It would not cross Koesler’s mind that he had come on like a white knight or a fictional detective and singlehandedly solved this case. Far from it. He was no more than a simple parish priest. And happy and fulfilled in being that. The homicide department had done its usual thorough and painstaking job of building the case. In all probability, they would have closed the matter unaided by any outside agency. But Koesler had been able to contribute some information that proved helpful. Well, perhaps something more than that. Koesler’s information, when presented, proved to be the crowning touch of the brief investigation. Koesler had been able to provide the elusive ingredient needed to tie up all the loose ends.
But the presence of all the suspects at the victim’s funeral struck Koesler as peculiar, to say the least. He wondered if it might be unique. So few things were.
Well, time enough after the funeral for the law to exact punishment. For now, there was a liturgy to celebrate.
What an odd word to describe this function, thought Koesler. Nevertheless, he resolved to do his best with the celebration of a Mass of Resurrection. The main block—Koesler knew himself well—would be that ever-present stream of consciousness that was sure to provide him with one distraction after another.
All had entered and been shown to their places. The church was almost filled. The undertaker placed the lighted Paschal candle at the head of the casket. The congregation was attentive. All was ready.
Koesler intoned: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Amen.” Most of the congregation responded.
“The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
“And also with you,” was the response.
Koesler continued. “My friends, to prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries, let us call to mind our sins.”
In the silence that followed, Koesler’s gaze fell on David Palmer. David Palmer, the musician. Unbidden, memories flooded back.
The vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors of Holy Redeemer grade school.
Boards creaking as children walked, rapidly perhaps but never running lest one of the nuns was sure to whack you. Silence, as simultaneously throughout the building, classes began. Then the only sound, Sister raising her voice at a slow, lazy, or disobedient student. Or, as nuns glided down a hallway, the rattle of the fifteen-decade rosary wound through their belts.
These were the 1930s and all was as it had been for a century or more. Catholic children attended Catholic schools or the breadwinner heard about it after he confessed his sin of omission to the priest of a Saturday evening.
Nuns, without whom a parochial school system never could have been attempted, were swathed from head to toe in distinctive religious habit. The garb of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the teachers at Holy Redeemer, was a color that became identified as IHM Blue. They also wore a black scapular that slipped over their shoulders and draped to the floor fore and aft. This was capped by a stiff bonnet that pinched the cheeks and eventually wore an almost permanent ridge in the forehead.
They began each day with Mass in the convent at an ungodly early hour. Breakfast was followed by another Mass with the children in attendance. They taught school all day. Prayed, dined, prepared lesson plans, and retired. Only to do the selfsame thing the next day. And the next and the next. During summers they usually returned to college to pile up more hours toward another academic degree.
In an office just large enough for a small desk and chair and a spinet piano, Sister Mary George, IHM, is conducting a music lesson.
Seated at the piano is Robert Koesler, undergoing his weekly humiliation.
“No, no, Robert . . .” Sister vigorously taps a baton against the piano. “. . . you have a left hand. It’s not just for waving at the keys. It’s supposed to play the correct notes.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“It’s not that you don’t have talent, Robert. It’s that you don’t practice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“How many hours did you practice this week?”
“Uh . . . I don’t know, Sister.”
“Not many, I’ll wager. Robert, you don’t like Czerny, do you?”
“Uh . . . no. Sister.” Actually, Koesler had nothing against the composer personally. He just did not enjoy scales and arpeggios that had no tunes worth mentioning. But whether or not Koesler liked Czerny, his answer would have been the same. To small obedient Catholic children of that day, nuns’ questions, like that just posed by Sister Mary George, were rhetorical.
“That’s another one of your problems, Robert: You don’t build foundations. All you want to do is put in windows.”
“Sister?”
“I know you want to play beautiful music, lyric music, Robert. But you can’t do that unless you practice these fundamentals. First you build the foundations, then you can put in the beautiful ornaments. Do you see, Robert?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“Uh . . .” There was one question Koesler had been wrestling with for a very long time: Why did all nuns smell exactly the same? Something like Fels Naphtha or Ivory soap. But he would never have the boldness to ask it. Or rather, by the time he would have the courage to ask, it no longer mattered. “No, Sister.”
“Very well, then, Robert. Next week do the same Czerny exercises. And this time pay attention to your left hand. Then, only after you master that, you can go on to that little Mozart prelude. Now, don’t forget orchestra practice this afternoon.”
“No, Sister.” Koesler would have much preferred a quick game of baseball after school. But he would be there for orchestra practice. For starters, he would be killed if he didn’t show up. First blood would go to Sister. The coup de grace would be delivered by his parents.
Music lessons cost one dollar an hour, a laughably low price even then. But Koesler’s hard-pressed parents found it difficult to produce that extra dollar. And they had emphatically impressed upon their son that they expected some results for their investment. He might not practice what he considered “the dull stuff” assiduously, but neither would he skip a lesson nor miss orchestra practice.
Another family in Koesler’s neighborhood could afford money for lessons even less than the Koeslers. But the other family had even more reason to invest whatever they could in their son’s musical career. They were the Palmers and their son, David, was a prodigy.
Both Fred and Agnes Palmer were musicians. Both played in chamber ensembles regularly. Agnes gave lessons. But her instrument was not the violin, and David’s was. Besides, there was that peculiar impediment that makes it problematical for a parent to undertake the formal education of one’s own child.
The first inkling the Palmers had of their son’s gift was when he was three years old. Agnes Palmer had just completed playing Debussy’s “Clair de lune.” As she walked away from the piano, she heard a small high sound. It was her son, humming perfectly what she had just performed. Soon thereafter, David began repeating on the piano the melodic lines of works his parents played. At the age of five, he found a violin and the violin found him. In no time, he convinced his parents that it would be through the violin that he would most perfectly express his God-given talent.
With one thing and another, the Palmers concluded it would be a crime not to do everything in their power to advance the boy’s musical education. So, for a hard-earned dollar a week, they sent him to Sister Mary George.