Pinball

by Jerzy Kosiński

  Aroused by her voice and by the fantasy of her, her telephone love partner would whisper to her words Domostroy could not hear, and as she whispered and moaned into the phone, her breath rasping and broken, she would sprawl over Domostroy, her breasts on his chest, her face next to his, the telephone receiver in her hand the only barrier between them.

  She would continue her verbal charade, at the same time licking Domostroy’s ears, kissing his lips, her free hand wedging between her flesh and his, raking and squeezing.

  “Love me faster, lover, harder, deeper—faster now,” she would breathe into the phone, and listening to the sounds from the receiver, she would pull away from Domostroy, leaving him in the midst of his own excitement, and replace the receiver. “Another bastard just came on me,” she would exclaim in mock anger. “Imagine the nerve—on our first date!”

  One morning, just as Domostroy was about to tell Andrea of his latest discovery, she startled him by anticipating him. “Goddard is like a writer who uses a pen name,” she said, rolling over and looking at him. “Usually such a name has no relationship to the writer’s real name, or to his life, because it is meant to be an artistic cover-up, a creative camouflage. But the other day you said you thought you know why Goddard picked that name for himself. Tell me what you think.”

  “I have a clue,” said Domostroy. “As I was listening to his records, I picked out two musical themes, both of which I was sure belonged to other composers whose records I’d heard before. They were subtle paraphrases of music I thought I knew, and for days I listened to hundreds of records and tapes—old and new, American and foreign—but I couldn’t track down the sources, mainly because both of these elusive themes evoked the music of a number of past and present composers. Finally, I traced one motif.”

  “To whom?”

  “To—Lieberson, a man I used to know,” he answered, “who died some years ago. Lieberson was president of Columbia Records Masterworks, and he was responsible for launching some of our finest contemporary composers, both classical and popular, as well as for bringing about the productions of South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story. He won seven Grammy Awards, and at least as many Gold Record Awards, and he was one of the most erudite and admired men in the music industry.”

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted impatiently. “You’re talking about a corporate executive. What’s that got to do with the themes in Goddard’s music?”

  Bending down slowly and inhaling her tart odor, Domostroy brushed one cheek against her inner thigh, hard and cool, and pressed the other against her mound, shaved of its hair, its flesh rippled, steamy, and coiled. “Lieberson was also an inspired and accomplished composer,” he said softly. “I’ve spent time listening to all of his work again, and he wrote a goodly amount: incidental music for Alice in Wonderland, a ballet, a suite for string orchestra, a symphony, settings for three Chinese poems for mixed voices, a suite for twenty instruments, a piece called ‘Complaints of the Young,’ another called ‘Nine Melodies for Piano,’ a quintet, and a number of songs to texts by Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and others. I even reread his novel, Three for Bedroom C. Gloria Swanson played in the film.”

  “Come to the point,” she said as she moved back and trapped him between her calves, their roundness not marred by the slightest muscle bulge, their smoothness not disturbed by a single hair.

  “The point is that Goddard paraphrased a whole section of one of Lieberson’s works.”

  “Big deal,” she interjected. “Everyone paraphrases. In my piano literature course I just learned that in the ‘Fantaisie Impromptu,’ Chopin, who so massively and unashamedly borrowed from Polish folk music, also paraphrased an impromptu by Moscheles that had been published by chance in a volume along with Chopin’s Opus 15 nocturnes. Chopin was so ashamed to acknowledge his indebtedness to Moscheles, that for twenty years he refused to publish his masterpiece. “Like any other artist, the composer transforms the already existing forms, motifs, techniques into a new musical entity,” she lectured him. All Goddard did was paraphrase one musical passage from a piece he might have heard anywhere!” She was disappointed. “That’s not enough to be a meaningful link.”

  “I agree, that’s not enough,” he said, kissing her, his tongue tracing the folds and curls of her flesh, roughing it, pressing and withdrawing.

  His touch sent shivers through her, and her breathing came in rasps; with her eyes closed, turning her head from side to side, she twisted her body.

  He stopped, then said softly, “There is another link. Guess what Lieberson’s first name was?”

  “Why?” Pushing her hands against his shoulders, she stopped twisting.

  “Just guess,” he said.

  “Victor. No, wait: Hector.”

  “Wrong.”

  “What does Lieberson’s first name have to do with Goddard?”

  “A lot,” said Domostroy, “because Lieberson’s first name was Goddard.”

  Sweeping the hair off her face, she sat up.

  “What?”

  “Goddard Lieberson.” He stared at her.

  “That’s unbelievable,” she said. “Could it be a coincidence?”

  “Coincidence? First Lieberson’s name, then his music! That’s a connection, not a coincidence.” Domostroy paused. “But what can the connection be? When Goddard Lieberson was in his heyday, our Goddard was probably like you, Andrea, a teenager in high school.”

  She sat and thought. “You said that Goddard had paraphrased the themes of two composers. One is Lieberson. Have you traced the other oner”

  “Not yet,” said Domostroy.

  A few days later, as if checking on his progress, Andrea said, “Did you find the other theme that you thought Goddard paraphrased?”

  “For the life of me I couldn’t place the composer or the piece,” he said. “There was something bright and evanescent about it, a bit foreign and old-fashioned, in the vein of the late-nineteenth-century Russian Romantics—Borodin, Balakirev, Mussorgsky. Yet I had the strange feeling that I had heard the piece played by the composer himself at some time or other, which meant it had to be much more recent. Then it hit me. Goddard got that motif from Boris Pregel, another composer I knew—as I knew Lieberson.”

  “Boris Pregel? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him—or of anything by him.”

  “He was also somewhat before your time. Pregel was born in Russia, and starting at the age of six, he was trained by his mother, who was an excellent pianist and singer. He later studied music at the conservatory in Odessa, but then he switched to engineering and escaped to the West—to France. Then he came to the United States. Like Lieberson, Pregel became known, not for his music, but for other reasons—in his case, primarily as a great expert and inventor in the field of atomic energy. And he was an enormously successful entrepreneur, dealing in uranium and other radioactive materials. For his achievements and service to mankind, Pregel was made president of the New York Academy of Sciences, and he became one of the most decorated men in the world, right up there with De Gaulle, Eisenhower, and the Pope.”

  “What about his music?” Andrea asked.

  “It was first-rate,” said Domostroy. “In the Russian Romantic tradition. His ‘Romantic Suite,’ his Fantasy in D Major, and many of his other works were performed in America and in Europe, by the Rome and Milan symphony orchestras under D’Artega.” He halted. “Strange how things come back,” he said. “I’d forgotten that D’Artega, the conductor, also acted. He played Tchaikovsky in the film Carnegie Hall.”

  “You know all kinds of musical tidbits, don’t you?” she said, impressed.

  “Stick around, and so will you,” said Domostroy. “For example, Boris Pregel’s songs, like Lieberson’s, were usually settings for works by well-known poets.”

  He stopped and reflected. “There’s one tidbit that I would like to know: how did Goddard happen to pick up motifs from both Goddard Lieberson and Boris Pregel? I can’t figure out the connection.”

&n
bsp; “Maybe he just liked their music,” said Andrea.

  “Still, what a coincidence! Even when Pregel and Lieberson were alive, their music was not widely known. Most people wouldn’t be familiar with the work of either one, much less both. I wonder if our Goddard’s family was somehow connected to them. Could Goddard possibly have known both Lieberson and Pregel?”

  “Why not?” she cried, excited. “Goddard might be a young corporate executive, a sort of contemporary Lieberson or Pregel! Could that be the connection?”

  “I doubt it. For one thing, Lieberson and Pregel were hardly typical executives. Both were creative artists and intellectuals, men with extensive education, exposure, worldliness.”

  “Do you think that in his way Goddard is up to their standards?”

  “Definitely not. They were both talented and accomplished musicians. Despite what Nash and the other critics say, our Goddard has no real understanding of the piano; his music is elemental, flat, without depth; his treatment of rhythm, harmony and melody is a synthesized mishmash. In my opinion, he has also failed to develop as a singer: his voice remains as ordinary as his repertoire. He can’t darken his vowels, and for volume he depends entirely on electronic amplification.”

  “At least he doesn’t merely try to entertain,” said Andrea. “Goddard writes to broaden his audience’s musical experience. That’s why they love him. That’s why he’s not just another rock star. He’s an innovator, like Gershwin.”

  “The mass public is by nature indiscriminate and gullible,” said Domostroy. “Easily influenced by mass media, it cannot distinguish between what’s authentic and what’s merely believable, between originality and sham novelty. At best, Goddard is a mildly gifted singer and a clever electronic-music improviser, that’s all. Chopin once said that nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning. But Goddard has no meaning to hide. Instead, he has cleverly hidden himself in his music! His invisibility is still his greatest asset.” He looked at Andrea and saw that his words had annoyed her. “Innovator or not,” he continued in a gentler voice, “his music alone will not tell us how he linked himself to both Lieberson and Pregel. But perhaps the files of Columbia Records—or the New York Academy of Sciences—will.”

  Andrea read the letter. “It’s wonderful,” she sighed, “and so moving. If I were Goddard, I would certainly want to know the woman who had written it.” She read it again, slowly, her lips moving as she lingered over each word. Then she looked up. “Do my sexual feelings have to be spelled out in such detail?”

  “What you say about sex in this letter has to work like the sustaining pedal on the piano. It has to keep you resonating in his fantasy.”

  “I wish I had written it,” she murmured sweetly. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It will come from you,” said Domostroy.

  “Yes, but the signature will be my only contribution.”

  “It won’t be signed,” said Domostroy. “And there won’t be any return address on it.”

  “Why? If the letter is telling the truth—”

  “Truth needs no signature,” said Domostroy, taking the letter from her. “If he’s convinced by what you say, not knowing who you are will intrigue him all the more. He’ll count the days until you write again—and hope that the next time you write, you’ll sign your name so that one day he’ll be able to meet you.”

  “Can one letter do all that?” she wondered aloud.

  “I doubt it. But several—let’s say five—might,” he said. “Long ago, during my Sturm und Drang period,” he continued, “when I had received enough fan letters to know how similar they all were, I received one unusual one. The writer, a woman, said she knew me only from my work and a few concert and television appearances, but her analysis of my music was so acute, as were her perceptions of my needs and longings—the undercurrents of my life, which I’d never talked about with anyone—that I was flat-out enthralled.

  “If, without meeting me, she had detected so much of my innermost being, you can imagine how tempted I was to let her study me face to face, with no emotional or professional niceties to mask the encounter. But when I reached the end of the letter, I realized with dismay that she had not signed it, or rather, that she had signed it only with a musical phrase from Chopin. I assumed that she had simply forgotten to add her name, and I earnestly hoped that, in spite of not hearing from me, she would write again.

  “A few weeks later a second letter arrived, and this time, with uncanny insight, she speculated as to what sort of musical composition I was working on—its length, its mood, my sources of inspiration for it—and everything she said was mystifyingly close to actual fact. Again the letter was signed only with a phrase of Chopin’s—a different one—and now I knew, this was by design, not oversight.

  “Other letters followed—all signed with Chopin phrases—in which she continued to speak about my work, but also included more and more reflections about her own feelings and desires, and in time the letters became specific regarding her sexual thoughts and fantasies. She would describe in graphic detail scenes of the two of us in bed together, complete with dialogue—what I would say to her and how I would say it; what she would reply; and the exact positions of our bodies at every step along the way. With uncanny insight she would speculate with surprising accuracy about the entire range of my sexual desires—from those I would admit to freely to those I would never dream of confessing, much less pursuing.

  “In most instances she was so close to the heart of the truth about me that I began to believe she had extrasensory perception. Worse, I feared that my mystery correspondent might be someone I knew or a friend of someone I knew—a past mistress, a casual lover, an associate, or an acquaintance. And yet I was certain that I had never come across anyone so lucid—or so obsessive.

  “For the successful pursuit of both my creative efforts and my sexual fantasies, I came to rely completely on her letters, as if she were the vital force in my life. For months, each time a letter arrived, I was convinced that she would reveal herself in it so that we could at last meet, so that I could tell her what she had come to mean to me. But she never did, and after about a year the letters stopped. I felt at first as if my brain’s lifeline had been cut without warning. Then I started to comfort myself with various theories: that she was old and ill; that she had died; that even if she were alive, she must be—however brilliant—neurotic, unstable, probably schizophrenic. Finally I reduced her to banality—imagining her as physically plain, or ugly, maybe a bit repulsive—and in time, I shut out the memory of her altogether.

  “Some years later I participated in the Musical Weeks festival at Crans-Montana, a Swiss resort favored by artists. The honorary guest at the festival was a woman pianist who was considered, in spite of being only in her twenties, one of the world’s greatest piano players, and who, because of her unusually good looks, was a special favorite of the public and the media. I had heard and seen her play several times, and each time I had found myself positively distracted by her sensual appeal.

  “On the last evening of Musical Weeks, I was seated—along with several other guests—at the head table with the pianist and her husband, a youthful businessman. During the meal I noticed that the pianist would glance at me furtively; at one point I even caught her staring. Intimidated by her beauty, as well as by the presence of her husband, I managed to exchange only a few remarks with her—on the subject of the artist’s need for both seclusion and public exposure, which seemed obvious to the two of us, but appeared as a contradiction to some of the others at the table.

  “At one point I left the table to go to the men’s room downstairs, and on the darkened staircase I heard a woman behind me calling my name. It was the pianist. ‘I want to apologize, Mr. Domostroy,’ she said, ‘for staring at you during dinner.’

  “‘I was flattered,’ I said. ‘I have wanted to meet you for a long time.’

  “‘You have already met me—even before tonight!’ she said, moving closer until her
face was under the light. Once again I felt the full force of her beauty.

  “‘I’ve heard you play, but I don’t think we’ve ever met,’ I said.

  “‘Not in person,’ she said, and she put her hand on my shoulder. ‘I’ve written to you, though, she said, ‘many times. I didn’t sign my letters. I closed them instead with musical notes.’

  “I felt my body jolt. My heart was racing. ‘From “The Wish,” a Chopin mazurka,’ I said, and I started to recite the lyric to the musical phrases she had sent.

  If I were the sun in the sky,

  I would not shine except for you;

  If I were a bird of this grove,

  I would not sing in any foreign land;

  Only for all time

  Under your window and for you alone.

  “Overpowered by the memory of her letters, and by the images they conjured now that she stood in front of me, I took her arms and drew her toward me, then locked my hands behind her back and put my face against hers. ‘I loved your letters,’ I said. They made me think about you constantly and wait for you more anxiously than I’ve ever waited for anyone. That was five years ago. Five years! Think what those years might have been had we met then.’

  “She took my hands in hers. ‘I looked at your hands at dinner,’ she said, ‘and thought of the time when I’d have given the whole world to feel them on my body. I had such a crush on you, on your music, on everything about you. I watched you on TV, read about you in the papers, went to every concert you gave. All I wanted was to have you fall in love with me.’

  “‘If you had only introduced yourself, you would have succeeded,’ I said. ‘I was in love with the woman who wrote those letters. I dreamt continuously about her and about the life we could have together. I would have given up everything for a new life with her.’ I drew her toward me, buried my face in her hair, pressed her body against mine. She swayed in my arms. ‘I still would,’ I said. ‘I still love her. Tell me what you want me to do so that we can be together.’