by Pat Conroy
Susan Lowenstein was already in her seat when I joined her minutes before the concert was to begin. She was dressed in a sleek, long, black gown and leaned over and kissed me when I took my seat. The color black added a touch of the sensual to Susan’s shy beauty.
“Tom, you haven’t met our friends Madison and Christine Kingsley, have you?” she said as I leaned over and shook hands with one of the most famous playwrights in America and his wife.
“Who else do you know that’s famous, Susan?” I whispered. “I want to meet them all so I can brag a lot when I get back down to South Carolina.”
“They live on the third floor of our apartment building,” she said. “Madison went to prep school with Herbert. By the way, Herbert told me he interrupted you and Bernard in the park.”
“He did not seem amused,” I said.
“Be cautious around Herbert tonight, Tom,” she warned, squeezing my arm. “He can be charming or difficult, but he’s impossible to predict.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said. “Were you surprised he invited me, Lowenstein?”
She turned toward me, her black hair loosened, falling onto her white shoulders. Her skin was eggshell-lustered, like the palest chinoiserie. In her office, she disguised her beauty with an efficient, no-nonsense wardrobe. But there was nothing elliptical about her loveliness tonight. On the body of a beautiful woman, black made all colors seem fatuous. Her eyes held that ambiguous melancholy I had frown accustomed to, but now they beheld me in the soft light of a concert hall where she was frontlit in the amplitude of her generous femininity. Her perfume made me dizzy with desire and I felt some shame, but not much, that I was feeling the most wonderful stirrings of lust for my sister’s psychiatrist.
“Yes,” she said. “I was perfectly shocked. He must have liked you.”
Behind the curtain, I could hear the willful soliloquies of instruments being tuned. When the curtain rose to applause, there was Herbert Woodruff, immaculate and stately, acknowledging the crowd and motioning to his ensemble to rise and take an introductory bow.
I had almost forgotten about the existence of the blonde, distressed flutist I had met in Susan’s office until I saw her rise along with the other musicians to acknowledge their ovation. I remembered that I had never seen a more beautiful woman, that her name was Monique, that I had lied and told her I was a lawyer, and that Susan thought she was having an affair with Herbert Woodruff. She sat down and I watched her flute rise to her mouth in a silvering, fluid movement. Her lips were full as she took a deep breath and when she exhaled music was born in a happy borealis of sound. With her fingers, her breath, and her lips, Monique brought Vivaldi newly created into the room, and with a passionate, sudden sweep of his arm, Herbert Woodruff answered her in the language of Vivaldi as they shaped together the erotic cousinry between the flute and the violin. Herbert pulled music from his violin as if he were lifting silk from a dressmaker’s table. His chin rested on the woman-shaped body of his violin and the music seemed to resonate through his muscle and blood. There was a lucid power in his arms and wrists and during his performance he was part dancer and part athlete. The music blended and coalesced; it asked questions in phrases of honey and milk, then answered them in storm. The chamber group turned the concert hall into a place where butterflies and angels should come to be born. For two hours, we listened to the conversation of well-made instruments. And with Herbert Woodruff, we learned much about the stamina and featureless breadth of a man of genius. Every movement he made with his violin was a provision of sacred order. His was a priestcraft of technique and he moved the audience with the rapture of both his ardor and his restraint. I had never been so jealous of a man in my whole life. Once I had been able to throw a football fifty yards, but not until this moment had my single talent seemed so picayune or cheap to me. Not one member of my family could read a note of music, I thought, as the final sonata by Bach made a dark, flowering sunburst through the concert hall.
We stood and cheered for Herbert Woodruff and the three musicians whose skills had provided the contrast to highlight the transcendence of his gift. As I applauded, I knew that it would always be my burden, not that I lacked genius, but that I was fully aware of it.
There was something off-center and troubling about my inclusion in the intimate circle that gathered for dinner in Herbert Woodruff’s apartment. Susan and I rode home in a taxi with the Kingsleys and it was only then that I realized how small and select the gathering would be. Susan was distracted and spent much of her time directing the help in the kitchen. I made drinks for Christine and Madison and was telling them about living in South Carolina when Herbert walked through the door with Monique on his arm. His sinewy frame glowed in the aftermath of his performance and the adrenaline of center stage still poured through his lighted veins. Often I had seen that overstimulated flow in the joyful exhaustion of an athlete after playing his life’s finest game. Herbert, too, was trying to hold fast to the unrepeatable moment; an overlay of ecstasy animated his eyes.
He fixed me with a smile of surprising charm and said, “Southern boy, I’m delighted you could come.”
“You were wonderful,” I said.
“We’ve never played that well together,” Monique said as Herbert introduced me to her.
“We’ve met,” Monique said, and I knew from her tone, gratefully, that the subject should be dropped.
“Can I fix you a drink?” I asked.
“Scotch on the rocks for me, Tom,” Herbert said. “And a glass of white wine for the lovely Monique. Now, while you’re making the drinks, Tom, I want to play something just for you. Tell me what you would like to hear. I don’t want to retire the Stradivarius for the night just yet.”
As I poured the Scotch, I said, “I don’t know very much about classical music, Herbert. Anything would be fine with me.
“Our friend Tom is a football coach from South Carolina, Monique,” Herbert said, holding his violin beneath his chin.
“I thought he was a lawyer,” Monique said.
“I couldn’t understand why Bernard was going to hell as a violinist,” Herbert continued, “until I found out that Tom was coaching Bernard in the manly art of football.”
Madison Kingsley said, “I had no idea that Bernard even knew what a football looked like.”
“I think it’s nice that Bernard is finally showing some interest in something,” Christine Kingsley added.
I felt the evening tense around me but I smiled and handed Monique her glass of white wine and set Herbert’s Scotch on the coffee table. The southerner always makes the mistake of believing that he can resurrect the old fluid courtesies and thus make himself invisible at any party unbalanced or endangered by his presence. It was danger I was feeling as I felt Herbert’s gaze following me. I realized suddenly that I had erred in accepting Herbert’s invitation, but it was too late to do anything but plunge wholeheartedly into the postrecital amusements. I had chameleonlike powers, or so I thought, of sublime and self-effacing mimesis. I fancied myself a heroic listener, a grand appreciator of the wit of others, and I carried with me the southerner’s instinctive wisdom of knowing my place. I could make the split-second assessment of that moment when I entered waters out of my depth.
Beneath these misgivings lay a realm of grand feeling. A rare expansiveness had intruded on my consciousness. There had been too many nights alone in Savannah’s apartment. Solitude overstretched me when it was force-fed in weekly dosages. The mere sound of human voices in that room, hushed and comfortable, hit my veins and tenderized those suspended carcasses of loneliness the great city always hung next to my heart. And I had the outsider’s curiosity about the private utterances of the celebrity at ease above his tossed salad. I wanted to be part of the evening and I would win these folks over by enfolding them in the unrefractive chivalries of my background.
Then Herbert Woodruff played the song “Dixie” on his Stradivarius.
Never had “Dixie” been played so flawlessly or with s
uch ironic intent. Herbert exaggerated his movements to heighten the effect of the satire. When he finished he looked at me with a cunning grin and I saw that Susan had come out of the kitchen into the living room. She looked frightened and angry.
“Well, Tom,” Herbert said at last, “what do you think?”
“That Beethoven sure wrote some pretty songs,” I said.
In the laughter that followed, Susan ushered us into the dining room, instructing us to take our drinks in with us.
Herbert drained his glass of Scotch and poured himself another before he joined us. He sat at the head of the table with Monique on his left and Christine Kingsley on his right. The food had been expertly arranged on Limoges china. It seemed to have been color-coordinated and was prettier than it was tasty. But the wine was from Bordeaux and hit just the right note on my tongue. To my infinite relief, the evening had regained something of its lost equilibrium. Herbert seemed to have forgotten me as he engaged Monique in a private conversation at his end of the table. Then New York started to do what New York did best and the talk grew animated and testy between Herbert and Madison Kingsley.
Their conversation was irreverent and risqué. Every word seemed well chosen, dewy with spontaneity, mordant and fast on its feet. I laughed a little too hard at Madison’s jokey put-downs of other playwrights half as famous as himself. The women spoke briefly, usually bright commentaries or swift summations of major themes the two men had introduced. Despite my best intentions, I found myself memorizing, or trying to, long fragments of conversation between the playwright and the musician. When Herbert talked about giving a benefit performance with Yehudi Menuhin, the whole room grew quiet as he described each subtlety and modulation of that encounter. Herbert was a serious man when he discussed his art. When he finished, Madison Kingsley talked about technical problems he was having in mounting his new play. The two men began to enjoy themselves and their conversation became imperceptibly competitive. They carried the aura of their success well and understood well that they were the ones who were supposed to talk, to dazzle, and to entertain. They were men of substance and distinction and I enjoyed my role of satellite and observer as the meal continued. Once I caught Susan’s eye and smiled when she winked at me. I was not ready for the moment when Herbert Woodruff turned mean again.
Madison Kingsley was briefly outlining the plot of his new play, The Weather in a Dry Season, about anti-Semitism in Vienna before the last World War. He was explaining the problem of how to dramatize the life of a good man who also happened to be a committed Nazi. Madison was in the middle of a sentence when Herbert interrupted him and directed a question to me.
“Is there a lot of anti-Semitism in Charleston where you live, Tom?” he asked.
“Tons,” I said. “But the snobs of Charleston generally don’t discriminate, Herbert. They hate just about everybody.”
“I just can’t imagine living down South,” Monique said. “I can’t imagine why anyone would do it.”
“You kind of get into the habit once you’ve been born there,” I said.
“I’ve never gotten into the habit of New York,” said Christine Kingsley. “And I’ve never lived anywhere else.”
But Herbert was not finished with me, and he said, “What do you do about it, Tom? I mean, when it presents itself. When it rears its ugly head. How do you react when a friend of yours makes a remark that suggests he hates Jews?”
“Herbert,” Susan said, laying down her fork. “I want you to quit picking on Tom.”
“It’s a good question,” Madison said. “It’s the type of thing I’m trying to resolve in this new play. You see, this character, Horst Workman, is not an anti-Semite even though he is a Nazi. What do you do, Tom?”
Monique said before I could answer, “I always leave the room when I’m confronted with racism of any kind.”
“But the subject is Tom,” Herbert said. “What does Tom Wingo do? What does our guest, the high school football coach from South Carolina, do?”
“I sometimes do the same thing,” I said, looking nervously at Susan. “Or else I leap on them. You know, take them by surprise. Then I throw them on the floor and before any of the other anti-Semites in the room can come to their rescue, I rip out their voice boxes with my teeth and spit them across the room. I’m very hard on anti-Semites.”
“That was marvelous, Tom,” Christine said kindly. “You deserved that, Herbert.”
“Very witty, Tom,” Herbert said, clapping his hands in mock applause. “Now that showtime is over, tell us what you really do? I’m truly interested.”
“I’m interested in your shutting up, dear,” Susan said.
Herbert had leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, positioning himself like a praying mantis. His eyes had the shining concentration of a predator. I could see nothing at all clearly but I had the dim perception that I had entered an old and melancholy dance between Susan and Herbert. There was an insatiable quality to Herbert’s maneuvering of the conversation. I was certain that everyone at this table had seen Herbert perform this ritual at other meals. A violent tension mesmerized the air around the table as I tried to figure a way to withdraw cordially from the fray. On Monique’s beautiful lips, I saw the beginning of a slight smile as she noticed my discomfiture. I tried to make sense out of the dramatis personae. Why would a man bring his mistress to his dinner table and why would any wife allow it? Why was Herbert moving so deftly in for the kill? I had committed the unpardonable sin of coaching his son and befriending his wife, but I was new to the dance and I knew Herbert was about to teach me all the steps.
“Cat got your tongue, Tom?” Monique said at last to break the silence.
“I have to be going, Susan,” I said, rising from the table.
“No, Tom. Please, Tom,” Herbert said. “You’re taking this personally. You’re a football coach. Just think of this as an after-dinner sport. The sport of wickedly clever New Yorkers. We’ve never had a coach at this table or a southerner, and it’s natural for us to want to know what makes you tick. My wife is Jewish, Tom. Surely you must have suspected that. Don’t you find it charming that she retains what small Jewish identity she may have once had by clinging to her rather uneuphonious maiden name? I told Susan that I suspect you are an anti-Semite. Nothing uncommon about that. The South is chock-full of them, I’m sure.”
“Where are you from, Herbert?” I asked him, resuming my seat.
“Philadelphia, Tom,” he said. “How nice of you to ask.”
“I’ve had about enough of this, Herbert,” Christine said.
“Oh, please, Christine. We must give Madison new material or he’ll become dated,” Herbert said, laughing.
“I’m not an anti-Semite, Herbert,” I said, “but I loathe all people from Philadelphia.”
“Very good, Coach Tom,” he said, and he looked truly pleased with my reply. “I think I may have underestimated our little southern boy. But we come again to the painful question that you’ve been so adept at avoiding. What do you do when you hear an anti-Semitic remark down South?”
“I do nothing,” I said finally. “Just like I do nothing when I’m around people who hate white southerners. I just sit and listen.”
“I feel about the South the way I feel about Nazi Germany, Tom,” Herbert said. “I think of the South as evil. That’s what makes it interesting to me. By the way, I was in the Selma march. I know what the South is like. I put my life on the line to change the South.”
I smiled and said, “And we southerners, black and white, will ever be eternally grateful to you, Mr. Woodruff.”
“I suggest we change the subject,” said Susan, her voice growing shrill and desperate.
“But why, dear?” said Herbert. “It’s a fascinating subject and far superior to the chitchat that sustains most dinner parties in New York. Don’t you agree? And we owe this to you, Susan. You’re the one who discovered little Tom and brought him into our lives; he is a man who provides tension and real hostility�
�real feelings, as my wife, the psychiatrist, would put it. All of us are feeling real feelings and we owe it all to our friend Tom. Let’s face it, the party was a little boring before we got Tom to open up. Who knows the depth of mediocrity we might plumb tonight.”
“Make Herbert stop this, Madison,” Christine said.
“They’re big boys, dear,” Madison said, and there was something of the voyeur’s secret lust in his face that let me know he had encouraged scenes like this before. “They can stop it themselves.”
“Why are you so curious?” Monique asked Herbert without even looking in my direction.
“Because little Tom is fascinating,” Herbert answered, and I was beginning to wither beneath the hostility of his gaze. “My wife talks of almost nothing else. She tells me some of his homespun homilies and witticisms, which make him seem like some drawling modern-day Mark Twain. And I like his act. His Tara-like pride. His feistiness.”
“Just ignore him, Tom,” Susan said in the murderous climate dimly lit with candles. “Tom is a guest in our home, Herbert, and I want you to leave him alone. You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”
“You’re right, darling,” Herbert said. “How insensitive. Tom is up in New York because his sister, the famous redneck feminist poet, tried to kill herself of late while under my wife’s indulgent care.”
“Excuse me for revealing that information, Tom,” Susan said miserably. “Sometimes you make mistakes. One often has the faith one can trust one’s own husband.”
“Susan,” I said, “in the light of the whole evening that seems small potatoes indeed.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, dear,” Herbert said, leaning away from me and toward his wife. “All of us know how proud you are of your literary clientele of scribbling psychotics. My wife is the shrink of choice among artists of distinction in New York, Tom. She drops their names constantly, then pretends it’s accidental. All of us find it charming.”