Universe 7 - [Anthology] Read online

  So Santesson’s comment had struck him to the core: You’ve no heritage. No parents, true. No sense of the past. But the past was those two shriveled tyrants, the past was cracked porcelain, the smell of urine and rose water. Even Beethoven, yes, the god, that great innovator, had deep respect for his forerunners. And Largens determined then to study music, to learn the history of music so well that no one could criticize him on that score, ever. Later he found it was a lifetime job.

  “I’m in Beethoven Studies now,” he said, the inside of his mouth like Chalk.

  “Are you composing?”

  The cruel question. “No.” Glancing around, he saw Lia Santesson watching him from fifty feet away. She smiled as their eyes met. He turned away.

  “That’s too bad, Charlie. You had the makings of a fine composer.”

  “Perhaps I did.” Yes. The makings. Kanigher had learned the difference.

  Kanigher smiled. “Did you know I was jealous of you?”

  “Yes, I knew that.” Certainly. The Ensemble playing an evening of new music: works by Stockhausen, Cage, Riley, Shapiro, and Largens. Kanigher found it so hard to work, while for Largens the music simply flowed from his pen. For that reason he had switched to musicology, believing he would always have that easy facility.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Scrambling for money. Would you believe it—I had to sell my piano last month! I’ve been using those dreadful Baldwin uprights in the Center basement. I have to spend an hour tuning before I can play, it’s so damp down there.”

  “I don’t understand. What about your salary?”

  Kanigher spread his hands. “No more. All the money is going into your research equipment. They can’t afford to keep unproductive composers on the payroll.”

  Largens’ remorse found a small, hard comfort in that. “Unproductive?”

  “Well, yes. I suppose I’ve become rather avant-garde, and I don’t have the carapace for it. I’m too sensitive to criticism. And my, have they been criticizing. So I’m suffering through a block.” Kanigher finished his drink. “They offered me a job teaching music history, which I turned down, and suddenly I was without a salary. My contract had a rather clever termination clause that I never read. It states that if I turn down any Center job when my own position is in jeopardy, I void the contract.”

  “So what’s wrong with teaching history.”

  “Well, there’s an awful lot of it going on.” Kanigher paused. “ ‘If we carry our respect for the past too far, we are in danger of detaching ourselves from the present.’ Andre Hodeir said that, a twentieth-century musicologist.” He laughed. “You can tell I’m idle: I’ve been reading. But Christ, Charlie, I believe that. I’m terrified of losing the present. That’s what music is all about, damn it! More than anything else, it’s . . . a sense of what is necessary.

  “You remember how clutched up I was with the Ensemble. Couldn’t write anything. I had a girl then. She was so much better than anything I’d ever hoped for, it made everything a little unreal. I was sure I’d lose her, and I guess it was that sureness that finally drove her away. All right, I was just a young idiot. But Christ, when I lost her, I wrote music like I was born for it! Looking back, I can see that all I was doing was trying to hold those moments I had lost.” Kanigher was quiet, and then he smiled. “I read through some of it the other day. It was a little embarrassing.

  “But—now I feel I’m in danger of losing my composing. It makes me edgy and alert to little things, but totally useless in things that count. I’m afraid that’s more serious than losing the girl, because then I knew I was young, I knew I could get over it, I knew I had my music and my friends. I’m a little older now, my only friends are acquaintances in the Center, and the music’s all I have. It’s too precious. I’m afraid to gamble it. I’m all too willing to take one of their jobs just to keep my muse safe and living in the style to which it’s accustomed.”

  Largens looked at his drink. He shut his eyes. He looked up. “I wasn’t afraid.”

  Kanigher stared at him a long time.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie. Christ, I’m sorry. I thought you were happy.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Santesson’s been after me to study Beethoven.”

  “Why should he care what you do?”

  “He seems to need these little conquests, displays of power. I’m sorry you’re not happy, Charlie.”

  Santesson came over then. Liquor moved in Largens. He felt dead drained and set upon. Santesson smiled, a slow revelation of lion’s teeth, and yet—with all his instincts burning in clear flame, Largens thought, Why, he’s afraid of Kanigher. Why should a man intimate with Beethoven know such fear? And oddly, he had his answer: because Kanigher threatens him, Beethoven does not. Because Beethoven is dead. His music is fixed, pinned to the staves. Creation is a kind of magic that lives in men, and when they die it passes from them. Only the works remain. Santesson fears the potential: the actual he can master, with notes and diagrams and rules. In that second, Largens knew Santesson’s power, and consequently his weakness. He felt some small magic stir in himself with that perception.

  But Kanigher did not sense control of the situation resting on him. He retreated.

  “Hello, David,” Santesson said. “How’s the composing coming?”

  “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  “Well, you know there’s a place for you upstairs.”

  “Yes. I know. I’m considering it.”

  And as if that were all Santesson wanted he said, “Come, Charles, I have someone you should meet,” and turned from Kanigher.

  But Largens was aggressive. He had his first real motivation in much time. Suddenly, strangely, there was music in him. He wanted to get home and write it down. “I don’t think I’ll stay,” he said.

  Santesson stopped and studied him. “Do what you like, of course. I thought you’d like to meet your competition for the Beethoven job.”

  And Largens’ breath left him. He followed Santesson and met a man named John Hart, a man with a feral look, and they spoke for a short time, saying nothing about the Beethoven job. It occurred to him that Santesson might have lied.

  He finally broke free and made for the door, but was deftly caught by Lia Santesson. She chided him for ignoring her all evening, and started speaking in a low, oiled, intimate voice that eventually drew him out of his resolution and into an empty room with her. Into a warm, silken purgatory.

  The last cry of a man dying, mad and forgotten, in the midst of a summer storm. Layers and levels and years away, the lightning flickered and the thunder rolled out of the hills over Largens as he died; then he opened his eyes and thought no: that’s not me.

  He raised himself on one elbow and looked panic-stricken into darkness. Then a faint numeric glow brought him back. It was just past 2 A.M. and he had been lying half under Lia Santesson’s naked body for almost an hour, dozing. She was still asleep. He felt bad—seduced and soured with irresolution. Furtively he bent to whisper her awake, when he heard a gentle breathing behind him. A thin slice of light cut across the floor, over the bed and his calf. He pivoted at the waist and saw the large dark silhouette of George Santesson in the doorway. Light and the late remnants of the party were faintly behind him. Largens’ mouth half opened, and he froze in that twisted stiff posture, in an agony of silence, in a waiting and a wanting to cry out, to explain, to accept punishment for his adultery if punishment were needed. He was riven by the thought of having hurt someone unaware. And then he was hotly ashamed, for he had been seduced, he had been led to this, as much by Santesson as by his wife. The big man did not move or speak. They stared at each other for almost a minute; then Santesson let out a slightly heavier breath and passed into the hall.

  When Largens finally left, silent and exhausted and with no good-byes, the walk home woke him. It was much too late to go to sleep anyway, so he sat up with a single light on, reading through his old notebooks. He started to play a couple of his
compositions, but they were demanding and his fingers were stiff, and the sound of the piano in the silent apartment was loud and plangent. It sounded much more assertive than he felt. He had to admit he had put it off too long.

  He saw Santesson once more before the thing happened. Late one evening they passed in the hall and Largens was immediately and pointiessly embarrassed enough to rush for the elevators. Santesson stopped him and drew him gently aside and said, “I wanted to thank you for giving my wife what I can’t.”

  The blood pounding through his temples turned cold. “Oh,” he said; then: “Oh! I—” Then he said nothing, but gripped Santesson’s arms and was gripped back. He felt he had been used, manipulated into it, yes—but he felt Santesson’s sincerity too, the man’s great deep pain and weakness. He pitied him.

  “It’s terribly hard sometimes,” Santesson said, “to have to live here, now, when your soul is somewhere else; when the only thing that ever felt like home . . . is something you can’t even touch. I’ve given so much to my music, to Beethoven.” He seemed to struggle briefly. “You know the opening of the Ninth’s third movement ... the melodic theme?” Largens nodded. Santesson’s mouth moved: “Mine.”

  “What?”

  ‘‘I wonder what these transfers are, sometimes. What they’ve done to us. To the past. I sometimes think it’s all one, there is no past or future, only that great timeless flow between. . . . TVS had so many transfers; I’ve left so much of myself back there, Charles. I feel I’ve left my soul there.” He shook his head. “Do you know what I mean?”

  Largens could only nod.

  “I’ll let you go.” He dropped his arms. “I have to do something. You’re a good man, Charles.”

  The next morning Largens was interrupted from work by the sounds of a hallway commotion, from the direction of the transfer rooms. He walked into the hall; a cold intuition gripped him; he started to run. The door was open; people clustered. He forced his way through and found Grueder and a dozen others surrounding the red velvet couch. As he entered the tiny room, a doctor straightened, stethoscope limp in his hand. Grueder looked at Largens and said, “It’s Santesson. He’s dead.”

  The doctor said, “At your earliest convenience, Mr. Grueder,” and went stiffly out. The others followed, murmuring.

  Largens stared in incomprehension.

  Grueder’s face was strictured, a hard and ancient landscape strained by simply being. He sighed. “An unauthorized transfer. Santesson set up the equipment late last night after everyone left. He gave himself triple the required trigger voltage. It killed him.”

  “How?”

  “His brain just shut off. His mind was no longer here and it couldn’t come back.”

  Largens trembled. Santesson’s body was still, composed. His face was peaceful. “The controls . . . where—?”

  Grueder just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, Charles, he’s dead. Wherever—whenever—he is, he’s dead. Come—”

  “Where?”

  Grueder looked at him strangely.

  “Beethoven. 1823.”

  Largens reeled. “The Ninth...”

  “Yes. The Ninth.” Grueder looked around, to make sure they were alone. “This was no accident, Charles. There was a note on his desk—I haven’t told anyone this—he requested that you be appointed head of Beethoven Studies. I think we can arrange to honor that wish . . .”

  “My God,” Largens whispered, hardly hearing. He stared at the dead man’s face, a poor snapshot exposure of a soul, a brief final connection of body and spirit. His heart, his brain, his body, were off, cold, stone; there was no way for Santesson to be alive. But Largens believed, he knew with fanatic irrationality, that some infinitesimal part of Santesson was living, almost two centuries in the past....

  “Did you hear, Charles? You’re head of Beethoven Studies now.”

  “I heard.”

  “Don’t mention this to anyone, Charles. Lord, if the government found out this was unauthorized, they’d shut us down in a second. The doctor suspects, but he can’t prove anything, I hope. They only need a small excuse to end the program, so for God’s sake keep quiet about it, Charles!” Largens sensed a threat behind that. He just nodded.

  Something in Largens’ silence sparked to Grueder. The old man looked at Santesson and sighed. “He had a hard life, Charles.”

  “So have we all.”

  4

  For some time I have been occupied with major works. Much of the music has already hatched, at least in my head. I must first get them off my neck; two important symphonies, each one different from my others ...

  —Ludwig Van Beethoven, after completion of his Eighth Symphony.

  The passage was circled in Santesson’s notebook. The word two was underlined.

  Largens walked out of the office with a confidence grown from a year of authority. “What is this stuff about a Tenth Symphony?”

  Hart was there, serving as his assistant. He pushed the notebook back across the desk and snorted. “Nonsense. Santesson’s pet theory. Some fragments of an unfinished symphony were found...”

  “Yes, I know that, but a musicologist of Santesson’s stature wouldn’t make all these notes simply on that basis.”

  “Well, there they are.”

  A fine antagonism had been honed between the men. True to his word, Grueder had given Largens the appointment. Hart was still resenting it. And he had learned that to cut Largens he had only to insult Santesson. He added, “Personally I think the old boy went a bit soft toward the end.” Stressing the double entendre.

  For an instant Largens wanted to whirl the little man around, slap him across the face, shut him up. But the feeling passed, and he simply sighed, and walked out, allowing Hart his small victory.

  He was thirty-six. It was winter. He was bitterly unhappy. Was that all the years were good for, to add an extra sting to the remorse?

  Santesson’s death had affected him deeply. The poor impotent bastard—escaping not even into death, but into a life not his own. Largens had had a brief affair with Lia; three months ago he had talked Kanigher into taking a musicology job; he did not know how much further he might fill Santesson’s role.

  He watched the setting sun bleed New York. The day turned red, was drawn off into Jersey. Central Park stretched below, the lights just coming on, a few couples strolling. The city was livable for the first time in a century: two million people now. Buildings were coming down crosstown. But it seemed so empty to him. He had grown up here when it was five times as dense.

  Hart left without saying good-night. Largens heard the elevator chime, close, suck away. He felt very alone. He stepped into the hall, looking up and down. Lights off, doors sealed for the night. He walked down the corridor, passing no one, hearing nothing. He walked faster.

  A strange feeling took hold of him.

  By the time he reached the transfer room he was running.

  He fumbled with his key, pressed it home; the door opened. He went in, sealed it, snapped on the lights.

  The machinery waited.

  (In case you ever need to. The whisper, razoring back to him, from a year away.)

  (Santesson’s escape.)

  Quickly then, the patch. It was not as if he were breaking regulations: he had permission for this transfer; what matter when he took it? He was going back to the Ninth, he was going to consummate that lifelong obsession. His fingers twitched. His brain raced. At the last slider, marked trigger voltage, his fingers paused.

  (Escape.)

  1.5 he needed.

  He slid it to 5.

  A red light blinked, blinked, blinked.

  (Escape!)

  His hand trembled.

  He brought it back to 1.5.

  He had to rest for several minutes on the couch and let the sweat dry before he could take the drug. He taped electrodes to his skin, cold square steel invasions of his nakedness. He trembled there waiting for the colors to start, knowing he was wrong, knowing why he couldn’t tamp
er with the past this way, but he was too far gone in his need, the colors were on him, he reached for the trigger switch and like that: immediately went to sleep

  and the center went away and left him spinning in a silver void, down and across cold currents of time that moved with the vast slowness of glaciers. He moved in directions he could not name. His metabolism was high with nerves and it panicked him to think what difference that might make and all the colors and the great rumbling shapes moved about him and he was afraid, God what’ve I done, he was climbing a watt of paranoia until he dropped off the top straight into sleep

  and he shrugged it off with heavy blankets and a fear of suffocation. Bright morning sunlight was in the room. Intimations of the coming winter whispered across the sill. Beethoven stretched, rolled his legs out of bed. He quickly crossed the room, pulled on some woolen socks, and plunged his arms into a basin of icy water. Largens’ consciousness seemed to splash into bright fragments at the shock and reform quivering, clearer, sharper. Beethoven started bellowing up and down scales. He toweled himself, went to the window overlooking Baden and sang a few measures from the symphony’s second movement. He sang some more, paused, and made a pencil notation on the shutter, alongside a dozen others and lists of figures, sums, conversions from florins to guilders.