by Batya Gur
From the first moment, when Michael laid the bundle of paper down in front of him—he had lifted it with his fingertips and laid it down with reverent care—Izzy Mashiah’s face remained expressionless. Seconds passed before he raised his eyebrows and said with astonishment: “It . . . it looks like an authentic old manuscript.” He bent over the pages.
“How can you tell?” asked Balilty behind his shoulder.
“Look here.” Izzy Mashiah pointed to the staves, which were not printed but drawn in ink. He fingered the edges of the paper. “This clearly is old paper, heavy and fibrous. The handwriting style is old. And here,” his finger hovered over something, “is the stamp of a library. We need an expert to tell us exactly which library, but it looks Italian to me. Maybe even Venetian. I need a magnifying glass to . . . And look at these rust stains! Is it a fake?”
No one answered the question, and he repeated it.
“Let’s assume it isn’t,” said Michael finally.
“Do you have a magnifying glass?”
“We’ll get you a magnifying glass,” said Balilty, and he hurried out of the room. The sound of his feet running heavily down the corridor made the door shake.
“If it’s what I think it is,” said Izzy Mashiah in a trembling voice, “and if it isn’t a fake, and if it really is from a Venetian library, it could . . . it could even be . . .” He looked at the pages with anxiety. “And if it’s eighteenth century, which it seems to me to be, it could even be . . .” he repeated anxiously and raised his eyes to Michael, who maintained an inscrutable expression. Very carefully Izzy Mashiah turned the pages. “If it’s authentic,” he said as he did so, “it’s not complete. The beginning is missing, but that’s typical of such manuscripts, because they consist of a gathering of folded sheets of paper. Here, you see?” He picked up the corner of a sheet that was separate from the one lying underneath it. “Anyhow, I’m not a manuscript expert, and anything I say here is limited.”
“You’ve never seen this music before?”
Izzy Mashiah looked at him with astonishment. “This music? Me? Where could I have seen it?”
“How should I know? Maybe at Gabi’s?”
“It was never in our apartment,” Izzy Mashiah assured him. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have forgotten something like this. Not that we didn’t have some old manuscripts at home. Once Felix even bought a Baroque manuscript, but it was some instructional music, exercises. But something like this? If it’s authentic it’s worth a lot. Priceless,” he blurted. “Where did you get it?”
Michael did not reply.
“Is it Theo’s?” Izzy persisted. “I want to know if it’s Theo’s.”
Balilty flung open the door, out of breath. He put a magnifying glass down in front of Izzy. “Here you are,” he said, and he dropped onto a chair. Sergeant Ya’ir came into the room and stood in the corner at the door, as if on guard.
Izzy looked at the stamp through the magnifying glass. “Yes,” he said in a tremulous voice, “it’s the seal of a Venetian library, and below a rust stain the year 1725 is written. See for yourself.”
He offered the magnifying glass to Michael, who took it, held it with a steady hand, and looked. Izzy Mashiah paged reverently through the second sheaf, then the third and fourth. “It’s a requiem,” he said suddenly. “The torso of a requiem, since the beginning’s missing,” he said to himself. “And the end, too. But the middle, the middle!” He stood up and started walking around the room. “If only Gabi could have seen this!” he said in a strangled voice. “He’s the man you need now. It would have been only right for him to have seen and heard this. He would have gone out of his mind about this!”
“Maybe he did see it,” said Michael calmly.
Izzy stared at him. “Do you think he would have known of something like this and not told me?” he demanded. And he went on furiously: “You don’t understand anything! There’s no chance that he wouldn’t have told me about it. He told me everything, especially in this area! Even if it’s a fake, a fake on such a high level! Music like this! He wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night!”
“And had he been sleeping well recently?” asked Balilty.
Izzy recoiled and froze. His face reflected confusion, terror, illumination, and terror again. “Is this what was in Delft?” he asked Michael in a whisper. “Was it this?” he demanded threateningly as he took hold of Michael’s blue shirtsleeve. “Is this the business he had with that antique dealer in Holland?”
“That’s what we think,” said Michael.
Izzy Mashiah dropped his hand from Michael’s arm, looked at the manuscript, sat down, and stared blankly in front of him, his face very pale. “He didn’t tell me anything about it,” he whispered. “Not a word, not even a hint. How can that be?”
“How can we find out who the composer is?”
Izzy Mashiah pushed the score of Les Troyens away, put his arm on the desk, and laid his forehead on his arm. “I’m going to faint,” he warned, and with great difficulty he took shallow, whistling breaths.
Michael pulled him to his feet and dragged him to the window. He opened it. The rain wet their faces.
“I need my medicine,” said Izzy Mashiah. Drops of sweat gathered on his brow.
“What medicine?” Balilty barked.
“It’s an inhaler. I have asthma.”
“Don’t you have it with you?” asked Michael.
“In my pocket,” said Izzy in a stifled voice. “In my jacket pocket.” “Where’s your jacket?” demanded Balilty.
“Outside, I think.”
Balilty opened the door. “There’s no jacket on the chair,” he announced from the corridor. “Where outside?”
“Maybe there in the office,” said Izzy, his chin trembling. “In Zisowitz’s office.”
“Who’s Zisowitz?” said Balilty.
“The orchestra manager,” replied Michael, and Balilty charged down the corridor to the manager’s office and returned with a light-colored jacket. He rummaged roughly through the pockets and produced a small box. “Is this it?” he asked, and at a nod from Izzy Mashiah he took out a small inhaler.
Izzy sprayed and inhaled. Michael now remembered Ruth Mashiah’s warnings about his asthma. The thought of her brought with it the image of a tiny face and the sound of running feet he might have heard some day. And a stab of pain in his heart. She’s gone, he reflected sternly. Gone. It’s over. Finished. They’ve even found the mother. There’s no point in even thinking about it now. He resumed poring over the manuscript.
Little by little Izzy Mashiah started breathing regularly again. He didn’t look at the policemen as he put the inhaler away in its box. He also avoided looking at them when he sat down on the chair again, and pulled the manuscript toward him. Whistling with every breath, he continued carefully to leaf through the second sheaf. “The Introit is missing, this is the Dies Irae,” he said apathetically, “and if it’s authentic, it’s Vivaldi. It certainly looks like his work.”
“What’s that you said?” demanded Balilty, and Michael remained silent so as not to antagonize him.
“Dies Irae . . . It means Day of Wrath, the Day of Judgment. It’s a standard part of the Requiem Mass,” said Izzy Mashiah, his voice tremulous and remote. “And it’s always the most stormy part. You can hear that in Mozart’s and Verdi’s requiems. But in the Baroque period they liked it especially stormy. They liked to stress the drama. And the greatest creator of musical storms at the time—what the Italians called temporale—was Antonio Vivaldi. Anyone who has heard his La tempesta di mare concerto can see that this Dies Irae is by him.”
“You can tell how it sounds just from looking at the notes? You don’t have to play it to know?” Balilty asked doubtfully.
Izzy Mashiah looked at him with astonishment. A few seconds passed before he understood the question. “I can read music,” he said, gripping his soft, trembling chin. “I can’t understand why he didn’t tell me,” he murmured. “And I’ll never forgive him,�
� he vowed, bursting into tears.
Balilty inflated his cheeks and expelled his breath noisily. He looked at Michael with a vexed expression and rolled his eyes at the ceiling as if to say, What do we do now?
“If you don’t feel up to it,” said Michael paternally, “we can bring in an expert. We have experts we can call on, and there’s no problem about bringing in someone from outside—”
“There’s no need.” Izzy Mashiah roused himself. He blew his nose, dried his tears, and stopped crying. “I can deal with it. I can examine the manuscript right now and give you a definite answer.”
“Are you sure?” asked Michael, ignoring Balilty’s warning look. “We can easily have it examined by someone from the university and by our lab.”
“There’s no one in Israel who knows any more about the Baroque than I do,” said Izzy Mashiah, his breath whistling again. “Now that Gabi’s gone, there’s no one. And besides, I’m entitled to see it before anyone from outside . . . I’m sure that I . . . You’re not just simply going to take it outside,” he cried out, horrified. “Outside in the rain!”
They waited for a few moments while Izzy Mashiah leaned back in his chair and used the inhaler again. Then he carefully turned pages once more. His lips moved occasionally like the lips of a person silently praying.
“It’s a requiem. And the whole of the Kyrie is missing because the first pages are missing. Apparently the first sheaf is lost. The second section is here, and so is the third, and we have part of the fourth. The last section is missing. Altogether we have three sections—the second, the third, and part of the fourth, which begins with the Offertorium and breaks off in the middle. Do you see?” He turned the pages carefully. “In every sheaf there are eight leaves written on both sides. In other words, sixteen pages. We have here thirty-two pages from two sheaves and another four of the Offertorium. There’s no title page and no composer’s signature. There are signs that it’s Vivaldi. You can see his stylistic fingerprints and also his wit.”
Again he sank back. “It’s simply inconceivable that he didn’t share this with me,” he muttered. “Maybe he intended to tell me when he got back from Holland,” Izzy said, staring at the music. “Maybe if I’d picked him up at the airport he would have told me. But I didn’t go because I was so hurt. And that hurt him, and . . .”
Once more he turned pages. Wiping his face and rubbing his eyes under the lenses of his glasses until they reddened, he suddenly said: “I see that he didn’t complete everything, some parts have been left blank.” His finger hovered over the manuscript and came to rest on the desktop. “I can explain that as follows,” he said with undisguised excitement. “Vivaldi had a number of patrons. One of them was a certain cardinal whose name I don’t remember. In the sources there are references to a mass written in 1722, possibly for Ferdinand de Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Although we don’t know exactly what kind of mass it was, it was apparently the kind where certain parts are left unwritten. In other words, in a mass for the dead the composer wrote part of it and the rest the priest would intone in traditional chant.
“And here, in the Sanctus, is one of your proofs,” he went on.
“Proof of what?” demanded Balilty severely, in a hard voice.
“That it really is by Vivaldi. The music of this Sanctus is an exact replica of the music in a passage of Vivaldi’s Gloria Mass. And it’s logical that he should have taken it from there because the number of syllables is the same in both texts and both passages are in the same key, but maybe . . .” He fell into a reflective silence.
“Maybe what?” demanded Balilty.
“Maybe we’re only seeing part of the score and in the original there were also parts for trumpets and drums.”
“I can’t see how that amounts to any kind of proof,” said Balilty sullenly. “That you know it’s from somewhere else. Isn’t that what you said?”
Izzy Mashiah was gazing at him absently, and suddenly he roused himself. “What don’t you understand?”
“What it proves.”
“At that time they all quoted one another. Bach did it, and Handel also took things from other composers. But Vivaldi was famous all over Europe during his lifetime, and none of his contemporaries would have risked taking something of his and putting it into a work of his own.”
“How did something like this end up in Holland?” asked Balilty. “You say he lived in Italy.”
“Vivaldi traveled a lot, both in Italy and abroad. Long journeys to all kinds of places. We know that he was in Holland in 1738. He was very famous, and Bach himself and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach arranged works by him. I’m sure that this manuscript circulated. There’s documentation of a performance, in 1722 or 1728, of a piece that subsequently was lost. Though it has never been identified as a requiem, this could well be that piece.”
“You know a lot about it,” said Balilty from behind Michael’s back. He spoke with reluctance tinged with respect.
“About Vivaldi? I’m an authority on Vivaldi,” said Izzy Mashiah bitterly. “And that’s why I simply can’t understand how Gabi could have . . . He always discussed everything to do with Vivaldi . . . I know everything that’s known about Vivaldi. Every date, every quarrel, every woman he slept with, and . . .” His lower lip trembled and he wrung his hands. “I don’t understand it. And I thought he had someone else. Maybe when I was suspicious, when I was angry with him, he was busy with this.”
He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose you could say this was the someone else.” He fell silent for a moment. “Gabi told me that he was going to his father’s place. I called there and there was no answer. I thought he was lying, and when he came home I made a scene. Maybe they were together consulting. . . . I wish . . . How could he have kept this from me?”
“Maybe he was sworn to secrecy,” Sergeant Ya’ir suddenly suggested from his place at the door.
Michael turned around quickly and gave him a threatening look. He was afraid that this interruption would cut off the flow of Izzy’s talk.
“Who? Who could have . . .” Izzy began loudly, the hurt growing in his voice, and suddenly he stopped.
“Yes?” Balilty’s small eyes narrowed as he asked: “Yes? What were you going to say?”
“Only Felix could have . . .” said Izzy Mashiah with his head bowed. “He was the only who had such power over Gabi, to make him swear not to tell me. But I can’t understand why. I’m just the person they should have asked. It’s not possible that Gabi didn’t know about it and Theo did. And if Theo knew, why didn’t they tell me, too? I don’t understand it.”
“So you’re an authority on Vivaldi,” said Balilty, bringing him back to the subject. “Aren’t we lucky,” he added joylessly. “You were in the middle of your explanation. You were saying,” he said, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and then looking at Izzy Mashiah from behind Michael’s shoulder, “you were talking about the sources. The word ‘requiem’ isn’t mentioned there.”
In a monotonous voice, as if his mind were somewhere else, Izzy Mashiah said: “The Dutch had better printers than the Italians. There was a big demand then for Italian music in Northern Europe. Vivaldi was most popular in Germany. As early as 1711 a Dutch publisher, Etienne Roger, printed one of the most important musical publications of the first half of the eighteenth century, Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico, twelve concertos for solo violin, two violins, and four violins.”
“You’re absolutely positive that this is by Vivaldi?” Michael asked.
“Im more or less certain. Even if it’s not his autograph manuscript, it’s definitely his composition, in a copy made from his original draft. It can’t be by an imitator, because no one in Venice would have dared to perform in public a piece so characteristic of Vivaldi. A piece with the Sanctus taken from Vivaldi’s Gloria Mass. And the style, too. I wish I weren’t so sure. I wish it weren’t Vivaldi. How could he? Not a word. He didn’t tell me anything!”
“Would you please
describe to me the special features of Vivaldi’s style?” Michael asked. “Briefly.”
“Now?”
Michael nodded, and Izzy Mashiah leaned back in a demonstrative display of exhaustion.
“He had a weakness for what, during the Baroque period, they called bizarrerie. In other words, whimsicality or oddness or the fantastical,” he said, looking out the window as if his eyes were swallowing the darkness. “It’s there even in the Four Seasons, which is full of surprising, novel effects. He was extremely original, and here, in the Dies Irae,” he said, tapping wearily on the desktop, “you can see it clearly.”
“That’s it? Is that enough?”
“Another thing,” continued Izzy Mashiah after a long pause, “which appears here in the choral parts, is Vivaldi’s abstractness. It’s true that when we speak of particularly fine Baroque melodists we often think of Corelli, but Vivaldi, too, had a lyrical gift. But his specialty was constructing entire movements without a single melody, merely recurring motifs repeated in a variety of keys, as in the concerto La notte.”
“And that’s enough proof of a style? That would be enough for musicologists to establish Vivaldi as the composer of this work?”
Izzy Mashiah sighed. “Even if it’s not a composition of Vivaldi’s, it’s still worth a good deal,” he said apathetically. “But I’m convinced that it is by Vivaldi. The musicologists would agree with me.”
“And something like this could really be found out of the blue in an old organ in Delft?”
“Berlioz’s Mass was found lying on the top shelf of an organ loft in a Belgian church. It was a bundle of paper tied up with string, covered with dust,” said Izzy Mashiah. “These things are sometimes involved with inheritances and other kinds of complications. You know, musicians keep their music in all sorts of peculiar places. Why not in an old organ in Delft?”
“I don’t know if you realize this,” said Balilty slowly, “but if it belonged to Gabriel van Gelden, you’re the heir. He left you everything.”