An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

"Hello, I'm James. You're Michael?" He shakes my hand, smiles easily.

  I nod. "Yes. Pleased to meet you."

  He is shorter than I am, and broader. Clean-shaven, blue-eyed like her, pale-haired. Luke's dark hair must be

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  a throwback. His accent is Bostonian, unconcerned to anglicise itself.

  "Come in. Julia's in the kitchen. Luke's out in the garden. He tells me you've met him."

  "Yes."

  "Well, he wants to ask you a few riddles . . . Are you '<>' all right?"

  "It's just a bit of a headache. It'll go away."

  "Tylenol? Nurofen? Paracetamol?"

  "No, thanks." I follow him into the drawing room.

  "Well, what will you have to drink? Don't say you're going to have orange juice. A glass of wine? A martini? I'll mix one that'll get rid of your headache just like that."

  "Why not a martini then?"

  "Good. I like them, but Julia doesn't. Nor do any of her friends. Nor does anyone in this country."

  "Why did you offer me one?"

  "I never give up hope of finding someone who does. Have you been to the States?"

  "Yes. On tour."

  "And you're taking Julia off to Vienna in a week."

  "I am. We are."

  "Good. She needs a break."

  "Well, it's not exactly a break," I say, feeling - and struggling not to express - a strange sense of outrage at this remark. "It's a lot of work for her. It would be for anyone. But with her deafness -"

  "Yes," is all he comes up with. He busies himself fixing my drink. Then, after a pause, "She is amazing."

  "We all think so."

  "How's her playing?"

  "More beautiful than it was even then."

  "Even when?"

  "Even in Vienna," I say, looking out of the bay

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  window of the drawing room at a leafless plane tree that doesn't seem to have woken up to the fact that it's April.

  "Of course," says James Hansen. "Now, this is stirred, not shaken. I'm not very particular, I'm afraid."

  "Nor am I," I say, taking the drink. "That's the advantage of not being much of an expert. For me the excitement lies in the olive." What am I blathering on about? My eye falls on a wedding photograph, a picture of Julia's father holding (I suppose) the infant Luke. Photographs, paintings, books, carpets, curtains, cushions - a populated room, a life as solid as a rock.

  James Hansen laughs. "Now that's interesting," he says. "I can see why expertise pays off in banking. But in the arts it could be a disadvantage. If you don't have any sense of discrimination, you enjoy many more things."

  "You don't really believe that," I say.

  "No, I don't," he says evenly.

  Is this the man who is married to Julia? Is it this man who sleeps with Jier every night? What am I doing exchanging pleasantries with him?

  "Well," he says, "should we wait till Julia comes up, or should we go and see what she's doing? Caroline - that's our help - has the day off, so Julia decided to make some sort of casserole, which usually means she doesn't have to hang around the kitchen. But maybe she didn't hear the doorbell."

  The kitchen is in the basement, as seen from the street, but it opens out onto the garden. Luke is just rushing in, and Julia is turning a knob on the oven when, clutching our glasses, we get to the foot of the stairs.

  "Luke!"

  "Dad! Buzby's been chasing Mrs Newton's cat, and she's ... Oh, hi!"

  "Hello, Luke . . . Hello, Julia," I say, for Julia has turned and is smiling at us all.

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  I have never seen Julia the hausfrau before. Son; husband; a huge, heavy stove; a glimpse of creamcoloured camellias from the garden; copper pots hanging from the ceiling; apron; ladle. I am disturbed by this radiance.

  "Where's Buzby?" I ask Luke, feeling a sudden, shocked vacancy in my mind.

  "In the garden, of course," says Luke.

  "Well, it's ready," says Julia. "But before we eat, let me take Michael on a tour of the garden. Would you lay the table, darling?"

  She unties her apron, opens the door, and leads me into the little private plot that precedes the undivided crescent garden. We are alone.

  She talks of her plants for a while: tulips, red and gold, some already blown; rich brown-and-yellow wallflowers; a few pansies, maroon and purple, still soldiering on; and, oh, of course, these astonishing tardy camellias.

  He, then, is "darling". I am a guest: suffered or honoured, it makes little odds. My hostess is the exquisite Julia . . . Julia and James, a delightful couple . . . made for each other, yes, even their monograms match ... a charming addition to our little community here - though he's American, as you probably know.

  Julia follows my gaze to the old wistaria against the wall, its clusters in every stage of life from emergence to fulness to decay, bees busying themselves around. How much of a garden is its sound, dead to the deaf ? - our footsteps on the gravel, the plop of water from that small fountain, birdsong and bee-buzz? How much of a conversation must be read in the eyes?

  "I never really met them," Julia is saying. "James came over and arranged all that; I was going through a hard patch. It was a family who'd lived here for twenty years."

  I nod. I do not trust myself to speak. I feel half insane.

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  Twenty years. Let us measure it in stacks of photographs, in school fees, in shared meals, in the mellow delights of the connubial bed, in hard times shared, in the gnarledness of wistaria. Let us measure it in trust, too heavy to weigh an ounce.

  "That lemony-jasmine fragrance that's so dizzying comes from these little white blossoms here. You'd hardly think it, would you?"

  "Oh, I thought it was you."

  Julia blushes. "Aren't they lovely?" she asks, pointing now at the cream-coloured camellias. "They're called Jury's Yellow."

  "Yes," I say. "Delectable."

  She frowns. "The thing about camellias, you know, is that when they're about to die, they won't tell you in time. If they lack water, they don't look unhappy for a while, and show you they're suffering; they just die."

  "Why have you got me here? Why?"

  "But, Michael -"

  ,"Pm going crazy. Why did I have to meet him? Couldn't you see what would happen?"

  "Why did you accept if you feel this way?" •;;•'.*. •-••

  "How else could I see you?" :

  "Michael, please - please don't make a scene. Don't let me down again."

  "Again?"

  "James is walking towards us ... Please, Michael."

  "Lunch is on the table, sweetie," says James Hansen, walking up. "Sorry to cut the tour short, but Pm starving."

  Lunch passes in a blur. What do we talk about? That they don't usually have more than a couple of guests because it's difficult to follow a conversation. That celery has been banished because Julia can't hear anyone when she or they are crunching it. The hailstorm two weeks

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  ago. Luke's music lessons. His least favourite subject at school. The state of Britain and the state of the States. The difference between American and German Steinways. Something about banking practices: I can't even remember what my question was, or why, having no >; interest in the matter, I asked it. Yes, lamb casserole. Yes, *$.' delicious. Oh, project finance? Couscous - my favourite, yes.

  Her husband is a perceptive man, a man of wit and substance, not my presumed image of an East Coast banker. I cannot see how he cannot see; but would he be so calm and friendly if he could? Rice pudding, bespattered with raisins. Mother bear, father bear and baby bear all attend to their porridge. I feel numb hatred for this decent man.

  "Gran will be coming in a week. She makes an even better rice pudding," says Luke. "She puts in even more raisins."

  "Oh, does she!" says Julia.

  "I thought she was going to be in Vienna for our concert," I say.

  Luke starts to laug
h. "That's Oma," he says, "not Gran."

  What am I doing here? Is this not rash? Or was her true rashness then, when she came to the green room of the Wigmore? Am I a sort of algae on this rock?

  "I understand you're all flying out together," says James.

  "Well, on the same plane," I reply. "Our agent managed to get a sixth ticket after there was a cancellation."

  "Does he accompany you on all your tours?"

  "She - no, she doesn't."

  "It's a great hall you'll be playing in," says James.

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  "Julia says it's got the best acoustics in the world. We've been there several times. It sounded pretty good to me."

  I say nothing.

  "We'll be playing in the smaller hall, darling, the Brahms-Saal," says Julia to her husband. "I don't think we've ever been there for a concert."

  "So who's the sixth ticket for?" asks James.

  "Billy's cello," I say. How admirably level I keep my voice.

  "You mean, it sits there with all the passengers?"

  "Yes."

  "And gets fed caviare?"

  Julia laughs. Luke joins uncertainly in. "Not in economy class," I say.

  No, Julia, I have not made a scene. But why am I here? Is it to boil my heart for what I did? I am not far from hating you in this.

  "Does it put on a seat-belt for take-off?" asks Luke.

  "Yes, I think it does . . . You know, I'm sorry, but I must go."

  "But you haven't seen the rest of the house," says Julia. "You haven't seen my music room -"

  "And I haven't asked my riddles."

  "I'm sorry, Luke, really sorry. Next time. Wonderful meal. Thank you very much for having me over."

  "Finish your coffee at least," says James with a smile.

  I do. For all I know it could be bleach.

  "Well, it's been a pleasure," he says at last. He turns away from her to add: "That's not the case with all of Julia's friends. Rather rude of me, I suppose, to say so. Well, I hope we meet again soon."

  "Yes ... yes .. ."

  As we approach the door, the doorbell rings, a longish insistent buzz - a chord of two notes, one high, one low. Julia does seem to notice it.

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  "We're not expecting anyone, are we?" asks James.

  An overdressed woman and a small boy stand on the doorstep.

  "... just driving past, and he insisted, and of course since we were so close anyway it seemed pointless to call you on the mobile, and they say that it's so dangerous to use them in the car anyway . . . oh, hello," she says, looking at me.

  "Hello," I say. She looks familiar, but I cannot concentrate on anything the way things are pulsing behind my eyes.

  The crescent curves across a busy road. Who can travel both at once? It is unravelling, things are flowering too late, or too early, and the bank has stepped in and taken possession. Luke will count twenty years, forty, sixty in rice-pudding raisins. Who must follow these prerogatives, these hidden histories of this chameleon word love? What has this man to do with Vienna? There at least we too have had a past. No stranger there could fully beat the bounds. He passed through, that was all, but the city belongs to us.

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  Part Five

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  5-i

  Billy and his cello sit next to each other on the late afternoon flight. Piers and Helen have seats nearby. Four rows further back, Julia and I sit, she next to the window, I on the aisle. A little earlier she was reading. Now she has drowsed off.

  An Austrian Airlines flight attendant passes by with a tray of sandwiches wrapped in coloured paper napkins. "The cream ones are cheese, the others salmon," she says, offering them to me.

  "I'm sorry?" I say, straining to hear her above the noise of the plane. I can see nothing even vaguely resembling cream.

  "The cream ones are cheese, the others salmon," she repeats in a God-save-me-from-this-idiot voice.

  "I'm not a nitwit, you know," I tell her. "I do speak English. Which are the cream ones?"

  "These," she says, looking baffled, but pointing.

  "What's cream about them? The filling?"

  She looks at me incredulously. "The paper, of course . . . oh, I'm sorry, sir, I didn't realise you were colourblind."

  "I'm not. You must be the one who is colour-blind. These are green."

  Her eyes open wide in astonishment and, after I have taken my sandwiches, she continues to hold out the tray.

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  Then she suddenly scurries off to recover without serving anyone else.

  "She was saying 'green' all along," says Julia, who must have woken up in time to see most of this exchange.

  "In that case why on earth didn't you stop me from making a fool of myself?"

  "Usually the shoe's on the other foot. 'Cream' and 'green' look quite different. Anyway, why were you rude to her?"

  "I rude to her?"

  "Whenever you see someone in authority your hackles go up. All it takes is a uniform."

  "Since when have stewardesses been authorities?"

  "Tortoises?"

  I begin to laugh. -

  "Well, laugh away," says Julia. "But it's difficult to lip-read at this angle and distance. It's easier in business class."

  "I'm sure," I say. "And easier still in first. I'll take your word for it." ;*

  We have not met since that lunch at her place. Julia almost missed the flight, getting to the departure lounge just as we were boarding. After the seat-belt sign went off, I found her seated next to a grey-haired man who was deep into the duty-free mysteries of the in-flight magazine. I asked him if he would mind terribly changing places with me. My wife and I had checked in too late to get seats next to each other. I addressed her as "darling" a couple of times. He was very obliging and, when he left, Julia made out that she was annoyed.

  But I have decided that what is behind us is behind us. Now we are on our way to Vienna. I will not think of that first evening I saw her, or of the late light of our parting. The quiet of the cafés will restore us. But we are here as performers, not as lovers.

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  We do not talk about the lunch she forced on me. She tells me she will stay on in Vienna with her mother for a little over a week after we have left. Her mother-in-law is in London and will take care of Luke. She tells me Maria has invited us to lunch tomorrow.

  "Nervous?" I ask.

  "Yes."

  "Strange, isn't it?" I say. "Remember how we almost got a viola and bass and played the Trout with our trio?"

  "Maria wants me to go to Karnten with her."

  "Can you?"

  "Not really."

  "Can't you tell your mother you'll be staying with us in our hotel just for these four days? After all, you'll have a week or more with her later."

  She shakes her head. Her eyes close again. She looks tired.

  Could London ever have restored what we lost in Vienna? Can Vienna restore what we have lost in London? I sink my thoughts into the soft roar of the plane and look across her face into the evening sky.

  5-2

  The clouds have gone; sunset and night are on us. The night is black. Hugged by a zone of forest as black as a lake, Vienna comes into view - the great ferris wheel, a tower, grids of gold, here a white spur of silver, and there a lightless zone I cannot identify. In due course we land.

  We talk little, Julia and I, as the carousel goes round and round with its accumulation and de-accumulation of baggage. It is all too strange and familiar. I talk to Billy while I keep an eye on her. Her suitcase comes quickly.

  Mrs McNicholl is here to gather up her daughter and

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  take her off to Klosterneuburg. Lothar turns up a few minutes later to welcome us and tak
e us to the Hotel am Schubertring. He talks of a hundred things, none of which I register.

  I am too restless to sleep. At midnight I get out of bed and put on some clothes. I cross the tramlines and enter the heart of the city. I walk for hours, here and there: here where this happened, there where that was said.

  I cannot see the city as once I saw it: freshly, with enchanted surprise. These shapes to me are states of mind. Tall, cool and heavy with stone, half ghostly, half gemutlich, outsize heart of a truncated body, Vienna now is still.

  Still ist die Nacht, es ruhen die Gassen. My footsteps tramp the depopulated streets. My thoughts burn out one by one. Around three I go to bed once more, and sleep dreamlessly - or at least with unremembered dreams. Gute Ruh, gute Ruh, tu die Augen zu.

  , ' • '.••:: 5.3--..-. - ' . -' - - -'

  Julia comes to the hotel after breakfast the next morning, and the five of us, plus Lothar, drive over to the long building in the 4th district that houses the old Bosendorfer piano factory, together with some of their business premises, a small concert hall and a number of rehearsal rooms, one of which we will use. Normally this building would be closed on a Sunday, but Lothar has pulled a few strings. Our concert is on Tuesday, so there isn't much time to rehearse.

  Petra Daut and Kurt Weigl, who are to perform with us, are already there when we arrive. None of us knows either of them, except by reputation, so Lothar, tubby and genial, performs the introductions.

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  Petra, the bass player in the Trout, has a round face, dark ringleted hair and a ready smile that makes her unremarkable features look surprisingly attractive. She disappears into the Bermuda Triangle after hours, since she makes most of her living by playing jazz in a nightclub there. Lothar has reassured us, however, that she has an excellent reputation as a classical musician, and has in fact performed the Trout quite a few times before.

  Kurt, the second cellist in the string quintet, is pale, tall, polite, diffident, quietly considered in his opinions. He has a small, fair moustache. His English is excellent, with occasional archaic formations, such as when he states his firm disagreement with those critics who find the Trout a "neglectable" piece. This is nice of him, since he is not playing it. He knew that we were going to rehearse it first, but decided to come along from the start in order to get used to our style. As a result, however, Lothar has had to tell him about Julia's hearing problem.