An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  Julia shakes her head. "Nothing. Nothing. And I don't want anything. And nor do you. Fax me in a day or two. This is my number."

  "Fax you?"

  "Yes. And - Michael, I know this sounds stupid - fax me in German . . . It's a machine we both use, and I don't want James to worry -"

  "No. Incidentally, your eyes are extremely blue this morning."

  "What?" She looks dismayed. "I don't understand-"

  "Your eyes. Sometimes they're blue-grey, sometimes blue-green, but this morning they are simply blue."

  Julia blushes. "Please stop it, Michael. Don't talk that way. It upsets me. I really don't like it. I'm not twentyone any more."

  I stand with her outside my door. The lift comes. She enters. Her face is framed by the little noughts-andcrosses grid of glass in the outer door. There is a click, and the inner door, smooth steel, slides swiftly across her troubled smile.

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  -•••*'•-" 3-9 • " '- ••••••'• '• • •

  We have gathered for a rehearsal of a programme of twentieth-century quartets - Bartok, Shostakovich, Britten - but all that has gone by the board. For the last halfhour we have been discussing among ourselves the question of whether to take up the Stratus offer.

  Helen is glaring at Billy. Billy is looking uncomfortable.

  The problem that Billy has just pointed out is easy to state and hard to solve. If the "Art of Fugue" is to be performed by a string quartet in its designated key of D minor - and Billy will hear of nothing else - some of the passages for the second-highest voice (played by me) fall below the compass of the violin. I can play them on a regular viola, and this presents no real difficulty. But in addition, a number of passages for the third-highest voice (played by Helen) fall as much as a fourth below the compass of the viola. And here's the rub.

  "I can't tune it down a fourth, Billy. Don't be idiotic. If you insist on the same key, we'll simply have to transpose those bits up an octave," says Helen.

  "No," says the adamantine Billy. "We've been through all this before. That's just not an option. We've got to do it right."

  "Well, what can we do?" asks Helen, desperate. "Well," says Billy, not looking at anyone in particular, "we could get a cellist to do those particular contrapuncti, and you could do the rest."

  All three of us turn on Billy. . - ,

  "No way," say I. ! ft - -

  "Ridiculous!" says Piers. -.•••"•?;.i: '•'-''• '•.'•-, >: >s-> "What?" says Helen. '-.- "" ••-'*.--,•-: ,-,>;.<• •* •:-•• Billy's little son, Jango, has been playing by himself in the far corner of Helen's living room. He senses his father

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  is under attack and comes over. Occasionally Billy's wife, Lydia, who is a freelance photographer, leaves Jango with him, and if it's a rehearsal day Billy - and the rest of us - have to manage as best we can. Jango is a nice kid, and very musical. Billy says that when he's practising, Jango listens to him for hours, and sometimes dances along. But he isn't likely to disturb us when we're playing, despite the dissonances of our century.

  Now Jango looks at all of us, worried.

  "Upsadaisy," says Billy, and hoists him onto his knee.

  Helen is still shaking her red-ringleted head at Billy in a Medusa-like manner. "I wish Erica had never mentioned this wretched idea. I was getting so psyched up," she says.

  " Can't you tune the viola down a fourth - at least the lowest string? Or would it become impossibly slack?" says Billy.

  His artless suggestion meets with a look of disgust.

  "Sometimes, Billy," says Helen, "I think you are the most idiotic of us all. I've just told you I can't."

  "Oh!" is all Billy can say by way of response.

  "So - do we say no to Erica?" asks Piers calmly. "It was never such a brilliant idea in the first place."

  "No, we don't, Piers, we do nothing for another week. I need time to think," says Helen.

  "Think about what?"

  "Just to think," says Helen sharply. "This is the one absolutely amazing thing I get to do, and you're taking it away from me. I won't let you. It's just like you, Piers. You're obviously delighted by all this."

  "Come on, come on," says Piers. "Shall we get on with the rehearsal? We've got a lot to get through."

  "Can we, I wonder -" says Billy tentatively. "Just before the rehearsal, I mean -"

  "Can we what?" asks Piers, exasperated.

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  "I promised Jango a bit of Bach if he promised to be good."

  "For heaven's sake," says Piers. Even I am a bit taken aback by Billy's insensitivity.

  "Oh, why the heck not?" says Helen to our surprise. "Let's do it."

  So I tune down quickly, and we play through the first contrapunctus of the "Art of Fugue". Poor Helen. I glance to my left, but now she is showing no obvious distress. I notice that Piers is looking at her as well, with a certain brotherly awareness. Billy is gazing at his son, who is sitting in front of him with his head at an angle. How much he is getting out of all this at his age is unclear, but from the expression on his face he is clearly enjoying it.

  It is too quickly over.

  "That was not a farewell," says Helen with decision. "That was an au revoir. We are not going to let it go."

  ; -f:'- ' ' •"--:' 3-10 ' •: •

  The phone rings early the next morning. I am lying in bed thinking of Julia, but don't succeed in conjuring her up on the line.

  "Michael?"

  "Yes. Yes. Helen - ?"

  "It's a good thing it is. Remember, if you hear a woman's voice, never volunteer a name. If you're wrong, she'll be upset."

  "Helen, do you know what time it is?"

  "All too well. I haven't slept a wink. I look frightful."

  "What's all this" - I yawn - "about?"

  "Why is Billy like that?"

  "Like what?"

  I54

  VIKRAM SETH

  "Unchocolatey. Soft with a hard centre."

  "Billy's just Billy."

  "Talk to him. Please."

  "On something like this it'll do no good at all."

  "You think it'll harden his position?"

  "No, Helen, you know as well as I do, it won't harden his position, it simply won't change it." '«"'"Yes, I suppose I do. Which is why you're to help me."

  "Helen, I love Bach, and I would love to take up the viola again, and for once the two of us would have really fantastic parts, but there it is. What can I do? Piers has probably told Erica by now, and she's told La Shingle."

  "No, he hasn't. I made bloody Piers promise not to say anything to bloody Erica for a week."

  "Well, where do I come into it?"

  "You're going to help me find a viola that I can tune down a fourth."

  I take a couple of breaths. "Helen, you know and I know that the viola - any viola - is way too small even for the sound it makes. You can't tune it down further. You certainly can't tune it down a fourth."

  "I will. I have to. I'll get a socking great seventeen-inch Gasparo da Sale, and enormous fat strings and ..."

  "... and an osteopath, and a physiotherapist and a neurologist, and even then it wouldn't work. Helen, even I find anything above sixteen inches uncomfortable. I'm telling you, as someone who's had problems with his fingers -"

  "Well, I'm as tall as you," says Helen, obsession obliterating vanity. "And you are used to the violin, so of course you'd find a big viola difficult. And I've spoken to Eric Sanderson. And he thought it was possible."

  "Did he really?"

  "Well, he ... he said it was an interesting proposition.

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  We're going round to see him at three. I assume you're not doing anything this afternoon? I'll take out a loan if I have to, and get him to make me an instrument."

  "When did you speak to Eric Sanderson?"

  "Just before I called you."

  "Helen! You're a public menace."

 
; "Well, he has a couple of young kids, so I expect the family wakes up at seven."

  "And he sounded bright-eyed and bushy-tailed did he, our master luthier?"

  "No, he sounded a bit sleepy and surprised, rather like you, but perfectly capable of conversation."

  "And why am I to accompany you?"

  "For moral support. I need it. We middle voices must stick together. And because you'll learn a lot. And because he's the best instrument repairer in the business as well as the best instrument maker, and you need to work out why your violin sometimes buzzes. And because I'll let you borrow my lovely lovely viola for those places in the 'Art of Fugue' where you need it and where I'm using the deeper one. "

  "You are more cunning than I thought possible, HeJen."

  "I am, as Ricki Lake puts it, all that. "

  "I am afraid I don't watch Ricki."

  "Then you're missing out on the best life has to offer. If only I took her advice, I'd have a man in my life and a song in my heart and - oh, yes, high self-esteem. And so would you."

  "I don't want a man in my life."

  "I'll pick you up at two fifteen. His workshop's in Kingston. "

  "Oh, British Rail land. I'm amazed you're venturing so far into the jungle."

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  "Desperate diseases," says Helen. "See you just after two."

  3-n

  I put down the phone and lie in bed with my hands behind my head. I have not heard from Julia for three f days. I get up and pad around the flat, putting up the blinds.

  I turn on Radio 3. For me, even with a rackful of CDs to choose from and in a city as rich in concerts as London, this is, morning or evening, an almost instinctive reaction. Now it often brings me pleasure and surprise; but when I lived in Rochdale it was my lifeline, virtually my only source of classical music. Once a year the Halle Orchestra performed in Champness Hall, three or four times a year Mrs Formby would take me to a recital organised by the local music society or something special in Manchester, but that was the sum of my contact with professionally performed live music. My small radio, which plucked music from the public air, was everything to me; I would listen to it for hours in my room. As with the public library in Manchester, I don't see how I could have become a musician without it.

  In the lessening darkness I look for Venus. Dawn is breaking - a horizontal upwelling of pink, with one almost vertical gash of a contrail, like Lucifer hurtling down the sky. I turn the kettle on and empty a vase full of thick twigs of holly, the berries by now almost black, into the rubbish.

  A Bach cantata is being performed: "Wie schôn leucbtet der Morgenstern . . ." The word puts me in mind of one of Julia's favourite comic poets. I compose a note

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  in German, attempting the style he liked to deflate, and print it out:

  The non-undersigned begs to submit evidence of his continued existence, and requests the presence (not in triplicate) of the recipient in his humble albeit elevated quarters between nine and ten tomorrow morning, failing which, the day after. Should she be accompanied by the spirit of Johann Sebastian of blessed memory, he will manifest joy and gratitude in equal and exorbitant measure. Tendering assurances of the highest consideration, he remains steadfastly, indeed, irremediably, her obedient servant.

  Over the name Otto Schnorkel I sign with a grand, self-important squiggle. This was the sort of stuff that used to amuse her, but, as she says, she is no longer oneand-twenty.

  Consulting the -manual of my fax machine, I remove my name and phone number from the information that would ordinarily be printed at the top of the message upon transmission, and send it to her.

  It is a tangled web that I am weaving. If I have survived ten years of absence and vacant regret, why are three days so unbearable? , ; , ;

  ••'•• • 3-12. ;-.-v. -•' - '

  Virginie calls me around noon.

  "Why haven't you phoned me, Michael?"

  "I've been really busy."

  "You played so well, and I left you at least three messages." .

  158 | VIKRAM SETH .

  "You didn't ask me to ring back."

  "You don't appreciate my appreciation."

  "I do, but I really didn't realise there was something urgent to discuss."

  "Well there is not anything urgent," says Virginie, annoyed.

  "I'm sorry, Virginie, you're right, I should have called you back, but there's been a lot on my mind."

  "What?"

  "Oh, this and that." "

  "And the other?"

  "The other?"

  "Yes, Michael, you always say 'this, that and the other' when you are being evasive."

  "I'm not being evasive," I say, irked.

  "Who is she?"

  "Who is who?"

  "Are you seeing someone new?"

  "No! No, I am not seeing anyone new," I say with a force that surprises me as much as Virginie.

  "Oh," she murmurs with a touch of contrition which makes me feel guilty.

  "Why did you say that?" I ask.

  "Oh, I just felt - but - you're not - you're really not sleeping with someone else, Michael?"

  "No. I'm not. I'm not." _.,.'.,,,

  "Then why aren't you sleeping with me?"

  "I don't know. I just don't know. We've gone for longer periods without. I have a lot on my mind." I am doing my best to sound calm but being forced to prevaricate is getting me angrier and angrier.

  "Yes, yes, Michael," says Virginie patiently, "you said identically that before. What is on your mind?"

  "Oh, Bach, the 'Art of Fugue', a possible recording."

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  Virginie hardly reacts to this news. No congratulations, no astonishment, nothing. "Really?" she asks. "I want to see you this afternoon. Let's go to a matinée."

  "I can't, Virginie."

  "What are you doing?" ; '•

  "Must you know everything?" I ask.

  There is silence at the other end.

  "If you must know," I continue, "I have to go to Eric Sanderson's to show him my violin. It buzzes sometimes, as you know, and that bothers me."

  "Are you going by yourself?"

  "Well, no ... as a matter of fact, I'm not. Helen has to see him about a viola."

  "Helen?" says Virginie rather mutedly - and a bit speculatively.

  "Virginie, just stop this. It's getting on my nerves."

  "Why didn't you tell me you were going with Helen?"

  "Because you didn't ask me. Because it isn't important. Because you don!t have to know every detail of my life."

  "Va te faire fç'utre!" says Virginie, and bangs down the phone. ' ^ , ,

  :.; 3-13 ;,,;"• ,^ '^v :

  Helen is hopelessly lost the moment we cross the Thames. I navigate with the aid of an A-to-Z. She is unusually silent. I attribute her tension not only to being where the charts are marked with whales and elephants, but also to the fact that she does not really believe that there is a solution to her viola problem.

  "What was that about the pottery wheel?" I say to distract her.

  "Oh, Piers, Piers, Piers," says Helen impatiently. "He gets into a bad mood every time we're in my house, and

  160 I VIKRAM SETH

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  picks on me in some way. He's nice everywhere else - at least with me. Usually, anyway. It's my aunt's fault really."

  "Try and get into the left lane now, Helen. How was it your aunt's fault?"

  "Well, obviously, because she left her house to me - I don't mean fault exactly. She was quite right about women having a harder time in life than men and needing to support each other, etcetera. But in fact, I think the main thing was that she disapproved of Piers. Or rather, Piers's ways. His lifestyle. She was quite sweet really. I liked her and Piers liked her too. Perhaps we shouldn't rehearse in that house, but where else is there? The moment he stoops to enter he start
s growling."

  "Well, I suppose if you live in a basement studio ..."

  Helen zips through an amber light and turns towards me. "I wish the house were big enough for both of us, but it isn't. And Piers could, I suppose, afford a better place himself. But he's saving hard to get a better violin. And temperamentally he isn't a saver. It's a struggle."

  After a few seconds I ask: "Can your parents help him?"

  "Can but won't. The moment my father suggests it my mother starts frothing at the mouth."

  "Oh."

  "I think she's gone quite batty these last ten years. You can never tell, when you have parents, how they're going to turn out. I brought up the subject at Christmas, and Mother went off into a mad tantrum: every violin was as good as every other, when they were dead Piers could do what he liked with his share of the money but while she had a say in it, etcetera."

  "Tough on Piers."

  "He was at Beare's last week, but everything he found there that he liked was far beyond his reach. Poor old

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | l6l

  Piers. I really feel bad for him. He's hoping to try his luck at the auctions later this year."

  "Well, your viola's lovely," I say.

  Helen nods. "So's your violin. Though you love it more than makes any kind of sense."

  "Not mine, actually."

  "I know."

  "I've spent more time with it than with any living soul, but, well, it's still not mine. And I'm not>?its."

  "Oh, please," says Helen.

  "Incidentally, it hardly ever buzzes these days."

  "Hmm," says Helen. #'-! *'•:.

  We are silent for a while. ; '*

  "Did you know what being in a quartet would be like?" asks Helen. "That we'd spend so much time with each other?"

  "No."

  "Too much?"

  "Sometimes when I'm on the road I think so. But I think it's hardest for Billy. After all, he's attached. Doubly attached."

  "And aren't you?" asks Helen somewhat tensely.

  "I'm just semi-attached. Or semi-detached; comes to the same thing."

  "I was talking to Lydia the other day after the concert. She says that sometimes Billy's bag stands in the hall not even unpacked until it's time to pack again. I don't think it's easy on spouses either."

  "So what's the solution to the attachment problem? Casual affairs?" I ask uncomfortably.

  "I don't know," says Helen. "Do you remember Kyoto?"