Spring Break Read online

  ‘Enough!’

  Guided by Anderson, Jacobus bumped over the cobblestone campus paths in his wheelchair. He took a deep breath, inventing and testing a theory on the spot that if he made vigorous inhalation of fresh air a routine activity it would shrivel up ‘the not insignificant growth’ on his lung. The smell of freshly mown grass was accompanied by the whir of a well-oiled lawn mower, distant enough to not totally obscure the calls of a pair of robins much closer. As the birds’ calls came from stationary points, Jacobus assumed they were perched in trees, which considering the unusually warm spring, would presumably be just bursting into leaf.

  At first, Jacobus had lost sleep at the thought of giving up his independence to a wheelchair. But when all he had to do was tell Anderson where he wanted to go and Anderson did the rest, he decided having a full-time chauffeur was not so bad. No worries about stepping into oncoming traffic or dog shit, or tripping over ill-positioned shrubbery. He could use his brain to actually think instead of plotting where to place his next step.

  ‘Stuyvesant Hall,’ he barked. He had a couple of questions for Sam Consiglio, the janitor.

  ‘You ever see that television show, Ironsides?’ Chase asked.

  ‘What kind of idiot question is that?’ Jacobus asked, interrupted from his thoughts, the warm sun on his face, and his inhalation experiment.

  ‘Sorry,’ Anderson said. ‘I keep forgetting you can’t see. Anyway, Ironsides was this police detective who solved crimes from a wheelchair. I was thinking you’re a lot like him.’

  ‘Who played him? Olivier?’

  ‘Who’s Olivier? Raymond Burr.’

  ‘Ah! Of Perry Mason fame. That show I was able to see. What makes you think we have a crime here?’

  ‘Just you, really. But it’s cool thinking there might be one.’

  Jacobus shook his head and didn’t bother to reply. Distant sprays of music gradually became louder as they approached Stuyvesant Hall. A few minutes later he felt himself being pushed up its inclined handicap ramp.

  ‘Go right,’ he said to Anderson. ‘To the elevator.’

  They descended into the basement. A muted cacophony from the practice rooms was a clear signal that spring break was ancient history. From among the various threads of Mozart, Chopin, Gershwin, and Debussy, played by pianos, clarinets, violins, and singers, came the familiar strains of Vivaldi’s ‘Spring.’

  Jacobus’s initial thought was that Hedge was wrong or had lied about Audrey Rollins dropping out. Then, straining his ears, he realized it was too good to be her playing. Was it Yumi? It sounded like her. He listened some more. No. It lacked the confident flexibility that a musician gains from years of experience. It must be Yumi’s student, Mia Something.

  ‘Take me to the Vivaldi,’ Jacobus said to Anderson.

  ‘Which one is that? I don’t know much about music.’

  ‘Do you at least know what a violin sounds like?’ Jacobus asked in exasperation.

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘How many do you hear right now?’

  Jacobus waited.

  ‘Two,’ Anderson said, finally.

  ‘Well, then, we have a fifty-fifty chance, don’t we?’

  At the second module they went to, Anderson had to knock hard on the glass door to get Mia’s attention, as her back was to them and her concentration level high. When she did eventually open the door she first sounded pleased, then alarmed, at Jacobus’s unexpected visit.

  ‘Dr Jacobus!’ she said. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Soccer injury. I heard you practicing.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t listening very long. I must sound terrible!’

  Anderson wheeled Jacobus into the practice module. With the three of them, and Jacobus in his wheelchair, plus a baby grand piano and assorted music stands, the room was cramped. Jacobus told Chase Anderson he could go upstairs to the coffee shop. He would meet him there later.

  After Anderson left, Jacobus said, ‘First of all, I’m not a doctor. I just go to them more frequently than I care to. Secondly, the Vivaldi sounded very good, at least through a soundproof wall. What are you practicing it for?’

  ‘Mr T asked me to play it with the chamber orchestra when he heard that Audrey dropped out.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ll have a chance to perform it,’ Jacobus said, ‘but of course I’m troubled at the circumstances. Were you and Audrey friends?’

  The enthusiasm that had filled Mia’s voice was replaced with caution.

  ‘We were friendly. I wouldn’t say we were friends.’

  ‘Are the two of you in the same dorm?’

  ‘Dorm? No, Audrey lives off campus. With her boyfriend.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Not important. What instrument does the boyfriend play?’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t go here. I never met him. Audrey just talked about him once in a while. I think he’s a student somewhere.’

  ‘Were you surprised Audrey dropped out so suddenly?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  Before Jacobus could delve deeper in her ambivalent response, Mia continued on her own, as if she wanted to qualify her statement before Jacobus could press her on it.

  ‘She’s a little weird. You know? Hot and cold. Some days she could be really great, but other times she wouldn’t even look you in the eye.’

  ‘I heard she worked hard.’

  ‘I suppose. We all work hard.’

  ‘How did it come about that Mr T selected Audrey to play ‘Spring’? She win a concerto competition?’

  Jacobus knew that competitions could be crapshoots. A mediocre musician could have a great day; a superlative one a horrible day. Judges could be, and often were, capricious and self-interested, especially when their own students were in the mix. From the little he’d heard of Audrey’s playing, Jacobus was not expecting an affirmative answer to his question but would not have been surprised by one.

  ‘No, there wasn’t even any kind of competition or audition,’ Mia said. Jacobus detected a shade of bitterness. Or was it something else more personal? Envy, perhaps. But now, at least, she had her golden opportunity, so maybe she was just trying to put any acrimony in the background and move on.

  ‘Professor Schlossberg arranged that for her,’ she added.

  ‘Don’t you mean her teacher, Dunster?’

  ‘No. It was Professor Schlossberg.’

  ‘What do you mean by “arranged it”?’

  ‘He and Mr T have – had – this thing. I think he was giving Audrey one of his little rewards.’

  ‘Which “he”?’

  ‘Professor Schlossberg.’

  ‘Rewarding her for what? For being willing to endure playing his piece, Synergy Something?’

  ‘You mean Synthesis III,’ Mia corrected. ‘No, Audrey actually likes playing new music. She’s one of the few. You just have to be able to figure out crazy rhythms and pretend you’re really into it. And she has a lot of energy. I think she was thinking that was the direction she was going career-wise.’

  ‘So what was the reward for?’ Jacobus asked. ‘What does Schlossberg have to do with the chamber orchestra?’

  ‘I don’t really know. It’s none of my business.’

  Jacobus didn’t want to push too hard, though he suspected Mia knew more about it than she was admitting. But why should she open up to him? Almost a total stranger. A blind geriatric in a wheelchair. That would scare the shit out of any young person. The practice module was getting uncomfortably warm, even with the ventilation fan on. With its soundproofed walls and stale air, Jacobus imagined himself a priest in a confessional, though unfortified by the easy comfort of moral absolutes.

  Jacobus revised his earlier mental image of the modules as fishbowls. They now seemed more like the controlled environment of an underground laboratory, where molds grew in test tubes. Young people spending five, six, eight hours a day slaving away in solitary confinement. For what? To make beautiful music? N
ot really. More to reach an arbitrary level of so-called ‘perfection’ or ‘artistry’ in order to sufficiently impress the adult inquisitor called ‘the teacher.’ That weekly make-or-break hour called ‘a lesson.’ At the mercy of the inquisitor whose snap judgment becomes the determinant for the remainder of that student’s life. The student praying for crumbs of approval: ‘You’ve done well,’ could mean a career in the offing. And dreading the death sentence: ‘You have no talent.’

  Where does the unfortunate student go from a verdict like that? Back down into the catacombs, returning the next week to seek approval again? There’s always next week. What would a student do for approval? What wouldn’t a student do for approval? Where was the positive human interaction? Where was the music? Where was the sun?

  ‘So when did you start working on ‘Spring’?’ Jacobus asked, not sure what direction the conversation was headed.

  ‘I just started practicing it today. I haven’t even told Ms Shinagawa yet.’

  ‘You’ve played it before, then.’

  ‘No. Never!’

  ‘But I heard you using a lot of her fingerings and bowings.’ Though Yumi hadn’t studied Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with him, Jacobus could still take credit for having taught her how to think about learning music like that, so in a way he was Mia’s musical grandfather. He kept that thought to himself.

  ‘Oh, I listened to her CD all last night!’ Mia replied.

  ‘When did you get the music, then?’

  ‘Oh,’ she laughed. ‘I don’t have the music. I memorized it while I listened to it.’

  Jacobus was perplexed. Clearly this young lady was a serious talent. And dedicated. Her performance at the masterclass had made that obvious. One couldn’t and shouldn’t draw conclusions from a one-shot deal like a masterclass, because for all one knew, a student could have been practicing a given composition since he was in knickers. Granted, learning ‘Spring’ was not nearly the same challenge as a behemoth like the Brahms Concerto, but for a student to have essentially learned it overnight, especially without the benefit of having the music, was a notable accomplishment. It made him wonder why she hadn’t been invited to perform it in the first place and what had prompted the ‘reward’ to Audrey Rollins? Jacobus was all for democracy and giving everyone a chance, but there was no doubt who the superior musician was. He recalled what Yumi had told him of the stresses of Mia’s psychologically harrowing upbringing. They must inevitably have left emotional scars. How could they not have? He could imagine she might have a personality that made her difficult to work with. So far, he hadn’t sensed any such trait. But then again, he hardly knew her.

  ‘You keep that up, young lady,’ Jacobus said with false severity, ‘and you’ll make teachers obsolete.’

  ‘God, I hope so,’ Mia replied. ‘No offense.’

  Had he just been slapped in the face? If so, it was a rare occurrence for Jacobus to have been upbraided with such concise efficiency, especially by a student. Maybe he was starting to understand why she hadn’t been selected to play the concerto. On the other hand, maybe it had come out differently than she meant. He would let it slide.

  ‘Maybe you’ve got a point,’ he responded. ‘On the other hand, us vestigial organ grinders might still have something to contribute. You do know what this concerto is about?’

  ‘Yes, I read all the program notes on the CD, with the sonnet and such. I memorized that, too.’

  ‘I’m sure you did, but when I was listening to your playing, I was thinking, it’s one thing to understand what spring is about. It’s another thing to embrace it so that when the audience is listening they feel sunny days and see green things bursting out of the ground. You don’t want it to sound like you’re in one of these solitary confinement rooms.’

  ‘You mean like with Vivaldi’s bird calls? They’re kind of hokey, but I try to make them sound real, like Ms Shinagawa.’

  ‘It’s not enough to just sound like birds. Those are just technical tricks. You have to sound like “birds rejoicing with festive song,” as Vivaldi wrote. Birds rejoicing they’ve survived, half-starved, through a freezing winter and are still alive to celebrate. Can you imagine how spring feels for a bird? To be on the brink of death and then feel the first warm sunrise? Knowing that it’ll finally be able to poke its beak through the thawing ground and fill its empty gullet with a nice, juicy worm?’

  ‘I never thought of spring quite that way,’ Mia admitted.

  ‘Me, neither,’ Jacobus said, and they both laughed. ‘But if you decide that’s what the music’s about, then you have to figure out how to do it with your hands. Never mind Sybil Baker-Hulme’s exhortations for stylistic purity. It all starts with the decision to make spring sound joyful. And don’t forget the adage,’ he added, ‘“in spring a young man’s fancy turns to love.”’

  ‘You got that from Vivaldi’s bird calls?’

  ‘Maybe that’s a stretch.’

  There was a silence. She probably wanted him to leave but was too polite to ask.

  ‘I should let you practice,’ he said.

  ‘No, wait. I have a question for you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Isn’t there also a part in “Spring” about thunderstorms?’ Mia asked. ‘They’re also harbingers of spring, like the birds.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘“April showers bring May flowers.”’

  She persevered. ‘But a thunderstorm is kind of the opposite, isn’t it? It’s angry and it’s frightening. “Thunderstorms, those harbingers of spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven.”’

  Jacobus wasn’t sure where this was going.

  ‘Yes, there’s that, too. What’s your point?’

  ‘Only that if you compare bird calls to “a young man’s fancy turning to love,”’ Mia replied, ‘then you’d have to say that with the thunderstorm part it’s more like “an old man’s fancy turning to lechery.” Wouldn’t you?’

  FIFTEEN

  What? Where did that come from? Is she talking about me? I’m an old man – no question about that – but lechery? What reason on earth does she have to fire that accusation at me? Is this another rumor about me that’s spreading across the campus? Is it someone else?

  Or was she simply being tongue-in-cheek, taking my own line of thought and extending it into absurdity? Does she understand my brand of humor, from Yumi perhaps, and inadvertently crossed a line? That was something I’ve done, myself, far too often. But out of the mouth of babes? Babes! He didn’t even want to think about that double entendre. He didn’t know what to think.

  About to stammer out a garbled reply, he was saved by a tap on the glass door. It opened with a soft pop, breaking the stifling, vacuum-packed seal.

  ‘Sorry to barge in.’

  The voice of Lisette Broder, the accompanist at the masterclass.

  ‘Mia and I have a rehearsal now,’ she said. ‘Apologies.’

  ‘On my way out,’ Jacobus said. He needed some air. Some time to think. Broder wheeled him backwards out of the practice room. Before the door closed he heard Mia call out, ‘It was only a joke!’

  He heard Broder play an A on the piano, to which Mia tuned her violin. They began their rehearsal. Jacobus suddenly realized he was helpless. When he was ambulatory, his feet and his cane provided all the information he needed to get where he wanted to go. But sitting in a wheelchair he had no feel for the ground. The muffled sounds emanating from the rows of practice modules gave him a confused sense of direction. He had no cellphone – even if he did he wouldn’t know how to use it – so he had no way to contact Chase Anderson in the canteen. The situation was more aggravating than alarming. He knew that if he just remained in place someone would assist him sooner or later, but having to do so made him feel inadequate. Like an invalid. That was a condition he would not abide.

  After straining his ears for half a minute or so, amid the subdued music and mechanical noises basements make, he discerned the whir of the elevator. He followed the sound toward th
e end of the corridor. Since he didn’t know exactly in which straight line he should wheel himself, he twice bumped into modules and muttered apologies to students he might have disturbed. He finally found his destination.

  He pressed the Braille-embossed up button on the elevator, barely able to reach it from his sitting position. His mind was still spinning. When he heard the doors open he rolled forward. Right into someone emerging from the elevator.

  ‘Sorry,’ he blabbered.

  ‘Mr Jacobus. It’s me. Sam. Sam Consiglio. At your service. Let me get the door for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Sam,’ Jacobus said.

  Jacobus remembered his question for him.

  ‘Sam, when you found Schlossberg, was the piano fallboard open or closed?’

  ‘Closed,’ Sam shouted as the elevator doors closed.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Jacobus hollered. The elevator was ascending.

  He didn’t hear the answer.

  Jacobus emerged on the main floor. With his right hand outstretched so he wouldn’t careen into anyone else and with his left on the wheel of his chair, he formed a bitter image of himself as the Heisman Trophy statue in a wheelchair. Collegiate cripple of the year, he thought. What had he gotten himself into?

  Following the sounds of voices at the end of the main hall, he made a left turn and headed toward the public canteen for the students and faculty.

  ‘Mr Jacobus!’ It was that jazz player. What was his name? Alonzo Something. Alonzo Sumting.

  ‘Mr Jacobus!’ he repeated, much closer this time.

  ‘Sumter!’ Jacobus said. ‘Alonzo Sumter.’

  ‘I was on my way to look for you. Your assistant, Chase, said to give you a message. He said he had to go do an errand. Said he had an idea.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Jacobus said. ‘One that he doesn’t want to hear.’

  Sumter invited Jacobus to join his coffee klatch while he awaited Anderson’s return. With nothing better to do and no way to do it, Jacobus accepted. Sumter wheeled him in the direction of an animated conversation.