by Gerald Elias
Kamryn Vander’s recital earlier that night had met everyone’s expectations, to the delight of most, to the intense dismay of Daniel Jacobus. Those dilettantes! he thought. Those sheep! They listen with everything but their ears. A nine-year-old’s life molded by a lie. The bile rose in his throat as he trailed the crowd to the gala reception being held in one of the two adjacent Green Rooms on the second floor of Carnegie Hall to celebrate her great accomplishment.
Few in the festive, glittering gathering knew who Jacobus was. To them, he appeared to be a destitute vagabond, and so they kept their distance. Those who did recognize him, those who knew him, kept an even greater distance. As a result he was left alone; essentially he was invisible.
Usually both of the interconnected Green Rooms were combined for receptions this size. Each had an entrance to the corridor as well as a connecting door between them. Tonight, however, the festivities were relegated to Green Room A. On this night the only special guest in Green Room B, which had been cordoned off, was the precious Stradivarius violin, still warm from Kamryn’s performance. Both doors to Green Room B, one in the corridor and one that connected to Green Room A, were guarded by two of Carnegie Hall’s 24/7 security personnel, who were very accustomed to protecting inconceivably valuable instruments at events like this. There had even been a special case made to protect the violin. The outer shell of the case was made of a lightweight epoxy compound designed by NASA for use on the space shuttle. Inside were coiled springs so that the violin was actually suspended inside. A truck could run over it and not cause any damage.
Another of Vander’s rewards for winning the Grimsley was automatic representation by an organization officially called the Musical Arts Project Group, Inc., or MAP, which was a primary sponsor of the Grimsley and had footed the bill for the reception as well. MAP had been constituted as a nonprofit 501(c)-(3) charitable organization in 1971 with the novel mission of assisting gifted young violinists to establish solo careers in what is generally a hit-or-miss, highly capricious profession. The idea was to assemble a team of top professionals in all aspects of the classical music world—teachers, managers, violin dealers, even music critics—who would volunteer their time to nurture development of the best young talent, transforming the caterpillar into a butterfly without risk of it getting squashed. As the professional MAP team donated their time, they could also serve as its board, enabling the organization to run efficiently, and as it was a nonprofit, they could be the beneficiaries of substantial public and private philanthropic funds such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wallace– Reader’s Digest Fund.
So well had the MAP concept worked that within a few years MAP had become a powerful force in the multimillion-dollar classical music industry, edging out many traditional for-profit concert agencies.
While Jacobus, slumped in the corner, was ignored by the swirling throngs, Martin Lilburn, longtime classical music critic of the New York Times and renowned wordsmith, was hard at work. Lilburn was one of those professionals who had volunteered for the MAP consortium, and now, at the reception, he fidgeted, trying to jump-start just the right tone for his review of Kamryn Vander’s debut.
Lilburn stole another glance at his watch. There was still plenty of time—an hour and forty-eight minutes, to be precise—to get in his review of Vander’s performance to the Times.
He removed his spiral notepad and monogrammed Waterman cartridge pen from his jacket pocket and began, as was his custom, to write down random thoughts. Later he would assemble them into a coherent whole.
“Time . . . Times . . . Best of times. Worst of times,” he jotted down.
Lilburn sighed. Trevor Grimsley, heir to the Grimsley fortune and nominal chair of The Grimsley Competition founded by Grandpa Holbrooke, was in the midst of a prattling toast that showed no signs of abating.
He felt a nudge and turned to see Naomi Hess, his counterpart from the Daily News, a friendly rival. She was short, perky, and nicely dressed for the occasion. He put his notepad back in his pocket.
“Found your big story yet, Martin?” she asked.
“Ah, Naomi, what a pleasant unsurprise!” said Lilburn. “No. Not yet. Smell it, though.”
“Well, keep sniffing. So what’s your take on Grimsley?” She nodded her head in the toaster’s direction.
“Trevor Grimsley! A Dickens name,” Lilburn said. “Hmm. Grimsley—diminutively grim. Grimy. Yes, that is what he is—diminutively grimy, a half-developed caricature, an expedient whose existence neither precedes nor succeeds Dickens’s book covers. When I write my novel . . . if I ever write my novel, there will be a Trevor Grimsley in it. I’d have to make him more believable than the real one. But Jesus! If Grimsley’s a major character, what, oh what,” Lilburn said, pressing the cold champagne flute to his aching forehead, “does that make me?”
They scanned the crowd of New York elite.
“Ah, the huddled masses yearning to be tax-free,” said Hess.
“Earning to be tax-free,” added Lilburn. “Perhaps I’ll use that line in the piece.”
“Hardly earning, though,” Hess countered.
“Hmm. Unearning to be tax-free?” Lilburn tried.
“Too cumbersome, Martin. Too cynical for the politic New York Times. You’ll offend the readers.”
They observed the crowd’s plastic smiles as they pretended to listen to Trevor Grimsley’s monologue.
“In honoring Kamryn Vander on her special night,” intoned Grimsley with practiced prep-school nasal monotony, glass in hand , “I can’t forget to recognize my fellow colleagues of the Musical Arts Project Group, without whose help this historic night would not have been possible.”
“I’ve sold my soul to the Devil,” said Lilburn, “but to have to listen to this nincompoop—too usurious a price.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hess.
“Never mind.”
“As you all know,” said Grimsley, “the MAP Group started out as a dream . . .”
Lilburn placed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and pressed. He downed his champagne in one unpleasant gulp, unlike his usual self.
“Hey, Martin, take it easy,” said Hess. “It can’t be that bad a dream.”
Lilburn lipped the mantra as Grimsley recited it: “ ‘a nonprofit consortium of respected professionals in the music industry who join together to build career opportunities for gifted young musicians.’ I wrote those words, Naomi, in MAP’s glossy brochure.”
“Got a nice ring to it.”
“But I absolutely refused to agree to ‘Let Us Put You on the MAP.’ ”
“Definitely bad taste.”
“Hold on a minute.” Lilburn took out his notepad. “Include something positive about MAP in the review of Vander’s performance,” he wrote.
“To make a long story short . . .” The crowd’s shoulders collectively sagged. Lilburn exchanged his empty glass for a fresh one that he plucked off a waiter’s passing tray with enough virulence to create miniature foamy waves in the glass. His headache wasn’t getting any better. He checked his watch again.
“So ladies first! Here’s to Victoria Jablonski, diva extraordinaire of violin pedagogy”—all eyes sought Victoria, who, off in a corner, surrounded by a group of wide-eyed acolytes, momentarily suspended her extravagant gesticulations—“with whom every young aspiring Heifetz wants to study. Even at two hundred dollars a lesson”—a frown from Jablonski—“to say ‘I’m a Miss J student’ opens a world of concert doors. No one can prepare youngsters for a concert career—boy, can they play loud and fast!—better than Miss J.”
A smattering of applause.
“Just how ‘Miss J’ plays her life,” said Hess, “loud and fast.”
“Yes, taste seems to be out of taste these days” said Lilburn. “How in heavens will her tutelage affect the Vander child?”
Addressing the champagne glass he held before his eyes, Lilburn groggily asked it, “How much longer will this toast go on?”
<
br /> Hess laughed.
“Let me take you away from all this,” he continued. “Tell me your name again? Oh, yes. Bubbles. Pleased to meet you. Where is my story, Bubbles?”
“And to Anthony Strella, world-renowned concert agent and chairman of the MAP Group. Anthony Strella, at the top of the entrepreneurial ladder,” continued Grimsley, “whose long shadow wields more influence over symphony orchestras and concert presenters than their own managements.”
A few uncomfortable chuckles.
Lilburn scanned the crowd for Strella, a head taller than most, easily spotting the back of his silk Armani suit by the wet bar with others of his ilk, who continued to converse quietly to the accompaniment of clinking ice in cocktail glasses.
Hess followed Lilburn’s gaze.
“A good-looking man,” she said.
“Who makes me feel inexplicably inadequate,” Lilburn added. “Here I am desperate to loosen my bow tie, but, looking at the gleaming Mr. Strella, the simple thought of doing so makes me feel guilty.
“I can imagine Strella coolly informing the band of concert presenters encircling him, ‘Well, if you don’t want to book my excellent young accordion player, Bubbles Pankevich, I certainly understand. But in that case don’t expect to see Itzhak Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma in the next two hundred years.’ ”
“Hey, lookie here.” Hess pointed at the other side of Green Room A through the crowd. “Isn’t that old Daniel Jacobus?”
Lilburn spotted him, unmistakable with his dark glasses and shabby dress.
“What’s Jacobus doing here?” Lilburn said under his breath. “He’s always stayed away from these concerts like the plague! He detests us. And for him to come to the reception?”
As they observed Jacobus with these uncharitable thoughts, Jacobus suddenly raised his head so that it appeared he was staring directly at them.
“What the . . . ?” said Hess.
Lilburn actually stumbled backward; such was the power of Jacobus’s blind eyes.
Suddenly sober and determined, Lilburn told Hess he would see her later—“He’s all yours,” she said—and started to make his way through the tuxedos to confront Jacobus—maybe this was his story—but after one step he was intercepted by a garish redhead with big teeth and bigger jewels inching toward him.
Damn, he thought as she caught his eye. Too late for escape.
“You’re Martin Lilburn, aren’t you?” she asked through a massive overbite, managing an extraordinary number of f sounds in a sentence devoid of f’s.
“Yes, madam,” he whispered impatiently. It was more of a hiss.
“The Martin Lilburn?”
He put a cautionary index finger to his lips, as if he were listening to Grimsley. “Conceivably there is more than one. Now if you will . . .”
“I read your review in the Sunday Times.”
“Oh?”
“Michael Timmerman’s Brahms Concerto?”
“Oh. Madam, I know what you are about to say. I also know that I am tired, hot, have drunk too much, and have a splitting headache, so if you’ll please. . . .”
“That was very unkind what you wrote about Michael, you know,” she said.
“Nor was Mr. Timmerman very kind to Mr. Brahms,” Lilburn said, keeping his voice down while the endless toast meandered.
“But I know Michael. He’s such a fine person.”
“Yes, I’m sure he is, madam. But one must also consider the notes.”
“At least his friends think he is.”
“After the way he played I’m surprised the plural is still applicable.”
Lilburn tried to move away, but she grabbed at his sleeve.
“Good God, madam. Please,” he said in an angry whisper.
“So are you going to give Kamryn Vander a snow job too?” she persevered. “Or maybe you’re here as a reporter. Or a MAP guy. Or something else?”
“Madam, as you may easily observe, I am here in my entirety.” He yanked his sleeve from her grasp. “Now, if you will excuse me.”
Lilburn turned his back on her and walked away, something he ordinarily disapproved of and rarely did.
He returned his gaze to where Jacobus had been only to find an empty space. He peered throughout the room. Jacobus had vanished.
“Damn,” he said. He did spot the celebrity of the evening, Kamryn Vander, beginning to hold court at the corner of the room farthest away from Grimsley. He still had his review to write.
He swerved wobbily through the throng in her general direction, ears reluctantly returning to Grimsley’s oration like a pedestrian trying not to listen to a jackhammer dislodge the trembling sidewalk.
Naomi Hess caught up with him.
“Why didn’t God enable us to close our ears as well as our eyes?” she said.
“And of course, our dear friend Boris Dedubian, representing the third generation of Dedubian violin dealers, through whose storied shop passes virtually every great seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century Italian violin. It goes without saying . . .”
“Then why say it?” said Lilburn. “Why waste words? Why? Without the right words the world would cease to exist!”
“. . . that it is almost a prerequisite for concert soloists to perform on a million-dollar instrument, and having Bo provide our up-and-coming Groupies with one of them ‘on favorable terms’ is a benefit of untold value.”
“Martin, where does Dedubian get all these instruments from?” asked Hess.
“I’ve asked him that question. He just says his family has had lots of personal contacts over the years. Other than that, he’s pretty mum.”
“A little bit of Svengali, don’t you think?”
“Mr. Dedubian, I’m afraid, is unable to be with us tonight. He just called from a pay phone off the Long Island Expressway to say that he was hopelessly caught in traffic”—sympathetic moans and chortles from the crowd—“on the way from his weekend place in Southampton and sends his regrets. But we’re all indebted to Boris’s granddaddy for helping my own granddaddy acquire the Piccolino Strad.”
“Indeed,” said Lilburn, “that’s the one and only reason he’s here tonight.”
“Or anywhere,” added Hess.
“And to New York Times critic Martin Lilburn”— Lilburn almost gagged on his champagne —“recipient of five Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.”
“Oh, God! Why?” said Lilburn.
“Isn’t that correct, Martin? Five Pulitzers?”
Expectant eyes turned toward Lilburn.
“Actually, two, Trevor. Two.”
Eyes, turning away, didn’t see Lilburn’s face redden.
“Ah! Recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes. His incisive and insightful reviews can make or break careers. With the stroke of his rapier pen he can stir his reading public into a frenzy of support for a new face as easily as he can disembowel the poor soul whose level of musical expression does not rise to his lofty standard. Fortunately for MAP’s Groupies,” Grimsley said with a self-congratulatory smile , “he’s usually on our side!”
Lilburn squeezed out a smile of his own and added a self-deprecating little wave in Grimsley’s direction, then turned away, hiding his face like an indicted CEO.
“And now, a toast! To our newest prodigy progeny,” hailed Grimsley. Restless fake laughter from the crowded room as they followed his lead in raising their glasses yet again. “Here’s to Kamryn Vander, whose musicianship is earth moving, and whose career, we hope ”—pause for more chuckles—“will be earth-shaking.”
“And here’s to you, Martin,” said Hess, holding her glass high. “May you find the story of your dreams.”
Applause. “Hear! Hear!” “Bottoms up!” Formalities over, the hum of conversation and gossip resumed.
Lilburn went to the reception line for the nine-year-old earthmover. There were students in jeans and investment bankers in silk suits, musicians, Europeans, Asians, the whole New York concertgoing spectrum. No Jacobus.
Kamryn Vander sat at her
throne sipping 7UP from a crystal champagne flute, imitating the adults. By her side was her mother and bodyguard, Cynthia Vander. As Lilburn was about to offer his congratulations, Kamryn lifted the unfamiliar champagne glass a little too high. The liquid, following the laws of gravity, first trickled down her chin and ended up staining her billowy pink concert dress between her legs.
“Kamryn, can’t you even stay clean?” hissed Cynthia. Bending over her daughter, she wiped frantically at the barely visible stain with a red cocktail napkin that, for some untold reason, she spat upon. Her factory-made breasts threatened to shake themselves loose from her too-tight dress.
“You want to stay up late, you behave yourself. Hear me?” she added. “I said, do you hear me?”
If Kamryn heard her, she showed no sign of it and continued to swing her feet back and forth under the grown-up chair.
Lilburn cleared his throat. Cynthia Vander straightened up, wiped something imaginary from her cleavage, and instantly assembled a smile.
“Well, young lady . . .” Lilburn addressed the child but saw the mother flush. “Oh! I didn’t mean . . . I meant . . .” So he just extended his hand. “You certainly put on an impressive performance tonight.”
“Say thank you to Mr. Lilburn, Kamryn. He’s a very important man,” said Cynthia.
“ ‘Thank you to Mr. Lilburn, Kamryn. He’s a very important man,’ ” Kamryn said, ignoring his hand suspended in the air.
“Well,” said Lilburn.
A teenage girl barged in, violin case in hand, looking slightly dazed. “Like I can’t believe how awesome you are! Like it was so fantastic!” she said through tears and braces.
“Thank you,” said Kamryn, the quick learner, with a smile. And, as the older girl walked away, she added, “I play better than you.”
Lilburn pulled his pen and notebook from his pocket. He wrote “stick to her playing,” checked his watch once more, and began to head back to the office to write his review. He dodged the girl with braces and squeezed his way through the crowd of celebrants: professional musicians attacking the buffet table; a giggling gaggle of Juilliard students—almost all Asian girls these days; Mr. and Mrs. Rosenbaum—the Rosenbaums—schmoozing with who is that in that putrid gown; everyone conveying their respects, seeing how they could use the event to their own advantages. All were there. All seemed to be, at that moment, in Lilburn’s way.