“Okay,” he said. “Thank you for your time. This is what the Americans call a demo. It’s a theme to be used in commercials and for telephone hold music.” Because he was smiling when he said it, they laughed. Élodi looked at him sharply, as if she understood that something, perhaps his dignity, or more than his dignity, was in play. “I’ve recently dealt with some very rich, strange, crazy, and perhaps dangerous people. They commissioned this and I agreed to it. They probably won’t be happy, but let’s get on with it.”
Everyone positioned themselves. That is, everyone but Élodi, who didn’t move a centimeter. When they were settled in, the engineer gave a thumbs up, Jules nodded out the count to three, and all the bows began to move simultaneously. Very quickly, the students were taken up by the music, lifted out of themselves and into the better world that was the reason they had become or were becoming musicians, a world into which they were given entry with just a few strokes of a bow. It was so easy and yet so wonderful that it left them as if among angels. When after a day at work they would go home, they would float above the sidewalk, the sky would come alight, everything that moved would dance, and the faces of people in the Métro would be like the faces in Renaissance paintings.
Now they were gliding along the rhythmic ascending and descending waves, locked in the repetitions, and moved by the violins’ commentary – a loving but sad validation – upon the more active cellos and violas. The entire cycle lasted only a minute, and they went through it four times, five times, six, and seven. The engineer kept on giving the cut signal, but they were entranced. Their expressions were elevated and alive with optimism. They were happy, but with the regretful underlayment that makes happiness real.
Glancing at them, Jules recognized the beatific expression musicians sometimes have when they play the allegro of the Third Brandenburg and do not want to stop. He had never heard his own piece played, never seen how it could affect others. He thought that, as in all good music of every kind, he had been privileged to allow the escape of – in this case – the tiniest sliver of an ever-present perfection that presses invisibly against the heart of all things. And he knew that were they to go through the cycle too many times, as they might, something would be lost. There was only so much of the gift of music that the soul could support until exhaustion. So he stopped it while they were still vibrating almost as much as their strings.
“Beautiful,” said a violinist as the instruments were cased.
“American telephones,” said another, “will now surpass ours. You’re a traitor.”
“It’s for our telephones, too.”
They liked it, but would the Americans? After all, it had no “Bop bop, sheh bop!” Or anything like that. America was a giant country that seemed always to be racing ahead and bouncing up and down. Very violent Europeans had clashed with very crazy savages in a place where geysers popped out of the ground, and what you got was “Bop bop, sheh bop!” At least that was the view of the French. His piece would have to pass muster in Los Angeles, which was sunny, pastel, green, and unreal. Jules didn’t even know how to send it there. “Can you make this into an MP9?” he asked the engineer.
“An MP3? Sure. Do you have an email address?”
Jules didn’t like having even a cell phone, but Cathérine was able to attach one to him by arranging a beautiful aria as its ring tone. Sometimes Jules would call himself on his landline so he could listen to it over and over. And often he missed calls because he listened rather than answer. He didn’t remember his cell number, and most of the time left the phone off. Of the engineer at his bank of equipment, he asked, “You can do it right here, now?”
The engineer, knowing that Jules was of several generations past, nodded tolerantly. “This is a computer,” he said.
“It records and it mails? It’s all prepared?”
“All prepared.” With some rapid keystrokes and mouse movements, he set it up. “What’s the address?”
It was
[email protected].
“What would you like to say?”
“I would like to say, in English, ‘Dear Jack, here is the music you asked for. I hope it pleases you. Please let me know at your earliest convenience. Jules Lacour.’”
“That’s all?”
“What else?”
The engineer hit send. “It’s done.”
Jules thanked him. Things had gone wonderfully, and for the moment he was not thinking of Élodi, but when he turned she was right there, staring at him. She couldn’t have been either more forward or more inexplicable. He almost started. Now he could see directly into her eyes, and never had he beheld a more elegant and refined woman, not even Jacqueline. This pained him, but he couldn’t escape either the truth of it, the traction, or the feeling of euphoria as he stood by her.
She broke the silence. “Bonjour. I’m going to be your student,” she said matter-of-factly, extending her hand. He reciprocated, they shook hands, and when they stopped they failed to disengage – for perhaps five extraordinary seconds.
After a moment, he came out with, “I don’t think you’re on my list.” It was all he could manage to say.
“I’m not, but I will be,” she replied.
He was astounded. Among other reasons, this did not happen. But though placement was not up to the students, he had no doubt that in fact she would be on his list.
“I may have to go to America for a few weeks,” he said.
As if he were an idiot, she replied, instructionally, “You’ll be back, and I’ll be here.” Then, without looking at him, she lifted her cello, turned, and walked out. He might as well have been hit with a shovel.
AT THE BEGINNING of fall, cool nights at Saint-Seine-l’Abbaye (the source of the Seine, near Dijon), and in the Haute Marne and other regions descending from the lower parts of Switzerland into the Île-de-France had sped up the flow of the Seine and made it suddenly cold. At no preset date, but as September wears on, it is as if a switch is thrown to banish summer. The strength of the sun is equivalent to that of March, the leaves begin to turn, with many having fallen already in August, and the scent of burning brush, floating up the hill in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, hints at the wood fires that will arrive with winter.
Jules had put his boat in the water and begun to row upstream against the stiff current that just before he got in his shell had tried to rip it from the dock. For half an hour he would fight the flow, moving slowly, and then shoot back to the boathouse in less than ten minutes. The turn at the Bir-Hakeim Bridge would be tricky, for when the current was perpendicular to the boat, swinging the stern around required force greater than that which pushed against it from upstream. He had seen single shells swept downriver sideways, totally out of control, until they were either fortuitously turned in an eddy, thrown against the embankment, or capsized.
Unlike many who found themselves once every few years struggling in the water, Jules had never gone over. Not only was he anxious of maintaining his perfect record, but, for him, capsizing would be dangerous especially when the water was cold and fast flowing. So he tried to concentrate, but found that he couldn’t. Possessed by excitement, fear, and regret, his mind raced as he strained at the oars. Thinking of the young woman, Élodi, who had appeared and disappeared, leaving teasing words that echoed through him, he felt what he had felt half a century before when he had fallen in love with Jacqueline – a dizzying, euphoric, internal rocket launch.
But it was impossible and it was wrong. Though Jacqueline was dead and by the world’s standards far more than a decent interval had passed, she lived in his memory, and to replace her would be to silence her. He spoke to her many times a day. He brought back her image and could see her in color, moving and three-dimensional. He was able to feel her touch and retrieve the scent of her perfume just in imagination. Little was left of her except in the fidelity he dared not compromise.
Had Jacqueline never existed, falling in love with Élodi would anyway have been ill-advised. He was not François Ehrenshtamm, wh
o could leave even a living woman he had once loved and start all over again with someone else young enough to be his daughter. Jules had always thought that this kind of desire for a much younger woman was a vain play against death – which, because it of all things could not be denied, would end the gambit in hellish suffering not in an afterworld but this one, when the aged man who had become a repulsive husk would despair upon the sight of a young woman who wanted and deserved others.
Élodi was young enough to be his granddaughter and probably had no interest in him at all. He hoped he had misinterpreted her tone and her words. He didn’t want, like François, to tilt against aging and death but rather only to spar with them, striking here and there, evading their blows as much as possible, but always aware that they would win. In that dance they would take the lead and he would accept it if only because courage was worth more than trying to hold on to youth.
Although at first his astounding infatuation had had no sexual component, now he felt such immense heat in imagining her that he quivered. He was possibly fit and capable enough to keep up with her for a while, but how long would that last? It simply could not be, so he tried just to concentrate upon the rhythm of his strokes as he strained at the oars. But straining at the oars was like making love to her, and in a parallel he didn’t particularly like, he couldn’t strain for as long as he wanted against the new volumes of water flowing inexhaustively from the foothills of the Alps.
Remembering the calming scent of smoke rising up from the slopes of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was not enough to distract him. Nor were the prospects of his song in America. All he could think of was this Élodi, in whose presence he had been for only twenty minutes, whom he had hardly touched, and with whom he had spoken only a few uncertain words. Then, at Bir-Hakeim, he made the difficult turn while he was distracted, and was almost swept sideways downriver. But because there had been so many turns over so many years and he was not quite ready to fail, he recovered and was soon speeding back to the dock, fast and straight, liberated for a moment from everything except his rapid progress on the water.
TEN YEARS BEFORE, after sprinting without pause for half an hour he would have been awakened as if by caffeine, but now after rowing or running he had to rest. A twenty-minute nap usually would suffice, or just sitting quietly on a bench. No one else was in the boathouse, as often was the case when he rowed. The few people left in the club almost always came only in the morning or on weekends. He paid ever-increasing dues keyed to the ever-declining membership, kept his boat and oars in good order, cleaned up the dock, and tidied the desk where the logbook rested. Though he was the most senior member of the club, if not the oldest, many of the newer ones, never having seen him, thought he was fictitious.
He took a long, hot shower, and dressed. A cot wedged between the boat bays was covered in a white towel. Someone may have used the towel to wipe down a boat, and it was filthy. He seized it, threw it into a hamper, took a freshly laundered terrycloth from the top of the dryer, and laid it out. Then he sat on the cot and looked over the dock and across the water.
Though the fast-flowing Seine was the color of gunmetal, the sky was Parisian blue and early autumn wind made trees across the water glitter in continuous palsy. Because of the wind, the velocity of the current, and the surge of barge traffic in mid-afternoon, no one would be rowing. Also, participation fell off at the end of summer, when people were busy once again, and who could blame them? Streets, gardens, and colors were at their most beautiful in the cool air, dimming light, and the shadow of a weakening sun. The club was neither incorporated nor allowed in Paris itself, but the barge had been moored against the Quai du Point du Jour since before the war, and during the war was used by the Resistance. Every mayor of Paris since had told them that if they kept quiet, didn’t expand, publicize, or make a fuss, they could stay.
Jules swung his feet onto the cot, lay back, and turned his head to see barges as they raced by. The wind coursing through the leaves sounded like a river running through a weir. He breathed deeply, intending to sleep for twenty minutes or so but no longer. As he thought of one thing after another, all took flight and he was released into sleep.
WHEN HE AWOKE it was dark except for lights on the opposite bank. He had slept so deeply he knew neither where he was nor when it was – not merely the time but the decade. After a few seconds, he got his bearings. The boathouse didn’t have a clock, his watch didn’t have a luminous dial, and because he was never there at night he didn’t remember where the light switch was.
As he sat up he felt the cell phone in his pocket, pulled it out, and flipped it open. It illuminated his face in such a deathly way that it was fortunate he didn’t see himself. Nonetheless he was shocked to see that it was after eight and he had slept for more than five hours. Then he remembered Élodi, and a wave of pleasure and pain coursed through his body. Without even thinking, he used the phone to call Ehrenshtamm.
“Have you eaten?” he asked.
“Who?”
“What do you mean, who? Who else?”
“I’m about to go out. I gave a speech, got home late, and they had already eaten – with nothing left for me, thank you very much. I think that’s a message, but anyway I was going to go to Renée. Why? Where are you?”
“Rowing.”
“At night?”
“No. I slept. See you in half an hour.” Jules disconnected.
They still frequented the undistinguished Boul-Miche bistros in which they had practically lived when they were students, but now when François finished a speech in which he was adored by the audience – especially the attractive women – and pocketed a fat check, he liked to go to Chez Renée on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Not only was it excellent, it was the kind of place where if François were recognized he would be ignored, because many of its patrons were, or thought themselves, of equal or superior status. He was an intellectual, and they were intellectuals, but because he was famous and could be seen on television, they looked down on him as much as they deeply envied him. Also the restaurant served Purée Crécy, for which François had had a weakness since childhood. He had been going there for a long time, it was doing badly enough to suggest that it might close, and he wanted to help.
“You slept for five hours? Are you sick?”
“Tired.”
“Usually a good reason to sleep. Shouldn’t you have gone home first? You’re not a narcoleptic.”
“Perhaps not, but when I nap in the afternoon I find it hard to wake up. I’m still not fully awake. What was your speech like?”
“It went well, filled the hall, lots of beautiful women, especially one in the front row. I couldn’t stop looking at her.”
“What was the subject?”
“Accident and design.”
“I may not have the heart for controversies anymore. There have been too many, and I’m too old.”
“It was on a different level, apart from controversy. I observed that sometimes accident is so perfectly aligned with purpose that it seems impossible that there is no design, but I didn’t push for a conclusion. Hamlet tells Horatio that sometimes our indiscretions serve us well, and then concludes that it’s because a divinity shapes our ends – and I can’t believe that Shakespeare, of all people, was unaware of the rather broad pun. I left that to the audience and dwelt instead upon the many circumstances when that which either you never could have dreamed or that which you fight against surprisingly delivers you to your exact intended destination. You know those film clips, of explosions or natural catastrophes, that are run backwards?”
“Yes, the billion fragments of a vase that has fallen to the floor and been smashed, but all the pieces fly up and reconstitute themselves perfectly.”
“Exactly. That seems to me to be one characteristic of reality that we tend to ignore. In math and physics the three-body problem shows that it’s impossible to predict the behavior of, for example, the components of a fluid. Yet its uncountable, autonomous particles will always al
ign properly and perfectly to flow through a restricted channel, and then break out into seeming anarchy in a bay. It happens over and over again, all the discrete parts of reality hewing to one another, eventually, to make a whole: eppur si muove. Put it this way: sometimes the things you want the least end up saving you, in a flow of time and events that’s impossible to predict and yet ends with all the disparate pieces making something perfect, beautiful, and just.”
At this moment, half a dozen motorcyclists roared past on the boulevard so loudly that Jules couldn’t answer, and both he and François turned to look. “The police don’t do that,” Jules said. “Their machines are just as powerful if not more so, but they’re much quieter. I hate barbaric motorcyclists. Ninety percent of their machines are black, as is their clothing. Their helmets completely hide their faces, making them look like space insects, erasing their humanity. They ride around like the Black Knight. I detest knights. Except when I played with lead ones, I’ve always detested knights.”
“Even Sir Launcelot?”
“Even Sir Launcelot.”
“I’d have thought a traditionalist like you would find them admirable.”
“Admirable? The agency that kept all of Europe in a system of slavery? I’d have been with the peasants who pulled them off their horses and killed them as they wiggled like turtles in their heavy armor.”
“What’s going on? Were you just hit by a motorcyclist?”
With a quick shake of his head Jules indicated that he had not been.
“Why then this volcanic eruption? It’s not like you.” François checked himself. “Actually, it is, if you remember Sophie.”
“Sophie who?”
“The little girl when we fenced.”
“Oh yes. I had forgotten her name. I remember, vaguely.”
“I’ll never forget. She was tiny, about twelve, maybe eleven. Whenever a man was paired against her, we went easy. It was the beginning of paternal love for us – perhaps a little early for university students, but we wanted to protect her.”