The doorbell rang, and she could hear the click of the maid’s shoes on the red tiles, polite sounds of greeting. Through the open door of the study, she could see old men coming into the hall, their black instrument cases bumping together, and Meredith sweeping down the stairs above them, a flash of sea green sweater, a skirt with high heels. She spoke to them in German. It was always strange to hear someone you knew speaking another language, they were somehow different than they were in English. In German, Meredith was more girlish, her voice higher pitched. A girl who’d once spoken German with her father.
Meredith came through the study door, still looking back at the old men over her shoulder, then glanced over to where Josie was reading on the couch. “Josie, do you have a moment? There are some dear friends I want you to meet.”
Did she look like she had a moment? Oh, she was much too busy. She put the Schubert down and followed Meredith into the living room. The old men were opening their instrument cases, hanging their jackets on the backs of four straight-backed chairs. She recognized them from the funeral, Death’s string quartet. “Herren, I’d like to introduce Josie Tyrell.” Meredith put her hand on Josie’s shoulder. “Michael’s fiancée. Josie will be staying with us for a while.”
Josie watched their faces, to see how they would react to this latest version of reality, when they had all seen Meredith wrap her hands around Josie’s neck at the funeral. Not one of them expressed any trace of skepticism at Meredith’s new daughter-in-law.
“Mr. Weinstein.” Meredith indicated a frail old man with a delicate face, who shook her hand with a dry small one. “Mr. Cousineau.” Short and chubby, smiling under a cloud of white hair. His plump hand pumped hers enthusiastically. She noticed with a shock the blue numbers peeking out from under his shirt sleeve. She knew what that meant. Such a happy, chubby man.
“A great pleasure,” he said, flirting.
“Mr. Palevsky.” A tall, mournful man with bushy eyebrows, dark eyes sunken above enormous bags, extended a giant hand speckled with age spots. “How do you do.” Another accent, different, but how, Josie couldn’t say.
“And you know Dr. Edelman.”
“Good to see you, Doctor,” Josie said, easily as Elena would. All these foreign hands. Those blue numbers. History close as a handshake. That’s what she felt in this house, intensely. It was why Meredith and Michael were here in the first place. Right on that man’s arm.
“Yes, dear, how are you feeling?” Dr. Edelman said. His accent not as strong as Cousineau’s.
“Much better, thank you,” she said. And none of them seemed to wonder what she was doing there. No amusement or surprise on those ancient faces. She’d gone from pariah to family member with the wave of Meredith’s hand.
“Such a loss,” Weinstein said.
“Yes, thank you,” Josie said, glancing at Meredith, who smiled back. Her new mother-in-law.
“Feel free to join us, Josie,” Meredith said, moving behind the great piano. “We’ve got Brahms today, the piano quintet.”
“Oh, let her go, we’ll bore the poor creature to tears. We have to argue over everything,” Cousineau explained. “Everyone must show off. A quartet is a very dangerous thing.”
“Unstable,” said Palevsky.
“And add a pianist, you know what they’re like. Unbearable egotists,” said Weinstein.
Had they done this when Michael was alive, had he heard these same jokes? Maybe the routine dated from the days of Mauritz, whom she felt everywhere in the house. Describing music as if it was some dangerous mission.
“As the amateur, I feel fortunate simply to keep up.” Dr. Edelman eased himself into the second chair, pulling up one pant leg and then the other, showing his socks. He took his violin out of the case and tucked it under his chin.
The others began to tune their instruments. Weinstein on the other violin, Cousineau on cello, and Palevsky next to him, his must be viola. Meredith rolled her eyes as if telegraphing to Josie that this was not exactly of her own choosing. And Josie understood this wasn’t an everyday get-together. It was a musical shivah. The old men had taken it upon themselves to keep Meredith company, the best way they knew. Those old men, they know what to do. It was their version of dragging you out to the Hong Kong Café.
“What’s Unvollente mean?” she asked Meredith. “The Schubert.”
“Unvollendete,” Meredith said. “Unfinished.”
So much music. She settled back down on the red-leather couch, ran her fingertips along the page of the grandfather’s book, Symphonie Nr. 8 “Unvollendete.” The shapes of the notes, strung along the staff like birds on wires. Michael could read a score like this and hear it in his head. Meredith too. All these people. She looked at the page, imagining what the notes would sound like. Clusters, sections where sets of notes repeated, you could see where it was frenzied, notes jammed in together under double and triple bars like people under an awning, and where it was quiet. She felt like a deaf-mute watching a pianist. They always sit on the left, so they can see the pianist’s hands. Even without knowing the notes, you could see there was from here, meaning.
But still, she could never hear it. Just as she could act like Elena, but never be her. She was always just staring at shapes on a page.
As the Brahms played, she flipped back to the first page. Franz Schubert. Symphonie Nr. 8 h-Moll D 759, “Unvollendete.” Unfinished. She wondered why. Had Schubert died? Or didn’t he like it? Maybe inspiration simply abandoned him. The way she’d left Jeremy with his movie. Poor Jeremy. She’d never left someone in the lurch like that before. The project souring in his hands. All the money Gordo had sunk into it. No, she shouldn’t think of it. It wasn’t her problem. She was no actress. She was just killing time.
Out in the living room, she could hear their voices, arguing about some fine point of music. One of the violins played, and then the cello played alone, slower. More arguing. On Mauritz’s big desk, where Cal had found the suicide notes, stood an old-fashioned cradle phone, sitting on a crocheted doily, like something Gommer Ida would make. She was surprised to even think of the film, or anything else happening down there. But something had happened that night on Sunset Plaza, something she had never felt before. She wasn’t a creative person like Michael or Meredith, like the art students or these old men or even Jeremy. She was just a girl who went along, who could remember where she put her body, could stand there, look upset. She wore clothes well, put on her makeup with flair. But things coming out of her, visible to the world? It was in a strange way another loss. You gave things away you couldn’t afford to lose. Private things. You showed yourself and you couldn’t take it back. Yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about it, how exciting it had felt to have all that come out of her. Creating something that hadn’t been there before. Like painting a canvas. Like the music coming out of Meredith and her old men.
She picked up the phone. The receiver was heavy in her hand, back from the days they made phones from Bakelite instead of plastic. She wasn’t going back down or anything, she just wanted to apologize. Suggest someone else who might be able to do it. Two different girls, Jeremy would think of a way.
She counted the rings, hoping Jeremy wouldn’t have gone out so early. Unlikely. Film students, like musicians, were vampires. They didn’t come out till the sun went down. Ten, eleven . . .
“’Lo?” Jeremy’s voice sounded tentative, like someone searching for his glasses, though he didn’t wear glasses.
“It’s me,” Josie said.
“Josie?” Now he was awake. “Where have you been? Your friend Pen said you’re being held hostage in some voodoo mansion. Are you okay? How does it look up there?”
She had to smile. Already thinking about a turn in the script that needed a voodoo mansion. She faced the wall, kept her voice low. Somehow she knew it wouldn’t be kosher to be discovered using the phone. Reaching outside the circle of grief to the living world. But the piano heaved a great waterfall of sound, the strings commenting and scoldin
g. Then the music stopped and the arguing began again. “I’m staying with someone. Sorry I didn’t call.”
She could hear him choosing his words. She knew he wanted to chew her out, but something was keeping him from doing it. “Josie, I heard about your boyfriend.” He said it in such a human tone, unlike him. “You should have told me.”
She slid her hand down the old-fashioned cord. It didn’t coil. She wondered when they started to make them the curly way. “I guess I thought if people didn’t know, I could just get on with it. I couldn’t take it if everybody knew. They either feel sorry for you or think it’s your fault.”
There was a rustle on the other end. “What are you talking about? Nobody would think that. That’s delusional.”
“But if I told you, you might have used someone else.” Something he would find easier to understand. God, you look like crap. Take some vitamin C, eat a steak.
She could hear the sound of his breathing. He couldn’t deny that. He might’ve felt sorry for her, but success was a train that only made scheduled stops. “Well, that’s moot. I’ve been desperate to find you. I edited the footage. You’ve just got to see it, Josie. I kept thinking, ‘Who is that?’ ” He laughed, short, apologetic. “Not that you weren’t always good, but entre nous, you never worked up much of a sweat. Now you’re mesmerizing. We don’t know what you’re going to do next. Are you coming back soon? Please say you will, I beg of you.”
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “Jeremy, I —”
Suddenly there was Meredith, in the doorway, her face flushed from the effort of the Brahms.
“Look, I’ve got to go.” She hung up without even a goodbye.
Meredith brushed her hair from her face and held it back tight to her scalp. “Who was that?”
“Nobody,” Josie said. “A wrong number.”
She reached for her cigarettes, remembered she’d smoked the last one. She crushed the box and threw it at the wastebasket, but it only clipped the side and ricocheted onto the polished floor.
Meredith’s sweater was exactly the same color as her eyes. His eyes. It disturbed her that the longer she knew Meredith, the harder it was for her to remember Michael, his face was so much like his mother’s. The same lanky grace, the same eyebrows, the wide mouth, smiling, though her eyes didn’t smile.
“Are you done playing?”
“Mr. Weinstein had to use the facilities. I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
Josie turned away, toward the window dappled with the tiny triangles of blue February sky. She opened the window, leaning out, breathing the fresh air. “It was just some business I had to take care of. Don’t worry, it was a local call.”
“Josie,” Meredith said, crossing her arms, lounging against the doorjamb. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. But I’d prefer you not tell your friends where you are. Not if that girl was any indication.”
Josie stood looking out at the hills, the green domes of the observatory. Somewhere up there, in the clumps of oak and eucalyptus, they’d made love on the picnic table at Dante’s View. Could she have seen them from here? “Don’t worry, no one’s coming.”
“Not the man in the photograph, was it?”
Josie smiled to herself. Meredith wanted to know more. The identity of the man she’d called. You’re all I have. And the woman wanted her too, every bit of her. Now Josie was starting to understand how Michael felt if she ever asked him where he’d gone, what he’d been doing. He hated to be questioned, and here was the reason, the source of all his locked doors, his secrets. This woman in the green sweater, still stunning at forty-whatever. “No, it wasn’t. Someone else,” she replied. Did Meredith think she was lying? It made her smile to think so. Like the photos her private detective had taken. She would never really know. The blown roses clung to the bushes outside.
Meredith turned to listen to a voice from the living room. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask Sofía. This is going to take a while.”
Josie stretched, her hands linked overhead, then twisted from side to side. “I could use some cigarettes.”
“It’s a foul habit,” Meredith said automatically. “And anyway, you just got over being sick.”
“I’m an addict,” Josie said.
Meredith gazed at the window, touching the soft sleeves of her sweater. The shadows played across her face. “Well, perhaps this isn’t the time for further renunciations. Just tell Sofía.”
Josie leaned over, picked up the crumpled packet from the floor. “They’re Gauloises. She can’t get them at the market.”
“I know what they are, Josie,” Meredith said.
“Michael used to say the smell of Paris was Gauloises and dogshit in the rain.”
Meredith was looking at the volume of Schubert she’d left on the couch. “What are you doing with this?”
“Reading it,” Josie said.
Meredith lifted her thick, shapely eyebrows. “It’s a beautiful piece. Would you like to hear it sometime? I’ve got some of the most wonderful recordings. Furtwängler, with the Vienna. And Bruno Walter did a marvelous one with the Chicago, few people know about it.” She picked up the book and paged through it. “You’re looking very pale, Josie. You should sit in the sun. I don’t want anyone accusing me of poisoning you.” She slid the symphony back onto the bookshelf where it came from. “Let Sofía know when you’d like lunch.”
“Sofía doesn’t like me much, if you can’t tell,” Josie said.
Meredith laughed, musical. “Josie, who cares if Sofía likes you? If anybody likes you.”
Josie tried to imagine a person who wouldn’t care if people liked them. What about Meredith? The way she spooned tea for her, the hand on her shoulder. Didn’t Meredith like her? “Don’t most people? Want people to like them?”
Meredith perched on the arm of the leather couch, her heavy hair falling over one shoulder. “At one time, there were a handful of people I cared about, but their numbers seem to be diminishing.” She sighed, tried to smile, it twisted her face into an awkward grimace. “In any case, don’t worry about Sofía. She’s a servant, she’ll do what she’s told.”
Michael told her Sofía had been a young widow in Seville when Meredith hired her, during her first European tour, back in the Fifties. Josie didn’t like her any more than Sofía liked Josie, but she’d never heard anyone described so callously. She’s a servant, she’ll do what she’s told. She could imagine Elena saying it, though. As if a servant was somehow different from a real person. She wondered what Meredith would think if Josie told her that she’d scrubbed toilets in the Sunnyvale Motel, scraped down the grill at Rollerama.
“Now I’ve offended you.” Meredith stood, brushed down her skirt, her dark hair rich around her pale face. “I didn’t mean to sound so Marie Antoinette. It’s just the way we live. Is it so hard to get used to, getting what you want, when you want it? Having someone taking care of your needs?”
Her needs. Christ.
Josie wondered, who was that we in the way we live? Did it mean her and Meredith? Meredith and Michael? Mauritz and Meredith? Or just people like the Loewys. Was she included in that we? It was true, it wasn’t hard to get used to. Josie suddenly felt as strange to herself as a fledgling must feel when it sheds its baby down and feels the sharp feathers piercing its skin from the inside out.
As commanded, Josie lay by the pool in a patch of weak winter sunlight, wearing her yellow coat and sunglasses, a scarf tied Grace Kelly-style around her head and throat. She listened to the instruments, each with its own voice, meeting, arguing, separating, coming back together again. She felt grand, pampered, at ease. It was warm in the sun but an underlayer of cold revealed itself whenever a cloud came by. Watching the surface of the dark water, the ripples when a leaf fell in, she felt herself sink into a sweet lethargy. She had the sense that the phone call to Jeremy might be her last volitional act. From now on, she would float like a leaf on Meredith’s pool, like a phrase of Debussy.
At som
e point, she heard clicking heels on the concrete. Sofía approached and stopped at her side, stiffly asked if she needed anything. Where before she might have asked if it was okay, would she mind, now she just said, “Yes, I am a little hungry,” the way Michael would. Not saying what he wanted, but just that he had a need, and it was the rest of the world’s job to fill it.
“You want I make you lunch?” The woman didn’t look her in the eye, but gazed somewhere over her head. With her thin face and sharp, high-bridged nose, she spoke to Josie the way you’d talk to someone taking a crap, at an angle, as if they weren’t really there.
“Breakfast, I think,” Josie said. She could feel herself wanting to add if that’s okay, but forced herself to leave it off. Every attempt to show herself a good person in Sofía’s eyes had failed anyway. Maybe she preferred the Loewy imperial style. Or maybe it just didn’t make any difference. But it maddened her. “Sofía, you don’t like me, do you?”
The woman’s full mouth drew into a sudden line.
“What did I ever do to you?” Who cares if Sofía likes you? If anybody likes you. “Look, I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well get used to it.”
“I make you breakfast.” Her low-heeled pumps clicking away as she marched back to the house.
“And if you go out,” Josie called after her, “I could use some cigarettes. Gauloises, in the blue box.”
Sofía ran her hand over her slicked-back hair, touched the chignon, and kept walking.
Well, where had wanting to be liked ever gotten her? People liked people who didn’t care. She lay in the sun behind her dark glasses, listening to a jay argue with a squirrel, and the Brahms. How cold it was, even in the sun. Michael was always cold. Maybe that’s why he headed for the desert. Maybe he hadn’t gone there to kill himself, maybe he’d just hoped it was warm. The desert was a mystery to her, why people went out there, where there was nothing but a bunch of rocks. It wasn’t even beautiful, like Sequoia, or the beach. Why would he go there? Why didn’t he just do it at their house? Maybe a gesture of caring, that he hadn’t blown his brains all over their bedroom, where they’d made love and spawned their dreams. A last act of consideration. That or a final fuck you.