The Silver Swan (28 page)

“Presuming you do, yes.” She adjusted her sunglasses, nodding. The river smelled dank. She could tell he was not ready to relinquish what he’d not yet possessed. “Claude, I’m trying to be helpful, realistic. Of course all decisions are yours to make.”

“Don’t you remember,” he protested, “Alexander always railed against putting great instruments away, locking them up in glass boxes in museums?”

“Like most other institutions, they would be willing — after a brief exhibition — to loan it back to you. It’s often a condition of the gift: you play it for your lifetime. But when your career is over, it returns to the Met, permanently, unless they want to loan it out again.”

“Do they suggest I simply give it to them as a gift?”

“No, of course not an outright gift. The curator assured me that between the tax advantages of a donation and a pledge he’s received from a donor, they could make a handsome offer. Not market price, but substantial.”

“What did they offer?”

“They didn’t make a firm offer. That they must make to you, not me. I put them off. But after the repairs I’m sure we would still have a great deal of money.”

Puzzled, he said, “
We?
”

It was time, she knew, to speak of this. “I don’t mean I expect to get anything like half. I do realize Alexander left
you the Swan. But if you thought it were fair, I’d like to have enough to allow me to keep Swann’s Way and pay the taxes on the rest of the estate.”

Frowning, he looked out over the Hudson. “Do the dealers know yet what happened? To the Strad, I mean.”

“Not as far as I know. But these things are hard to keep secret in the music world. The fire in Stockbridge was certainly not reported in New York, though most of the Tanglewood crowd heard about it. The fire, that is, not the cello.”

“And what if it
does
retain its sound? It would be worth far more than any museum would pay.”

“Why don’t we wait and see,” she suggested.

At eight o’clock that evening, Mariana and Claude met Pierre Fernand at his office. They brought the Swan. Pierre had made a special arrangement to come and receive them, though he was not yet regularly back at work. He looked frail and walked with a slight limp. The showroom was dark. They went straight back to his workshop. Heinrich Baum was traveling, he told them, inviting them to sit on the high stools grouped at his table.

Mariana fingered a scroll. It was unvarnished, “in the white.”

“Pierre,” she began, “I’ve had an unfortunate accident with the Swan.”

“So I have heard,” he answered. She and Claude were startled.

“Yes, of course we have heard about that terrible fire. Almost a tragedy.” He paused. “But the copies were saved, in
the safe, and the Swan, she has some damage, but she does not burn.
Oui?
Baum talked with somebody at Tanglewood.”

Mariana and Claude exchanged glances. She said, “I’m afraid it has a crack. On the back, near the sound post and easy to see. We’ve come to ask if you would take a look at it and tell us what you think — how much work it would require and what you would charge for repairs.”

He faced her squarely. “I am disappointed in you, Mariana. First you run away with the Swan and then you put it near a fire and give it a bonk. Your poor
papa
. Imagine he is turning in his grave. You have not treated it with respect, and now look what has happened. I am sad for M. Roselle to have this trouble — and for your father.” He sighed. “But we will take a look.”

Pierre opened the case and laid the Swan gently on his worktable under the hanging light. As he turned it over, he winced. The cello was badly wounded. He said nothing for a while but continued to inspect the maple with great tenderness. Watching, Mariana felt nothing but shame.

“What can I tell you?” he said at last. “This is,
hélas
, a big bit of damage. I can repair it, yes, but I guarantee only the way she will look. And it takes months, not weeks.”

“When can you begin?” Claude asked.

“I must open her up, as you know. It will not be easy or cheap. There will be papers to sign. M. Roselle will be willing?”

“Yes,” he answered, “we are in complete agreement.”

“Good. I would like to see the crack from inside. I will open her up? Together we will assess her damage, if you like.”

“Yes, of course,” Claude said again, but Mariana said nothing. Pierre removed the strings and — because the tension of
the strings no longer held it in place, he lifted the bridge. He removed the ebony tailpiece and saddle. Next, he carefully applied alcohol along the plate of the cello, where it was joined to the ribs. This he did several times.

He produced a thin knife and tried its blade edge on his thumb. Probing, he inserted it between the belly and the ribs of the cello. Mariana thought she might faint. He looked up, half smiling. “I have performed this operation hundreds of times, my dears, but never on so beautiful a patient.”

They heard a scraping sound and then a series of squeaks, the wood complaining against the knife. Then they heard a shocking clap and a sundering groan as Fernand lifted the top free. He stood under the lamp’s bright light. On the table lay the dismembered Swan.

As he walked Mariana home, Claude wrapped his arm around her. “I think you should contact the Met and speak with the Scotsman. If he makes a reasonable offer, it might be best to accept. The crack can be repaired, but it seems the word is out.” She agreed.

On Claude’s final morning in Manhattan, he played the Vuillaume in Mariana’s living room. She lay on the couch, eyes closed. After running through his usual warm-up exercises, he turned to the Victor Herbert Cello Concerto No. 2 in E Minor, which he was preparing to play the next month in Munich. Mariana had performed it many times. It had been one of Feldmann’s favorites. He’d praised the amplitude of its dramatic impact, the lilting melodic line in the Andante. Claude had listened often to Feldmann’s recording of the concerto, with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, but he had never studied it with his mentor. Now he played for Mariana.

She listened intently. Lying back on the couch, languid, she opened her eyes and studied him. As he approached the end of the prologue, Mariana sat bolt upright, shouting, “Make the dog howl, Claude. You have to make the dog howl!”

He stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“It’s what Alexander used to say. Our little spaniel would sit quietly all day in his studio when he was practicing or teaching. But she would go nuts when Alexander played the Victor Herbert. She would moan as if she played along with him during the slow movement, and howl during the Allegros. My father was delighted. He thought this was a sign of her great musical sensitivity. And whenever he felt I wasn’t performing at the emotional level the music demanded — with any piece, not just the Herbert — he would shout at me, ‘Make the dog howl!’ It meant, ‘Find the music; go deeper; give more. No other concerto ever made Maxxie howl, but Alexander would howl at me if he approved of something I’d done. It was his highest accolade. Now start again, Claude, from the very beginning.”

First he laughed about the musical dog. Then, growing serious, he played again. She became his teacher, coaching him, singing along, stopping him to explain — with a ferocity similar to Alexander’s but far less unkind — where Claude was failing the music. “You’re playing the notes correctly, but you’re not playing the music.” How often she’d heard Feldmann say this, or, “Your playing teaches me nothing about life.” And how many times she’d seen students in his master classes blanch and start to cry. “Oh, don’t do that,” she’d want to call out, “he hates tears. They make him mean. He’ll
think you don’t have the inner strength to be an artist.” But, of course, she didn’t dare to interrupt, and when the student played again, the improvement was remarkable. Was that what it took? she had wondered. This could never be her way.

Claude went over and over the phrases until she told him to move on. For two hours, they proceeded in this fashion and when, at last, he performed the concerto again for her, from start to finish, she threw back her head and howled, “Arooooo!”

He smiled and thanked her. “That was a great help.” Claude stood and handed Mariana the instrument. “Now, you play for me.”

She started, again, to protest. He silenced her: “You promised.”

“I didn’t. There’s nothing I’m prepared to play.”

“I know that’s true, because I’ve had your cello. Just play a single movement of a Bach suite. Anything. Play anything at all. I want to see you, to hear you play …”

Mariana took the chair. Claude settled himself on the couch, mopping his forehead and stretching his neck. She tuned again, plucking the strings and adjusting the bow. Then, brushing back her hair, she looked down in silence. She let that silence extend. Finally, lifting the bow to the strings, she began the Sarabande of Bach’s Suite in D Minor. The haunting opening — slow, melancholy, contemplative — reflected what she was feeling. Her hands felt clumsy, her fingers weak; the double and triple stops were hard to maintain. Mariana knew that her technique, hampered by months of neglect, was less than perfect. And yet she played, reaching into the depths of the meditative, prayerful line, drawing out each phrase until she reached the final, whispered note.

She rested her head against the neck of the Vuillaume and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw that Claude was near tears. He had recognized the passionate restraint and sensitivity she shared with Alexander, their link direct. It was as if her father held the bow. Perhaps Claude could hear, as she could, what technique she’d lost since she’d stopped practicing four hours a day, years ago. But his expression told her that he understood what might have been and what remained of her great talent.

She put the cello down and sat next to him on the couch. Claude was ruminative. Suddenly, he threw back his head and howled, “Arooooo!”

Mariana giggled, swinging her legs over his. He stroked her hair, absently. Sipping coffee and looking at the Sunday
Times
, which Claude had brought with him, they spent the morning on the couch together. She leaned against him. In the filtered light, they talked about Alexander and Francine’s love affair. “How they must have needed to plot and lie to be together,” Mariana said. “I couldn’t imagine a life of such stealth and deceit.”

“For a while, perhaps,” Claude answered, “but not for a lifetime. Did they not love each other enough?”

“It was Alexander,” Mariana answered. “He never loved enough.”

At noon, Claude looked at his watch, stretched, and stood. He took both her hands and drew her off the couch and into a long embrace, brushing his lips against her forehead. Although her heartbeat quickened, she opened the door to see him out.

At seven o’clock on this October evening, guests cluster under the banners of the Bloomberg Court, exchanging greetings, drinking champagne, and lifting hors d’oeuvres off trays. Some inspect the display of medieval armor, the horses and swords and curiously small human figures swathed in metal and chain mail. Some study the halberds and pikes. One hundred of the museum’s trustees and donors have been invited to a black-tie reception and lecture in the refurbished André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments. This evening’s gala for supporters of the collection gives them an opportunity to see the great Silver Swan.

Chairs have been arranged at the center of the long, narrow display space around a carpeted platform that serves as a small stage. Three chairs have been placed there, one for Claude, one for Mariana, and one for Andrew Macintosh, the curator of musical instruments, who will introduce them.

“Fourteen years ago this very evening, ladies and gentlemen, I had the considerable pleasure of introducing the late, great Alexander Feldmann in this room. Some of you perhaps were present at that time also and remember the occasion:
we had the privilege of hearing Maestro Feldmann demonstrate and speak about his legendary instrument. That night Mr. Feldmann played his Stradivarius, the incomparable Silver Swan, and his daughter, Mariana, played a copy of it fashioned in the nineteenth century by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. Maestro Feldmann had made it his hobby, over many years, to commission reproductions of the cello by contemporary luthiers. There are now all together nine such copies.