An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 45

  "Clarinet quintet? This is absolutely crazy. Well, order it, I suppose. No, no, don't order it. I'll get back to you."

  The main public music library in London opens, astonishingly enough, at one in the afternoon, so I decide to try the one in Manchester instead.

  I phone the Henry Watson Music Library, my second home when I was a student in Manchester - and, even more crucially, for three years between school and college when I had to earn a fitful living there. I could not afford scores and music in those days. If this library had not existed, I don't know how I could have held onto my dream of becoming a musician. I owe it so much; surely it will allow me to owe it a little more.

  A deep male voice comes onto the line. I explain what I want.

  There's a tone of slight surprise in his response. "This arrangement, it's by him, you mean? Yes, of course, of course, if there's an opus number it would be, wouldn't it? ... Just a moment."

  A long wait. Two, three minutes. Finally:

  "Yes, we do have a set of parts for a number of quintets by Beethoven: your one's among them. Let's see now: there's 4, 2.9, 104 and 137. This edition is published by Peters, but I don't know if it's still in print. We've had it for yonks. Since the twenties, if not earlier. And you'll be pleased to hear that we also have a miniature score - one of the Eulenburgs. Pretty ancient too. This one has 'ioth August, 1916' on it. Well, one learns something every day. I must admit I'd never heard of opus 104."

  "I can't thank you enough. Now the only problem is, I'm in London."

  "That shouldn't be difficult. We do interlibrary loans, so any reputable library could ask us for it."

  46 | VIKRAM SETH

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  "The Westminster Music Library for example?"

  "Yes, I suppose so. They've had their, well, tribulations, but they should still, I suppose, be able to tell a trio from a quintet."

  I smile. "You're right, it's not in the best of shape," I say. "But I hear you've had a few problems of your own these last few years. Council growlings and so on."

  "Well, there's been a lot of turmoil ever since 1979. We haven't fared too badly compared to some. The thing is to keep going."

  "I have a lot to thank your library for," I say. "I was in Manchester myself for seven years."

  "Ah."

  As we speak, the curve of the walls comes to my mind, the light through the windows, the heavy mahogany shelving. And the books, the wonderful scores, which I could borrow even before I joined the RNCM - when I was scrabbling about to survive and save, unsupported by any academic or musical institution at all.

  "By the way," I continue, "the last time I was in Manchester I noticed you had equipped yourselves with modern shelving and got rid of the lovely old mahogany stuff."

  "Yes." He sounds a bit defensive. "It's good solid shelving, but, well, a bit slippery. Once we've overcome the slipperiness it'll suit our needs very well."

  "How do you plan to do that?"

  "Tape. Or sandpaper."

  "Sandpaper?"

  "Yes, sandpaper - it works very well. Yes, I'm in favour of sandpaper myself. Odd thing about sandpaper: it seems to know how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth . . . Well, I won't reshelve these. I'll keep them aside, shall I, with a note saying we're expecting a loan request from London?"

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 47

  "If you would. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed."

  I can hardly believe it. I will play this quintet as soon as I get the music. The Maggiore can borrow a second viola player. I know that, unlike with the trio, nothing will seize me up or paralyse my heart and arm. But now I am hungry to hear it. Somewhere in London there must surely be a recording of it.

  I get the bus and sit upstairs at the very front. It is a freezing, clear day. The wind pries through the edges of the pane in front of me. The dried plane leaves have been blown onto the road. I can see through the bare trees to the Serpentine.

  Soon, though, I am on Oxford Street, the antithesis of greenery and water. Red buses and black cabs, like two hostile species of giant ants, take over the traffic lanes. On the packed pavements, pre-Christmas shoppers scurry about like demented aphids.

  I go to every store I can find - Tower, HMV, Virgin, Music Discount Centre, the works - and talk to innumerable sales clerks and strain through reams of fine print in the CD bible before it really comes home to me that there is no CD of this work and that there has almost certainly never been one.

  Frustrated, I phone Piers and ask him for advice. He tells me he thinks he's heard of the piece, but can't advise me on how to get hold of a recording. I then phone Billy, who, oddly enough for a thoroughly modern composer, is a great believer in the virtues of vinyl.

  "Mm," says Billy, "it's a long shot, but you could try Harold Moores. They have a whole lot of old records: there might be something there. You're in the area anyway. No harm in giving it a shot."

  48 | VIKRAM SETH

  He gives me directions and adds: "It would be wonderful to play if there is such a thing."

  "There's no 'if about it, Billy. I've managed to locate parts and a score."

  "Oh, I'd love to examine the score," says Billy with fervour, his compositional persona coming to the fore. "I'd love to. I mean, it's recycling, isn't it, but it's not just recycling. He would have had to make a lot of changes I mean real changes. How can a single cello do double duty? And what about the broken chord passages on the piano? That wouldn't suit strings at all, would it? And . . ."

  "Billy, I'm really sorry, I've got to go. But thanks a lot. Really. See you this evening."

  I rush off on my quest, revitalised, and locate the shop. After the glass-and-chrome titans of Oxford Street, frenetic with escalators and decibels and security guards, Harold Moores is a Dickensian haven, with a few dubious-looking people flicking their way sleepily through cardboard boxes. I am directed to the basement, and look through whatever's on offer. I talk to an old man, who is quite helpful but, in the event, unable to help.

  "You're sure you don't mean opus Z9?"

  "No."

  "Well, write down your name and address on this card, and if anything comes in we'll contact you."

  Upstairs, I notice a preoccupied-looking man standing behind a counter at the back of the shop. I am on my way out, and I know it is hopeless, but I try him on the offchance.

  He closes his eyes and taps his lips with his index finger. "You know, this rings a bell. I don't want to be too optimistic, but would you mind going downstairs again? There's a pile of Eastern European recordings that

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 49

  lying around for a while. I haven't yet have b^enth^m u^nder composers, but I have a faint classé Of course, l may be wrong - or even if I'm

  class"1 Of course, l may be wrong inkli118 ' -oU]d have been sold already." right'/ ^jnutes he Pull« a record out In ftVfethe sleeve, all^ hands it to me. side» ot

  llliv'- rO1-^ "av 11

  rieht' minutes he Pulls a record out, examines both & five fl» j u i .

  In fiVfethe sleeve, all^ hands it to me.

  Joe 0»

  I-I5

  t Street Ï catcn the bus home. The front seat is Oll p.egellj sit ky a window halfway along. Behind me

  take11' S,° ,eft French schoolgirls are giggling and chat-

  i if a d°

  hal1 . Arguing-

  terin^ r the pre?cioi'S record. The photograph on the

  1 sav°utf,lvs a jarge room, stately in brown and dull sleeve P° 0oor gleaming with elaborate parquetry, an gold' theecj Assortment of vases and paintings arranged uflclUtteJ th^e, a chai^elier, a Persian rug, a valanced her6 iin iflfir out to a farther room, and that to a room

  here

  herc jflg out to a iuii-«cr room, i"u tudt iu a room door ^pe he -whole suits full of light: a pleasing prelude to bey°n | delights with'n- The one slight oddness is a the viny tand in the rni^le of the floor, of the kind that I vvO°den js usually attached to
plush red ropes that keep ifli3£'ne ub(ic. Cculd if not have been moved? Is it stuck

  llCP11 --..UYVUV-

  back floof? Is it: in t>lCt an article of furmture: a hatto thef , a single hat?

  .^nu l i- . . .«„ into rwf^..^ Strfft thf Fr^n^V,

  to

  the

  stand . bus turns into Oxford Street, the French

  *s/is start to applaud. sch°olg aretwo Beethi'veri string quintets on the LP: my

  ï11^ so desperate!)' s°ught, so astonishingly found; C tllin°r' in E flat ni3)or* another complete surprise, and °n reCa|j t[ie librarian mentioning in passing its th° ber, 4- They^vere recorded (with an extra viola °PUS nv the Suk Qujrtet and issued in 1977 under the

  Piayer) b>

  » I ,r T l^ ^. _

  <°

  v'IK RAM SETH

  Czech label Supraphon. According to the sleeve note, the members of the quartet, being attached to orchestras, "enjoy only limited opportunities for concert appearances, but they have made the most of them. They make a systematic effort to present some less popular works V which they feel are being unfairly neglected, and invite wfv' outside instrumentalists for joint performances of works for unusual combinations, which the public otherwise hears only rarely."

  Bravo. Bravo Suk. Bravo Supraphon. What would I have done if it had not been for you? In twenty minutes I will be back in my flat, but I won't listen to it immediately. Late tonight, after the rehearsal, I'll come home, light a candle, lie down on my duvet, and sink into the quintet.

  As the bus trundles fitfully along Oxford Street, held up by bus-stops, traffic lights, congestion and the odd crazy pedestrian weaving his way across, the French schoolgirls turn animatedly to what I think is a discussion of the merits of rival cosmetics. I turn back to the sleeve.

  The Suk Quartet, founded in '68, was originally called Quartet '69, a name quite clearly not thought through. One year later, however, "it adopted, with the agreement of the executors of the estate of the composer Josef Suk, its present name."

  So my first impression that its name must have had something to do with the violinist Josef Suk was entirely wrong. Or maybe it wasn't, because I notice that the German text doesn't mention the word "composer", and nor does the French. But the violinist was, after all, the great-grandson of the composer . . . who, if I recall, was himself the son-in-law of Dvorak, who, like me, was a butcher's son. My thoughts are rambling furiously now, and I look up from my record to see why we aren't moving.

  AN EQUAL MUSIC

  51

  We are stuck behind a line of buses just after the traffic light at the m,dpoint of Selfndges. I turn my head back slightly to see one of my favourite landmarks, the grandiose lapis-robed statue of the Angel of Selfridges, with her attendant mermen kneeling in homage. She and her eccentric building are the only things on Oxford Street that make me smile.

  My eyes do not reach the Angel of Selfridges.

  Julia is sitting five feet away from me, reading a book.

  1.16

  In the bus directly opposite, at the window directly opposite, is Julia. Her bus has stopped at the traffic light.

  I begin to pound the window and shout, "Julia! Julia! Julia! Julia! Julia!"

  She cannot hear me. We are in separate worlds.

  Stop reading, Julia. Look. Look out of the window. Look at me. Oh God.

  Around me the passengers stop talking. The schoolgirls gasp. In the bus opposite no one seems to notice.

  I keep pounding the window. At any moment her bus or mine could move off.

  She smiles at something in the book, and my heart sinks.

  A man sitting behind her notices me and the cornmotion that has resulted. He looks mystified but not alarmed. I gesticulate and point desperately - and, with great hesitation, he taps Julia on the shoulder and points at me.

  Julia looks at me, her eyes opening wide in what? astonishment? dismay? recognition? I must look wild my face red - my eyes filled with tears - my fists still

  5Z | VIKRAM SETH '

  clenched - I am a decade older - the lights will change any second.

  I rummage around in my satchel for a pen and a piece of paper, write down my telephone number in large digits, and hold it against the glass.

  She looks at it, then back at me, her eyes full of perplexity. , . •

  , Simultaneously, both buses begin to move. v

  I My eyes follow her. Her eyes follow me.

  I look for the number at the back of the bus. It is 94.

  I grab my record and get to the stairs. I am given a wide berth. The schoolgirls are whispering in tones of wonderment: "Fou." "Soûl." "Non. Fou." "Non. Soûl."

  The conductor is coming up the stairs. I can't get past him. I have to stand aside. I am losing time, I am losing it.

  Finally I get down, push my way past a couple of people, and jump off the moving bus.

  Weaving across the traffic, I get to the other side. I have lost too much time. Her bus has moved away. It is far ahead, with a number of buses and taxis in between. I try to push through the crowd, but it is too thick. I will never catch up.

  A taxi lets out a passenger. A young woman, her hands full of shopping, is about to grab it when I interpose myself. "Please," I say. "Please."

  She takes a step back and stares at me.

  I get into the cab. To the taxi-driver I say: "I want to catch up with the Number Ninety-four in front."

  He half turns around, then nods. We move forward. The lights turn yellow against us. He stops.

  "Couldn't you go through?" I plead. "It's not red yet."

  "I'll get my licence took away," he says, annoyed. "What's the hurry anyway? You won't save much time."

  "It's not that," I blurt out. "There's someone on that

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 53

  bus I haven't seen for years. I've got to catch it. She might

  get off it- i • i •

  "Take 't easv> mal:e>" says the driver. But he tries his best. Where our single lane broadens out for a bus bay, he overtakes a bus or two. Then the street narrows and we can do nothing. Suddenly everything slows down again. Only couriers on bicycles squeeze swiftly through between the lanes of traffic.

  "Can't you try to get off Oxford Street and join it further along?"

  He shakes his head. "Not here you can't."

  After one more tricky feat of overtaking the driver says: "Look, mate, I'm nearer but, to be quite honest, I won't make it, not on Oxford Street. It's usually slow but not as slow as this. Your best bet now is to get out and run for it."

  "You're right. Thanks."

  "That's two pounds sixty."

  I only have a five-pound note in my wallet and I can't wait to be given the change. I tell him to keep it and grab my satchel.

  "Hey! Not that door," he shouts as I open the one on the right. But I know I have no chance against the crowds on the pavement. My one hope is to run between the opposing streams of traffic.

  Sweating, diesel-gassed, unable to see clearly through my most inconvenient tears, I run and gasp and run. On the other side the traffic speeds up, but ours remains blessedly still.

  I catch up with the bus a little before Oxford Circus. I cut across and get on. I try to run up the stairs but can't. I walk up slowly, in hope and in dread.

  Julia is not there. Where she was sitting are a small boy and his father. I go to the very front and look back at

  54 | VIKRAM SETH

  every face. I go downstairs, I look at every face. She is not there.

  I keep standing. People glance at me and turn away. The conductor, a black man with grey hair, seems to want to speak, but doesn't. I am not asked for my fare. The bus turns onto Regent Street. At Piccadilly Circus, I get off with all the others. I cross streets, moving where «'those around me move. The wind blows about small pieces of debris. I see the sign of Tower Records in front of me.

  I close my eyes in shock. My satchel is on my shoulders but my hands are empty. I have left my record i
n the taxi.

  Under the arrow of Eros I sit down and weep.

  '. .. . . .' I-I7 ' ' . ;

  Under the statue of Eros, among the tourists, drugpushers and rent boys, I sit. Someone speaks to me but what he says I cannot fathom.

  I get up. I begin walking down the length of Piccadilly, through an underpass peopled by the cold and wretched, across Hyde Park, till I get to the Serpentine. I have disburdened myself of what coins I had. A white sun slants low. Geese honk. I sit on a bench and put my head in my hands. After a while I walk on. Eventually I get home.

  The light on my answering machine is flashing and I press the button quickly. But there is nothing: a message from Billy; a message from the double-glazing people; a message from someone who thinks I am the London Bait Company.

  How could it have been? How could anyone in a few seconds memorise seven random illegibly scrawled digits?

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 55

  But I am in the phone book. Surely, having seen me, she will know how I am to be traced.

  It was her. I know it was her. And yet could I have been as mistaken with my eyes as with my ears: when someone else was playing on the radio and everything said to me that it was her? Her gold-brown hair, worn longer now, her grey-blue eyes, her eyebrows, her lips, her whole well-loved face, there could not be two such faces in the world. She was no further from me than the seats on the other side of the aisle, but she could have been in Vienna. Her expression - it was Julia's expression

  - even the tilt of her head when she read, the way she smiled, the absorption.

  A black coat against a day such as this, a peacock-blue scarf at her neck. What is she doing in London? Where was she going? Where did she go? Did she get off to look for me? Did we cross each other? Was she standing on the pavement somewhere, scanning the multitude and crying?

  The two layers of glass between us, like a prison visit by a loved one after many years.

  Buses are infamous for travelling in convoys. Could there have been another Number 94 just in front in which she was still sitting when I had given up hope? Why think of this now, what use in thinking of it?