The Soloist (17 page)

“In that case, yes, I’ll join you.”

She handed me a can of beer and told me to have a seat on the couch. I noticed it was covered with dog or cat hair, but I didn’t see any pets. As she thumbed her way through the chaotic pile I looked more carefully around the room. The only personal touch I could see was a collection of tiny glass animals arranged on a ledge in front of a window and a wooden carving that spelled out the phrase
OH SHIT
! Everything else was strictly functional.

I felt uncomfortable but happy at the same time. There was something darkly satisfying about sitting in Maria-Teresa’s messy house, drinking beer out of a can and listening to her caustic sense of humor. Also, her faux pas about my recording made me far more at ease around her than I might otherwise have been. I was still nervous, though. There was no avoiding the fact that I was sexually attracted to her, so
what was I doing, letting her choose a rock-music tape for me? Was I leading her on?

I tried to put such thoughts out of my mind. What was I worrying about? Even if I were considering getting involved with a married woman, which I wasn’t, it wouldn’t be someone like Maria-Teresa. We had absolutely nothing in common, and she was married to a man who would probably knock me over the head with a railroad tie if he found out. Also, I had no reason to believe she was interested in me. We were the two youngest on the jury by at least ten years, so it was only natural that we would end up talking more to each other than to the others. Still, I couldn’t quite explain to myself what I thought I was doing in her house.

“Ahhh, just the thing.”

“You found what you were looking for?”

“Yep.” She handed me an unmarked cassette. “I’m pretty sure this is it. Make sure and listen to all of it before you report back to me, even if you can only take it in doses.”

“What sort of music is it? Is there a name for it?”

“I’m not gonna tell you. I don’t want you to have any preconceived ideas. But I’ll spare you one worry—it isn’t me.”

She flopped down into a chair and brushed her hand through her hair. “I know we aren’t supposed to talk about the trial,” she said, “but I’m curious—are we supposed to be able to remember all that stuff the psychiatrist was talking about?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re just supposed to get an overall impression from it. They certainly can’t expect us to remember all that technical information.”

“Yeah, like the business about going into a star hole and not being able to come out? What’s that all about?”

“Oh, it’s incredibly fascinating. There are all sorts of ways stars can die. I just read that some become black holes, some become white dwarfs and others turn into red giants.”

She cast a sidelong glance at me. “Better be careful who overhears you when you talk like that.”

“I know,” I said, starting to feel a bit relaxed from the beer. “People think scientists must be boring, but they really have a sense of humor. For example, I read in a magazine that there are a group of physicists working on a theory that would unify all the different theories about where matter comes from, where it goes and all that, and you know what they call it?”

“No. What?”

“The Theory of Everything! Isn’t that funny? That’s the real name for it!” I laughed, but Maria-Teresa wasn’t bowled over.

“That’s like this girl that works where I do,” she said. “She has an orange cat named OrangeCat and a parrot named Parrot. It goes over my head, I guess. Anyway, I didn’t like that psychiatrist. I thought he came off as kind of a snob. He liked being up there where everybody had to listen to him, you could tell. I thought he was always trying to let us know how educated he was.”

“He
was
kind of eager.”

“Yeah. And the way he was always fussing with his little hands when he talked … I bet he’s the kind of guy who’s always arranging the things on his desk so all the edges are exactly even. A lot of doctors do that kind of stuff. I see it at work all the time.”

“Well, I’m kind of like that myself, so …”

She screwed her face up in an expression of disappointment. “You? No! You’re a musician! I thought musicians
were supposed to be too spacey for that. I figured you’d wear socks that didn’t match.”

“No. Never. If I lose a button on a shirt and don’t have an exact match, I throw the shirt away. It really bugs me if I see it in a mirror.”

“That’s wild.”

“But that’s not the worst of it,” I said. I told her about how my sense of pitch was so strong that if even mechanical sounds were out of tune it annoyed me.

“What do you mean, mechanical sounds? You mean machines?”

“Right. If a blender is a little flat, or the neighbor’s lawn-mower is a little sharp, it’s actually physically painful for me.”

“Wow! So it would be torture for you to have to, say, go to a stock-car race, huh?” All of a sudden a huge grin spread across her face. When I asked her what was so funny she said, “I was just thinking how awful it would be if you had to spend a weekend with my husband! He’s not happy without something gas-powered to play with. When he isn’t driving a train he has to be either on his bike or a snowmobile or a jet ski—it just better be loud, or it’s queer as far as he’s concerned. And you get pissed off if a blender is out of tune! That’s great! I guess you don’t make margaritas at home much, huh?”

“Actually, I can. I found a blender that mixes at F-sharp.”

“Bullshit!”

“No, I’m not joking—it’s dead on.”

When I got home I played Maria-Teresa’s tape right away. As I figured it would be, the music was almost intolerable. It was a recording of a live concert, and listening to it forced me to visualize the scene: the lead singer, a woman in torn jeans
and an oversized shirt, wailing about gloomy things onstage with a bunch of session musicians behind her, men with long hair, funny hats and skinny legs. I made myself listen to the whole thing, however, so that when I told Maria-Teresa that it sucked, I could do so from an informed point of view.

Kyung-hee looked as vacant as ever when he arrived for his third lesson. The novelty had worn off by then, and his tedious lack of personality distracted me more than ever. His mother insisted on paying me for the replacement string at the beginning of the lesson, in single dollar bills and quarters wrapped in an envelope that she handed to me formally, with both of her hands. I was sure this must have only reminded Kyung-hee of the dangers of trying to please both me and his mother. After only a few minutes of watching him bow listlessly through his drills I knew I couldn’t stand a whole hour of it. Desperate to make him enjoy himself, so that I could at least enjoy
myself
, I told him to put down his cello and asked when his birthday was. “In October,” he answered, blinking at me through his enormous glasses.

“Well, I’d like to get you an early birthday present.”

This idea was inspired by something that had happened to me in Ederstausee, when I complained to von Kempen that I was getting bored with drills and wanted to play only music. I was just eleven years old.

“Ach, ja,”
the old man mused, nodding thoughtfully. I
remember his turning his head so I could see him in profile against the open windows facing his garden. He always kept the windows open, even in winter, so that he could hear the birds outside during lessons.

“I think the problem is to be found in your clothing,” he said finally. “You have noticed, have you not, that I dress carefully for our lessons? Even when I practice I wear this suit, which was made for me before the war. Let us pay a visit to Herr Unterhalter, a tailor with whom I am acquainted.”

He had Frau Schmidt drive us into the village to see the tailor, a man even older than himself, who bowed deeply from the waist as we entered his dark studio.

“The young master needs suitable clothes for his practice,” von Kempen said. “It must be something he likes. Would you do us the kindness of allowing him to see your portfolio, along with the fabric samples?”

The tailor treated me like an adult to be respected; if he found this ceremony at all amusing, he didn’t let it show. I looked through a catalog of suit patterns, but couldn’t really tell the difference between them.

“Choose as you like, Herr Sundheimer. The suit must bring you pleasure. That is the only requirement,” von Kempen said.

At last I blurted out in my halting German, “I … I want one like the one you wear, Maestro!” Herr Unterhalter looked quizzically at von Kempen, who merely nodded and assured me that the tailor could fulfill my request. To their credit, neither of the old gentlemen even cracked a smile.

Three days later the suit was ready. When Frau Schmidt brought it back from town, I couldn’t wait to put it on. It was a dark formal suit with baggy pants, a stiff collar and a vest, and it came with a brief note from its maker: “My dear
young maestro: I hope this will be to your satisfaction. I have tried to be faithful to the pattern and fabric of your dear teacher’s outfit. Perhaps, if it is to your liking, you might convince your estimable Professor to allow me to make one like it for him. Thirty years is really too long to wear any suit, no matter how fine the quality.”

“Young man,” von Kempen advised me, ignoring the suggestion from Herr Unterhalter, “this suit is to be worn only for music, not simply for amusement. Take good care of it, and put it on with care. Comb your hair neatly, and look carefully in the mirror to be sure everything is in order, as any estimable gentleman might. Only then should you practice. I assure you, it will relieve the boredom you mentioned.”

And it did. From that day on I couldn’t wait to jump out of bed to get dressed, and when I wore the suit I felt majestic. I bowed to myself in the mirror. It lent an aura of formality to my practice sessions.

With this in mind, I asked Mrs. Kim’s permission to take the two of them shopping for a suit for Kyung-hee. I insisted that this would be my treat—my way of repaying my own teacher for having done the same for me. At first she looked stunned, as if she couldn’t decide whether to reason with me or simply take the boy and flee. At last she agreed, but with little enthusiasm. She had a way of making me feel permanently under suspicion that was highly irritating, but I kept telling myself I would probably be just as protective if I had a child of my own and was raising him in a foreign culture.

I told Kyung-hee what von Kempen had said to me: that he would find his exercises less tedious if he wore the right outfit, and that our mission this evening was to find the outfit.

“Wouldn’t you like some clothes that you chose yourself?”

He seemed to have to think about this for a while. At last he nodded, but without much conviction.

I took them to the mall near campus and we visited my favorite shop, which specializes in European-style men’s clothing. I assumed that Kyung-hee would want a suit like mine, but he showed no interest at all in the patterns I guided him toward; in fact, he didn’t seem to want anything in the store. Reluctantly I suggested we move on; we browsed through a few of the chic stores, most of them specializing in flashy clothes for teenagers, but Kyung-hee didn’t respond to anything there either. We walked through the boys’ department of Nordstrom’s, but again nothing seemed to catch his eye. I started to think the idea was a mistake; maybe Kyung-hee just didn’t get excited over clothes. But then, as we made our way through the giant maze, he suddenly halted. He was looking at something with definite interest on his face. When I turned to see what it was, at first I thought it was an electric massage chair that was on display in front of a yuppie gadget shop.

“You want a massage chair?” I asked cheerlessly.

Kyung-hee shook his head with surprising vigor, then pointed. To the right of the gadget shop was a costume shop, and in the window was a child-sized dummy dressed in an elaborate black costume with a long satin cape spread out behind him as if the wind were blowing through it.

“Batman,” he said, with awe in his voice.

His mother immediately started scolding him in Korean, saying only the phrase “wasting teacher’s time” in English. Though I nearly agreed with her for once, I realized that if I questioned the boy’s choice at all—if I made him at all conscious of having to please me with the choice—the effect would be utterly ruined. I mustered an expression of innocence
and said, “Mrs. Kim, there’s nothing wrong with that suit. If he likes it, I think it would be fine.”

She looked at me in total confusion. Kyung-hee slipped away from us and wandered into the store. “That for Halloween!” Mrs. Kim said despairingly. “This for playing game! Why you always want him playing game, ‘Jump like cat,’ ‘Wear funny suit’?”

“Mrs. Kim, music isn’t like other jobs. You don’t get good at it by making a serious face and pretending like you work in a big company. The only way he’s going to become great and make money is if he enjoys music so much he can’t do anything else. I’m trying to help your son, Mrs. Kim, I really am, and I know what I’m doing. I was just like your son, so I know what to do.”

Her hands were clenched into little fists and she looked as if she was fighting back tears. “We move here so Kyung-hee and Kyung-ja have good life, not like in Korea. Here we gotta make dry cleaner, no speak English, everybody think we stupid people! Mr. Kim, he no want Kyung-hee playing music, he say Kyung-hee no make money. He want Kyung-hee be engineer. I want Kyung-hee be happy too, so I fighting all the time, I say let him do music but he do it serious way. You, you American! You say, ‘Play game, be happy, you make money.’ OK for you, but what if Kyung-hee play game, be happy, but not work hard enough? Then he got nothing!”