Two-Part Inventions (33 page)

 

Richard's new apartment on Central Park West was larger and mellower in every way than the small house in Brooklyn where Suzanne had first met him, and it was more spacious than the place in the West Fifties where he'd lived until his operas became so successful. The Persian rugs resembled the ones from the
Brooklyn house but couldn't be the same. Instead of the paper Japanese lanterns there were fixtures in odd curved shapes that shed a soft amber light. The old couch was the same, though, and the piano. There were still piles of magazines and prints on the walls. The heavy yellow crockery in which she'd had so many cups of coffee was the same—even when she was a child Richard had indulged her fondness for coffee, which her parents would not.

“Are you back to living alone?” Suzanne asked as she looked around. No need for awkwardness on that subject any longer; the small window of time in which there might have been something between them had slammed shut for good long ago. Or maybe had never been open.

“Yes, for now,” and he smiled, almost flirtatiously. Only lately she'd noticed that he was a flirt, provocative with all; she had to admire all the more his restraint when she was a teenager. The perfect gentleman, as her mother would say, for all those years. If only he hadn't been. “But I've been seeing someone from the opera we're working on for next fall. The Chinese folktale one?”

“Yes, I read about that. Who is it?”

“The tenor,” he said, almost shyly. “He's a little young, but after all, I am the composer. That's an attraction.”

“Oh, you have other charms, too. Now, what was so urgent that I had to run into town immediately?”

“It's nothing funny. Let me give you a glass of wine first. Sit down.”

He sat down beside her. “Elena called me yesterday.” He waited, but Suzanne did not help. “She said she'd been to see you. She told me what you talked about.”

“She talked. I didn't say much. It's never necessary, with Elena. She can converse for two.”

“I think you may not realize how serious this is. What she told you, I mean.”

“I do realize it's serious.” She emptied half her wineglass. “Why do I have a feeling we've had this conversation before?”

“I know. I haven't forgotten. Rachmaninoff, right? That was actually pretty clever, that you could pull that off. I couldn't praise you for it, though.”

“No. Not even a smile. You made me see how serious fraud is. But I haven't done a thing wrong this time. I go to the studio and play as best I can, which isn't bad, frankly. I don't have anything to do with the technical part except to repeat what we decide needs repeating. The rest is Phil's affair. I don't even listen to the CDs. I just want to play music, I'm not an engineer or a businesswoman.”

“Suzanne, you are being so disingenuous. And you know what that word means now.”

“I certainly do. You explained it very well, what, thirty-five years ago?”

“They're your recordings. They have your name on them. Your husband is your manager and your collaborator in making them. If he is . . . stealing—I hate to use that word, but it's the only one that fits—other people's work, you're involved in it, too.”

“After Elena came that day, I made him promise not to do it again.” Even as she spoke, she remembered this was not the precise truth. She had implored him, but had not extracted any promise. How could she make Phil promise anything? He was
so slippery, she would never know whether he'd keep a promise or not. Her marriage, she felt, was the opposite of most: The single aspect of their lives in which she could place complete trust was his love and sexual fidelity; in every other way she could never be quite sure of him.

“And you believe that'll do it?”

She couldn't keep it up any longer in front of Richard. He was right—it was disingenuous. Or worse. “I don't know. It was the best I could do. How can I force him to stop?” It sounded like a plea.

“You can't force him to stop. I'm not laying it all on you. You're not responsible for his behavior. But you're responsible for your own. You're the one who's got to stop.”

“Stop making the recordings, you mean?”

“Yes. That's the only way to be sure this doesn't continue. Or else record with some other firm.”

“You know I can't do that.”

“Well, maybe not now. But sometime—”

“I can't stop,” she broke in. “It's totally unfair to ask that of me. It's all I have. You know I can't go back onstage. . . . You know how much I wanted that. Oh, it's all right for you to talk—you've got what you want now. You worked hard, you did everything you were supposed to, and it happened for you. And I'm glad, really glad. But it doesn't give you the right to go around telling other people to give up all their hopes—”

“You say it's all you have. But you don't really have it, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“If he's used Elena's recordings, he must've used others', too. You've told me yourself, you can't play for long. You have an illness that makes you tire easily. He doesn't push you—that's
his form of kindness. Why don't you listen to the CDs? Study those recordings and see which parts of them are genuine and which . . . you know. How much satisfaction or fulfillment can you get if they're not really yours?”

“They were very satisfying. Fulfilling, yes. I was so happy with them, until you and Elena came up with these . . . these accusations.”

“Come on, Suzanne, you know she was telling the truth. She couldn't make something like that up. Would it have been better if she hadn't told you? Then you'd be satisfied with an illusion.”

“And so?”

“Is that what you want? It's not something real. Yours. Aside from being dishonest to others.”

“They are mine. They have my name on them.” She was trying to stay calm. He was opening a door on a cabinet of doubt she kept secret even from herself. She refilled her glass from the bottle on the table.

“What does that signify? It's only your name. It's your playing you want to be heard. At least I thought so. But you don't really know—”

“I don't want to know!” she cried. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“All right, all right, I didn't mean to upset you. I only—”

“What did you mean, then? Did you think I'd just laugh it off? Or did you think I'd give up an entire career to satisfy your high moral standards? You're a prig, you know? You've always been a prig.”

“Well that's a new one. I've been called a lot of things, but never that. And I thought you were the genuine article.”

“I am! When I played for you long ago, you said so yourself.
I can play as well as Elena and any of them onstage right now.”

“I'm not disputing that. I mean genuine in another sense. That you wanted the music first, above anything else. But no, you want the reputation more than you want the music. Your name even without the music. A hollow shell.”

“That's not true!” She was standing now, and almost shouting. “I want both. Why can't I have both?”

“But don't you see? You don't have either. It's a house of cards. As soon as someone who's not a friend of yours finds out—and they will, believe me—you'll have nothing. Less than nothing.”

She tipped the wineglass up and drained it to the last drop, then started toward the door. “I'm going to trust Phil to do the right thing. I've made it very clear that's what I want, and I have to trust him. He's always kept his promises.” He's done so much for me, she thought. He delivered what he promised
,
and I let him. Is that so wrong?

“Will you come to my opening if I send you tickets?” Richard asked.

“Sure. If you still think I'm worthy of listening to your work.”

“Cut it out, Suz—”

But she was out the door.

 

I
T WAS A mere few weeks after Suzanne's funeral when the news really surfaced. “Barely cold in her grave” was the unwelcome cliché that leaped from Philip's brain, promptly suppressed as too coarse, for Suzanne if not for him. She wasn't in a grave, anyway. She'd told him long ago she wanted to be cremated, like her father, and he had always waved it off, saying it was too far away to think about. But when the time came, he complied.

He followed the music websites daily; they had been her staunchest fans, spreading the word of each new CD with adoring, overblown reviews. Now, beyond the hints and suspicions, they were posting comparisons of one or two of Suzanne's recordings with several others, some sent in by skeptical listeners, techie nerds. Philip resolved to ignore them. But the allegations persisted and multiplied, racing from one site to another in a furious prestissimo, then moved to the print magazines, which were always slightly behind. Still he didn't defend himself, and screened all calls carefully. If he had to speak, he would deny everything. They couldn't prove anything. Or maybe they could, but the proofs would be so technical that no one beyond the world of computer-savvy critics and Internet
music junkies would pay any attention. His clients would be loyal; he had done well for them and they knew it.

It was harder to ignore Richard's phone call.

No preliminaries: “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

“Richard?”

“You know very well who it is. I just read about it in
Andante
. They don't print such things unless they've investigated.”

“Don't you know how these music sites and magazines operate? One false note and they fly into a tizzy.”

“Philip, you're not talking to Suzanne now. We all know how gullible she was.”

She was not quite as naive as they all believed, he thought but of course did not say. He himself had never been quite sure how naive she was.

“What possessed you?” Richard went on. “You went too far this time. Chamber music? Orchestral works? Are there any limits to what you'd do?”

“It's all totally mistaken. I know how that equipment works better than you do. You can feed stuff in and get any results you like. They're just vultures picking at the remains. It's disgraceful.”

“You're going to deny it? You mean she played with the Vienna Symphony? With the San Francisco Symphony? With the Tokyo String Quartet? What world are you living in? You won't be able to keep that up, you know. Aside from anything else—and there's a lot else—it's illegal. You're in deep shit. You won't be able to keep track of the lawsuits. But I don't care about that. I care . . . cared about her. You ruined her. Don't you realize?”

“Ruined her? Are you crazy? I made her.” The ingratitude of the man was unbelievable. And he professed to care about her. “Do you know where she'd be without all those recordings? Lying on the couch watching soap operas.” Or cooking shows, but out of respect for her memory, Philip didn't add that.

“You made her! You're nuts. My God, the colossal ego. I knew her years before you did. I helped her all along. She was a significant talent. It was only after she got together with you that things started to go wrong.”

“You want to fight over her, Richard? I'm surprised at you. If anyone ruined her, it was you, nursing those great expectations. The pressure she put on herself. As if without the public recognition she was nothing.”

There was a silence. Finally Richard said, “I didn't do that. I only encouraged her to do her best. The rest came from her. Or her parents. Or, who knows, the miserable culture. That's all beside the point now, where it came from. What you did is criminal. I'm glad she's not around to see those articles online.”

“I can agree with you there.”

“I bet you can, you bastard. You took someone I loved and made a sham of everything she did and valued. And for what? Not even money. For fame. But it was based on nothing. It wasn't even real.”

“The fame was real,” Philip said quietly. “Her satisfaction was real.”

“You are a genuine sophist. Don't you see? That reputation, it's all going down the tubes. All anyone will remember is the phoniness. The true talent will be forgotten.”

“Who can tell what's true?” Philip asked calmly.

“Oh, don't go all philosophical on me. You're not up to it. You're just a tinkerer. A technician. You didn't respect her, and you didn't respect music.”

“I respected her enough to give her what she wanted. Which is more than what you did. She never got over your . . . that business with you and Elena. She felt so betrayed.”