by Gerald Elias
Pizzi found Robison at his station. “Arnie, there’s some trouble down at the stage door,” he said. “Some nutcase threw a couple of rocks through the window and Nick’s going to check it out. Lock your door and take my place in the hall. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Sure, Harry. Hey, the guy must be a real music lover. Ha!”
Robison locked the connecting door and went to take Pizzi’s post. Before sitting down by the door, he switched on the light of Green Room B to double-check that the violin was still there. The case was exactly in its place, unopened.
Arnie sat down and folded his arms to wait as Lilburn, investigative reporter pursuing his scoop, dashed to catch up to Pizzi, who was already lumbering to the stage-door entrance. At the last moment his attention was caught by the sole person not in motion, a figure seated unobtrusively against the wall, seemingly unaware of the surrounding hubbub.
“Be right there,” Lilburn shouted to Pizzi, slaloming his way through the exiting crowd to his quarry.
“The party’s over, Mr. Jacobus,” Lilburn said.
There was no response.
“I said the party’s over.”
Jacobus shook his head, as if waking himself. “And who might you be?” he asked.
“My apologies. Of course. Martin Lilburn. New York Times.”
“Lilburn.” Jacobus made his name sound like an obscenity. “Looking for your big story, Lilburn?”
Lilburn was taken aback. “How did you know that?” he asked.
“If you had been listening, Lilburn, you would have heard that was a question, not a statement of fact. Now leave me alone.”
Lilburn had had enough of the conversation. “As you wish, Mr. Jacobus,” he said and raced off to catch up to Pizzi.
Green Room A soon emptied and the corridor was quiet. Swathed in the customary comfort of postconcert tranquillity, Arnie Robison, alert and relaxed, enjoyed the return of solitude after all the evening’s clamor. A few minutes later, though, a blind man slowly approached him, his left hand gingerly touching the wall for guidance, the other groping in front to avoid collisions.
Arnie asked, “May I help you, sir?”
“Friend of the Vanders,” the blind man lied. “Kam—that’s what I call Kamryn—calls me Uncle Isaac, but I’m not really their uncle. You know what I mean.”
“Sure, sure,” said Arnie, graciously giving up his seat to sweet old blind Uncle Isaac.
The blind man continued to yack amiably until Arnie, waiting patiently for a respectful pause in their chat, told him he had to check on the violin. The blind man asked if he could accompany him. “Just to be in the same room with such an instrument,” he said, “especially one that Kam played on . . . Well, you know what I mean.”
Arnie, not wanting to insult a kind, old, bedraggled blind man, didn’t see any harm in it. They entered Green Room B, Jacobus in tow, Arnie in the lead.
“Just keep your hand right here on my shoulder,” Arnie said, “and you won’t bump into a thing.” Everything appeared in order, but just to make sure—Arnie later said it was just a hunch—he opened the case. When the blind man heard the spring-loaded clasps on the case snap open—one, two, then three—his body tensed, preparing to exorcise his lifetime of personal demons embodied by this violin, preparing to lurch forward past Robison and smash down on the evil eye of the Piccolino Strad with all his strength, hoping to bring an end to the nightmares of his life.
“Aw, jeez!” Arnie said, in a moan perhaps more profoundly disappointed than surprised.
Jacobus couldn’t brake his forward momentum and collapsed into the opened case like a marionette with the strings cut. But neither did he feel the anticipated impact nor hear the crack! crack! of splintering wood under his weight as he landed.
The violin case was empty.
The New York Times, July 9, 1983
Diminutive Violinist Makes Big Impression
Valuable Violin Is Missing
By Martin Lilburn
Even the apparent theft of a violin did not overshadow the debut of the gifted nine-year-old violinist Kamryn Vander.
Winner of the prestigious Holbrooke Grimsley International Violin Competition, which is held only once every thirteen years, Miss Vander displayed not only the dazzling technique one has come to expect from today’s wunderkinder, but a precocious musicality that belies her years.
Though slight in stature, Miss Vander offered up a heavyweight program, one that would challenge the most veteran concert violinist. It included music by Wieniawski, Sarasate, Vieuxtemps, and Paganini, and ended with the virtuoso Sonata in G Minor by Tartini, known as the “Devil’s Trill.” Though these days a standing ovation is almost par for the course at any concert that has a rousing finish, it seemed that the audience was giving Miss Vander the ovation for a rousing beginning to an almost guaranteed headline career.
The famous three-quarter-sized Stradivarius violin on which Miss Vander performed was discovered missing after the concert when Carnegie Hall security guard Arnie Robison opened the case for inspection, shortly a pair of rocks were thrown at the stage-door window, breaking it. Famous violins are often referred to by the name of a previous owner. This particular Stradivarius is called “Il Piccolino” after a legendary, perhaps mythical, 17th-century violinist whose real name was Matteo Cherubino. Since prominent musicologists have uncovered no hard evidence to prove Cherubino’s existence, however, fanciful stories surrounding the history of this violin can at this point be deemed nothing other than apocryphal.
Police are investigating the disappearance of the instrument and members of the Musical Arts Project Group, who are Miss Vander’s sponsor and who were at the performance, have unanimously pledged their time and efforts to assist the authorities in retrieving the violin.
New York Daily News, July 9, 1983
Piccolino’s Curse Strikes Again
By Naomi Hess
The ghost of “Il Piccolino” is at it again! After a concert by the budding prodigy violinist Kamryn Vander, the famous—or infamous—Piccolino Stradivarius violin was stolen from under the noses of security guards at Carnegie Hall after someone—or some thing—pitched two Tom Seaver fastball-sized rocks through the Hall’s stage-door window. Matteo Cherubino, aka “Il Piccolino” because he was a midget, was a legendary 17th-century fiddler cut in half by the husband of his lover, a shapely Italian duchess, who had given him a 3/4-size Stradivarius violin (the most famous brand of all) for his birthday. Since then, anyone who has laid his—or her—hands on the violin has found misfortune or just plain bad luck. Even the greatest violinist, Paganini, who was allegedly no stranger to diabolical practices, lost his shirt when he owned the pint-sized instrument for a while.
When questioned, Carnegie Hall security guard Arnie Robison said, “The violin just kinda disappeared into thin air.” When asked if the ghost of “Il Piccolino” might have had a hand in the theft of the violin, Robison responded, “Hey, anything’s possible!” The violin is said to be worth $8,000,000—almost enough to buy front-row season tickets to the Knicks! The police have no leads at this point.
FOUR
Whether or not the stifling morning fog had lifted, Jacobus couldn’t tell. Either way, nothing any more promising had been unveiled, as the air of the blind, gray sky remained torpid, damp, and unbearably close. The sweat had already started to drip down his back and it wasn’t even ten o’clock. Jacobus was in his study.
The night before he had been momentarily stunned by his failure and by the empty case but had nevertheless extricated himself with little trouble from the tumult that had ensued after the Piccolino was discovered missing. After all, wasn’t he just a clumsy old blind man who had only tripped onto a violin case? He had made sure Robison had witnessed what he referred to as his “blind man’s shuffle” stumbling down the corridor, a ploy he shamelessly used from time to time to arouse sympathy.
Upon seeing the empty case, Robison called Pizzi, who immediately called the police. The po
lice told them to sequester any remaining people in the building until they got there, so Jacobus was stuck with the petulant Classical Taste caterers and a few indignant personages—including the MAP dignitaries—who had attended the concert. The squad that finally showed up seemed more interested in going home than in investigating and, after some perfunctory note taking and question asking, let everyone go. The only potentially troublesome moment came when one of the cops asked him, “Why did you tell the security guard your name was ‘Uncle Isaac’?” Before Jacobus came up with an answer, he was saved by another cop, who said, “Shut up, Malachi. Rookies don’t ask questions. They listen. Now let’s beat it out of here.”
On his way out, the same cop, this Malachi, approached him.
“Where are you going now, Uncle Isaac? You told us you live hours from here.”
“Bus. Two A.M.,” said Jacobus.
“How about a ride to Port Authority? I’ll drop you off there on my way home.”
“Thanks for nothing,” said Jacobus. “I’ll take a cab.”
The bitterness that enveloped him at Kamryn Vander’s recital stayed with him all the way to his home and still choked him. Of all the things that were anathema to Jacobus, the most despicable was the use—he would say misuse—of music for the sole purpose of aggrandizing the performer. This is something he vowed never to permit or tolerate, neither from himself nor from his students.
Jacobus was even less in the mood to teach during the summer than the rest of the year, preferring to pawn off his violin students to music festivals or summer camps so he could get a break from them, and they from him. Inhaling his umpteenth Camel of this hot and muggy morning of July 9, he thought, Teaching more and enjoying it less.
Yet he had promised Max Furukawa, one of his few remaining friends, that he would listen to one of Max’s students. A promise is a promise, he thought, though he found it peculiar and annoying to have to start this new student, this Yumi Shinagawa, in July. Furukawa, in a letter that he had translated into English, and which was subsequently read to Jacobus, explained that the girl and her mother had long planned to attend the Grimsley Competition performances in New York. He suggested it would be an opportune time for her to get started with Jacobus, but the family, especially the girl, had been resistant to the idea, which had surprised Furukawa. Perhaps she was fearful of being alone in a new country; perhaps she had heard of Jacobus’s reputation for being a bit “creative” in his methods—Jacobus had chuckled when he read this description so politely put—but Furukawa had insisted, saying that no one had the ability to instill passion for the greatness of the music better than Jacobus.
When Jacobus heard Yumi’s footsteps as she approached his studio for the first time, he noted that they were controlled, confident, purposeful. He flicked his cigarette butt into a toby jug of a blind pirate, his favorite coffee mug/ashtray, and, exhaling cigarette smoke through an overgrowth of nasal hair, said in his gravelly voice, “Don’t bow when you come in.” So began Miss Yumi Shinagawa’s first lesson.
“Ah!” he said. “Irises, irises. Could use a pair. Ha! Smell like shit, but pretty. Purple ones, right? Put them on the sill over there.”
Jacobus heard Yumi set the flowers on the sill, the soft clink of glass vase on wood.
So far, silent obedience. Typical. Nothing new there.
“Can you see out that window?” he asked. “Or is the ivy covering it?”
“There is a very pretty spiderweb covering most of it.”
“Pretty?”
“Yes, the morning dew is on it. Like a string of pearls. A praying mantis hangs from a thread. Its wriggling makes the pearls shimmer.”
“That’s just lovely, Miss Shinagawa. May we get started now, or is this a haiku moment?”
Jacobus was an unkempt old man. He wore old plaid flannel shirts—the left collars frayed from years of rubbing against the upheld violin—which he rarely changed. His ashtray was usually overflowing. Spent Camels and half-empty coffee cups lay strewn around the room, some sitting on piles of music scattered aimlessly about, one mug even on top of a makeshift coaster, the Toscanini recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A wooden chess game, long abandoned, white queen pinned in the corner at the mercy of two black rooks, lay on the floor in the corner, caked in grease and dust. Jacobus’s patchy, curly graying hair was uncombed and he rarely shaved more than once a week. Well, here I am, he thought, easing back into his secondhand swivel chair. You want culture shock, honey, you’ve got it.
Yumi said, “I am wondering, sensei . . . I mean maestro . . .”
“Don’t call me sensei. Or maestro either. Give me a swelled head. Swell enough as it is. And swelled enough,” he muttered.
“Then what may I call you, please?”
“My few friends call me Jake. People who think I like them, or who pretend to like me, call me Daniel. You call me Mr. Jacobus. Someday, if you’re real unlucky, maybe you’ll call me Jake.”
“Mr. Jacobus, then.”
“So far so good.”
“Mr. Jacobus . . .”
“Don’t repeat yourself.” His coarse voice was a low growl.
“You could tell that I had irises from the scent, perhaps, but how did you know they are purple?”
“Elementary, my dear Blossom. The only way you’d know to bring me irises is that Furukawa must’ve told you they were my favorite flower. Right? And if he told you that, he must’ve told you that purple ones were—had been—my color of choice.”
“Mr. Jacobus?”
“What now, Iris?”
“Furukawa-sensei always tells his students to bow when they enter the room for their violin lessons. He says it is a sign of respect that the student must show to the teacher.”
“I know that too.”
“So why do you not permit me to bow, Mr. Jacobus?”
He wiped his sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and exhaled loudly, consciously conveying the impression he was dealing with this question with great patience. He wished it were true.
“Yumi, we agree that Furukawa is an excellent teacher?”
“Yes, Mr. Jacobus.”
“Yes. If Furukawa is an excellent teacher, he must have a damn good reason to ask me to teach you, right?”
“Yes, Mr. Jacobus.”
“Yes. So if Furukawa is such an excellent teacher and has a damn good reason for me to teach you, then don’t you also agree that the reason must be that I do things differently from him?” He paused to catch his breath. “After all, why the hell should he want you to study with me if I did everything the same way he does? Yes?”
Silence.
“Yes yes. Yes yes yes,” jabbed Jacobus, staccato. “So it is my firm belief that you show me respect when you show the music respect. Nothing more. Nothing less. So no ceremonies, no rituals. Okay?”
“I think so, but you are quite different from Furukawa-sensei, Mr. Jacobus.”
“I’m sure Furukawa-sensei is thankful for that, honey. Now, what’re you playing?”
“I will play the ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata by Tartini,” announced Yumi with a stiff formality that amused Jacobus.
“Ah, you will play the ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata by Tartini,” he mimicked. “I’m all ears. Ha!”
Yumi began the Larghetto, a slow, lilting Siciliana, with dark poignancy. It was immediately obvious to Jacobus that the girl had something. Furukawa’s students were always tastefully well prepared, but this one was trying to say something. A little tight, a little imitative, maybe, but for a nineteen-year-old? Definitely something there.
Then the frenetic virtuosity of the second movement—during which the first distant rumble of thunder in the heavy overheated atmosphere rolled over the hills surrounding his house.
There was something else in her playing. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Something different.
“Play the last movement,” he said.
Yumi began the finale—impassioned operatic recitations alternating with a diabo
lically driven Allegro, replete with spectacularly gymnastic trills, for which the sonata was accurately named.
On the surface she’s as hard and impersonal as steel, Jacobus thought. But underneath? Like she’s trying to conceal something. Was this the typical Japanese reticence to expose one’s feelings? Was it a teenager’s self-consciousness to express adult emotion, especially in front of a stranger? Or was it simply what it sounded like to Jacobus, a determined effort to create a barrier?
By trying to conceal she had revealed to Jacobus a glimpse of her soul in that playing—a brief glimpse but, he thought with surprise, a striking one. Furukawa had sent Jacobus good students before. This one was different. Jacobus rubbed his hand over his grizzled whiskers.
“Okay, Yumi! Not bad.”
“ ‘Not bad.’ Does ‘not bad’ mean good?”
“ ‘Not bad’ means ‘not bad.’ You have the tools to begin to learn. That’s what ‘not bad’ means. Okay?”
Jacobus began to probe. “Are you sinister?” he asked.
“Sinister? I am confused.”
“Well, it is the ‘Devil’s Trill,’ not the ‘Angel’s Trill.’ You think it’s a coincidence Tartini focuses on the left hand to represent the Devil?”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Mr. Jacobus.”
Confused? Am I confusing you? he thought. Still calm, though. Controlled. Let’s see what I can do about that.
“ ‘Left’ in Italian is sinistra. Don’t you know that? One would not want to be a left-handed Italian. ‘Hey, Lefty, I want ya should plug him full of holes.’ ”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”
“So now you know. Next time I want to hear sinister. You’ve got some sinister blood in you somewhere.”