A Traitor to Memory (58 page)

And to this, Dad added, “And even if we'd tried for support, how far would we have got once the Government sorted out how much we were already spending to employ Raphael and Sarah-Jane? There was belt-tightening that we could have done. We chose not to do it initially.”

“What about the row with Katja?”

“What about it? We learned from Sarah-Jane that Katja had been lax. We talked to the girl, and during the conversation it came out that she was being sick in the morning. It was a short leap to the fact that she was pregnant. She didn't deny it.”

“So you sacked her on the spot.”

“What else were we supposed to do?”

“Who made her pregnant?”

“She wouldn't say. And we did not sack her because she wouldn't say, all right? That was hardly the issue. We sacked her because she couldn't look after your sister properly. And there were other problems, earlier problems that we'd overlooked because she'd seemed fond of Sonia, and we liked that.”

“What sort of problems?”

“Her clothing, which was never appropriate. We'd asked her to wear either a uniform or a simple, plain skirt and blouse. She wouldn't, no matter how often we instructed her to do so. She felt she had to express herself, she said. Then there were her visitors, who came and went at all hours of the day and night despite our asking her to limit their calls.”

“Who were they?”

“I don't recall them. Good God, this was more than twenty years ago.”

“Katie?”

“What?”

“Someone called Katie. She was fat. She wore expensive clothes. I remember Katie.”

“Perhaps there was a Katie. I don't know. They came from the convent. They sat in the kitchen and talked and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. And several times when Katja went out with them on her evening off, she came back inebriated and overslept in the morning. What I'm trying to tell you is that there were problems
before
the pregnancy issue came up, Gideon. The pregnancy—as well as the illness that accompanied it—was just the final straw.”

“But you and Mother argued with Katja when you gave her the sack.”

He shoved himself to his feet, walked across the room, and stood looking down at my violin case, closed now as it had been for days, the Guarneri hidden away from my sight so that it might cease to taunt me. “She didn't want to be sacked, obviously. She was several months pregnant, and she wasn't likely to find anyone else to employ her. So she argued with us. She pleaded to be kept on.”

“Then why not get rid of her baby? Even then, there were places … clinics …”

“That's not the decision she made, Gideon. I can't tell you why.” He squatted and released the clips on the case. He lifted the top. Inside, the Guarneri lay burnished by the light, and the glow of the wood seemed to make an accusation to which I had no simple reply. “So we argued. The three of us argued. And the next time Sonia was difficult, which happened the following day, Katja … took care of the problem.” He lifted the violin from the case and unclipped the bow. He said, and his voice was not unkind and the rims of his eyes were redder than before, “You know the truth now. Will you play for me, son?”

And I wanted to, Dr. Rose. But I knew that there was nothing within me, nothing of what had previously driven the music from my soul through my body to my arms and my fingers. That is my curse, even now.

I said, “I remember people in the house the night that … when Sonia … I remember voices, footsteps, my mother calling your name.”

“We were panicked. Everyone was panicked. There were paramedics. Firemen. Your grandparents. Pitchford. Raphael.”

“Raphael was there?”

“He was there.”

“Doing what?”

“I don't recall. Perhaps he was on the phone to Juilliard. He'd been trying for months to come up with a way to convince us it was possible for you to attend. He was set on it, more set than you were.”

“So all this happened round the time of Juilliard?”

Dad lowered his arms, which had been offering me the Guarneri. The violin hung from one hand and the bow from the other, orphans of my egregious impotence. He said, “Where is this taking us, Gideon? What the hell has this to do with your instrument? God knows I'm trying to cooperate, but you're not giving me anything to measure with.”

“Measure what?”

“How do I know if there's progress? How do
you
know if there's progress?”

And I could not answer him, Dr. Rose. Because the truth is what he fears and what I dread: I can not tell if this is any good, if the direction I'm heading is the direction that will take me back to the life I once knew and held so dear.

I said, “The night it happened … I was in my room. I've remembered that. I've remembered the shouting and the paramedics—the
sound
of them rather than the sight of them—and I've remembered Sarah-Jane listening at the door, inside my room with me, saying that she wouldn't be leaving after all. But I don't remember her
planning
to leave before Sonia … before what happened.”

I could see Dad's right hand tighten on the neck of the Guarneri. Clearly, this wasn't the response he'd been looking for when he'd taken the instrument out of its case. He said, “A violin like this needs to be played. It also needs to be stored properly. Look at this bow, Gideon. Look at the condition of its hairs. And when was the last time you put a bow away without loosening it? Or don't you think about that sort of thing any longer, now that you're concentrating all your efforts on the past?”

I thought of the day that I'd tried to play, the day Libby had heard me, the day that I'd learned for certain what I'd only felt like a premonition before: that my music was gone, and irretrievably so.

Dad said, “You never used to do this sort of thing. This instrument wasn't just left lying on the floor. It was stored away from the heat and the cold. It wasn't near a radiator, nor was it within six yards of an open window.”

“If Sarah-Jane was planning to leave before everything happened, why didn't she leave?” I asked.

“The strings haven't been cleaned since Wigmore Hall, have they? When was the last time you failed to clean the strings after a concert, Gideon?”

“There wasn't a concert. I didn't play.”

“And haven't played since. Haven't thought to play. Haven't had the nerve to—”

“Tell me about Sarah-Jane Beckett!”

“God damn it! Sarah-Jane Beckett is
not
the issue.”

“Then why won't you answer?”

“Because there's nothing to say. She was sacked. All right? Sarah-Jane Beckett was sacked as well.”

This was the last answer I'd been expecting. I'd thought he would tell me she'd become engaged or found a better position or decided to make a change in career. But that she, too, had been sacked along with Katja Wolff … I'd not considered that possibility.

Dad said, “We'd had to cut back. We couldn't keep Sarah-Jane Beckett and Raphael Robson and have a nursemaid for Sonia as well. So we'd given Sarah-Jane two months' notice.”

“When?”

“Shortly before we found that we'd have to sack Katja Wolff.”

“So when Sonia died and Katja left …”

“There was no need for Sarah-Jane to go as well.” He turned and replaced the Guarneri in its case. His movements were slow; his scoliosis made him seem like a man in his eighties.

I said, “Then Sarah-Jane herself might have—”

“She was with Pitchford when your sister was drowned, Gideon. She swore to that and Pitchford confirmed it.” Dad straightened from the case and turned back to me. He looked done in. I felt anguish, guilt, and sorrow surge within me to know that I was forcing him to consider matters he'd buried along with my sister. But I had to continue. It seemed that we were making progress for the first time since I'd had the episode at Wigmore Hall—and yes, I use that word deliberately just as you have done, Dr. Rose, an
episode
—and feeling that progress was being made, I could not back away from it.

I said, “Why didn't she talk?”

“I just said she—”

“Katja Wolff, not Sarah-Jane Beckett. Cresswell-White said that she spoke to the police once and never spoke to anyone else. About the crime, that is. About Sonia.”

“I can't answer that question. I don't know the answer. I don't care to know. And—” Here he took up the sheet music that I'd left on the stand when I'd thought to play, and he closed it slowly, seeming to put an end to something that neither one of us wanted to name. “I can't understand why you're dwelling on this at all. Hasn't Katja Wolff damaged our lives enough?”

“It's not Katja Wolff,” I said. “It's what happened.”

“You know what happened.”

“I don't know everything.”

“You know enough.”

“I know that when I look over my life, when I write about it or talk about it, all I can remember with accuracy is the music: how I came to it, how I proceeded, the exercises that Raphael had me engage in, concerts I gave, orchestras I performed with, conductors, concertmasters, journalists who interviewed me, recordings I made.”

“That's
been
your life. That's who you are.”

But not according to Libby. I could hear her shouting at me once again. I could feel her frustration. I could drown in the wretchedness that flooded her heart.

And I am adrift, Dr. Rose. I am a man without a country any longer. I once existed in a world I recognised and was comfortable with, a world with definite borders, peopled by citizens all speaking a language I understood. All that is foreign territory to me now, but it is no less foreign than the land I wander in, without a guide or a map, at your instructions.

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