The schumann proof, p.26
The Schumann Proof, page 26
“Hi,” I said. “Can I bother you for a minute?”
“Sure. Come on in. Have a seat.” He cleared music from an orange-and-brown seventies-style daybed in one corner.
“I’m not disturbing you?”
“Just finishing up.” To prove the point, he squared some student papers and slid them into his leather knapsack. Company for his wallet, I guess.
“Working hard?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “You don’t know the half of it. Between my own students and playing for Ulrike...” He shook his head.
“She’s keeping you busy?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? She needs me. And, frankly, she’s more important than all this.” He waved a hand, dismissing the studio, his desk, the row of textbooks between metal bookends.
“You must know her pretty well by now,” I said. “You’re one of the chosen few.”
“It’s true—she doesn’t open up to people easily.”
“But she does trust you.”
Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t have replied “yes” more humbly.
“You have quite the history of gaining people’s trust,” I said.
His eyes flickered over to the books on his desk, the official Conservatory imprimatur on the covers, Molly Peterson’s well-known name in big print beside his own. “You don’t think that’s wrong, do you?”
“Wrong? No.”
“It’s how you get ahead.”
“ ‘Ambition succeeds where talent fails’?”
His show of teeth came a split second late. “A question of getting ahead when ahead is where you want to be. There’s no harm in making the most of opportunities.”
“Like cozying up to Ulrike?”
“I wouldn’t be playing the Liederkreis premiere otherwise.”
“Just getting ahead,” I said.
“It’s what you’ve got to do, Vikkan. I never understood that about you. Back at school, you were the best. Everybody knew it. You had Spiers on your side. You could have taken advantage of that, but you didn’t. And now this Liederkreis. How could you turn down a chance to play it? I don’t get it. It would have been the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Just not my lifetime.” I didn’t want to get into this, not with Bryce. Luckily, his mentioning my turning down Laura provided a lead-in for the reason I’d come. “You know the police think it may be involved in the murders?”
“What? The Schumann?”
“I’ll assume you know he’s not the composer.”
His eyes went hard a moment, like bits of green ice. “Of course.”
“What’s been puzzling them is that the letter proving Clara Wieck composed it has been missing for a couple of days.”
“Was it stolen?”
“As it turns out, no. Mann had sent it back to Vienna, to his daughter. Apparently, he was up to something.”
The eyes went wide. “Oh?”
“I wondered if you knew anything about it.”
“Me?”
“I thought perhaps he might have discussed it with Ulrike, and she’d said something to you.”
“Shouldn’t you be asking her, then?” The eyes still guilelessly wide.
“Look,” I said, annoyed, “do you know what I’m talking about or not?”
He dropped the pretense. “Mann’s little joke?”
“Did Ulrike tell you about it?”
“Yes, last week. Mann discussed it with her on Wednesday. I didn’t want to say anything just now because—well, because it’s what she wanted. She thought the idea was amusing, might even bring some extra publicity. But after he died, she started worrying how it would make him look. She idolized him, you know, like a father. The thought of him looking foolish... She didn’t come right out and say it, but I knew she was asking me to keep quiet.”
“And, of course, she’d be able to rely on your discretion.”
“We’ve become close. She counts on me. A talent like hers...”
I could feel another of his dithyrambs coming on: Ulrike the artiste, Ulrike the fragile little bird. The one at the doughnut shop had been enough. I made noises about seeing a man about a dog, and left.
“Well,” Léo said to me later that evening, “at least you don’t have to ask yourself the morning-after question.”
I raised my eyebrows over a glass of Scotch.
“‘Will I ever see him again?’” Léo said. “The investigation should take care of that.”
“Ha-ha.”
It was nearly two in the morning. The last of Evelyn’s patrons had left twenty minutes ago. Léo and I were alone on stools at the bar.
“You’re not feeling guilty, are you?” he asked.
“Guilty about not feeling guilty, maybe. But I don’t think it’s that.”
“What then?”
I drained my Scotch and went behind the bar for another. “I think, Dr. St-Onge,” I said, “that I’m not very good at distinguishing deep emotion from summary concupiscence.”
He smiled at being called doctor. “Take a piece of free medical advice—don’t hide behind four-dollar words.”
“Sorry, can’t help it. Uncle Charles’ doing. The stronger the feeling, the bigger the word.”
“Stick to one or two syllables.”
“All right. How’s this?” I dropped some ice in my glass. “Last night I fucked a man who’s acting reeaalll cool today.”
“I didn’t say your grammar had to slip.”
“Here’s to sloppy English,” I toasted. “It sounds so convincing.” I came around and sat down again. “Who knows, Léo? Maybe I’m just a fringe benefit of his job.”
“That kind of self-deprecation doesn’t suit you.”
“It’s two in the morning. We’re sitting in an empty bar. I’m allowed.”
“That only works in black-and-white movies.”
I sloshed my ice cubes around. They made a nice, comforting sound. “He says he’s never done this before.”
“In that case,” Léo mused, “and given the unusualness of the circumstances, I think we can assume he’s influenced by something more than casual lust.”
“Which is precisely what I don’t want to hear.”
“You’re concerned where it might lead?”
“That’s a bit premature, don’t you think?”
“It’s what’s bothering you.”
“I wish you wouldn’t get in my head that way.”
“Doesn’t take a genius.”
I toyed with my glass a bit longer, then dipped a finger in and licked it off. “What if, Léo? What if?”
He knew what I was talking about. “Andrew March is not Christian,” he said. “Christian was unique. He wasn’t meant for this world.”
“How terribly operatic.”
Léo’s eyes flickered, but he wasn’t about to be cowed by sarcasm. “Do you blame yourself somehow?” he asked. “For what you didn’t see?”
“I saw, all right. I just didn’t know what it was.”
“Would you have not loved Christian if you had? Would his illness have scared you off?”
“It’s what drew me to him in the first place.”
“And you’re worried something similar could happen again?”
“Or that it won’t.”
I took a big swallow of Scotch and got off my stool. A cigarette I’d left in an ashtray on the piano had gone out. I relit it and took a drag, then noodled a few bars of “One for My Baby”.
“This is all your fault, Léo. If you hadn’t encouraged me to cooperate with him—”
“—you wouldn’t have slept with a man who, by your own account, leaves nothing to be desired. In the bed department, at any rate. Mea culpa.”
I played the pianistic equivalent of a raspberry and turned around. He was grinning, the crowsfeet behind his glasses crinkling back into his hairline.
“How is the investigation going?” he asked. “Have you been able to help him out?”
“I’ve talked to some people, made a few suggestions, that’s about it. The physical evidence points to Mann dying first and Laura surprising the killer.”
“So you’re concentrating on who’d have a reason to kill Mann?”
“Right. You remember that music I told you about?” He nodded. “It’s almost certainly at the heart of things. The problem is, instead of reducing the list of suspects, it keeps generating more.”
“Like a detective novel.”
“Exactly. I keep thinking reality ought to be different.”
Léo chuckled. “For you? I don’t think so.” He stood up. “You finishing this?” he asked, holding up my glass. “We really should clear out.”
“Pass it over.” I drank up while he locked his office and turned off all but a few security lights.
The air outside felt good, but hit me like a soporific. A Peter Warlock song popped into my head: “Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving, lock me in delight awhile...” Text by John Fletcher, 1579 to 1625. Léo gave me a funny look when I started singing.
“Goodnight,” I yawned. “See you tomorrow.”
“Take care, Vikkan.” He gave me a hug and Gallic kisses on both cheeks. “Sleep in. I think you need it.”
Which advice I would have followed, if the phone hadn’t woken me. I let the machine answer; I was learning.
“This is Ulrike Vogel. It is nine-oh-five, Thursday morning. Please return my call.”
Later, I thought and rolled over, snuggling into unchanged sheets laced with pheromones. My body responded in a way not conducive to slumber. After fifteen minutes, I gave up and climbed down from the loft.
I was finishing a third coffee when Ulrike called again.
“Guten Morgen, Fräulein Vogel,” I said. “Sie haben vorher telefoniert. What can I do for you?”
“Would you be free to come by this morning? There is something I wish to discuss with you.”
“When were you thinking?”
“In an hour, say?”
“I can be there. May I ask what it’s about?”
“We will discuss it when you arrive. Bis später.”
That was interesting. There were things I wanted to ask her, but I couldn’t imagine why she wanted to see me. I puzzled over it while getting ready to leave and was still mystified about it when I pulled into her street an hour later.
She opened her door before I reached the front steps. “Vikkan,” she said, holding out her hand. I wondered if I was supposed to kiss it. “Thank you for coming.” Thank you? From Ulrike? “This way, please.”
She led me through her long hallway down into the teaching room. Late morning light poured in through the French windows, making the piano look freshly polished.
“Coffee?” She gestured to an end table holding a small porcelain pot, a creamer of steaming milk and a single cup.
“Thank you.”
She sat on the sofa and poured, adding the milk without asking. I took the cup and settled into the Biedermeier chair.
“I will come directly to the point,” she said, watching me sample the coffee. “What is your impression of David Bryce?”
“Do you mean his talent, or personally?”
“His musicianship.”
“He plays well enough. An excellent sightreader, technically proficient.”
It was a cagey answer. Ulrike picked up on it right away. “Then you feel he is not...ein echter Künstler? A true artist?”
“I’m in no position to judge. I haven’t heard him since we graduated. That was over six years ago. Why?”
She stood and went to the piano. The backlighting put her face in darkness and made a soft aureole around her hair.
“I have a very special request. The reason why I asked you here.” She paused. “Would you consider playing for me when I sing Frau Schumann’s Liederkreis?”
The penny dropped—Ulrike waiting by the door, the gracious manners, hot milk for my coffee. I should have known she wanted something. “You have reservations about Bryce?” I asked.
“No, no. He is a fine studio accompanist. Always so...available. I have no complaints. But for something this important...”
She left the piano and sat down next to me. Her face no longer in shadow, I could see she’d gone to some trouble to make herself up. Nothing overdone—just a suggestion of blush, some flattering colour around her eyes—the whole skilfully applied, the effect nearly subliminal.
“You see,” she said, leaning close. “Dieter never heard him play.” A whiff of lily-of-the-valley came off her blouse. “But he did hear you. I could always sense when Dieter felt he was in the presence of great talent.” She leaned a millimetre closer. “A talent such as yours, for example.”
Bryce had said there was no harm in making the most of opportunities. I wondered how he’d feel if I took his advice now. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t think I can do it.”
Bryce had also said he couldn’t understand why I’d turned down Laura’s similar request to accompany the Liederkreis. Once again, just as on that long first day after the murders, I found myself wondering how things would have been different if I’d agreed. If I’d stayed on Thursday evening and made a commitment to the future, instead of heading off for a communion with the past.
Ulrike’s voice cut through my thoughts. “But I do not understand,” she said impatiently. “We have worked together. Like Dieter, I can tell that you are außergewöhnlich...extraordinary.”
“I’m very flattered, and I thank you, but the answer’s still no.”
She wasn’t used to being refused. Not much practice, I guess. She looked down, hiding her expression.
“It’s because of Bryce,” I said, calling on ethics to which I felt no real allegiance. “He’s said more than once how much he values working with you. I wouldn’t feel right taking over from him.”
It was the right thing to say. Ulrike tilted her head and nodded. “Natürlich. This I understand completely. But I ask you, please—think on it.”
For courtesy’s sake, I assured her I would.
Presently, she rose and moved back to the piano, to the keyboard itself this time. As if unable to stop herself, she let her hand wander over a few notes, then started singing:
Deine Lippen selbst mir sprachen
Wörter, die ich kaum verstand.
Strahlen hell die Nebel stachen
Ungewißheit rasch verschwand.
The third verse of the seventh song: With thine own lips thou hadst spoken / Words of portent yet unclear / All around bright rays had broken / Through the mists of doubt and fear. Beautiful. Ulrike was in fine voice.
She stopped singing but remained by the piano, gazing outside. Was she trying to tempt me? Some sort of musical seduction? If I hadn’t had other things on my mind, the strategy might have worked.
“Fräulein Vogel,” I said, shattering the silence left in the song’s wake, “I know about Herr Mann’s little intrigue.”
She stood very still, scarcely breathing, as if she were posing for a portrait. I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. “I was afraid of that,” she said finally.
“You didn’t approve?”
“On the contrary. Dieter talked about it with great delight. Such pleasure it would have given him. Alive, he could have—how do you say?—brought it off. But now?” She shook her head. “How did you find out?”
“Indirectly, through a fax Anna sent to the police. The plan was ill-conceived, you know. Too many people knew the work was Clara’s.”
She turned toward me, suddenly animated. “You will not speak of this,” she said sharply. “I will not have Dieter’s memory ridiculed. No one is to know what he was planning.”
“It’s bound to come out, one way or the other.”
She made no effort to conceal her annoyance this time.
“Ulrike,” I said, risking her first name, “I have to ask—did you yourself discuss Herr Mann’s scheme with anyone? Prior to his death?”
I thought at first she wouldn’t answer. The view through the French windows held her attention again. She moved closer to the glass, twisting a ring on her right hand, looking down to inspect it, up again. When her words came, they were toneless, an admission of something I could only guess at.
“David Bryce,” she said, exhaling softly, “and Russell Spiers.”
Ulrike’s little neighbour, Tessa, was squatting in front of the Rover when I came outside, poking her finger through a dimesized hole in the bumper. The hem of her school tunic trailed on the pavement. The green uniform didn’t suggest the kind of place that sends its kids home for lunch. Maybe Mr.-and-Mrs. Tessa had a housekeeper.
“What’s this for?” she asked, turning her finger around experimentally.
“The crank.”
“What’s a crank?”
“A great big long metal rod with a handle on it. You put it in there and turn hard when the motor won’t start.”
“Can I see?”
“It’s in the back. Maybe some other time.”
She got up and adjusted herself under the tunic. “Were you visiting your friend again?”
“Yes.”
“She has a nice car.”
Shattered by a child’s honesty. “Is that so?” I asked. “What kind?”
“A red one,” came the solemn reply.
“Impressive.”
“But she doesn’t use it much.”
I crouched down and looked her straight in the eye. “And how do you know? Do you spy on her, dogging her every movement so she never has a moment’s rest from your cunning observation?”
Tessa giggled. “You talk funny.”
I straightened up. She followed me around the jeep. “She talks funny, too. And she likes to go out in the rain.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I saw her once.”
“You did?” I asked, fiddling with the door latch.
“Yes. I was up in my bedroom. I couldn’t sleep because we were going on a field trip the next day. At school. We went to the zoo. Did you know they have a white tiger there? Its awesome. I want one.”
I banged the door with the heel of my hand. Tessa didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t paying much attention.
“So I sat up in bed and looked out my window. I’m not supposed to do that. Daddy gets mad when he looks in and sees I’m not sleeping. But it was raining. I like the way things get all shiny in the rain, don’t you? That’s my bedroom over there.” She pointed straight-armed at a dormer in the house beside Ulrike’s.
