don’t you tell us?” says Herza. “In your own words, of course.”

  “I was there because you and I had been lovers—I choke to use that word for the things you did to me—and I knew what horrors you were capable of. I am not a murderer. I was there to stop you. But there was no stopping you.”

  “I would say we have an eyewitness to the murder of Klaus Jürgens,” says Jacobus, applying the coup de grâce. Life was a game of chess. Check.

  “Yes, you are right. This is all very compelling. I think it is time to call the police,” says Herza, subdued.

  “That’s very civil of you,” says Jacobus, his victory complete. “Please don’t try to run off. It would just make things very messy.”

  “I have no intention of running off, because when the police arrive, it is my intention to have this woman arrested for the murder of Klaus Jürgens.”

  “What?” says Jacobus.

  “Three people on a bridge. One man is pushed. That leaves two. One is an old hag, the owner of a sleazy bar, a nobody, the detritus washed ashore. The other is me. Between the two of us, who do you think the police will believe, Mr. Jacobus? Who would you believe?”

  “I have something for you,” says Sonja. Jacobus hears the snap of a purse opening.

  “My, my! A gun!” says Herza. “You are going to shoot me!” He sounds more amused than alarmed.

  “You killed Jürgens, and now you’ve killed the young woman,” says Sonja. “When I read in the newspaper that she had died, I knew you had done the same thing to her as you did to Klaus. Someone has to stop you, you murderer!”

  “Don’t shoot!” yells Jacobus.

  “Go ahead. Shoot!” says Herza, clearly enjoying himself. “Your hands shake like a leaf. Clearly you’re no musician. You are a drunken hag. Shoot!”

  A shot rings out, deafening Jacobus’s left ear.

  Herza cackles.

  “There! That proves what I am saying. Your paramour Sonja not only missed me, she incriminates herself! She’ll have to pay for repairing the armoire, though,” Herza says. “Go ahead. Try again! I’ll sit still!”

  Another shot. Herza continues to laugh uproariously.

&
nbsp; Jacobus, deafened by the shots, strains to hear. Footsteps come racing into the room.

  “Put down the gun!” hollers a security guard. Jacobus hears a struggle. He doesn’t know which way to turn. The world is ending around him and he is powerless.

  Sonja screams, “Let me go! Let me go! I must kill the monster!”

  Suddenly it’s still. Sonja is sobbing.

  “Are you all right, Maestro?” the guard asks.

  “Fine, fine,” says Herza. “The poor thing is delusional. Maybe my Death and Transfiguration was too much for her.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” says the guard as he drags Sonja, moaning, out of the room.

  “Yes. Yes, you do that. And please see that she receives the care she needs. I’m leaving now. You can reach me at home.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Alone in Herza’s dressing room, Jacobus heard no sound other than the ticking of a clock. From the moment Herza departed, Jacobus sat, lifeless, in a chair against the wall, his hands stiffly on his knees, his head bowed, his mind blank. The relentless ticking, at first inconspicuous, seemed to get louder second by second, filling the room. When the ticking became deafening, expanding to occupy every space within his universe, Jacobus doubled over and wrapped his arms around his chest in a futile effort to control the unbearable pain that racked him from within. Involuntarily, his mouth opened unnaturally wide, but no sound emerged.

  Why me? What have I done? Scheherazade O’Brien, my parents, my brother, dead. All my doing. For what purpose? Where is my redemption? Where is my soul? Empty. Look at me! Doddering. Senile. Worthless. The space I occupy on this earth would be better served by someone else. Anyone else.

  Eventually Jacobus’s convulsion ebbed from exhaustion, not resolution. Time passed in the deserted hall. Footsteps approached—two people walking quickly and quietly. The door to the dressing room opened, slowly. To cart him off to the asylum, he supposed.

  “Jake!”

  “Beanie?” said Jacobus, recognizing the voice through his haze. “What are you and Cappy doing here?”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Nothing,” said Cappy.

  “Let’s go,” said Beanie.

  “Sorry to bother you, Jake,” said Cappy.

  “Yeah,” said Beanie. “Good to see you.”

  Without another word to him, his two old friends hastily retreated. Jacobus wondered why Cappy hadn’t been whistling.

  * * *

  The Parsley twins sat in Tiny’s idling car in Section B of Harmonium Hall’s brand-new parking lot. Fresh paint gave it a clean, inviting scent, and the lighting, designed for the security of the affluent concertgoer, made it less dingy than a typical New York City lot, but the brothers were not there to admire a parking lot. Their car was the only one remaining in the area reserved for the musicians and was pointed so that they could see pedestrians descending from Freedom Bridge. There hadn’t been any for a half hour at least. Usually as garrulous as Chip ’n Dale, on this occasion Tiny and Junior had little to say as they sat and waited. Without altering his forward gaze, Tiny silently passed Junior a half-empty bottle of bourbon. Junior looked at his watch. They wondered why the Lincoln Town Car was nowhere in sight, why neither Donaghue nor Butkus had made an appearance, and especially why Cappy and Beanie hadn’t emerged with Herza as planned. And since they couldn’t come up with a good answer to any of their questions, they continued to drink and to wait.

  A policeman, on foot, turned the corner into their section.

  “Maybe he’s just patrolling,” Tiny said quietly. “Maybe he’ll just keep walking.”

  “Don’t say anything,” said Junior. He hid the bottle underneath the seat.

  The policeman looked at the car, then at the brothers, curiously.

  Tiny waved. The policeman waved back but continued to approach.

  The cop tapped on the window. Junior rolled it down.

  “Good evening, gents,” said the cop, who quickly saw he would be no match for the three-hundred-pound twins, if it came to that.

  “Evening,” said Tiny.

  “Waiting for someone?” the cop asked.

  “No,” said Junior.

  “We were just listening to the radio,” added Tiny, by way of explanation, though the radio wasn’t on.

  “Could you step out of the car, sir? Both of you, please.”

  Tiny shifted into drive, jammed his foot on the gas pedal, and with a screech the car roared out of the parking lot.

  The foot patrolman was unable to pursue. Instead, he called headquarters and reported that he had encountered two suspicious characters in a gray Taurus with a dented left front quarter panel.

  * * *

  A gala bouquet of red, white, and blue fireworks celebrates the consecration of Harmonium Hall. They boom like cannon over the Hudson River, simultaneously illuminating the illustrious countenances of the Statue of Liberty and of Vaclav Herza, accentuating his disfigured grin in sporadic bursts of light.

  Herza, standing under the protective statue of his hero, Richard Strauss, gazes back at his creation—Harmonium Hall, this monument to a lifetime of hard work, of determination, of genius—as adoringly as a mother upon her newborn child. Alone on the bridge, and with the cannonade of the fireworks preventing anyone from hearing, he indulges in a bout of sentimentality that surprises even himself. He begins to whistle the Largo from the “New World” Symphony.

  That buffoon, Lulich, is not the only one who can whistle, Herza thinks. He has rarely resorted to whistling, that simpleminded diversion of the underclasses, but he knows that with a little practice he could easily surpass Lulich’s skill. For the moment, the whistle emerges through his teeth and exits the side of his mouth through his reconstructed lips. It sounds more like the hiss of a teakettle than a true whistle, but it is surprisingly loud and, of course, perfectly in tune.

  At the mouth of the Hudson, America’s symbol of freedom shimmers in ephemeral outline through Herza’s tear-brimmed eyes. What a wonderful country, he extols, where one’s past can be rewritten, where one can defeat one’s enemies with such ease! Like the hero in Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, Herza has dispatched his critics and vanquished his adversaries. Herza craftily modulates from Dvořák’s Largo to the hero’s theme, and then to “the bombs bursting in air.” I should have been a composer, he jests to himself.

  As he gazes into the night sky, savoring his glory, a tear finds its way down Herza’s scarred cheek. So many years, so much struggle, and now the victory is mine. And there is no one left to claim otherwise. No Jürgens, no Inoue, no Lubomir, no Sonja, no Scheherazade O’Brien. No Jacobus, that feeble excuse for a man.

  The Hudson’s dark current far below flows with calm, inexorable predictability. Like the Moldau. Herza peers down into it, comforted by its depth and power. He sees the reflection of the fireworks floating on its surface like huge, multicolored jellyfish. Then, magically, embers from above descend gently to the water, hissing, dispersing their illusory counterpart.

  Herza turns again toward his glistening mecca. Why shouldn’t he savor his accomplishment? he asks himself. He deserves everything.

  An umbrella of fire ignites the sky. In its fleeting red glare, Herza believes he has spied someone on the bridge! The light quickly ebbs and Herza peers into the darkness. Is it truly another person, or is it my imagination? He blinks and waits a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but the next eruption makes the world day again. Yes, there is indeed someone else on his Freedom Bridge. A man. A man with a cane, hunched, freeze-framed like a life-sized, two-dimensional cutout of that Charles Chaplin hobo.

  That blind cockroach, Jacobus! Herza stares in the direction of the shadowy form, even as the darkness returns.

  Jacobus, in the same submissive poster pose, moves progressively closer. The alternation between darkness and brilliant light makes it seem as if he has been lifted and repositioned. He is one, two, three statues away—Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner—though he see
ms to be moving more toward the railing than forward.

  The fool doesn’t even seem to be aware I am here, thinks Herza. I will fix that. I will not have this invalid on my bridge, on this night. I am not going to let that pitiful cripple piss on my parade. Herza begins again to whistle, alternating the Largo and “The Star-Spangled Banner” in mocking insolence. He is so clever, and is an even better whistler than he thought! With his newly discovered skill, he takes childish delight in adorning the tunes with birdlike trills and ornaments.

  His eyes are fixed upon Jacobus, who, wavering, has placed his cane on the ground and is now standing under Beethoven. He seems to be measuring the distance between the railings, Herza thinks. Yes, he’s trying to fit through them! I should have let the damn architects keep them wider apart.

  Jacobus now has his hands on the railing, blindly looking out, leaning over. Only the height of it prevents him from toppling into the river. Jacobus tries to find a footing to hoist himself higher.

  So it’s Davy Jones’s locker, is it? Herza realizes. I must find out who this Davy Jones character was. Well, I’ll give the cripple an appropriate send-off. Herza crescendos his rendition of “Goin’ Home” to an intentionally grating fortissimo, timing it to make sure it isn’t obscured by the almost constant barrage of fireworks signaling the grand finale.

  Suddenly, the form of Jacobus stiffens. He stands up straight and swings his head toward Herza like a robotic homing device. Under the thunderous sky, the two men remain unnaturally still. Jacobus shakes his head, as if to reboot his thoughts. He slowly begins to move toward Herza, sliding the tip of his cane along the safety railing’s metal supports for direction. As the distance narrows, the click of his cane accelerates, the reverse of a spinning wheel of fortune. Jacobus is now under Mozart and continues to gain ground.

  Herza softens his whistling. The fireworks are constant now, anyway, and the rolling volleys deafening over the river. There’s no way the cripple can hear him. Yet still he comes! Herza looks up to see the last of the fireworks, after which his concert hall will blend into the night and he will go home. Suddenly, the entire sky lights up in blinding white light, brighter than all the previous fireworks combined, rendering all else invisible. What is this? Herza asks himself. A stab of pain shoots through his heart. His knees begin to buckle. Herza wraps his arm around the railing. He will not show weakness. He will not ask the cripple for help, even if it is offered. Unable to support his weight, Herza’s grip on the railing begins to fail. He banishes the thought of Jacobus coming to his aid.