The Marble Quilt (23 page)

It hadn't previously occurred to me that Tim might have any emotional investment in our relationship—after all, he has no idea what I look like, has never heard my voice, etc.—yet going over his e-mails in light of your observations, I see that I might have been missing the key element all along.

I will continue to trudge along with the biography, albeit sorrowfully, the wiser for having suffered.

Yours,

Jeff

SUBJ:  
Bulthaup

DATE:  Monday, October 23, 2000, 4:01:27 AM

FROM: [email protected]

TO:     [email protected]

Dear Jeff,

How long it's been since I've heard from you! Are you well? I've been thinking about you since last week, when I happened to be at the Meerschaum Institute, sitting with Greg Samuels in his office. There on the desk was the ms. of that new collection of essays on Schumann and the “queer musicology.” When I asked Greg about it, he pushed it my way and said I could have it, that it was “garbage,” etc. Which set me to wondering whether he and Willard might have been lying all along about what they did with
your
ms.

And speaking of your book, the other day I saw an announcement of its forthcoming publication. Congratulations! I see that it's now scheduled to come out in April—plenty of time to include some of my material, if you're still interested. Looking back, I realize I may have been a bit liverish about the list business …

Will you be up in these parts any time soon? If so, perhaps we could meet for lunch and discuss the issues involved. It would be a great pleasure finally to meet you. And your book will only be the poorer if it does not include the pictures in my files.

Hugs,

Tim

To celebrate her husband's latest movie, a biography of Franz Liszt starring the much-admired John Ray, Jr., Lilia Wardwell decided to throw a party. The studio had high hopes that the film might win the Oscar that year;
Ben-Hur
had won the year before, and the word was that this time something more intimate might take the prize, so a party was just the thing. The theme would be Romanticism. A pianist, done up in Liszt's soutane, would play wonderful music, while waiters in nineteenth-century livery circulated with trays of hors d'oeuvres. Also, in addition to the usual Hollywood crowd, she would invite Stravinsky and his wife, Vera.

She called her husband at the studio, and said, “Frank, I need a pianist for the party. Any ideas?”

“I'll see what I can do,” he answered. As it happened, there
was
a pianist around the studio, an immigrant called Kusnezov who, people said, could play any song without the music, just by hearing it hummed. Whenever a piano scene was required, it was Kusnezov's hands that were filmed; in the Liszt movie his hands were substituted for those of John Ray, Jr.

From the associate producer, Wardwell got Kusnezov's number. He expected he would have to do some prodding, as in his experience artist types tended to be sensitive. Instead Kusnezov proved to be extremely cordial and, having first inquired with delicacy as to his fee, agreed instantly to the job—providing, if it was no inconvenience, that he be paid in advance, and in cash. From this Wardwell deduced that he either gambled, drank, or had an ex-wife pressing him for alimony.

At seven o'clock on the evening of the party Kusnezov arrived at the Wardwells'
house and knocked, as instructed, at the service entrance. In the kitchen a dozen or so waiters were fighting their way into tight suits from the studio's costume bank, while the cook and her assistants spooned caviar onto toast points, and cut sandwiches into the shapes of playing card suits, and emptied canned hearts of palms onto silver platters. Having first explained who he was to a man in butler's livery, Kusnezov waited quietly by the refrigerator until Mrs. Wardwell appeared. She was a woman of heft, with a shelflike bosom and béchamel-colored hair. Her perfume commingled perversely with the cooking smells. “Mr. Kusnezov, so glad to meet you,” she said, offering a moisturized hand, and gave him the once-over. His appearance worried her. After all, though he was wearing the requisite soutane, Kusnezov—it could not be denied—was old. When he leaned forward to kiss her hand, his breath smelled of liquor. Also Liszt (and John Ray, Jr.) had those wonderful, Samson-like locks, whereas Kusnezov was mostly bald, with just a few watery hairs brushed forward over his pate; hardly what she'd envisioned when she'd planned the party.

Still, she was determined to be game and, clasping his hand in hers, took him into the living room, which was harp-shaped, sweeping, with ribbed walls. “I'm told the acoustics here are sublime,” she said, leading him across the polished floor to the piano. Most of the furniture—Scandinavian, of light wood and leather—had been pushed up against the walls. As for the glossy white piano, it stood on a platform before a row of louvered floor-to-ceiling windows, through the glass of which Kusnezov could see a blue swimming pool refracting the sunset, a barbecue pit, an array of houses in crisp shades of pink and green spilling down the hills toward an ocean you could still make out in those days before smog.

They stepped up onto the platform. “I trust our humble instrument will be to your liking,” Mrs. Wardwell said, positioning herself beside the piano like a soprano. “Do sit. It's a Steinway, of course. My husband wanted a cheaper brand, but I said, ‘Frank, Steinway is the instrument of the immortals.'”

“And do you play yourself?” Kusnezov asked, adjusting, with a finicky backward motion of the hands, the height of the white leather stool.

“Not seriously, I'm afraid. Still, I do enjoy tinkling out a bit of Chopin now and then … Oh, I had the tuner up this morning.”

Having first wiped his hands, which were slippery with her moisturizer, onto his handkerchief, Kusnezov sat down and played a scale.

“A lovely tone,” he said. “Not too bright.”

“Fine. As for the music, as I'm sure my husband explained, it should be romantic, in keeping with the film. Still, this is a party, so we don't want everyone getting down in the dumps, do we?”

“No, madame.”

“So nothing dreary. I would be most grateful.”

He bowed his head.

“Oh, haven't you brought any music?”

“There is no need, madame.”

“Of course you're welcome to use any of
our
scores. My daughter Elise can turn pages.”

“There is no need, madame.”

“Fine.” She rubbed her hands together. “Well, the guests should be arriving in a half
an hour or so. Oh, would you like a drink? Burt”—she signaled the bartender—“get Mr. Kusnezov a drink. What will you have?”

“A whiskey and soda. Straight up.”

“A whiskey and soda, Burt. And now if you'll excuse me, I must check on things in the kitchen.”

He nodded. She left. Burt brought Kusnezov his drink, which he guzzled fast. Smiling, Burt mixed him a second one.

The doorbell rang. The man in butler's livery admitted a group of five into the foyer—all dear friends of Mrs. Wardwell whom she had asked to come early, to “break the ice.” Sitting at the piano, Kusnezov played some Chopin waltzes. The next guest to arrive was Lee Remick. And then Mrs. Wardwell strode in, and Mr. Wardwell, who had been drinking alone in his study, and their daughter Elise, who scowled through thick glasses. Everyone except Elise chatted amiably as Mrs. Wardwell allowed her gaze occasionally to rest with approval upon the figure of Kusnezov, who had moved from the waltzes to Liszt's late evocation of the fountains at the Villa d'Este.

After forty minutes, he took a break. Burt mixed him a third whiskey and soda. In the meantime John Ray, Jr., had arrived, an event which had provoked the assembled to burst into a round of applause. Square-jawed, from Texas, the young actor had large hands and thick, blond hair that to his regret, he had recently been forced to cut in preparation for his next role, a navy lieutenant. Although his official escort for the evening was a lesbian starlet named Lorna Baskin, he had made a secret arrangement to rendezvous at the party with his lover of the moment, the young professor of musicology at UCLA who had served as musical advisor for the Liszt movie. As instructed, the professor came alone,
and late. Kusnezov was by now taking his second break. Most of the guests—Hollywood socialites and actors, though alas no Stravinskys—were out on the patio. In the living room a group of studio executives took advantage of the lull to share Cuban cigars and cut deals. As for Kusnezov, he was leaning against the bar, talking with Burt about the dog races.

The professor asked Burt for a screwdriver. He was a Bostonian of thirty-five, new in Southern California, having taken his position at UCLA only the year before. In the weirdly artificial atmosphere of the party he appeared himself to be in costume, with his bow tie and eastern tweeds. His face melancholic (for he did not see his lover), he peered out the door at the humming crowd, before strolling over to examine the piano. After a few minutes Kusnezov stepped past him and took his place again. They nodded at each other.

Kusnezov started to play—a Chopin nocturne in C minor that, as it happened, was one of the professor's favorites. He sat down to listen. All at once, and quickly, the music carried him away from that ample California living room with its ribbed walls, and into a small house, a winter house, where a coal fire was burning. There was grief in the air, not fresh, but a few years old, its presence vague as the smell of cooking. No one dared address it. No one dared acknowledge the sprite of memory that danced in the heavy, soot-thickened air. Then the professor smiled, for now he felt sure of something he had long suspected: that Chopin had written this nocturne for a sister who had died in childhood. In Kusnezov's hands, the supposition became a certainty.

Burt was silent. Even the executives fell silent. As for the professor, he was remembering a poem by Oscar Wilde, written also in memory of a sister dead in
childhood, a sister buried:

Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow
,

Speak gently, she can hear

The daisies grow
.

From the patio John Ray, Jr., entered the room. He was talking to John Wayne. Their loud conversation dimmed only once they recognized that people were listening to the music, at which point they stopped and stood by the door, smiling respectfully.

The professor looked at John Ray, Jr. John Ray, Jr., looked over the professor.

Peace, peace, she cannot hear

Lyre or sonnet
,

All my life's buried here
,

Heap earth upon it
.

The prelude ended. No one applauded. Once again, Kusnezov got up and got a drink, as did John Ray, Jr., John Wayne, and the professor. The lovers did not acknowledge each other.

Only once the two actors had returned to the patio did the professor dare approach Kusnezov. His eyes revealed his knowledge—that he had heard; that he had recognized.

“That was magnificent,” he said.

“Yes, it was,” Kusnezov answered simply.

“May I ask you a question?” The professor stepped closer. “Who
are
you?”

“Who
was
I? you mean. That is the apposite point.”

“You mean before the war …”

Kusnezov shook his head. “The war is not to blame. I came to live in this country thirty years ago.”

“Then what happened?”

“What happened? What happened?” The pianist laughed. And meanwhile Jane Russell had come into the room, Mrs. Wardwell had come into the room, bringing with her a loud, invasive odor of perfume. She shot Kusnezov a glance, the meaning of which was obvious:
Get back to work, and no more of the depressing stuff
.

“I must go,” he said to the professor. And putting down his empty glass, he returned to the piano.

“Do you know of anyplace the professor might have gone to eat beans?”

I look down at the
maresciallo
's hands, spread languidly across the gunmetal surface of the desk. His nails are neatly pared. He wears a gold wedding ring; a brilliant gold chain-link bracelet is draped loosely over the bones of his wrist. To his left, on the edge of the desk, sits one of his deputies. To his right, another of his deputies takes down my statement on an old computer, the letters pulsing green against a black background. Other
carabinieri
come and go, listen for a few minutes, light cigarettes, or snap the tops of Coke cans. All of them are Roman, in their early thirties or younger, with glossy dark hair and thick wrists. This is the homicide division, and I am here to give testimony.

“Beans?” I repeat.

“Yes, beans.”

“Well, I know Tom was very fond of the Obitorio—the ‘morgue'—that pizzeria down on Viale Trastevere, next to McDonald's. Of course,
obitorio
is just the nickname he gave it, because of the tables. They're made of marble, so …”

“Oh, of course. The pizzas are very good there.”

“They also serve beans. It's one of their specialties.”

The
maresciallo
's deputy types; reads aloud, “The professor often ate at a pizzeria on Viale Trastevere that he called the ‘morgue,' because of the marble tables. It was known for its beans.”

“Is that all right with you?” the
maresciallo
says.

“Yes, that's fine,” I say.

More than once, during this interview, I've asked questions about Tom's murder, and been told, ever so politely, that I am here to provide information, not solicit it. Nonetheless, some of the
maresciallo
's questions reveal things. For instance: Did Tom make a habit of drinking red wine? Had he ever mentioned a trip to Tunisia? Where might he have gone to eat beans?