The soloist Page 14

  Whenever I got near Naomi I felt myself turn to ice. I couldn't help thinking how much easier it would have been for me to woo her, how much more confident I would have felt, if only I were a concert musician again instead of just a music teacher. To adapt my mother's analogy, if my stock had been as high as it had been when I was seventeen, I could easilv believe that she would want to make love to me. As it was, however, I felt unable to make my intentions clear because I was convinced she would respond the way J. Alfred Prufrock's beloved did and say, "That is not what I meant at all, Reinhart. That is not it, at all."

  The relationship ended predictably enough: suddenly she got busy. Whenever I called her she would sound happy to hear from me, but always had other plans. To be honest, I was relieved. After that I didn't let Martin set me up anymore. I figured that any woman with real character would

  (157)

  eventually be turned off by my insecurity, and if she wasn't, I probably wouldn't want to date her for long. I decided to either wait until I was a successful performer again or just stay single.

  It was hard to concentrate on the trial for the rest of the morning. When we sat down after the break, Maria-Teresa's hand brushed against my arm. It could easily have been unintentional, but it was very distracting. I was trying to listen to the prosecutor's cross-examination of the boy's father, but with only partial success. Mr. Graham's gende voice and the witness's subdued responses faded in and out of my attention.

  Just before lunch, however, the interview suddenly turned nasty. It started when Mr. Graham asked Mr. Weber when he began to believe that mental illness was the cause of Philip's problems, and ultimately of his violent behavior at the Zen church. Mr. Weber glared at the prosecutor with undisguised loathing. "When did I think Philip was mentally sick? When this happened, obviously! A sane man doesn't act that way, for Christ's sake. And look at him now," he said, jabbing a thick finger in his son's direction, "you can tell just by looking at him that he doesn't know what the hell's going on around him! He's on trial for murder and he's sitting there like he's on a school field trip, for God's sake."

  Suddenly his exasperation with his son came tumbling out. "I mean," he said, gesturing with his chin at Ms. Doppelt, "no offense intended, but I wanted to hire a private lawyer to handle this, not a public defender, but Philip wouldn't—"

  The prosecutor stopped Mr. Weber in mid-sentence and asked that the last comment be stricken from the record,

  (158)

  saying that it was insulting to his colleague, Ms. Doppelt, and uncalled for. At first I thought this was a highly chivalrous gesture, but on fijrther reflection it occurred to me that the tact that Philip Weber wouldn't let his father hire a more experienced lawyer did tend to support the defense's claim that Philip was not thinking clearly.

  Mr. Graham turned back to the witness stand and had the court reporter read back the part of Mr. Weber's testimony where he discussed his son using drugs. Then he asked the father if he thought it was possible that the drugs had affeaed his son's mind.

  ''Objection, Your Honor," Ms. Doppelt protested. "Blood tests taken just after the incident showed that Philip was not using drugs at the time of the retreat. Furthermore, the witness is not an expert on drugs—there is no foundation for this line of questioning."

  The prosecutor gently but firmly shot right back, "Just because the drugs weren't in his bloodstream that day doesn't mean that they couldn't have already affected his mind in some way."

  Judge Dais agreed with him and overruled the objection. The senior Mr. Weber evaded the question by saing that since he wasn't a doctor, he couldn't possibly say where the drugs ended and the mental illness began. "I know one thing, though," he said, pointing his finger at the prosecutor now. "He was haing these problems long before he got near any of those damn drugs. I know what you're getting at, though—you're going to make some fancv' argument that Philip couldn't have been sick because any normal parent, especially one with a wife who was so sick, would have caught on to it a lot earlier. Well, the reason I didn't catch on to it

  (159)

  earlier isn't because the problems weren't there; it's because I wasn't a normal parent, all right? I failed as a parent. I failed my son, and now he's paying for it."

  You could see how hard it was for Mr. Weber to utter these words. He mopped his forehead again, and I could see his hands shaking. He was an unlikable man, but he had been loyal to his wife through eighteen years of mental illness, and was willing to accept responsibility for what had happened; he had been a poor father, but he didn't deserve anything like this. After this exchange I stopped listening; I couldn't bear to hear the rest of the interview.

  "What's the verdict.>" Maria-Teresa said as we sat down to eat.

  "You mean do I think he's guilty.^"

  "I don't mean the trial, Reinhart. I'm talking about the tape I lent you—did you get a chance to listen to it?"

  "Oh, the tape . . . Yes, I listened to it. It was incredible, all right."

  She broke up laughing. "Come on, you didn't get into it at all?"

  "Get into it? Of course I got into it—the problem is, I couldn't get out of it for forty-five minutes. I'd promised, after all."

  I liked the way we could joke with each other. For most of my life I was so tired of being perceived as a talented youngster that I was constantly trying to act older than my age. How ironic it seemed that at the age of thirty-four and no longer talented, I was finding it enjoyable to act younger than my age.

  (160)

  For most of the lunch Maria-Teresa told me darkly amusing stories from her work: about people who called for ambulances when their miniature dachshunds threw up, oversized people who got wedged into their bathtubs and even a young gigolo calling for help when his aged and socially prominent client went into cardiac arrest during sex. The worst part of that episode, she said, was that the woman died wearing an outlandish leather outfit, leaving you to wonder what kind of scene occurred at the morgue when her grown children had to identify her.

  When she lit her third cigarette of the lunch, I asked Maria-Teresa if she didn't worry about smoking too much. 'Tm going to quit," she said, smiling, ''but not quite yet. I made a New Year's resolution that if my daughter passes all her classes this year, then I'll quit smoking to celebrate. Until then, I need it."

  ''What grade is she in?"

  "Ninth grade, do you believe it.> Only, she's at one of those militar)' schools. She was getting into trouble down here. Her dad's a career soldier, so she gets a break on tuition. They say you get a pretty good education there, but I don't know. ... I feel sorry for her, having to salute all fucking day. Poor kid. She'll do OK, though. At least she's not in a gang."

  "So your husband is in the military.^" I asked, feeling a bit sorry that the subject had come up.

  A relieved expression appeared on her face. "No way! That was my first husband. I married him when I was sixteen because I was pregnant. What do you know when you're sixteen.^ We got divorced in a year, but he kept the baby. He

  (161)

  had a job and his family had some money, and I didn't. I guess Pm glad. I see Yolanda on weekends, except now that she's away at school, not so much anymore."

  She picked up her napkin from her lap, folded it neatly and put it on the table, but then seemed to realize she was still eating and dropped it back on her lap. "So what about you? Have you ever been married.^" she asked. I must have registered surprise, because she quickly laughed and apologized for seeming nosy. "It's none of my business, that's just me."

  I didn't mind. I had been hoping she would ask me something personal. I told her that I hadn't ever been married, or even close to it.

  She nodded without showing any reaction, inhaled deeply from her cigarette, looked momentarily satisfied and then ground it out in her ashtray. "You're lucky," she said. "It can sure pull you down if it doesn't work. Especially if you have a kid."

  As soon as she'd said that she started to laugh at herself, and
added, "I bet everybody says that to you, huh.> 'You're lucky to be single.' And everybody I know that's single says they wish they were married. People are so screwed up. We can't do anything without making it seem hard." She laughed again. "Or maybe I should just speak for myself, huh.>"

  But I agreed with her. It was the oddest thing: I really had nothing in common with her, and I would never have imagined I could even hold a conversation with someone like her. It wasn't that she was dumb, and it certainly wasn't that she was unattractive, but she really seemed to be from another planet—and not one I'd particularly like to visit. And yet, though I couldn't imagine becoming seriously involved with her, I was certainly busy imagining what it would be like to be physically involved with her.

  (162)

  Walking back to the courthouse, she said nonchalantly, *'I almost forgot what it was like—having a real conversation with a man. I mean, where the guy actually listened to what I had to say, too. That was fun—thanks."

  I did pay the bill for that lunch.

  In the afternoon a gaunt woman with severely short hair, one of the witnesses of the murder, testified for the defense. As she took her seat in the witness box, the small group of Japanese people in the gallery held a quick, whispered conference, then stood up together and quietly left: the courtroom. They didn't make any unnecessary noise or commotion, but the gesture did not go unnoticed.

  The witness, whose name was Fran DeLacy, said she was an artist and had first become interested in Z^n for professional reasons. She had been studying with a Japanese cerami-cist at the time, and her teacher had recommended Zen to help strengthen her concentration. Within a few years her interest in Zen grew to overshadow her interest in art, so she moved into the Zen Foundation in order to devote all her energy to practicing meditation ftill time. As she spoke I noticed that the defendant was shifting restlessly in his chair and avoiding looking at her. He seemed uncharacteristically tense during her testimony.

  Ms. DeLacy recounted how Philip came to join their group. When Ms. Doppelt asked her to describe her early impressions of Philip, the witness said, "The first day he walked in I could tell he was 'off.' He needed a therapist, not Zen lessons." When she said this, Philip laughed out loud; it was the first time he had made any noise at all since the trial began.

  'T remember," Ms. DeLacy continued, ''that at the house

  (163)

  meeting where we were deciding whether to let him become a resident or not, I was against it."

  "Did you express your concern?" Ms. Doppelt asked.

  "Yeah. I said, 'Hey, we don't run a halfway house, we run a Zen center.' I thought it would be a problem to have him living there because he was obviously a mixed-up kid. But I got voted down."

  Ms. DeLacy no longer lived at the Zen Foundation. She had left right after the murder, but she told us she had been planning to leave for some time. When asked why, she said it was because she disagreed with the late Zen master's teaching methods. She thought he put too much pressure on students to achieve enlightenment.

  "Mr. Okakura was always saying, if you're really serious about Zen and really push yourself, you'll have a sudden enlightenment and it will be the greatest experience of your life. He said you had to practically kill yourself if you wanted to attain it." She sighed and ran her tongue over her lips as if to moisten them. A glass of water sat on the table next to her, but she didn't seem to notice it. "I got tired of that attitude, I guess. I think it's a macho thing. Zen teachers think that since they went through hell to get their knowledge, you have to go through hell too or you can't join their club. When you get someone like Philip, who's already kind of obsessive, and seems to be on the edge, and push someone like that ... I mean, I'm right, aren't I? Look at what happened."

  "So you feel that Mr. Okakura—or his methods, rather— pushed Mr. Weber over the edge, so to speak, during the retreat.>"

  The witness twisted her mouth to one side and looked around, thinking. "Well, not intentionally," she finally an-

  (164)

  svvercd. ''But I think the koan he assigned to Philip, the one about killing the Buddha in the road ... I think it had something to do with it, yeah."

  The reason the dead man's relatives left the courtroom became apparent during the cross-examination. In his usual polite but vvr' manner, Mr. Graham reported that a witness had mentioned in a prior statement that Philip had been quite upset, as many of the Zen Foundation members were, when a romantic relationship between the doomed Zen teacher and several students, including the witness, came to light in a very public way.

  It turned out that the Zen teacher had been sleeping with several of the female members of his churches without letting them know about the others, and that one of them had even brought a sexual harassment suit against him that was settled out of court.

  Ms. DeLacy did not seem surprised that this came out in the trial. The defense attorney must have prepared her for it. She said that yes, the scandal did upset a lot of people, including Philip. She said that one night, at an emergency house meeting, one woman said she thought that Okakura was a fraud, and that he should be banned from teaching. Philip didn't yell at her, but he did go up to his room and several of the members heard him crying. "There'd been a lot of cr>ing around the foundation then, though," she added.

  ''Ms. DeLacy," Mr. Graham asked in his charming drawl, managing to seem polite even while asking the most intrusive questions, "before this incident came out in the open, did you have any reason to believe that Philip liked you? In the sense of having a crush, I mean?"

  Again Philip laughed out loud when he heard the question.

  (165)

  When I looked at him he was shaking his head, with a forced-looking smile on his face.

  "No, he didn't give me any reason to think so," the witness said. "In fact, he almost never looked me in the eye. He wouldn't talk to me unless I asked him something, and then he'd practically run away."

  Mr. Graham nodded slowly, then glanced at Philip, who was frowning slightly and making notches in a pencil with his thumbnail. It got me thinking; if he'd had an immature crush on Ms. DeLacy that he couldn't express in an acceptable way, and he knew that the Zen master had slept with her and betrayed her, perhaps the murder wasn't entirely without motive after all.

  (166)

  '*Have you been practicing with your suit on, Kyung-hee?" I asked as I tuned his cello for him.

  He barely nodded, then said, '*But I don't think the real Batman would play the cello."

  '^Why not.>"

  When he looked up at me, I noticed that his glasses had been repaired again with electrical tape, this time over the bridge holding them together. He moved his lips silently for a moment, as if rehearsing what he was going to say. He rarely spoke, and when he did he seemed to have a difficult time putting his thoughts into words.

  'There's a bunch of superheroes," he began, frowning behind his damaged glasses. "Like Thing—he's made out of orange rocks, so he can't really get hurt if you punch him. Batman has all sorts of tools that he invents. Those guys have special powers for fighting bad guys. But plaing the cello wouldn't be a good power because it wouldn't help them in a fight."

  It was the most I'd ever heard him say. I was delighted, and wanted to encourage him to express himself more oft:en, but at the same time I could hardly agree with what he was

  (167)

  saying. "You have a point, Kyung-hee, but fighting and music are completely different. People fight in order to hurt other people, or to protect themselves, but people make music to feel good. It makes life worth living. Even those superheroes you mentioned have to do something besides fight, don't you think.^"

  He stared into space, concentrating, then in disagreement shook his head, which bobbed precariously on his narrow shoulders. "There's an awful lot of bad guys, Mr. Sund-heimer."

  "Well, OK, but let's talk about you. You don't fight bad guys, but you do have a special power. You have a special ability to understand music. You r
ealize that, don't you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "And in a way, your special power is greater than those comic-book characters', because all they can do is fight, but you can do so much more with music. With your playing, you can say a great deal to people, and give them beautiful moments so they can forget their hard work or remember things out of the past. I think that's the greatest power of all, don't you?"

  Kyung-hee fell into deep thought again. When he resurfaced, he said gravely, "Well, if you don't have music you can still live and do other stuff, but if you get killed by a bad guy, you can't do anything. So maybe superpowers are still the best."

  I couldn't fail to recognize the logic in what he was saying. Although I was disappointed to learn that he considered fighting more important than music, it relieved me to know that he was capable of reasoning appropriate for his age, and was not an idiot savant as I'd feared when I first met him.

  "Well, perhaps it's foolish of me to make comparisons,

  (168)

  Kaing-hec. But let's talk about Batman—isn't he the one whose parents were killed by a bad guy, so then he decided to fight crime?'' For once I was glad I had seen a popular moie.

  "Uh-huh."

  ''So he's like you and me, isn't he? He's not superhuman—he's just ver^ smart and determined."