It took a moment for Jelly to absorb the implications. She longed briefly for Thomas Beecham. Boult she adored; shy and formal though he seemed, she knew that exterior masked both a ferocious temper and a great heart. But Beecham took no nonsense from anybody. She and Myra both rather dreaded playing concertos with him – you never knew when you might get an actual rehearsal – but Beecham would have stood up to those thugs in Berlin. He’d have defied the lot. ‘What? They’ve moved the concert again?’
‘Precisely,’ drawled Boult. ‘To November. They say there are complications to do with Kulenkampff’s preparation of the violin part, and whether that’s true, I couldn’t say. What’s certain is that, just like last time, we have no choice but to move ours so that it’s after theirs. Young Mr Menuhin, who’s champing at the bit, is having all hell to deal with at Carnegie Hall because he also has to rearrange his concert for after Kulenkampff’s… ’
Jelly hesitated. The concerto’s sheet music would not be on sale until the day of its premiere – so Menuhin must have a photostat like hers. From Schott’s. Apparently he’d been taking a sabbatical until his 21st birthday; now it had passed. Perhaps he’s burned out, Alec had suggested. No, Adila countered: he’s regrouping. And practising, hard. The Schumann was to be his great international comeback, complete with the tale of its rediscovery – which, as reported thus far, contained not one word about a glass game, spirit messages, London, or the involvement of any violinist but the golden boy who pleaded so irresistibly with the Germans for permission to play it that they released it to him… Presumably the American reporters knew nothing of Germany’s race laws, which made prompt nonsense of their words.
‘Why is it Menuhin’s all of a sudden?’ she protested. ‘He never did a scrap of work to have it released.’
‘Never mind that, Jelly. We have to work with what we’ve got, as best we can. Therefore, please suggest a date after 26th November when you’re free and we can play this poor imprisoned concerto at last. Oh, and by the way… I’m afraid that rearranging the live transmission may not be as simple as one might like.’
‘Do you think you won’t be able to broadcast it now?’ It would be so much easier if the English would simply say what they mean.
‘As you know, Jelly, we plan things months in advance, and the detail involved in a broadcast is so complex that… ’
Jelly, on edge with nerves, didn’t want to cry down the telephone to the BBC’s head of music. ‘Is it all the fuss about… the messages?’
‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ he insisted. ‘We’ll try to broadcast it, we really will, but either we can play it in late November without a broadcast, or we can put it off for a few months, or… ’ He tailed off.
She didn’t believe him. Obviously people’s scorn of ‘spiritualism’ was poisoning the BBC against her too.
‘Perhaps the Germans want to derail us, stop us performing it altogether,’ she considered. ‘They won’t like someone who has Jewish relations playing their precious Aryan piece… ’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment. But incidentally… I’m told there is some interest in Jerusalem. Our broadcasting counterpart, the Chamber Orchestra of the Palestine Broadcasting Service, has heard about the concerto and is hoping to perform it.’
‘Jerusalem?’ Jelly reeled.
‘Their leader, Sasha Parnes, would be the soloist. The Nazis are not going to like that, either, but the cat’s out of the bag – this concerto will be public property the very second Schott is allowed to release the printed score. Neither they nor you can prevent that.’
‘All the more reason, then, that we must be able to do something about this. We can’t let them keep on stopping us.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Boult said.
Jelly didn’t like sarcasm. ‘Well, if you were me, what would you do?’
‘Hmm… ’ A silence while Boult mused. ‘He knows you from your cathedral tour, so I suppose you could always write to the prime minister.’
*
Jelly sat at her bedroom table, thinking hard. To bother Chamberlain over the date of a concert would be madness – even though he was the one person whose word might hold sway in Germany. Still, Alec had confided that he was not convinced the national hopes invested in the prime minister were entirely justified. He had come home from work distressed by news from Nuremberg concerning the Nazis’ largest rally so far, and meanwhile was dealing with Foreign Office issues further afield: in Palestine two British officials had been murdered, and in China, under invasion by Japan, the British ambassador had been wounded in an air raid and the aggressors refused to apologise. The legal aspects of all this landed plumb on Alec’s desk.
One thing worried him more than all the rest. Something odd, he told them, was going on near Weimar, at Buchenwald: a new type of prison camp in which they thought the Nazis were holding individuals they considered ‘enemies of the state’. Within select Foreign Office circles, several such camps were known to exist already, including one at Sachsenhausen, but now it seemed a much larger compound was being constructed. His colleagues were attempting to gather information, but he felt helpless in the face of such a thing; there was little anyone could do from London to prevent it. ‘You’re wearing yourself out,’ Adila fussed. His cough had worsened into a lung infection.
And at a time like this, Jelly wanted to write to Neville Chamberlain about Schumann. She herself had to laugh.
‘On the other hand,’ said Tovey, ‘you have to stand up for yourself, Jelly. Because, as you say, it is the time it is, and nobody else is going to do it for you.’
Jelly rolled a piece of paper into Anna’s old typewriter and began to bash out with two forefingers a letter to the prime minister.
Chapter 15
The next morning Adila went to the newsagent and bought every paper she could find that was likely to cover Horizons of Immortality and its association with Jelly and Schumann. At the dining-room table, the pages spread around them like a field full of landmines – and the detonators let rip.
After 15 minutes, Jelly, shattered, shook her head. ‘I can’t look at another one. I can’t.’
‘It’s nonsense, darling,’ Adila declared, though Jelly had never seen her so flummoxed. ‘What do they know? Nothing. They weren’t there with us. They didn’t see the glass. They can’t prove what we say isn’t true and they’re not even trying to. They’re writing out of their backsides.’
‘I don’t understand. How can they be so sure they’re right when they don’t know anything? They didn’t even call and ask.’
‘Darling, they were never going to believe us. They’d already made up their minds. Whatever we said, they’d have quoted us against ourselves, twisted things to make us look bad.’
‘But I thought newspapers were about reporting what happens, not about rubbishing it because people are too narrow-minded to listen.’
Adila passed her a fresh handkerchief. ‘They’ve got to fill those pages with something.’
‘But the world’s falling to pieces. Why pick on us?’ She scoured the reports for any mention of Anna; mercifully, there was none. ‘I can’t stop it being true just because it doesn’t suit them! We were there. We saw it. We experienced it. They weren’t. They didn’t. They know nothing.’
Jelly felt a pang of envy, glimpsing the closed bedroom door that protected Adila and Alec. She was accustomed to being alone, but last thing at night, exhausted and with her defences down, that weakness, a longing for love, might invade her. She refused to feel sorry for herself: she had chosen music over marriage, and, in the past, the dead over the living, so she must stand by her decision and manage without a human sanctuary. Her sister, though, could rely on an understanding husband with a sensible mind and a warm, embraceable body. Perhaps, thought Jelly, that was why Adila was so calm and strong: she was not facing this mess alone.
Just for a few minutes, she allowed herself to consider what might have happened if Ulli Schultheiss were in London – and not
German, and not so much younger, and not an impossible target for her pathetic longing. That was a mistake; in the morning his image was still in her mind, with the remembered sound of the Schumann piece he’d played on their Bechstein, once, several years previously.
‘For God’s sake, just speak to him,’ said Adila, when Jelly confessed her preoccupation. ‘Book yourself an international call. It can’t make things any worse.’
The Fräulein Kammerling who answered the phone in Mainz explained that Ulli was away, attending a premiere in Berlin. A softness in her voice told Jelly that she understood more than she was saying.
‘May I give him a message, Fräulein d’Arányi?’
‘Please don’t worry – it’s not important. Thank you for your help, Fräulein Kammerling.’
How kind she sounded. Jelly thought of the acid that ate through the newspaper columns, moulding every German to the same image, no more real than the derisory caricatures of herself written by people who’d never met her, never heard her play and never attended a glass-game session, let alone one with Adila. Why do people think they know things that they don’t know, then crucify other people who do know those things – because they don’t want to know, because they are afraid of truths that would dent their own preconceptions?
‘I need to go out somewhere,’ she told her sister. ‘I need to make sure the world is still there.’
‘Don’t be alone. I can’t go with you, I have to teach, but why not call Myra?’
*
In her new home in Hampstead Myra took a break from practising to feed Jelly strong tea plus biscuits on a willow-pattern plate. Jelly felt intimidated by her friend’s impeccable modern surroundings. The lease on the Carlton Hill house had expired and with the fruits of her American success Myra had bought a house on Wildwood Road, opposite the Heath Extension. It wasn’t much more than ten years old, though it was supposed to look Georgian. Compared to Hurricane House it felt square, tidy, peaceful and devoid of ghosts.
‘Let’s sit out on the terrace,’ Myra suggested, leading the way through her skylit studio to the garden. ‘It’s so delightful here that it can be quite hard to concentrate on music.’
It was indeed a haven; Jelly let the sun warm her skin while she explained, as briefly as she could, some of the ongoing troubles.
Myra’s cynicism was no more or less than she expected, though at least she was generous about it. ‘My dear, if you unleash “spirit messages” as a sane reason for your actions, I’m afraid you have to anticipate that 95 per cent of the modern public will be poised to die laughing. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. It’s simply that that’s how people are.’
‘They’re sniping at Erik and the book without even looking at it,’ Jelly protested. ‘And me and the concerto too.’
‘You have to be tougher, Jelly.’ Myra poured out leaf tea through a strainer. ‘One day you’ll look back on this and, I promise you, you’ll laugh.’
Jelly sipped the tea, wishing she could believe her.
‘The important thing is to focus on the music.’ Myra insisted. ‘Everything else is so much nonsense. I can see it’s a mess, but you have to insulate yourself and concentrate on what matters, which is that you have to play this concerto to the very best of your considerable abilities. Make sure you know it inside out and backwards and standing on your head, then go in and play it like an angel. More than that, play it like a professional. And for goodness’ sake, make sure you get enough rehearsal.’ Myra had a justifiable bee in her bonnet about how little rehearsal London orchestras provided. ‘It’ll be the first time the orchestra’s seen the piece, of course – and Schumann can be a real pest.’
Jelly nodded. After two nights with no more than an hour of sleep, she’d been practising to escape, playing the notes but unable to absorb herself in the music. Concentration was becoming almost impossible. ‘It’s so nice to have a discussion that feels normal.’
‘Exactly. In your world of spirits, you mustn’t forget the here and now. Have some biscuits, Jelly, and do try to relax. You’re so tense. It can’t be helping that arm trouble.’
The telephone rang. Jelly started so violently that her tea splashed onto her lap. A few moments later, the bespectacled figure of Myra’s assistant, Anita, appeared at the French windows: ‘Myra, I’m afraid it’s a newspaper person… ’
‘Thank you, dear – I’ll deal with it.’ Myra strode off to the hall.
‘Yes?’ came her distant voice, while Jelly mopped up the spilled tea with a napkin. ‘Yes, this is Myra Hess. Who’s that? What is this about?’
No, Jelly pleaded silently. Not here, too.
‘Have I spoken to whom?’ Myra put on her crystalline schoolmistress voice. ‘No, I have not.’
Jelly stilled, listening.
‘I have no knowledge of spirit worlds,’ said Myra. ‘Frankly, I find our present world quite bothersome enough… Jelly d’Arányi? No, I have not spoken to Jelly d’Arányi… That’s as may be, my dear fellow. But I do not know anything about this matter, and I cannot help you. Goodbye.’
‘Myra, you’re an angel,’ said Jelly.
‘Don’t worry.’ Myra, returning, patted her shoulder. ‘Everything will be fine.’
Jelly thought of Anna coughing blood on the station stairs; of Tom, slipping from one world into the next; of Tovey – much younger – pacing through Oxfordshire with Onkel Jo. George, auburn hair scraped back, painting walls gold and black in the Yeatses’ Oxford apartment. Bartók and Elgar, eating her up with their eyes while she played; all her years of concerts and premieres and fame and – how had it come to this? All that interested anybody was whether she believed she had been in touch with the spirit of Schumann – and if she did, it meant she was a liar, when she was not. Had everyone forgotten the cathedral tour? Had everyone forgotten Tzigane? Why must everything come down to this one bizarre incident?
‘I must go home,’ she said. ‘I am so tired.’
*
There, another disappointment awaited her.
‘Ulli telephoned,’ said Adila. ‘He says he will try again, but he’s writing to you in any case.’
‘I missed him?’ Jelly despaired.
‘He said I should tell you to concentrate on the music and don’t worry about anything else.’
It was just the sort of message Tom would have left. Jelly could see in Adila’s eyes that she had thought of that too.
Another sleepless night, more ringing of phones, more letters on the doormat. Adila opened and filtered them.
‘Head cases.’ She crumpled one and tossed it backwards over her shoulder. ‘Either they poke fun at spirit messages, or they say they’ve had them too. There’s not much in between.’
Jelly scoured the envelopes for any sign of Ulli’s writing. Nothing. Were letters from Germany being delayed by censors, perhaps? At their end, or in Britain too?
‘Let well alone,’ said one postcard. ‘Schumann’s orchestral music is dubious at the best of times. Why drag another dull, dreadful piece out of a resting place to which its dedicatee was right to consign it?’
‘My dear Miss d’Arányi, your invaluable work has allowed the triumph of the soul,’ read another, signed by someone claiming a fancy title in an esoteric order. Jelly tossed it after the others.
‘You see? It’s fun, playing ball!’ Adila encouraged her.
The next missive, unsigned and scribbled in block capitals, contained the words: ‘Go back where you came from, Jewish whores.’
‘Adi, they know where we live,’ Jelly pointed out, trying to bite back tears. She didn’t want to reveal the images in her head: bricks, broken glass, cricket bats.
‘They wouldn’t dare,’ said Adila, who must have sensed it all. ‘Everything’s been quieter since Cable Street.’ The battle between the British Union of Fascists, their opponents and the police was nearly a year ago. That didn’t change the hate-mail on their table.
‘I hope you’re right,’ was all Jelly could say.
&n
bsp; The second post brought a very different letter: this time, on headed paper from 10 Downing Street, signed by Neville Chamberlain. It declared that the Foreign Office would take up the case with Berlin; and that he hoped all would go well, since he, personally, was looking forward to hearing her play the concerto.
The prime minister was on her side, and he had taken the trouble to reply. Jelly was speechless with amazement.
Adila wouldn’t quite meet her eye. ‘Whether they can achieve anything, even if they do write… ’
‘So… ’ She felt deflated. ‘Do you think he’s fobbing us off?’
‘Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn’t – but it may not make much difference either way.’
‘There has to be hope, if that’s what he says… He’s the prime minister! If I can’t trust him, whom can I trust?’
Tovey. She trusted Tovey. In the study, she picked up the telephone; hearing his voice in his Edinburgh office, she nearly burst into tears again.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I can’t do much, but I can do two things, if they’ll help. First, don’t write to the papers yourself. Let me do it. I think I can, if not exactly stop things, then at least introduce a note of rationality. All right?’
‘Oh, Donald, thank you… ’
‘As for the postponement, look at this another way. Play the piece at the BBC if and when you can. But come and play it in Edinburgh too, with my orchestra at the university. There’s nothing in the world I’d like better than to conduct it for you. Whatever else happens, we’ll give this concerto the resurrection it deserves, together.’
‘You angel! But Donald, all the fuss… ’
Ghost Variations Page 22