Body & Soul (50 page)

Lady stared into her teacup. She surprised both of them by suddenly saying "Shit" in a calm tone while tapping her toe on the floor.

"If it's your father you're after," the old man said, as if nothing had happened, "I can tell you it's your mother who hurts the most. She misses you."

"I talk to her."

"A telephone call every couple of months? Come now, Lady."

She sighed and leaned back.

"I wish you would consider Christmas this year."

"Oh, God," she groaned.

"If I can tell her you're thinking about it, I believe it would be a good start."

"Is it still the same?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. Eggnog at the Powerses', dinner at the Fisks'. Please do give it some thought, dear. It would mean a lot to me."

"Are you awake?" she whispered.

"Yes." It was three in the morning. He'd been watching the play of shadows on the ceiling cast by the streetlight through the branches of the tree outside.

"Me too," she said.

"Tell me about the place in Larchmont."

"He swings a lot of weight there. He can cut through the red tape. Otherwise it can take years and years, you know. A million forms, histories, interviews, and then you wait forever."

"What did you mean about risk?"

"They're very careful. It's a private organization so they can use their own procedures, and apparently they're very good at making a match."

"You mean the child and the people adopting?"

"It's only babies. The mother has the baby right there on the premises. She keeps it for four days—something about the health of the infant—and then gives it up. So you get a four-day-old baby."

"But what's this about a match?"

"Oh, you know. Background, religion, education—class, I suppose. The mother is supposed to be someone like me, similar to me. Grandpa says they're very sophisticated about that stuff."

"What about the father?"

"Oh, sure," she said quickly. "Somebody about your age who went to college, maybe even artistic."

He gave a short, bitter laugh. "Irony of ironies."

She rolled toward him and propped her head on her hand.

"I know," she said. "But with Grandpa handling it nobody's going to get into all that. It doesn't matter. It won't even come up. He guaranteed it."

"He's a thoughtful man," Claude said evenly.

"He's a sweetie, a real sweetie."

"And he wasn't a senator all those years for nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"He makes deals."

"Oh, it isn't really a deal. He'd do it even if I didn't see my parents."

"But you're going to see them, aren't you." It wasn't a question.

"I suppose so. It makes sense in a way. After all, they'd be the grandparents." She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling. "There's one scary thing, though, about the way they do it at Larchmont. We have to see her. Only for a minute, but the mother has to actually pass the baby over into my arms. We don't have to talk, but she has to give it to me herself."

"Jesus," he said.

"You can do that, can't you?"

"I guess. If we decide to go ahead."

They lay in silence for some time. Then she reached for his hand under the covers. "Please don't say no, Claude. Please, please." She squeezed his hand so tightly it hurt.

A week later she gave him some papers to sign, and he signed them.

Whenever Claude went to Juilliard he got lost. The layout of the place baffled him—halls stretching off in all directions, elevators that went up two floors, or three, or four, according to some mysterious plan, room numbers that made no sense—and always crowds of people rushing amid the muted cacophony of sounds from the practice rooms. It made him dizzy.

He went into the men's room and there was Fredericks standing at the urinal. Claude took the basin two over and said, "Good. I could probably never have found his office."

Fredericks shook himself delicately and zipped up. "It's right around the corner. He won't be back today."

"Does this place sometimes seem like a madhouse to you?"

"Ah, well." Fredericks smiled. "Students. They're like bees. They swarm. And everything is overcrowded."

They left the men's room and made their way to the small office, which was so filled with books and scores there was barely room for them to sit on either side of the desk. A portrait of Brahms hung on the wall.

"So," Fredericks said, "all goes well?"

"The orchestral suite I sent to Rochester got an honorable mention." He took a deep breath. "Three years now, and the best I've done is one third prize and some honorable mentions. It's depressing." He picked at the edge of the desk with a fingernail. "It's gotten to the point that I don't really want to send stuff out, but Otto says I should."

"Otto is right."

"But what's the point if I don't get to hear it?"

Fredericks swiveled in his chair to face the small window. "You know, when you were a kid I was struck by your patience. You had great patience studying piano."

"Did I? It didn't feel like that." Claude thought for a moment. "Of course, I always felt progress. I knew I was getting better bit by bit. Composing isn't like that. Every time I write something it's like going back to square one."

"Maybe that's not so bad. Maybe that's the way it has to be."

"Am I getting better?"

"What do you mean by better?"

"Now you sound like Weisfeld," Claude said.

"You've worked with progressively larger forms. Your string writing, in fact all your section writing, is getting more sophisticated. From the technical point of view, certainly you're getting better. How can you doubt it?"

Claude heard the impatience in Fredericks's voice and felt himself flush. He knew he should drop it, but something made him go on. "It's depressing," he said again.

"Maybe you need a change. Go work with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. That can be arranged, I think."

Claude shook his head. "My wife," he said limply. He did not mention the stories he'd heard about Madame Boulanger: her autocratic behavior, her dress codes, her need for constant flattery. He hadn't liked the sound of it. (Claude was unaware that he'd become more than a bit spoiled by his very comfortable life, the attentions of Weisfeld, Levits, and Fredericks, and his status as a "hot" young performer.) And New York seemed the center of the world. Had he not met Samuel Barber? Gian Carlo Menotti (at a party where, to Claude's intense embarrassment, the British poet Stephen Spender had made a pass at him) ? Had he not been to dinner more than once at Leonard Bernstein's? Leaving seemed unthinkable. "It just seems to me I should be doing better."

"I wish you could hear the sound of your voice," Fredericks said.

Claude looked up, momentarily nonplused.

"Look," Fredericks said, "composing serious music is an act of faith. You can't
expect
anything, that's childish. Do it for its own sake, and if that's too hard, well then, don't do it." He put his hand out in the air, palms up. "Send the stuff out, but for God's sake don't sit around waiting for the phone to ring." He leaned back.

"I know, I know," Claude said.

"If you care so much about the competitions, you should be writing twelve-tone. Are you still so naive you expect justice? Look at Bartók. Of course he's a difficult man, but he makes barely enough to feed himself. Think about Béla when you feel like complaining." Aware that he might have gone too far—Claude's face was frozen in shock—Fredericks softened his tone. "I thought you were past this."

"Past what? It seems natural enough to me."

"Sure it's natural. It's also not very important. What you are looking for is authentication, Claude. But you're looking outside, to the system, and that's the wrong place to look. Bad music gets played every day and good music gets ignored. Everybody knows that. Forget about authentication. When it comes to writing music, all you can do is sign on for a way of life, and do the work. Do the work for its own sake."

Claude looked down at his hands. Fredericks was talking sense, but the brusqueness was unsettling.

"May I tell you something?" Fredericks asked. "As a friend? An older friend of long standing who cares about you?"

"Of course," Claude whispered.

"It's taking you a long time to grow up."

After a few moments Claude said, "I feel that sometimes."

"Have you ever thought why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I want to hold on to the wunderkind thing, just freeze everything. Some dumb part of me, self-image or something. Shit, I don't know." He got up, but there was no room to move, so he sat down again.

Fredericks nodded. "That could be part of it."

"I don't think about myself very much. At least not that way, psychoanalytically. I don't think about the past."

"Oh, psychoanalysis." Fredericks made a dismissive gesture. "All very well, I'm sure, but I'm thinking more along the lines of common
sense, as somebody who's known you a long time. I may be completely wrong, of course." He fixed Claude with his eyes, waiting.

"Go ahead," Claude said finally.

"I'm struck by the fact that so much has been given to you."

Claude raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Fredericks started counting on his fingers. "First, the essential musical gift. God-given, if you will. I remember as a child how strange it felt in many ways, and I'm sure you felt the same." He folded a second finger. "Weisfeld, teaching you for twenty-five cents a week, for his own reasons." A third finger. "The maestro's generosity and his gift of the Bechstein." A fourth finger. "Leading into lessons with me, the most expensive piano teacher in the world, probably. And I forgot to mention Weisfeld giving you the basement studio." A fifth finger. "Your big break with Frescobaldi, which must have felt like sheer luck."

"My scholarships to two good schools," Claude said.

"The completely accidental but fortuitous fact that your college girlfriend, whom you subsequently marry, is a multimillionaire well able to subsidize your musical activities."

"I agree, I agree," Claude said. "Those things, and other things have been given to me. I am and always will be grateful."

"I know that, Claude. It's one of the most charming things about you. A lesser man would resent it."

"Good Lord, no."

"It's only human nature, but never mind, I know you don't. The point is, it may have affected you in other ways. Are you superstitious, for instance?"

"I don't think so," Claude said, and then suddenly remembered his lucky piece. It seemed such a small, isolated thing he didn't mention it. "You mean touching wood or walking under ladders? No, no."

"It would be understandable if you thought of the world in somewhat magical terms, considering that so much was given to you, as if by magic, if you see what I mean."

"Sure, but I don't think so. I mean, it's true I don't suppose I know myself particularly well, but I don't recognize that. I should ask Lady."

"You should understand that only so much can come in the form of gifts," Fredericks said. "Gifts can take you only so far. Eventually we are thrown back on ourselves. It's a cliché, but it's true."

Claude understood the implication. It made him uneasy to think
about himself that way, and yet he felt some quiet stir of recognition deep down. There was even a distant flash of excitement as, for a split second, he sensed the vague possibility of transcending the circumstances of his life, of gaining a new kind of freedom. Was he strong enough? he wondered.

"Are you nervous?" Claude asked as the cab took them down Park Avenue.

Lady gave a little snort. "Not on your life." She'd dressed carefully, though. Brown suit, silk blouse, thin red scarf at her throat, silver snowflake pin on her lapel. She'd had her hair done the previous day, and although there were no major changes Claude wasn't quite used to it yet. "All this will be is a bore," she said.

When they pulled up in front of the house Claude paid twice the meter. "Merry Christmas," he said. He could see from the hack license that the driver's name was Horowitz.

"Thanks. Same to you."

The heavy iron door had been left ajar, and Lady surprised Claude by opening the inner one with a key. She led the way up the stairs, through the hall, and into the living room without hesitation. There were perhaps a dozen people standing around with punch glasses of eggnog, conversing in small groups. The first person to approach was Senator Barnes, smiling broadly. He gave Lady a kiss and shook Claude's hand.

"Splendid," the old man said. "Well done."

If Claude had been apprehensive about the possibility of an emotional scene of some sort, he had worried for nothing. Lady forged ahead, touched cheeks with her mother, nodded to her father, and said hello to a few people on her way to the punch bowl. There was no indication from anyone that anything the least bit out of the ordinary was going on. Once again Claude had the feeling that he had wandered into a smooth play in which all of the participants (except himself) were following to the letter the orders of some unseen director.

"Want some?" Lady asked.

"I don't know. Eggs."

"Have some wine, then," she said, motioning to the maid. "Got to have something. A glass of white wine for my husband, please, Maria." The maid nodded and left.

"Who are these people?" Claude asked.

"Some of their friends. A few moderately distant relatives. I have to mix, but why don't you sit down and let them come to you. Ha. Ha."

"Sure, but—" He was going to offer support.

"I know," she said, "but it'll be easier this way. Just the first go-round." She moved off to a small group by the French windows.

Claude thought he should at least present himself to Mrs. Powers. She was talking animatedly in a corner with an elderly gentleman, and as Claude approached he saw her eyes flit sideways and then back with incredible speed. She pretended to be surprised when he arrived.

"Hello," Claude said. "Merry Christmas." He did not offer to shake hands, since she held a punch glass.

"There you are, Claude," she said. "Judge Pearson. Claude Rawlings."