“But I have Richard,” he said quickly. “We’ve been together for a couple of years now. Richard, we have company!” He called the last part over his shoulder in the direction of what must have been the kitchen, judging by the sounds of bustling about that we heard. A few seconds later, the younger of the two men we’d met at the Louvre appeared in the doorway, hastily wiping his hands.
“I’m sorry, I heard the bell but I couldn’t step away from the oven…” He paused, carefully studying both our expressions.
Tadeusz had managed to surprise me a couple of times in our life together, and this was one of those times. I knew that he could be a little rigid in his way of thinking, so I was afraid he’d turn around and march out, forcing me to chase him down the stairs. But, he didn’t. It only took him a second to absorb this new revelation, then he smiled and handed the potted plant to Richard with grace.
“Well in that case, this is for both of you,” he said. “What is that wonderful smell?”
Our hosts exchanged a brief glance, and I saw them both visibly relax.
“Ribs in barbecue sauce,” Richard said.
The room they invited us into was very modern and tastefully decorated. Soft white shag rugs covered floorboards probably as old as the house. Under the window was a white couch with two matching armchairs, a woolen throw tossed casually yet stylishly over one. Between them was a coffee table with a glass top and intricately-wrought iron legs. Bookshelves dominated the walls from floor to ceiling, filled to bursting with tomes on every subject imaginable. In the few gaps between them hung masks and other exotic objects. The only old-fashioned piece of furniture seemed to be a black piano that we could just see through the doorway to another room.
“We travel a lot,” Mark explained, when he saw us studying the masks and other items on the walls. “We like to bring back a souvenir from everywhere we visit. This one, for example.” He picked up wooden statue depicting a strange, bulbous-eyed creature with a tall headdress. “This is Kanaloa, the Hawaiian god of the Underworld, and teacher of magic. We brought it when we were visiting Hawaii two years ago.” He set the statue back on its shelf, where it glared at us with its huge, bulging eyes.
“What would you like to have to drink before dinner?” he asked, gesturing for us to sit on the couch. “Martini, Dry Manhattan, Gibson, Bronx, or maybe whisky sour?”
“Mark is quite the mixologist,” Richard explained, still looking shy and a little tense. “I’m just the chef.”
“Apart from ‘whisky’ and ‘martini’, the other names don’t mean much to me,” Tadeusz admitted, throwing his hands up in a playfully helpless gesture. I smiled, pleased to see him in such a good mood, and the two men laughed. The atmosphere relaxed a little more.
“Okay, so martinis are generally served either dry, dirty, or perfect, with either an olive or fresh lemon peel,” Mark began explaining. “A Gibson is dry martini with a marinated onion instead. I personally recommend the Bronx – it’s a perfect martini cut with orange juice, served well-shaken.”
“Shaken, not stirred?” Tadeusz said, deadpan.
“Shaken, not stirred,” Mark reassured him, in an equally solemn voice.
“What about whiskey sour?” I asked, amused by their exchange, but also quite interested in the wide array of options at our disposal.
“That’s two parts lemon juice, three parts Bourbon, one part sugar or syrup.”
I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of drinking that much lemon juice. No wonder it was called a ‘whiskey sour’. “I think I’ll try the Bronx, please.”
“Me too.” Tadeusz raised his hand.
After our drinks – which we both agreed were excellent – Mark rose and gestured towards a nearby doorway with a half-bow.
“Let’s move to the dining room,” he said. “After dinner, you have to tell us everything in detail. We’re simply dying of curiosity.” He rubbed his hands happily.
The ribs tasted divine. They were served on warm plates, covered in barbecue sauce, and cooked to perfection: crisp on the outside, juicy on the inside.
“This sauce is excellent,” Tadeusz said, dipping a piece of meat in it. “There’s something in here I don’t recognize. What is it?”
“Probably the Worcestershire sauce,” Richard said, looking a little flustered but pleased by the praise. “Not everyone adds it. It’s a pity, really. I think it brings the flavor out wonderfully.”
Through our conversation over dinner, we learned that Richard had been born in New York, while Mark was from Philadelphia. They’d met at one of the symphonic concerts at Carnegie Hall, and it had been what the French called ‘coup de foudre’ – literally, ‘a bolt of lightning’, but better known by the colloquially meaning, ‘love at first sight’. They’d lived together in New York for a while, then decided to move to Paris.
I have to admit, at first I felt a tiny bit uncomfortable. I didn’t really know how to behave in a situation like this. If they’d been a heterosexual couple, I would have been touched by their obvious devotion to one another. I probably would have gotten all teary-eyed, as I usually did about stories like that. But this? This was completely new territory to me. I’m not a bigot, but my only experience with same sex couples had been on television, or the one Pride Parade I’d seen in Paris. In both cases, the people were very much larger than life. Mark and Richard were completely different, down to earth and natural. They spoke about their relationship in a way that was familiar and comfortable, so much so that I didn’t even notice the exact moment when it stopped bothering me.
“What did your family say when you told them you were moving to a strange country, probably forever?” Tadeusz asked Richard.
“It was tough on my parents,” he admitted sadly. “I’m an only child, so now they are all alone, but they respected my choice. Besides, we go home to visit our families whenever we can.” Suddenly, a boyish grin illuminated his face. “But this Christmas, they’re coming to visit us here, in Paris.”
For a little while, we talked about Tadeusz and I, our families, and our lives back home. By the time we moved back into the living room, we were all on a first name basis. It happened very organically, without all the ceremony we were used to back in Poland. That had always been one of my favorite things about Americans.
“What would you prefer now: scotch, wine or beer?” Mark asked, standing in the doorway while we settled back down on that comfortable couch.
“We’re both beer lovers,” Tadeusz said. “After such a hearty dinner, I’d be glad to have one. I know we’re in France and all, but we’re getting a bit sick of wine. Right, honey?”
“Yeah,” I agreed eagerly. “I’d love a cold beer.”
“Is Bud okay, or do you have a special request?”
“Bud? You mean Budweiser?” Tadeusz asked for clarity, and Mark nodded. “That’ll fine, though I’d prefer a Tyskie.” He grinned mischievously.
“You joke, but I actually anticipated that and bought some Tyskie, too.”
“Seriously? I was just joking...” It was rare to see Tadeusz truly stumped, but now he just sat on the couch staring back and forth between us with a look of uncertainty on his face.
“We don’t want to make any trouble for you,” I said, a phrase which was a bit of an inside joke between us. “So how about we just have both?”
Mark laughed and nodded, then vanished back into the kitchen for a moment. He returned shortly with bottles of ice-cold beer and glasses. He set them on the table in front of each of us, then took a seat next to Richard.
“Now,” he said. “Tell us everything!”
I began with Marie’s last letter, in which she’d written about the performance with Hiller, then I told them about the prayer book I’d found in the Parisian apartment. I’d brought it with me, and let them look at it. They paged through it gingerly, looking at the yellowed pages with obvious reverence, then stopped at the unglued back page.
“That’s where the note was?” Mark asked.
“Hmm… the ink’s a bit faded, but it’s still quite legible. The letters seem a touch uneven, as if it was written in a hurry, but it’s still very nice, neat handwriting. Almost calligraphy. That’s how people wrote with quills.” He held the page up to the light and studied it a little longer, then pointed to a spot. “Look, he nearly punctured the paper here. And here, this little blot means he probably broke the nib of his quill. All consistent with strong emotion. It’s hard to determine whether this is Chopin’s handwriting or not, though.”
“Claude’s going to take the note to a handwriting analysist,” Tadeusz said. “We can’t prove anything without that.”
“Good, good…” Mark murmured, without taking his eyes off the page. His thoughts were clearly somewhere else. “It looks like, whoever they were, the young couple’s separation was sudden and unexpected.”
“We suspect it was probably her father’s doing,” I explained. “Family gossip says he went to Paris and dragged her home by force, then married her off to a butcher nearly three times her age.”
“A butcher?” Richard grimaced. “A sensitive young artist? That must have been terrible for her.”
“Yes, it wasn’t the happiest of choices,” I agreed. “Especially since the girl was in love with someone else, and probably pregnant.”
“The evidence does agree with that assessment.” Mark set the paper down on the table, and thoughtfully reached for his glass. “I’m wondering about that Hiller concert. It was a well-documented event in its day…”
“Darling!” Richard laughed, picking up one of the beer bottles. “Even Hemingway couldn’t drink from an empty cup. Let me give you a refill.”
Mark blinked in surprise at the empty glass. “Oh… yes, please. I definitely need another one. It’s hard to believe all this sober. Could it really have been Chopin?”
We continued our story, and told him about our find in the attic above the tower. Richard expressed an avid interest in Marie’s paintings, while Mark remained oddly silent.
“You say she went to Hiller’s concert?” he asked suddenly, as if struck by a thought. “And that her lover performed there, with Hiller and a third musician?”
“Yes?” I said, glancing at Tadeusz in confusion. “I’m sure I read about him performing in a three piano concerto. Didn’t I?”
“Oh yes, yes, there most certainly was a three-person concerto with Chopin, Hiller, and a third pianist.” Mark rose from his chair and went over to a bookshelf. He searched around for a while, then returned to us with a book and a strange smile.
“Do you recognize this fellow here?” He opened the book and showed us an illustration of a young man with a distinctively long nose, and fashionably coifed hair.
All three of us looked at the picture, then at Mark.
“That’s Chopin, isn’t it?” I ventured, though I was no longer certain of myself. Clearly, he knew something I didn’t.
“No, my dear,” he said triumphantly. “It’s not Chopin.”
He uncovered the caption at the bottom of the page. Young man in the picture was not Frederick Chopin. It was Franz Liszt, the famous Hungarian composer.
Now we really needed a drink. Mark refilled our glasses, his hand shaking with emotion. We drank in silence for a while, as our host went to the fridge for more beer.
“Yes, my friends,” he said when he returned, breaking the long silence. “It could have just as likely been Liszt. In fact, that’s actually quite probably. We didn’t think of him until now, but he was in Paris at the same time as Chopin. They were good friends, and known to roam the pubs together.” He picked up the biography again, and flipped through the pages in search of something. “Ah, here it is. He was sitting next to Chopin at the concert Marie wrote about. Hiller invited both composers to participate in his event. During the second part, they performed a joint rendition of the Allegro from Bach’s Concerto in D minor.”
“Liszt’s lascivious history is well-known, too,” Richard added. “Now, he was dog for the ladies. How old was Marie at the time?”
“Seventeen, maybe eighteen. No older than that,” I said, still stunned.
“Well, that was marriageable age in those days,” Richard said. He probably wooed her with promises of marriage, and she being young and naïve, believed him. He probably strung along hundreds of girls like that. You have to remember that in his day, Liszt was just as famous as Paganini. They were the stars of the stage, like rock stars today. The girls probably screamed just as loud at their concerts as they do now.” He laughed, amused by his own joke.
Suddenly, I felt compelled to defend Marie’s honor, since she couldn’t do it herself.
“You say that like she was some silly little airhead,” I said indignantly. “She was a smart, well-bred young lady, not some floozy. She must have had good reasons to believe him. I think they were in love with each other, and that it was Chopin, not Liszt!”
“Lucy insists that it was Chopin, and she’s too stubborn to give up without real, hard evidence,” Tadeusz explained, patting my hand and smiling at me. “Calm down, honey. You’re probably right, but we have to be scientific about this. Until proven otherwise, we have to consider all the possibilities. We can’t simply dismiss the possibility that it might have been Liszt, can we?”
“No,” I admitted reluctantly. “I’ll just need time to get used to the idea. This whole time I had a clear picture in my head about who Marie’s lover was, and now… Damn it, we’re never going to solve this riddle.”
“I think,” Mark interjected, “that the handwriting analysis is going to explain a lot, and possibly answer that question. After all, both Chopin and Liszt left behind plenty of correspondence, more than enough for a comparison. Good thing everything was hand-written in those days.”
“You know, it could turn out to be neither of them,” Richard commented. “Won’t you regret getting your hopes up if that’s the case?”
“Even if it is,” I said seriously, “I’ll never consider this time wasted. This has been the most interesting adventure I’ve had in a long time. Don’t you agree, honey?”
“It certainly has been the most interesting vacation I’ve had in years,” Tadeusz replied, then he raised his glass and winked at me. “Let’s drink to that.”
“Look,” Mark said to all of us. “It could be either or neither, but that doesn’t matter right now—”
“It matters to me!” I interrupted, assuming a pathetic expression. “Because I want it to be Chopin.”
Mark laughed. “Well, maybe it was him. Let’s try to be patient and wait for the results of the handwriting analysis. No matter what the final answer ends up being, the whole story is fascinating and I’m glad you shared it with us. You have to admit, both men do look surprisingly similar. I never noticed before, because their creativity output is so vastly different.”
“So Liszt didn’t borrow anything from Chopin?” Tadeusz enquired. “He seemed quite enamored with his work.”
“Well, of course he took some kind of inspiration from him,” Mark replied. “But he wasn’t as reliant on it as some, and he hid it better.”
“What do you mean?” Tadeusz asked.
“We can check on the piano,” Richard suggested. “Something just occurred to me. Come, I’ll show you.” He stood and headed for the music room, beckoning us to follow him. We did so, and in the next room we seated ourselves on the soft black leather sofa, while Richard sat at the piano and began to play.
The first thing he played was a chromatic right-hand scale, a thin, winding trickle of sound, high-pitched and slightly irritating, yet somehow familiar.
“I’m no expert, but that sounded like Flight of the Bumblebee,” Tadeusz said when Richard finished, sounding a little unsure of himself.
“Oh,
that’s it!” I exclaimed. “Rimsky- Korsakov?”
“Chopin,” Richard said with a broad smile. “There is a reason why you thought of Flight of the Bumblebee. The Russian probably based his annoying little insect on Chopin’s etude.”
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence?” I suggested.
“Maybe, but this isn’t the only time you can see the influence of Chopin in Rimsky-Korsakov’s works. You probably recognize this passage from the third part of Scheherazade?” Richard played two passages, both with very distinctive oriental overtones. The sounded like they were written for a harp.
“I know them,” I said.
“And now, Lento Con Gran Espressione, otherwise known as Nocturne in C Sharp minor.” Richard repeated almost the same notes. “Someone was very enthusiastic about Chopin’s work, right?”
“That’s pretty normal for Russian composers,” Mark commented. “They all borrowed a little from him. Not always literally, but still. Scriabin, Lyadov, Rachmaninoff. The French ones did, too.”
“Exactly,” Richard agreed. “Here is Debussy. Passepied from Suite Bergamasque. The fourth movement, if I remember correctly.” He played piece of work with strange, pulsating rhythm. “And this is from Chopin’s Etude in A minor, from few years earlier.”
The resemblance was striking.
“Ah, but don’t think that Monsieur Chopin was above borrowing ideas from other composers!”
“Prove it!” I cried, surprisingly excited by this particular topic of discussion.
“Well, I don’t have the sheet music,” Richard admitted, looking a tad embarrassed. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. Hummel’s Concerto in A minor quite obviously provided some seeds for both of Chopin’s concertos. And the slow part from one of Field’s compositions is clearly the prototype from which Nocturne in E Flat major was built. What is worth noting, is how masterfully it was developed on by our friend Chopin.”
“So Chopin stole, too?” Tadeusz clearly couldn’t resist questions like that.
Daguerreotype: The Mystery of Frédéric Chopin Page 20