IT’S THE FIRST TRIP they’ve taken together, aside from short jaunts to visit friends. Over five days’ time, they’ll hike over one hundred miles along the Rhine. They’ll climb the Lorelei. They’ll picnic in the shadow of crumbling castles, explore the little villages scattered through the hills. Sweet stone churches. Half-timbered houses. Johannes talking and talking and talking, bubbling on like a fresh, clear stream. Clara listens to his voice the way she listens to music, breathing hard from the climb.
Passing the shared canteen.
Something about the distant clearings of steeply sloped vineyards and gable-chinned roofs, woods and more woods of linden and oak, makes her feel as if anything is possible. It’s been sixteen months since Robert entered the asylum, but she doesn’t think of this. She doesn’t think of the children. She doesn’t consider what people might say. For once, she can taste the dark scent of the Rhine, far below, without weighing the question of whether or not it might have been better had Robert—
Now and again they stumble upon an ancient orchard, an overrun garden, a half-concealed well greenly tangled with ivy. Once she turns to find he has vanished. But no, he’s scrambled up into a mulberry tree. Laughing, he pelts her with fruit. They walk on. Touch each other swiftly, in places that do not matter. Here he is combing bits of fern from her hair; there she straightens his rucksack, kicks pebbles at his shoes. When they stop to rest, she eats the crushed mulberries he offers, still warm, from his pockets.
The news about Robert isn’t good.
At some point, she must consider propriety. What will be the consequences of such a trip? It is one thing, while she’s on tour, having Johannes constantly in her home, busying himself with the children, keeping an eye on the servants, documenting household income and expenses in his quick, vigorous hand. Especially since his devotion to her husband is so well known. Still, it would be better, upon their return, if Johannes would agree not to nap on the couch, lazy and warm as a loose-limbed cat, where visitors can see him plainly. If he wouldn’t write so admiringly of her to mutual friends. If he’d stop fussing over her like a husband each time she left on tour, urging her to pace herself, to take care of herself, to come home soon. If he didn’t insist they address one another not as Sie but Du. Not only in letters, but in company, trumpeting an intimacy that would strike anyone as peculiar. Not that there’s anything between them that isn’t open and good.
They are friends. Best friends. What else can they be?
In this light, after much discussion, she has finally agreed to return his warm and affectionate Du.
There are, of course, his dark moods. Understandable, considering his childhood, his past. Easily forgotten—or, at least, explained away—as soon as they have vanished, which they do. And then, how easy, how effortless everything is! The meals they share, the walks they take. Conversations about the children: what is best for the girls, what should be done with the boys. Discussions about Robert’s situation in Bonn, doctors’ reports, new therapies. Analysis of Clara’s performances, program selections, resulting reviews. Debates over Johannes’s compositions, which seem, at times, to belong to them both.* Together, they sit at the piano, reviewing modulations, refining passages, Clara’s fingers moving over the keys like gestures accompanying a story she’s determined to finish. It is not enough that he says he understands.
She bats at his arm. Do you see?
In the end, of course, he listens—as she listens to him, in her turn. He encourages her own compositions, applauds her private performances, yielding to her superior sense of line, her inspired fingerings. He distracts the children with gymnastics, walks, giving her the gift of a clear afternoon in which she can sit down to compose. He intercedes on her behalf with doctors and bill collectors, and when a rat scuttles out of the coal bin, it’s Johannes who brandishes the broom, screaming along with the children, even as he chases it through the parlor and out the front door.
And then there’s the way he talks to her, of everything, of nothing. Of music and sunlight, of trees and stones, of porridge and history and science and God. Of his mother. Of her father. Of a restaurant in Dresden where, once, he sampled a particular kind of cheese. Of local politics and musical fools, America, the plague, French fashion, Liszt, Fanny Mendelssohn’s new parlor maid, Joseph Joachim’s annoying tendencies, German folklore, Hamburg. She’s following him down a steeply sloped path: thirty-six years old; strong-willed; strong-limbed. But she cannot keep up with all that he says. She cannot keep up with her own flooding heart. Placing her foot against a loose stone, she tumbles forward as he turns to catch her, touches her forehead to the rough kiss of his chin. Somehow he’s holding her hard in his arms, his exhalations filling her inhalations, an exacting completion, a jigsaw fit, and she thinks of making music. She thinks of making love. The places on her body he has not yet touched are dark spaces.
The rest of her shines.
Do I want to have Robert back like this? she has written in her diary. And yet, should I not want to have, most of all, the person back again? Oh, I don’t know what to think anymore: I have thought it all over thousands upon thousands of times and it always remains just terrible.*
Wake up, she tells herself. Step away.
He keeps breathing. She keeps breathing. Around them, the green land. The golden light of dreams.
This is not the sort of man with whom you build a future.
At some point, you must step away.
Date: Saturday, June 17 10:58 PM
To: [email protected]
Dear L—,
You wanted to know how I really am. I needed some time to think about my answer.
Six weeks ago, I met a German man—actually, I can’t shake this déjà vu feeling he’s someone I’ve met before—and I suppose we’re friends, though he insists that men and women can’t be friends. He also says there’s no chemistry between us, but lately it seems there’s some chemistry after all. Remember the book I always wanted to write about Clara Schumann and Brahms? He’s helping me with translations. Also, I’m going to Germany next month, and he’ll be there at the same time. Sometimes I think he cares about me. Other times, there’s this calculating distance, as if I don’t quite measure up.
So all this is to say that I guess I don’t really know how I am, aside from being sorry, from my heart, to hear about you and Sally. Is it something that can be fixed? Then again, I suppose these things can’t ever really be fixed. But maybe it’s different with a second marriage. Maybe things are easier to figure out.
Heard any more divorce jokes lately? I’ve started collecting them. It helps. Anyway, I’m thinking about you.
Jeanie
Date: Saturday, June 17 11:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Hi Jeanie—
How about this one? Half of all marriages end in divorce, but the other half end in death. Sally told me that over lunch yesterday. We’ve agreed to divide things up nicely. We’re putting away our knives. I suppose that’s the biggest difference between a first and second marriage. With the second, you’re much more willing to cut your losses when you see that things are wrong.
About this guy who’s helping you with the Clara book: if men and women can’t be friends, what, exactly, are the two of you—research associates? Research associates with benefits? Look, either there’s chemistry or there isn’t. And that déjà vu feeling like you’ve met him before? It crosses my mind—now don’t get mad, Jeanie, but you did talk to me, once, pretty frankly about Cal—that you’re setting yourself up yet again to want somebody who won’t want you. There are plenty of men who find you attractive, and I don’t just mean your beautiful mind. What if you hung around with one of those guys for a change? Especially since you’re a free agent now. You wouldn’t have to leave him outside your door this time.
When, exactly, do you leave for Germany? Did you get a direct flight or are you coming through New York? If you’re still speaking to me, I could meet you for a drink.
I hope you’re still speaking to me.
L—
28.
WE MET IN SUSHI bars, at coffee shops, at open-air restaurants fronting the beach, lugging backpacks and satchels, over-stuffed folders, Internet printouts bunched together with clips. I’d leave Heidi at my parents’ house for dinner, then head out to meet (so I explained) a German man who was helping me with research on my book.
“How did you find him?” my father asked.
“Through a service,” I said truthfully.
“Is he charging you money?” my mother wanted to know.
“Spell everything out up front,” my father said. “You don’t want trouble down the road if this guy wants royalties or something.”
This particular night at the end of June, we were at Crabby Joe’s overlooking the boardwalk, and even before the specials had been read, our table was covered with papers and Post-its, biographies and articles, a scattering of pens. The waitress returned again and again, but no, we were not ready, we needed more time. We were talking about the first vacation Clara and Brahms took together, in 1855, a time which Clara described in words like rapturous and exquisite. We were talking about the second vacation they took together in 1856, two weeks after Robert’s death: the ill-fated trip to Gersau. We were talking about the letter Clara sent to Brahms in 1858, in which she writes, If only I could find longing as sweet as you do. We were talking about the letters between Brahms and Clara in the 1860s, in which Brahms declares himself an “outsider” to Clara and her children. By then Clara had purchased a house in Baden-Baden, where she’d vacation with the children each summer. Frequently, Brahms joined them despite moody outbursts that left Clara in tears.
“There was a small demon in him,” Clara’s youngest daughter, Eugenie, would recall, “and who does not know from experience that we are apt to let it off against those of whose affection we can always be sure? This was the case with him. What Brahms loved in our mother above everything, above even her artistic understanding, was her great heart; he could be sure of its love and forgiveness even if he were to let loose with a legion of demons.”*
“He wants to be close, he can’t stand to be close,” Hart said, closing his edition of Erinnerungen. “I tell you, Jeanette, there are things about men and women that do not change. She welcomes him in, he shoves her away. She kicks him out, and then he wants to be close again—”
“But why does he want to be close again? She had a great heart, but as long as we’re generalizing here, isn’t that what women are known for? There were plenty of great hearts for Brahms to torment. Women were always falling in love with him. I’m thinking, despite what Eugenie says, that what brought him back to Clara—what kept them close even after things didn’t work out in a romantic sense—was exactly that artistic understanding—”
“Artistic understanding has nothing to do with it! Jeanette, I promise you, this same story could be told about two butchers, about two field laborers—”
“A field laborer can talk to other field laborers. But who could either Clara or Brahms have talked to at this level of expertise—”
“Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt—”
“They hated Liszt—”
“What about your ex-husband?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“The other night, after he brought your daughter back? When he upset you so?”
“I shouldn’t have told you—”
“You told me he said he was feeling like an outsider. Didn’t he use exactly those words? So you felt bad for him. You invited him in, but as soon as he is sitting on your couch, he…how do you say…lashes out? So, of course, you get very upset while he, on the other hand, feels better for a while. But then this wears off. He feels sorry for himself. He feels sorry for you. He returns to your door. Once again you ask him inside—”
“That’s different—”
“Just stop.”
“Okay, but we’ve only been divorced ten months—”
“And how many times has this happened before? How many times will this happen again—”
“Seriously, Hart, I think we’ll be friends. I want us to be—”
“Because of your shared musical genius, ah! Your artistic understanding! Yes, I see everything clearly.”
“My God! That’s so unfair, so cynical, I—”
“You want unfair and cynical? Look here.”
Hart passed me an airmail parcel. Inside was a copy of Aus dem Kreise Wieck-Schumann,* a slender, bitter recollection penned by Clara’s half sister, Marie.
Instantly I forgave him everything. “Where did you get this?”
“Friederike sent it to me. Thursday, I must catch the red-eye to L.A. I’ll take a look at it then.”
“What’s in L.A.?”
“A conference I must attend.” He reached for my journal. “May I?”
“A conference on what?” I said, but he was writing notes beside my own in dark, meticulous pen. I thought of Friedrich Wieck writing in Clara’s diary, composing first-person entries as if his voice and his daughter’s were one and the same.
I’d never allowed anyone to read my journals.
Much less write in them.
After dinner, we walked along the boardwalk. The sun was still high, but the air remained humid, thick. A sour smell rose from the beach. Hart was talking about the fuel crisis, about the Bush administration’s isolationism, about sea turtles. He was talking about a woman he’d dated who disliked wearing shoes. He was talking about the weekend weather forecast, which didn’t look good in Orlando, but was promising south of Miami. He belonged to a private glider club there—maybe I’d like to come with him? He owned shares in an ASK 21 there, a two-seater, much nicer than the Blanik.
“How did you get your name?” I asked, interrupting the torrent of words.
“I am named for a grandfather,” Hart said. “And you?”
“But Hart?” I said, refusing to be distracted. “Is that the usual nickname for Reinhardt?”
“Lauren started calling me that.” A gambling boat was making its way out to sea; we stopped to watch its progress.
“Because of how much she loved you?”
“Because she thinks I have none.” Hart bent to touch my forehead with his own. “Where does it go, the good feeling between us?”
“Between you and me?” I said, surprised.
“You and me, sure. You and your Cal. Me and Lauren.”
“It doesn’t have to go anywhere.”
“Ah, Jeanette. It is always the same thing.”
“It wasn’t the same thing for Clara and Brahms.”
I tried to put my arms around him, but he sidestepped me awkwardly, angrily, hopping down off the boardwalk and onto the sand. “You have done a lot of research on your Clara,” he said. “As a woman, perhaps, you understand her better than I. But I am a man and I can assure you, what happened between them is no mystery. Listen to how Brahms writes to her: Do not ever throw away a pretty ribbon from your hat, or anything of that sort, but give it to me so I may tie it around your letters.* How long could any man, especially at that age, be satisfied with letters and ribbons?”
“Well, if all the whorehouses in Hamburg couldn’t satisfy him either—”
“Let me put this to you plainly. He’s young enough to think that Clara will be different. After Robert dies, they travel to Gersau, where he fucks her and discovers she is not.”
He stalked away toward the water. I started to follow, changed my mind, headed up the beach toward the pier. The water’s edge was lined with dark ribbons of seaweed, the cracked ruins of turtle eggs, trash. Ugly landscape. Ugly words. I was tired of this. Tired of him. He could touch me, yes, but on his own terms. He could say anything he wanted. He wants to be close. He can’t bear to be close. This was going nowhere. When I got back to the car, he was waiting for me, leaning against the hood. We stared at each other, unblinking.
If only I could find longing as sweet as you do.
“What are your feelings for me?” I said.
“Don’t ask me that,” he said. “Please.”
At home, I opened my journal, placed my hand where his hand had been. Traced his careful writing with my finger.
Then I tore out those pages. Took a long shower. Washed the smell of his cologne from my hair.
Permit a poor outsider to tell you today that he thinks of you with the same respect he always did and from the bottom of his heart wishes you everything good, much love, and a long life to you, the dearest of all persons to him. Unfortunately, I am more of an outsider to you than anything else.
—Brahms, in a letter to Clara, 1892*
29.
WE’D PUT HEIDI DOWN together, taking turns reading to her from The Sleep Book, the way we’d almost never done when we were still living under the same roof, planning, step by painful step, to break into pieces everything we’d spent years building together. After she’d fallen asleep, Cal stood in the kitchen, talking about his students, while I loaded the dishwasher, wiped the countertop, turned off the kitchen light.
Still, he didn’t go. It was a long drive back to Lakeland. “I feel like such an outsider,” he said.
“Want something to drink?”
“Coffee would be great.”
I’d expected he’d ask for wine. But he didn’t look as if he’d been drinking much these days. Everything about him seemed cleaner, calmer, and I wondered how much of what he’d suffered—the anger, the depression—had been tied to me, the way that my own fearfulness, my anxiety, had been tied to him. His skin was clear, no puffiness under the eyes. He looked like a much younger man. I, too, was looking younger. Healthier. I’d bought new clothes for the first time in years. I wore earrings. I’d recently colored my hair.
Good Things I Wish You: A Novel Page 9