by Frank Conroy
As he said this, Mr. Weisfeld came in. He was rubbing his hands together as he walked. "Now, Claude. Do you have any questions? Has Franz explained everything? Good."
"What about the man at the door downstairs?" Claude asked.
"They will be given their instructions," Franz said.
"Don't worry," Weisfeld said. "You come after school at three-thirty and you leave at six. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They will know all about it. So."
The two men looked down at the boy.
"Why don't you try it before we leave?" Weisfeld said.
Claude flushed. "What should I play, I don't have, I didn't bring any—"
"Try the little Schubert piece. You don't need music for that. The little one you were playing in the store."
Claude raised his arms, opened his hands, and began to play, instantly adjusting to the fact that the keys seemed to go down without resistance, or just enough resistance so that he could feel them, every key the same. He had the sensation of playing almost without effort—as if the piano itself were playing, and he was simply moving his fingers along with it. When he finished he looked up.
"It's different. It's very different."
Franz was nodding, a faint smile on his face.
"Of course," Weisfeld said. "I told you."
"I like it," Claude said.
"Well, maybe if it likes you, it will teach you," Weisfeld said. "We will see."
Sometimes the phone rang two or three times in a week, and then there were long periods—a month or more—when he almost forgot it was there. The shrill sound would pull him out of sleep, and he would get up and get dressed like an automaton, follow her up the stairs, into the cab, and fall back asleep almost instantaneously.
It was always the small stocky man with the round glasses, sometimes by himself, sometimes with others, and the pickups and dropoffs were always at corners. People appeared out of the night and disappeared into the night, as if in an extended, interrupted dream. The German spoke very little but was invariably courteous to Claude's mother, and sometimes he gave the boy a gift of candy (licorice pastilles, strong and bitter tasting). Occasionally, while dozing, or shifting in his sleep, his feet bumping his mother's huge, hard thigh, he would catch an exchange from the back.
"Don't they have instructions for us? Don't they know what's happening?"
Gerhardt: "No instructions. Perhaps eventually."
"Eventually will be too late. I can't believe this!"
Mostly the other voices were anxious, or fast (which might have been why Claude would tune in momentarily), but Gerhardt was always calm, and he often sighed.
***
It was many months before Claude looked up from the piano, as it were, and allowed himself to wonder about the maestro. The boy was so in love with the Bechstein, so protective of the conditions that allowed him to play it, that he had instinctively made himself small, almost invisible, putting everything else out of his mind when he would ring the bell and be ushered in by Franz, saying next to nothing as he slipped into the big room, head down, and walked a straight line to the instrument. The silence, dimness, and peaceful stasis of the place worked on him in a strange way—he was not afraid to play, but he was almost afraid to breathe, as if the vulgar fact of his being alive might somehow disturb things. (Although he continued to pick up the bottles in the basement once a week, going in by the back service entrance, he had not told Al about the events upstairs, about how the doormen knew him now, or about how Franz and Helga set out a glass of milk and two almond cookies on the coffee table near the piano as a silent greeting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, nor did he think he ever would tell Al. He was not aware of having made the decision, it somehow just happened.) But one afternoon, after almost half a year, he found himself gazing at the framed photographs and identifying the maestro simply because he was in more pictures than anyone else. He felt a small shock and a vague sense of guilt, as if he weren't supposed to be looking.
There were cities, some of which he recognized from pictures he had seen in Life magazine. Two men and a woman standing in front of a café, and far off in the distance, the top of the Eiffel Tower. A shot of Piccadilly Circus, double-decker buses jammed in a circle, bowler hats, servicemen, signs and advertisements. But most of the pictures revealed an exotic city of old buildings with rococo embellishments, spidery wrought-iron arches over narrow streets, a river, a cliff, and a castle atop the cliff. A strange city with very few signs in a strange alphabet made up of odd letters. Everyone wore dark clothing, and there, towering over everyone else, a bear of a man, often in a fur hat, often carrying a cane, was the maestro, or the man Claude took to be the maestro, since Claude had never seen him. His size, his full beard, his unnaturally penetrating eyes, all contributed to a near-palpable feeling of power. He dominated every photograph in which he appeared. Once, he seemed—a trick of the eye—to move ever so slightly within the frame. Claude jumped back, as if rebuked, and returned to the piano.
Weisfeld continuously monitored Claude's feelings about scales. Every few months he would check—is it getting too boring, too tedious? Can you maintain concentration, or do you get dreamy? Claude reassured him. Scales were something he liked to do. It felt good. There was a sense of progress. In addition to traditional drills, Weisfeld would give him new exercises of his own design. Contrary motion, three octaves both ways, ascend in half steps. Ascend in thirds, fourths, fifths. Delayed scales—the left hand entering first, the right hand entering three notes later, descend in whole tones. Then reverse the process. Claude particularly liked the sensations attendant to playing different scales simultaneously—F major in the right hand against D-flat major in the left, for example—not so much for the sound, although it was fun to split his mind in half and listen to both of them, or to hear them converging and diverging harmonically, but for the physical feeling in his hands, the slow-wave feeling that emerged from the various patterns, different kinds of waves with different pairs of juxtaposed scales.
The perception of the waves, and the nodes of the waves which gave his hands, while they were in motion, a series of home bases, quite different from the root notes themselves—this perception led him to realize that there were thousands of interesting scale exercises, perhaps tens of thousands, waiting to be played. Thus the finite eighty-eight-key reality of the Bechstein contained a possibly infinite number of different wave forms concealed within its configuration. Claude enjoyed catching the waves and riding them. It just felt good.
He noticed that Franz would occasionally leave the big sliding doors partly open. Was it an oversight, or was someone listening? Eventually they were left partially open almost all of the time.
And then one day as Claude went through the doors into the foyer on his way out, Franz appeared out of a dark corridor. "If you could just wait a moment," he said. "If you could just stand here, please." He indicated a particular spot on the parquet and retreated into the corridor.
After a few moments the boy discerned movement in the distant darkness—shapes, a low dark shape gliding from one of the rooms into the hall. A wheelchair? Low voices. Franz re-emerged. "The maestro wants to get a look at you. Please hold your hands up like this." Claude held his hands up, palms forward. "Yes, that's it," Franz said. "Now stretch them wide. Excellent."
Was that a head? A shoulder? Claude strained to see.
"How much do you weigh?" Franz asked.
"I don't know."
"You can put your hands down now. Thank you." Franz gently led him to the door. "Until next Monday, then."
One afternoon, in his room, Claude sat at the white piano working on "The Choo-Choo Boogie," one of a number of blues and boogie tunes he'd found in the bench. His left hand pounded out repeated fifths and a little figure with his middle finger while his right hand ran up and down doing some complicated but entirely symmetrical variations on the simple melody. The beat was as powerful and relentless as the locomotive on the front of the sheet music. He'd use
d up the half hour when his mother came in.
"Claude!" she shouted. He stopped immediately. "I need you."
He got up and followed her through the apartment and up the iron stairs to the cab. "I almost had it," he said, getting in the back.
"Had what?"
"That tricky part where it sort of curls around."
"What are you talking about?"
"When it goes back to F. That part."
"We're picking him up and going to the docks," she said, pulling away from the curb.
He was waiting on the corner of Twelfth Street, dressed in a suit and tie and wearing a topcoat that looked brand new. He carried a small leather suitcase, which he placed on the floor as he got in beside Claude.
"Mr. Eisler, is that all you're taking?" she asked.
"It is more than I arrived with."
"So this is it."
"I have no choice."
They drove across town in silence. When she got to the pier a cop waved her through the gates to the embarkation area. She pulled up behind another cab.
The boat was enormous, a gray wall with portholes looming high over everything. Claude pressed his face against the window and looked up to see the banked railings, the bridge, the huge smokestacks, the boom crane pulling up great rope nets filled with cargo. The pier was crowded with stevedores, sailors, cops, ship's officers, workers manhandling crates, forklifts scooting, people shouting orders or waving up to others already on board. A sense of excitement, of purpose. Here was the idea of destination compressed into a single huge, busy image as passengers flowed up the long steep gangways onto the ship, the SS Batory. Claude stared up at the bright superstructure shining in the sun, seagulls wheeling, and felt a longing so deep it was like a sickness, the same feeling he'd had clinging to the lamppost on V-E Day years ago.
"Take this." Eisler leaned forward to hand her a hundred dollar bill.
"I can't," she said.
He shook the money impatiently. "Take it, take it."
She did.
"Now listen to me, woman. If you are wise, you will break off all connection with your group. Completely. Do not go to any more meetings. Do not respond if anyone attempts to communicate with you. Forget that you had anything to do with any of them. Wipe it out."
If he had struck her, he could not have shocked her more. She stared, her mouth open.
"They are amateurs. Dreamers. They can't protect themselves, and they can't protect you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, but—"
"It is a house of cards. It will collapse."
Claude was astonished to see tears in her eyes. "But they're my friends."
"They are false friends. They have no discipline, and they will, how do you say it, they will roll over." He got out of the cab. "Goodbye, comrade, and thank you for your help." He walked to the nearest gangway without looking back and boarded the ship.
Claude was mystified, but as he stared at the back of his mother's head he sensed it was not the time to ask questions.
They sat silently for a long time, looking up at the great ship, until she finally started the engine, pulled at the wheel, and drove away.
"The maestro would like to see you put on some weight," Franz said. "A little more strength in the upper body, hmmmm?"
Claude pointed to one of the photographs. "Is that him?"
"Taken many years ago."
"He's big."
"Push-ups are good for a pianist. Do you know how to do pushups?"
Claude shook his head. Franz lowered himself to the Persian rug and demonstrated. "Nothing should touch but your toes, your hands, and your nose. Ach. I can't do it anymore. But keep straight, keep your tush in the air. Now you try it."
Claude managed to do three. They lay together on the floor, side by side, breathing hard.
"He suggests that you do them after practice. It will come quickly because you are young. You'll be surprised."
"I'll try." It was odd lying next to him. Claude sneaked a close-up look at the Adam's apple, which bobbed as Franz swallowed and caught his breath. The old man got up slowly, first to his knees and then, bracing himself on the piano bench, to his feet. He ran his fingers through the long white hair on the sides of his head.
"He also suggests that you eat here after practice. At six-thirty in the dining room. Will that be agreeable?"
Claude got up. "Yes. Thank you."
"Good. Come in back now and we'll talk to Helga."
They moved across the room, through the big doors, the foyer, the dining room, and the swinging door into the kitchen. Smells of cinnamon, coffee, and lemon. Helga wore an apron and a small white cap on her graying head.
"So," she said, shaking hands. "We make you fat, ja?"
Claude looked at the floor and she touched his head lightly and quickly. He felt uncomfortable talking about his body because he hated his body. He resented the earaches, recurrent in his left ear—the sharp pain, the cracking sounds, the crusty yellow stuff he would dig out with his finger. He resented the chilblains he got in cold weather, the way his scalp itched in warm weather, the scabs he got on his knees and elbows. Something was always wrong. Recently he had discovered, quite by accident, that his foreskin had adhered to one side of the head of his penis, and every night, grimacing with pain, he would pull it back, every night a bit more, ignoring the spots of blood, hoping it would eventually break free. He was thin and weak, and in his heart of hearts he did not believe anything could be done about it. But he would go along with push-ups, he would go along with eating, and pretend whatever they wanted him to pretend. He was ashamed, but he recognized their good intentions, and that made it a bit easier. They would not use his shame against him, the way his mother sometimes did.
"What do you like to eat?" Helga asked.
The question stopped him. He'd never really thought about it. Most things came from cans. Is that what she meant? "I guess ... I don't know. Everything, I guess."
"Everything. That is good."
"I like hot dogs," he said. "I like Prexy's."
She turned to Franz. "What is this Prexy's?"
"Hamburgers," Franz said.
"I like milk."
"Ja. Milk is good." She rubbed her hands and smiled at Franz. "I make something special for Friday."
And so it began. At the end of the next practice session Claude tugged the bell pull and Franz came in to watch him do his push-ups. After washing his hands, the boy followed him into the dining room. A full service had been set up at the head of the table. Claude paused, intimidated by the elaborate setup, the gleaming plates and silver.
"Sit," Franz said.
"What is all this, how do I, which—"
"Relax, please. He wants you to learn this. There are different courses. It's very simple. Take the napkin from the ring and spread it over your lap. That's right. Now I will serve the soup."
Franz ladled out a pale green liquid. Claude sat perfectly still, watching the deft moves of the old man at his shoulder. The soup smelled good.
"Cream of asparagus. Use the outside spoon. And here is bread and butter. This is the butter knife. It stays on this little plate. Go ahead now." Franz surprised him by going off into the kitchen through the swinging door. After a moment Claude heard the soft murmur of their voices. The clink of plates, a chair scraping.
He picked up the indicated spoon and took a sip of the soup. Claude had never tasted asparagus, never eaten a soup made from scratch, and was entirely unprepared for the warm, slow-motion explosions of pleasure that now filled his head. (Asparagus soup was to become a lifelong favorite, although he would never find the equal to Helga's inspired ambrosial mixture of stock, tips, herbs, and cream. Nor would he know he was the beneficiary of her training in the lost royal kitchens of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.) He ate as if in a dream.
Franz appeared, to remove the shallow bowl and replace it with a plate bearing Wiener schnitzel adorned with a thin slice of lemon, potato dumplings in butter, and a glisteni
ng mélange of string beans and sliced red peppers. "At a formal dinner," he explained, "each of these might be brought around the table, and of course you would not begin to eat until the host or hostess began."
"Okay."
Franz returned and Claude picked up his knife and fork. The dream continued—he barely heard the soft laughter from the kitchen, the chiming of the grandfather clock in the foyer, or the creak of the upholstered chair on which he sat. He was immersed in swirls of texture, color, and taste. He ate slowly, sometimes closing his eyes.
Franz regarded the empty plate. Even the lemon slice was gone. "Dessert," he said, removing the plate and setting down a bowl of bananas and cream dusted with brown sugar. "Two desserts." A saucer of apple strudel, still warm from the oven. "She is a good cook, Helga. Don't you think?"
He was speechless. He could only nod.
His mother, who had more or less stopped drinking during the time of the night driving, began again, mixing beer and whiskey with abandon. She talked to herself, roaming from her room to the front room muttering imprecations, asking questions, sometimes waving her arms. Claude stayed out of the way, sensing a dangerous mixture of confusion and anger.
He was secretly grateful when he came home to find her passed out in the armchair, snoring lightly, her head tilted, surrounded by a surprising number of newspapers. He carefully lifted one from her lap and was astounded to see a photograph of the round-faced man with steel-rimmed glasses.
EISLER REPORTED STOWAWAY; SEIZURE IN BRITAIN ASKED
A man who has identified himself as Gerhardt Eisler, native of Germany, is fleeing from the United States aboard the Gdynia-American liner Batory, it became known yesterday. The fugitive is believed to be the former Comintern agent named by the House Un-American Activities Committee as America's No. 1 Communist, jumping $23,500 bail to escape serving a year in jail and other penalties.