The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge

by Patricia Duncker

  ‘Spread it around. We don’t want rivers of mud.’

  The Composer adjusted the sprinkler, grinned up at her, then suddenly altered the angle so that the Judge was covered from head to foot in a damp soft spray. The down on her arms rose, spattered with cool drops.

  ‘Mais qu’est-ce que tu fais?’ she yelled, leaping backwards, completely unaware that she had abandoned the formal term of address. She had always referred to him as ‘vous’.

  ‘Come inside,’ he said, catching her arm and leading her away. ‘You look hot. We both need a glass of cold water.’

  He marched her through the Great Hall. Anyone could overhear them, indeed the entire staff of the Domaine might have witnessed the Composer’s presumption and his insistence. The Judge paused at the entrance to the kitchen, a scene of frantic action and boiling smells; the scullery, four doors down, hung over the secret garden against the cliff. Through the barred window she saw bright light spattering the dusty leaves of the fruit trees. The Composer flung open the fridge, the inner light flickered in the shadows.

  ‘Ah, Evian. Here are all the bottles.’

  There were no glasses. He wrenched off the top and handed her the cool ribbed plastic. The Judge gulped down a third of the bottle of cold water, then smoothed her burgundy sheath, which had creased into two lines, one beneath her breasts and the other at the top of her thighs. The dress had almost dried out, and the effect of being watered like a flower surprised her; the sensation of renewal, readiness, energy suddenly returned. The Composer took hold of the bottle and drank the rest, his eyes half closed, his burning hand still clamped to her arm.

  ‘Stay with me. Sit here for a moment.’

  She looked down the long cool shaft of the scullery; there were no chairs. He lifted her gently on to the great freezer, which hummed and bubbled beneath her, then slumped against the wall, gazing out at the garden through the iron bars. She bristled a little at being placed like a doll on a shelf so that her feet no longer touched the floor. His palpable need to touch her, to be physically close to her, proved both disconcerting and conspicuous. She felt compromised in the eyes of others.

  ‘Did you like the garden?’ His unexpected question startled her a little.

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful.’

  ‘Her mother planted everything, you see. It was her gift to us.’

  The Judge cooled; her mind snapped open. The habitual poise of the one used to asking all the questions, despite being perched on a freezer, flooded back. She dared to ask the dangerous things, quiet, casual, offhand.

  ‘You must miss her too, as much as Marie-T. Were you together for many years?’

  The Composer continued to lean against the wall, looking away from her, the plastic bottle crackling in his grasp.

  ‘Yes, I do miss her. Especially in this house. We were lovers once. I was a young man. It became impossible to see her after Marie-T was born. Her husband was an angry, jealous man and that was one of his conditions. But the estate was hers; so was the money. Then she was widowed and the door was open. But by then the world had changed so much. My life was elsewhere; we saw each other as often as possible but we were never involved again. Yet the tenderness remained.’

  The Judge sat very still, every nerve clenched, calculating the pitch of her voice. If I ask him now he will tell me everything. I have set the trap. But she had no chance to scissor him with her questions; he was too quick for her, and his emotions were too raw. Suddenly ricocheting off the wall, he caught her up in his giant grasp.

  ‘Don’t ask me about the past. It still hurts. And it shouldn’t do. I don’t see things clearly. I see you. And I see you as if you were illuminated. You haven’t answered my letter. You never answer me. You just think up more questions. I’ve brought you here to make you talk to me. Answer me now.’

  He held her fast. The Judge was unable to climb off the freezer.

  ‘Put me down.’

  For one awful second they glared at one another; their faces inches apart, he smelt of warm sweat and cinnamon. She resisted his incendiary grasp and wriggled violently. He swept her down on to the tiles; she saw the barred windows and the garden beyond, then her glasses, slightly dislodged in the scuffle, misted up.

  ‘Monsieur Grosz, control yourself.’

  He let her go at once.

  ‘At last you said my name. One part of it at least. Why won’t you call me by my name?’

  The Judge adjusted her dress and her temper; then set about polishing her glasses with the lining of her skirt.

  ‘Please don’t do this again. I shall have you prosecuted for assault if you insist on treating me like a toy.’

  ‘A toy? But I have laid myself at your feet, Madame.’ He grinned and swept his white hair back.

  ‘Am I too old for you? Is that it?’ Suddenly he clouded up, visibly distressed.

  The Judge melted. ‘Gaëlle thinks so.’

  ‘I knew it. She’s been preaching sermons against me.’

  He bulged into the entire space between the freezer and the door, like the gigantic symbol of the Macrocosm. She found herself smiling back at his candour and impertinence. The Judge knew, she always knew, when a man was lying; she had a nose for perjury, and this man was made of truth. The puzzle to be solved did not therefore rest in the Composer himself but in his entourage, and in the labyrinth of relationships, friendships, connections and memories surrounding him. She did not doubt this much-declared passion; his persistence had become not only peculiar, but flattering, and she realised that she could pinpoint the moment of his disintegration more precisely than he would ever be able to do. For before her she recognised the same absorbed and passionate stare that had engulfed her in the theatre at Lübeck, months ago, despite her lost glasses and blurred vision. He had seen her then for the first time.

  ‘Am I interrupting something?’ A figure darkened the passage.

  The language was German; the voice urbane, familiar, self-possessed. The Composer let out a great whoop of joy.

  ‘Johann Weiß – meet Dominique Carpentier. This is the leader of my orchestra, my first violin and my right hand. He speaks all my languages, and, I imagine, all yours.’

  ‘Enchanté, Madame.’ The violinist, already brandishing a glass of the famous apéritif de châtaignes, bowed low. ‘Let the festivities begin! Et que la fête commence.’

  To her relief the Composer was called away to welcome his orchestra, now being rapidly disgorged from a flotilla of cars and several minibuses. Johann escorted the Judge back through the Great Hall and out under the trees. He spoke fluent French, with a deliberately comic accent, and bubbled incessantly, like a man on the brink of raucous laughter. The Judge realised that she was the only stranger; everyone there knew everyone else. Marie-T spun past, giving her a jubilant squeeze, and admonishing Johann to take care of their most precious guest. The babel of languages overflowed into the dark spaces of the house and gusted through the tiny whirlpools of dust still floating in the yard. The wind dropped and the women’s bright dresses settled against their thighs. The Judge fished out her prescription dark glasses and, undercover, sifted the festive crowd, her eyes steady as needles seeking north. She assumed the secure, professional role in which she was most at home: the woman who watches, absorbs information and refuses to arrive at hasty conclusions, the woman who waits. But her concentration was perpetually uprooted, distracted. Almost every single member of the orchestra sought her out, shook her hand, claimed her acquaintance. She was more than welcome; she was anticipated, awaited, honoured. This was as disturbing as it was gratifying; she too was being observed, with an absorbed and rapt attention that undercut her confidence. What has he told them? Who do they think I am? The Judge nodded and smiled, like a distant cousin arriving at the wedding, who suddenly discovers she is the mother of the bride.

  The Composer sat her down between Marie-T and the first violin. She made no objection to this careful pincer movement, for they dominated the head of the tables and she had an exc
ellent vantage point from which to gather faces, voices, gestures. The orchestra unfurled carefully down either side with much snickering, grating of chairs and unstable benches. She felt surrounded by arguments and laughter. Were they arranged by instruments or languages? She had no idea. The Composer wolfed down charcuterie, cornichons, tiny sour onions and several glasses of muscat, while he conducted a violent argument about Mozart with a woman on his left to whom she had not yet been introduced. Their exchange in German was too rapid and technical for her to follow. The Judge sat isolated, disconcerted by a ripple of unbidden irritation. I could be at home, working, reading. What is the point of being here if I can’t spy on them and follow their discussions? He pounced upon her like a giant cat.

  ‘What do you think, Dominique? You must have a view on the Mozart symphonies.’

  ‘I don’t. I am not a musician and I very rarely go to concerts.’

  The first violin chuckled. ‘Then we must set to work and convert you at once.’

  He nodded at the Composer, but Friedrich Grosz had fixed her once more with his savage gaze, hunting out the muscles on her face, the tension across her shoulders. She felt him searching for the memory of her uncontrollable tears as the young soprano poured out her ardour and her longing for the endless night of all eternity, within which there is no loss, no separation, no division. Look, we have reached the place where the stars shine still and time no longer rushes on, the place where hours, days, weeks stand motionless and frozen, caught in the bright ring of unchanging perpetuity.

  She spoke again, hypnotised by the energy of his glare.

  ‘You know perfectly well that music disturbs me.’

  ‘Exactly!’ exploded the Composer, as if she had given him all the evidence he needed to carry off victory in the dispute, and he began to gabble once more at his companion.

  Suddenly he stopped, turned to face her and Johann Weiß, paused, and then declared in English, ‘Music alone opened the gates of the underworld. It was the song of Orpheus that broke Pluto’s heart and released his Eurydice. The appeal is irresistible. But does music make promises that it cannot fulfil? For it is the most Romantic of all the arts’ – he abandoned his thought to his native tongue – ‘denn nur das Unendliche ist ihr Vorwurf. But the eternity of love was never granted to Orpheus. He looked back.’

  The Judge frowned, baffled.

  ‘Bullshit,’ cried Johann, including the Judge in his revolt, ‘you know perfectly well that the Promise – das Versprechen – is there and that it will be kept for all time. Music opens the doors of the unknown kingdom, that world which has nothing to do with the external world of the senses. And the kingdom is both the source of all our longing and our destiny, our final goal. We have the right to be insatiable in this world, and everything, everything shall be given to us. But we must keep our part of the bargain. And so far, we have been faithful in every respect.’

  The Judge, rigid with attention, nibbled her warm toast and goat’s cheese. She could not follow the intricacy of the argument, but she remained convinced, without any doubt, that she was hearing, at this table, spoken freely and without inhibition, the exalted language of the Faith.

  * * *

  Johann Weiß began to play at dusk. Insects thronged round the lights high on the walls of the Great Hall, which lit up the vast rafters and the dusty plaster. Myriam eased off her shoes and tucked her arm around the Judge as they leaned against one another, settled in white plastic chairs by the great medieval doors, their backs pressed against the studded patterns of round nails. The single sad thread of sound rose up into the old building, nourishing the gentle chink of dishes from the kitchens and the soughing of the plane trees, brushed by the fading wind. Everyone else stretched out, red-faced, exhausted and replete, ready to be quiet, breathing the sound of a single violin and its melancholy retelling of the old songs. The Judge forced herself to suspend her seething brain. She had drunk two glasses of alcohol in eight hours; she was probably the only sober person left amidst the cheerful hundred, all of whom were happier, at rest. Yet these were the places of her childhood; here she had played among the great vats, home from school, hiding from her father and Myriam. And here she had danced, on these very tiles, enjoying all eyes upon her. Had the family been initiates even then, followers of the sacrifice sect that swallowed fortunes, futures, every prospect of independent happiness? Who had known? Was it here, on her doorstep, even then? She looked at Myriam’s dark head, and the little gold hoops in her ears. What had her best friend known, but not told? No, as far as Myriam was concerned her mistress had been duped and murdered, deceived into a grim pact of slaughter. The events of New Year’s Eve had revealed the fabulous Madame Laval to be both cowardly and gullible, a lesser woman than we had all believed, not the great lady, who had managed a profitable business for decades. The Judge fiddled with the black Japanese comb, not her usual tortoiseshell grip, and therefore less comfortable, that held her hair high as a geisha’s, primed for an evening’s stint in the Tokyo bar. The violin dipped and soared as the sad songs ceased, banished from the night of joy, and the dance began.

  Where had they hidden their instruments? For now there were three other fiddles and a double bass, informal, improvising, smiling at each other with no score placed before them. She felt the Composer’s oppressive concentration upon her, his eyes never leaving her face. He loitered in the shadows, leaning against the stacked tables, Marie-T perched above him, pounding his shoulders in time to the quickening stamp. Two men had begun to dance. Was it the sevillanas from Bizet’s Carmen? Or simply a melody everybody knows? She watched their arched backs and rigid hips; the dance unfolded in a drama of pounding feet, fierce gestures and fixed scowls, the sinister glare of the possessed. Someone was singing, an angry blazing shout, and Johann Weiß hammered his heels against the ground as he played. Everyone clapped, angrily against the beat. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the dance was over, and the two men, back to back like victorious gladiators, raised their arms in victory.

  ‘Tu te souviens?’ Myriam squeezed her shoulders. ‘Do you remember, ma bibiche? How we used to dance?’

  ‘Mais oui. Of course I do.’

  And there was Myriam, smooth and slender, a young girl of sixteen, swirling like an unleashed djinn, in the balance of her arms. I grew up here. This is my childhood friend. But what else could she remember that might have passed for the natural oddness of adult life, but in fact marked the presence of something dangerous and strange? The Judge ransacked her own past for signs and wonders, for anything that could tell her how long the Faith had been rooted in her native earth, and emerged with empty hands.

  * * *

  She could not leave without thanking her young hostess. Marie-T, effusive in her gratitude, nevertheless managed to dissolve into the singing night when the Composer appeared, impatient at her elbow.

  ‘Where is your car?’

  They marched to the far side of the buildings where the vines began. The pruned vines now shuddered in the first cool of night, the great leaves peeled back to expose the grapes. The muscat will be first. Sometimes, on these slopes where the sea heat gushed inland with the burning wind, they would begin the harvest as early as the last week in August. The Judge prodded a fat cluster with her keys, assessing the water content.

  ‘When can I see you again? I have five days before I must leave for Austria. I will agree to anything, Dominique. Only don’t withdraw from me. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘It’s not all you ask.’ She shook herself with discomfort and impatience. ‘Can’t you understand that so long as the investigation continues I cannot see you without being hopelessly compromised? I actually have to write reports on you. I shall have to write a report about this day.’

  There was a silent space between them; she could see his white hair ruffled above his eyes and heard the distant laughter in the night. He stretched out his arms in a gesture of frustrated irritation, his sleeves rolled back, ready to fight; now he loomed above her
like a wrestler.

  ‘Well? What does that matter? I’m not a trivial person. And I have nothing to hide from you. You can write all the reports you like.’

  No one could hear them now, or witness this conversation. The Judge felt safe from all observers, indeed safe from everything except her own temper. She drew a deep breath, ready to extract herself from his demands. But as she searched for the curt reply ending in goodnight, the Composer sensed her hesitation and pounced.

  ‘You came with me to the Belvédère, you may not have answered my letters, but you have not returned them either, and I am certain that you have not merely added them to the mounting pile of papers in your legal files. You came here today. You give me great hope, Dominique, hope that one day you might consent to love me, or at least return one tiny glassful of the love I have for you.’

  She reached the tipping point. No man had ever dared to assess her behaviour; even the Procureur gave her a free hand. No man ever assumed that he understood her feelings or her motives, and no man, not even Schweigen, had dared to comment on her inner intentions or decisions. This man interfered with her freedom of motive and movement. Incensed, provoked, and now blazing with anger, the Judge actually raised a clenched fist against him and snarled back.

  ‘Don’t hope. Never hope. Don’t count on me.’ She found herself shouting. He pinned her arms to her sides and her back against the car, then yelled straight into her face.

  ‘You can’t stop me loving you. And nothing you can do will ever change that!’

  He stepped back. She sprang into her car and dropped the keys on the floor, her hands trembling. She saw his giant white shape, magnificent as a colossus, striding away down the vine rows to open the gates of the Domaine. For a second she caught him, grim-faced, in the blaze of her lights, then sped past in a white blast of dust. She refused to slow down, or look up.

  * * *

  The Judge awoke in the grey, cool dawn and stood before her lighted fridge in the half-dark, gulping fruit juice straight from the packet. Something was becoming clearer to her. The clues gleamed in tiny corners of her mind, like beads on a necklace, fallen from the broken string, scattered and lost, splayed across the stone tiles. She heard Johann Weiß, his voice raised, jubilant – you know perfectly well that the Promise is there and that it will be kept for all time – and then she heard his music; the sombre mourning cry of sadness, absence, loss, his homage to the travellers who had passed onwards, treading the path we all must take, into the glowing dark. They swayed with the sad songs, and accepted their collective sorrow; no one asked him to play anything different. Then she heard the key shift into the major and the dance of joy began. For sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Something in the pattern of the performance and the shape of the fête itself flashed a warning to the Judge: the feast and then the dance. She stood still, sober, thirsty and exhausted, looking out into the whitening grey. The familiar shapes of shrubs, palms and fruit trees flickered darker as the light gathered about them, steady and intense. The shutters were still open. She had not bothered to lock them when she returned home, simply flinging her bag and keys down upon the kitchen table. The familiar hum of the automatic arrosage ceased. Soon, it will be day.