Chapter 7
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
("Essay on Man", Alexander Pope)
I
Nodame didn't know why she had agreed to the visit. It did seem like a good idea at the time. Not that she had been pressed to go along but she could sense an urgent desperation in the other woman's voice. A woman, who not unlike herself, was seeking resolution for the man she loved. Still, Nodame harboured some misgivings… but nothing that would cause her to turn back. These misgivings were not so much about the rightness of her actions but that the man she had married would not approve of her actions… that he would misunderstand and perhaps even question her loyalty to him. Despite possible objections to this excursion, something else was driving her forward… something that overcame her many uncertainties. Curiosity perhaps… unabated curiosity about the man whom she married… curiosity about the father he never talked about… or acknowledged… curiosity about the home they once shared and curiosity about the father-in-law she did not know. Although she knew the son in his manhood… his childhood was for her like a large missing piece of the puzzle… leaving behind a gaping hole in her understanding of the man she adored. He made very little reference to it and it seemed that the less he said, the more determined she was to fill those gaps in on her own. Now it seemed as if the opportunity to learn more had arisen and she was anxious to strike while the iron was hot.
In the busyness of the past several years, as they were both attempting to establish their respective careers, the matter had seemed vaguely insignificant in the overall scheme of things. However, now that she had, as it were, got her man, it occurred to her that she was duty-bound to plumb the mystery of the father/son estrangement, probing around in areas that had been closed off to her. In her own way she could see that his refusal to broach the subject was nothing more than his way of camouflaging a festering wound. A wound that could easily threaten their future together... something that Vieira sensei had cautioned her about. And nothing mattered more to her than this future… which she had fought so hard to have.
Meeting Chiaki Masayuki face to face for the first time the previous night, hit home to her that the father was more than just an enigma to her. Like it or not, the man was family, and his influence on the son was far more significant than the son was ready to acknowledge. Despite the absence of the father from his son's life, his enduring legacy continued to haunt the son. She had some understanding of the reasons for the son's acerbic animosity towards his father and yet she was capable of seeing past the bitter façade, offering equal doses of compassion to two men who, undoubtedly, needed to confront one another. From what little she had seen and heard, she had come to the melancholic conclusion that despite the father's reticence and the son's obstinacy, one needed forgiveness and the other needed to forgive.
Despite her naiveté, Nodame could understand that much. Better than her husband, she knew that someone had to take the first step in righting past wrongs. With both men being so taciturn, it was up to her, with Sophie's help, to bridge this gap.
So caught up with her musings, she did not realize that the car had stopped. With some prompting from her companion, she woke from her reverie and cast her eye over her surroundings and stared for some time at the extensive grounds where Shinichi had spent some of his childhood. In the middle of the estate, was an unassuming structure erected during the art noveau/secession period that through time had blended in with the natural environment.
Inside, the old family house was simply furnished. The furniture looked tasteful but did not suggest opulence but utility. Chiaki Masayuki did not appear to surround himself with much by way of material possessions apart from the odd piece of souvenir that he had picked up in his travels. As an outsider looking in, Nodame was struck by the fact that it was a place of memories. A place where seemingly disparate pieces of memories intersected and coalesced. There were photographs everywhere… side by side were newspaper clippings of past achievements neatly framed. Photographs lined the walls and the closed lid of the Steinway, that made its home in the brightest part of the lounge. Any available space between books in bookcases, shelves were all seconded for the display of these pictorial memories… memories which spoke of a lifetime lived in music. Nodame did not recognize many of the characters that inhabited Masayuki sensei's world from the past and present. However, there were others… Seiko okaa san, Nina and members of the Miyoshi family… who came and went out from his life under less than happy circumstances. Then there were the competition write ups… the awards… the triumphant performances, captured on film. The house was a time capsule… narrating the entire history of the pianist as he made a name for himself and conquered the world stage… the public face of one of the world's great pianists. But notably missing was the private face… the struggling father, the failed husband… the man who saw himself first as a musician and left everything else by the wayside.
Nodame was rooted to the ground trying to decipher something of the man from these memories. Her attention was so focused on these artifacts that she was oblivious to the soft footsteps that were moving towards her.
"Noda san. I apologize for the mess. If I had known that you were coming…" Masayuki san darted a puzzled look at his fiancée and then turned to watch Nodame flit her gaze all around the room.
"So many photographs…" Nodame stood mesmerized as if she had not heard his remarks. The room reminded her of an art gallery. "Are there any of Shinichi?"
"Over there…" He pointed to the glistening Steinway.
Nodame drew great comfort from that… it gave her a measure of hope seeing those photos of the son on what must be the most prized possession in the room. Shinichi had been a boy who seemed eager to please. Yet despite all his antipathy against his father, there was something of that boy still lingering in the consciousness of the young conductor.
"Why did you come, Noda san?"
This time she turned around and faced her companions. "Please call me Nodame…" She paused briefly before saying. "I wanted to know what sort of man I married… and the kind of a man he could become."
Chiaki Masayuki fixed his gaze at her thoughtfully. "Did you find out anything?" There is something child-like about her. Guileless too…
She turned to face him. "Maybe… It's hard to say…"
"What is…"
"He needs to be here… he needs to know about this."
"Do you think so?"
Nodame nodded vigorously. "Absolutely… whether he wants to or not…"
"Does he want to?"
"I think he does but I think he is afraid… He is still living inside that 11 year old boy's head. He wants to get out because the space is getting smaller and it is suffocating him but he thinks it is safer to stay inside, away from the monster that will pounce on him the moment he leaves."
"So you think I am the monster?"
"Are you?" Nodame asked him simply, with no sense that she was sitting in judgment of him.
"If I am… I am an old, tired monster with no more teeth left…"
"Gifu…" Nodame flung her arms around her father-in-law with great compassion. Sophie, who had been watching in silence, made her exit with tears streaming down her face. She's the key... she has to be... there is no one else.
Chiaki senior was taken aback, being unaccustomed to outward displays of affection. "You don't seem afraid of this old monster…" He stammered.
"There's no need… he was never really a monster. Just a lonely man who didn't know what was important to him until it was too late."
Chiaki Masayuki could not but be affected by this spontaneous show of kindness.
Yes, I was right… there is something about her…
"Shinichi is very lucky to have found someone like you." Chiaki Masayuki muttered, his voice rich with emotion.
"I hope he thinks so too."
"If he doesn't, he's just as much a fool as his father."
"You're a miracle worker, Shinichi… You had more than half these people agree on something… even if it was just a word."
"I don't think I did anything. Everyone's on edge at the moment… wondering if they're going to be next on the poison pen's list." He then added wryly, "They probably suspect me which is why they're being unusually cooperative."
"You give yourself far too little credit. Besides, I don't think they suspect you at all. They might, on the other hand, suspect Stresemann and the fact that you were once his apprentice…"
"Has caused them to be more amenable to my propositions than they would otherwise have." Chiaki finished his former teacher's sentence.
"Perhaps." Vieira grinned. "Perhaps they actually do like the new secretary."
"Do they? I don't know about that." Shinichi wondered. "This whole thing is a nightmare. I should never have brought her here. It was a bad idea from the start."
"Well, it is difficult to spend a honeymoon alone…" Vieira's grin grew wider and then he chuckled.
"It was a mistake trying to rush everything. We could've postponed… "
"From what I've heard, I don't think you could be accused of rushing anything." Vieira commented slyly.
"Yeah, well… I probably tried to achieve too many things in a short space of time." He fell silent and then changed the subject. "So how was the recital last night?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"No… we didn't get round to it…" Shinichi remarked sheepishly. "Was… er… everything alright?"
"She tripped on her dress and fell onto the piano."
"Whaaat…"
"Just joking…"
"Vieira sensei… If you were trying to cause me to experience a heart attack, well, you almost succeeded."
"She was amazing… Shinichi… just amazing. She has the extraordinary gift to take the audience along to wherever she's going to. It wasn't long before she had the audience eating out of her hand. And later, she handled the post-recital mingle superbly. An absolute professional. She's a natural at this game and she'll go far."
I'm glad. I know I should be there for her… "I'm relieved to hear this… it's hard to know with that woman sometimes…"
"You worry about her a lot, don't you?"
"She's completely irresponsible… even though she's twenty-eight years old. She just doesn't take care of herself properly."
"Well, at least she has you to keep an eye on her."
"Not that I have much of a choice." He grumbled. "Well, at least she survived the night without me."
"I think she did better than that. Much better. Even your father was impressed. And I don't think a pianist of his calibre would be that easily impressed."
Your father? Dad was there last night? What the devil was he doing there?
"Shinichi... are you alright? You looked like you've seen a ghost."
"Almost. My father was there?"
"Did she not tell you?" Vieira asked in surprise. "They even chatted briefly."
"No… she didn't." was the grim response. "As I said earlier, we never got round to it."
"I didn't know… I hadn't heard."
"I tried very hard to keep it under wraps. My agent put out a brief press statement, saying that I was taking some time out of touring and then imposed a media blackout. There was a short piece about it onClassical Life but they were under strict orders not to say too much more or make any attempt invade my privacy. Fortunately I'm just a humble classical pianist and not a Hollywood or pop star."
Nodame recalled the systematic way in which Shinichi weeded out news about his father. "Shinichi throws away any copy of Classical Life that features news about you."
"Oh…" A profound sadness flooded the man's eyes. "I suppose he would…" So that's the way it is with him.
"What did you do to him to make him so angry with you?"
"I committed one of the worst sins a father can inflict on his children."
"Which is…?"
"I ignored him."
The son, unaware of the conversation between his wife and father, was in turmoil. He lamented that after all these years, the merest mention of his father would be enough to send his mind into a spin. They had effectively spent the last eighteen years ignoring and avoiding one another even while working in the same field. Still, it hadn't been too difficult the last few years particularly, with his father dropping out of the limelight, leaving a trail of rumours about an early retirement. He did recall, however, hearing about his making a minor comeback 12 months earlier.
He couldn't help feeling the merest bit curious… Dad attending Nodame's recital… He doubted that he even knew who she was. But Vieirasensei mentioned that they had conversed. Despite himself, he was burning with curiosity. Did she tell him who she was?
His thoughts flew to the arguments he had with his mother six months earlier about whether or not to invite his father to the wedding. He had been adamant in his refusal.
"Shinichi… whatever he's done, he is still your father." She had tried to remind him.
"So what… as far as he's concerned… I'm just an accident of biology. An inconvenience in the grand scheme of his life and career. It doesn't make him my father."
"Shinichi, what's the matter with you? Even after all this time…"
"Has he once picked up the phone to ask me how I am? He has never attended any of my performances except the one time with the Roux-Marlet and even then he had to be dragged to it."
"Have you picked up the phone to call him?"
"Why should I? I'm not the one that left, remember. And why are you taking his side? He wasn't that much of a husband to you either."
"He wasn't always like this. And you know that just as well as I do."
"I haven't heard so much as a whisper out of him the last eighteen years, I doubt he'll be any more interested in me, now that I'm getting married."
"We don't know that, do we?"
"Well, I do."
"What does Nodame think about all this? Isn't she the least bit curious? Maybe she wants to meet you father."
"It doesn't concern her."
"It doesn't concern her?! Shinichi, what are you talking about? She's going to be your wife, for goodness sake. Have you ever asked her? Have you ever talked about it?"
"She's marrying me… not him…"
"Are you sure?"
"What are you talking about, mum?"
"Whether you like it or not, Chiaki Shinichi… you are still your father's son… Ignore him… Pretend all you like… but that is the inescapable truth of your life. Sooner or later, you need to face up to it. I just hope you don't make the same mistakes he did."
Her words on that occasion were still ringing in his ear. He had no intention of facing up to it. He thought about the lonely 11 year old boy who left Europe… the disappointment of being torn away from his beloved Vieira sensei… the trauma he suffered as a result of the emergency plane landing… his gnawing frustration at not being able to return to Europe… the time he was on the verge of giving up on music and then the mad, irrepressible hentai that turned his life upside down and around. In his mind, he owed his father nothing. As far as he could see, his father had given up all his paternal rights the day his parents went their separate ways and the elder Chiaki had made no attempt to stay in contact with his son.
I was a thorn in his side. That's all he ever saw me as. He was probably relieved to see the back of me.
Thinking about his father, more often than not, left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
The day they married he swore that he would never be like his father… as long as he had her to keep him on the right track. She would keep him grounded, she would give him perspective and most of all, she would give him uncompromising devotion. His mother had been right all those years ago. Nodame was his angel… the most unlikely of unlikely helpmates. In moments when there was no one else watching, he would confess to his own soul that he was a better man because of her.
Strange that she did not mention that she saw that person.
Two people who could not be more different, whose impact on his personality were equally potent. One by his absence, had brought out the worst in him and the other, by her persistence had shown him possibilities from within and put hope back in his heart. Just as his bitterness against his father was a blight in his otherwise satisfactory life, his love for her was a refuge… a place he could learn to be himself.
It was then that he remembered that she had tried to tell him but as usual he had not taken her seriously.
"Why… gifu… why?" Nodame looked at her father-in-law with a genuine desire to understand.
"Nodame… I hope you never find out the kind of price some of us pay for our craft." He gave her a sorrowful smile. "From the way you play… it gives me reason to think you won't."
"Huh?" Gifu is speaking in riddles.
"Have you heard the saying, 'Fire is a good servant but a bad master.'?"
Nodame nodded.
"Well, the same can be said about ambition. Few of us ever reach the heights of our craft and when we do, it is because we make all kinds of choices to get there. I made many choices, Nodame, some good, some bad… for the purpose of gaining dominance in our field. Like Thomas Mann'sDoctor's Faustus, I allowed my ambitions to consume me to the extent that I lost sight of what was really important in life. For the sake of achieving those ambitions, I convinced myself that I had to attain musical perfection and that if I had to make a choice between being a musical success and being without a family, I believed that it was better to be alone. I fulfilled my ambitions… I was alone out of choice and yet I felt nothing but emptiness. It's a well-known cliché but it's true, Nodame… success exacts a terrible price… all the worse when you have no one to share it with."
"I know… I saw you play in Paris several years ago… so much lonely passion… I thought you were a cold, heartless man for the way you cast aside your son but when you played, I felt your pain eating you on the inside."
"Did you?… I didn't even know it myself at the time. I thought as long as I had the music to keep me company, I could live with the loneliness. It never occurred to me that I would ever stop playing. It was my raison d'etre. Then, as you know, I almost lost the music too… and it became obvious to me that I had nothing. I was nothing… but an empty shell of a man… At the end of the day, I was only as good as my last performance. If I couldn't play, no one would care if I lived or died. I am living proof the curse of selfish ambition is an inescapable reality."
"That's not true…"
Chiaki Masayuki shook his head. "You, my dear daughter-in-law, play because you love and you love life. You play with the purest of motives. It's obvious to everyone who listens. The music may possess you but it will never consume you because you are larger than it is. Ambition will never have its way with you because you don't play to be a success but you play to celebrate the joy of being able to make music." He paused to make sense of the many things that were going through his mind. " I envy you. I wish I had learnt that a long time ago… when change was still possible."
"Of course it's still possible."
"Coming from you, I'd almost believe it."
II
Alex Weiss, president of the Conductor's Guild, was concerned for his long-time friend and colleague. Hope everything's alright with Ivan… he didn't turn up at today's meeting. Wonder if it had anything to do with Natalya.
Under the apparently jovial exterior, belied a serious and passionate mind. In the course of his thirty plus years conducting in orchestras around Europe and North America, Weiss had devoted himself to the promotion of classical music especially among the young. He had grown up with a strong sense of obligation… that it was the duty of the old guard to nurture the young… to pass down collective wisdom from generation to generation. All this was drummed into him by his father. As the son of the great romantic pianist, Franz Weiss, young Alex was exposed to classical music from birth. Although he lost his mother at the tender age of ten, he thrived under his father's determination to be both father and mother to his son, which meant of course, that he went everywhere with his father and saw half the world before he turned fifteen. Weiss senior was no lax parent. He was indubitably strict and a great believer in discipline. It was his abiding mantra that without discipline one could never become a true musician and this he instilled day and night into his motherless progeny like the eleventh commandment. In return, the son revered his father and drank in his father's words like nectar from heaven. In time, his father's creed became his, which he interpreted to the letter.
This meant, of course, that the younger Weiss gave no thought to anything beyond music. While young men his age were chasing girls, driving fast cars or playing sports, he was closeted in his apartment refining his technique on his father's beloved C Bechstein grand. The piano had been his first love and he had meant to follow in his father's footsteps. Tragically, however, an accident in his twenty-first year resulted in his middle finger becoming defective so that dream was shattered. In his twenty-second year, his father passed away after a short battle with lung cancer. For the first time in his life, Alex Weiss was all alone.
Weiss had all but given up on music when the great love of his life, Anna Montgomery, the British soprano, encouraged him to consider conducting. From that time onwards, he did not look back. There was no reason to, he had her. But that ended too. He had been too busy building his career to notice that they had drifted apart and soon after, Anna left him for a hotelier. He was alone again.
Although he was his father's son, Alex fought hard to be a musician in his own right and after a stint with the London Symphony Orchestra several years later, he finally emerged from his father's shadow. He had become Alex Weiss, the conductor, a specialist in the classical period. He remained single and the reasons why that was so became the object of much speculation over the years.
As the front man of the guild, he thought it politic to pay Drake a visit. Unlike the others, he took his role seriously. It frustrated him that he was thought of only as a mouthpiece for the guild. Like most members, he had been aware of Drake's marital woes and drinking problems but had not been inclined to tackle the issues. After all, a man's private life was his own.
As he made his way down the sanitized corridors amidst the hustle and bustle, he was struck by the observation that hospitals exuded a certain surreality. It seemed to him that they were places where the sick go to find healing and respite from the harsh realities of the world outside. A place where death was postponed or prolonged. Not all that different from a performance or a recital.
He was about to enter Drake's room when he noticed, that Drake was receiving visitors that moment. This aroused a passing curiosity and he satisfied himself with remaining outside. His interest was piqued when he heard the taller man refer to himself as a member of the police.
"The doctor tells me that you are able to answer a few questions, Mr Drake."
"What do you wish to know, Inspector?"
"Were you aware of your present medical condition?"
"I… I hadn't been feeling well for some time now but I attributed it to stress."
"I see." The inspector paused briefly before continuing. "Did you know about your wife's indiscretions?"
"Yes…"
"And you were satisfied with that arrangement?"
"Of course, I wasn't… but it was a compromise. Everyone compromises in marriage."
But sharing your wife with other men seems… rather extreme.
"Mr Drake, I'm going to ask you a question which may seem rather insensitive on my part."
"What is it, inspector?"
"Did you try to take your own life?"
"By drinking myself to death? Hardly." was Drake's morose answer. "As I said earlier, I didn't know I had liver problems."
"But you suspected something though."
"I'm not a medical man, inspector. I didn't know the symptoms."
"Seeing the picture and that note must have affected you greatly."
"It shook me to the core…"
"Enough for you to want to end it all?"
"Inspector, I may be a coward and a cuckold but I don't have a death wish." Drake replied with a touch of asperity.
Really. That remains to be seen. "The doctor said that you drank three times more than a normal person should."
"I drink for recreation, to escape from reality, perhaps even to drown my sorrows but nothing else."
The inspector changed tack. "So you have no idea who might have sent you the photograph and the note?"
"No idea at all. But James said that some prankster has been sending them to various members of the conductor's guild. Different types of notes."
"Is that a fact? And where is this conductor's guild?"
"We're having our triennial conference at the Ambassador's Hotel."
"Are you now?"
"It doesn't sound like something that warrants police interference though."
"On the contrary, Mr Drake, it's something that would most certainly warrant police interest."
Author's Comments:
I'm tearing my hair out over some of the Japanese forms of address. So please, if I've committed any hideous cultural sins please let me know. I've asked a Japanese speaking friend about some of the specifics and she has given me different information to what I found on an online Jap-Eng dictionary.
I have also been told that Japanese women change their surnames when they marry, however, seeing that Nodame is something of a minor celebrity I thought I could get away with her keeping her maiden name. Although strictly speaking I haven't asked Chiaki if he minds. ;)
As usual, all comments are greatly appreciated.