by gay walley
Adele wouldn’t be home for a little bit.
A few seconds later, Duet picked up her cell phone.
"Hi," he said in his most masculine voice, his jurisprudentially and deeply resonant yours truly lawyer voice, ah he remembered about women, they like strength, "This is Maurice Langelier...”
"Oh, oh yes. How are you?"
"How about we have another dinner or lunch or something soon? We can talk about your music."
"I’m out of town right now. My grandmother is ill. When I get back. Next week. How’s that?”
“Great,” he said, “I’ll wait for your call,” he said, after making some polite remarks about her grandmother’s good health. They hung up. He misses women, he had to admit. That quiet delight in her voice. I mean there are women at work, his own secretary is someone everyone gawks at, and he himself was head over heels for her, but it wasn't her mind, let's face it. This one is feminine, fragile, like tinkling glass, a champagne flute. Maybe it is the creative part of her. Eros and chaos. Enough. He dialed the Judge he had been trying to set up a meeting with for over a week.
That night as he lay in bed, he asked himself, Do I know any jokes? He'll wear his best suit. Maybe she will look down on a lawyer. I wonder how much music she knows.
He couldn’t sleep. He picked up a book. Mahler, A Life in Crisis. The Mahler Society has a meeting next week. What issues have they got on board? Mahler's One Hundredth birthday. They should create some special event. Her work. There's enough money between them all. I wonder if she likes Nietzsche. You can't be a Mahlerite and not like Nietzsche. Both geniuses ponder the existence of god. Nietzsche doesn't need a ready made god, but he is spiritual. Anyone who believes in greatness believes in God. Mahler in the end believed in a god of love.
"Who cares about Mahler?" he remembers hearing his secretary say to another secretary, when she thought Maurice wasn't listening. My god. Amazingly, the other secretary remembered Mahler was connected to Death in Venice. Some Mahler piece, she said, I don’t know which one. Number five, he could have told them, but why bother?
When Duet got back from visiting her family, Maurice had finagled himself into being her first social meeting. She waited in the corner of Bistro 60, as she had done the last time. He walked in and quickly took in that she looked pretty, fresh pink lipstick, a simple black dress, her dark hair full and soft on her shoulders. She was assessing him, though, he could see that. What are his intentions? She masked her suspicions with a smile. All women do that.
He sat down and once again put his briefcase next to her since there was no room elsewhere. They both ordered salads and he had a scotch, "I can use this," he said. Why does everyone in her life drink scotch? She wondered. She ordered tea. She pulled out a book victoriously, Nietzsche and Heroics of the Soul. "Do you have this?"
"Of course I do. It's a great book."
"Ah, I should have known. I can't remember it but I loved it." She turned to him, "How do you, a litigator, which I know is very demanding, have time to collect all these Nietzsche books, on top of everything else? Not to mention read them. And you seem to be versed in Kant, and Schopenhauer, and Jewish philosophers. Are you human, all too human?"
He smiled, "I forgot to tell you I also had a radio show."
They went on to discuss Janacek, Britten, Brahms, Bach, every composer. She was not as knowledgeable as he was, since he seemed to be a veritable library of information. She was an appreciator, loving music, but not an acquirer. Often she fell in love with a symphony or piano concerto without knowing what key it was in or its title. It was the feeling, the experience of the music, not the information, she wanted. Perhaps, she wondered, this is why she is not successful. She is not specific.
As she listened to Maurice discuss the versions of Shostakovich he had recorded, she did not think she could speak so eloquently on any subject as he was doing. She was more like a scat musician in her thoughts, but then scat musicians know their instruments and their notes inside out. Suddenly, she felt sad about all that she was not. He smiled at her and she wondered again if he was married. Such passion is sexy. He might have the same passion for her. She knew that most people think power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, but they’re wrong, she thought. Maybe knowledge is.
"Do you know Saint Saens'*** Quartet for the End of Time?"she asked.
"Of course."
"I have two tickets this Saturday. Want to come? None of my friends can stand modern music. But I love that piece. Do you know how it was written? Saint Saens was in a camp but the German guard was a music lover so he gave Saint Saens a room to write music in. They set up a quartet, one of whom was Jewish, to play it. The other three lived through the war. Not the Jew." She felt such anger at that moment. How can a world that loves music be so cruel? She almost felt she was going to cry. The world, the world seems to set out to destroy sensitivity. She turned to him to ask him how he felt about that and then he said --
"No," he said, "I can't go to the music. Thank you. I'm going away."
"Ah."
She looked at him and his eyes were so intense, so delicate in a way, full of feeling. The divine spark, that's what he is in love with, she realized, Mahler's, Nietzsche's** and the nascent divine spark in himself.
They shared the check, another sign he was not looking to date her, and they began the walk south, to their respective homes. It was a beautiful warm evening, hardly anyone on Madison Avenue. "Must be the economy," she said and they walked quickly, with him setting the pace, but she tended to walk quickly anyway.
The next day, her buzzer rang. It was the Fedex man with a Bose stereo
system. With it was a note, “All art constantly aspires toward the condition of music.” No signature. Had to be Maurice. And was that a quote from Nietzsche? She couldn’t remember. Whoever said it, she agreed with.
Paula said, "That costs more than $1000."
Duet was shocked.
“Speaking of money,” Paula said, “Guess what happened this morning?”
“What?”
“Remember how I lost those expensive sunglasses I loved so much?” Paula asked. “Well, I found a really cute pair at a little dress shop in the village for $18. I was wearing them, they’re a little purple, and this woman today, as I was getting on the elevator, began screaming at me that those were her sunglasses! Can you imagine!”
Duet laughed (How do these things keep happening to Paula?), “That’s too wild,” but her mind was on the Bose system.
Duet quickly turned and wrote Maurice an email: Thank you. You shouldn't have spent this much money.
He replied immediately: An artist should have the best sound system. Let’s get together next week to go over what plans I have for your music. I want to set up a concert for you. Maurice.
She sat there looking at the screen. In truth, she felt uncomfortable. She didn’t like receiving an expensive gift, and she didn’t really like his heavy handedness, but he seemed to genuinely care for her. So maybe she would see him again. Maybe just one more time.
Twenty two:
“The Poconos?” Paula asked, swiveling her chair around. “You mean with those heart shaped beds and ceiling mirrors?”
Duet shook her head. “That doesn’t seem like Oskar, does it?”
They both laughed. Paula said, “Some kind of rough mountain climb sounds more like him. But hey you might enjoy it. If he wants to go, go.”
For a few seconds they were silent, working, and then Duet heard from Paula’s office an agonized OH MY GOD.
“What?” Duet asked, jumping up and going into Paula’s cubicle. “What is it?”
“Look at the Times business section. I knew it could happen but not that it would.”
Duet bent over Paula’s shoulders. There it was. Lars Nevart indicted on two counts. One for booking sales before they were signed so he could inflate his numbers to stockholders and, two, for tax evasion. There were paragraphs about questionable activities of subliminal messaging in his video games.
The New York Times reported that right wing political references and symbols were flashed in milliseconds throughout the game, along with Masonic codes, therefore infiltrating the minds of the game players.
“Wow,” Duet said. “McCarthy accused the so-called Communist Hollywood film directors of subliminal messaging of Communist propaganda in their films…”
Paula said, “They weren’t indicted for that, were they?”
“I don’t know.”
Paula breathed in sadly, “I hated Lars’ partner. I forget his name but I think he was barred by the SEC from serving as an executive at a company for ten years. Maybe it’s that guy, not Lars, and Lars knows nothing about this.”
Duet nodded, but thought, That’s not what the paper is saying.
Paula stood up, grabbing her handbag, her keys. “I must go to him now.”
Duet was non plussed. She understood Paula’s reaction but still. “Do you know where he is?”
Paula began texting him, as she stood there.
“I’ve been talking to him about all this ever since Oskar brought it up but he didn’t tell me he was this close to having to go to court.”
Duet said, “Wait a bit before going over there. He must be overwhelmed, not to mention dealing with the anger of his own stockholders etc. Suggest a drink tonight.”
“You’re right,” Paula said. She retexted. “Can you imagine,” she said, “if he ends up in jail?”
“He’s not American, right? So wouldn’t he just be sent back to Denmark?”
“I don’t know,” Paula said.
“I’ll ask Oskar when I see him. He knows these kinds of things.”
“Why is that?”
“He’s the opposite. He’s consumed with correctness. He is very careful.”
“God,” Paula said, sitting back down at her desk and pulling the article back up on her screen, “If only Lars or that other guy had not been so stupid.”
Duet’s trip with Oskar was not to a heart shaped bed in a Poconos motel. He drove them up to a chateau-like, enormous hotel, with six thousand acres of trees, lakes, hiking trails in the mountains, and if that was not enough, there was tennis, golf, paintball, archery, swimming, and canoeing, not that she was athletic, but he was.
Oskar arranged two tennis games for himself as soon as they arrived, and the next day, after his game, he took her on a hike to show her the waterfalls and trees. He had been here, obviously, with countless girlfriends.
"It says here," he said while reading the map about one of the trails as they stood in their room before they left, "to run if you see bears or cougars." She looked over at him. Bears, maybe. No hikes with cougars for him. He’s too careful.
“I’m not worried,” she said.
At the beautiful falls, again he asked her to take a photo of him by himself next to the splashing water. Then they sat on a bench and people came by to chat who were also hiking up to the falls and taking elaborate pictures of themselves by the water. A man from Atlantic City, where Oskar said he too had family, told Oskar and Duet of his not being able to hike as much now that he had angina. He had had a heart attack while having an orgasm with one of his four wives. Duet sat quietly and thought, Men.The overweight couple on the other bench who were younger than Oskar but looked like his parents spoke up about their heart conditions. However, they were biking and hiking, and Duet envied their companionability, even though they were two little mini houses together.
Conversely, Oskar was angular and handsome and smart. They left the falls and decided to walk together up the mountain for a view. He told her that he used to climb mountains when he went all over the world. He had climbed in the Himalayas in Nepal and Bhutan, and the HinduKush mountains in Afghanistan, not to mention the Rockies. Paula was right in her fantasy about him.
There seemed little he had not done, made films, created board games, made gobs of money, been married it turned out to a much younger woman in fashion. God, she thought, how can I compete?
She told him about Lars. “What will happen to him?”
“His company is pretty high profile with the kind of money video games make. He’ll probably have to do time. In the vernacular, I’d say he’ll go for a plea bargain and be sent up the river for awhile.”
“Here or there?”
“Here. It’s an American company. Tell your friend to be prepared for that. He’s not going to be around much unless she wants to take those buses full of wives and children to visit prisoners. Tell her conjugal rights no longer exist, I think. Anyway she’s not his wife.”
“Paula’s kooky enough to marry him just so he doesn’t feel abandoned in there.”
“Talk her out of it. She could meet an upright man. You say she’s gorgeous enough.”
Gorgeous, Duet thought. Why was it always about that? By that standard, every woman on earth was more gorgeous than she was.
Duet was not used to being in this kind of a mountain place, with its three meals, and dining table by the window overlooking manicured lawns and flower beds out of House and Garden. Oskar made sure they had a beautiful suite with a view of the lake and the trees. It was old fashioned and glamorous all at once.
But Oskar remained startlingly evasive about his emotional life in conversation. To say he did not wear his heart on his sleeve would have been assuming he wore his heart at all. But, no matter, he was sexual with her.
Each night they made love and he moved from vagina to vagina, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, as if he was trying to learn a new language. He moved her on top of him. He moved her beside him. He moved her so her back was to him. He was searching for the most efficacious position to move swiftly and erotically between her two worlds. In the morning, he began again.
She kept wondering when would he stay consistently warm with her. But she soon saw what his strategy was: to stay consistent; warm was not an element in the equation.
At their dining table, she tried to talk to him. He revealed, to his own amusement, she was, at twenty-eight, the oldest woman he had ever dated. Not the smartest or most beautiful, but the oldest. God, she thought, he must date seventeen year olds. And of course she was the most endowed strategically.
He did not ask about her family or her grandmother who was still holding on. He did not ask her much about herself at all.
More unnerving was how Duet found herself shy with him, and therefore not open. This was because she had none of the confidence of knowing that he was in love with her. Instead, he would occasionally tell her she looked good, but she knew he had been taught to say these things to women. He compensated for his coolness with congenial steadiness, capability, goodness.
Distressingly, she liked him. She liked him too much, far more than she was willing to admit. She could sense that, if he fell in love with her, they had long running potential. He was a man to make a life with.
If she had been built normally, instead of as a monster, she decided, she would have had a shot.
On the last night, the hotel brought in a rather good piano, bass, drums and brass band. Oskar was, as always impeccably dressed in light blue pants and a soft blue and yellow shirt that somehow did not look gaudy on him, and she could see he was struck by how the musicians were all so unprepossessing looking, in polyester shapeless shirts that did not match their slacks. Their faces were scruffily unshaven. Oskar realized he passed these type of people every day on the subway and on the street and never thought about them, and yet here he saw they were geniuses of their instruments.
The piano player began going into deep and probing places. Duet sat back and closed her eyes and chose to lose herself, taking the notes into her body. Then she sat forward and carefully studied the pianist, as he sat there with his stomach hanging, he himself in a trance with his coke bottle glasses staring at the wall behind the piano, and she thought how hard the pianist's life must be, eking out a living, at the keys, maybe teaching here and there.
Oskar was gazing steadily at the stage. The pianist told a story
about seeing a television show on child starvation in Africa, and it made him compose a piece and then he began to play. The melody was tender, hurt, and powerful, and this, she thought, makes up for any silly worry about my body. This running up and down of the keys is the perfect configuration of anything and if she takes that thought into her and lives it, everything will work itself out.
Strangely, when she and Oskar drove back to New York, they didn’t want to leave each other. He parked the car and since there was still daylight, they decided to go cross town for a walk along the Hudson River. She imagined them as two musicians ambling and talking in the soft light, with trees creating intermittent shadows. Oskar said, "I like Mahler’s Fifth the best."
She looked over at him, surprised. She was surprised he even knew the symphony. There was much about him, she realized, she didn’t know. He hid his high cards, too.
Meanwhile, Maurice spent the weekend going through his collection and preparing cds of rare compositions for Duet to listen to. He would give them to her at their next dinner. He'd also copied salient chapters from the large French biography of Mahler so she could learn about him. Maurice had much legal work to do and these were not days to put the work off, since if he didn't produce at his firm, his partners would push him out. He's not young anymore and yes, he's opinionated, but he has a good relationship with the judges; nevertheless money was the bottom line nowadays, not how well you do your job. No wonder Maurice wanted someone poetic like Duet. No wonder he wanted something to break the tedium of his life.
When Duet finally went to sleep at Oskar’s, she dreamt she had a child with him.
Twenty three:
What the hell is he doing here? she thought. Maurice had made a surprise visit to her apartment on a Tuesday, this time carrying a complete set of Arnold Bax symphonies and Ted Rosenthal jazz piano CDs. She thanked him. Now she had more music than she knew what to do with. He stood waiting in her dining room/library.