An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  At first I am too shocked to speak. Then, just as I am about to say something to Maria, I think better of it. If Julia doesn't know what was said, why should I attack the remark and in effect force it upon her?

  "I've brought a couple of packs of cards," says Julia, getting into the car. "Where are we heading?"

  "How about Kritzendorf ?" says Markus.

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  "Where?" , ,... , ..,

  "Kritzendorf," I repeat.

  "Oh good!" says Julia, reaching into the basket at her feet and handing Peter a chocolate.

  "Das Weinen hat gebolfen," says Peter somewhat speculatively, half to himself, as if appraising international negotiating techniques.

  "What do you mean, Peter?" I ask.

  "He's been very naughty," says Maria. "We were going to leave him at a friend's place for the day but he insisted on coming along, and cried and cried until we were exhausted and just gave in. Bad training. You don't know how exhausting children are - utterly, utterly exhausting. Anyway, when we play bridge, the dummy will have to take care of him."

  Peter, looking out of the window, has started humming.

  "He's obviously learned a useful lesson," says Markus.

  "Useful for whom?" responds Maria.

  It is a lovely day, though, with a restoring freshness, and our spirits soon lift.

  Chestnut and lilac are everywhere, with here and there an acacia in white bloom or a linden or plane or even a willow. Julia and I hold hands. If we were alone, she would have asked me about last night, indeed she would have felt she had to, so in a way I am relieved that we have company - especially since this is not my last day with her, but the first of several.

  How all fears dissolve in sunlight. The car has been parked, an ice-lolly has been bought for Peter, we have walked to the the well-trained unmeandering Danube, grass growing down to its very bank. The tablecloth is spread, and we have changed into our swimsuits, Julia into a bordello-red spare suit that Maria has brought along, I into baggy khaki exercise shorts. Cards, food,

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  317

  J.>

  camera, paper napkins, sun-tan lotion, and a newspaper: no sign of music anywhere, no sign at all. A great white steamer hoots past. I am already in the river. A dog, not obedient to regulations, runs along the bank, barking. A sparrow fluffs itself up in a hollow of dust-fine sand. Peter, an inflated plastic band on each arm, wanders down to the pebbly edge.

  "Michael, look after him, just let him wet his feet," shouts Maria.

  Peter threatens to venture out further than is safe in this swift current, and I haul him, protesting and crying, back out.

  "Crying hasn't helped this time," I can't resist saying. He stamps his feet.

  "Look. Fukik!" says Markus, to distract him, pointing upwards.

  "Flugzeug!" says Peter in disgust, refusing to revert to baby-talk, though he does stop crying.

  "Look at that funny bird," says Maria. "Funny, funny bird. Now _we four are going to play bridge, and you are going to be very good and very quiet while we are speaking. Then, when we've stopped speaking, one of us will play with you until we deal again. OK? Look, a blackbird."

  "Amsel, Drossel, Fink und Star," chants Peter happily.

  Julia looks at him, and at the blackbird, and at the Danube, and leans back on her elbows, looking irresistible and, for the moment, happy with her world.

  ,. -:• :•-:•.>• •..-._ - 5.17 . - - ••'

  At 7:27 the next morning, Julia rushes onto the railway platform carrying a suitcase and a small travelling bag. I wave frantically at her. At 7:30 the train departs.

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  VIKRAM SETH

  Our compartment is empty except for us.

  "Good morning," I say formally.

  "Good morning."

  "Do you make a habit of this?"

  "I woke up late - " she says breathlessly. "Look we're alone. The train's covered with graffiti on the outside: it's like the New York subway, not Vienna." Julia examines various light switches, heating knobs and speaker controls. "It's nice inside."

  "I splurged on first-class tickets. I hope the journey's worth waiting a decade for."

  "Michael, don't be annoyed, but -"

  "No."

  "Please."

  "No."

  "At least let me take care of my half. You can't afford this."

  "It's my treat, Julia," I say. "I'm getting a refund on my plane ticket. And besides, you've arranged for our accommodation. "

  She settles herself at the window opposite me, hesitates a bit, then says: "I had quite a disturbing dream last night. I was in the Danube, swimming, and my father was on a raft with a whole pile of old leather-bound books on it. They kept falling off and he was scrambling around desperately trying to save them. I tried to swim to him, but he kept getting further and further away. I wanted to scream for help, but couldn't. It was really horrible. I could tell it was a dream, and yet - but, well, it probably doesn't mean anything. Anyway, here we are. Let's see if it'll be a good day." She claps her hands twice, sharply, near her left ear, then repeats this near her right.

  "What on earth are you up to?"

  "It's a test - a sort of hearing test. Yes, it'll be a better day than usual, I think. I was in such a hurry this

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  morning that I forgot to do it. But of course the sound of the train might be misleading me."

  "I'm so sleepy," I say. "All that tension, and then a day in the sun ..."

  "I'm sure you can stretch out. Is the compartment going to be empty all the way?"

  "No. Only till Villach. It's on the board just outside. Four people get on there. Full house."

  "That's still a good long time."

  "Four hours. Just before the border. How's your Italian?"

  "Barely passable - and now that I can't use my ears, probably pathetic."

  "Well, mine's non-existent. What'll we do?"

  "We'll do fine." She smiles.

  What could be going through her mind? Whatever she has had to endure to get to this moment, she doesn't look unhappy. She shouldn't be with me, but she is. She shouldn't be happy, but she is ...

  "I'd better lo
  "What did you say?" says Julia.

  " 'Can I drive to the centre of town?' How would you say that in Italian?"

  "When you change the subject so suddenly, Michael, I'm completely out of my depth. Anyway, that's one sentence we won't need in Venice."

  "Just testing. Well?"

  "Something something nel centra citta. Let's talk about something serious."

  "Well, what do you want to talk about?"

  "Michael, what happened?" • . •. r: :

  "Julia, please-" .. , •,>.* •

  "Why?" -/• ; .......-V.". ' ,, -..-:, ;, .'.. :

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  "I just don't want to -" -

  "But this is like the last time. You never talked, you never explained -"

  "Oh, Julia."

  "I felt so terrible for you," she says. "Naturally I thought of your breakdown then. What should I have thought?"

  "This wasn't a breakdown," I insist.

  "Can't you call a spade a spade?" cries Julia. Then, more gently, she adds, "What is so amazing is the way you got over it. Everyone said the string quintet was truly wonderful - even my mother. If only I could have heard it."

  We do not speak for a few seconds. "What you played saved me," I say.

  "Did it, Michael?"

  "I want to thank you for 'Die Liebe'," I say. "I'd never heard it before."

  "Nor had I. I don't even like it much, from what I can grasp of it. Quite a desperate remedy."

  "It worked." I take her hand in mine. "Was your mother worried when you didn't take your seat in the interval?"

  "Well, it couldn't be helped. What she's re
ally upset about is that I'm not spending these few days with her."

  "Let's draw a line under Vienna," I say. "A double line."

  "You talk as if it's all the city's fault," says Julia, slipping her hand out of mine. "As if you hated the place."

  "I don't. I - you might not believe this easily, but I love it more than I hate it. But it does things to me I can't explain."

  Over the brutal static crackle of the loudspeaker we are

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 3ZI

  welcomed in German and then invited, in English, to heff a nice cherney.

  Julia is unaffected by this. I think about Maria's remark.

  "Julia, I've never asked you this - but is being deaf ever an advantage? I suppose you can avoid having to indulge in small talk."

  "Oh, but I can't avoid it - at least with people who don't know I'm deaf. And that's most of the world."

  "How dumb of me," I say.

  "How what of you?" says Julia, amused.

  "How stupid of me." She smiles. "You know," I continue, "when I tuned my violin down a tone to play that Bach fugue, until I got used to reading the notes a certain way, my ears kept rebelling. I had to wear earplugs - to try to make myself deaf. But that's a pretty exceptional circumstance."

  "There are one or two advantages," she says. "In hotels I can enjoy rooms with views of the street without being worrîed about the noise keeping me awake. And when I'm playing I don't hear audiences coughing

  - or unwrapping the crinkly paper around their cough lozenges."

  "That's true." I smile.

  "No bleeps from mobile phones. No clicks from spectacles being folded after people have glanced at their programme notes. Oh yes, and I can't hear your humming any more, thank God."

  "You've convinced me," I say, laughing.

  "But I can't hear the sound of rain on a skylight either."

  If I didn't know her, I wouldn't have recognised from her voice how deeply this trivial loss seems to hurt her. She threw off the remark almost casually.

  "That's sad," I say. "But it didn't rain on the skylight

  3Z2. | VIKRAM SETH

  of the Brahms-Saal when we played. . . Were you disturbed by the storm a few nights ago? It kept me awake."

  "No," says Julia, a bit regretfully. "Actually, there is one serious advantage to being deaf as a musician, but I'll reserve that for another time."

  "Why not tell me now?" I ask. But Julia says nothing, having turned her eyes to the window.

  Vineyards pass us on both sides of the train; and poppies covering a patch of wasteland flash brilliantly past. A fat man in a T-shirt walks along a forested path near the tracks. A pink hawthorn tree reminds me of London and the park.

  "Are you in trouble with the others?" she asks at length.

  "I don't know. Perhaps we should have agreed to stay at the Palazzo Tradonico -"

  "It's better this way," she says.

  "Much ... All I meant was, after what happened in Vienna . . . out of a sense of duty, you know . . . but I'd much rather be alone with you."

  "Will you have to do a whole lot of rehearsing?" she asks.

  "No - not a whole lot. It's all old repertoire. The first performance is for some sort of birthday party given by an American woman who rents the second floor of the palazzo. Mrs Wessen. She's taken over the first floor Piers called it a piano something -"

  "Piano nobile."

  "Yes, well, she's taken it over for the do and is trying to drift-net all of Venetian society into it - Helen says they're even more fond of freebies than Londoners."

  "What is she doing? I didn't quite get that."

  "Inviting everyone who's anyone in Venice."

  "And how on earth did you all get involved?"

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  "Erica knows her. We're going to be performing in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco - but I've told you about that - and somewhere else just outside Venice as well. Erica convinced her that with a name like Maggiore, we're just the thing for a Venetian bash - and Mrs Wessen only has to pay our fee, not our fares, since we're going to be in Venice anyway. It's certainly a good thing for us too. Vienna, for all its glory, was a financial wipeout."

  To our right is a range of low blue hills under blue skies. Slowly we advance into them, and now we are enclosed in steep green valley-banks where everything is jumbled up neatly: chalets, fields, hills, clouds, horses, cows, lilac and laburnum. It is all very Austrian, very beautiful. So this is the train I am taking ten years late.

  Julia nods off. I look at her for a while, happy to see her just sitting there, then get up and walk into the corridor. A cheerful American and his wife, both about sixty, are standing at, a window, talking to each other. She is wearing 'a yellow dress and has a handbag with bejries on it; he has a green bow-tie, crumpled khaki trousers, and a rich cigarry voice.

  "Elizabeth, see how organised it is. Look, organised!"

  "My stomach is awful," she says.

  "You're seasick?" he asks. "Why don't you go in and rest, Elizabeth?"

  She goes off; he looks around, decides I can speak English, and continues: "Boyoboyoboy, that's beautiful and the people live here. I love the country. To me it's . . . I can see these people . . . it's nationalism ... if something's there they clean it up. Now New York, New Jersey, old refrigerators, old cars . . . where're the beer cans? where's the spray paint?"

  "Well, there's some on the outside of this train," I say.

  He makes a gesture of tolerant dismissal. "I had a

  32.4 | VIKRAM SETH

  farm," he volunteers. "But I sold it. I can sit on the porch with a beer in my hand and no TV and just watch the sunset, but where's the deli? where's the cigar store? That's the problem."

  "True," I say, suddenly filled with delight for no V obvious reason.

  vj!' The tracks twist and list, and the train growls as it enters a tunnel.

  The valley gets broader; the clouds disappear. Everything is in bloom: full-candled chestnut trees, sole poppies, unclustered, in the fields, and then whole banks of poppies, blazing red for hundreds of yards, purple lupins, white umbellifers of all kinds, and lilac in every shade from white to heavy purple. Every so often, like some exotic conifer, a high-tension pylon appears; and tender calves, their skins fresh with the silken buff of suede, drink at the edge of a broad stream.

  I go back to the compartment. Julia is awake. We do not speak much, but point out of the window from time to time at things we want to share.

  "Julia, what is this great advantage to not being able to hear?" I ask after a while.

  "So it's been bothering you?"

  "A bit."

  "Well, you must already have some idea of it from the way I played the Trout."

  "The trouble is, I don't know what sort of thing you're thinking of."

  "Well, it's this," says Julia. "When I go to a concert or listen to a recording, all I can get is some general sense of what's going on. All the subtleties of other people's playing are lost on me now. So when I come to play something myself, especially something I've never heard before, I'm absolutely forced to be original . . . Not that originality by itself is enough. I'm not saying that. But at

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  32-5

  least it's somewhere to start from. With the Trout, of course, I'd heard it often enough before things went wrong - and played it. But things fade unless they're reinforced. Too many musicians, when they're asked to play something, go out and buy a CD of it, almost before they look at the score. I don't have that option. Or, rather, it isn't much good to me."

  I nod. Again we are absorbed in our own thoughts, and the view outside somehow enters our absorptions. I had thought she was going to say something about suffering forcing one to understand the world. But in an odd way I'm glad she said what she did.

  Klagenfurt. A large lake. Villach. But no one does in fact get on. We still have the compartment to ourselves. The border. A bloated, dissatisfied man in grey flashes a badge and bellows, "Pas
saporto!" at us. I glare at him. Then I notice Julia looking at me as if she could have predicted my response. "With pleasure, signor," I murmur sweetly.

  Chalky cliffs, hjgh crags of rock come into view, wide screws on their lower slopes; and the milky-blue waterbraids of a broad, almost dry river bed, a dusty concrete factory on its bank.

  Though we are alone, we do not kiss; we are almost shy. The journey is everything it could be. The day grows warm, and I am like a torpid bee.

  Soon we are in the Veneto: walls of terracotta and ochre, a red-roofed town in the shadow of a hulking mountain; elderberries along the track; gardens of irises and pink roses; the junkyards and sidings of Mestre.

  As we move swiftly along the causeway across the grey-green water of the lagoon, the beautiful city draws itself into our eyes: towers, domes, façades. If a few years late, we are here at last. The two of us stand in the corridor with our luggage and look out over the water. I

  32.6 | VIKRAM SETH

  speak her name softly to myself, and she, somehow sensing it - or is it chance? - speaks mine.

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  Part Six

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  6.1

  Four thirty on a weekday afternoon is no magical time. But I stand on the steps of the station, almost leaning against Julia, and succumb to the smell and the sound of Venice, and the dizzying sight.

  The terminal has disgorged us with hundreds of others. It is not the high tourist season, but we are plentiful enough, and I gape, as it is right I should, for all of it is undisappointingly beautiful.

  "So this, then, is the Grand Canal."

  "This, then, is it," says Julia, with a small smile.

  "Should we have come by sea?"

  "By sea?"

  "By sea at sunset?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No."

  I grow quiet. We are sitting at the front of the vaporetto as it chugs along in its soft pragmatic way, bumping against its landing-stages, taking on and setting off passengers. All around is a lively, thrumming, carless, unhectic sound.

  A breeze eases the heat of the day. A gull flies down to the murky turquoise water, quick with flecks of light.

  Solidly, fantastically, the palaces and churches that wall