Danse Macabre Read online

  “Don’t worry, there’s nothing too ominous,” said Malachi. “This place looks like Disneyland compared to some of the lovely back alleys I’ve been to.”

  “Thanks for inviting us,” said Jacobus. “I’m a big fan of theme parks.”

  The four followed the music to a closed door. Malachi knocked, and it was opened almost immediately by a short, stocky, bald man with gray hair well trimmed around bigger-than-usual ears. His small eyes were swollen, tear brimmed, and red. He was dressed in heavy, cuffed gray wool pants that came almost all the way up to his armpits and were held up by a black belt and red suspenders stretched over a clean white T-shirt. A key chain attached to his belt led to a pocket, and he held a sodden handkerchief in his hand.

  “Detective Malachi, NYPD.”

  “Welcome, Detective Malachi,” said the man, wiping his eyes with the handkerchief. “I was told to expect you.” He narrowed his eyes, gazing beyond Malachi into the gloom. “And, can it be? My old friends! Mr. Jacobus! Mr. Williams! And the young lady . . .”

  “Yumi Shinagawa,” she prompted.

  “Of course. Of course. Please come in. Please.”

  “Long time,” said Jacobus. “Sorry . . . the circumstances.”

  Sigmund Gottfried’s one-room apartment was not exactly cheery by Martha Stewart standards, but it was a welcome oasis from the drear of the basement around it. Lit only by a single incandescent bulb in the center of a yellowing plaster ceiling veined with cracks, everything was tidy, well organized, and immaculate. On the wall opposite the door was the source of the music, an old-fashioned console Victrola with its trademark acoustical horn, on which the nasal and raspy 78 recording of “Danse Macabre” was spinning.

  “Please have a seat, Detective, friends,” said Gottfried, offering them the bed next to the Victrola. Gottfried sat in the only chair, a folding one, at the secondhand wooden desk, which had three drawers. Jacobus felt the link chain of the ceiling light clatter against his dark glasses as Yumi escorted him to his seat.

  “So you’re a music lover,” said Malachi, more as a comment than a question.

  Gottfried’s lips quivered. He pointed to the Victrola, handkerchief in hand, as if that would explain everything, and began to cry.

  “Take your time,” said Malachi. He himself had studied the violin when he was a boy. To the dismay of his parents, when he graduated Yeshiva University he chose law enforcement over music or his religious studies. He still went to concerts and to synagogue on the High Holy Days, but Friday nights were too busy with police work for either cultural or spiritual enlightenment.

  Jacobus, on the other hand, listened to the old recording with more than passing interest. Murk and gloom meant nothing to him, a blind man. Sound was his umbilical cord to the world, and he sat, transfixed, ears attuned only to the now posthumous performance of René Allard. He ignored the conversation around him, hearing only the music. The perfect elegance, charm, and refinement of the violin playing created a chilling irony to the waltz’s ghoulish subject.

  That notion turned Jacobus’s thoughts to the immediate depressing circumstances. Even for Allard’s performance, Jacobus had to be almost bodily dragged out of his home in the Berkshires by Nathaniel and Yumi. The concert had been worth it, though, and with unaccustomed enthusiasm he went backstage to congratulate Allard. All the luminaries were there for the historic event: The violinists, of course—Steinhardt, Zukerman, Mutter, and BTower, that so-called crossover violinist whom he avoided like the plague, were among the many voices that Jacobus recognized. And of course the conductors, the managers, the agents, the wannabes were there too. No critics were there, as they assuredly were sharpening their pencils for the review, but they knew if they dared criticize Allard, who was second to the American flag in the hearts of the public, their jobs would have been in jeopardy.

  Jacobus, trying to figure out how to convey his gratitude to Allard for keeping the tradition of great music making alive while at the same time attempting to keep his distance from the throng, suddenly felt a soft cheek against his, and then again on his other cheek. The scent of seductive French perfume was matched by the voice that came with it.

  “Allo, Jake. I should tell you, I’m not wearing a stitch of clothes.”

  “If that were true, Hennie, I’d hear every man in this room panting.”

  Hennie laughed. “Yes, I am teasing you, but I am so happy that you came to René’s recital tonight. You must join us for a little soirée later. Don’t worry. It will be an intimate gathering, not this three-ring circus. And by all means bring your two friends.” Jacobus hadn’t refused the invitation even though he was more comfortable here in Gottfried’s hovel than he would have been rubbing elbows with the hoity-toity. But now here he was, listening to Allard playing “Danse Macabre” while his corpse was stiffening six floors over his head.

  “Please forgive me,” said Gottfried. “It has been such a shock. Maestro Allard. He meant so much to me. To the world. I cannot speak.”

  “Yes,” said Yumi, “it—”

  “What did he mean to you?” asked Malachi, interrupting.

  “He himself gave me this recording that you hear. It was a special present.” Gottfried stopped. “I’m sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. May I start from the beginning, Detective Malachi?”

  “Please do.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try not to bore all of you—you must be so tired—but I must tell you something of how my life started in America. In 1946, my mother, Winifred, put my sister, Seglinde, and me on the boat. It was after the war and there was nothing for us in Germany. It was the last time I saw my dear mother. We arrived in New York and found a cheap room together in Washington Heights. In those days it was possible—eight dollars a week. Then Schatzi met a young man, Orin Oehlschlager, from a wealthy Mormon family.”

  “Who’s Schatzi?” asked Malachi.

  “Oh! I’m sorry. That is what Seglinde and I called each other from the time we were children.”

  “Nickname,” offered Nathaniel.

  “Ja, nickname. Or pet name, as you sometimes say.”

  “Go on,” said Malachi.

  “Young Mr. Oehlschlager, he was just then finishing his—what do the Mormons call it—‘mission’ in New York, and he was good-looking and spoke German very well, so they became married and moved away. I had no job, of course, when I arrived, but a friend of a friend of a friend—you know how it works—had suggested an interview for the elevator-boy position at this famous building. ‘The Bonderman Building, in midtown Manhattan,’ the friend of a friend of a friend said, as if it were the center of the world.”

  Gottfried managed a wistful chuckle, then blew his nose.

  “Something funny?”

  “Only, Detective Malachi, that when I went for my interview, I had never yet set foot in an elevator in my life! My friends! I am so impolite. I haven’t even offered you tea! Please, let me make you some.”

  “Have any scotch?” asked Jacobus.

  “I’m so sorry. No.”

  “Actually, I wouldn’t mind some tea, Mr. Gottfried,” said Malachi. “I could use something to settle the stomach.” Yumi and Williams also accepted.

  “It would be my pleasure,” said Gottfried. “It would help me too, to forget some of this terrible thing. And, Detective, please call me Ziggy. Everyone does.”

  Gottfried’s minuscule kitchen consisted of a hot plate, mini-fridge, and sink, all gleaming from daily cleaning. On the front edges of three simple wooden shelves above the hot plate were tacked handwritten tags for each day of the week. Above the Tuesday tag were carefully stacked cans of Campbell’s Beans ’N Franks; over Wednesday was Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Thursday was Chef Boyardee Meatballs and Spaghetti night, and so on. Monday was the only day that didn’t have any cans above it. The bed was made with military wrinkle-free precision. Pillows were propped along the length of it to enable day use as a couch. Papers on the small desk in the other corner were stacked and lined up perfectl
y with the edge of the desktop. Above the desk, carefully aligned rows of black-and-white snapshots were thumbtacked to the wall. Apparently they had been there for many years, as there were some lightened spots below the bottom row of photos that suggested some of them had been removed more recently. Not a speck of dust blemished the concrete floor or old braided rug that covered half of it.

  His back to the others, Gottfried continued his story as he filled a cast-iron kettle with water from the sink, put it on the hot plate to boil, and removed tea bags from an ancient Chase & Sanborn coffee can, which he placed in unmatched cups.

  “I apparently made an impression on the building manager. Mama had taught me to be polite, tidy, willing to work, make something of my life. So even with my ‘Kraut accent,’ as they called it, I was given the job for fifty dollars a week plus a free room in the basement. That alone was a huge savings, as until then I was paying the full eight dollars a week for the room in Washington Heights, plus I would save at least another two dollars a week on commuting. In return I would work a twelve-hour shift daily, alternating with a lad named Tom Congden, and would be required to maintain the elevator and the uniform they provided.

  “I am very proud of my uniform, Detective, as I’m sure you are of yours. It has no stripes or stars like Papa once had, but I honor it much the same. The way you see me here at this moment is not the way I am proud to be seen. There are not many elevator boys left in the world, Detective Malachi. I am one of the few remaining. They call this ‘progress.’

  “Now, here is your tea. Am I talking too much?”

  “Not if you get to the point before sunrise,” said Jacobus, who was trying to concentrate on the recording of “Danse Macabre” that was now spinning to an end.

  “Ah! I understand. That was a good joke. Excuse me a moment, please.”

  Before the old stylus had the opportunity to scratch, Gottfried whisked the arm of the Victrola off the 78.

  It was over. Jacobus had the sinking feeling that Allard had just been buried.

  “I think Allard made four recordings of that piece,” said Nathaniel. “He must have loved it.”

  “Yes, Mr. Williams! And I have all four! This one is my favorite, with the English conductor Barbirolli, and like all the recordings made in those days, it had to be done in one take! No splicing or dicing! I’d like to see them try to do that today!”

  “I knew it was Barbirolli!” said Williams, nudging Yumi in the ribs.

  “Ah, so you are a music lover too!” said Gottfried. “Music. It helps one grieve, does it not?”

  It might help, thought Jacobus. But it’s still grieving.

  “What’s wrong with Monday?” asked Malachi.

  “Monday? I don’t understand.”

  “You have your canned food lined up for every day of the week. Monday’s empty.”

  Gottfried chuckled.

  “You are very observant, Detective Malachi. I am a man of simple needs. I know what I like and don’t like. I am no epicure, so I have my cans—the same every week. And I have my elevator. That is my castle, and I have people from all over the world visit me in my castle and say, ‘Hello, Ziggy, nice to see you again.’ That is all I need to be happy. But every Monday, Max the butcher on Sixty-ninth and Amsterdam Avenue has a sale on pork chops. So on Mondays I buy a pork chop from Max and fresh cabbage from the Korean and make myself the dinner I had when Schatzi and I were children, though of course it’s not nearly as delicious as Mama’s cooking.

  “But now I go back to my story,” Gottfried said as he caressingly slid the precious record back into its brittle antique jacket. “I was overjoyed with my good fortune and moved into my new apartment the next morning. That my neighbors were the clanging furnace and the mops in the supply room was of no concern to me. There was no difficulty immediately moving my belongings to my new home. Everything fit into Papa’s valise that Mama gave me for my voyage across the ocean, except for the wonderful Victrola phonograph that Schatzi, knowing how much I loved music, gave me as a going-away present when she went west. Ach, young people these days with their Walkmans do not appreciate their possessions—of course, young lady, you may be an exception—but you are not here to listen to me carry on about that. With the Victrola I could listen to my beloved recordings—singers like Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, an angel, Fritz Wunderlich, Björling, McCormack. And the violinists—Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman the Jew, the young Russian David Oistrakh.”

  Gottfried sighed. “And they are all gone now.”

  “Including Allard,” said Jacobus, not bothering to correct Gottfried that Schwarzkopf hadn’t yet kicked the bucket.

  “Ach, yes. And of course, he was the greatest. Do you know the story that one time Kreisler was asked if he resented that Allard was called the French Fritz Kreisler, to which Kreisler responded, ‘What! It is I who would be honored to be called the Austrian René Allard!’ ”

  “I can’t say I’ve heard that one,” said Malachi.

  “Well, Allard’s recording of Kreisler’s ‘Liebesleid’ makes me cry to this day. I believe he is . . . pardon me, he was . . . the greatest. But I obviously was not alone in that opinion. And a Frenchman! I listen to his recordings every day. It is important you understand this.”

  Gottfried took a sip of tea. Placing the cup on a fading cardboard Bonderman Hotel coaster, he paused for a moment.

  It gradually dawned on Jacobus how much he and Gottfried shared, unlikely though it was on the surface. Jacobus had also come from Germany as a youth, albeit under much different circumstances. It was before the war and it was to study the violin, not to flee a destroyed country. That he had remained in the United States was the result of his parents’ death at Auschwitz at the hand of the butchers Gottfried’s father worked for. He did not begrudge Ziggy the failings of his countrymen, but it was ironic nevertheless.

  The main thing, though, that struck Jacobus was their shared taste in music and their choice to opt for seclusion and isolation in the way they lived, Gottfried here in his underground den, Jacobus in his hovel in the woods of western Massachusetts. Jacobus, not one for introspection, wondered if there was an element of escape in Gottfried’s life, and attempt to hide from the present, listening to 78s while tucked away from the world. And he wondered whether that was a mirror into his own soul.

  “Because I was the new boy,” Gottfried continued, “Tom gave me the graveyard shift from ten P.M. to ten A.M., six days a week. That was hunky-dory with me, because even though I was busy at the beginning of the shift with residents coming home after a night on the town, and at the end with them going to work in the morning, the middle of my shift, from midnight to six, was very peaceful and I had much time to dwell on my good fortune. When I finished my shift I would have a piece of bread or such and then sleep until five o’clock, when I would make myself dinner. As I at first had no refrigerator, dinner was, as you see, usually from a can—and it was wonderful what was available in cans and I have very modest needs, so it was very satisfactory. The seventh day—for me it was Monday—Tom and I switched shifts. We rarely had days off.

  “My first day at work was the happiest of my life. Surely, some of the people ignored me. But that’s to be expected, as they were very important people and I was just an elevator boy. In those days the number of famous musicians living in the Bonderman Building was probably greater than in some entire countries! Not only Americans, they came from all over Europe after the war. So close to Carnegie Hall, it was like living next to Valhalla. Those were the days before people traveled across the ocean on airplanes in six hours, so when they came here to concertize they stayed a lot longer and kept an apartment here. And with all the violin dealers in this building there were always great musicians coming and going. It was like a beehive, and the honey was music. Was that not so, Mr. Jacobus? You have been here many times over the years.”

  “Yeah. But more like wasps than bees. For violin dealers it’s not so much the music. For them, honey is money and the buzzing is b
usiness.”

  “Maybe that is so. Yes, yes, you are right. But there were some nice people who did say hello and a few even noticed that I was new to the elevator and wished me luck. I have always had a good memory and learned people’s names quickly and what floor they lived on, and what time they went to work, so that when the buzzer sounded for the fourth floor at seven fifteen, I knew to say, ‘Good morning, Mr. Blackman,’ when I opened the door. Or, when Mr.—oh, I won’t say his name—had a little too much to drink at one in the morning, I did not have to ask what floor to go to but instead would not only take him to the eighth floor, but would assist him to Apartment 8F, take the right key attached to his key chain, and help him to bed.

  “But, Detective Malachi, the best part of my job was the elevator itself. I was in a palace. It is the original elevator from when the Bonderman Building was constructed in the earliest years of the twentieth century. I believe I was told this so that I would be sure to take good care of it, but that wouldn’t have been necessary because the elevator was more my home than this room is. In the quiet hours I loved polishing the brass and rubbing the wood with linseed oil. I was occasionally complimented on the way I maintained the elevator by the ladies and gentlemen who lived in the building.

  “It did not take long to learn from Tom how to operate the elevator, though since there are no longer many elevator boys, few people realize that there was an art to operating it well. Not, of course, like the art of playing music.

  “Once I learned the basics, I began to experiment a little, to move it as fast as possible without the passengers feeling the speed, and then to slow it down and bring it to a stop with no bump. My goal was to be the René Allard of elevators! Isn’t that a funny thought, Detective?”