“Harvey? Where are you? Some of the guests are leaving, and Al seems to have disappeared. Harvey?”
Before he left the sanctuary of the office, he grabbed two aspirin from the bottle Richard kept in the desk. He chewed them without water, relishing the bitterness. Noticing Richard’s planning calendar in the drawer, he flipped through the pages to October. God, their next appearance was two weeks from tomorrow. A reception at the Mayor’s mansion, yet!
Harvey swallowed his panic and headed downstairs. Somehow it would work out. Things always worked out, one way or another.
Al was hiding out in the tool shed at back of the lot, smoking a joint. I’m some hip cat, he thought sourly, forty-nine years old and still getting high. When his rust-coloured hair had begun to thin, he had shaved it all off. Now he had the look of a bald scarecrow, long-limbed, skinny and awkward. Only when he tucked his violin under his chin and began to play did he achieve some kind of grace. Those were his happiest times, in fact, when he could lose himself in the music, in harmony for once with his brothers.
The rest of his life seemed empty and hollow, eaten away by envy, fouled with the nasty taste of decayed dreams. Richard had been the lucky one, the good-looking one, the one who had a solo career before the time of the trio. Richard had even had a lover, Al remembered, a pretty Barnard girl who used to come over and listen to him practise. Sherrie, Al dimly recalled.
What had happened to Sherrie? She had drifted away, it seemed, like all their hopes, leaving them marooned in this house full of ghosts, wandering through life as lonely and embittered as ghosts themselves.
The pot was making him maudlin. He dug a hole in the dirt floor with his toe and buried the roach. Now Richard was gone, a real ghost, leaving him and Harv behind. Al wasn’t sure whether he still envied Richard or not.
Harvey’s ad attracted a raft of responses. There was the jazz cellist who wanted to “broaden his horizons”, the spinster who had been teaching cello for forty years out of her home in Queens, the high-school kid who bragged about being “first cello” in the school orchestra. Harvey sighed as he reviewed the alternatives.
After all, the Goldberg Trio had a reputation. The Times’ Art and Culture columnist had speculated in Richard’s obituary on the future of “one of the city’s most persistent musical institutions”. Harvey had fumed briefly, then shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t afford to waste his energy on some catty member of the press.
The latest response, though, was intriguing. It had a formality of tone that reminded him of an Edith Wharton novel.
Dear Mr Goldberg,
I am writing in response to your advertisement of October 9 in the New York Times, seeking an experienced cellist to join your chamber music ensemble.
I would be honoured if you would consider engaging me for this position. Currently I am employed on the faculty of the Berklee College of Music in Boston. However, I have become quite frustrated with teaching, and had been seriously considering a return to performing even before I saw your advertisement.
I have attached a copy of my CV. If you are interested in auditioning me, would it be possible for you to come to Boston? I have a very heavy schedule during the next week, but after that I can disengage myself more easily. On a longer-term basis, I have no objection whatsoever to relocating to New York.
Thank you for your consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Deidre Rasinovsky-Corbatta
Ms Rasinovky-Corbatta’s resume was impressive. Training at the St Petersburg State Conservatory and the Conservatorio de Santa Cecilia in Rome, six years as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic and three touring on her own, then a Masters from Julliard and four years at Berklee, arguably the best music school in the country.
Harvey read her missive one more time. How had she known how to address him? Presumably she had heard about Richard’s demise and made a calculated guess. It sounded as though she was sharp, as well as qualified.
How would she interact with the two remaining Goldberg brothers, though? Harvey understood that the trio’s success over the years had been based on a delicate balance of personalities as much as on a shared dedication to music. Wouldn’t bringing in a stranger, and a woman at that, upset the balance?
There was no help for it, though. Richard was gone, and anyone they found to replace him would be a stranger. Harvey hated making phone calls, but he swallowed his nervousness and dialled Ms Rasinovsky-Corbatta’s number. With a gig in less than two weeks, he couldn’t afford to indulge his fears.
The Amtrak train chugged through the wilds of Connecticut. Al stared gloomily out the window at the yellowing vegetation, drooping damp under an overcast sky. Harvey sat snoring in the next seat, his round face slack and relaxed and his mouth open. His glasses had slipped down his nose. Gently, Al reached over and returned them to their proper place.
Al had a sense of foreboding about meeting this cellist. Sure, she had fabulous credentials, but he just couldn’t imagine having a woman join their trio. Women were trouble, irrational and demanding. Women made men behave irrationally.
Of course, Richard had been demanding, too, a real prima donna at times, but he and Harvey had known how to handle Richard. After all, they had years of practice.
Maybe he and Harvey should simply give up and dissolve the trio. With Brooklyn continuing to gentrify, they could sell the house for a tidy sum and start over.
Start over doing what, though? Al visualized himself on stage, in the spotlight, soaring through one of the solos from L’Estro Armonico. He knew it would never happen, though. He was too old, too tired, spoiled from playing too long with the same group. Too lazy to try, you mean, a mocking voice whispered in his head. You could have been great, but you’ve never been willing to make the effort.
Al shook his head. Why did all his musings these days degenerate into depression? He manoeuvred his way past Harvey’s knees, careful not to wake his slumbering sibling, and headed towards the cafe car. It was past three, surely not too early for a cocktail.
They got out of the taxi in Back Bay at ten to five. Their appointment was for five thirty.
“Ms Rasinovksy-Corbatta is in Practice Room 5 on the second floor,” the receptionist volunteered. “You can go on up, if you’d like.”
Harvey and Al bundled their instruments up the stairs to a long hallway that smelled of dust and rosin. Room 5 was at the end. The door was ajar. Light and music spilled through the opening.
Harvey grabbed Al, who was about to push the door wide. “Wait,” he whispered urgently. “Listen.”
The melody swirled around them like smoke, mysterious and difficult to apprehend, shifting form and mood in each moment. Harvey recognized Bach’s masterful D minor Partita, rendered with a purity and restraint that made Harvey ache. He closed his eyes and allowed the music to invade him, to overwhelm him. The notes soared heavenwards, until he felt breathless in the thin atmosphere, then sank into low, throaty tones that vibrated deep in his gut.
He knew the piece well — could remember Richard performing it, to enthusiastic crowds — but now it seemed as though he had never truly heard it before. The playing was formal and precise yet somehow the control only heightened the emotional intensity. Pensive, questing, triumphant then subdued, the music ebbed and flowed in the darkened corridor.
“She’s good,” Al whispered.
“Shh!” Harvey felt momentary rage at his brother’s interruption, then the emotion washed away in the tides of Bach’s creation. She was more than good. She was great, clearly a far more talented musician than any of the Goldberg brothers. Even Richard.
Why in the world would she want to be part of their group? What could they offer to induce her to join them? Harvey fretted briefly. Then the music raised him up again and carried him along, until the last mournful note trailed away into silence and set him free.