The Secret Knowledge

by Andrew Crumey

  “No,” said the man, “I wouldn’t expect you to. He’s not a name you’d ever have come across in respectable literature.”

  “Then what about disrespectable?”

  “Perhaps,” said the man, retrieving the coin that was handed back to him, its lustre less enticing now than the gleam of mystery. “I’m no Rosierist, I’m a humble engineer with too much of a taste for the ladies and the race track and the bottle. Yes, sirs, I’m a bum, I’ve not lived long and already I’ve wasted my life. But you gentlemen, you’re interested in genius, and that’s why I wanted to tell you my little story. Now I’d better leave.”

  “No, wait.” It was Pierre who spoke. “Tell us more about Rosier’s society. Was it political? A sort of freemasonry?”

  “Best left alone,” replied our companion, who, having emptied his glass and seen that there was no prospect of replenishment, rose with only a little unsteadiness to his feet.

  “Your name, monsieur?” It was I who asked.

  “Minard.”

  All were ready to see the strange fellow leave, except Pierre. “I want to know more about Rosier,” he said abruptly.

  Minard eyed him with a sparkle of mischief and a shadow of enigma. “In that case you shall have to search hard, my friend, because I have told you all I can. Though if ever you go to the Blue Cat, especially on a Friday night, you might see me there.”

  Pierre warmed at the information. “Of course I know it – I’ve even played piano there to earn a few drinks.”

  Minard nodded with quiet satisfaction. “Then we shall meet again, my good pianist.” And with that he left, the conversation quickly turned to matters of a kind I need not report to a lady such as yourself, and the toper with his fake coin was soon forgotten by all of us.

  All, that is, except Pierre. It was many weeks later when he reminded me of the incident, and told me something else. He had been to the Blue Cat and had seen Minard not once but several times, plying him with cognac paid for by his sweet, nimble fingers; oh yes, mademoiselle, our beloved artist was playing music-hall songs or Schubert melodies in order that he could nourish the mercenary tongue of a fantasist. Let me assure you, moreover, that no other item attracted his attention in the insalubrious haunt he had come to patronise, save the smooth-tongued, fast-drinking engineer in his tattered coat, with his false gold piece flicking on his thumb.

  Minard’s ancestor, Pierre told me, had been entrusted with papers cursed by their own inflammatory outrageousness; the manifesto of a world transformed, the ground plan of a society turned upside down by revolution, disdainful of logic as much as morality; the atlas of an alternative universe God rightly chose not to create. The Rosierists, if any still existed, were dedicated to its creation here on Earth.

  My fear, when Pierre told me this, was not that he might fall into the hands of underground fanatics, since I felt sure those masked fiends lived only in Minard’s fairy-tales. No, my fear was that Pierre was being seduced by lies, and that by dipping his toe into the mire his wily chum inhabited, he risked finding his foot stuck, then his leg and waist, until eventually his head would disappear into the filth. Forgive me for being so blunt, mademoiselle, but I have seen good men go bad before, and Pierre of all people must, I felt sure, be saved from such a fate.

  I told Duchêne; we followed Pierre to the Blue Cat and saw him in conversation with three men – Minard was not among them. We had to be circumspect in our observation, but the briefest of glimpses was enough to satisfy me that these companions of his were no philosophers, no architects of Utopia. If there was anything I would have expected that group to plan, mademoiselle, it wouldn’t be an ideal society – more like a terrorist atrocity. I tell you it as plainly as I can: they looked like assassins.

  Soon afterwards Pierre disappeared. I knew at once that he must be in danger, though no one at the Blue Cat could tell me where he was, nor see reason for concern. One regular put a name to my description of the most memorable of the conspirators, a man whose long grey hair and blackened teeth identified him as LaForge, an old Blanquist, though it was said he had long ago given up revolution in favour of science, and was often heard expounding paradoxes about the laws of thermodynamics and the statistics of chance. A harmless crank, in other words, just like Minard – or so I thought, until I heard of the ghastly incident at the park, when all my worst fears were confirmed.

  This LaForge, I have learned, says each person’s life is really a path through a branching labyrinth of possibilities; an idea that would surely have appealed to a sweet romantic such as Pierre, though we can only guess what other dark inferences the plotters must have reached from such outlandish premises. They are anarchists not just politically but also, even worse, intellectually, disdaining all logic and reason, and this, I maintain, is the explanation of Pierre’s senseless death. They took an innocent man, seduced him with lies, put him up to some kind of spectacular outrage, a manifestation of their perverted philosophy. Now they laugh while we must weep.

  The letter is unsigned; with its tales of hoaxes and delusions it has itself the stagnant air of fraudulence. Yvette has heard of troubled people who take sinister delight in taunting the bereaved; she worries that Louis Carreau might be another of those parasites. But then at last he calls on her, bringing both the precious key and the manuscript it has protected.

  Madame Courvelles is with her when she receives him; Yvette explains to her the mission Monsieur Carreau has undertaken, and the sheets of music are passed between them for inspection.

  “Are you a dealer?” Madame Courvelles asks the polite, smartly dressed young man who strikes her as looking more like a bank agent with good prospects.

  “Neither a man of commerce nor at all musical,” he tells her. “I’m a philologist.”

  That sounds good enough for Madame Courvelles; here is a decent fellow of the right age and class to lift Yvette out of her depression. Once she is satisfied of Carreau’s honest principles, she allows them some time alone together.

  “How ever did you get hold of it?” Yvette asks him at once.

  “I bribed a servant. No one else knows of this work’s existence.”

  The pages of music are in her hands, densely inscribed, impossible to imagine. Completely appropriate to the hieroglyphic enigma is the title: The Secret Knowledge.

  “Pierre had many friends,” she says. “Tell me what you know of them.”

  Despite this and all further oblique enquiries, applied with the subtle and well-aimed pressure one might employ against a stubborn limpet, Yvette is unable to lift from beneath Carreau’s suave carapace the smallest evidence that he knows of Minard, Duchêne, LaForge, or anyone else mentioned in the letter. Pierre, she realises, lived in many worlds; he was like the comet that visits Earth briefly, gloriously, then flies to another sphere. Wait long enough, she thinks, and the comet may return.

  “I owe you great thanks for the service you have done me, Monsieur Carreau. At the very least, I should repay your expenses.”

  With a wave of his hand, a whiff of cologne, he dismisses such concerns. “I did it for Pierre, and for yourself. I know how much he loved you – and I can easily see why.” A new gravity attaches itself to him. “You must be very careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The forces that surrounded our friend were powerful and dark. Conceal the music score and keep it safe, a precious relic, show it only to trusted eyes and say he gave it to you before he died.”

  “Of course, I shall never allow myself any indiscretion that would compromise you…”

  “Allow me the honour of being your protector.”

  Though said sincerely it sounds improper. “I’m not aware I require any protection of a kind my family cannot provide.”

  “I’m sure Pierre would have said the same thing, but consider what happened to him.”

  “You think I’m in danger? The police should be told.”

  “That would not be wise. I have taken a personal risk on your behalf
, as you kindly acknowledge, and all I ask in return is that you do not shun my offer of assistance, for this is a matter of common concern and mutual interest. Through involvement in those sinister powers that killed Pierre, we may both find ourselves placed in danger.”

  Had she not previously read the letter about which she remains silent, she might have dismissed Carreau’s words entirely. Instead she understands their significance, coded like the score she holds, and thus it is in a mood of foreboding that she concludes this interview with the man who will become her husband.

  Chapter Two

  Paige is on her way to her first piano lesson with Mr Conroy when on the pavement she sees a dead bird. Dark feathered, blackbird or crow (she doesn’t know the difference), the creature lies huddled at the foot of a garden wall like an expired vagrant, head askew, glazed eye half-open. She feels momentary disgust, then pity. Do birds die in mid-air and fall to the ground? Or do they sense the approaching end, huddle down and expire? Paige is twenty years old but imagines herself suddenly ancient and alone, flying over rooftops, her heart abruptly stopping, air rushing past.

  After the miscarriage she decided she would go against her parents’ wishes, give up the English degree she had started and study piano full-time instead. She’ll be left heavily in debt and with little prospect of a career, but she’s determined that as long as she has wings she’ll use them.

  She’s heard that Mr Conroy can be difficult, he wasn’t on the panel when she did the college audition and really she doesn’t need to impress him, she’s been accepted on the course and his job is to help her improve. But she wants to do well. She turns from the dead bird and walks on. Children will find it, poke it with sticks; at night it will be removed by a fox or rat, or else simply rot there, eaten by maggots.

  At the hospital she told them she hadn’t realised she was pregnant, it was still so early, but she’d felt unwell with pain in her lower back, then it came out in the toilet, a formless lump like a pink cabbage stalk, she had to fish it out and couldn’t believe what it was until she saw fingers, a tiny red-lined fist. They asked if she’d like to have counselling and she said no, then they took the cabbage stalk and put it in an incinerator.

  Outside the college there’s another protest. Half a dozen students are demonstrating against capitalism, cuts, whatever. They’re standing on the broad steps of the pompous Victorian building, politely gathered to one side so as not to cause an obstruction.

  “Hi, Paige,” says a skinny guy in red-tinted shades and a Hollister beanie, his placard painted with large lettering. She smiles as she goes past to the revolving door. Can’t remember his name.

  The lobby’s busy, it’s changeover and people are heading for their next class, she pauses to let a chattering crowd go by and finds herself beside a display case, relics glorifying past successes, famous alumni. A century-old sepia photograph shows the entrance hall she stands in, same ornate arch and marble staircase but with an earlier generation of musicians posing smartly on it, young like her yet all now dead. Crossing the lobby, her view captures a boy reading the notice board, another with his cello case, two girls texting silently side by side, a seated man wearing an eye-patch. On the stairs there’s a fallen sheet of paper, a page of manuscript lost from a composition assignment. She considers picking it up, handing it in, but hurries on.

  She finds the room, no one’s there, she waits at the door until he arrives, brusque Mr Conroy carrying a bundle of music scores. Tall, dark haired, not bad looking for his age, but tired. He unlocks the door and waves her inside, tells her to sit at the further of two grand pianos whose keyboards stand side by side like office desks. He isn’t strong on introductions or small-talk, hasn’t even confirmed who he is, but this is the one who will train her, a man with medical detachment, polite, distant. This, she thinks, must be what she needs. The room’s plain white walls, geared to acoustics rather than visual appeal, add to an atmosphere of scientific enquiry.

  “How long have you been playing?”

  “I started when I was four.”

  “How long is that?”

  “Sixteen years.”

  “And what have you done?”

  She tells him about the lessons, certificates and school competitions, her schedule of practice and the degree course she gave up because music is all that matters to her. He’s more interested in knowing who’s been teaching her, he doesn’t recognise any of the names.

  “Play something,” he instructs, then goes to stand at the window, looking out while she begins her audition piece, Chopin’s Barcarolle. She’s unfazed by his manner and performs perfectly, though after a while he suddenly makes her stop. “What chord was that?”

  She has to think for a moment. “A sharp major.”

  “Why?”

  She doesn’t understand. “What do you mean, why?”

  “What’s it for?”

  Another moment’s thought. “It’s a modulation to D sharp minor.”

  “And when you switched course, was that a transposition from one place to another, or did it mean something?”

  He’s saying that she plays without meaning. She thinks of the dead bird.

  “Can you give me some Beethoven?” he asks, and she offers the ‘Waldstein’ Sonata. This time he lets her play for longer, she feels she’s doing well, but the question haunts her: why? And always at the corner of her vision she can see him gazing through the window, as though asking that same question.

  Something gets made by accident, a pink lump of nothing, then it’s burned in an incinerator and becomes another kind of nothing. Notes of music are written, performed, vanish like smoke. As she reaches the end of the exposition Conroy interrupts, “That’s enough.” She stops, waiting for his opinion, pained by the silence that follows. Then he turns and tells her, “That was good.”

  She feels a rush of relief and gratitude.

  “But we’ll have a lot of work to do. How did you first encounter the piece? Playing or hearing?”

  “CD.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “When I was ten my parents gave me the LP by Wilhelm Kempff.”

  In his expression she sees something of the proud and lonely boy he must have been.

  He says, “First time I heard it I thought: this can’t possibly be right, this strange sound starting to come out of the record player, not a tune but a single quiet chord repeated again and again. I even thought the needle might be jumping. You see how important it is, that first moment?”

  He sits at the other piano, deposits his scores on the closed lid then plays the opening, more slowly and softly than Paige did, making it seem unexpectedly mysterious. He stops suddenly and says, “What does it make you see?”

  She doesn’t know how to answer, the picture in her mind is the studio of her former music teacher Mrs Fleming, heavy rain outside, her period that was starting. “A river,” she suggests.

  “Adorno said it made him think of knights in a forest.”

  She doesn’t know who he’s referring to, the puzzlement on her face must be evident.

  “You haven’t heard of Theodor Adorno? German philosopher and musician, Thomas Mann’s friend.” She’s still blank, and Conroy says, “When I was a student we got a lot of Adorno, one of the lecturers was really big on Marxist philosophy. You see, Adorno could still hold on to his childhood idea, even when he was reflecting on Beethoven as an adult. Two completely different views of the same object. That’s how you can keep it new. Your playing doesn’t sound new, it sounds rehearsed. Too loyal to the score. Have you got a piano at home?”

  “Only an electronic one. I’m in a flat.”

  “Do you live alone?”

  The question feels abruptly personal. “No. But my flatmate’s mostly away.”

  “I got back from touring and found my partner had walked out.”

  Paige shifts uncomfortably. She says nothing.

  “Really I’d been alone all the time. Pianists, w
e’re solitary by nature.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  He looks surprised. “Maybe you don’t feel it yet. You will, if you carry on. But we need to strengthen the left hand. And the pedalling was all over the place.” He’s looking at her arms and legs, dissecting her. “What’s your ambition?”

  “To play better.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s what I love.”

  His brow rises. “The word amateur means doing it for love; this place is meant to train professionals.”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “Love can break your heart.”

  “It’s worth the risk.”

  He smiles. “I like that. Too many artists don’t take risks, they find something they’re good at and keep doing it the same way forever.” He stands up. “Play me something you love.”

  She offers a piece from Janacek’s suite On An Overgrown Path. It will always be connected in her mind with the cabbage stalk, the woman at the hospital, the smell of the corridors. In the whole of her body she can feel the meaning of the music, he lets her play to the end and she expects him to pass judgment but instead after a pause he says, “Did you say you studied physics?”

  “No, English.”

  “I was sure you said physics.”

  It’s as if he wasn’t listening. She wonders if he’s making some kind of point.

  He tells her, “I met a physics student the other day and asked him about Schrödinger’s cat. You know, the thing that’s neither dead nor alive, or both at once. The student said, maybe we’re all inside the box. What do you think he meant?’

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Probably nothing. Why did you choose the Janacek?”

  “Because I love it. That’s what you asked for.”

  “You played well.”

  She hopes he’ll elaborate but instead he wants to go back to the ‘Waldstein’, there are passages he asks to hear again, he makes her play them repeatedly, demonstrating at his own keyboard what he wants her to do. Imagine you’re singing, he tells her, think where you would take a breath, what the words might be, which syllables you would stress. Think of the audience who need to feel as if all of this is coming into being right now, in this exact moment. Trying to follow his instructions, struggling against the differing will of her own fingers, she wonders if there will ever be an audience. For half an hour they work on a single short section until Conroy says he can see she’s tired, they should finish with something else. From his pile of scores he lifts some loose sheets and passes them to her, photocopied pages of handwritten music. The notes are small but neatly formed, the tempo heading is ‘grave’.