Death and Transfiguration Read online

  “You want me to dig up dirt on Vaclav Herza?” he asked. He knew he shouldn’t have agreed to this “lesson.” “What does this look like, a detective agency? The only shingle out front is the one that slid off the roof.”

  “If I can establish that over the years Herza has a pattern of harassing women,” O’Brien persisted, “then I’m sure I’ll have a strong case.”

  “Do you know the Berkshires well, Miss O’Brien?”

  “First time. It’s beautiful. Why?”

  “Because if you need some straws to grasp at, I know the manager of the Agway in Great Barrington who can help you to a whole bale of it a lot cheaper than hiring a lawyer. Herza’s the world’s greatest conductor. He’s untouchable. And as you well know, the unique history of Harmonium is that it’s almost exclusively a touring orchestra. I’m not going to go traipsing all over the world to find out if Vaclav Herza ever copped a feel.”

  “I should have guessed. You’re a man. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to be harassed. You don’t understand humiliation.”

  Jacobus froze. No one could interpret this silence, not even he, except that he knew that a large component of it was rage. She could stand there until hell froze over, for all he cared. He had nothing more to say.

  “So you’re not going to help me then?” she asked finally.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Then I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.”

  “Apology not accepted.”

  FOUR

  SATURDAY

  As he has done every morning for many years, Lubomir Butkus positions one hand under the soft forearm of Vaclav Herza and with his other clasps the great maestro’s hand, gently delivering him from the shower with loving care. Lubomir gingerly dabs Maestro’s ravaged body dry with a thick white Turkish towel embossed with a florid maroon VH. Herza sits facing a gilt-framed Baroque mirror as Lubomir administers Herza’s daily shoulder massage and shave, the latter starting from the top of his mottled head down to the base of his neck, using an old-fashioned straight razor honed impeccably by its Japanese manufacturer. In all these years, Lubomir has not once nicked his master’s soft skin, though the fire that nearly claimed the maestro’s life has left swaths of scar tissue as a permanent souvenir. With the wild mane that helped stamp his early fame thus impossible to restore, Herza has opted for total baldness. Unlike the shorn Samson, however, his power remains undiminished. Next, Lubomir applies the assortment of unguents and lotions that the doctors recommended as a salve for the burns that Maestro can still feel under his skin, that extend in angry pink patches from his head to parts of his face, left arm, torso, back, and legs.

  Lubomir swathes Herza in the silk kimono, gold with embroidered blue irises, a gift to the maestro from Hideo Saito, the legendary director of the Toho Gakuen Music School in Tokyo in gratitude for his performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the student orchestra twenty-five years before, which had cemented the unabated reverence the musicians of Japan have for him, culminating in the Order of the Sacred Treasure bestowed upon him by the Japanese government. With one hand on Lubomir’s arm and the other on the time-polished oak banister, Herza is judiciously escorted down the chandeliered staircase, the withered left side of his body never having recovered full strength and coordination after his stroke in 1968.

  Lubomir seats Herza at the breakfast table, opens the New York Times to the Arts and Leisure section and places it next to Herza’s Wedgwood place setting, then silently glides to the kitchen to prepare a pot of first flush Makaibari Estate Darjeeling tea, a one-and-one-half-minute boiled egg, and one slice of unbuttered wheat toast that is Herza’s unchanging morning meal. Lubomir slices open the pointed end of the egg, poised in its porcelain cup, exposing partially coagulated albumen and liquid yolk.

  After breakfast, Lubomir escorts Herza back upstairs into the bathroom, and while Herza relieves himself, Lubomir removes Herza’s outfit from the closet and polishes Herza’s black shoes. When the maestro emerges from the toilet, Lubomir dresses him in his dark blue suit (with white linen handkerchief carefully folded in the breast pocket), white shirt, and maroon cravat that he wears en route to every rehearsal. Finally, Lubomir places a black wool beret on Herza’s head, always at the same jaunty angle.

  Lubomir fetches Herza’s valise containing his rehearsal outfit, retrieves the alligator-skin briefcase containing his scores and baton from the study, and helps Herza down the stairs a second time, passing the breakfast room on their way out the door. Lubomir runs ahead to buzz for the elevator, which is opened by Manny the elevator operator. “Good morning, Maestro,” Manny says every day when Herza arrives. Manny has been instructed by his employer to greet all of the building’s eight residents with equal courtesy. He also bows curtly, though neither part of the greeting has ever elicited a response from the maestro.

  The elevator stops in the marbled lobby. Manny opens the door for Herza, with Lubomir in tow, and gives a heads-up to the familiar triumvirate huddled by the front desk. Their conversation abruptly terminated, they quickly disperse to their appointed positions. From behind the front desk, Raul, the concierge, secretes his Daily News and wishes Herza a good day on this beautiful, sunny summer morning, and is ignored in customary fashion. Oscar, the doorman, standing at attention, opens the front door of the apartment building and tips his cap. Herza, his eyes straight ahead, gives what someone who sees the best in people would call a nod as he passes by.

  The chauffeur, uniformed Paddy Donaghue, stands in soldierly fashion next to the gleaming black Lincoln Town Car, leased by Harmonium, parked close to the curb of the narrow one-way street. Because the curb is high, Donaghue is situated by the back right door on the street side. Grinding his heel on his half-finished cigarette, he opens the door when Herza emerges from his residence.

  With painstaking care, Lubomir eases the maestro into the backseat and hands him the briefcase, then takes his own place in front next to Donaghue, who starts the engine. At that signal, Manny, Raul, and Oscar resume their discussion of the Yankees’ prospects of making the playoffs.

  Everything according to the daily script except, however, today the maestro’s entourage is not making the forty-minute commute downtown to Carnegie or Avery Fischer Hall. Rather, after a series of turns, they head north, in which direction they will drive for three hours, to the Tanglewood Music Festival.

  FIVE

  Yumi answered after the first ring.

  “You want to go to the open rehearsal?” Jacobus asked without preamble. “It starts in an hour.”

  “Are you asking me on a date?” Yumi asked, teasing. “Did Sherry O’Brien turn you down?”

  “I don’t give a fig for a date.” Maybe if I were forty years younger, he thought. And if your name was Kate.

  “Well, I appreciate the offer, Jake, but I was just on my way up to the Clark in Williamstown like you suggested. Nine hours a day on those excerpts is all the music I can bear. It’s almost as boring as playing eight Phantoms a week on Broadway. I need a little diversion to keep my sanity. How about you keep me company?”

  “A blind man at an art exhibit? And you talk about sanity. I think I’ll pass on that. Maybe if you were going to MASS MoCA in North Adams, I’d take you up on it, but not the Clark.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because at MASS MoCA I’d have the satisfaction of not being able to see all that modern shit.”

  “Jake, I think your opinions about art are getting calcified in your old age.”

  “Old age has nothing to do with it. They were calcified when I was still young, but back then it was called good taste.”

  “Well, in that case I’ll definitely go to MASS MoCA, too, but if you need a ride, I’d be happy to drive you to Tanglewood. I’m staying at the Red Lion Inn, so I can be there in ten minutes.”

  “All right,” he said and hung up.

  Jacobus left Trotsky sleeping on the threadbare couch in the living room—the one that Jacobus had always liked to
snooze on until Trotsky usurped it for his own—and waited outside.

  He began his daily listening exercise, but habitual impatience overtook him. Where was Yumi already? he asked himself after about thirty seconds.

  “Let’s go,” he said when her car pulled up shortly thereafter. “We’ll be late.”

  “Good morning, Jake,” said Yumi.

  Once they were on their way, Yumi asked, “So what’s your interest in the rehearsal? You usually don’t care for open rehearsals. What is it that you call them? Half-fast performances?”

  “Yeah, but after all these years, I’ve never heard Herza in the flesh and he’s the last of the great old-school maestros, so I want to get to him before one of us kicks off.”

  “Don’t say that, please,” said Yumi, “even in jest.”

  “Sorry,” said Jacobus. It had been less than a year since the other three members of the New Magini String Quartet had been slain, and Yumi had almost been the fourth. The pain was still raw, and the prospect of a new life as concertmaster of Harmonium would help put that agonizing chapter behind her.

  Yumi made a right turn onto Lenox Road, a quiet lane that wound downhill through the woods and emerged at Tanglewood’s doorstep. Today, however, they encountered heavy traffic, all going to hear Harmonium and the great Vaclav Herza.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” asked Jacobus, who viewed traffic jams as an infringement on his life’s ticking clock.

  “Yes, of course,” said Yumi.

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “Because I would hit the car in front of me that’s going fifteen miles an hour.”

  “You think you’ve got your grandmother’s sense of humor, huh?”

  “No, I think I’ve got yours. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.”

  “That’s what Moses said,” he replied. “Assuming we do arrive by the time they play the last note, I also thought I’d get the lay of the land for you. See if there’s anything I can pick up from the rehearsal that might help you with your audition.”

  “Thanks,” said Yumi. “I appreciate that. When I played for you on Thursday, I think I was more nervous than I’ll be at the audition. Since then, I finished memorizing all the excerpts, like you did when you won the audition for the Boston Symphony.”

  “Don’t say that, please,” said Jacobus, “even in jest.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “We’re even.”

  That day, many years ago, when Jacobus won the BSO concertmaster position, he was stricken by sudden blindness, a condition called foveomacular dystrophy. Miraculously, he not only managed his way through the audition, he won it, because he had memorized the music. It was a hollow victory, of course; an orchestral musician needs to see the music and the conductor. Though Jacobus argued that he would be able to take on the challenge, the administration of the BSO disagreed and hired the runner-up.

  “Whatever,” said Jacobus.

  Yumi stopped the car.

  “What’s the problem now?” Jacobus asked.

  “No problem. We’re at the main gate. Right on cue.”

  Yumi reached over him and opened the door.

  “Enjoy the rehearsal,” she said and drove off.

  * * *

  Fifty yards away, the Lincoln is waved through the tree-lined Authorized Personnel Only gate, coming to a stop at the Guest Artist parking area behind the Tanglewood Shed, that most venerable of outdoor symphonic concert halls.

  Lubomir removes the valise containing Herza’s rehearsal clothes from the trunk. Donaghue opens the car door for Herza, who hands Lubomir the briefcase of scores that he has cradled protectively to his bosom. Lubomir assists him up the concrete steps—which Herza, like a toddler learning to walk, has to mount by hoisting his left foot to meet up with his right, step by step—through the backstage area and into the dressing room reserved for guest conductors. Herza stands in the middle of the room, arms outstretched like the Messiah on the cross, as Lubomir removes his cravat and white shirt, replacing them with a white linen rehearsal tunic that he buttons all the way to Herza’s throat. Herza sits at the desk while Lubomir brews a second cup of the Darjeeling tea he has brought from New York. He hands it to Herza along with his daily dose of Coumadin. After Maestro has swallowed the pills, Lubomir places the scores of the music to be rehearsed and Herza’s baton directly in front of him on the desk. Lubomir then exits the room, closes the door behind him, and stands guard.

  Herza closes his eyes and proceeds with his daily ritual of spreading his fingers and placing his hands on the unopened scores, by psychic osmosis silently absorbing inspiration, power, and love from the composer. Several minutes later, when it is time for the rehearsal to begin, Lubomir knocks on the door, waits twenty seconds, then opens it. He picks up the scores and baton from the desk.

  With his hand on Lubomir’s arm, Herza limps along the quiet corridor to the offstage area on the viola side of the stage. They pass a group of quietly conversing midlevel staff members whom Herza does not recognize. They say, “Good day, Maestro,” “Bravo, Maestro,” to which Herza shows no indication of hearing. The musicians are already onstage. A Tanglewood stagehand sets out Herza’s stool on the podium, specially designed to accommodate his physical disabilities. His left, stroke-withered leg is several inches shorter than his right, and if he stands for extended periods, his back revolts with incapacitating spasm. Lubomir hands the scores and baton to Randall Brimley, the orchestra librarian, who hands Lubomir a large blue mug of water. Lubomir leaves Herza’s side in order to place the mug on a stand next to the conductor’s podium. Brimley, following Lubomir, places the scores, unopened, on the maestro’s music stand, then sets the baton, placed diagonally, knob side at the bottom right, over the scores. Herza conducts everything from memory—indeed, he rarely opens his eyes when he conducts—but having the scores in front of him connects him to the source of his strength. Years ago, an impudent fool of a student accosted him backstage after a concert and asked him about his prodigious memory. He repeated Pierre Monteux’s famous aphorism: “I don’t memorize the score. I know the score.”

  * * *

  On a packed clay floor hardened by the footsteps of countless musical pilgrims, Jacobus had eagerly navigated down the aisle toward the stage of the open-sided Tanglewood Shed, his cane extended like the pole of a slalom racer, tapping its point against the chair back at the end of each row. From time to time he had to alter his course around obstructions in the form of other rehearsalgoers, but he managed to trace a path to the empty front row, and he slid toward its middle.

  Jacobus was long familiar with Herza’s recordings, especially those of Strauss and the Czech composers, for which he was considered the premier interpreter, but he had never “seen” Herza live. Jacobus didn’t have enough fingers and toes, and certainly not a good enough memory, to count all the conductors he had heard who pay infinite attention to the most minute details of the music but who are clueless how to synthesize those details into an overall conception of the music, an exercise akin to a non–English speaker memorizing Shakespeare with phonetic antiseptic perfection. Jacobus would bitch that the result was superficial, academic nitpicking, notable for its correctness but lacking essence, its ability to move the listeners’ emotions as compelling as the dissection of a formaldehyde-saturated frog on a high school biology workbench. Herza was one of the handful who had been able to see the forest and the trees, giving the music transparency of detail plus sweep, power, and depth, like a Turner sea.

  That Herza had overcome so many personal obstacles provided Jacobus with a sense of kinship, a sense of shared sacrifice perhaps, though the two had never met. Everyone knew the political part. How in 1956 Herza had fled Prague in the face of seemingly imminent invasion by the Soviets, who had just crushed the Hungarians; to his support—though from afar—of Alexander Dubček during the Prague Spring in 1968; and then his collaboration with the playwright turned political leader Václav Havel for the final liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Sov
iet bloc.

  But it was Herza’s determination after the fire, and then the stroke years later, that evoked Jacobus’s intense admiration. Severely burned in a car accident, there was a question whether Herza would even survive. That brash, handsome youthfulness, that famous mane, and that reckless arrogance, all of which evoked the image of the young Beethoven, was transformed in an instant into that ghoulishly scarred face and patchily tufted scalp. How could he appear again in public? How could he look at himself in the mirror?

  But he had. Undaunted, Herza returned to the concert stage, and the audiences, blinded by Herza’s personal power and musicianship, seemed not to notice his disfiguration in the least. Then, in 1968, the disabling stroke that prevented Herza’s triumphant return to Prague during the short-lived Dubček regime, a return that might have turned the tide of the world’s political history, left him almost unable to walk and slurred his speech. Yet again, Herza persevered. His music making became even more powerful, as if nourished, like Antaeus thrown to the earth, by adversity.

  * * *

  “Excuse me, sir,” said a voice that Jacobus immediately identified as a representative of that nemesis species, the usher. “Do you have authorization to sit in this section?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see it, please?”

  “I left it at home.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to get permission from the personnel manager to sit here.”

  “Look, honey, if you can’t tell, I’m blind. I need to sit up front so I can hear what the maestro has to say. Otherwise I might as well stay home and listen to the record.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we have our rules and—”

  “Excuse me, madam,” interrupted another voice, one that Jacobus had not heard for some time but also recognized instantly, “this gentleman is with me. Here’s my press pass.”