Solo for Violin

Baumgarden and the Maestro had been friends long before they faced each other, chair to podium, on a concert stage. Jan Clausing had been a vibrant 30 when they had met in the rehearsal halls of the Vienna Opera House in 1917: Clausing a bassoonist and Baumgarden, then as now, a violinist. But Clausing had abandoned his instrument to study orchestration; he had made a storm of his musical career, while Baumgarden was content with the even climate of mediocrity. Now Clausing was a maestro, a conductor, with 30 years of the baton behind him, and before him, faceless in the regiment of violins, was Carl Baumgarden.

They were both old men. Baumgarden was 67; the maestro, 74. But Baumgarden had long since admitted to the fatigue of his years, while the conductor denied it ferociously. Again and again, the directors of the Civic Orchestra had hinted about retirement, and old Clausing shaking his mane like a wintry lion, had raged and ranted at any suggestion of his decline. But the evidence was clear, the orchestra, once a vigorous single voice, was now limping, ragged, disorganized. Baumgarden knew it, even deep in the anonymous bed of violins, but he had a special reason for never speaking any criticism of the maestro's waning skill.

Baumgarden's wife never knew that special reason until the day he came home from an afternoon rehearsal with his grizzled jaw slack and his step feeble. She fluttered about him like an agitated goose, and asked if he were ill; he shook her off wearily and sat at the kitchen table.

"I'm not sick," he said quietly. "Not like you mean, Rachel."

"Then what is it? What happened today?"

He hoisted the violin case onto his lap and stroked its scabrous surface absently. "What happened was bound to happen," he said resignedly. "For a year the directors have been complaining about the orchestra, and who could blame them? The maestro they can do nothing about. So now they say, maybe the musicians. Maybe it's time to see where the bad ones are hiding."

"What does this mean?" Rachel said fearfully. "They're not putting you out of work, Carl?"

"Not yet, not yet," Baumgarden sighed. "But it comes to the same thing. They told the maestro to begin individual auditions of every member of the orchestra, beginning tomorrow morning, and the string section is first on the list. Tomorrow, the next day, I will have to play for Clausing and let him judge me." He spread his hands. "So now it's finished," he said flatly. "After so many years, finished."

"Why finished? Why? You're not as good as the rest of them? Maybe better?"

"Rachel," he said sadly, "to whom are you talking?"

"To you, to you! Why do you say such things?"

"Because I know my hands. I keep them in my pockets so nobody sees them shake. How often do you hear me play at home?"

"So why should you play?" she said defensively. "You get enough playing all day. Does a dentist bring home his drill?"

Baumgarden's hands came to rest on the violin case, and the fingers trembled. His wife looked away, not willing to see the truth. Then he slowly undid the lock of his case and lifted out his instrument.

"Rachel," he said, "for you a private solo. Listen, and I'll show you how I've been playing for the last year."

He put the case on the floor, and tucked the violin under his chin. The fingers of his left hand closed about the neck in a firm, loving embrace, and he poised the bow over the strings. Then he drew the bow across them, tenderly, and his fingers moved in a familiar pattern of melody. The bow danced, his head nodded, his eyes were soulful.

And there was only silence.

Baumgarden stopped, and took the (concluded on page 135) Solo for Violin (continued from page 83) instrument from his chin. He looked at Rachel and waited.

"What is it?" she said in bewilderment. "I don't understand, Carl. I heard nothing. No sound!"

"No sound," he said mournfully. "No sound, Rachel. This has been my contribution to the Civic Orchestra for a whole year now. The gestures, the movements, nothing more. Thirty violinists, but only 29 play. Your Carl, your virtuoso, he does nothing."

Baumgarden plucked at the loose bow, at the tensionless strings of his instrument. Then he replaced it in its case.

"But why, Carl? Why?" Rachel's eyes were tear-filled.

"Because what skill I had is gone. My fingers shake, my tone is empty, I can barely follow a score with my bad eyes. If I had played they would have found me out long ago. As it is now, they know nothing. Until the auditions..."

Rachel's mouth was moving, seeking the words of comfort. Even if she had found them, they would have done little to help. Baumgarden stood up, bent more with grief than age, and shuffled into the bedroom. On the kitchen stove, an iron pot of chicken soup grew cold.

• • •

Bresack, the first violinist, gave Baumgarden his appointment time the following day. On Thursday morning at 11 he was to appear in the maestro's office at the Civic Center in readiness for his audition. Baumgarden heard the news stoically, and resolved to approach the maestro before the appointment to tender his resignation. But Clausing was too busy to see him. One by one, the musicians of the Civic Symphony were being heard and judged. Those who had gone before said the sessions had been cordial and brief; there was a rampant opinion that Clausing would discharge no one, but would merely perform the duty to satisfy the directors' concern. But Baum-garden knew the maestro; there was too much honesty in the old man; a bad musician was a bad musician, and not even a 40-year-old friendship would excuse a sour note, a meaningless rest, a grating tone.

When Thursday arrived, Baumgarden woke from a troubled sleep, took his violin into the bathroom, and gave himself a pajamaed recital with the strings taut and tuned. The results were as bad as he expected, and his unhappy sighs clouded the bathroom mirror and mercifully obscured his dolorous expression.

He dressed, refused Rachel's plea to cat breakfast, and left the house for the concert hall.

There were three violinists on the bench outside of Clausing's private office. All three were summoned before Baumgarden, but he could hear no notes of their performance through the stout door. When they emerged, they seemed relieved. The final one clapped Baum-garden's shoulder and winked. He took the gesture not as reassurance but condolence.

Then it was his turn. He lifted his violin case and entered the room.

The maestro was at his desk, busily scratching on a sheet of paper, the snowy mane bobbing. He was unaware of Baumgarden's presence until he looked up; then the old face gathered its wrinkles into a smile.

"My good friend," Clausing said. "Sit, sit," he gestured to the wooden chair in front of him. "This business will take but a moment. Play some Schumann, play anything you like."

Baumgarden sat slowly, and released his violin from the case. "Maestro," he said, clearing his throat, "there is something I must explain..."

"Be at your ease, my friend, I know your work," Clausing said, leaning back and folding his hands against his chest. "There is nothing to fear. Play as you play for me every day."

Baumgarden's answering smile was melancholy. "All right, maestro. I will show you how I have been playing for you."

He tucked the violin beneath his chin, and drew the bow across the slackened strings. His fingers moved caressingly over the neck, tracing the pattern of the concerto with an agility that would not have been possible for him if the music had been audible. The bow darted, swooped, in silent mimicry of the virtuoso; as pantomime, it was brilliant. Baumgarden's eyes closed in the simulation of rapture, his foot tapped on the uncarpeted floor. With a final flurry of unheard pizzicati, he concluded the passage and lowered the instrument. The tears that had been filling his eyes spilled over his cheeks in sorrow and humiliation.

"There, maestro," he said. "Now you know. This is how I have played in your orchestra, night after night."

Clausing gazed at him, and rubbed his chin.

Then he brought his hands together, and applauded.

"Bravo, Carl," he said quietly. "That is fine. You are as proficient as ever, my old friend."

He bent across his desk, in a gesture of dismissal, and began to scratch at his papers. Baumgarden stood up, waiting for further word, but none came. "Maestro," he said, his lips as soundless as his violin. "Maestro, I don't understand..."

Clausing looked up, his eyebrows joined. "Well, what are you waiting for, Carl? I said you were fine. Go home and rest, and don't forget rehearsal tomorrow. And Carl..." He smiled again. "Give my love to your wife, and tell her to invite me to dinner sometime. Nobody makes chicken soup like Rachel."

Baumgarden went to the door, a man in a dream. He turned back only once, to look with new recognition at his friend, the maestro, bent over his desk, writing with arthritic fingers, squinting through weak eyes; determined, defiant, and deaf.