by Gerald Elias
What does he want me to do, read his lips? thought Jacobus.
“You couldn’t do it for money, right?” said Goldbloom. “Not this violin, because you couldn’t resell it. Any schmuck would know that. So greed is out. So that particular violin would have to be very, very important to you, and not because it was worth a lot.”
Jacobus felt Sol brush some non existent lint off his shirt.
“Just give me a ‘for instance,’ Solomon,” Jacobus asked impatiently.
“Okay, Jake. Here’s what’s important. Family, music. Doing the right thing. Good food.”
“In that order?” asked Jacobus.
“It depends on what’s on the menu. Now, let’s pay the bill and get out of here.”
TWENTY
Jacobus said good night to Nathaniel, who drove Yumi uptown to his apartment. Goldbloom offered to walk Jacobus to the Stuyvesant. Jacobus dismissed the invitation with a perfunctory no, but as he began to walk away felt a hand on his shoulder.
“What?” he said.
“Jake,” said Goldbloom, “remember when we sat together in the orchestra and they used to call us Tweedledum and Tweedledee?”
“Yeah. Though I’ve tried to forget. So what?”
“It’s because we knew each other inside out. Look, I can tell this Piccolino business is eating you up. It’s killing you. I don’t know why, but I’ve got to tell you that sometimes the world is going to be the way it is no matter what you think it should be and no matter what you do to try to fix it.”
“Is that all?”
“Only one more thing. Sometimes a violin is just a violin. Good night, Jake.”
Goldbloom headed to his room at the Wellington Hotel across the street from the Carnegie Deli. Jacobus began walking south down Seventh Avenue. He eschewed a taxi, the night’s hot, misty drizzle and the previous night’s mugging notwithstanding, again preferring the sound of his footsteps in the nearly dormant city. Recollections of the Grimsley Competition, his Grimsley Competition, which he spent all his waking hours trying to suppress, had flooded back into his gut at the deli. Now it nearly doubled him over. Getting roughed up by a two-bit thug was nothing compared to what he had to endure day after day. Being pushed around was almost a welcome relief to the endless blackness of his existence.
As Jacobus crossed Fifty-third Street he felt a gust of air coming from his right, from the west. Strangely enough, Jacobus thought, even though it was coming from the Hudson River and beyond that, New Jersey, the breeze smelled fresh. Go figure.
Halfway back to his hotel, Jacobus began to regret his decision to walk. Gradually, what had been a drizzle when he left the sanctuary of the Carnegie Deli had turned to what could modestly be termed a downpour. Jacobus had no hat, no coat. No umbrella, dammit. Rain pelting against the pavement ricocheted up inside his trouser legs. In seconds his shoes were waterlogged, squishing spongelike between his sock and insole.
Staggering along, he extended his right hand, searching for a wall for guidance. The wall was closer than he estimated, and his palm caught on a piece of metal or glass—he couldn’t tell—slicing it open. Oily water cascaded down the side of the wall, stinging his wound. His heavy clothing was soaked through. The rain slamming on the pavement was deafening, making it impossible for him to hear crossing traffic. He lost count of his steps and as a result was unsure whether he was approaching a corner. Disoriented and trapped between Forty-ninth and Forty-eighth streets, Jacobus groped for shelter. His bloody hand found a large cardboard box, something that had once contained a television or a microwave oven and had been discarded on the curb. He broke the back of the heavy, soggy carton to form a makeshift roof and held it over his head until it soon became too heavy and his arms gave way. He leaned his head against a brick wall, exhausted, water streaming over him. He was so tired, so ready to give up. The puddled pavement beckoned to him: Don’t struggle anymore. Come lie down. Sleep. The rain kept falling. Why did he continue to stand up? he asked himself.
A hand grabbed his sleeve.
“Hey, mister,” a voice said, barely audible above the din of the rain’s hiss.
Goddammit. Not a mugger. Not again.
“Get the hell out of here,” said Jacobus.
“Sir, I’m the priest of this church,” the voice hollered back. “I just thought you might want to come in and dry off until the rain stops.”
“Ah, why the hell not?” Jacobus allowed himself to be hoisted up and ushered into the church by his elbow.
“I’m not a bum,” said Jacobus.
“We’re all equal in the eyes of God,” said the priest.
“I’m not a bum,” Jacobus repeated.
The priest sat him down on a wooden pew and said, “I’ll try to find you a towel. And a bandage for that wound on your hand. It’s bleeding pretty bad. I’ll be back in a minute. Or would you prefer a blanket? Or maybe a bucket.”
“Just a towel.”
The priest’s footsteps receded, the sharp clack of heels against the stone floor, a diminuendoing echo into the church’s resonant ambience. The rain’s relentless battering waves on the roof high above were remote, seemingly kept at bay by old ladies’ whispered prayers, scattered about like the last dry leaves of autumn. Funereal organ music somewhere in the background meandered like flotsam in the East River.
The hard pew made Jacobus’s back hurt and his drenched clothes were making him cold. His saturated flannel shirt emitted an odor reminiscent of New York City during the garbage workers’ strike of the 1960s—just about the same time he had bought it.
The scented adorational candles flickering by the altar brought some relief, but they didn’t prevent Jacobus from shivering uncontrollably. He should have swallowed his pride and accepted the blanket, he thought, cursing himself.
He closed his eyes, fighting delirium and fighting himself, but even his blindness could not block out his own stink, rancid from wet filth and sweat. He vowed he would not die a bum. His consciousness ebbed and flowed. The ivy returned, surrounding him. The eye of the Piccolino Strad mocked him. He forced himself to exert his internal will to survive the onslaught. He ripped at the ivy around his neck. Suddenly there came a momentary blaze of intense mental lucidity, as if his sight had returned. His mind raced faster than his comprehension. Family fame infamy fem do the right thing English-English Noda-sama granny grinny greeny I dream of Yumi with the leprechaun eyes have it. . . .
By the time the priest returned with the towel and bandage, Jacobus felt an unaccustomed sense of repose, especially in what was for him an alien environment.
“Thanks, Padre,” Jacobus whispered.
“The name’s McCawley, Father McCawley. And you?”
“Jacobus. Daniel Jacobus. Padre, think you could lead me to the confessional?”
Once seated in the confessional, Jacobus had no idea what to do. Am I supposed to push a button, or what? he thought. Some apparatus? He felt around the walls in vain. Claustrophobia for a blind man?
Just as he was about to abscond, a voice said, “Yes, my son.”
Jacobus sat back down.
“I’m not your son, McCawley. I’m an atheist, and I’m not converting. I just wanted you to know that right off the bat.”
“We’re all children of God.”
“Tell that to my parents in Auschwitz.”
Jacobus was not by nature ecclesiastically inclined. His only concession to the possibility of a deity had been an acknowledgment that perhaps there was no other way to explain the genius of Mozart.
After a pause, the voice continued, “You take a jaundiced view of the church. You appear to be harboring a certain hostility . . . yet you’ve come to confess.”
“I’m not here for absolution.”
“Then what?”
“Actually, I just wanted to bounce a few ideas off you. This is all confidential, right?”
“Whatever you say here will be heard only by me and God.”
“Fine. It’s a deal, then. Even if the
re were a God, I don’t suppose It would spill the beans.”
Jacobus proceeded to explain the entire situation, how he suspected Yumi of being an accomplice in the theft of the Piccolino Stradivarius. How he was out to expose the “gonifs” at MAP. Jacobus finished with how he had been accosted the night before in almost the same spot that Father McCawley had encountered him tonight. That maybe the thug had been sent by the thief or, more likely, by someone at MAP.
“Why haven’t you reported your assailant to the authorities?” asked the priest. “Maybe they could help you track down the bigger culprits you seek.”
“You really think the cops will put out an all points bulletin to nab a voice?”
“But you drew such a comprehensive description of him from your brief contact. You’ve guessed his height, weight, age, possible ethnic background, level of education. Even his diet! I’d say the police had a lot to go on.”
“As you just said, I guessed those things, and even if I’m right that reduces the number of suspects to about two million. Anyway, as I said, I don’t want the cops involved at all.
“You see, Padre, I hadn’t been sure about Yumi until, sitting there in the pew, I put two and two together. How everything with her had been slightly out of joint. And how something Dedubian had said didn’t seem right. And the way Yumi talked. And what Goldbloom had said about family, doing the right thing, and music. About my theory of second-place Grimsley finishers.”
The priest didn’t interrupt, commenting only with an occasional hmm or yes or ah.
“Then it hit me that Dedubian had said something about Yumi’s ‘jade eyes, like a leprechaun,’ or something like that. Japanese almost never have green eyes. Leprechauns, though, are from the British Isles. You see, Yumi’s English is fluent, but I could tell from day one it was not American English. I didn’t know what to make of it, I just thought it quaintly entertaining, until it dawned on me that it was English English. Yet English English hasn’t been taught in Japanese schools for decades. So who could have taught her English English? Maybe the grandmother who had also first taught her the violin? Who was that grandmother who played the violin? Maybe the English girl who had won the silver medal at the 1931 Grimsley Competition? She didn’t necessarily have to be a Shinagawa by blood if she had married a Japanese man. Maybe she could be scrawny little Kate Padgett. Maybe maybe maybe maybe.”
“Ah, yes,” said Father McCawley, “and so you wish to protect this Miss Shinagawa and this Padgett because you sympathize with them. But how certain are you? Are you sure your sympathies aren’t swaying your judgment, my son?”
“How certain is your own faith?” asked Jacobus.
“Absolute and unshakable,” said Father McCawley.
“Well, maybe I’m not as certain as that,” said Jacobus. “But I’d be willing to lay you pretty good odds.”
“That being the case, what’s left? You understand why they’ve done what they’ve done. Like Mr. Noda-sama, they wish to make the world right again.”
“That’s more or less it, McCawley, and that’s the same reason I’m out to screw MAP. But first, I’ve got to get Yumi back to Japan. Number one, if she stays here, she’ll slip up and get caught.”
“Inevitable. Also, if you yourself confront her here with your suspicions, she’ll never betray her loyalty to her grandmother and you’ll be stalemated.”
“Good thinking, Padre. Hey, am I taking up too much of your time?”
“It’s okay. I don’t have too many customers at two in the morning.”
“Good. Number two, then. If I follow her back to her home, I have an easier job convincing Grandma to return the violin, since Yumi will no longer be in a position of risk.”
“And three,” said Father McCawley, “if she’s not in jail it sounds like she may turn out to be a hell of a fiddle player—just a figure of speech, my son. But what of this MAP business? I’d say you’re on high moral ground in trying to save Miss Shinagawa from her fate, though legally . . . but fortunately I’m not required to speak legally. MAP, on the other hand . . .”
“McCawley, this is my one and only opportunity to disrupt MAP, to expose them for what they are—opportunistic, greedy, power-hungry child predators. My question is, can I do that once the irritant of the missing Strad is no longer part of the equation? I have to find other means to shatter their alliance, to turn them on each other. And I have to do it fast. I’ve got Grimsley and Lilburn rattled. Vander’s no longer sure of Jablonski’s teaching methods. Dedubian’s not so easily shaken—as a violin dealer he’s used to the abuse, plus he’s got more of a conscience than the others. Rachel, Strella, Jablonski—they’re still on the list. Those last two are the toughest nuts to crack. And I’ll soon be the number-one suspect as far as the cops are concerned.
“So I’ve planted the seeds. Now I need the Miracle-Gro. Got any miracles up your sleeve, Padre?”
“Have you considered blackmail, perhaps?” asked Father McCawley.
Jacobus was floored. From the mouths of babes!
“Not that I condone such a thing, of course, but Mr. Grimsley, I think it was, didn’t he mention that?”
“Yes, Padre, I think you’ve hit upon something.”
“Maybe we should call it a night, then.”
“Yeah, sure.” Jacobus began to stand up to leave, but then he sat back down. “There’s just one more thing . . . if you’ve got the time.”
“What is it, my son?”
Jacobus struggled for words he never would have expected to utter.
“Don’t worry,” said the priest. “Go on.”
“You see, Padre, I’m used to blackness on the outside. But at the moment. At the moment, it’s blackness on the inside that . . . that . . .” No, he wouldn’t go on. He couldn’t. This wasn’t for another human’s knowledge. He closed his eyes.
“Anyone seeking the truth deserves to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said the priest, finally.
“Even an atheist, Padre?”
“Anyone.”
“Well, thank you for this little convocation. I think I’ll go now,” said Jacobus.
“Do you need help to the door?”
“No. Thanks.” He paused. “Er, does one leave a tip for this sort of thing?”
“There’s a donation box by the exit. Good night.”
Jacobus was almost dry as he left the church, and the rain had almost stopped. Within a few blocks, though, the downpour resumed, and by the time he arrived at his hotel he was again waterlogged.
As he sat in his chair, the dampness on his skin chilled him to the bone and made him feel like a moldy potato. He reached for his pack of Camels in his pocket, but they had the consistency of day-old oatmeal. Damn, there’s so much I have to accomplish, he thought. So much at cross-purposes. Is it possible?
Jacobus spent the endless hours of the night thinking and brooding. The more he understood, the more his despondence returned.
How to persuade—coerce?—Yumi to bolt for Japan. That’s essential, he thought. If she knows for certain that I suspect her, she’ll never flee, because she’ll know that she’s just leading me back to Grandma. But if she’s not sure, though, if she’s only guessing, she might just haul her ass out of here in order to escape further suspicion. But she needs an alibi. What alibi can I give her as a cover to pack up and leave?
An idea had occurred to Jacobus that sickened him, and though he spent a long time in the dark trying to think of a better one, he couldn’t. It made sense, more than any other.
Jacobus heard the bed in the next room start to squeak rhythmically. Soon he could hear its headboard banging on the other side of the wall. He reached into the drawer of his bed table and pulled out a Gideon Bible. He flung it against the wall. The banging stopped.
His idea would protect Yumi, get her out of harm’s way, encourage her to beat it out of here, and lead him to Grandma.
I’ll give you a week or two head start, he thought. I won’t make it look too obvious
or you’ll guess what I’m doing and stay here. Then I’ll follow your tracks. And to convince you to go back to Japan all I have to do is just be myself—more or less.
I’ll only have to be a bum a little while longer.
You’ll go back if you hate me.
TWENTY-ONE
Yumi called out Nathaniel’s name, and called it a second time, both without reply. He must have left the apartment before dawn. She looked at the clock. Still almost two hours before he would return to take her to Jacobus, but it was already hot.
The apartment’s one bathroom, unlike the furo in her home in Japan, was a sorry substitute for soul-cleansing. The floor and walls were graying hexagonal tiles, smaller on the floor, larger on the walls. Grout was missing here and there, replaced by mildew. The one small window had been painted over, most recently with white paint, some of which had dripped down the tiled wall before drying. As the window was unopenable, the paint on the ceiling had bubbled and peeled from years of accumulated moisture. There was an old stained porcelain tub that had once been white. The toilet ran and the sink dripped. The one light fixture in the room, a high-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling, cast a glaring yellow light and managed to make everything even more vulgar. In other words, a typical New York City bathroom.
How can they live like this? Yumi asked herself. How can they ever be clean?
But I need a bath, Yumi said to herself. It was more than a need. It was a compulsion, a necessity. She needed to clean the filth off her. The filth from the sweltering city, from the turmoil, from her soul. She had awoken licking perspiration off her upper lip, the early morning sun streaming in on her face. Like the infernal presence of the Piccolino Stradivarius, the oppressive heat hovered relentlessly over her.
Repulsed by the tub, she decided on a shower. However, the showerhead, which looked like the end of an old tin watering can, only intermittently vomited forth bursts of scalding hot water. Developing a new plan, she soaped her body while the shower dripped, then frantically scrubbed and rinsed herself whenever a spasm of water attacked her.