“The two harps.”
“Of course. Both of them.”
He admires the pretty musician’s dimpled cheeks as she glows with happiness. Taking a wad of tobacco from a box on his desk, he tamps it into the twisting pipe from Jerusalem, but has difficulty lighting it.
“This is a young and modest pipe,” he pronounces, taking up his old pipe, which readily responds. “But I won’t give up on it.”
“Where did you get the idea to replace the Berlioz with Debussy?”
“You won’t believe it—from very far away, the management of the Kyoto orchestra. While you were in Israel we got an unexpected offer from our embassy in Japan for an exchange of orchestras with Kyoto, and when we mentioned Berlioz, we sensed a polite hesitation, because the Fantastique had been in their repertoire the previous year, so they came up with an original notion, expressed in an inspired fashion. Here, listen to what they wrote us: ‘You, the Dutch, have wrestled with the sea and succeeded in taming it and even conquering it to some extent, whereas for us Japanese the sea brings destruction and death. Therefore kindly perform Debussy’s La Mer for us not only as musicians but as experienced conquerors of the sea, and maybe through your performance we too can learn how to contend with the sea that surrounds us.’ Strange, no?”
“Strange and profound.”
“Yes, well, Debussy’s Impressionism was inspired in part by Japanese art, and on the cover of the original score of La Mer from 1905 was a huge wave, a tsunami, by the Japanese printmaker Hokusai.”
“I didn’t know that, haven’t seen it. When’s the picture from?”
“Hokusai lived from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. There were devastating tsunamis then too, it would seem.”
“Wonderful,” says the harpist, “wonderful. La Mer is a piece that will lift my soul. When do we leave?”
“In ten days’ time. Dennis returns tomorrow from America, and will rehearse the orchestra and conduct the performances. And so, our Venus, your vacation is over.”
“It was hardly a vacation, but if you insist, you can call it one.”
“I won’t insist if you tell me exactly what happened,” says Herman solicitously. “But vacation or not, now it’s back to work. First of all the music library, to organize the scores for the various instruments, and at the same time check on Debussy’s Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane.”
“The Sacred and Profane Dances for harp and strings!” she shouts. “Herman, I am beside myself, I’m so happy. You mean I can be a soloist in Japan?”
“For now these are ideas—they still need to be discussed. But if you were upset about the Mozart you missed, here are two Debussys to console you.”
Herman reaches for the Jerusalem pipe.
In high spirits, she hurries to the library and finds the score of La Mer: a pocket-size version with small print. She skims rapidly through the three movements: “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea” to “Play of the Waves” to “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” and happily confirms that both parts for harp are rich and varied, sometimes in unison, sometimes in conversation. She rushes back to the orchestra’s main office and gets the key to the basement storeroom. The heavy instruments in storage—the bass drum, xylophone, two contrabasses and an enormous tuba—cast shadows in the sparingly lighted room. Her harp had made the trip to Germany, but the second harp, the old one, stands cloaked in its pinkish case. With great care she uncovers it and begins tuning the strings. It’s not easy to tune the elderly harp, whose presence is needed in but a few compositions alongside the first harp, but she doesn’t give up until all forty-seven strings are proven ready.
This harp, built in the nineteenth century, was a gift to the orchestra by a provincial gentleman who thought he was donating an antique of great value, which was not the case. Despite its regal frame, painted several times over in reddish gold, the wood is quite ordinary, and worms that feasted on it over the years have left little holes that sometimes muffle its tone. But now she holds it close to her heart and for a full hour warms up her fingers with fast and slow glissandi, also improvising her own little melodies. Only after she is warmed up and her yearning has been satisfied, her thoughts turn to her mother, alone in the Jerusalem apartment. Will the new “wealth” she acquired in her imagination help her acclimate without regret to the solitude she chose?
Noga exits the basement and walks out to the street as night slowly falls in the Netherlands. A fine European rain sweetens the air. She goes back to the musicians’ café, where the owners greet her fondly. Her sojourn in Israel to assist an elderly mother has raised her stock in the eyes of the Dutch; they all have parents or relatives whose dilemmas of old age will involve them, or already do.
“She returned to her old apartment in Jerusalem,” Noga announces triumphantly.
Only natural, declare the restaurant owners, and a longtime waiter offers his approval: “Hard to give up Jerusalem.”
Noga corrects him: “It’s easy to give up Jerusalem, but Tel Aviv is too expensive.”
While she enjoys some of her favorite foods, she entertains the woman proprietor, who has sat down beside her, with tales of her adventures as an extra.
“And you didn’t play for three months?”
“Only once, for just a few minutes—in the desert, by a historic mountain covered with ruins.”
That night she phones Jerusalem, but there is no answer. She calls Honi to ask about their mother. He knows nothing, hasn’t called her since they parted the night before. “If she insists on Jerusalem, she should enjoy it however she likes,” he snaps. “You and I have done our part.”
The next day she works for hours at the music library, organizing all the parts in the piece. She makes sure no instrument is left out, carefully marks the cues and phrases for each one. At twilight she returns to the orchestra’s office, carrying in her arms a sizable bundle of scores, and sees the weary musicians get off the bus that has brought them home from Germany and help each other unload instruments from the truck that followed. She watches from afar as her harp is slowly wheeled to the storeroom, but does not yet approach it. Everyone is glad she is back. The aged flutist overflows with affection and calls over a tall, pale woman with hard eyes and a bitter smile. This is Christine, her understudy. Belgian, from Antwerp, French by tongue and temperament, awkward in English and Dutch.
“Your harp, it has a strong sound,” she informs the Israeli. “I tried to play it gently.”
“Thank you,” says Noga, extending her hand to the woman, whose belly, under a light pastel sweater, signals early pregnancy.
“And what is happening with your mother?” asks the harpist who took her place in the Mozart.
“Yes, what did she decide?” chimes Manfred.
Other musicians, despite their fatigue and eagerness to get home, want to know what an old mother in faraway Jerusalem has decided.
These Dutch people have no other worries, Noga thinks, chuckling to herself. Their wars ended seventy years ago, and they glow with self-satisfaction. They knew when to give up their colonies in Southeast Asia and have been spared the new wave of terrorism. The euro is stable, their economy is strong, and unemployment is low—so all they have left to worry about is my mother.
“She decided to stay in Jerusalem,” she tells the musicians gathered around her, “which I expected all along.”
In the evening there is still no answer in Jerusalem, and the daughter leaves a voicemail message: “Where’s the new heiress?” She immediately phones her brother, who spoke with the mother in the afternoon, and reports that now she’s complaining that because of the experiment they imposed on her, she barely saw her daughter in those three months. From now on, will she have to meet her only in films?
Her mother calls that night. Yes, she’s been spending time in town, with friends in cafés, going to movies, but the Uriah story has stayed with her. “Your visit, Nogaleh, still hovers over me like a dream. You were in Israel for three months and I barely
saw you. I did learn from you to wander at night from bed to bed, but my sleep is hardly sound.
Noga tells her about the change in repertoire, the trip to Japan and about The Sea of Debussy, which in French sounds identical to la mère, the mother. “So in Japan,” she consoles her mother, “I’ll be playing you on my harp.”
“At least that,” sighs the mother, ending the conversation.
Forty-Six
IN THE MORNING SHE GOES to the music library, where she finds a score of Debussy’s Sacred and Profane Dances. She makes a photocopy and gives it to Herman, who says not a word and places it in a drawer. In the evening, the orchestra members gather at the concert hall for a briefing about the trip to Kyoto. In fluent English, the cultural attaché of the Japanese embassy in The Hague provides information about their lodging near Doshisha University in Kyoto, and shows impressive slides of the auditorium and the temples of the holy city and environs. Four concerts are scheduled for orchestra subscribers, and three more are planned in two southern cities—Kumamoto and Hiroshima. Finally, since the musical director has not yet arrived, the administrative director of the Arnhem orchestra goes over the specifics of the repertoire, which will include Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto; a rotation of Haydn symphonies 26, 92 and 94; the Melancholy Arabesques by Van den Broek, for it is important to include a contemporary Dutch composition; and, of course, as requested by the Japanese, the orchestra will perform La Mer. The Japanese pianist who broke her arm playing tennis in Berlin has recovered, and will make her own way to Japan, where there will be two rehearsals of the Emperor, a piece both she and the orchestra know well. The orchestra has also played the Haydn works in recent years, so four rehearsals in the coming week should suffice. The focus will be on Debussy and the Arabesques, which is a complex and difficult piece, but is fortunately only eight minutes long.
The principal conductor and musical director, Dennis van Zwol, strides into the room, straight from the airport, and is greeted with polite applause. He is a bald, chubby man of about sixty, with blue, froglike eyes, a strict and erudite musician whose ample sense of humor softens his pedantic demeanor. He ascends the stage in jeans and a red sweater and sits down beside Herman, surveying his musicians with amusement. When he spots the harpist, he waves to her warmly. So, she whispers to herself, why not, he’s friendly, likes a good joke, and they say he also loves receiving gifts.
The next morning the rehearsals begin. There are no parts for the harp in the Haydn symphonies, so she sits in the hall and watches. After a short break, some of the strings leave the stage, and their places are taken by percussionists, including a few playing strange instruments. The conductor calls for a young composer, a man of around thirty with a ponytail, to take his place on the podium, to lead the first encounter with his provocative cacophony.
Van Zwol chooses to sit next to Noga in the auditorium and inquires about her vacation.
Blushing, she insists on repeating what she said to Herman: “It was not exactly a vacation.”
“Then what was it?”
“Something complicated and surprising. I myself still don’t understand what it was.”
“And your mother?”
“She decided to stay in Jerusalem.”
“And you are satisfied with her choice?”
The question reflects an unexpected sensitivity, and she tries to offer an appropriate response.
“From this distance, what good would my worrying do her?”
The conductor nods sympathetically, and she elaborates.
“My father died nine months ago. He and my mother were inseparable, dependent on one another, and who knows if they enjoyed that or whether their devotion had become oppressive. I think the sudden freedom my father granted my mother is exciting for her, and she may be afraid to curtail that freedom with the rules and activities of a retirement home.”
Van Zwol nods gravely even as he winces at the wild sounds emanating from the stage, which are interrupted by the tapping of the baton as the young composer attempts to explain to the players ideas that gave birth to his music. Although it is Van Zwol who will conduct this piece in concert, he does not intervene, in order to give the musicians the chance to experience the new composition through the passion of the composer himself.
He meanwhile drums with his fingers on his knee a different, hidden melody that enters his mind. And she again says to herself, Really, why not?
She turns to him, blood rushing to her face. “Maestro, I brought you an unusual gift from Jerusalem, something you might find useful.”
“A gift?” He is surprised. “Oh, my dear Venus, I do have a weakness for gifts, but on condition they are inexpensive and small and just symbolic, because that way I am not obligated to give gifts in return.”
A quake of anxiety seizes her as she leans over and produces the whip from her bag, wrapped in a shawl of her mother’s and tied with string.
He recoils. “What is this?” he asks. “It doesn’t look like a small gift.” But his lust for gifts overcomes his resistance, and he carefully undoes the string and shawl, releasing the strong scent of leather that has whipped the bodies of many beasts.
“What is this?” The conductor is shocked.
“It’s a whip I bought from a Bedouin in the Old City, a whip that tamed and drove camels in the desert, and I thought, Maestro, that it might also be good for taming and driving us musicians.”
The froggy blue eyes of the Dutchman light up with great amusement, and he raises the whip to his nostrils.
“I don’t believe it . . . You thought about me all the way in Israel.”
“Why not? I’m a musician in your orchestra.”
“True. And you thought I need to strengthen my conducting not only with a baton but a whip?”
“In a symbolic way, Maestro. Only symbolic. It’s a symbolic gift, the kind you like.”
“Marvelous,” he murmurs, and extends the whip along the empty seats to measure its length, apparently tempted to whip something or somebody.
“But why symbolic?” he asks, studying the pretty harpist warily. “Why only symbolic? Why not whip someone who ruins the tempo or misses notes or comes in at the wrong place?”
She is alarmed.
“No, no, Maestro, it’s a symbolic whip, only symbolic, otherwise the musicians will blame me.”
But the maestro continues to marvel.
“Where did you get the idea to bring me a whip?”
“As it happened, I bought it for myself, to protect myself from the neighborhood children who were breaking into my mother’s apartment to watch television, which was forbidden in their homes.”
“Television is forbidden? Why?”
“Because according to our religious people, it corrupts values and draws the children away from Torah studies.”
“Yes,” rhapsodizes the Dutchman, “your religious people have it exactly right. Television is evil and corruptive, and you did well to whip their children.”
He clasps the Bedouin whip to his breast like a beloved infant.
“Symbolic . . . symbolic,” he mutters, “and I have the urge to whip this young man on the podium who is driving our orchestra crazy with his music.”
She laughs. “No, no.”
With great feeling he takes her hand and lifts it to his lips, gathers up the whip, takes it with him to the podium and embraces the young composer, who has just concluded his Melancholy Arabesques with a blast.
“Bravo,” he says, “but it still needs polishing.”
The percussion players vacate the front of the stage for the string players arriving from the wings. The two harpists take their positions behind the harps, the timpanists tune their drumheads, the other percussionists strategically arrange their instruments, the French horn players remove their slides and shake out the spit, the oboists and bassoonists choose the right reeds and adjust them. Gradually they all finish leafing through the scores, and quiet descends on the stage.
The conductor taps the
music stand with his baton and begins the little lecture he likes to deliver when starting a new piece.
“At the end of the nineteenth century, France lost a war to Germany but won the culture war. Paris became the capital of the European artistic avant-garde, the city where the painters Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas created Impressionism, while French poetry thrived in the Symbolist vein.
“Claude Debussy, born in the year 1862, was revolutionary in his style and became the greatest painter of music and a leader in the Impressionism of sound, though he complained that ‘imbeciles,’ as he called them, categorized his music as Impressionist, confusing painting and music. Debussy established a new concept of tonality in European music. With his fertile imagination he rebelled against the strong German influence in classical music and turned to exotic areas of influence, taking non-European scales and musical colors from the Far East, also borrowing from Spanish dance, and experimented boldly with instruments that seldom had central roles in classical music, writing, for example, complex parts for the harp.”
Van Zwol points his baton at the two harpists and smiles broadly.
“Symbolism in literature also influenced Debussy,” continues the conductor, “and he wrote program music, giving symbolic and literary titles to his compositions, and strove with elegance and sensitivity to evoke the complexity of nature and humans, first and foremost to fathom the soul of woman.”
“We would like to have more specific details,” says Ingrid, a beautiful French horn player. “Also personal ones if possible.”
Laughter and applause.
The conductor raps his baton.
“If we start recounting Debussy’s romantic adventures, we won’t get to the first notes of the piece today, nor do I wish to be responsible for corrupting decent Dutch men and women with racy French anecdotes. That’s what the Internet is for, answerable to no one. So suffice it to say that he was quite the adventurer, and that his tonal instability may have derived from romantic instability. He switched women easily, cheated on them unconscionably, and one of his wives shot herself in despair in the Place de la Concorde and survived only by a miracle. But all this proves that for him, woman was the ultimate creation, an eternal grail of love and desire, even when no longer young and pretty. She is the purpose of art.”
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