“Jerusalem,” the harpist says quietly. “My mother returned to her old apartment, and I knew that would happen.”
The man’s face brightens. He is a Flemish bachelor of seventy-five, tall and nattily dressed, who after his retirement from the cultural affairs department of the city of Antwerp was chosen as administrative director of the Arnhem orchestra. When his tenure in Holland is over, he too will likely return to his old apartment in the gray Belgian port, and is thus encouraged by the decision of a distant, unfamiliar widow of similar age.
Noga asks about the response to the Mozart double concerto that was stolen from her.
“People still love Mozart,” says Herman with an evasive smile. “Mozart is easy for them.”
“I wasn’t asking about Mozart,” she says sharply, “but about reactions to the performance.”
Herman remains evasive. “Your loyal friend Manfred is a virtuoso, and so Christine, whom I brought in from Antwerp, did the best she could not to get in his way. Don’t be angry with her. She is surely not to blame.”
“Not her,” whispers Noga, deciding to leave it at that.
Only now is she struck by the silence around her.
“Where is everybody?”
“The orchestra is playing tonight in Hamburg. They’ll be back tomorrow, and rehearsals begin in three days’ time.”
“And we’ll start with the Berlioz?”
“No, Noga, here’s good news for you. The Fantastique has been canceled.”
“Canceled?”
“That’s right.”
“And that’s what you call good news for me, Herman? Why was it canceled?”
“Because we’ve played it so many times. Also, we don’t have the budget to double the timpani again and add three more contrabasses and bring all the noisy toys the Frenchman required to describe the torments of his love.”
“And what’s instead?”
“Instead of Berlioz we chose another French piece, something mature and subtle, and this is the news that will please you personally. Instead of the little waltz for harp in the second movement of the Fantastique, you and Christine will have the full dialogue between the wind and waves in Debussy’s La Mer.
“La Mer!” she rejoices. “Oh, Herman, you’re so right, this is wonderful news, consolation for the three months I didn’t play with you. The harp is almost the main player.”
“The two harps.”
“Of course. Both of them.”
He admires the pretty musician’s dimpled cheeks as she glows with happiness. Taking a wad of tobacco from a box on his desk, he tamps it into the twisting pipe from Jerusalem, but has difficulty lighting it.
“This is a young and modest pipe,” he pronounces, taking up his old pipe, which readily responds. “But I won’t give up on it.”
“Where did you get the idea to replace the Berlioz with Debussy?”
“You won’t believe it — from very far away, the management of the Kyoto orchestra. While you were in Israel we got an unexpected offer from our embassy in Japan for an exchange of orchestras with Kyoto, and when we mentioned Berlioz, we sensed a polite hesitation, because the Fantastique had been in their repertoire the previous year, so they came up with an original notion, expressed in an inspired fashion. Here, listen to what they wrote us: ‘You, the Dutch, have wrestled with the sea and succeeded in taming it and even conquering it to some extent, whereas for us Japanese the sea brings destruction and death. Therefore kindly perform Debussy’s La Mer for us not only as musicians but as experienced conquerors of the sea, and maybe through your performance we too can learn how to contend with the sea that surrounds us.’ Strange, no?”
“Strange and profound.”
“Yes, well, Debussy’s Impressionism was inspired in part by Japanese art, and on the cover of the original score of La Mer from 1905 was a huge wave, a tsunami, by the Japanese printmaker Hokusai.”
“I didn’t know that, haven’t seen it. When’s the picture from?”
“Hokusai lived from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. There were devastating tsunamis then too, it would seem.”
“Wonderful,” says the harpist, “wonderful. La Mer is a piece that will lift my soul. When do we leave?”
“In ten days’ time. Dennis returns tomorrow from America, and will rehearse the orchestra and conduct the performances. And so, our Venus, your vacation is over.”
“It was hardly a vacation, but if you insist, you can call it one.”
“I won’t insist if you tell me exactly what happened,” says Herman solicitously. “But vacation or not, now it’s back to work. First of all the music library, to organize the scores for the various instruments, and at the same time check on Debussy’s Danse Sacrée et Danse Profane.”
“The Sacred and Profane Dances for harp and strings!” she shouts. “Herman, I am beside myself, I’m so happy. You mean I can be a soloist in Japan?”
“For now these are ideas — they still need to be discussed. But if you were upset about the Mozart you missed, here are two Debussys to console you.”
Herman reaches for the Jerusalem pipe.
In high spirits, she hurries to the library and finds the score of La Mer: a pocket-size version with small print. She skims rapidly through the three movements: “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea” to “Play of the Waves” to “Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,” and happily confirms that both parts for harp are rich and varied, sometimes in unison, sometimes in conversation. She rushes back to the orchestra’s main office and gets the key to the basement storeroom. The heavy instruments in storage — the bass drum, xylophone, two contrabasses and an enormous tuba — cast shadows in the sparingly lighted room. Her harp had made the trip to Germany, but the second harp, the old one, stands cloaked in its pinkish case. With great care she uncovers it and begins tuning the strings. It’s not easy to tune the elderly harp, whose presence is needed in but a few compositions alongside the first harp, but she doesn’t give up until all forty-seven strings are proven ready.
This harp, built in the nineteenth century, was a gift to the orchestra by a provincial gentleman who thought he was donating an antique of great value, which was not the case. Despite its regal frame, painted several times over in reddish gold, the wood is quite ordinary, and worms that feasted on it over the years have left little holes that sometimes muffle its tone. But now she holds it close to her heart and for a full hour warms up her fingers with fast and slow glissandi, also improvising her own little melodies. Only after she is warmed up and her yearning has been satisfied, her thoughts turn to her mother, alone in the Jerusalem apartment. Will the new “wealth” she acquired in her imagination help her acclimate without regret to the solitude she chose?
Noga exits the basement and walks out to the street as night slowly falls in the Netherlands. A fine European rain sweetens the air. She goes back to the musicians’ café, where the owners greet her fondly. Her sojourn in Israel to assist an elderly mother has raised her stock in the eyes of the Dutch; they all have parents or relatives whose dilemmas of old age will involve them, or already do.
“She returned to her old apartment in Jerusalem,” Noga announces triumphantly.
Only natural, declare the restaurant owners, and a longtime waiter offers his approvaclass="underline" “Hard to give up Jerusalem.”