Body & Soul (27 page)

"Yes, sir," Claude said, knowing full well that if this was impurity, he wanted more of it.

In the music store late one afternoon, daydreaming while cleaning the glass of the harmonica display case, an odd thought popped into his head. How much could Satterthwaite hear? Claude realized that he had assumed, because Weisfeld and Fredericks could hear everything, that Satterthwaite could also. Fredericks had taught Claude not to be afraid of missed notes or wrong notes, pointing out that they always cropped up at one time or another and that there were more important things to worry about, but at the same time he never failed to hear them. Miss even a single appoggiatura in the middle of a high-velocity bravura passage and Fredericks would hear it. Weisfeld as well. Claude rubbed the glass until it was practically invisible, and a subversive idea formed in his mind. He began to replace the harmonicas when Weisfeld came down the aisle.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," Claude said.

"You look like the cat that swallowed the canary." He continued on to the back of the store.

Claude wasn't sure that what he had in mind was possible, but when Weisfeld closed the store the boy started down to the basement to find out.

"I'm going to the cafeteria with Mr. Bergman," Weisfeld called. "You want to come?"

"No thanks. There's this thing I have to do. I've got an idea."

"Okay. If you go out, don't forget to lock."

Downstairs, he pulled up a stool and turned the light on over his desk. He dragged out the old blackboard and set it up where he could see it easily. Then he found some charts and tables he had drawn up and copied them on the left side of the board in white chalk. He also transcribed, from memory, a twelve-bar series of chords, once in the first inversion and again in the second. He sat down on the stool, arranged manuscript paper, a soft lead pencil and a block of India rubber in neat order, stared at the board, and began to think.

He wrote nothing for perhaps half an hour. Then he reached for a
frank conroy piece of scrap paper and made a few doodles, put them aside, then stared at the board again. Suddenly he leaned forward over the desk and began writing notes on the staves. He worked slowly, raising his head often to consult the tables on the board, sometimes tapping out a figure on the edge of the desk with the pencil, or simply going still and staring at nothing while he worked something out in his head.

He erased often. Sometimes he would cross out two or three bars with angry slashes and move down the paper to start again. Sometimes he had to throw away the whole piece of paper and pull a fresh one. He worked with total concentration, unaware of the little sounds he made—sighs, impatient clicks of the tongue, faint umms of pleasure, soft hisses. At some point he heard Weisfeld return upstairs, but he ignored it and kept on working.

Gradually, enough bits and pieces emerged, and held, for him to sense the general shape of the first four bars, which would contain all twelve tones, without a unison or a repetition. He worked it out so as to include a certain four-note motive he was familiar with. When he had the complete tone row, he double-checked the math and began to explore the upside-down and retrograde forms.

At one point he almost lost heart. He'd written himself into a corner. There seemed no way to use the retrograde row against the original without a number of fairly strong tonal effects creeping in. He fooled with it a dozen different ways, but as soon as he excised one tonal effect another would crop up somewhere else. It was like trying to pick up liquid mercury with your fingertips. Then he saw something. If he broke the original row into halves—a modest impurity even by Satterthwaite's standards—and used the second half upside down, the tonal intervals were avoided.

He pulled a fresh sheet of paper and began writing out the piece, polishing as he went along. His excitement grew as he saw that the first part of the experiment—that is, this particular twelve-tone piece—was going to work. He forced himself to get up, stretch, and breathe deeply a few times. He knew that when he got excited he could make mistakes, and for his idea to prove anything at all the piece had to be perfect, or very close to it. He bent his head, put pencil to paper, and continued.

When he was finished he put the piece to the test—the second part of the experiment—and jumped up with a shout of exhilaration. He walked around the room a couple of times and ran upstairs into the
shop. He went to the door leading up to Weisfeld's quarters and knocked loudly. No response. He knocked more loudly and then heard a thump, followed by the sound of breaking glass as something fell to the floor. Then more thumps in quick succession. Suddenly the door was pulled open.

Claude jumped back involuntarily. Weisfeld, clad in a sleeping gown, his hands trembling, his eyes wide but unfocused, sweat on his face, chest heaving, lurched forward. "They're coming," he cried, and with astonishing strength swept Claude off his feet and ran toward the back of the store.

"Mr. Weisfeld! Mr. Weisfeld!"

At the rear wall Weisfeld let go and began pushing aside some cardboard boxes. "The door! Where's the door? They won't see us." He seemed possessed, deep in some nightmare, and Claude was terrified.

"Mr. Weisfeld!" the boy yelled.

Finally, his hands flat on the empty white plaster, Weisfeld straightened up.

"It's me ... It's just me, Claude."

The man's entire body shuddered. He turned around, pale as wax, and seemed to see the boy for the first time.

Claude felt tears spilling down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was just working on, I wanted you to hear, I forgot where, I'm sorry I forgot I'm sorry."

Weisfeld looked around as if orienting himself, then lowered his head. After a moment he kicked a cardboard box. Claude recoiled. Weisfeld rubbed his head with both hands and gave a great sigh. "It's okay," he said. "Everything is perfectly okay now. I'm sorry if I alarmed you."

"I just forgot. I never should have—"

"Shhhh," Weisfeld said softly, making damping motions with his hands. "Calm down. Relax. What time is it?"

"I don't know," Claude said, pointing at Weisfeld's wristwatch.

"Oh, yes. It's four o'clock in the morning. What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"No, no. I was working downstairs. I lost track of time. I'm sorry. I'll go now." Claude turned away.

"Wait a second, wait a second." Weisfeld moved forward and touched the boy's cheek and then his shoulder. "Something important, yes? What is it?"

Claude felt nothing but remorse. "I wrote a thing," he mumbled. "I got all..." He paused and shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Sure it matters. It's music. Let's go down." He took a step and stopped. "Look at me here, in my nightshirt." He smoothed out his sleeves. He looked back at the door he'd come out of and then turned to look at the wall. He remained motionless for several minutes.

"Mr. Weisfeld?"

Weisfeld gave a little shake of his head. "Amazing," he said, and pointed at the wall. "In the farmhouse, that's where the door was. The secret door." He lowered his arm. "Amazing."

On the way to the basement Weisfeld said, "So what is it? You wouldn't knock on my door for nothing. Something wonderful?"

"I don't know," Claude said. "It was hard. It's probably crazy."

"I'm all ears."

Weisfeld sat at the workable, facing the piano, and Claude played the piece. It was tightly structured music, the sound limpid, the colors pale pastels with only brief flashes of dissonance.

"Play it again," Weisfeld said, and came over to stand behind the boy and read the manuscript. "Very interesting," he said after the last bar. "I see it's twelve-tone, but somehow it has a flavor—" He paused, stroking his mustache. "There's a quality. I don't know. It sort of feels like it's in the middle. I don't know what it is. I'll have to listen to it some more. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's beautifully worked out structurally. Very clear." He reached down to play a couple of bars with his right hand. "That in there. Very good. Intricate but clear." He straightened up, still thoughtful.

"Okay, just one more thing." Claude got up and Weisfeld followed him over to the phonograph, which was on, a record spinning on the turntable. Claude adjusted the volume knob and said, "When I go back to the piano, drop the needle at the beginning. I'll come in at the twenty-fifth bar."

"What is this record?"

"Charlie Parker. The bebop player I told you about."

Weisfeld reached forward for the tone arm. "I've got it."

Claude went back to the Bechstein and Weisfeld lowered the needle. The sharp sound of Parker's alto saxophone cut the air with a twisting, syncopated blues line, repeated after twelve bars. At the twenty-fifth bar two things happened: first, the pianist on the record began to play the cycle of fifths based on Parker's bebop changes Claude had been
given in the Automat, and second, Claude began to play the twelve-tone composition he'd been working on all night.

In a very few seconds Weisfeld understood what was going on and jumped up from his chair. The two fit together harmonically, as if the bebop were accompaniment for the twelve-tone, or vice versa. His mouth opened in astonishment.

Claude played the piece twice, then came over and turned off the phonograph. "The thing is," he said, "it follows the twelve-tone rules. But I made it out of the overtone series from the roots of the chords on the record. Fifths, sevenths, and ninths, mostly. Sometimes I had to go farther out. I mixed them up, of course, but it's all based on harmony, really. Do you think he'll hear that?"

Weisfeld laughed out loud. He bent over and slapped his kneecaps, letting out a couple of whoops before regaining control of himself.

Claude smiled nervously. "So is it tonal or atonal?"

"It's wonderful, that's what it is," Weisfeld said, rubbing his hands. "I wish the maestro was here for this. He would have—" He broke off and took a more serious tone. "Listen, Claude. This is brilliant. I'm not kidding you. Brilliant. What led you to do this?"

Claude blushed. "I was curious. I didn't know if it could be done. And if it could be, I wondered if Mr. Satterthwaite would hear it. You know, if he'd suspect something, the way you did."

"Ha! Well, show it to him. Play it for him. Let
him
play it."

"You think that's okay? Just show him and not say anything about the..." He gestured toward the phonograph.

"Sure it's okay?" Weisfeld laughed again. "It's a great idea. Tell me what he says."

"Excellent," Satterthwaite said, lifting his hands from the keys. "Mr. Platt? Anything strike you about this?"

Platt, who had started off strong at the beginning of the semester, no longer seemed particularly interested in music. Chess had become his passion, and he had the preoccupied air of someone continually working out games in his head. "Uh ... no, sir. It sounds fine."

Claude squirmed nervously in his seat.

"He doesn't hear it," Satterthwaite said.

Claude waited.

"Mr. Platt. He has broken the tone row into two halves for the
development. Only a mild heresy, and not without precedent. Berg, for instance. You should have noticed that."

"Sorry, sir."

"Mr. Rawlings? Experimenting?"

"Yes, sir." Claude relaxed.

"Very good. A certain amount of play is certainly allowed."

"Thank you, sir." Now that he'd brought it off, Claude felt uncomfortable and almost wished that he hadn't done it.

After class, Satterthwaite asked him into his office.

"The semester is almost over," Satterthwaite said, arranging himself behind his immaculate desk. "You have moved forward with astonishing speed, frankly. I believe you have promise as a composer. Very definite promise." He stared at the boy, his eyes widening. "I am prepared to continue with you, outside of class, on an informal basis. Private study, and of course there will be no fee. You are precisely the kind of young musician who can carry the new music forward, continue to build on the foundations laid down for us by the master, and open the ears of the next generation. This is an exciting and important responsibility, Mr. Rawlings."

Claude wished he were at the movies, or sorting saxophone reeds at the store, or working on double thirds at the keyboard. He wished he were anyplace else other than where he was. He swallowed hard and wondered what he was going to say. Satterthwaite's taut face, his wet eyes, his thin smile, seemed to be growing larger, like a slow zoom close-up at the RKO.

"I'm very—" Claude cleared his throat. "I'm very flattered, sir. It means a lot to me that you think I might have some talent."

"Oh, you have it."

"Yes, sir. Thank you." He briefly considered telling the man the truth. Tonality was natural, alive, and the means through which to express an infinite variety of emotions. Twelve-tone was nothing more than an idea, and a negative idea at that. A pipe dream. Claude knew he might be wrong, but that was what he felt. Twelve-tone made him positively claustrophobic and thus far had never touched his soul. But Satterthwaite's benevolent, calm faith might well have been all the man had, and Claude could not bring himself to challenge it.

"I'd like to," Claude said. "It's been fascinating. I'd like to very much, but I have to work on my repertoire. I've fallen too far behind."

Except for the disappearance of the thin smile, Satterthwaite didn't move a muscle. "Your repertoire?"

"Well, yes sir. That's how I plan to make my living."

Satterthwaite got up and went to the window, staring out, bent forward slightly, his fingers on the sill.

After some moments of silence Claude said, "I'm really sorry. I wish—"

"Thank you, Mr. Rawlings," Satterthwaite said. "I understand. That will be all."

He didn't turn around as Claude made his escape.

Running downstairs, Claude felt his concern for the man—the novel sensation of feeling sorry for him—peel away rapidly, as if he were shedding some heavy, uncomfortable overcoat. By the time he pushed open the door and hit the street he was buoyant, exhilarated by a sudden sense of freedom, sweet as a winter apple. The sun was shining, and the world was full of promise.