Death and the Maiden

by Gerald Elias

  “Finally, as the audience became aware the quartet would not return to the stage yet again because they come out without their instruments, the lights of the house rose and the audience groans disappointed—no encore. Well, I say to myself, now I must push. I give some several people my small elbow, but then there is the final obstacle, a young man like the size of a mammoth who is limping and seems not to know whether he was coming or going. I say to myself, perhaps God does not want me to have my autographs. I cannot see around him, but finally I make a small avenue, only to find that La Maestra, protected by her numerous bodyguards, has made the more efficient passage to our destination. Now I would have to wait my turn, and who knew how long that could take?

  “‘What?’ I heard the first lady exclaim in a most un–first lady–like tone. ‘Very well. If there is a next time.’ And then the entourage exited with a most unanticipated alacrity.

  “Now I am first in line! I poke my head into the backstage area, which in the Museo Nacional makes many dimly lit poor alcoves, like where the moles live, but I see no one but the stage manager.

  “‘César,’ I said. ‘¿Que pasa? I want to congratulate the musicians.’

  “‘I am sorry, Colonel,’ says César. ‘Like I told La Maestra. They’re gone.’

  “‘Gone? So soon?’ I ask.

  “‘Yes, and maybe my job with it. La Maestra was not happy. They just took their cases and left. They didn’t say a word. Americans.’

  “I had no time to reply to his one-word editorial, which, knowing César, would undoubtedly be the beginning of a lengthy political dialectic about how America was adding South America into yet more Estados Unidos. César, he likes to talk. But I think, maybe I can catch them. ‘What direction did they go?’ I ask.

  “‘They went in every direction, like the compass.’

  “‘What does that mean, César? I don’t have time for the riddles.’

  “‘They each went a separate way,’ César said. ‘They didn’t even look at each other.’

  “So I race out the stage door into the darkened street, but all I see is the audience on the cloud of the euphoria, and the idolized musicians were nowhere to be seen.”

  “So you didn’t find out where Kortovsky’s staying.”

  “Oh, but I did, Maestro! I am very determined. I go back to César and ask which taxi company the quartet uses, and César say to me, ‘Embassy Company.’”

  “How would he know?”

  “Here in Peru we have many taxi drivers. Taxis are very cheap, but some of them are not to be trusted. We have many tourists who take the tico and then—”

  “Tico?”

  “Yes. They are a very small taxi, about the size of a bread box, but not as comfortable or safe. Sometimes the tourists get robbed, or charged too much, or taken somewhere they don’t want to go. Sometimes the tico breaks down and the passenger has to push. So the museo arranged a secure company for the musicians. I call the company and find out the drivers who pick up the musicians, and call the drivers.”

  “And?”

  “Binjo! Señor Kortovsky stay at Maury Hotel. A very nice establishment that, how shall we say, somewhat basks in the warmth of its former glory.”

  “You mean it’s a dump.”

  “No, no, Maestro, not at all! It no doubt still has the dignidad and the majestad like the rest of the area around the Plaza Mayor. The Spanish balconies from the sixteenth century, the cathedrals, the … Well, I am sounding like a travel guide, am I not? And after all, the Maury was the first to make the pisco sour.”

  “First or last, if they made the piss go sour, it’s a dump.”

  “No, no, sir! Pisco! Pisco! You misapprehend my accent. Pisco is our national drink, like grappa in Italy or aquavit in Denmark. The pisco sour combines the alcohol with the limone, the sugar, and the egg whites with the crushed ice. Sublime!”

  “Sounds sub-lemon to me.”

  “Ah, you will see. Perhaps one day I will have the honor of pouring a pisco sour for you, Maestro.”

  “I doubt it. So what about Kortovsky?”

  “Señor Kortovsky apparently checked out a few hours after his concert. This I learned from Señorita Angelita Flores, the receptionist. We are beginning to make the progress, no?”

  “Is that it?”

  “Well, I have a question for you, Maestro.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How was it you knew to call me in the first place?”

  “There was an article in the New York Times. About a drug killing. It mentioned your name. Why do you ask?”

  “When you asked me why I had to confirm your identity, I told you ‘all in good time.’ Do you remember this?”

  “Vaguely. It seems long ago.”

  “Well, now, I suppose, is the good time. You see, Maestro, the unfortunate individual who became a corpse seems to have made this transition approximately the same time Señor Kortovsky was at the Maury Hotel.”

  “Big deal. As you said, Lima’s got eight million people.”

  “Exactly so, Maestro. You are so perceptive. It is for this very reason why it may be more than coincidence that the body was discovered one block from the Maury Hotel.”

  THIRTEEN

  “You think Kortovsky had something to do with a drug killing?” asked Jacobus. “How do you know how long the body’s been there? You think it’s Kortovsky?”

  “These questions have not been so easy as you would expect, Maestro,” said Oro.

  “Why not? You said you’ve got his photo. You saw him in person.”

  “You see, here in Lima we have the humidity. We also have the vulture, the ant, and, unfortunately, the rat, in greater abundance than we wish. So after a certain time this combination of natural forces makes use of the photo of the person who is now the corpse, let us say, unprofitable. It could be Señor Kortovsky, or it could not. If not, we must find where he is to see whether there is some involvement.”

  Jacobus, who knew little about the decomposition rate of corpses, conceded a month might be a reasonable ballpark figure for some quality rotting time, so the person could conceivably have been offed around the date of the quartet’s concert.

  “What about clothing? Was the corpse wearing white tie and tails by any chance?”

  “That indeed would have provided us with direction and the corpse with, shall we say, dignity? But I am sorry to say that either our victim walked to his doom in what you call his suit of birth, or the killer removed the clothing afterward. I suspect my second theory is more the probable.”

  “The newspaper said it was a drug killing and the body had been tortured.”

  “Well, perhaps they said that, and preliminary indications would suggest there is some truth. I, myself, was not involved with the original investigation.”

  “So you’re not convinced?”

  “Let us say that there are factors to be considered.”

  Jacobus, tired of being led in circles, bristled that he was being treated like an algebra student lectured by Einstein.

  “Well, I have a little information I’d like to share with you,” he said.

  “¿Sí?”

  “Our dead amigo wouldn’t happen to be missing a finger, would he?”

  There was silence at the other end.

  “Hello? Hello? Oro, are you still there?” Jacobus chided.

  “Tell me why you ask this, Maestro.”

  “Is it true? ¿La verdad?”

  “I’m sorry to say, no, it is not.”

  “No?” Jacobus had been sure.

  “Technically, no.”

  “Spit it out, Professor.”

  “Actually, he is missing four fingers. Of the left hand.” There was a pause. “Plus, the appendage unique to the male species … plus a face.”

  “Torture.”

  “It would seem so. The body was discovered tied to a chair on the second floor of one of our elegant Spanish colonial structures. The ground-floor tiendas in that building sell sweets and tourist items,
and there is a commendable cebichería. The upper floor, however, like many such edificios, has long been abandoned to the elements. The police searched for the missing body parts among the garbage and broken glass with no success. Perhaps we may now know why. Por favor, tell me how you know of the missing finger.”

  “Well,” began Jacobus, “all I wanted to do was to listen to a little Schubert…”

  When he finished recounting his story, Oro said, “Gracias, Maestro. You and I, we make the good partner. But does this Lieutenant Malachi know about the missing Kortovsky?”

  “Not much, but he will soon enough.”

  “Please allow him to wait. Because we don’t know for sure who the corpse is, or if your finger comes from my hand. And as you correctly surmised from my voice inclinations, though it appears so, our friend may not have been tortured by his killer after all,” said Oro.

  Jacobus thought about this and did not respond. He didn’t enjoy being baited by anyone in authority, including this haughty cop, and so decided to inflict a little silent treatment upon Oro. It didn’t take long.

  “Señor Yacovis? Are you there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.” Did he detect a note of exasperation in Oro’s voice? “I didn’t hear you ask me a question.”

  “Most people would inquire after such a statement. After all, our friend was speared through the abdomens, his fingers cut off, his head almost so, and his face disfigured.”

  “So you’re saying their meeting wasn’t in the nature of a friendly get-together,” mocked Jacobus.

  “Ah! You jest, señor,” said Oro, but Jacobus could tell he had him on shaky ground.

  “Or the disfigurement occurred after death,” said Jacobus, having concluded that from the beginning.

  “¡Sí!” said Oro, reassurance flowing through his one syllable, which he extended like a sigh. “That is my current hypotheosis. I will not go into forensic detail, but the investigation report tells me there was much blood released from the stab wound to the abdomens, but very little from the face and the neck, and almost none at all from the amputation of the left hand and the sexual organ. You are very perspective, señor.”

  “Gracias. But it’s just simple logic to conclude that if he was all chopped up like chicken liver but hadn’t been tortured, that it must’ve happened after death.”

  “So now our questions are—”

  “One, why would our friend have been mutilated ex post facto?”

  “Sí. For torture to be effective it is recommended that it take place while the victim is still alive. Otherwise it is difficult to elicit the kind of information, or send the proper message, that the executor would wish.”

  “Well put, Marquis de Sade. And the second question is whether Kortovsky’s the butcher or the meat loaf. Or neither.”

  “And once we can answer those questions,” said Oro, “we shall know for certain whether Señor Kortovsky is still funct.”

  “I’d say he’s probably fucked one way or the other,” said Jacobus.

  “No, Señor Yacovis! Funct! Funct!”

  “What the hell’s ‘funct’?”

  “Is it not the opposite of ‘defunct’?”

  “Whatever makes you gruntled.”

  There was a silence.

  “But I do fear for Señora Haagen to have that finger found in her case. Such a beautiful violist!”

  “Her playing or her looks?”

  “Sí. Buenas noches, Maestro.”

  FOURTEEN

  Jacobus, with assistance from Nathaniel, descended the four slippery steps from the sidewalk to the Circle of Fifths. The evening air had grown damp and breezy, and, probing with his cane, Jacobus felt more than a few clotted leaves that had found refuge in the stony stairwell.

  When Nathaniel pulled open the heavy steel door, Jacobus was engulfed by a rush of stale air on which wafted the combined aroma of cigars, alcohol, and frying grease, and the sounds of animated conversation and a quartet—violin, trumpet, piano, and string bass—playing unadulterated East European folk music—all in all the sensory equivalent of Trotsky’s assault on him three hours earlier.

  Jacobus was lifted off the ground and his left cheek was slapped three times in rapid succession.

  “Ah, Daniel, my dear friend!” said Ivan Lensky, as if the smells and sounds had materialized into his form.

  “If that’s how you treat your friends,” said Jacobus, “then I can only imagine how—”

  “And you must be Williams Nathaniel,” Lensky continued with unabated enthusiasm. “Come. I am Ivan. Ivan the Terrible! Ha! We make extra room for you. Double extra! Then we drink!”

  Jacobus felt himself being led along a circuitous path, noting that Lensky’s speech was slightly slurred, either from drinking already embarked upon, or from a heretofore unknown dialect from the Caucasus.

  “What are we doing? Taking the Great Circle route?” Jacobus asked. “Or are you not able to walk in a straight line?”

  “Ha! Very good! I see no one can fool you. Place here was organized by Russian musicians who had idea—fifths in music and fifths in drinking go good together.”

  “Perfect, in fact.”

  “Ha!”

  Jacobus winced, anticipating another whack on his back that, to his relief, did not come.

  “So in music we have circle of fifths, and we add one sharp each time: C–G–D–A—”

  “Yes, Ivan, I’ve learned my key signatures—”

  “So here bar is in circle, and as you go around circle we drink one fifth, then two fifths, then—”

  “What happens when you get to C-sharp major?”

  “No one makes it to C-sharp major.” Lensky sounded serious. “Just like in music!” He burst out in laughter, and to emphasize the almost nonexistent humor of his joke, hit Jacobus on the back with a thundering wallop. “Here we are.”

  As Lensky eased him into a creaking wooden chair, Jacobus heard two men at the table speaking Russian.

  “Daniel, Williams, these are my friends, Vladimir Greunig and Yosef Lipinsky. They are like my fathers.”

  The two surviving members of the original Magini Quartet, not counting Pravda Lenskaya. Yosef Lipinsky, second violin, and Vladimir Greunig, viola. Jacobus had always admired their musicianship, more even than the current ensemble that bore the quartet’s name.

  “Honored, gentlemen,” he said.

  He heard the thump of a glass in front of him.

  “We too,” said one of the voices, high-pitched and anxious.

  “Enough of the flattering, Yosef,” said the second. “Now we drink.”

  Jacobus heard his glass being filled. It sounded like a large glass.

  “What key are we in at the moment?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Only two sharps—D major,” said Yosef Lipinsky.

  “For the moment!” said Greunig. “Bud’mo! Long life!”

  “Budyem!” said Ivan Lensky and Yosef Lipinsky. “Health!”

  Jacobus and Nathaniel echoed the toasts and drank. Vodka. Good vodka. Straight and cold.

  “We were just saying Kortovsky plays like shit! He is shit!” said Greunig, with the depth of one of those Russian bassos that defy the limits of human anatomy.

  “Now, Dimi! Daniel and Williams are our guests. We must be polite!” said Lipinsky.

  The contrasting voices reminded Jacobus of Schmuyle and Goldenberg from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

  Another glass was poured. “Budyem!” Jacobus said, lifting it.

  “What is important, polite or truth, eh?” asked Greunig. “You tell us, Jacobus Daniel. What is more important, polite or truth?”

  “Truth, of course.”

  “Ah! You see, Yosef? Truth, of course! Yosef, you are like little mouse. Always sneak up behind us when we practice concertos and pluck out accompaniments, pizzi, pizzi, pizzi on your violin with your little mouse smile. No wonder you lose your hair. Polite shmolite! Why you no play concerto yourself? First should be truth, then polite. You are tru
e friend, Jacobus Daniel.”

  “But the truth is,” said Jacobus, his tongue already loosening, “we’re like Kortovsky. We’re shit too. The only difference is, someone else’s shit always smells worse than our own.”

  “Ha!” said Lipinsky. “Vladimir, your true friend here is also wise man. But sadly, it is true, it was Kortovsky ruin us.”

  “Not again, please, Uncle Yosef,” said Ivan. “You cry in your beer.”

  “You talk to your elders like this, Ivan? I don’t cry … and it’s not beer.”

  “How did he ruin you, Mr. Lipinsky?” asked Nathaniel.

  It was Greunig who responded. “Kortovsky wasn’t the first to ruin us. Only the best. First were the Communists. When we toured in Soviet Union, it was Party that made our schedule. We travel for six, seven weeks to the republics. Bus, train, boat, once in a while plane. We stay in shit hotels made of cinder blocks with no heat and we eat shit food—”

  “When available,” Lipinsky squeaked.

  “Yes, when available,” repeated Greunig with a growling chuckle. “And we play every night, also with no heat.”

  “And no money,” added Lipinsky.

  “What good was money,” Greunig countered, “when there was nothing to buy?”

  Lipinsky squeaked out what Jacobus interpreted to be a laugh, but it came out sounding more like a hamster being squeezed by a six-year-old.

  “Do you remember how we washed our clothes?” Lipinsky said. “Let me tell you! After one week of tour we put on all our clothes, go into the shower that was always cold, and rub our clothes with soap, then take off top layer, then do same with that, then take off third—”

  “I get the idea, Lipinsky,” Jacobus interjected. “Seven days without washing, no doubt, makes one weak.” No one laughed. “But,” he continued, “you did tours around the world. You were always the headline quartet for any series. You must’ve gotten something out of that.”

  This time both Greunig and Lipinsky burst out laughing, though the former almost drowned out the other.

  “You’re a funny guy,” said Greunig.

  “Yeah, and a true friend. Tell me what’s so hilarious.”