by Aubrey Flegg
For a while she paced the room, then she paused near Louise’s picture and said, half to herself, half to Louise. ‘I want him to mature into a man, Louise, not just a prodigy. We have a huge responsibility.’
Izaac was still miffed the following day. He had rather fancied himself as ‘Master Abrahams,’ who felt far more important than the Izaac he was familiar with. He rubbed his tummy, wondering if he really had swelled, then he turned away hastily in case Louise was watching; she was in on this conspiracy against him. Hiding his violin behind his back, he tiptoed across the room and sidled along the wall till he was as near to her picture as he could get. He then plucked his violin from behind his back and played the most rasping discord he could devise. No reaction, she was pretending not to hear. He came out from the wall to face her, put on a look of angelic innocence, and started practising his scales, carefully hiding a series of small mistakes in them.
This was more difficult than he’d imagined. Still no reaction; so he put his tongue out and played: ‘La da di da da’, just to tell her what he thought of conspirators. She knew nothing about music, and Madame talking of Louise bopping him on the head with her telescope was just silly. A thought crossed his mind; what was that he’d just played? ‘La da di da da’… he played it again. Then he moved it up a key and modulated back down. Variations on a theme of La da di da da! He’d have to play this for her. So he turned to Louise’s picture and played it again, this time in a longer variation in which his violin chased the original tune around the room like a bird in flight. When he heard Louise’s laugh, the sound came from behind him.
‘Bravo, Izaac!’ He span about.
‘But how did you know, Lees?’ he asked.
‘Know what?’
‘When I was playing well?’
‘Because you told me, you mutt!’ she was laughing at him.
‘No, I did not!’
‘Oh, but you did. You said, “This is Izaac here, not beastly little Master Abrahams.”’
‘But how do you know? Madame Helena said you would.’
‘Once you said that playing for me was like playing in a mirror,’ she reminded him. ‘Because you really, really want me to hear and love your music, you share your thoughts with me. Not thoughts about what’s for lunch, or how beautifully you are playing, but your thoughts as a musician. Just like when Madame Stronski said that you had stopped being Izaac and had turned into Master Abrahams.’ Izaac frowned, that hadn’t been his favourite moment.
Louise wondered if she could turn it into a game. ‘Try me,’ she teased. ‘I bet I can tell you when you make a genuine mistake, and when you are just fooling.’ Rather suspiciously, Izaac raised his violin to his shoulder. Louise crossed her fingers. He played a few sombre notes for her. ‘Good,’ she encouraged him. Then he played a simple scale on G. ‘Good again.’ Then, without changing his expression, he played the same scale with a rogue sharp in the middle of it. ‘You did that on purpose, you rascal. You can’t fool me.’ She taunted.
‘Oh yes I can!’
‘Oh no you can’t!’
By now Izaac had a glint in his eye that was new to Louise; she laughed nervously as he rose to his toes and began to play. She found herself mentally ducking as he pelted her with every note and musical trick he had in his armoury. Louise had meant this to be a game, but now she realised she had started something far more serious. Izaac was testing her, and in doing so, was testing himself. Slow-moving semibreves were used to disguise a sharp attack of crotchets and semiquavers. He practised up-bows and down-bows and then tickled her with pizzicatos.
Years ago, as a little girl in Delft, Louise had played catch with the boys. They would go to great lengths to disguise where they were about to throw the ball, but Louise soon learned to watch their eyes and could quickly move in the right direction. Though Izaac tried to distract her in every way possible, he could do nothing to disguise the minute frown or flicker of his eyelids or even the mental ‘oops’ when a genuine mistake slipped through.
‘Mistake!’ Louise would respond. ‘I don’t know what you did, but that was wrong!’ Izaac would stare at her furiously in disbelief.
The continued with their ‘game’ over the next few weeks, and Louise discovered an Izaac who would argue over every note. They would have shouting matches just because Izaac, eager as always to get on with a new piece or exercise, would pretend to himself that the old one was perfect. As Louise had predicted, the more he played for her, the stronger became the voice of the musician. She was no longer relying on a wince or a frown. Soon it was Izaac the musician who knew he had made a mistake, and who felt bad when he cut short his practice.
Louise didn’t always get it right either, but as time went on Izaac trusted her more and more, sharing his musical thoughts and feelings willingly with her as he played. Louise was reminded of the moment when the Master had begun to paint her portrait and her image had appeared as if it had always existed in the canvas, emerging as if from behind a frosted glass. Now Izaac was looking past her image in her portrait and finding the musician that lay deep inside him.
As Louise learned more about music, she was able to appreciate what Izaac called his ‘musical chuckles’. His variations on La da di da da were just the first of a whole series of ‘chuckles’ that would later become famous in his encores. He was nearly seven now, and playing better than many a graduate of the Academy. When working on some particularly beautiful piece he could reduce them both to tears, and Louise would wonder what would happen if he felt like this in a performance. After a while, however, she realised that these emotional moments belonged in rehearsal. At his performances it would be for other people to weep. She found it more and more difficult to draw a line between herself and him. They were partners in his music now, merging into a single resonance.
CHAPTER 6
Mutual Understanding
Erich was hungry. He was always hungry, and he had been drawing food. That amoeboid blob in his drawing book was a huge Wiener schnitzel, and those things like marbles were potatoes, drawn small so he could have lots of them. His tummy gurgled; perhaps drawing food had not been a good idea. He listened. For some time he had been hearing an interesting scraping and scratching sound which seemed to be coming down through the high dormer window that was set into the sloping ceiling of his attic room. Mother had lifted him up once or twice so that he could see out, and he had felt like a bird looking down on the little patch of lawn at the back of the house. At present all he could see was sky.
He looked around for something to climb up on so that he could see out. The only thing to hand was an old nursing chair with a high ladder back. Abandoning his schnitzel and potatoes, he set-to to drag the chair to a place under the window, and climbed up on the seat. Now he could get his hands on the sill; it was tantalising, another few centimetres and he would be able to see out. He felt the chair-back against his knee. If he could just … Groping with his foot, he found the first rung on the back of the chair. He rose cautiously and looked out.
The lumpy green of the Vienna Woods rose beyond the end of the garden. He could see the vine trellis on the far wall of the garden, but the lawn, from where the scraping sound was coming, was obscured by the slope of the roof. He felt for the next rung on the chair and pulled himself up. Now he could see! There was Grandpa Veit’s head.
‘Granp–’ he began, raising a hand to wave, but at that moment the chair shot from under him and Erich found himself suspended with his arms over the windowsill, his legs thrashing in the vacant air below. Instinct told him that dropping back into the room onto the top of the fallen chair was not a good idea. Another instinct, more obscure, prevented him calling out to his grandfather for help. If he could just make it onto the windowsill he’d be all right.
He tried to push himself up on to his hands but his arms were not strong enough. If only he could use his legs. He lifted a knee but it got caught under the sill. His strength was running out now, but grim determination was making him h
old on. He used his head to work out a move, and in one last effort he managed to swing one leg up and hook his heel over the top of the sill. Now, like a rider mounting a horse, he rolled tummy-wise onto the windowsill. In fact his effort was so successful that he only just stopping himself from continuing his roll on out of the window, down the roof, and into the garden where Grandpa Veit was looking up at him with interest.
What Veit was doing was digging up Sabine’s lawn in the hope of planting some late potatoes in time for an autumn crop. He was stripped to the waist. He had lost so much weight that his lederhosen swung loose about him from their leather braces. The war was over, and since November the year before, soldiers had been returning home hungry and weary from trenches and billets and barracks on a dozen different fronts. Real starvation threatened all but the wealthy in the capital.
He only had a small patch of lawn still to dig. All morning as he turned the grass, sod by sod, Veit had designated these as the countries lost to Austria as a result of the war. He had dug up Poland first … let them have their Republic, if the Russians didn’t get them first. Then Czechoslovakia went under his heel, followed by Serbia – now part of Yugoslavia, of all improbable alliances. Hungary was still with Austria, but it was sure to go, so he spat on his hands and dug it to oblivion too. He looked at the pathetic patch that represented all that remained of Austria, and then he remembered that they had also lost the Sudetenland – the German-speaking Alps – now part of Italy.
All of the things that he’d looked to as a source of pride were dead or gone. The Emperor was dead. Sergeant Major Veit Hoffman was gone … retired. Even his uniform was gone. Viet gazed down at his lederhosen with distaste. The government had once been a source of pride, but now the country was being run by the Jews. His son should have been a source of pride too, but his mind winced away from that topic. A daughter-in-law, who looked like a Rhine maiden from the myths, but who had as much spine as an earthworm. And finally there was her brat. He drove his spade into the last of ‘Austria’. As he did so he heard a shout.
‘Granp–’ Veit looked up, saw the startled face of Erich in the attic window, and then saw it disappear. What was the brat doing now? He had re-emerged but he seemed to be struggling. Perhaps Sabine was holding him from below? But that was Sabine’s voice singing in the kitchen. Veit’s interest quickened. The boy’s face was scarlet with the effort that he was making. He’ll shout for help in a moment, Veit speculated, but the boy didn’t. He watched as Erich got his heel, then his calf, then his knee over the window sill and prepared for the final heave. Veit didn’t move, even when he realised that the boy might overdo it and tip himself down the roof and into the garden at his feet. He was interested, but quite detached, like a general watching his men streaming into battle; what would be would be.
Erich straddled the windowsill, having corrected his roll by bracing his foot against the warm tiles of the roof. He knew Grandpa Veit was looking up at him. At least Grandpa wouldn’t fuss, though if Mother saw him now there would be panic. He needed time to work out what to do. Going back had no attractions; the dark space behind him seemed threatening and dangerous. In front of him the roof sloped down to a gutter that stood out a few centimetres from the tiles, and while it was only a small protection from the drop into the garden below, it was reassuring. Below and to his right a high wall met the house at right angles and then ran down the side of the garden to where it supported a lean-to shed. If he could move diagonally across the roof from where he sat, then down onto the top of the wall, he could make his way along this and slide down the roof of the shed. It wouldn’t be that big a drop from there into the garden.
He rolled onto his tummy and started lowering himself down; suddenly this seemed all wrong His knees had no grip and he was sure that once he let go of the windowsill he would just slide inexorably over the edge. He hauled himself up to the window again. His heart was racing. Grandpa Veit was pretending to dig, but Erich guessed that he was watching. Sitting on his bottom he felt more stable, his bare feet gripped well on the tiles. He hitched himself forward gingerly, his fingers finding little overlapping places between the tiles. Now he was moving sideways towards the top of the wall. He looked up. Above him the sky arched in a cloud-flecked dome, beneath him the tiles seemed warm and friendly; he had a wonderful feeling of freedom and of being suspended in space with air both above him and below.
Perhaps he’d wave to Grandpa. He looked down, and quite suddenly it all changed; his legs, his arms, and his spine turned to jelly. The tiles were no longer friendly. While he had been moving, the overlaps had been forcing him ever closer to the edge of the roof. As he froze, his toes knotted and began to slip, his hands began scrabbling for a grip. Veit was looking up at him; he didn’t even look anxious. Erich took control of himself, but only just in time; as he relaxed, his feet began to grip again, and his hands became as tactile as limpets. By working methodically against the grain he hitched himself up and away from the edge.
The passage from the roof onto the top of the wall was tricky, and when he reached it, it was quite narrow so he straddled it and hitched himself along until he reached the lean-to shed. Once there it was a simple matter to slide down the corrugated iron roof to the edge. It seemed a long way down. Perhaps Veit would be cross, but the old man’s silent observation suggested approval. He would take a risk.
‘Grandpa,’ he called. ‘Can you help me?’ Veit, sighing audibly at the interruption, dug in his spade, came over, and reached up to lift Erich to the ground.
‘Listen to me, young man,’ he said. ‘You must never climb up something you can’t get down. Do you hear?’
‘Yes Grandpa, thank you Grandpa,’ Erich said, backing away.
Veit watched him as he turned to run. ‘I’ll make a man out of him yet,’ he said.
CHAPTER 7
A Prodigy Steps Out
Louise was sick with nerves. Izaac, now aged seven, had grown considerably in the year and a half since Madame Stronski had ousted Herr Müller as his teacher. Today he would perform for the first time to a group of family and friends. The concert double bill featured The Tuning Fork Quartet and the as yet unheard boy violinist Izaac Abrahams. Preparations were well under way.
Uncle Rudi passed in front of Louise’s picture, walking backwards, dragging a heavy armchair over the carpet towards the wall where he angled it towards the performing end of the music room. Beads of sweat glistened all over his head. He rubbed himself down with a large handkerchief, then he joined Nathan, who was assembling a line of chairs robbed from the dining room. They both went off to see what chairs they could find in the bedrooms. Izaac struggled in with a stool from the kitchen and put it at the back, where it would do for any latecomer.
It was the calm before the storm. Members of the family had gone off to bedrooms to change; there were distant shouts of laughter. Izaac, scrubbed to within an inch of his life, appeared. He had been dressed up in a frilly white shirt with a large, floppy blue bow tie, a grey jacket and shorts.
‘Will I be all right?’ he asked, glancing in the direction of Louise’s portrait. ‘I think this jacket will be too tight.’
Louise reassured him.
‘What if I forget my notes?’ he went on.
‘You won’t forget!’ He began to relax. A mischievous smile crossed his face.
‘I think I’ll do my duck act!’
‘No, you won’t do your duck act! Don’t tease me.’
The applause was polite as the four members of The Tuning Fork Quartet rose to their feet, pleased, perspiring, and bowing. The chairs were all filled now. The ladies were comfortably ensconced in armchairs around the edges of the room, while the men eased themselves on the upright ones in the middle. While the quartet put their instruments away and moved their chairs back to form a semi-circle, Izaac, looking small and scared, took his violin from its case. Madame Stronski leant forward and whispered some words of encouragement. All eyes were on the boy. They had heard about him, but
that not that he was a pupil of the great Madame Stronski, and they were impressed. They all leant forward now, putting their will behind him as he tightened his bow. No one noticed when the door behind them opened to let a tall distinguished looking man slip silently into the room. He looked about him; spotted the high kitchen stool that Izaac had brought in, and tiptoed over to it.
Louise noticed him straight away. Who could this be? His suit was well cut with a discreet stripe, his hair was dark with wings of grey over the ears, and a fine moustache was just flecked with grey. The only other person who could see this stranger was young Izaac, and he was struck dumb.
Izaac gaped, his hands freezing on his violin. He had heard the great Fritz Kreisler, who was certainly Vienna’s, and possibly the world’s, greatest violinist, play only a month before, when Nathan had taken him to the Great Hall of the Musikverein. What could he be doing here? He could feel the audience becoming uneasy, but didn’t they know who was sitting behind them? Suddenly he heard Louise calling him.
‘Izaac, Izaac…listen to me!’ She was pleading. ‘Don’t worry about him; he’s just a man come in off the street. Remember Madame Helena’s instructions: your feet, relax your shoulders, breath deeply.’ But his violin felt like lead, how could he ever lift it? Then he realised that the great man was looking at him sympathetically, with an amused smile hovering over his face. As if reading Izaac’s mind, he raised an imaginary violin to his shoulder and rested an invisible bow on the strings, as if about to play. It was all so relaxed, so confident, so full of music that a great weight seemed to fall from Izaac’s shoulders. His violin responded and rose like a feather to his chin.