by D. J. Gelner
“Mother, please—“ I virtually begged her.
“I’m sorry, Fin,” she said. “I’m so damned sorry. You deserved better.”
“I got the best,” I looked into her depressed, yet somehow still vibrant blue eyes, “But I still deserved better.”
I wasn’t sure if she got my reference to my father’s adroit attempts at raising me, or even if I was speaking about parenting at all.
Perhaps my words somehow foreshadowed events to come.
We fully embraced and the panoply of emotions that overcame me escaped my usually succinct, concise worldview to form something tragic and automatic, like a warehouse full of discarded crash test dummies. Though it would be easy to spout a platitude like, “my life had been leading up to this moment,” I couldn’t help but escape the thought that the previous week or more had been carefully orchestrated by powers far beyond my control.
And yet I wept.
Granted, I regained control almost immediately. And despite Corcoran and Bloomington’s half-assed efforts at mock applause, the Germans appeared far more interested at the scene that developed at the front of the room. But for a brief moment, as I embraced mother, and allowed my otherwise contained emotions to slip, to be let free into the world absent any kind of check, I felt an incomparable warmth, far more intimate than casting a down blanket over myself on a cold Baltimore eve.
I looked upon mother, and the faintest outline of a smile adorned her otherwise tired visage.
“It’s so good to see you again, Fin,” she said.
“And you, likewise, mother,” I replied, and immediately regretted the awkward phrasing and cadence I had used.
“‘Pologize for interuptin’, but what exactly’s goin’ on here?” Corcoran used the full extent of his affected charm. “Not, you know, between you two, but why is everyone here today?”
Mother offered the Commander a sly smile, “Why, my dear Commander, it’s a wedding between two of the most important noble families in town! The Bauers and the Schliebens are about to cement their alliance with a union of two of their children. The Schlieben boy is as queer as a three dollar bill, if you ask me, but they’re going through with it anyway. I fear they’re not nearly as enlightened in this time period as we are in—”
At that moment, a cherubic little fiddler began playing a pleasant tune at the rear of the church. The people milling about took their seats; we had no choice but to do the same. Unfortunately, this meant shoehorning myself in between the Commander and my purple-mohawked freak of a step-father.
“Oy,” the man practically grunted at me.
“Hello, uh…Manyx. I’m Phineas, your wife’s son from her first—”
“Oy,” he nodded toward the fiddler, who made his way down the aisle. Directly behind the musician was the groom’s party, which was fitted with relatively tasteful attire and luxury. This only infuriated me further, as it was clear that my Benefactor was winding us up a bit with the ridiculous clown costumes he provided by comparison.
Of course, compared to Manyx’s post-punk hipster ensemble, each of us looked positively dapper, Bloomington included.
I listen to enough classical music to know that the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s Lohengrin wouldn’t be composed for over one hundred years. Though I didn’t make it to many weddings, in large part owing to the fact that the typical company I keep of virgins-by-necessity like Bloomington and arrogant prigs such as myself don’t tend toward the shackles of marital bliss, when I did have occasion to attend one, I always enjoyed the song, and was disappointed to realise that it wouldn’t be featured.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today—”
Manyx interrupted the minister with a loud half grunt, half snort.
I was horrified. Fortunately, the officiant paid it no heed and continued.
The ceremony itself was rather formal by modern standards, aside from my (ugh!) stepfather’s attempts to draw attention to himself. The minister stood at the front of the church as the bride and groom kneeled side-by-side in front of the altar. There was little room for pontificating or ad libbing, as the entire thing seemed to be scripted from the get go. The only even half-way serendipitous occurrence was when the father of the bride stood up before the end of the ceremony to make an announcement.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please join us to celebrate this joyous occasion with food, drink, and music provided by none other than the director of the St. Thomas School himself, the world-famous Johan Sebastian Bach.” The crowd applauded politely, save for Manyx, who clomped his hands together as I imagine a horse might should it ever have reason to applaud. A harsh, weatherbeaten man with a thoroughly Prussian face and powdered wig stood off to the side at the front of the church and took a bow.
I leaned a skeptical eye toward mother, who smiled proudly as she joined the rest of the crowd in their approval.
“Or, should I say, I’ll provide the food, and Mr. Bach will provide the entertainment. As many talents as the good Master may possess, I’m afraid culinary facility is not among them.” Fake laughter filled the cozy church.
The minister pronounced the couple man and wife, and the gawky husband awkwardly planted a passionless kiss on the (quite fetching, at least for the time) bride, who mustered her own nervous smile. Herr Bauer signaled the fiddler to commence once more, and he struck the bow across cat gut adroitly as the parties processed out of the theater and into the street.
We followed suit, and soon found ourselves in a procession down one of the main streets in Leipzig that ended in a rather spacious (for the time) courtyard at a lovely little castle-like estate in town. God-knows how many casks of wine already lined the tall plaster walls, with any number of servants ready to wait on us hand and foot.
I figured that it was a celebration, and gladly accepted a chalice overfilled with wine. I took a swig and nearly spit the liquid out straightaway.
“No good?” Corcoran asked.
“Sweet. Far too—” I eyed Bloomington as he drained his entire chalice in two or three gulps before he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and rudely poked the next servant who walked by in the chest to ask for more. “—Sweet.”
Perhaps the pudgy scientist hadn’t returned completely to normal.
Mother wanted to take the opportunity to catch up, which largely consisted of her droning on incessantly about Manyx’s various shows and all of the celebrities to whom he had sold his work (though, I must admit, I was thoroughly surprised to hear that Sunil Suniputram bought one of the freak’s paintings at auction. Though as I write this, I realise you likely have no way of knowing who the “Indian Tom Cruise” is, or I should say “will be”).
For his part, Manyx simply held his nose high in the air and grunted awkwardly, or otherwise drew attention to himself with a sniff or forceful nod when Mother mentioned an accomplishment of which he was especially self-satisfied.
I tried to get the attention of both Corcoran and Bloomington, but Corcoran desperately tried to convince himself that the female creatures of the era were worth hitting on, while Bloomington greedily guzzled the wine like it was grape juice (I fear there actually was little difference between the two in alcohol content; I remained far too sober throughout the festivities to withstand the utter ridiculousness of mother’s continued ramblings and Manyx’s annoying noises).
Thankfully, after a half-hour of such nonsense, the host clanged a couple of the goblets together to get the attention of the crowd.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, as promised, Headmaster Johann Sebastian Bach!” Polite applause followed as the same sour man who had stood up at the church now stepped forward and took a bow to more light applause. His scowl appeared to be permanent, and made him look like a shorter, fitter John Belushi, who happened to be wearing a powdered wig for an early Saturday Night Live sketch.
Servants carted an odd-looking contraption (which I later found out was a harpsichord) to the center of the courtyard, and the presumptive Bach sat down at the bench in
front of it. He shot a look at the crowd that immediately demanded silence. Bach turned toward the instrument and cracked his knuckles before he placed his hands on the keys. I chuckled at how this custom had somehow made its way through the ages to my present day.
Bach’s hands moved with a level of skill and expertness that I had rarely seen at any craft, outside of perhaps Corcoran with a firearm in his hands, or myself tearing through equations on a whiteboard. He got a full three measures into the piece, as he hammered each key precisely so as to make the twangy sounds of the instrument sing off of the tall courtyard walls.
Then it started. One painfully missed note. Then another. To the man’s credit, Bach’s expression never changed from “bothered grimace” as he invariably crashed several wrong keys, stopped, took a deep breath, and resumed where he left off.
Even more baffling, the crowd seemed to peg the entire thing as completely ordinary. Corcoran and Bloomington winced at the miscues, though Mother played along with the rest of the crowd, willfully oblivious. And, of course, Manyx grunted or (much to my dismay) spit loudly whenever one of the awkward silences struck his fancy.
Bach limped along through the performance for several more minutes until the piece mercifully came to an end. Mother clapped excitedly almost as soon as he had struck the final note, while Manyx engaged in his own equine style of loud applause, punctuated by snorts and grunts. I looked at Corcoran, who widened his eyes and tugged on his collar in mock embarrassment for the man, whom likely at this stage in his life was more renowned as a composer than performer, or at least that’s how I rationalised this…this “display.”
As the applause died down, a wretched-looking man emerged from the crowd to confront Bach, who by this time had recovered from his bows.
“Perhaps Mr. Schiebe is right when he criticizes your pieces for their lack of clarity or higher purpose,” the man said in a haughty tone.
Bach’s face reddened, not with embarrassment, but rather anger.
“Ernesti, you hack! Dare you criticize me once more? I believe this crowd thoroughly enjoyed themselves this evening, did they not?” Bach motioned toward the reception. It was the first bit of showmanship we had seen from the man, but it was met with a tepid, if polite, smattering of applause.
To Bach, it must have seemed a veritable torrent of support. He nodded his head at this “Ernesti” fellow with a flourish. The composer’s eyes bore through the man like the pike through the time traveller in Nicaea.
“That’s no tone to take with me, you miserable old coot!” Ernesti brandished a dagger from his waistcoat and the crowd erupted in low murmurs and high screams. Corcoran instinctively reached for his holster , but was stopped by the father of the bride, who interjected himself into the argument.He unsheathed his sword and levelled it at both potential combatants. Ernesti thought about challenging the otherwise jolly paterfamilias, but I suppose he realised that it was imprudent to bring a dagger to a sword fight, and backed down.
Sword still in hand, and without skipping a beat, the host smiled broadly and motioned to the dour-faced musician, who still stood in front of the harpsichord.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Master Johann Sebastian Bach!” A smattering of (generally) positive acknowledgement crackled through the crowd as Bach took a characteristically stern bow.
I was actually somewhat intrigued by the dour-faced Prussian composer, so as soon as the applause died down, I grabbed two fresh chalices of wine and approached him.
“Mr. Bach…Mr. Bach, please, a moment?”
He turned toward me with a look as if his teeth had been grinding a lemon to a pulp for the past several hours.
“Yes?” he replied.
“That was a…err…wonderful performance,” I hoped my feigned exuberance was believable enough, especially through the intermediary of the holotran affixed to my neck, “Really, top drawer.”
“Thank you,” he nodded.
“Might I ask, do you play the harpsichord much anymore?” I offered him one of the chalices, which he accepted and drained more readily than even Bloomington had, though without the general lack of manners and composure.
His body language didn’t offer so much as a hint of a reply.
“No, no. Mostly I fight with that damned old fool Ernesti about some idiotic idea of his or another. The balance of my days are spent teaching the boys at the St. Thomas school not to screech quite so badly while singing. My evenings are composed of,” he motioned in a wide arc around his head, “Events like this. Weddings, funerals and the like. Little time for practice, so everything you heard was God-given talent.
And here I thought that God wasn’t wrathful, I thought.
“Why take the extra work? Love of performance? The need to energise a crowd?”
The glare remained on his face, even through the thinnest of chuckles, “My boy, you think an old man like me needs the ‘thrill’ of a performance to get the blood flowing any longer? No, no, the reality is that my salary here in Leipzig is rather meager—mere hundreds of Thaler per year, less than two per day. My poor Anna is a wonderful singer,” the composer finally lit up as he mentioned her name, though his expression darkened quickly, “but currently between patrons. So, I take these events as a way to pay the bills.”
“But…you’re Bach!” I couldn’t help but exclaim. “You’re a genius! Your music will reverberate through the years like…like Mozart or…” I realised that I had made an error by mentioning a composer who hadn’t yet been born, “…Beethoven.”
“Ha! The deaf fellow in Bonn? Don’t get me wrong, Mr.—”
“Templeton. Phineas Templeton.” I stuck out my hand to be shaken, but Bach disregarded it.
“Mister Templeton. By the way, where are you from?”
“England, sir.”
Bach nodded, “The clothes were a dead giveaway. But your German is absolutely impeccable, especially for an Englishman.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I wondered how he perceived my speaking voice: was it similar to when I spoke the King’s? Or some autotuned bastardisation that made me sound like a cold, murderous German robot? Though judging by the attitudes we had witnessed around town, such a tone wouldn’t necessarily be all that out of place.
He shook his head, “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Templeton, the deaf lad shows promise. And yes, perhaps my music is more popular currently in England than it is here. But the truth of the matter is that the art isn’t the hard part. It’s the critics like Schiebe, the political horseshit that I have to go through to maintain my rather modest position, that is the tough part of not only my job, but my work. I take it you understand the difference?”
I nodded. All too well. “A job is something you do for money. Work is something you do because you need to do it, lest you go mad from not doing so.”
The corner of his mouth upturned into the faintest hint of a smirk. “Very good, Mr. Templeton. Dare I say I couldn’t have said it better myself. Yes, that’s exactly right—my work suffers because of all of the tiresome excrement that I must put up with on a day-to-day basis at my job.”
He drew closer to me and whispered, “Want to know something few others do?” he asked. I took this as my cue to break out the “Live Long and Prosper” hand symbol, though I did so cautiously. I allowed my contorted hand to linger in front of him for several moments before the quizzical look on his face alerted me to the fact that he had absolutely no idea what I was showing him. I quickly ran my hand through my hair.
Bach remained crouched over, intent, yet guarded. “I would love nothing more than to piddle around with the harpsichord or the violin all day, Anna accompanying me with song, my spirit free to soar and write and create.”
“So why not do it then?” I asked, innocently enough.
“How could I ever afford to do so? If it’s not a bill, it’s a creditor. I must survive, dear Templeton. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a good benefactor these days?”
“Some,” I replied, absolut
ely stone-faced. A servant came by with more goblets, and Bach grabbed two more.
“Very well then, Mr. Templeton. I must be going so that my wife doesn’t throw me out in the cold this evening,” he smiled (actually smiled!) and gave a courteous bow which I returned. “Thank you for the conversation. And please do spread word of my level of play throughout all of England.”
Are you really that unconcerned with your legacy? I thought.
“I will,” I said.
He drained the goblet in one draught once more, and walked that precise, mechanical German walk out of the courtyard.
Chapter Twenty-One
The rest of the evening was rather uneventful. Mother continued to blather non-stop about her life since she had left me with Father all of those years ago. Bloomington drank far too much wine, though his “condition,” if you can call it as such, continued to improve with each chaliceful. Corcoran (I think) feigned interest in my Mother’s exploits, if only to be able to lord his flirtation with her over me in the coming days. And Manyx constantly drew attention to himself with his awful, condescending grunts and snorts, which made me partly want to pop him one in the nose, much as I had Bloomington, to see if it may alleviate the annoying artist’s apparent “sinus problem.”
Speaking of which, Bloomington’s face is completely healed, I thought. I found it odd, given that it had only been three or four…or five(?)…days since I had introduced his face to one of the most dangerous pairs of hands to ever grace Eton.
The other invitees enjoyed themselves with various dances and parlor games, including one particularly intriguing diversion whereby the best man “kidnapped” the bride and hid her in a secluded part of the estate for the groom to find. I found the practice to be quite whimsical, and thought it added a competitive edge to the festivities, though I certainly recognised the potential for abuse among more lascivious best men.