The schumann proof, p.12
The Schumann Proof, page 12
“The meeting he set up with that agent, Howard Snelling. I’m not exactly sure why he thinks we have to talk about it.”
“He’ll want to make sure you say something nice about him. How he discovered you, and all that.”
“As if.”
Laura fiddled with the latch of her window, trying to get open it. “There’s a trick,” I said, reaching across. “Remember I told you keeping this thing running was a full-time occupation?”
I slid the window back. A breath of nearby flowering crab blew through the jeep. I took in a lungful, then pulled into the street.
“Speaking of Spiers,” I said, once we were on Harbord heading toward the university, “I ran into him yesterday. Upstairs at Evelyn, while I was waiting for you. He and Dean Simmons came in for a drink. They ended up sitting with me.”
“Lucky you.”
“Well, I enjoyed seeing the Dean.”
“But not Spiers.”
“When I left, I heard them—not exactly having an argument—but obviously disagreeing over something. I’m pretty sure it was the Rawlings endowment.”
“No surprise there. Spiers wants it, and bad. He’s convinced the Dean isn’t doing enough. He’s mentioned it several times.”
“But as I understand it, there’s no guarantee it’d go to the Performance Department anyway.”
“As far as he’s concerned, the Faculty is his department.”
“Good point. By the way, I think I saw Rawlings’ daughter yesterday. Emaciated, long red hair, kind of washed out eyes? She was with that girl, Janice. The one you said she was best friends with.”
“Sounds right.”
“Brazen little thing, isn’t she? You should have seen the look she gave me.”
“What do you mean?.”
“Let’s just say I have a much better understanding now of how women feel when construction workers whistle at their tits. Is she always like that?”
“Not when her father’s around.”
I looked over in surprise. “You’d expect her to be? She’s what—sixteen? seventeen? Teenagers aren’t noted for sexual eloquence when their parents are nearby.”
“It isn’t that.”
“What then?”
“She’s two-faced. What you wouldn’t know is that she’s the apple of Rawlings’ eye. Daddy’s little girl. Nothing too good for his little darling. You should see her with him. The sweet and innocent act is enough to make me puke. She out-lollipops Shirley Temple. But once he’s out of range...”
“‘Debbie Does Dallas’?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds like she’s acting out, pardon the psycho-babble.”
“You might act out, too, if you had Rawlings for a father. But the thing about Siobhan isn’t what she’s doing, it’s how she does it. Rebellion I can understand, but with her, it’s so calculated...” She shook her head. “Gives me the whim-whams.”
“Whim-whams?”
“You know what I mean.”
We reached the sharp curve where Harbord turns into Hoskin just past Spadina. I started looking for parking, and spotted a place on St. George, across from the Robarts Library. “My, aren’t we the outlaw,” Laura said as I made an illegal left turn and pulled in.
“If you don’t like the ride, get off the horse.”
“I’ll take my chances. It’s cheaper than the subway.”
I joined her on the sidewalk and offered my elbow with a flourish. “Shall I escort you to your destination, madame?”
“Certainly, sir.” She twined her arm through mine. “Are you sure you’re gay? Gallantry like that always gives a girl’s heart a little flutter.”
“A sexist comment if ever I heard one.”
“Shoot me.”
We strolled along Hoskin, past the brilliant green of University College playing field. A middle-aged jock in sweatpants was haranguing a soccer team. The players seemed to thrive on his verbal abuse, running faster and kicking harder with every insult. We turned onto Philosopher’s Walk at Trinity College, walking slowly up toward the Faculty.
“Why didn’t you stay with Ulrike after graduation?” I asked.
“She’s a soprano, and I wanted to work with a mezzo. With Elly, I’m doing repertoire better suited to my voice. And I was feeling suffocated. Stay with Ulrike too long, and she expects you to join her coterie of doting students. It only gets worse when your career takes off. She refused to speak to me after I told her I was changing teachers. Mind you, Mr. David Bryce had a few holier-than-thou words on the subject.”
“I forgot—you’d have had to work with him while you were with her. What did he say?”
“He accused me of betraying her.”
“Is that why I detected a certain, shall we say, animosity on your part back there?”
“Smarmy little shit. I wouldn’t trust him farther than I could throw him. His own loyalties are as fickle as the wind.”
“Ah, yes, but in Bryce’s world, there’s always a strong prevailing breeze of self-interest.”
“I see you know him as well as I do.”
“Remember when I told you Spiers wanted me to be his golden boy? Well, after I had the bad grace to decline, guess who slid in to take up the slack? For my last couple of years at the Faculty, I never saw the one without the other. I never did figure that out. Spiers wanted more than a protege, but unless I’m severely mistaken, Bryce is straight.”
“Oh, he is,” she said darkly.
“Thereby hangs a tale?”
“Yes, but not the way you’re probably thinking.”
We’d reached the Faculty of Music, and I held the door for her. “Do tell.”
“Can’t,” she said, heading for the stairs just inside. “I’ve got to run, or I’ll be late. See you at Elly’s tonight.”
I waited until she was out of sight, then cautiously made for the library, alert to traces of Morris-Jones’ perfume. A cloud of musk hung ominously around the stacks, but luckily my research took very little time. I tracked down a reference to Ebert, the Liederkreis’s poet, and escaped without running into her. In fact, I nearly got out of the building without seeing anyone I knew at all. Nearly. I was pushing open the doors when a voice hailed me from behind.
“Vikkan—would you wait up a minute?”
Nils Janssen was making his way neatly down the stairs. I couldn’t imagine what the Conservatory’s president was doing at the Faculty, but he answered the puzzle when he caught up. “I’ve just been with Dean Simmons,” he said, “doing my diplomatic duty to ensure cordial relations between our schools.”
“Admirable, given your competition over the Rawlings endowment.”
He blinked. “You’ve heard about it?”
“It’s no secret.”
“No, of course not. I just thought perhaps you might not be up to date.”
“Elly keeps me posted.”
“Miss Gardiner? Yes, she is one to talk. And on that subject, there’s something I’d like to ask you. Do you have a minute? I’m walking back to the Conservatory.”
“I’m going the other way.”
“In that case, just let me ask you this. I understand that when Dieter Mann arrived in town, he had with him a rather unusual acquisition. I know Miss Gardiner’s close to him. Did she mention anything about it to you?”
I thought over his question and realized I could truthfully answer in the negative. Elly hadn’t told me about it; Mann had. And he’d asked me not to say anything. “No,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
“It came up in my meeting with Dean Simmons, that’s all. I was curious.”
I remembered the Dean saying he’d seen Mann on Tuesday. Had Mann told him about the Liederkreis at that time? For something that wasn’t supposed to be general knowledge, the number of people who knew about it seemed to be growing.
Janssen didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t ask, lest he realize I’d stretched the truth when I answered his question. We walked together out to Philosopher’s Walk, where he reminded me to think over his offer of a job. Little lies lead to big ones; I promised faithfully I’d give it my full consideration.
The weather was holding, but only just. The sun had begun to pale behind the filmy clouds I’d noticed earlier. In an hour or two, it would be completely overcast.
Having nothing else to do for the next couple of hours, I drove home, threw on some old jeans, and spent an hour puttering about in the Rover’s motor, changing plugs and oil. While I was at it, I fixed the window latch Laura had had trouble with earlier. I tried to do the same for the handle on the driver’s side door, with no luck.
True to my forecast, the sky clouded over. By the time I’d shucked off my jeans and T-shirt inside the carriage house, a light drizzle had started. I didn’t bother getting dressed again. The sumacs up front prevent anyone from seeing in, as good a reason as any to put off pruning them.
I scrubbed grease from my hands, then settled in to do some work on Evelyn’s wildflower folio. My textbooks were still open at the Indian Pipe entries, so I fanned them out and started making notes. Indian Pipe...Monotropa uniflora... brittle roots... waxy, ivory-white stem with scaly bracts...single nodding fleshy flower, usu. white, sometimes pinkish; turns black when bruised. It sounded like something that would give you a nasty scare if you came upon it by accident in the woods, like a dead snake or a severed limb. I consulted several herbals, all of which had unusually short entries, and jotted down antispasmodic, nervine, sedative. My trusty Peterson’s said the plant’s habitat was “throughout,” so I wouldn’t be marking M uniflora as a rare or unusual find.
About an hour later, my thighs started itching from the chair’s twill covering. I stood up and scratched, feeling little crosshatches all the way from my glutei maximi down to my knees. I needed a shower and shave before going back to the Con, so I put my books away and grabbed a fresh towel from milk crates stacked beside the bathroom.
Trying without success to do something about my hair afterward with a blow drier, I found myself thinking about the hornet’s nest Mann was stirring up by showing the Liederkreis to Laura. Good thing Bryce was feeling better so I wouldn’t be doing any more work for das Vöglein. I didn’t want to be around if—or when—she found out.
Every time I walked into Elly’s studio, I had the feeling I was stepping back in time.
Over the course of her three-plus decades at the Con, she’d moved in a lot of antiques. On the south wall was a desk that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Hudson’s Bay outpost. Beside it stood a carved armoire on stumpy pineapple legs, stuffed with music. On the north wall, towering next to her récamier, was a glass-fronted floor-to-ceiling bookcase holding her collection of Busts of the Great Composers. Scattered throughout, cachepots on extravagantly lathed pedestals supported an assortment of aspidistras, ferns and dieffenbachias. Nearly everything was oak—dark-stained, massive and proudly bourgeois. Only the baby grand and her club chair—low, deep, and comfy—had saved an entire Quercus grove from extinction. The piano, an old Eaton’s Heintzman, was done in honey-coloured maple. The chair glowed with well-oiled leather, richly red against the Turkish rug hiding some of the dingy floor.
Elly was watering flowers when I arrived. Her thriving, if staid, congregation of violets, begonias and gloxinias sat on a generous window sill to the left of the piano. Nearby, jammed in a corner beside the armoire, a tangle of philodendrons reared triffidically over her.
“Mildred and Chastity taking strong waters again?” I asked.
“They’re quite happy, thank you,” she said primly. “This is a perfect spot for them. Violets don’t like too much sun.”
Laura, seated at the piano, was picking out notes and humming softly. She acknowledged my arrival with a nod, concentrating on mastering a difficult interval. Mann stood in front of the bookcase, admiring the rogues’ gallery of Great Composers within. He looked better than he had that afternoon, even in the fluorescent light that irradiated the studio with a sallow, all-too-modern glow.
“Some interesting choices, don’t you think?” I said, going over to him. The twenty-centimetre-high solid bronze heads had been cast in England at the turn of the century. In a number of cases, the choice of what constituted a “great composer” bespoke the tastes of an era more than any real claim to fame. Cheek by jowl with Beethoven and Brahms were Delius, Massenet and Gottschalk.
“Sic transit, Vikkan,” Mann replied. “But you know, some of these lesser composers were talented. I would miss them if they were not here.” He turned from the bookcase and went to the club chair.
Elly finished tending her flowers just as clouds of steam began rising from an electric kettle on her desk. She unplugged it and filled a Styrofoam cup.
“Dieter?”
“Thank you.” He took the cup and set it on the carpet, then rifled through his pockets and brought out the little packet of teabags I’d seen at Ulrike’s. He sniffed at the contents, selected one, and dropped it in the water.
“I’d offer you something, Vikkan,” Elly said, “but I’m out of instant coffee.”
“That’s okay. It was decaf anyway, if I remember.”
Mann repocketed his teas. “Shall we begin, then? After this afternoon, I’m quite impatient to hear Miss Erskine again.”
Laura stood and went behind the piano bench, brushing an errant philodendron leaf out of her face. Elly moved over to the récamier and plumped up the roll cushion.
“You’re staying this time?” I asked.
“Curiosity has overcome my inclination to be considerate. But I promise, I shan’t interfere.” She glanced at Mann, who winked.
True to her word, she turned silent the moment Laura announced, “Any time you’re ready, Vikkan,” and stayed that way throughout the remainder of the Liederkreis. Her non-interference became nerve-wracking after a while. I started wishing she would contribute something to the dialogue between songs.
As earlier, Laura sang with breathtaking assurance—caressing Meine Thränen (My Tears) with innocent sensuality, injecting a troubling note of doubt into Gewißheit (Certainty), achieving a tone of ethereal ecstasy in Schicksalsfügung (Providence). How could anyone sing unfamiliar music with such artistry? If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn the songs had been composed with her in mind.
We finished at a quarter after seven. Laura slumped down beside me, exhausted. “God, that’s hard work. Is it just me, or is it hot in here?”
It was quite warm. I got up to open the window.
“I wouldn’t, Vikkan,” Elly said from the other side of the room. “They’re patching the roof down there. The tar smell is awful.”
I peered over Mildred and Chastity and their friends to the flat roof below. “Nothing going on now,” I said. It had been raining off and on for the past couple of hours, but the workmen would have broken off at five anyway. All I could see were a wooden extension ladder and some empty buckets.
“It’s okay,” Laura said. “I’ll be fine.”
I left the window and sat down. Mann leaned back in the club chair, resting his head on a snowy white antimacassar. The crocheted linen framed his face like a halo. He turned his eyes toward Elly and steepled his fingers. It seemed a peculiar gesture. I would have thought he’d avoid it, given his missing thumb and index joint. “Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”
Elly stood up and fussed with the roll cushion again, snugging it against the récamier’s curved end. “It’s impressive, Dieter. For some reason, I didn’t expect it to be so good. The writing’s extraordinary. I had no idea.” She made it sound as if the Liederkreis had been composed by an aspiring Conservatory student, not a full-fledged master. “And as to what we talked about before,” she continued, going over to her desk, “that’s entirely up to you. More hot water?”
“Please.”
She crouched down to plug in the kettle. Mann watched her, then took off his spectacles. “Miss Erskine,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “I find myself in an extremely awkward position. Perhaps Vikkan has told you?”
Laura shook her head, puzzled. Mann sat forward. “Ever since I, or rather, my daughter, Anna, first came across this work, I have given Ulrike Vogel—your former teacher, so Eleanor tells me—to understand that she will have the honour of singing its first performance. As you can well imagine, the event will be of no small significance. Unfortunately, now, having heard you, I find myself questioning my hastiness in approaching her.
“I’ve come to feel a proprietary interest in this Liederkreis, like a father who wants the best for his child. I knew after last night that you and the songs belonged together. But how can I bring myself to disappoint Ulrike? Sadly, I am caught in a war of loyalties, between what is right for friendship and what is right for this remarkable music. Perhaps I should not have indulged myself so, asking you to sing it.”
Elly’s kettle started to boil. She unplugged it and refilled Mann’s cup, returning to her desk.
“What to do, what to do?” he asked, selecting another tisane. “I suppose I should put it to you first, Miss Erskine—”
“Laura, please.”
“—Laura, whether you would be willing to premier the songs. Perhaps your answer will solve my dilemma for me.”
“It’d be the chance of a lifetime,” she said without hesitating. “I’d be an idiot to turn it down.”
I looked over at Elly, wanting to see her reaction. There was none. She sat demurely at her desk, fingering the massive glass paperweight that holds down her correspondence.
“There is one thing, though,” Laura added. “I’d want to have Vikkan play.”
I felt a stab of anxiety, just like the one I’d experienced when Janssen unexpectedly offered me a job. “No way, Laura,” I said. “Absolutely not. I wouldn’t do it.”
She turned to me. “How come?”
“Yes,” Mann echoed. “Why ever not?”
Elly continued to study her paperweight, but a tiny smile pulled at the corners of her mouth.
