Very well. You were asking me about the incident which, in my undoubtedly perverse humor, I choose to remember as The Matter of the Uxorious Cellist. Sigerson and I were allies — ill–matched ones, undoubtedly, but allies nonetheless — in this unlikely affair, and if we had not been, who's to say how it might have come out? On the other hand, if we had left it entirely alone … well, judge for yourself. Judge for yourself.
The Greater Bornitz Municipal Orchestra has always been weak in the lower strings, for some reason — it is very nearly a tradition with us. That year we boasted, remarkably, four cellists, two of them rather wispy young women who peeped around their instruments with an anxious and diffident air. The third, however, was a burly Russo–Bulgarian named Volodya Andrichev: blue–eyed, blue–chinned, wild–haired, the approximate size of a church door (and I mean an Orthodox church here), possessed of — or by — an attack that should by rights have set fire to his score. He ate music, if you understand me; he approached all composition as consumption, from Liszt and Rossini, at which he was splendid, to Schumann, whom he invariably left in shreds, no matter how I attempted to minimize his presence, or to conceal it outright. Nevertheless, I honored his passion and vivacity; and besides, I liked the man. He had the snuffling, shambling charm of the black bears that still wander our oak forests as though not entirely sure what they are doing here, but content enough nonetheless. I quite miss him, as much time as it's been.
His wife, Lyudmilla Plaschka, had been one of our better woodwinds, but retired on the day of their wedding, that being considered the only proper behavior for a married woman in those times. She was of Bohemian extraction, I believe: a round, blonde little person, distinctly appealing to a particular taste. I remember her singing (alto) with her church choir, eyes closed, hands clasped at her breast — a godly picture of innocent rapture. Yet every now and then, in the middle of a Bach cantata or some Requiem Mass, I would see those wide blue eyes come open, very briefly, regarding the tenor section with the slightest pagan glint in their corners. Basses, too, but especially the tenors. Odd, the detail with which these things come back to you.
He adored her, that big, clumsy, surly Andrichev, even more than he loved his superb Fabregas cello, and much in the same manner, since he plainly felt that both of them were vastly too good for him. Absolute adoration — I haven't encountered much of that in my life, not the real thing, the heart never meant for show that can't help showing itself. It was a touching thing to see, but annoying as well on occasion: during rehearsal, or even performance, I could always tell when his mind was wandering off home to his fluffy golden goddess. Played the devil with his vibrato every time, I can tell you.
To do her justice — very reluctantly — she had the decency, or the plain good sense, to avoid involvements with any of her husband's colleagues. As I have implied, she preferred fellow singers to instrumentalists anyway; and as Andrichev could not abide any sort of vocal recital («Better cats on a back fence," he used to roar, «better a field full of donkeys in heat»), her inclinations and his rarely came into direct conflict. Thus, if we should chance to be performing in, say, Krasnogor, whose distance necessitates an overnight stay, while she was making merry music at home with Vlad, the clownish basso, or it might be Ruska, that nasal, off–key lyric tenor (there was a vibrato you could have driven a droshky through) … well, whatever the rest of us knew or thought, we kept our mouths shut. We played our Smetana and our Gilbert & Sullivan medley, and we kept our mouths shut.
I don't know when Andrichev found out, nor how. I cannot even say how we all suddenly knew that he knew, for his shy, growling, but essentially kindly manner seemed not to change at all with the discovery. The music told us, I think — it became even fiercer, more passionate — angrier, in short, even during what were meant to be singing legato passages. I refuse to believe, even now, that any member of the Greater Bornitz Municipal Orchestra would have informed him. We were all fond of him, in our different ways; and in this part of the world we tend not to view the truth as an absolute, ultimate good, but as something better measured out in a judiciously controlled fashion. It could very well have been one of his wife's friends who betrayed her — even one of her playmates with a drink too many inside him, I don't suppose it matters now. I am not sure that I would want to know, now.
In any event, this part of the world offers certain traditional options in such a case. A deceived husband has the unquestioned right — the divine right, if you like — to beat his unfaithful wife as brutally as his pride demands, but he may not cut her nose or ears off, except perhaps in one barbarous southern province where we almost never perform. He may banish her back to her family — who will not, as a rule, be at all happy to see her — or, as one violist of my acquaintance did, allow her to stay in his home, but on such terms … Let it go. We may play their music, but we are not altogether a Western people.
But Andrichev did none of these things. I doubt seriously that he ever confronted Lyudmilla with her infidelity, and I know that he never sought out any of her lovers, all of whom he could have pounded until the dust flew, like carpets on a clothesline. More and more withdrawn, drinking as he never used to, he spent most of his time at practice and rehearsal, clearly taking shelter in Brahms and Tschaikovsky and Grieg, and increasingly reluctant to go home. On several occasions he wound up staying the night with one Grigori Progorny — our fourth cellist, a competent enough technician and the nearest he had to an intimate — or with me, or even sprawled across three chair's in that cold, empty beer–hall, always clutching his cello fiercely against him as he must have been used to holding his wife. None of us ever expressed the least compassion or fellow–feeling for his misery. He would not have liked it.
Sigerson was perfectly aware of the situation — for all his air of being concerned solely with tone and tempo and accuracy of phrasing, I came to realize that he missed very little of what was going on around him — but he never commented on it; not until after a performance in the nearby town of Ilyagi. Our gradually expanding repertoire was winning us both ovations and new bookings, but I was troubled even so. Andrichev's playing that evening had been, while undeniably vigorous, totally out of balance and sympathy with the requirements of Schubert and Scriabin, and even the least critical among us could not have helped but notice. On our way home, bumping and lurching over cowpaths and forest trails in the two wagons we still travel in, Sigerson said quietly, «I think you may have to speak with Mr. Andrichev.»
Most of the others were asleep, and I needed to confide in someone even the chilly Mr. Sigerson. I said, «He suffers. He has no outlet for his suffering but the music. I do not know what to do, or what to say to him And I will not discharge him.»
Surprisingly, Sigerson smiled at me in the pitch darkness of the wagon A shadowy, stiff smile, it was, but a smile nevertheless. «I never imagined that you would, Herr Takesti. I am saying only — " and here he hesitated for a moment, " — I am saying that if you do not speak to him, something perhaps tragic is quite likely to happen. What you may say is not nearly as important as the fact that he knows you are concerned for him. You are rather a forbidding person, concertmaster.»
"/?» I demanded. I was absolutely stunned. «I am forbidding? There is no one, no one, in this orchestra who cannot come to me — who has not come to me — under any circumstances to discuss anything at all at any time. You know this yourself, Herr Sigerson.» Oh, how well I remember how furious I was. Forbidding, indeed — this from him!