by JJ Marsh
He knew there was a florist’s a block or so away from the Konzerthalle and after stopping for a coffee and a croissant, he bought two bouquets of flowers. Perhaps bouquet was overstating the case, as neither was larger than a soup bowl, but it was the gesture that mattered. He sent Trudi and Jun a message asking them to meet him for coffee before rehearsals began. He gave no more detail than saying he wanted to explain a misunderstanding. His motives were genuine in that he wanted to repair a breach of trust, but he was also aware the string section had a say on whether or not probationers should be taken on permanently. He needed them both as friends and allies.
They arrived on time, both unsmiling and suspicious. Rolf bought the coffees and placed the flowers in front of each woman.
“This is to say I’m sorry for what happened yesterday. I had a crisis of confidence and panicked. The excitement and energy of playing in the quartet left me drained and in a moment of madness I wrote to the maestro, asking to be released. Now, I regret quitting and want to withdraw my resignation. I told the maestro I wish to continue. He says it’s your decision. Well, yours and Anton’s.”
Neither of them touched the flowers or met his eyes.
“Jun, Trudi, I understand you were disappointed and hurt by what you perceive to be my underhand behaviour. In your shoes, I would feel the same. I’m truly, genuinely sorry that this happened and as I said to the maestro, any future discussions about the quartet will be conducted face-to-face. Both of you have been so brilliant from the minute I arrived; I’m mortified that I offended you. I hope and pray you can forgive me.”
Jun’s face creased from concerned frown into a soft smile. “It’s not easy, settling in. When we have a major event looming, all of us feel the pressure.”
“Thank you, Jun. That’s very decent of you.”
It took a moment before Trudi spoke. She rotated the stem of the bouquet back and forth between her fingers, staring at the flowers. “Yeah, we were pretty pissed off yesterday. I appreciate the apology and I’m glad to know you want to continue playing with us. But Rolf, I’m not sure who I’m dealing with. The quartet is about four people acting as ambassadors, sure, but also having fun as friends. That’s what hurts. You resigned to the maestro without talking to us.”
An internal voice was screaming Tell them! He opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head as if ashamed.
Trudi stood up. “Rehearsals start in four minutes and I need to use the bathroom. Thank you for talking to us. But as for the quartet, we’ll need to decide whether you’re the right fit.” Trudi left the cafeteria holding the bouquet as if it was a bag of shopping.
Jun inhaled deeply, her face bent over her flowers. “Rolf? These are beautiful and I’m glad you explained. Can I say something? I spent far too long with somebody who tried to control every aspect of my life. Whether they do it out of love or loyalty or protection, it makes no difference. I don’t want to pry and it’s not my business what goes on in your personal life. I just want to say that if you ever need to talk, I’m willing to listen.” With a sad smile, she too walked away.
Rolf watched her go, nodding to himself. She probably knew what had happened if the rumours about her and the maestro were true. Perhaps he would ask her advice. Talking things over with a friend often crystallised his thinking, as far as he remembered from the days when he used to have friends.
The atmosphere in the string section changed that morning and rehearsals ran smoothly. René noted the renewed harmony in the group and complimented them on their unity. The maestro gave a nod of agreement but said nothing. Bertrand suggested lunch in the park. They left by the stage door in high spirits, carrying their sandwiches and drinks. Outside, a surprise was waiting.
“Anton!” Bertrand exclaimed. “Your timing could not be better. Do you have an engagement or can you join us for lunch? The only thing better than a quartet is a quintet, no?”
Anton bowed to each of them in turn. “Why not? I was only dropping by to return some of Rolf’s sheet music. It must’ve got mixed up with mine. Here you go.” He handed a brown envelope to Rolf and with a subtle shake of the head, indicated he should not open it. “Which park are you going to? I’ll run to the supermarket and catch you up.”
“What about the Blumengarten?” Rolf asked. “It’s full of buskers at lunchtime and I find their energy intoxicating.”
“Blumengarten it is,” said Bertrand. “Hurry now, Anton, we only have an hour.”
They settled themselves at a picnic table near the gate and talked about the upcoming dress rehearsal. In Rolf’s mind, the dress rehearsal was the least of his problems. His focus was on the opening night and the press première.
“Why does the dress rehearsal matter so much?” he asked. “Isn’t that just an opportunity to fine tune the lighting, tech and staging?”
All three of his colleagues shook their heads. “The dress rehearsal has an audience,” said Jun. “Not just any audience, but the board, the sponsors and the advertisers. It’s the most important performance other than the première itself.”
Bertrand unscrewed a bottle of iced tea, nodding sagely. “Jun is right. And the day after the dress rehearsal is the most tense and frantic of the entire run. If there are any negative comments from our financiers, changes need to be made before first night. It’s an incredibly stressful evening for everyone because you need to listen between the lines.”
“What you mean by ‘listen between the lines’ exactly?” asked Rolf.
Trudi waved an arm in the air to attract Anton’s attention. He slid onto the bench the other side of Jun, directly opposite Rolf.
“What did you get?” asked Trudi.
“Falafel and hummus. I’m chickpea crazy. What are you talking about?”
Trudi gnawed on a celery stick. “We were just explaining to Rolf how important the dress rehearsal is. Quite apart from the performance, we have to attend drinks with the audience afterwards and that’s what Bertrand means by listening between the lines. They will couch any issues in faint praise and it takes a trained ear to understand their objections.”
Anton’s presence was like a magnet and it was all Rolf could do to direct his attention away from his face. “Right, so now I’m twice as nervous about the dress rehearsal than I was ten minutes ago. Can financiers really influence the programme?”
All four heads nodded with absolute conviction. Rolf ate his cheese and ham sandwich, his thoughts buzzing, less about the politics of the orchestra and more concerning the man on the other side of the table. He leaned his elbow on Anton’s envelope and listened to the conversation between his more experienced peers. It occurred to him that the package did not contain sheet music but something softer, such as fabric. He lifted his eyes and caught Anton’s gaze. As all the others were involved in a complicated recollection of the previous dress rehearsal, Rolf risked a look at the envelope and back at Anton, a question in his eyes.
“That’s pants,” said Anton, his comment directed at Trudi. “Sorry, but it is. Either the orchestra employ a maestro they trust and judge his work on opening night, or they are being nothing greater than bullies. I’m serious. If they really want to influence the programme, and God knows why they feel they have the right to, they should be present in rehearsals. Attending one performance the night before we go public and expecting changes is arrogant and ridiculous.”
Jun placed her hands together at her forehead and bowed to Anton. “You’re so right. If only more people were willing to speak up like you do, things could change. I hate the fact we are dependent on the whims of the money men but the fact is that we are. This is why the dress rehearsal is the worst night of the entire run.”
“It is!” Trudi agreed. “Not just being judged by people who don’t know their arse from their elbow, but who have the power to change things they don’t even understand. It drives me crazy! I can’t sleep the night before a dress rehearsal because I know those judgemental bastards will be sitting there with their arms folde
d, looking for something to criticise. They make me puke.”
Bertrand blew a kiss at Trudi and another at Jun. “Ladies, we are employees, not artistic directors. We understand the cerebral nature of what we create and sometimes weep when we scatter pearls before these bejewelled swine. However, to become frustrated or angered at our circumstances is worthless unless we can effect change. Many brave soldiers have fallen at this front.” He gave a sharp nod to Anton and the conversation fell silent.
Rolf’s gaze ranged across the party but no one met his eyes, not even Anton. “Seems like I’m missing something here. It’s not my business of course, but is there something I should know?”
Anton’s foot reached under the table and tapped Rolf’s. “There is something you should know and I’m happy to tell you. Are you still coming round this evening to listen to the twins?”
“Sure, if I’m still welcome?”
“You’re still welcome. I’ll tell you the whole story about why I got demoted because of my principles and big mouth. But Trudi, Jun and Bertrand must be bored to death of the whole thing, so let’s leave it till later. Guess what? I’m still hungry. Does anyone want some fries from the Imbiss?”
That afternoon, the maestro announced a full dress rehearsal on Monday. In formal dress, with hair and make-up as it would be on the night so that wardrobe, stage managers, lighting designers and sound engineers had the opportunity to make changes before next Friday’s event. A frisson wound through the entire orchestra and Rolf overheard more than one group suggesting after work drinks to discuss exactly who would be wearing what. No one, not even the maestro could have lured Rolf away from his evening plans. They finished the rehearsal by practising their encore, a Wilk-orchestrated version of Eine kleine Gigue. The piece was an unexpected nod to Mozart after the official programme, but it was done in such a surprisingly modern way that it never failed to leave the players feeling rejuvenated and triumphant.
He left the Konzerthalle with indecent haste and jumped on the bus rather than walk, such was his yearning to get home fast. He collected the post, which contained nothing of interest to him, but a letter for Leonor from Chicago. He took it upstairs and placed it on the dining room table. Only then did he open his rucksack and pull out the package that Anton had given him. With a quick check in every room to ensure that Leonor was indeed at the stables, he poured himself a glass of water and sat on the balcony. Peeling away the seal, he slid the contents of the envelope onto his lap and burst out laughing.
It was a pair of underpants. His boxer shorts, the ones with the Nike logo. A memory surfaced of earlier that day, at lunchtime, sitting opposite Anton with an enquiring look. “That’s pants,” he’d said, talking to Trudi. But he had answered Rolf’s question. Pants indeed. Rolf laughed again, this time at himself for only now getting the joke.
Why did Anton have his underwear? He recalled each of their encounters and he realised it had to be Sunday evening, when he’d dressed in the dark, panicked by the sound of Leonor’s return. In the scramble, he must have grabbed Anton’s underwear instead of his own. Following that thought to its logical conclusion, somewhere in the laundry basket was a pair of Anton’s briefs.
The full implications hit him like a shower of hail and his mirth withered. On Monday morning, Leonor had accidentally locked Blue in the laundry room. Because she was doing their laundry. He shook his head. Underwear was underwear, there was no way she would notice a stranger’s boxer shorts in their tangle of dirty clothes. Unless she had. In a panic, he ran to the bedroom and pulled open his underwear drawer. He checked every single piece. All seemed familiar, each bearing the distinctive sportswear label. Yet still he was not relieved. He could not explain himself, but he crossed to her side of the room and opened her underwear drawer. Lace thongs, a tangle of bras, some cotton shorts and a long object rolled in a towel.
Rolf’s fingers closed around the fabric, feeling the length and firmness of whatever was hidden away. As if he couldn’t guess. She had never previously shown any embarrassment by owning sex toys, so why tuck this out of sight? He withdrew the towel and unwrapped the item on her dressing table. His breath caught. The plastic bag within did not contain a vibrator, but a heavy handgun. After staring in horror at the weapon for over a minute, he wrapped it up again and replaced it behind her knickers.
While the clock crept towards six o’clock, Rolf must have covered several kilometres pacing the apartment. The doorbell rang and Anton buzzed the girls inside, Rolf hovering out of sight on the landing. He counted a full five minutes and then descended the stairs to rap on the door. The twins, Yumi the cellist and her violinist sister Tomo, were indeed painfully shy, barely able to meet his eyes for more than a second. He spoke to them at length after applauding the recital, and explained as clearly as he could what he saw as their strengths and the areas in which they needed to improve.
“Have you ever heard of a wolf tone, Yumi? No? This is when the cellist plays an E or F sharp causing a near resonance within the body of the instrument. It happens to other string musicians too, but with different notes. The two frequencies create a dissonance, an imbalance. A rare circumstance where one sets the instrument against itself. The result is a pulsing beat described as a wolf tone, due to the growling sound, which is unpleasant to the human ear. I’m sure you heard it just now.”
Both girls hung on his every word, nodding and exchanging glances with each other.
“It’s nothing to do with your playing. The problem is easily eliminated with a mute or resonator but it’s best to get a professional to fit it. When you hear the difference, you’ll find your playing takes a leap forward. My advice is to get it fixed now because you both have an exciting future together. You are extraordinarily talented. I wish you luck.”
Their thanks were effusive and clumsy in the most endearing sense. When they took their leave, Anton escorted them to the door while Rolf remained on the sofa, exhausted by his own performance.
“You were fantastic!” Anton said as he returned. “They loved you and so they should. You went above and beyond what I asked of you and I can’t tell you how grateful I am. What? Rolf? What is it?” He came to sit beside Rolf and looked into his stricken face.
Rolf opened his mouth twice to deliver speech he had practised for the last ninety minutes, but his breath had been stolen away.
“The envelope you gave me,” he whispered. “That was my underwear. Which means I was wearing yours when I went home on Sunday night. It was a mistake, of course it was, I got dressed in the dark. Leonor did our laundry on Monday, remember? She buys my underwear and she knows I only wear a few particular brands.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. Keep those boxers as a memento and every time you wear them, think of me. You want to know something? I thought about keeping yours to remind me of you.”
Rolf stared at him, the realisation of subtext suffusing him with an emotion he could not express. “You don’t understand. Leonor knows about us. She knows.”
Comprehension dawned on Anton’s face, changing tender amusement to concern. “Oh, shit and more shit. You’re right. What the hell are we going to do?”
“I need to say something,” Rolf murmured.
Anton turned towards him. “I know what you have to say and I don’t blame you. If your girlfriend suspects you of being unfaithful with the downstairs neighbour, you need to break it off. You won’t be able to play with the quartet and we won’t be able to have friendly gatherings in the garden. I understand, Rolf, I really do.”
“No, that’s not what I want to say. At least not only.” He held Anton’s face and looked into his eyes, willing him to see the urgency in his own. “Leonor can be … dangerous. If she feels slighted or betrayed, she will react badly. Maybe not immediately, but sooner or later she will strike. I’m going to talk to her tonight. I’ll tell her we got drunk on Sunday and ended up fooling around. A one-off. She’ll think it’s a genuine confession because she doesn’t know you returned my underwear. A d
runken fumble, that’s all it was. You must be very careful. In her eyes, you and I hurt her and she will lash out. Please don’t think I’m being dramatic, Anton, I’m not. She’s capable of revenge.”
A memory he had tried to suppress burst out of his subconscious. It had risen the moment he’d seen that gun. Her horse. The day she’d been jumping and her bay mare caught the fence and fell. He heard the crack of its fetlock from the bench beside the paddock. He stood in horror as Leonor rolled away and the horse thrashed on the ground. Leonor strode to the stables and returned with a shotgun. She aimed at the star on its head and pulled the trigger. Without hesitation, she shot her favourite horse dead and called the slaughterman to collect the carcass.
Blue padded into the living room, yowling like a banjo player, and sat in front of them, a look of enquiry on his face. Anton reached out a hand and stroked the cat’s head.
“Okay, I’ll feed you in a minute.” He returned his attention to Rolf. How much time have we got?”
“About an hour. She’s due home at nine o’clock. Yes, feed Blue and maybe we should have a drink.”
They sat at the breakfast bar, grazing on raw vegetables with yoghurt dip as Blue crunched his way through a bowlful of kibble. Rolf raised his bottle of Pilsner and they drank.
“Anton, I’m sorry about this unholy mess. Being with you ... I don’t know what to say. This was so wrong but so perfect.”
“In the spirit of full disclosure, I second that emotion.” Anton’s eyes softened and he pressed his lips with infinite gentleness against Rolf’s. Blue’s demanding yowl interrupted the moment and they peeled apart. “So we just stop?”
