When the rehearsal is over, Noga inquires if the dizziness and nausea have waned, and asks about the pregnancy.
Christine is at the start of her fourth month. Your first pregnancy? Almost, essentially, not counting a youthful abortion many years before, no connection to her present partner. And with curiosity mixed with vague anxiety, Noga persists: “Is he your husband?” “Almost,” she says again. “Not really. We’ll have to wait for the birth to make the marriage official along with the citizenship.”
“He’s not a citizen?” probes the Israeli.
“He is almost. He has a work permit as a port traffic controller.”
“And he’ll go with you to Japan?”
“To Japan? No, on the contrary, he wants to prevent me from going.”
“Prevent?”
“He is concerned about the pregnancy on such a long trip.”
“Explain to him that you are essential, that there’s no La Mer without the dialogue between the two harps.”
“He understands, I did explain, but he doesn’t care. That is why I am in despair. He is here to sabotage the trip.”
“Have you informed Dennis or Herman about his objection?”
“Not yet. If I told them, they would find another harpist to play, even in the farewell concert tomorrow, so I am waiting.”
“Christine,” Noga says calmly, straining to suppress fear and anger, “if you delay telling them till after the concert, it will be too late to find a replacement for the Japanese tour. In fact, it’s already late. It’s not fair to hide from the orchestra that your husband doesn’t want you to go.”
“He’s not my husband.”
“That’s irrelevant. Whoever he is. If you keep silent, they won’t be able to find a new harpist for such a long and difficult journey. You must let them know immediately. You are putting the whole repertoire in danger. Without the second harp there is no way to perform the piece.”
“That’s right.”
“Which is why you should do the right thing.”
“Perhaps… perhaps in Japan,” Christine says despondently, “you can play Schubert or something else instead of Debussy. There are enough suitable pieces in the repertoire of this orchestra without a second harp or even a first harp.”
“No, no,” shouts Noga, “no Schubert, no Mozart, no Beethoven, no nothing. We will play La Mer. That’s the piece the Japanese are waiting for, and we will perform it.”
“So what should I do?” agonizes Christine.
“Tell Dennis and Herman immediately that you are not going to Japan.”
“But perhaps I will go after all.”
“How?”
“Perhaps I can convince him that nothing will happen to the baby… Perhaps you will help me… Perhaps you will explain to him that without the second harp Debussy is lost.”
“All right, I’ll try, I’ll help you, and so will other women players. We’ll look after you on the trip. But first you must inform Herman and Dennis, otherwise I will warn them.”
“You cannot go in my place.”
“I will go if you don’t. Because you must not steal this unique piece of music from the rest of us. La Mer is also la mère, the mother, and you of all people, being French, must understand the significance of the connection between the two words. I left my elderly mother in Jerusalem, and that’s why I want so very much to play her on my harp.”
“To play your mother?” Christine is dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.”
They are now standing in the lobby of the concert hall, and musicians walking by seem to sense the tension between the two harpists and walk faster. The man in the overalls emerges from the auditorium and hurries to his partner. From close up, he looks handsome and sensitive, yet the hand he extends to Noga is rough, hard. His skin is dark and his hair curly, but his sparkling eyes are blue as the sea, possibly strengthening his claim to citizenship. He positions himself between the two harpists, suspecting that the Israeli is trying to persuade his girlfriend not to forgo the trip to Japan.
“What’s happening?” he asks his girlfriend in French.
“What should be happening?” she answers coldly, dismissively.
Convinced now that the first harpist is the one obstructing the withdrawal from the tour, he switches to English, so Noga will understand, and asks Christine to do exactly what Noga had just insisted on, which is to go to management immediately and inform them.
Christine merely shrugs, but Noga, realizing that she and this man are in agreement, intervenes. “You’re right,” she says, “Christine must tell them now, otherwise they won’t have time to find a replacement.”
Strengthened by the ally he had assumed was an obstacle, he moves quickly. Gently but firmly he puts his arm around his partner’s waist and steers her toward the office.
Expecting to be met with anger, Christine considers asking the Israeli to accompany her, as if hoping that the dialogue between the wind and the sea could be played by one harpist alone. But as they approach Herman’s office she decides that Noga’s presence would make matters worse. She also insists in French that her partner wait outside, and enters quietly to bear the bad news that might wreck the repertoire of the tour.
Slowly the guardian of the pregnancy begins to relax. First he stands by the office door, trying in vain to overhear the conversation inside. Then he sits down on a bench in the hallway, stretches his legs, sees no one around but Noga, takes a single cigarette from his shirt pocket and sticks it in his mouth. But before he can light it there is the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor, and Dennis van Zwol arrives in a panic, summoned by management to deal with the incipient dropout. Identifying the progenitor of the bad news, he knocks the cigarette from the man’s mouth with the flick of a finger and growls in French, “No smoking!” Turning to Noga, as if she too were responsible, he says in Dutch, “Tell me what’s going on? What’s the story here? What was she thinking?” He doesn’t wait for an answer but disappears into Herman’s office to fight for the integrity of the repertoire.
Noga looks at the boyfriend, who retrieves the damaged cigarette from the floor, shreds the paper and collects the tobacco in his hand. Without a word or a glance at the harpist, he sits back down, determined to guard Christine’s pregnancy at all costs. Now Noga takes a closer look. His dark skin is velvety smooth, his thick curly hair is black as coal, and the northern blueness of his eyes blends the world into one country. Her heart is heavy. From the speed with which the conductor was summoned, she gathers that it will be hard, if not impossible, to find a harpist at the last minute who will be able to get ready overnight for such a long and distant journey. After so many exhausting, exhilarating rehearsals, Noga thinks with a pang of despair, will Debussy be forced to cede his place to some same-old Schubert or hackneyed Beethoven?
And now her memory conjures a movie extra, a disabled woman in a wheelchair waiting outside the closed door of a room that masqueraded as a hospital room. There too, beside her, stood a stranger, a handsome actor whose bare chest gleamed under a white gown. An imaginary doctor whom she would soon be directed to surprise in the midst of forbidden lovemaking, and he, spontaneously, would pluck her from her wheelchair and, with a mixture of anger and pity, carry her in his arms to her sickbed and cover her, as if to blot out the shame he had brought on himself.
But now there is no director to tell her what to do. She has no choice but to direct, produce and write her own script — to give voice and movement to her thoughts so that her harp will play a piece of music whose beauty floods her soul. She gets up her nerve and approaches the man in overalls, who sits on the bench with his eyes closed and head tilted back.