The Woman on the Train (2 page)

The two French policemen had heard it too but they had moved away from the exit, having become embroiled with the two men arguing. I sprinted out of the station, zigzagging past people, porters and pigeons, and ran down the street, pursued by a number of men in uniforms. ‘Out of the way, out of the way,’ I heard one shout. ‘Stop right now,’ screamed another. I turned up a street on my right, running across the road. A car screeched to a halt, the driver sounding his horn. I had no idea where I was; I only knew I had to keep going. ‘Stop or we’ll fire!’ A warning shot rang out. People in the street screamed. A mother pulled her child in as she pinned herself against a wall. I knew the second shot would be aimed at me. I had no choice and came to a halt, putting my hands in the air, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath. I refused to turn around but I heard their heavy boots on the tarmac rapidly approaching me. One of them pushed me against the wall next to a baker’s. ‘You’re fast,’ he said, breathlessly as his colleagues caught up, ‘but not fast enough.’ He thrust his revolver into my back. ‘Up against the wall. Legs apart.’

A second German began frisking me, his fat hands inside my jacket, against my shirt, checking every pocket. Grabbing me by the shoulder, he turned me around. ‘Open your bag.’ There were three of them, their revolvers drawn.

‘Is this code?’ he asked, holding up the score.

‘No, it’s sheet music – Wagner. He’s German.’

‘Mm. You’ve got nothing on you,’ said the second once he’d turned my bag inside out. ‘So why are you running away, eh? What are you hiding?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing? You run away for nothing?’

‘I’m in a hurry.’

‘Don’t try to be funny. Right, you’re coming with us.’

‘But I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘We’ll soon see about that.’

Passers-by stopped to stare as I was marched back to the station, my hands still above my head, my three Germans behind me. Those coming towards me stepped off the pavement to let me pass, concerned looks upon their faces. An older woman in black winked. Perhaps she thought I was some sort of a hero.

We were almost back at the station when I heard what was now a familiar voice shouting in German. ‘Halt,’ said one of the soldiers.

And there she was – the woman from the train, berating the Germans while showing them her ID. They passed it from one to the other as she launched into a long tale, speaking quickly in that authoritative tone.

One responded in a quiet voice. The exchange continued in German while I watched them daring to hope that I’d get away from this.

The Germans answered as one, sounding apologetic. Turning to me, the woman said, ‘I’ve explained to the gentlemen and they realise they’ve made a mistake. You’re free to go.’

I opened my mouth not sure what to say or how to thank her.

‘Accept our apologies, Monsieur,’ said one of the soldiers.

‘Oh, yes. Easy mistake to make,’ I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.

I bowed to the woman and even clicked my heels. ‘Thank you, Madame.’

I quickly returned back to the station. Stuff my piano teacher, I thought; I was heading back home.

A conductor bears a huge weight of responsibility – a poor conductor can render a magnificent work mediocre, reduce an esteemed orchestra to that of a confused rabble, and can flaw even the greatest of singers. The composer, who has spent possibly years writing and perfecting his work is then entirely in the hands of the conductor who brings it to life. They say that even Beethoven, blighted by his deafness, ruined his own work as a conductor. The orchestra is as dependent upon their conductor as a newly-born child is dependent upon its mother.

Conducting an eighty-piece orchestra in the confines of a recording studio is a very different prospect to a live venue. One feels restrained; it is not a natural setting. In a live situation, the conductor and musicians feed off the audience and the environment; there is a natural energy that spurs us on to higher deeds, to a greater performance. Not so in a studio, with its muted, artificial air. All spontaneity is destroyed. As a conductor one must spur one’s charges to produce a music that is beyond mere workmanship. Theoretically, a studio recording allows one to stop and re-record as much or as little as necessary; it provides one with the opportunity to attain perfection. Yet, in reality, it does exactly the opposite – it acts as a stop on creativity, it renders both the musicians and the conductor too self-conscious. We follow the music, not our hearts. Therefore, one has to work ten times harder to try to produce a work that is worthy of one’s name and the composer’s expectations.

Then, from the recording studio to the editing suite, where technology plays its part, where one can lift a performance to something near what one hears in the head. At the end of the process, one is left with a perfect rendition, perfect but soulless. My first studio recording, with my new Parisian orchestra, was Brahms’s First Symphony. It almost caused to me to suffer a breakdown, not least because I carried the burden of expectation. The orchestra and I had been signed up by a big American record label. They expected great things from us, and from me in particular; they expected a return on their investment. I had a recording budget which, although on paper might have seemed generous, was never going to be enough. In the end, it was money, not time, that forced me to declare the work finished. The label executives were delighted, congratulating me on such a fine piece of work. I accepted their thanks with dignity while I suffered sleepless nights knowing full well that I had not even begun to capture the work as I had intended.

I spent a day being photographed for the record sleeve. My good looks, they said, would help shift sales. Shift? Words failed me. Was I selling a cereal, I asked them. They insisted and I had no choice. But, I’ll admit, the final result was impressive – me with my hands in the air, gripping my baton, the glow of artistic perspiration on my brow.

Then came the day of release – I expected the worst, and wished I had been selling cereals after all. I need not have worried – it sold beyond expectations. I finished with the year’s bestselling classical release in all France. My name was known the country over. My American bosses were delighted; my bank manager and my wife even more so. French record companies, who had failed to secure me, outbid by their American competitors, hinted at my lack of patriotism.

The following year, I was back in the studio – several times. The Americans had their golden goose and they were going to make damned sure they made the most of it. I never did learn to enjoy working in a studio, but I quickly learnt to enjoy the fruits of my labour. Michèle and I bought a grand new home in an affluent southern suburb of Paris, far bigger than we needed. I bought two fine cars, new clothes, the latest gadgets and innovations. My recordings won prizes, I was interviewed, my face appeared on the front of magazines; I was asked to endorse various products, enhancing my income even further.

Michèle and I had married in 1956. A subdued affair; I was still the conductor of a small, provincial orchestra, and my pay was meagre. Michèle was its violist. But, unlike me, music was not her obsession; it never permeated to her marrow. She played moderately well and music was a means by which to earn an income. The viola was, to her, merely the tool of her trade. She was petite with heavy eyelids, a sharp nose, dimpled cheeks and a most pleasant smile. I’d met her a decade after the war. She too had been in the resistance but a much more active member than I. She’d been arrested and brutally tortured by the Gestapo. She never told me the details suffice to say that, as a result, she’ll never have children. Such was my love for her, I didn’t mind. Alas, I always felt that our love was rather one-sided, that the Gestapo, as well as leaving the scars, had also stripped her of her ability to love.

Ten years on and I was at the top of my career. Things could not have gone better. It never occurred to me, not even for a moment, that it might all, one day, pop like a balloon. It was in Paris, November sixty-six. I’d just conducted Mahler’s Fifth, always an exhausting affair, when I received a visitor. I was in my dressing room, backstage at the
Salle Pleyel
, still wearing my tuxedo, my bowtie undone. It was one of those traditional dressing rooms with light bulbs around the mirror. On the dresser in front of me, a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice, half empty, having already consumed three glasses in quick succession. I was sprawled back in my chair, still catching my breath, replaying the music in my head, smiling inanely at my reflection and congratulating myself on another success when there was a knock on the door. ‘Would Maestro be prepared to accept a visitor?’ asked a pale member of the theatre staff. ‘Would it be convenient?’

‘Yes, yes, show them in,’ I said, half expecting a reporter or a music reviewer.

‘Good evening, Maestro,’ said the stranger.

I spun round in my chair. I opened my mouth to say something but the words wouldn’t come. Standing in front of me was not a reporter, not a reviewer, but the woman from the train all those years ago. She looked smart in a tailored mackintosh and a silk scarf. She’d aged a little, after all it’d been twenty years, a few lines on her face, her black hair, now much longer, was streaked with grey, but otherwise she looked much the same.

‘Have you got time?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said, almost falling out of my chair to invite her in. She offered her hand. I took it. ‘What a surprise. How… how did you find me?’

She laughed. ‘It wasn’t difficult – your face is everywhere.’

‘I suppose.’

She looked me up and down, seeing what time had done to me in the intervening years. ‘You look well. You’re doing well.’

‘Yes, perhaps. I’m sorry – do take a seat.’ I offered her my chair in front of the mirror but instead she sat in the little chair in the corner of the room.

‘This will do fine,’ she said, looking slightly absurd as she nestled her bottom on the tiny seat.

‘Can I get you a drink? Champagne perhaps?’

‘No, no, I don’t want to take up your time.’

‘Did you… I mean, were you here for the concert?’

‘Oh yes. In fact, I’ve been to several. I’ve been following your career with interest. I always remember our conversation on the train. You said that one day you’d be a conductor. I may have doubted you. For that, I apologise, for here you are. Not only a conductor but the most famous one in France. I congratulate you.’

Usually, I can take compliments in my stride, I was well practised by now, but this time I felt genuinely bashful. ‘Thank you. And you, Madam, you look well.’

‘I am, thank you. I never did tell you my name. Let me introduce myself –
Mademoiselle
Lapointe. You must call me Hilda.’

‘And my name is–’

‘Oh, I know your name. The whole country knows your name by now.’

‘Ha, you make me sound like one of The Beatles.’

‘Oh, please, Maestro, there’s no need to compare yourself to those delinquents and their Negro music.’

I didn’t like to say I rather admired the four boys from across The Channel. ‘Mademoiselle Lapointe–’

‘Hilda, please.’

‘Hilda – I still, after all these years, appreciate how you helped me that day. I’ve never forgotten it. I admit, I was carrying some papers that… well, if they’d been discovered…’

‘Would have been compromising?’

I smiled. ‘Yes, exactly.’

‘It’s all water under the bridge now.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

We sat in silence for a while, remembering a time that seemed so distant and so alien to seem unreal now.

I cleared my throat. ‘Would you care, Mademoiselle, Hilda, for a spot to eat? There are so many–’

She held up her hand. ‘No, no. It’s very kind of you, Maestro, but no. I just wanted to…’ She rose to her feet. Rearranging her scarf, she said, ‘I don’t know – to say hello, I suppose, and to say how pleased I am that things have turned out so well for you.’

‘Well, thank you. If it hadn’t been for you, it could have turned out very differently.’ She seemed pleased with that; pleased with the acknowledgement. ‘But what I’ve always wanted to know, is what exactly did you say to them?’

‘Let’s just say I used my powers of persuasion.’

‘Yes, but what–’

‘I must go. It’s been lovely seeing you again.’ We shook hands again, and I showed her out of the door and passed her to the theatre boy to escort her back outside.

Closing the door, I slunk in my chair and smiled at my reflection. Yes, I thought, perhaps if she hadn’t intervened all those years ago, if she hadn’t offered her protection, things might well have turned out very differently.

I poured myself another glass of champagne and toasted myself and my continued success. It was late. Time, I decided, to order a car to take me home.

My activities in the resistance fairly well came to an end that day in August 1942. The whole episode confirmed for me that I lacked the necessary qualities for such work; it was far too risky for the likes of me. About a week after my last assignment, my man in the village asked me to deliver another missive to his colleagues in Saint-Romain. I made excuses – told him my mother was ill. A month later, following another request, I told him I had a piano exam. He criticised my ‘lack of commitment’ and never asked me again. My lack of commitment may have been cowardly but, as it proved, sensible – about six months later, the Gestapo swept through the village arresting a number of men and women, my man included. Most returned after a few months, looking a lot worse for the experience, but my man, as the ringleader, had been executed.

The occupation carried on around me but never impinged on my life. I was frequently stopped as I went about my business and asked for my identity card, but apart from that I was free to pursue my interest in music. I was desperate to leave my sleepy village. My mother irritated me, and my father had died when I was young. I felt no ties to the place and wanted so much to go out and explore the world. But I learnt to be patient – I knew my time would come. I may have lost my place at music college, but I went to see my piano teacher in Saint-Romain. Occasionally, I played a recital at the local church. Starved of entertainment, it always attracted a good turnout, including a number of appreciative Germans.

Paris was liberated in August 1944, the Nazis finally driven out. Immediately, I bade my mother farewell and headed for the capital. I drank in the celebratory atmosphere. I watched the American tanks on the streets and, along with hoards of others, cheered the soldiers. The atmosphere was contagious; never had I seen people so happy. I fell in with a group of students, made friends, drank, went to parties and waved the flag. I shared my story of resistance, inventing a whole new persona for myself. No one doubted me for a moment. I watched as women accused of having slept with Germans, ‘horizontal collaborators’, as they were known, were hunted down by angry mobs, stripped and had their hair hacked off. People laughed and called it the new hairstyle of ’44. Many were branded with a swastika on their bare heads or their breasts. I watched as male collaborators were marched down the streets with signs hung round their necks, signs that attested to their guilt. I joined my new-found friends to jostle, shout abuse and spit at them. They were giddy times. After four years of occupation, the future seemed unending with possibility and awash with opportunity.

My musical career beckoned.