Penwad waved his hand. “I’m afraid the Center is difficult to find. Most of the drivers are unfamiliar with it. Besides,” he added, “enjoy your company.” He narrowed his eyes at his coffee cup, and raised it to his mouth.
There was something anatomical about the Center’s great concrete sweeps and protuberances. Like all Arts Centers and Performing Arts Complexes and National Centers for the Performing Arts, though futuristic in design, it had a look of ancient decay, being left over from a period when leisure time and economic abundance were considered an imminent menace. How quaint a notion that now seemed! Shapiro almost laughed to think there had been a period, the period in which he’d grown up, no less, when it had been feared that wealth would soon cause humanity to devolve into a grunting mass sprawled in front of blood-drenched TV screens. But, no—Art (whatever that was), encouraged to flourish in its Centers, would prevent people from becoming intractable, illiterate, fat! And all the while poverty was accomplishing the devolution by itself.
“I see you’re enjoying the, ah, prospect,” Penwad said.
Shapiro became aware that he was staring down over toothy crenellations into a city cleaved by deep ravines and encircled by mountains.
“Those tall buildings are the downtown area, of course,” Penwad said. “And to the right and left, obviously, are residential sectors. Our place is over there—that’s pretty much where the whole English-speaking community has…put down its little roots. And up there on the slopes is what we call the Gold Zone.”
Shapiro, shading his eyes, noticed that the ravines below were encrusted with fuming slums. “My God,” he said.
“Incredible, isn’t it,” Penwad said, “what an earthquake can do? You can really see the damage from up here. You probably noticed the floor of your hotel. The Center survived intact, though. We’re very proud of the Center. The architect was truly successful, we feel, the way he…Yes, actually. You might be interested. A fellow named Santiago Méndez. He’s done most of the better hotels in town, and our museum. There was a lecture last year. One of our events. It was explained. The way Méndez—Well, this was some time ago, of course—Joan would be better able to…But…the…combined influences.” He gestured toward several concrete mounds. “The modernistic, the indigenous…well, motifs. A cross-fertilization, as Joan says.”
Shapiro hesitated. A bunting-like stupefaction had enveloped him. “Of…what?” he asked.
“Of…? What of what?” Penwad asked.
“Of…” Shapiro had lost the thread of his own question. “Of what…does Joan…say ‘cross-fertilization’?”
“Joan says it…” Penwad glared at him. “She says it of…motifs.”
The orchestra was from a small, nearby dictatorship, and the musicians had a startled appearance, as though a huge claw had snatched them from their beds and plonked them into their chairs. The conductor, a delicate and intelligent-looking man, welcomed Shapiro with reassuring collegiality, but when he brought down his baton Shapiro almost cried out; the sound was so peculiar that he feared he was suffering from some neurological damage.
How had the conductor come to find himself in his profession, Shapiro wondered. The man’s waving arms seemed to be signalling for help rather than leading an orchestra. The poor musicians clutched their instruments, staring wildly at their sheet music as they played. But then it was Shapiro’s entrance; notes began to leap froggily from his own fingers, and he understood: clearly the hall was demonic.
How to outwit these acoustics? As if this concerto were not difficult enough under the best of circumstances, with all its flash and bombast! But, of course, there was always something. Even in the loftiest, the most competently administered concert, catastrophes invented themselves from the far reaches of possibility. The piano bench would fall into splinters at seven forty-five, or the other musicians turned out to have a new version of the score, three measures shorter than one’s own, or there was a bank holiday and it was impossible to retrieve one’s tuxedo from the cleaner’s—catastrophes far beneath the considerations of music, and yet!
How synthetic the concerto sounded in this inhospitable hall! Shapiro was surprised to find himself disliking it so. He had never tremendously admired it, exactly, but he’d always enjoyed playing it: he’d enjoyed the athletic challenge of its surface complexities; he’d enjoyed the response of the audience. It was affirming, people said upon hearing it, and their faces had the shining, decisive expressions of people who feel their worth to be recognized. Affirming, Shapiro thought, as sound sloshed and bulged, gummed up in clumps, liquefied, as though the air were full of whirling blades.
The interview that had been arranged for Shapiro was with an English journalist named Beale. An interview: implied interest on the part of someone. There would be clippings, at least, and, perhaps, therefore some shadowy retention of his name in the minds of those people—“we”—who put these festivals together.
Shapiro located Beale in a restaurant of the hotel, much larger than his own, where they’d been scheduled to meet. “Are you tired of it?” Beale inquired anxiously. “I was hoping not. In my opinion it’s the best food in town, and the station will reimburse if it’s an interview.”
Beale’s head was an interesting spaceship shape. Colorless and sensitive-looking filaments sprouted from it, and his ears looked like receiving devices. Sensors, transmitters. Shapiro thought, noting Beale’s other large, responsive-looking features and his nervous, hesitant fingers. Beale’s suit was faintly mottled by traces of stains; his shirt, from the evidence of his wrists, was short-sleeved, and he wore, incredibly, a tie that appeared to be made of rope.
“I’m not tired of it yet,” Shapiro said. “I’ve never been here.”
Beale squinted distrustfully at Shapiro. “They didn’t put you here? They put a lot of guests here…”
Shapiro glanced around. So this was where they’d put an important musician. It was ugly and grandiose, with slippery-looking walls—the very air seemed soaked with a venal, melting luxe. “Santiago Méndez?” he said.
“Oh, you’re good,” Beale said with delight. “Seriously. If they bring you down again, insist. Nice, isn’t it? They all speak English, and the furniture doesn’t just”—he lunged toward Shapiro in illustration—“loom up at you. Now, will you drink something?”
Shapiro saw that two glasses already sat in front of Beale, one emptied and the other containing hardly more than a gold film. “Just water, thanks,” Shapiro said.
“Oh, you can, here,” Beale said. “Rest assured. Ice and all. I, on the other hand,” he informed a waiter, “will have a whiskey, why not.”
“And perhaps we could order,” Shapiro added. Well, at least someone had seen fit to arrange a party for him.
Beale studied the menu worriedly, running his finger along the print. He had quantities of advice for Shapiro about it but seemed unable to make up his own mind. “A nice chop, perhaps,” Beale said. “You know, this is the one place where it’s perfectly safe to eat pork. That is if you—” His eyes blinked and reset themselves furiously, like lights on an overtaxed instrument panel.
While Beale entrusted his order to the waiter, Shapiro’s attention wandered to posters on the wall. Plenty of charm here, too: more lakes, more volcanoes, more smiling Indians…Beale dove abruptly beneath the table, resurfacing with a tape recorder as primitive-looking as a trilobite. “I hope you don’t mind if I…There are several publications that are reasonably, well…friendly to me, but mostly I do radio.”
“Radio,” Shapiro agreed politely. “And this would be for…the English-speaking community, I presume.”
Beale looked at him blankly. “Not really. There are telephones for that sort of thing. Oh! No.” His voice became gluey with attempted modesty. “No, this is a show back home in England, you see. They often ask me for a little story.”
England. So, this was a bit more promising. “A show…about the arts,” Shapiro suggested.
“The arts?” Beale said. “W
ell, there’s not really too much scope for that sort of thing here. This country isn’t just churning out the artists, you know. Not a very…well, ‘favorable climate’ I suppose is the expression. Actually, it’s a show about just whatever happens to come up. I was glad when your Embassy called and put me on to this one, because there’s not really a fantastic amount. You can file only just so often about dead students before people get sick of it. Still, don’t think I’m complaining—I’m lucky to be here at all. When I was young, I was simply frantic to get to this part of the world. Astonishing place. Have you had much chance to get around? See the sights, meet the people?”
“I got in last night,” Shapiro said.
“Ah,” Beale said. “Oh, yes. Well, it is truly staggering. Very beautiful, as I’m sure you know. And the highlands—when I first came it was like the dawn of the earth up there, really. Oh, if I could only…” He sighed. “You know, the Indians here had simply everything at one time. A calendar. A written language—centuries, centuries, centuries before the Spanish came. And all sorts of other magnificent, um—appurtenances. While we were still running around in—” He cast a veiled glance at Shapiro. “Yes. Well, and the Spanish actually destroyed it all. But you know that. Burned their books, herded them into villages with Spanish overseers. Isn’t it amazing? The written language was actually destroyed, do you see. The calendar, the architecture, the books…And so, I mean, we’re slaughtering these people and so forth, but we don’t really know anything about them. And if they know anything about themselves they’re not letting on. Who are they? That is, who are we? I mean, they’re here, we’re here…It’s just terribly strange.” He smiled a misty, wondering smile, then frowned. “Oh dear. Anyhow, I tried and tried to get people to send me here. They said, ‘But why? Where is it? Nothing happens there.’ Then, fortunately, there were all these insurrections and repressions and whatnot, and that created demand, and so now I’ve been here over fifteen years!”
Shapiro opened his mouth; a blob of sound came out.
“I tried to reach García-Gutiérrez yesterday,” Beale said. “But I gathered he hadn’t arrived yet. He lives in Europe a lot of the time now, you know. They told me he’d be in today, but I thought I’d talk to you instead. I’m sure he’s a wonderful composer. They say he is. But, to tell you the truth, the man gives me the shivers. I’ve seen him around, at parties here, and I just don’t like his sort. You know what I mean—well-fed, a bit of a dandy. Suave. Eye always on the main chance. A big smile for every colonel. Ladies all love him. Government always showing him off like a big, stuffed…” Beale brooded at his drink, then waved over a new one. “Anyhow,” he said unhappily, “I’ve got you.”
Shapiro took a sip of water. He would have liked a drink, too, but alcohol affected him unpredictably. Even Beale’s alcohol seemed to be making Shapiro mentally peculiar. “Let me ask you,” he said. “It isn’t actually dangerous here, I suppose.”
“Dangerous?” Beale said. “Why? What do you mean? Not for you, it isn’t. You know”—he sat back and looked at Shapiro with drunken coldness—“I find it most comical. How Americans come down here, and they talk about danger. And they talk about this, and they talk about that. Well, I don’t endorse slavery and torture myself, but who are you, may I ask, to talk? Dare I mention who kicked off all this ha-ha ‘counterinsurgency’ business here in the first place? Dare I mention whose country it was that killed all their Indians?”
“Now, look—” Shapiro began.
“A thousand apologies,” Beale said. “How true. You’re no more responsible for your country than I am for mine. But all this simply jerks my chain, I’m afraid. It simply does. And I mean dangerous! I mean this place is hardly in the league of—I mean, one’s forever reading, isn’t one? How some poor tourist? Who’s saved his pennies for years and years and years. Who then goes to New York, to see a show on your great Broadway, and virtually the instant he arrives gets stabbed in the…” He took a violent gulp of his drink. “The—”
“Liver,” Shapiro said.
“Subway,” Beale said. “Yes.” He beamed at Shapiro in surprise. “I don’t know why that’s so difficult to…Oh, look,” he exclaimed, as the waiter set down their plates. “Oh, my darling! That is nice.” He extracted a pair of glasses from his pocket, put them on to peer at his plate, then removed them to clean them on his ropy tie.
Shapiro took a bite of his meal, but Beale’s grubbiness had damaged his appetite.
“Of course the highlands are another story,” Beale said. “The highlands, the whole countryside, really—still sheer carnage. But here in the city it’s just sporadic violence. Of a whatsit sort. Really, about the worst that can happen to you here is Protestants. Random. Of a random sort.”
“Protestants?” Shapiro said.
“Evangelicals,” Beale said. “So bloody noisy. Haranguing in the streets, massive convocations every which place, speaking in tongues—YAGABAGABAGAGABAGAGA.” He sighed. “Now, don’t think I’m prejudiced, please. I’m Protestant myself. But that’s the point, isn’t it? That one can slag off one’s own group, though one would never—That is, I, for instance, would never, oh, say, call…a Jew, for example, a ‘kike’—that’s your prerogative. But all that shouting is simply not the point of speech. I mean, the point of speech is—Well, that is just very simply not the point. And it can be terribly, just terribly annoying when you’re trying to conduct an interview or what have you, as you and I are here today.”
“Perhaps…” Shapiro began with difficulty. “That is, perhaps, speaking of the interview, perhaps there’s something you’d like to ask me.”
“Ah,” Beale said. “Right you are.” He smiled, then frowned. “But the thing is, old man—I’m afraid I’m not all that familiar with…If you could help me out a bit. That is, perhaps we’d best stick to rather general concepts.”
Shapiro nodded. “If you wish. What…for example, were you thinking we might—”
“Yes,” Beale said. “Hmm. Well, I suppose we might talk about your…oh, impressions, for example, of the country…”
Shapiro looked at him. “I only arrived last—”
“Last night,” Beale said impatiently. He drummed his fingers on the tape recorder. “Well, but just generally, you know. Just something…spontaneous.”
Shapiro pressed his fingers to the corners of his eyes.
“Not acceptable. I see, not acceptable,” Beale said, bitterly. “Well, in that case…we could talk, for example, about what it feels like to come down here as an American.”
“As an American?” Shapiro said. “I’m not down here as an American. I’m not down here as anything. I’m down here as a pianist.”
“Yes,” Beale said. “Quite.”
Heat began to creep over Shapiro’s skin as Beale stared at him.
“You know,” Beale said, “I’ve always wondered. And this is something that I think would be very interesting to the radio audience. How do instrumentalists feel about their relationship—that is, via music, of course—to the composer?”
“What are you—” Shapiro began.
“Well, the very word—” Beale said. “That is, the word literally, well, it literally means—well, instrumentalist. I mean, you’re a—”
“Excuse me,” Shapiro said. “I’ve got to…get to a phone.”
Shapiro fled into a system of corridors and polyp-like lobbies or reception rooms. Oh, to be alone! The men’s room? Maybe not. Well, actually, there was a phone booth. Shapiro sat down inside it, shutting himself into an oceanic silence. Beyond the glass wall people floated by—huge, serene, assured, like exhibits. Shapiro leaned against the wall. He rested his hand on the phone as though it were the hand of an old lover. Absently, he stroked the receiver, then lifted it, releasing a loud electronic jeer—the sound, as silence is not, of emptiness. He would tell Beale that he was unwell, that he had to go rest.
Shapiro paused at the entrance to the restaurant. Beale was sitting at the table alone, his narrow sho
ulders hunched and his spaceship head bent over the tape recorder as he spoke into it. There was urgency in Beale’s posture, and his face was anguished. What could he be saying? Shapiro took a step closer.
“Ah!” Beale said, clicking off the machine with a bright smile, as though he’d been apprehended in some mild debauchery. “Get through?”
“Excuse me?” Shapiro said.
“Get your call through?”
“Oh,” Shapiro said. He sat down and passed his hands across his face. “No.”
“No,” Beale agreed with unfocussed sympathy. “Oh, it’s all so difficult. So difficult. Now—” He smiled sentimentally. Amazingly, he appeared to have completely forgotten he’d been in the process of attacking Shapiro. “Not to worry—we’re going to get a very nice little segment about you. In fact”—he twinkled slyly—“I’ve already done something by way of an intro. Your name and so on, you’re down here for the festival, you’ll be playing the García-Gutiérrez…Hmm.” He removed his glasses to study a crumpled piece of paper. “And, let’s see.” He turned on the machine and spoke into it again. “You’ve played the piece before with great success…Mr. Shapiro, I understand.” He nodded encouragingly and indicated the machine.
Shapiro looked at it. “Yes,” he said, wearily.
Beale gave him a wounded glance. “In fact, you premièred the piece in the U.S., I believe.”
Shapiro closed his eyes.
“Yes,” Beale said. He took a deep breath through his nose. “Well, anyhow, that was back in, let’s see…nineteen…goodness me! You must be very fond of it.”
“Well,” Shapiro said, “I mean, it is in my repertory…”
Beale emitted a giggle, or hiccup. “I have a set of little spoons,” he said. “Tiny little silver things. For olives or something of the sort, that someone gave a great-aunt of mine as a wedding present. And somehow I’ve ended up with them.”
Shapiro opened his eyes and looked at Beale.
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