Death and the Maiden Read online

  “Yes, it’s true!”

  “No,” repeated Jacobus. “I just stepped in dog shit.”

  “So you have.” This time Haagen’s laughter was genuine. “Here, let me help you.” She escorted Jacobus to a nearby bench, took off Jacobus’s shoe, found a stick, scraped off as much of the offending excrement as possible, discarded the stick in a trash can, and replaced Jacobus’s shoe on his foot.

  “That’s one of the advantages of living out in the country,” he said. “You can let your dog out to crap in the woods. I’ll be smelling this for the next week. What were we talking about?”

  “I’ve forgotten.”

  “Whatever. Are you rehearsing the Smetana quartet today?”

  “No, just Schubert. Why?”

  “You mentioned you were doing it for an outreach. I’ve always enjoyed your playing of the viola solo in the beginning of the Smetana. Better than Trampler, Hillyer, even Michael Tree in my humble opinion. You play it with balls.”

  “I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Jacobus, but I find your choice of words insulting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Half of the life force of this earth is the feminine. We’re as capable as men are of expressing power and passion, as you’ve just acknowledged. I could just as appropriately tell you, Mr. Jacobus, that you play with cunt. Now, don’t you find that disgusting and offensive?”

  Jacobus laughed. “You have a point.”

  She added, “You may want to come tomorrow to the Rose Grimes and hear our Smetana program. It’s one we’ve done a lot for students, and I’ll admit that it is my favorite viola solo.”

  “Because it’s so passionate?” asked Jacobus.

  “No,” said Haagen, “because the others have no choice but to follow me!”

  TEN

  Haagen opened the Fifty-sixth Street stage door for Jacobus. It had been more than a decade—could it really have been that long?—since Yumi first played on the Carnegie Hall stage at a Victoria Jablonski master class and with such unforeseeable consequences. Jacobus shook his head at the irony that after that first disastrous performance, here was Yumi now, a veteran of this legendary stage. Though he hadn’t been to the hall for a few years, it was as if he were visiting an old friend’s familiar living room.

  As he stepped inside, he heard a voice. “Yeah, buddy?” it said. Ah! The security guard, with the tone of voice that almost unaccountably aroused in Jacobus a spontaneous rage, the voice that had no comprehension of the value of what it was guarding, that treated encroachers on its turf as an a priori enemy engaged in class warfare, that relished the abuse of insubstantial authority for no good reason and no good end. It reminded him of his parents’ fate. But here at Carnegie Hall!

  “There’s no panhandling on these premises,” the voice persisted.

  Jacobus raised his cane. “Who the—”

  Jacobus felt Haagen’s hand on his arm. “It’s okay, officer,” said Haagen, interceding.

  “And who may you be, Annie Sullivan?” said the guard. Jacobus heard a second male stifle a laugh. A stagehand perhaps.

  “That’s very witty,” said Haagen. Before Jacobus had a chance to tell the guard to go fuck himself, she continued. “My name is not Annie Sullivan. It is Annika Haagen,” she said politely. “The violist of the New Magini String Quartet. This is my colleague, the renowned teacher Daniel Jacobus. We’re here for a rehearsal. Now it’s your turn to tell me your name, because I’m going to have you fired.”

  Jacobus heard the buzzer as the inner door into the hall was unlocked. He felt Haagen take his arm in hers. “Schmucks,” she said in her lovely accent, as she led him along the carpeted corridor into the near-empty main hall.

  Afternoons at Carnegie were usually quiet affairs, empty but for musicians rehearsing or hall employees picking up last night’s programs or dusting off the seats. Today Jacobus sensed a good deal more bustle—lots of shuffling around, mezza voce conversations, equipment being pushed and hoisted.

  “What gives?” asked Jacobus. “What’s all the commotion?”

  “Getting ready for the big production. This is our first rehearsal with combined forces. Dancers getting into position. The film screen’s being hooked up at the back of the stage with lots of wires. I hope it doesn’t fall on us.”

  “What film?”

  “I’m sure Power will tell you all about it,” Haagen said.

  The ghosts of all the great—no, greatest—musicians who came from around the world to make their names in this place must be rolling in their collective graves, Jacobus thought. From the world premiere of Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony in 1893, to this multimedia travesty! Maybe they should have torn down the place back in ’60 and saved it from this fate.

  “If you see a black man out there in the seats, that’s my friend Nathaniel,” said Jacobus. “He might’ve arrived by now.”

  “A large black man?” asked Haagen.

  “Extra-large.”

  “With white hair?”

  “Jesus! He’s got white hair?”

  * * *

  Haagen led Jacobus about halfway down the hall. Nathaniel, typically, was sitting one seat in from the aisle, in order to accommodate Jacobus’s preference to sit directly on the aisle, where he wouldn’t have to trip over other concertgoers, making a nuisance of himself. Haagen excused herself to go warm up before the rehearsal.

  “So how was Flushing?” Jacobus asked Nathaniel without preamble.

  “Flushing? I just got back from three hours in Mother Russia! You should see Lenskaya’s house. Every inch is loaded with stuff—there was an army of those Russian dolls that fit inside each other.”

  “Matryoshka.”

  “No, it’s true! And Fabergé eggs too. Not the real, expensive stuff. Just low-cost, souveniry. Keepsakes, but, Mama, you could make a million Egg McMuffinskies with them. From the outside you think, now here’s just another modest semidetached house in Queens. But then you go inside with the rugs and the heavy curtains and the old furniture and the cut glass and all the tchotchkes—”

  “That’s Yiddish, not Russian,” said Jacobus.

  “Maybe, but they were still tchotchkes!” said Nathaniel. “One interesting thing was all the autographed photos in her study. You know I like that stuff. Must have been a hundred. Black and whites of her with musicians she played with in Russia. David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Kurt Sanderling. Even Dmitri Shostakovich. You name it.”

  “Mstislav Rostropovich?”

  “Last but not least. Seeing the two of them together in a photo, it’s no surprise they nicknamed her Mrs. Slav.”

  “I thought it had to do with the way she played.”

  “I’m sure it does, and if she were male she probably would’ve been as famous a cellist as he is. But I must say, even though she’s a little younger, the resemblance is pretty striking.”

  “Too bad for her. He’s got an underbite like a piranha. She’s probably not too thrilled with a nickname like that.”

  “Actually, she said she thinks ‘Mrs. Slav’ is pretty funny. And a compliment. In fact she was telling me, as we drank tea from her samovar—”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “—she was saying that she emulated Rostropovich in all ways. He was a national hero—”

  “Till he defected, anyway.”

  “Cynic. Even so, his passionate musicianship, his technique, his overall approach to the cello were contagious. She even uses the same type of bent end pin he does.”

  “The kind that makes the cello look like a narwhal?”

  “Yeah. I never went for that when I was performing. I tried it, but it made the cello more parallel to the floor so my left arm got sore extending it forward rather than down, which, it seems to me, is much more natural.”

  “Why do they bother with it, then?”

  “The advantage is that your right arm can work with gravity to get the bow into the string, making it easier to get a big sound. I suppose if you’re a career
soloist, it might make sense. But she’s thinking of switching away from it.”

  “Why?” asked Jacobus. “She getting tendinitis in her left arm?”

  “Yes, but not for that reason. Some cellists say the brand of end pin she uses gets stuck when you slide it back into the instrument when you finish playing and want to put the cello back in the case. Lenskaya said hers has been such a pain since she got back from the tour, it’s giving her tendinitis just trying to maneuver it.”

  “You cellists, with the end pins! At least that’s one thing violinists don’t have to worry about.”

  “You might want to try it. Just stick it through your neck. It’ll help you hold up your fiddle.”

  “Thank you for your suggestion. No wonder you went into insurance. Do you have anything worthwhile to share?” asked Jacobus, getting impatient. “Anything about Kortovsky? Remember him?”

  “Not really. She talked my ear off about the good old days when they were starving under communism and how, after rehearsing in the orchestra all day, they’d rehearse quartets at three in the morning with candlelight when it was twenty below and the wolves were howling outside the door, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about the current situation.”

  “So nothing interesting?”

  “Well, maybe two things, but they have nothing to do with Kortovsky. Guess where the original Magini Quartet’s from?”

  “Russia.”

  “I mean where in Russia? The original group, with Lenskaya, Vissman, Vladimir Greunig, and Lipinsky.”

  “I give up. Moscow.”

  “Nope.”

  “St. Petersburg.”

  “Guess again.”

  “For Chrissakes, Nathaniel. Chernobyl! They were based in goddam Chernobyl! Okay?”

  “Jake, pipe down! They haven’t even started rehearsing and you’re gonna get us kicked out. But you got it! That’s where they’re from. Everyone thinks Moscow because they studied there when they were younger, but they all had homes in Chernobyl. They were on tour in Europe in ’86 and were thinking about seeking asylum because they’re Jews—”

  “Wait a second,” said Jacobus. “‘Lenskaya’s’ not a Jewish name.”

  “No, but her husband’s a Jew. Was. That made her Jewish as far as Big Brother was concerned. When the reactor blew while they were on tour, that just iced the cake. They were afraid to go back for political and health reasons.”

  “But what about the husband?”

  “His name was Yurlinsky. Marin Yurlinsky, an engineer at the plant. According to Lenskaya, he tried to warn his superiors in advance that there was a danger of a catastrophe. Shoddy workmanship and shoddy oversight. Needless to say, they didn’t listen to him, and afterward to cover their tracks they sent him back into the contaminated site to restore order.”

  “And?”

  “And he died within four months, of radiation poisoning. All the other workers who went in and died became heroes. Yurlinsky became disappeared.”

  “Any pictures of him on the walls?”

  “I don’t know. Could be. There were a bunch of framed black-and-white photos in one of her tchotchke cases. They looked like family stuff. Might’ve been her and her husband with two little boys, but the pictures were kind of old. They could’ve been friends or relatives.”

  Jacobus heard footsteps, heavy and officious, approaching. Someone familiar with the territory. Maybe they would be getting kicked out.

  “What was the second thing?” asked Jacobus.

  “What second thing?”

  “You said there were two interesting things.”

  Jacobus felt a tap on his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir. The two of you can’t sit here. You’ll have to move.”

  “C’mon, Jake,” said Nathaniel.

  “And why is that?” asked Jacobus. Notwithstanding the recent exchange with the security guard, Jacobus was incapable of allowing the owner of a voice in charge to take it for granted that he was, in fact, in charge.

  “Because these seats are for the dancers.”

  “I always thought dancers dance. Since when do dancers sit?”

  “Is there a problem, Mehmet?” said a new voice that sounded higher up the food chain. Overtly cultured, thought Jacobus. Elitist, almost. Authoritative, though.

  “This gentleman refuses to vacate,” said the voice called Mehmet.

  “We’re guests of the quartet,” said Nathaniel in a tone that suggested hope for reconciliation without contradicting his friend’s intransigence.

  “Ah, you must be Mr. Jacobus and Mr. Williams,” said voice number two. “I’ll take it from here, Mehmet. Just tell Jonel and Fern to sit one row up … Better make that two.” The voice called Mehmet was now footsteps called Mehmet, and Jacobus heard them draw away toward the stage.

  “My apologies for the upset, gentlemen. My name is—”

  “Power Ramsey,” said Jacobus.

  “How did you ever know that?” asked Ramsey.

  “Good guess, I guess.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll enjoy our little production here. In all the years I’ve been director of The Movement I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about an event.”

  “Tell me about it.” Jacobus intended his tone to be dismissive, but Ramsey’s next remark was right at his ear level, so Ramsey must have missed the sarcasm and instead knelt down to respond. Losing my touch, Jacobus thought.

  “No doubt you know ‘Death and the Maiden’ far more deeply than I,” said Ramsey. “In fact, when I began to conceive this piece I came to think of myself as Everyman—”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Well, perhaps Everyman who also knows how to choreograph.”

  “Dancingman, shall we say?”

  “Shush, Jake,” said Nathaniel. “Let the man talk.”

  “And it occurred to me that Schubert’s music was so profound, so powerful, that it could accommodate a multidisciplinary treatment and not be marginalized in the process.”

  “Hence the dog and pony show?”

  “An amusing euphemism. My vision is to universalize the music’s life-and-death embrace, so the big-screen montage of photochoreography—”

  “Slide show.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Jacobus. No, no. A slide show would be demeaning. Photochoreography is an art unto itself. It has as much ebb and flow as music, as dance, as—”

  “Talking. Go on.”

  “Yes, our montage will be of moments frozen in time—”

  “Snapshots.”

  “—of genocide. World War II, Cambodia, Rwanda—that tragedy still so fresh in our minds and hearts. Millions, young and old, consumed by death before their time. Sometimes graphic, sometimes subtle, depending on the course of the music.”

  “Of course.”

  “And then, because Death is no stranger, and the bringers of death are so often among us—are they not?—the dancers will emerge from the audience itself.”

  “That wouldn’t be because backstage at Carnegie is too cramped for dancers, would it?” asked Jacobus.

  Ramsey forged on, apparently undaunted by Jacobus, who was increasingly exasperated that his jibes hadn’t been sufficient to get this guy to shut up.

  “They will be strategically seated in dozens of loci around the hall—including the very seat in which you now find yourself, Mr. Jacobus—emerging from their positions only in the final movement, their bodies entirely covered in formfitting white Lycra. As the music shifts from timbre to timbre, multicolored lighting will irradiate their costumes, transporting them through the entire spectrum, a metaphor of the passage from life to death, through light. And the coup de grâce, Mr. Jacobus: One by one each dancer will select an unsuspecting partner from the audience to join in a dance of deadly embrace, culminating in a collapsing human spiral directly in front of the musicians at the same instant the music and photochoreography end.”

  “Deadly embrace is right,” said Jacobus. “You get enough of those overweight investment bankers doing their
dipsy-doodles, and one of them’ll either have a heart attack or their BO will asphyxiate the whole audience.”

  “Thank you for that word of caution, Mr. Jacobus. I’ll be sure to take it to the planning committee. For now, though, the plan is for the hall to go completely dark for a frightening moment to set the stage, so to speak, for an archival film of Marian Anderson singing ‘Death and the Maiden.’ I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it—it’s recently been rediscovered and reprocessed—but it gives me the heebie-jeebies every time I see it. Once that’s over, the lights will come on and—”

  “Why all the doohickeys?” asked Jacobus.

  “Meaning?”

  “The dancers, the light show, the … photochoreography. It’s like tarting up the Mona Lisa in mascara and hot pants. Don’t you think Schubert’s music would be better served without any distractions? After all, you said it was because the music was so profound and powerful that you were attracted to it in the first place. Why diddle with perfection?”

  “Mr. Jacobus, music and dance have been inextricably intertwined for eons, ever since the caveman struck two sticks together to create rhythm for sacred movements—the rites to keep the predators at bay, the fire going, the gods appeased. It has remained thus ever since. One discipline lends itself to the other. Rhythm and movement. As for the light and the visual, just picture in your mind’s eye, if you will, Neolithic man dancing around the fire. The reflection of light on the cave wall. The primordial essence. I have tried to capture it. What is more basic than life and death, Mr. Jacobus?

  “Some people call my multidisciplinary work ‘enhancements.’ I fancy calling them ‘enchantments.’ Some people have called me an artist of vision—”

  “Which leaves me on the outside looking in,” Jacobus interrupted. “No hard feelings, but I’ll have to pass on the enchantments and settle for only the music, and it sounds to me like the quartet’s starting to tune up for it right now.”

  “Ah, yes! So they are. Excuse me,” said Ramsey. “I would love to tell you more about my…”

  “Vision,” said Jacobus.

  “Yes, but now I must rush off.”

  “Sorry you’ve got to go.”

  Once the sound of his footsteps disappeared, Jacobus said to Nathaniel, “See, blindness has it rewards. He can shove his photochoreography up his—”