An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  342 | VIKRAM SETH

  hundred interdependent lives. We linger here before moving on.

  "We must go via the Schiavoni," says Julia. "That's where the thing I wanted to show you is."

  When we get there, however, it is closed.

  "But it isn't Monday," says Julia. She bangs on the

  '-•f1''' front door. There is no answer. Other tourists gather

  around, shrug their shoulders, confer, look at the closed

  door with annoyance or indifference, and turn away.

  Julia bangs the door once more.

  "Julia, let it be."

  "No, I won't." She looks unusually determined, even angry.

  "What's so special about this place?"

  "Everything. Oh, this frustrates me. No sign, no explanation, and nobody here. And I didn't even get to see my Vermeer in Vienna. Do you have any paper?"

  I get a pencil and piece of paper from my violin case, and Julia scrawls something which includes the words "telefonare" and "pronto" on it in capitals, before thrusting it through the letter box.

  "It'll be horrible if it's closed for restoration or something," she says.

  "But what have you asked them to do?"

  "Phone me or face my wrath." =

  "You don't have any wrath."

  "Don't I?" says Julia, half to herself.

  "Even if they do phone us, I won't be able to understand them, and you won't be able to hear them."

  "We'll come to that bridge when we cross it."

  "What was that?" I say.

  "I mean, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," says Julia, frowning at a small blue boat plying the Rio délia Pietà. "Now for your church - I mean Vivaldi's."

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 343

  v... ••::-• :: 6.5 -• ' : •

  But that too is closed, or effectively closed. I enter the outer door, but a huge scarlet curtain and a multilinguistic sign bar my progress into the church proper. I can feel my Tononi moping. It is too much.

  A round-faced girl sits at a counter to the right of the entrance. She is reading what, judging by the cover, looks like a horror story.

  "Can't we enter?" I ask in English.

  "No. Not possible." She smiles.

  "Why?" vT

  "Closed. Chiuso. Many months. Except praying to God."

  "We want to pray."

  "Sunday." J ;•-•••-

  "But Sunday, we go to Torcello!"

  She shrugs. "There is a concert tonight - ticket?" ,

  "What are they, playing?" I ask.

  "Playing?" f

  "3ach? Mozart?"

  "Oh!" She shows us a programme for a performance by a local ensemble. The first half is Monteverdi and Vivaldi, the second half modern music, including a piece with an English title by a contemporary Italian composer: "Things are what they eat". Even if I weren't with Julia, this would not be my fare.

  "How much?"

  "Thirty-five thousand lire," the girl says.

  "Ouch!" I ham it up, avoiding Julia's gaze. "Too expensive. Mo/to caro," I add, remembering a phrase.

  The girl smiles.

  "I am a musician," I say, holding up my violin case. "Violinist! Vivaldi! This is his church." I hold up my hands in adoration. She seems amused. "Please."

  344 | VIKRAM SETH

  She sets down her book, emerges from her booth, looks around to make sure no one is watching, and draws the scarlet curtain aside for a second to let us slip inside.

  "There, you see," I say to Julia. "Charm before threats."

  "Say that again."

  "Charm before threats."

  "There was no one to charm at the Schiavoni," she points out.

  High above us on the great ceiling is a cartouche of space and light, edged with angels and musicians, at its heart a glorious effusion of pale blue, rosy ochre, and white. The Father, the Son and the dove-embodied Holy Spirit are crowning the Virgin.

  As we gaze upon this in wonderment, a delirious cacophony bursts upon us from near the altar. A piano, set up on a low stage, and attached somehow to an amplifier, is being assaulted by a madman. First, an entire mountainside is blasted to bits, then a scree of demented mice roll down from the upper octaves until they are transmuted into blood-curdling bears at the bottom. Could this be "Things are what they eat"?

  Julia is perturbed too, but mainly by my perturbation.

  It suddenly stops, and the pianist and sound engineer make a few adjustments before essaying once again into their rehearsal. Then there is silence again, the lid is closed - and, blessedly, the two leave as suddenly as they appeared.

  "Was it really as horrible as all that?" says Julia.

  "Oh, yes. Believe me. For a second I envied you."

  "Play your Tononi, then, and exorcise the church."

  "We'll be ejected. We shouldn't even be here."

  "Michael, if you don't play your violin here, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 345

  "And I suppose my violin would never forgive me." ; "There you are." -.*. "But, Julia-"

  "But, Julia, what?"

  "You've got to help me then," I say, guiding her towards the piano.

  "Oh no, Michael. Oh, no. You're not going to get me to play. You know I won't."

  "You've played this before."

  From my violin case I take out the Largo of Vivaldi's first Manchester Sonata - photocopied onto a beautifully broad A3 sheet - unfold it, and place it on the pianorack.

  Julia sits down. She looks over the music for a second, swaying a little from side to side as she does so. I tune up.

  "You're a bully, Michael," says Julia very sweetly, very soberly.

  I play my upbeat for answer, and she, with no further resistance, come£" in at the next note.

  It is rapture, 'and it is over soon. Nothing lovelier has ever been written for the instrument, and my violin clearly feels it has been written personally for it - for it to play here. Where else, after all, should this be performed? It was on this spot that Vivaldi tutored the young girls from the orphanage, and made of them the best musicians in Europe. And since the piece was discovered in manuscript just a few years ago in the very library in Manchester from which I learned much of my musicianship, I feel it has been written for me as well.

  No one interrupts us. The church is empty except for us. Only the musicians above, with their viols and trumpets and long lutes, attend. "That was perfect," I say immediately it is over. "Let's do it again."

  "No, Michael," says Julia, closing the lid of the piano.

  346 | VIKRAM SETH

  "If it was perfect - since it was perfect - it is certainly not to be done again."

  6.6

  As we walk through narrow lanes and across small bridges towards the Palazzo Tradonico, I can hear a strange thumping or bouncing noise, which turns out to be the sound of a football being kicked about by a few local kids. The palazzo is not land-locked, but its Watergate opens onto a very small canal. Its main façade, grey and peeling, faces a small, irregular square, the Campiello Tradonico, which does not lie on any of the main tourist routes, and is thus an ideal refuge for a game that appears to be a sort of soccer-squash. Quite a few black-and-white footballs lie impaled on the spikes erected at the first-floor level. There they remain, deflating daily but never completely deflated, defining and adorning the palazzo like pineapples or gargoyles or other more traditional architectural excrescences.

  I press the bell. A female voice says something in Italian, to which I say "Signor Holme, Quartetto Maggiore", and this results in a welcoming click. Pushing the great door open, we find ourselves in a huge, dark, empty stone hall, with a set of stairs leading up along one wall. No assisting light comes on, so we grope our way up to the first floor, where a door opens just as we get to it.

  The teenage daughter of the Conte Tradonico welcomes us in, introduces herself as Teresa, and tells us that the other members of the quartet are gathered in the music room.
She directs us to it, smiles, and disappears.

  The gleaming, fractured ochre and black floor of the main hall runs all the way from the façade to the rear,

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 347

  with light pouring in from both sides. After the shabby exterior and dismal entranceway I expected nothing like this.

  Each room we pass through becomes more fantastical, filled with the assorted brilliance and bric-à-brac of centuries: tapestries, gilt sofas with brocade backs, velvet chairs, doors painted with camels and leopards, a huge ornate-legged green-marble-topped table ignorant of a straight line, glass candelabra bursting into wings and flowers, clocks supported by yawning bears, a mad mélange of Chinese vases, statuettes peering and beckoning at us from every niche and paintings ranging from family portraits to small, signed pencil sketches, from milky Madonnas to a sanguinary Judith and Holofernes looking down from a wall above a dining table.

  Billy appears from an inside room, and greets us warmly. "Everything all right?"

  "Yes," I reply. - ' -

  "You're sureJT '"• /' ! - . ' •

  ? "Of course,'"! say. "** 'We have the run of this place," murmurs Billy.

  "It's amazing!" says Julia.

  "We're staying on the second floor, which is Mrs Wessen's, but it's on this floor that the concert's taking place. There's even a private garden," he says, pointing to a little aerial bridge spanning the canal. "It's smaller than my garden in Leytonstone, but Piers says that by Venetian standards it's a golf course."

  Julia's face lights up at the thought of escaping from all this sumptuousness into a garden. "Let's have a quick look," she suggests. "Or are the others waiting for Michael? Is it all right for me to go by myself?"

  "Oh," says Billy, "it'll only take a minute. Let's go together."

  • 348 | VIKRAM SETH

  Ji

  We walk over the bridge, and are in a different, refreshingly simple world, a refuge of small-leaved trees and fragrant white flowers, ivy, oleander and cypress. A few leaves float in a shallow stone bird-bath. A bored, worn lion, forepaws resting on a shield, suns himself in front of a fountain.

  There is no traffic on the small canal. It is soundless except for a little birdsong and the far bell of a church; one cannot even hear the footballs. I crush a laurel leaf, and Julia smells it from my hand.

  "Well," says Helen, who has suddenly and noiselessly appeared behind us. "All this is very lovely, but perhaps we'd better get our rehearsal done." She doesn't address either of us directly. As we pass over the rio, she drops a few leaves into it.

  The music room contains both a piano and a harpsichord.

  "You know, Julia, we should play that Vivaldi here," I suggest. "It makes much more sense on . . ."

  "No," says Julia quickly and sharply, looking upwards for a second. My eyes follow hers and see a huge mass of stucco putti in grey and gilt writhing down, little legs and arms and bottoms protruding off the ceiling.

  "Well," says Piers, who has been waiting for us here. "Should we, at last, begin?" His voice is cold, and he makes no attempt to greet us.

  "I'm sorry, everyone," says Julia. "I just came to say hello, and I'll come for the concert, but I must be off now."

  "But, Julia -" I protest.

  "I've got some shopping to do," she says. "I've got the keys."

  "What about lunch?"

  "Have it with your friends. You've been spending too

  AN EQUAL MUSIC

  349

  little time with them. I'll wander around and see you at six at the apartment. Is six all right?"

  "Well, yes, but -"

  "Six, then. Goodbye."

  "We'll be done in an hour or two," I say. "Why not just sit in the garden and read?"

  But Julia, exasperatingly, has turned away. I get up, worried that she might stumble down the lightless stairs, and get to her as she is at the door.

  "Michael, go back."

  "I am going to see you downstairs." ;

  "Don't." , :

  "What on earth's the matter?"

  "Nothing."

  We are now on the stairs, and it is too dark for me to speak.

  "You'll find your way back?" I say anxiously, as I hold the front door open.

  But Julia, with a quick nod, is crossing the campiello, making no concessions to the presence or tactics of the ^astonished young footballers. ,

  6.7

  Billy is tinkling nervously on the piano when I return.

  "Nothing the matter, I hope," says Piers, somewhat indifferently.

  "No," I say, not delighted with his - and still less with Helen's - unwelcoming attitude to Julia.

  "We haven't had time to catch up on things," he says. "I had a bit of a dust-up with Lothar the day after the concert. He called us up to, well, to congratulate us. The concert was, of course, a great success."

  350

  VIKRAM SETH

  I nod, a little warily.

  "I told him that I thought he ought to have been there. He represents Julia as well as us, and he should have realised that, given the circumstances, there could have been difficulties of one kind or another."

  Piers's oddly formal speech irritates me. "I suppose he had another engagement elsewhere," I say.

  "Yes, that's what he said."

  "Well, it's reasonable enough, Piers. He arranged everything. He even fetched us from the airport and took us for our first rehearsal. Anyway, he's based in Salzburg, isn't he? I don't see what you're driving at. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. How could he have known? He doesn't even know I knew Julia before."

  "Or that you're seeing her now," adds Helen. "Billy, do you mind?"

  Billy stops his tinkling.

  "I think Lothar should have told us about Julia's problem," says Helen. "Don't you? It nearly resulted in disaster."

  "How can you say that?" I exclaim.

  "How can you deny it?"

  "Helen, think straight," I say, very far from maintaining the calm that Julia recommended. "That wasn't her problem, it was mine. And anyway, I told you about it, so what does it matter whether Lothar did or didn't?"

  "It's stressed everyone out," says Piers.

  "Has this conversation been planned?" I ask.

  "Of course not," says Piers sharply. "It's just that we're all really worried by what happened. Including Billy, who's trying not to say anything."

  "What are we rehearsing first?" I ask, looking around. "The Mendelssohn, isn't it?"

  "We've got to talk this through," says Piers, placing

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 351

  his hand on my shoulder, almost as a restraint. "If any concert required a post-mortem, it's that one."

  I remove his hand. "There's nothing to talk through," I say, struggling to control myself. "Julia will not be playing with anyone ever again. All right? That part of her life is over. We won't be playing with her, so how can I get into a state about it?" I breathe deeply, then begin again. "I am very, very sorry about what happened in Vienna. I really am. It was horrible for me, it was horrible for her, and I know it was horrible for you. I'm not making any excuses. It shouldn't have happened. I let you down. But how could anything like that possibly happen again? And how can you be so unsympathetic towards her? Blame me, fine, but why her?"

  There is silence for a few seconds. Neither Helen nor Piers looks convinced.

  "You're right," says Piers suddenly. "Let's drop it."

  "Right. The Mendelssohn," says Billy, relieved.

  Helen says nothing, but nods slightly. ,«• "The scale then?" says Piers.

  •**'We play it slowly, and gradually, almost painfully, slough off much of the acrimony that went before. I look up and see the strange tangle of babies on the ceiling again. I look down at the plain floor and re-immerse myself in the slow steps, first rising, then falling, of the scale.

  "Once more," says Billy as we get to the last note, and all of us seamlessly comply with this unprecedented request. Helen and Billy play calmly and sm
oothly, but Piers seems lost in a world of his own, as I remember he was when I first joined the quartet.

  After the rehearsal is over, we decide we don't need another before the concert.

  "Why don't we all go to San Giorgio Maggiore

  352. | VIKRAM SETH

  tomorrow?" suggests Helen, more herself again. "We haven't done anything together this trip. We can ask someone to take a photograph of us against the columns

  - it would be a good publicity shot. Don't tell me you're doing something all day tomorrow, Michael."

  "I think I could make it - around lunchtime perhaps?"

  "Won't the church be closed then?" says Billy.

  "Well then, how about tomorrow morning?" suggests Helen. "Or even this afternoon?"

  "I want to take a walk now," I say. "But I could meet you there at three or so."

  "Piers?" asks Helen.

  "No, I'm not free."

  "You mean today?" '

  "Yes." ' '. . '

  "And tomorrow?"

  "Yes," says Piers, sounding more numb than exasperated.

  "So tomorrow morning's OK then?" insists Helen.

  Piers shakes his head and sighs. "I'm busy tomorrow as well."

  "What? The whole day?" says Helen. "What on earth are you doing? Do say you'll come, Piers. It'll be such fun. And the view from the tower's so amazing."

  "I don't want to go to that island," says Piers, placing his violin back in its case. "I know the view from that tower. It's etched in my head. For God's sake, Helen, don't pretend to be stupid. I won't go to that island again

  - not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I hate Venice. Sometimes I wish to God he'd never suggested forming the quartet at all."

  Piers walks out of the room. The three of us look at each other, stunned by his vehemence, not knowing what to say.

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 353

  6.8

  Julia and I are having a candlelight dinner at the apartment. She has cooked it and I have laid the table. After I tell her about Piers's outburst, I ask her why she was in such a strange mood in the palazzo. "Was it Helen?" I ask. , ,.: ,

  "This is too much of a strain."

  "I'm so sorry."

  "I mean, it really looks beautiful, Michael, but I can't lip-read by candlelight. What was that about the moon?"

  "The moon?"

  "Oh, it doesn't matter. By the way, the light on the answering machine's been blinking, so we've got a message. I wonder if it's from Jenny."