Two-Part Inventions

by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

  “What do you mean? Who?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if there’s any truth to it, but they say she’s been going around with Paul Manning.”

  “Her stepfather? I can’t believe it.” She moved the heavy newspaper over and sat down next to him on the couch.

  “Yup. The cellist. They go to concerts and parties together, and she hangs on his arm. They make a good-looking couple, too—she’s still snazzy and has her hair either piled up like a tower or hanging down to her ass, and he’s the distinguished, gray-haired older gentleman. You should come into town with me more often at night, you’d certainly run into them. You do know her mother died recently? I should have said that first. She had an aneurysm.”

  “I didn’t know. When?”

  “Close to a year ago, I guess. So this is not as outrageous as it sounds. Only a little bit outrageous.”

  “I wish you’d told me about her mother, Phil. I would have written a note or something.”

  “Well, it was during the time you weren’t very communicative, and I just forgot. Anyway, what does it matter who she’s going around with?”

  It mattered, but she couldn’t say quite why. Elena’s sheer audacity had always troubled her, made her feel wanting. A sexual adventurer, too. Could this have begun while her mother was still alive? If it was true, that is. No, even Elena wouldn’t do that. Elena was always up for adventure, even risk, but not for crass subterfuge. She’d told Suzanne when one of the professors at Juilliard had pursued her with extravagant promises, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested. He was married, for one thing. And too short, for another, she said, giggling. Hairs in his ears. Suzanne had laughed along with her, recalling all the while that Elena didn’t need to do anything for favors, not with Paul Manning for a stepfather. Now, with her busy concert schedule, when did she find the time? An affair probably took less time than a marriage, especially if Elena had remained in the apartment after her mother died. How convenient.

  Phil had gone outside and was standing on the raw wood of the unfinished porch, cutting swaths of screening—a typical Sunday suburban homeowner, she thought impassively. Where had he learned to build a porch? Or to make the fireplace work, or refinish the basement, or install new storm windows and hook up the washer and dryer? He was really extraordinarily gifted. He could do anything with his hands. She ought to appreciate him more. When the porch was finished, he said, she could use it in the hot months, to read or study scores.

  Or just lie on a chaise, if that was what she preferred.

  For a while Suzanne was caught up in the excitement of the rehearsals: Richard’s opera was panoramic, beginning with Casement’s work investigating human rights abuses for the British government in the Congo Free State and in Peru, and including dramatic scenes of the Easter Rising in 1916. There were even appearances by Yeats, Synge, and Lady Gregory of the Abbey Theater. The opera’s climax was the hanging of Casement as a spy: In the midst of World War I he tried to get the Germans to provide weapons and leadership for an Irish uprising, thus diverting troops from the war effort. But the British government’s most incendiary evidence against Casement was a purported diary that revealed homosexual escapades. His many political supporters, along with Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, believed the diary to be a forgery perpetrated by his enemies. A forgery that claimed a life.

  It was clear why this material would appeal to Richard. Working with him was a pleasure: They understood each other so well, communicating with just a glance or a few words. The work made her feel useful again. Opening night was a huge success, with a party afterward for the cast and friends; Suzanne got tipsy on champagne and felt benevolent toward the world.

  Quite late in the festivities, Elena sailed into the room on the arm of her stepfather. “Hey, it looks like you might be right,” Suzanne murmured to Phil. It was only natural that an air of intimacy should surround them, but Suzanne couldn’t be sure if it was familial or erotic. She’d met Paul a number of times during her first year at Juilliard, when she would occasionally stay over at Elena’s Park Avenue apartment instead of taking the long subway ride home. Paul was tall, much taller than Elena, with fine features and an elegant bearing. He looked the way Suzanne imagined statesmen or diplomats had looked in an earlier, more formal era: suave, confident, successful. He certainly didn’t look his age, which must have been around sixty. Not so old, really.

  Suzanne left Philip examining the array of hors d’oeuvres—he often judged the status of party-givers by the quality, quantity, and decor of the food—and went over to greet them. Elena beamed and held out her arms for an embrace. Paul leaned down to kiss Suzanne’s cheek and asked, in fatherly fashion, how she was doing.

  “I’m fine. Quite fine.” She wanted to say something about Elena’s mother, but this surely was not the moment. “Wasn’t the opera wonderful? You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss anything Richard did,” Elena said innocently. She had no idea, Suzanne saw, how much pain that affair had caused her. Elena, too, was innocent, in her way. She had no agenda except the scramble for professional success. She sashayed through her life as she had done through high school and college, making the most of every opportunity. The pain, Suzanne realized, had been self-inflicted.

  They exchanged the requisite bits of news, though the party was too noisy for Suzanne to catch all of Elena’s and Paul’s latest exploits. “It’s a pity we never see each other anymore,” Elena said. “How did that happen? Can we have lunch, or take a walk, or do something?”

  “Sure,” said Suzanne. “Give me a call.”

  She was making her way back to Phil, tottering in her high heels from the slight shock of seeing Elena, as well as from too much champagne. Someone caught her arm and she turned: Richard.

  “I hope it’s the music that’s made you so dazed with emotion,” he teased.

  “It’s everything,” she said, smiling. He put his arm around her waist to support her, and she felt a quickening inside, the kind of feeling she imagined she would have known when the baby started to move, but it hadn’t lived long enough for that. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “Everything went off perfectly.”

  “You were a great help.”

  “Oh, come on, anyone could have done what I did.”

  “But everyone isn’t as lovely to work with,” said Richard. Was it possible he was flirting? No, she must be mistaken, or more drunk than she realized. She slipped out from under his arm and went to find Philip.

  The morning after brought a headache and letdown: no more rehearsals. Back to the dailiness. Some days Philip would come home to find a student in the living room with Suzanne; she had quickly gained a reputation in their new surroundings. But more often he found her drifting about, looking half-asleep. If he asked what was wrong, she said she was tired. It was clear she didn’t wish to speak of how she felt. He suggested she see a doctor and for weeks she resisted, then finally agreed to have a series of tests. The results were inconclusive. Stress, the doctors invariably pronounced, though to him her life seemed too easy. Depression, they suggested. Philip was slightly afraid of her now. She seemed so remote, so cocooned. Only her fingers were never still. When she sat in a chair staring into space or watching television, they drummed absently on her knees.

  He didn’t dare bring up the question of more performances, even though, with his business flourishing, he had many more contacts. He could easily have arranged some gigs, even in Manhattan. He hesitated to ask if she was practicing. Only now and then did he hear her, on the weekends. She didn’t seem to have lost any of her technique or expressiveness. It was amazing, he thought, how brilliantly she could play when she was alone at home, and how the panic that overcame her in public could destroy that virtuosity. If he had her talent, they wouldn’t be able to drag him offstage. He would play his heart out in front of thousands, if he could.

  He rarely touched the piano these days, and never when Suzanne was
home, a timidity alien to him. She certainly wouldn’t ever say anything critical; it wasn’t an area where they competed, but he felt the piano was no longer his. He loved making music as much as he had as a boy, though, and so he took up the recorder. He bought a beginners’ book and taught himself, and evenings after dinner, while Suzanne read or watched TV, he went upstairs and played his recorder. He even had fantasies of the two of them playing duets—just for fun, of course—when he was more advanced. He had no idea how much the thin, piping sound, with the occasional beginner’s squawk, grated on her. If she was reading, she would put her hands over her ears to shut him out.

  Part 3

  PHILIP NEVER DID go back to Elena’s interview until six weeks after Suzanne’s death; he dreaded reading the rest. Once again he fortified himself with bourbon, although it was only one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, and scrolled down to the place where he had left off.

  “What was your reaction to the recent article in the New York Times regarding certain sections of Ms. Stellman’s CDs? I mean the one that named a number of the selections on those CDs that were allegedly taken from other pianists?”

  “Well, I was surprised, naturally. And saddened.”

  Ah, yes, saddened. That was good. She was clever, always had been. A diplomat.

  “You were one of the artists whose performances were used. One of her victims, as it were. Didn’t that make you angry?”

  “Well, no, I wouldn’t say that. I felt bad for her, but not exactly angry. And I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a victim—that’s far too strong a word. I wasn’t harmed in any tangible way, only startled. It didn’t harm my reputation. Or that of any of the other pianists.”

  That’s for sure, Phil thought. Some of them were very little known, at least outside their country. That Times article could only have helped their careers, revealing such high praise from reviewers. Incognito, that is. Naturally, the journalists wouldn’t be pleased: It showed the vagaries of their critical judgments.

  “Of course, it was very wrong,” Elena went on. “I’m not saying I condone anything of the sort, or take it lightly. But I frankly don’t think she was aware of . . . I don’t think she knew there were passages from other pianists inserted, or sometimes entire movements used. And to tell the truth, I don’t really know why they were used. She certainly could play well enough on her own.”

  The nerve, he thought. What could she possibly know about their life? The times when Suzanne’s illness got the better of her, when she flagged and slumped over the piano, too worn out to continue. The numbers of repeats when she couldn’t get a passage right and lost patience, wanted to give up the whole idea, and he had to persuade her to try again another day. For there were days, many days, when she played splendidly, as well as she used to as a girl. It was impossible to predict. Then, toward the end, her arms and hands grew weaker and occasionally trembled. But he couldn’t give up his project in the middle, could he? Remembering, he noticed that his own hand trembled slightly as he lifted the glass.

  He mustn’t get rattled over this. He’d come so far; he’d keep his cool till it blew over. Why was everyone making such a fuss? It wasn’t as if he’d stolen huge amounts of money from anyone—it was never for the money. If it had been, he would have gone about it differently, with advertising campaigns and publicity. The amount of money involved was relatively small, compared with the revenue from his other clients. Where was the great harm? It didn’t hurt the music. They were fine recordings. They honored the composers. They made listeners happy. They made Suzanne happy. She deserved to be happy. She deserved better—such a promising career, so cruelly cut short.

  “You knew her husband as well, didn’t you? Philip Markon. He was her manager and also the recording engineer and owner of Tempo Recordings.”

  “Yes, I knew him. Or, I used to know him, would be more accurate. I haven’t seen him in quite some time.”

  Now she wanted to disown him, he thought, just as he had thrown her over more than thirty years ago. Used to!

  “He’s recorded a number of prominent artists, hasn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. Tempo does quite well. Or so I’ve heard.”

  Or so she’d heard? She knew very well that Tempo was thriving. Can’t commit herself, the bitch?

  “It’s generally assumed that he must have doctored the recordings himself. Do you have an opinion about that?”

  “No, I don’t know very much about the technical side.” Well, that was certainly the truth. She knew nothing. None of them knew a thing. They assumed it was a routine matter of pressing buttons and adjusting knobs. None of them had any idea of the precision involved, the complications, the placement of the mics and keeping them balanced, correlating the scores, the sounds, and their musical representations on the computer screen, keeping track of the relations of bass and treble, unwanted accents, the dozens of details that made the performances sound as good as they did. They all wanted to sound perfect, and you couldn’t really blame them. In live performances human error was tolerated, wrong notes no big deal. An occasional slip here and there was more than compensated for by the living, breathing artist right in front of you, the spontaneity of performance. But with CDs the public had become used to an aseptic perfection. The artists didn’t like it and neither did the technicians, who had fostered it in the first place, imagining they were producing something for the ages. Now everyone had to submit to those rigid standards. None of Phil’s clients were aware of the time and effort he put in, what blunders he had to smooth over in the master tapes, in order to achieve that perfection. They listened to the finished product and thought it was their own genius they were hearing.

  “But it couldn’t have been anyone else, could it?” the interviewer persisted. “He wouldn’t have had an assistant handle his wife’s recordings, would he?”

  “I really can’t say. I have no idea how it happened or how he runs his business. Producing a CD is a complicated procedure, and no one should jump to conclusions.”

  Well, at least she wasn’t accusing him outright. She was answering like a politician, noncommittally. Probably she figured that was safest all around. She was adept at that.

  “Do you think they worked on them together? What I mean is, don’t you think Ms. Stellman must have been aware of those substitutions? Surely she listened to the masters and would have recognized segments that weren’t her own playing?”

  “Again, I really can’t say. Things can be changed after the master tapes, and not all musicians listen to their CDs. It’s hard enough making them, believe me.”

  “Did you ever discuss the recordings with her?”

  “Only to congratulate her and say I was pleased for her. As I said, we’d been out of touch.”

  “So, you never noticed your own playing? You never confronted her about it?”

  “No.”

  This, of course, was an outright lie. Good work, Elena. Excellent. He wouldn’t have expected it of her.

  Again he thought of the Polish pianist Kosinski, that first recording he’d altered ever so slightly. As he’d expected, no one ever noticed the substitution of a few bars in the first Chopin nocturne, not even Kosinski himself. It was just afterward, a dozen years ago, that he’d persuaded Suzanne to try recording in the studio.

  Philip worked very hard on that first recording, and it took him longer than most to edit. Suzanne never asked about it, and when he finally had it done and asked if she wanted to hear it, she shrugged. She was sitting in the living room, reading Ned Rorem’s journals, and didn’t enjoy being interrupted.

  “I’m sure you’ve done a good job. I know how I sound.”

  “Are you really sure? Don’t you have any curiosity?” He held it out like a surprise package. “Look, there’s a photo of you, and liner notes and everything.”

  She finally took it and perused it. “Okay, why don’t you play me a bit? Not the whole thing, just enough so that I get an idea.”

  “Well, thanks,” he said,
with some slight sarcasm. “I did it for you, after all.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. The whole issue is just . . . you know . . .”

  “It is now. But if this one does well, that’ll change overnight.”

  She listened for about fifteen minutes; Phil selected the passages carefully. In fact, despite his disappointment at her lack of interest, he was also relieved. He’d made one or two tiny substitutions, as he’d done for Kosinski. (Alterations, he preferred to call them.) He was fairly sure she wouldn’t detect them, but you never know. She had an amazingly keen ear.

  That first Chopin CD did well. Although coming from a pianist who was little known and hadn’t performed in public for years, it was fairly widely reviewed, both in print and online. It was the very oddness of Suzanne’s obscurity, perhaps, that earned the attention, not to mention Phil’s intense networking, calling in favors from what he termed the favor bank. There were deposits and withdrawals. Ever generous by nature, he had done a lot for his colleagues over the years, and now was the time to make his withdrawals.

  The next time they went to the studio they did several Mozart sonatas, and the next time Beethoven, and then Suzanne said she’d like to try something different, so they did some Debussy and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, one of the pieces she’d struggled with at her New York debut years ago.

  “You see?” he said. “You can do it. This one is a marvel.”

  After those first two or three, she never wanted to listen. “I trust you implicitly,” she said gaily, throwing her arms around him. “You’re a miracle worker.” She’d just read the latest review in Gramophone of her Mozart recording: It used words like “pellucid,” “luminescent,” “poignant.” She had the old intensity back; she was closer to the girl Philip had been so drawn to in their early years. He remembered that same transformation in high school, from the timid freshman to the talkative and sparkling girl he took under his protection. Now that it was happening again, he felt even more powerful. He didn’t have to ask her anymore about practicing; she was so busy preparing for the recordings that she had to give up two students.