by Gerald Elias
“You must’ve spent a few bucks on soundproofing,” said Jacobus, as they entered the room.
“Some of the tenants complained,” said Yumi. “They’re all businesses on this floor—an import/export place, a printing company, a law office, an accounting firm—so there’s no one around at night. If we rehearsed at night, it wouldn’t be a problem, but since we perform so much at night, we prefer rehearsing during the day.”
“And I gather the businesses don’t like classical music.”
“They said it distracted their customers, so they got together with the law firm and sued us.”
“Good neighbors.”
“They didn’t even ask us first. We would have been happy to help solve the problem. But when they sued us, Cy countersued, saying the noise their businesses were creating made it impossible for us to carry out our trade, which by our lease required a ‘quiet and settled ambience.’”
“I guess even Rosenthal is worth something,” Jacobus said. “So who paid for the soundproofing?”
“We paid fifty percent and the other businesses combined for the rest. Walls, doors, even the windows. We would have paid for all of it if they had only asked.”
They entered the room, and Jacobus noted to himself that even though Yumi’s two colleagues had not seen her for about a month since the end of their last tour, their only acknowledgment of her arrival was a momentary pause in their practicing.
“I’ll just make sure it’s okay with them for you to sit in,” Yumi said to Jacobus, still standing in the doorway.
Jacobus heard the receding diminuendo of Yumi’s footsteps on the hardwood floor to the other end of the room and the quiet conversation that ensued. She returned moments later.
“They say it’s all right. But they asked me to ask you and Trotsky,” and here Yumi hesitated, “to be very quiet.”
“Well, that’s just dandy,” whispered Jacobus. “You go on ahead and play with your pals, and I’ll just find me a copy of American Canine. We’ll try to keep our woofs down to a low roar. Think you can do that, Trots?” Trotsky barked agreement. Yumi slapped his arm, and he smiled.
Instead of a magazine, Yumi found him an extra chair, and he listened as she took out her violin and began a few preliminary musical calisthenics. Though the three musicians were practicing entirely different scales, technical exercises, and excerpts, the quality of sound each produced created a not unpleasant birdlike cacophony. If only some of the music being composed today could be as melodious, Jacobus thought.
A few minutes before 9:30, Jacobus heard the three women take their seats in the center of the room, presumably where the music stands were located. He was eager to hear their interpretation of “Death and the Maiden.” Maybe if Kortovsky was late he could play the first violin part with them until he arrived. That pipe dream vanished almost before it appeared. He, Jacobus, was over the hill, and anyway, he didn’t have his violin with him.
His daydreaming was interrupted by one of the musicians playing an A on the piano. Like a conductor rapping the podium with his baton, this gesture signaled that it was time to tune. He hadn’t realized there was a piano in the room, but of course, it made perfect sense since the quartet often played with pianists—he fondly recalled a performance of the Brahms F-Minor Quintet he had done a million years ago with Claudio Arrau at the peak of his career. Some memories are indelible.
“Steinway? Eight-foot?” he shouted.
“Nine-foot,” answered Yumi.
My ears must still be clogged, Jacobus thought, but not so clogged that he couldn’t clearly hear a particular sort of repetitive thud with which he was familiar from his days playing trios with Nathaniel; namely, the cellist, like a two-hundred-pound woodpecker with an attitude, drilling a shallow hole in the wooden floor with and for the instrument’s end pin, so that the cello doesn’t slide while playing. One always knew on which side of the stage the cello section of the orchestra sat by the warren of divots in the floor.
In unspoken agreement there was momentary quiet as Lenskaya played an A on her cello, taken from the piano. Before Haagen, and then Yumi, had a chance to tune their instruments by painstakingly fitting their A’s into the cello’s lower frequencies, Lenskaya stopped abruptly.
“What is with this end pin?” she asked in exasperation. “First it gets stuck, then it doesn’t stay. Is piece of shit, I think.”
“Maybe you need to tighten it more,” said Yumi. “Is it a new one?”
“No. Same one. Ever since South America, it gets stuck or it slips.”
“Maybe it’s the change in climate.”
“Maybe. Who knows? I tighten. Let’s go.”
Once they finished tuning, there was an uncomfortable silence as they waited for Aaron Kortovsky’s arrival. After a few minutes, Jacobus heard one, then another, quietly resume practicing some of the quartet’s difficult passages. To Jacobus it sounded more like fidgeting than practicing, intended to relieve the awkwardness of waiting, like the crescendo in conversation five minutes before the beginning of a funeral service.
A watch was of no use to Jacobus, but like many musicians, especially teachers, he had an uncannily hardwired sense of time. He recalled how his own teacher, Dr. Krovney, after putting a student through the paces on scales, technical exercises, études, and repertoire, knew exactly when the sixty minutes were up so that the next victim could start on time. “And so on and so on,” Krovney would end his lessons. It seemed to Jacobus that about ten minutes had elapsed when Yumi tentatively asked the others, “So, has anyone heard from Aaron lately?” To Jacobus’s ear she asked the question with the same intent as their practicing, to occupy a void rather than to obtain information. When the question was met with monosyllabic negatives, two things became apparent to him: One, no one had heard from Kortovsky; and two, that was the answer that Yumi had fully anticipated.
After another interminable ten minutes, Haagen asked, “So what should we do?” Yumi suggested going over their rehearsal and concert schedules, but Lenskaya said, “I didn’t bring.”
“How long should we wait?” asked Yumi.
“I call Sheila,” said Lenskaya, in her still heavy Russian accent. “After all, she’s manager. She will know.”
Jacobus heard Lenskaya gently place her cello on its side on the floor, walk to the corner where she had previously been practicing, open her case, and punch in a number on her phone.
“Hello, Sheila?” she began the conversation. “Aaron, he’s not here.”
When she hung up moments later, she said to the others, “Sheila doesn’t know. She’ll call around and get back. She said wait.”
“Anyone for coffee?” Haagen asked.
This time it was she who was the recipient of the monosyllabic replies. She said, “Well, I’m going downstairs to get some.”
Her coffee cup had long been empty when the phone rang. Lenskaya answered, spoke briefly, and hung up.
“Aaron is nowhere,” she said.
“Hmm,” mulled Jacobus. “‘Death’ postponed.”
FOUR
“How the hell can I have any idea where he is?” said Jacobus, as strands of semi-masticated sauerkraut made a vinegary jailbreak from his mouth, finding asylum with the vestiges of former fugitives on his threadbare brown corduroy winter coat.
Jacobus, Yumi, and Trotsky had taken a cab to Penn Station, arriving with a half hour to spare before a 12:03 train and the meeting with Rosenthal. Though blustery, the weather was just balmy enough to permit Jacobus—still dogged by the lingering effects of his cold—and Yumi to grab a bite at Frank ’n’ Stein’s outdoor hot dog and beer kiosk, a block from the station.
Yumi, distressed by the canceled rehearsal, had no appetite and was only drinking a root beer. She snatched a napkin urgently proffered by the sausage maître d’, whose name, it turned out, really was Frank N. Stein, and passed it to Jacobus to wipe the sauerkraut off his coat. Jacobus used it to blow his nose instead, then shoved it into his back pocket.
“What do I look like, a babysitter?” he continued, unperturbed. He knew he shouldn’t be such a hard-ass, especially with Yumi. After all, she was a big girl now; one of these days even the “former student of Daniel Jacobus” would fade from her résumé. She had been a professional long enough to know how to come to grips with the seemingly endless challenges that her livelihood of choice lobbed in her path. Many of those lessons couldn’t be taught in the studio, and today Jacobus just didn’t feel like being an enabler. He mumbled something about not showing up for a rehearsal not being the end of the world. You miss a flight, you eat some bad oysters, there’s always a reason. Life’s like that.
“What else did what’s her name say? Your manager at InHouseArtists?”
“Sheila Rathman?”
“Yeah, Rathman.”
“She only got Aaron’s answering machine. The same message as always: ‘Maybe I’ll call you back. Who knows, today might be your lucky day.’ But no one’s ever lucky. So Sheila called everyone. We’ve got rehearsals scheduled with all the dancers and technicians for this Schubert concert, so she’s frantic. Apparently no one’s seen or heard from him.”
“When’s the concert?”
“Thursday night.”
“Thursday? Isn’t that a strange day for a big concert?”
“Friday’s Labor Day weekend. They’re afraid they’ll lose audience.”
“Ah. The final fling in the Hamptons before the long, hard winter at Zabar’s.”
“I suppose something like that. Plus I think it would cost them more to hire all the support technicians if we did it over the weekend.”
“But how many people are going to go listen to a string quartet in a cavern like Carnegie on a weeknight, even with Ramsey’s dog-and-pony show?”
“That’s a good question.”
“How long’s Kortovsky been out of the loop?”
“That’s another good question. We don’t know. After our last tour concert in July, we all went our separate ways. I went to Japan. I don’t know where Annika or Pravda went. We don’t know where Aaron went or who he spoke to. We just assumed he’d show up like everyone else.”
“Why’s Sheila the only one who’s trying to find Kortovsky?”
“Because no one in the quartet has been talking to each other for months.”
Jacobus uttered a sound that he hoped conveyed a sense of disbelief and disgust at the same time.
“But I thought Kortovsky and Haagen were married,” he said.
“Well, yes, they are, but in name only. They don’t live together and the only times they talk are at rehearsals or when they’re meeting with their lawyers to discuss Prince Rupert.”
“So they have a bulldog too?” asked Jacobus, yanking on Trotsky’s leash just to make sure he was still alive.
Yumi laughed. “No, that’s their son. He’s about seven and goes to a boarding school in Westchester.”
“A boarding school? Seven?”
“I guess it’s because they’re so busy with the quartet. None of us has any time for a family, really.”
“What about Lenskaya?” asked Jacobus. “She have a communication problem with Kortovsky too?”
“I don’t know. I guess you’d call her the elder statesman of the quartet and she still plays incredibly well, but she just doesn’t seem to care anymore. Sometimes Aaron gets so critical of her intonation and sound, and I think he has no right to. She’s probably the best musician in the group and has such a deep tone compared to his. If I were as good as her I’d probably fight back, but she just sits there and doesn’t respond. I get the feeling it’s killing her on the inside. It’s almost like he’s trying to provoke her. It’s all so silly, Jake. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“Let’s just try to solve one problem at a time, shall we?” He bit into his hot dog, licked at the mustard dripping onto his fingers, and belched. He had a case of heartburn that could be extinguished only by aerial fire retardant, but some things were simply worth dying for.
“Sure you’re not hungry? Pretzel? Knish?” he asked.
“No thanks, Jake. I’m just enjoying watching you eat.”
He chewed, not having anything to say other than mmm.
“It’s not surprising for Aaron to be late to a rehearsal,” Yumi explained. “In fact, it would be a surprise if he wasn’t.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s his style to show up at the last minute or five or ten minutes late. Never quite enough to really put you over the edge and say something. But he never says ‘I’m sorry I’m late’ or explains why. He doesn’t even hurry when he finally does show up.”
“No remorse, huh?”
“And he has the nerve to get irritated when someone criticizes him for not being on time, even though it’s everyone else who’s inconvenienced. I think that’s one reason he and Crispin fought, and one reason why Crispin was fired.”
“And one reason Crispin sued,” said Jacobus. “Yumi, you know Kortovsky. I don’t. Why pull that kind of stuff when you’re trying to work together?”
“I think part of it is that he needs to show his power.”
“Yeah, what’s the other part?”
“Breath.”
Jacobus laughed. “Maybe then you shouldn’t complain when he shows up late.”
“Not bad breath. Alcohol.”
“Ah. Hangovers?”
“I think sometimes he drinks more than a Japanese businessman on a golfing weekend. Since he sits next to me, I can tell better than the others. When he’s not drinking he can be very charming, even considerate. But then, when he is … Between that and the tapping it was driving me crazy.”
“Tapping?”
“Aaron has such strong fingers. When he plays I can hear his fingers banging against the fingerboard. I know the audience can’t hear it—”
“Probably sounds clear as a bell to them.”
“Probably, but with his sound right in my ear it makes it really difficult for me to concentrate on my own playing.”
“You’re getting to be like me,” joked Jacobus, “hearing and smelling people.”
Yumi tried to drop her register two octaves in imitation of her mentor’s gravelly voice. “And not tolerating their bullshit.” She laughed, sounding mildly embarrassed using the profanity that she was accustomed to hearing from Jacobus’s mouth, not hers.
“But seriously, Jake, it’s unlike Aaron not to show up at all.”
“Maybe you should count your blessings. As I recall, you had up-close and personal experience with sonny boy’s penchant for being the gigolo. I’m not sure you’re not better off without him.”
“I’d rather not get into that, but yes, it would be so easy to agree with that, except Aaron’s still an amazing musician, and…”
“And what?”
“And I’m just worried,” she said.
Jacobus grunted, and then he grunted again. The first was to acknowledge Aaron Kortovsky’s confounding reputation as a virtuoso violinist and virtuoso manipulator. But Jacobus, rubbing his bewhiskered cheek for guidance, asked himself what purpose would it have served Kortovsky not to show up for the first rehearsal of the season? The second grunt was to express his opinion of the extravaganza the quartet had gotten itself involved in, which seemed to be the pirouetting pachyderm in the room.
Jacobus thought fleetingly about suggesting that Yumi temporarily take over Kortovsky’s first-violin position but immediately abandoned it. That would be like having a pitcher and catcher change positions in the eighth inning of a baseball game. They were just two totally different roles. The Emerson String Quartet was one of the few exceptions to the rule. Jacobus had cautioned the two violinists on the difficulties of the switch when they suggested the idea to him way back when, but over the years they had become comfortable with the distinct requirements of each position, and the other two members of the quartet had learned to take it in stride, so it was no big deal for them. But even if Yumi were to replace
Kortovsky, they’d then need to find another second violinist, and so would end up with two fish out of the water.
“Fire Kortovsky!” Jacobus blurted, but he knew it was a lousy idea even before it passed his lips. What would the press say if the New Magini suddenly sported a new first violinist? They were already having a field day over the lawsuit, and the quartet was suffering from it. The PR issue aside, to try to shoehorn in a new member at the last minute—especially the first violinist, whose musical personality sets the tone for the whole ensemble—would be idiotic, like putting mayonnaise on a pastrami sandwich. Plus, what would happen if in the middle of the rehearsals Kortovsky finally showed up? The others would have hell to pay. “Sorry, we thought you were dead. Our bad.”
“Forget I said that,” he recanted, even before Yumi could reply. “What about changing the program? Do the ‘Trout’ Quintet. You could play the violin part, easy.” The “Trout” was another of Schubert’s masterpieces and, like “Death and the Maiden,” was based upon one of his songs. As brooding and otherworldly as the latter was, the former was frothy and down-to-earth. Side by side, the pair of works represented the yin and yang of Schubert’s all-encompassing musical vision. More to the point, the instrumentation for the “Trout” was for only a single violin, plus viola, cello, string bass, and piano.
“I guess we could get Mr. Lavender for the piano,” said Yumi. “We performed the Brahms Quintet with him a couple years ago, and he’s amazing at fitting in with hardly any rehearsing. And maybe Gary Karr would be available for the bass part. I suppose we could give him a call.” Her voice trailed off.
“You don’t like Plan B?” asked Jacobus. “You guys too good for Lavender or Karr?”
“Oh, no!” said Yumi. “They’re great to work with. It’s just that Power Ramsey has already done the choreography and the light show for—”
“Light show?” Jacobus hadn’t heard about that one. “What do you need a fucking light show for? What do you need dance for? This is Schubert! This is one of the greatest quartets ever written! This is—”