The soloist Read online

eyes open when the judge called for someone to replace the latest dismissal, a man sitting next to me who was a biologist and who insisted that psychiatry was ''not a real science,'' and that he could not take psychiatric testimony seriously.

  The new prospective juror, I noticed as she made her way across the courtroom, had an excellent figure. She had a dark complexion and shadows under her eyes—something I've always found attractive. She looked Hispanic, or perhaps Middle Eastern, and appeared to be around my age. She wore a bloodred sweater. The clerk led her to the empty seat next to mine, and I felt myself blush as she sat down.

  How many times I've wished I could suppress that reaction! When I was sixteen I soloed with the Seattle Symphony and, as usual, everything went beautiflilly. I received a standing ovation and was called back onstage for an encore. After I took my final bow—one aspect of performance that I'd never had a gift for; in fact, I'd had to take lessons from a dance teacher to learn how to bow without looking like a broken electric toy—just as I straightened up, the concert-master congratulated me by kissing me on the cheek. If she had been older or uglier it might have gone without a hitch, but this particular concertmaster was young and verv^ attractive, especially in her black velvet evening dress. When she kissed me, my face, illuminated by a row of powerfial stage lights, turned such an intense shade of crimson that the audience acted as if it was the most endearing thing they had ever seen and cheered me for it. It was the only time in my life I did not enjoy the sound of applause.

  The judge asked the new juror to state her name for the court.

  ''Maria-Teresa Reiter."

  I didn't want to be rude by turning and watching her

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  during her interview, especially since we were sitting only a foot apart, so I fixed my eyes on a point on the wall in the back of the courtroom and tried to look impassive.

  Maria-Teresa explained that she was an ambulance dispatcher, was married with one child, and had never done jury duty before. From her exchange with the defense attorney we learned that she was a lapsed Catholic who knew nothing about Asian religions and had been the victim of a crime only once, when her car was broken into. She had not been in the car at the time, and lost only a tape player, a pair of sunglasses and her husband's basketball.

  The prosecutor educed that no one in her immediate family suffered from mental illness, that she had worked for the ambulance company since finishing high school, and that she and her husband, who worked for the railroad as an engineer, were both politically moderate. She stayed poised throughout the questioning, and answered in a masculine, whiskey-flavored voice. During one of the breaks I discovered why: she was an unabashed chain-smoker.

  Ms. Reiter made it through her voir dire, leaving only one more juror to be confirmed. After two dismissals—a woman whose cousin had died in the Guyana tragedy and did not want to hear testimony about cults, and a man who had been badly frightened recently by a "crazy" homeless person—the two lawyers focused their attention on a black man, Mr. Dwight Anderson, an ex-Marine who worked as an industrial investigator at a defense plant. Toward the end of his interview, at about four-thirty, a patch of sunlight that had been gradually making its way across the floor of the courtroom reached the jury box. As the sun fell the patch of light crept up our legs, then spilled onto our laps, and eventually reached chest level. The brilliant red fabric of Ms. Reiter's

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  sweater drew my attention. The afternoon sunlight illuminated the soft wool and, from where I was sitting, made her sweater partially transparent, giving me a clear view of her breasts in three-quarter profile. They were at the very beginning of exquisite decline. It dismayed and embarrassed me that I could feel this sort of longing so suddenly and so strongly, and in such an inappropriate setting.

  When I could stand it no longer I shifted my attention back toward the courtroom. To my amusement I noticed that almost all in my field of view, male and female, had their eyes on Ms. Reiter's chest. I looked around at the rest of the room and saw that only two people seemed oblivious to the spectacle: the court stenographer, who was facing directly away from us as she typed, and the defendant, who was looking right at me. He had a bland smile on his face, as if he knew exacdy what was going through my mind. I shuddered and looked away; when I glanced back a few moments later, he was staring out the window where the sunlight was coming from. For the first time I comprehended the reality that this was a murder trial, I was a juror chosen to decide a man's guilt or innocence, and now that man knew my name and quite a bit else about me.

  The panel was sworn in, two alternates were chosen and the trial finally got under way. At last we were going to find out what the pale young man had done. Fd been especially curious after hearing about the tabloid article referring to the defendant as "the 2^n monster." I had tried to track the article even though this was against the rules, but when I mentioned the name of the magazine to a librarian ftiend on campus, she stifled a laugh and suggested I try checking the dumpsters behind supermarkets.

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  Judge Davis began by telling us that since the defendant was pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, the trial had to be divided into two parts. First was the "guilt phase," where we had to determine whether or not the defendant actually committed the crime. If we found him guilty, we would then move to the "sanity phase," in which the defendant would try to prove that although he did commit the crime, he was insane at the time. The judge did not explain why we couldn't do these two things simultaneously; it seemed like an inefficient way to go about it, and I began to wonder how long I was going to be stuck in this courtroom.

  The prosecutor gave his opening arguments first. In his gende drawl, with almost a hint of sadness in his voice, he told us that the defendant, Philip Weber, was a college dropout who felt bored and unsatisfied with his life. He wandered for several years trying to "find himself" with drugs and mysticism, eventually joining the Los Angeles Zen Foundation, a Buddhist church in Pacific Palisades. He was attracted to this religion because it offered "enlightenment," a blinding flash of insight that turns anyone who has it into a spiritual master.

  "Mr. Weber believed," the prosecutor said, making a noticeable effort to sound matter-of-fact rather than sarcastic, "that if he was an enlightened Zen master, he would no longer have any nagging doubts or insecurities about anything, and spiritually advanced people would respect him and seek his advice and wisdom. In January of this year, during the foundation's annual intensive meditation retreat, Mr. Weber apparently decided his time had arrived. On the afternoon of January fourth, he suddenly started shouting that he was enlightened and that he had become a Buddha. When

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  Mr. Kazuo Okakura, the Zen master leading the retreat, asked Mr. Weber to demonstrate his 'enlightenment,' the young man jumped up, grabbed a stick out of the Zen master's hands and savagely beat him with it. There were eleven people in the church at the time, not counting Mr. Weber or Mr. Okakura, and all of them witnessed the assault. The blows crushed Mr. Okakura's skull and broke his neck, and he died several hours later in a hospital."

  As Mr. Graham described the crime, several of the potential jurors stared incredulously at the defendant. He looked too frail to commit such a brutal murder. I also noticed a bit of a commotion in the back of the courtroom. I looked out and saw a group of Asian people surrounding an old couple, also Asian. The younger members of the group seemed to be translating for the old couple. I guessed that they were the parents of the murder iaim.

  ''The evidence will show," Mr. Graham concluded, pointing at the defendant and looking straight at him, "that Mr. Weber intentionally killed Mr. Okakura in order to demonstrate his spiritual strength to the rest of the world, and in order to eliminate the possibility that Mr. Okakura might challenge the validity' of his self-declared 'enlightenment.' When you've heard the eidence, I believe you will find you have no choice but to find the defendant guilty."

  The prosecutor returned to his seat and the ju
dge ordered the defense to make its opening statement.

  Ms. Doppelt stood up and requested a private conference. Judge Davis reluctandy consented, and the court custodian led the jury out to the jury room so that we would not overhear what was said. When we returned to the courtroom I could see that Ms. Doppelt was unhappy about something. VTien the judge once again inited her to make her opening

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  remarks, she faced us and said, "Members of the jury, I am only allowed to introduce evidence of mental illness during the 'sanity phase' of the trial. So you in the jury will be forced to go through the process of declaring Philip guilty of murder before I have a chance to properly defend him. I can only hope that when this part of the trial is over, you will be willing to try to hear the evidence of insanity with open minds. Thank you." The judge raised one of his massive eyebrows and looked prepared to rebuke her, but just as quickly his eyebrow settled back again. The defendant noticed this and laughed quietly.

  As we filed out of the courtroom for the morning break the juror who read gas meters, whose name was Gary, asked me, "Sounds pretty weird, huh.> Hey, I could be a Zen master—I have a baseball bat in my truck! Ha ha . . ." When he laughed I noticed that he had badly neglected teeth.

  We'd been told at least a dozen times not to discuss the trial at all until the deliberations started; I smiled and tried politely to drift away from him, but he followed me to the water fountain and asked if I knew anything about Buddhism. I said I didn't, but that I assumed it would be explained more carefully later on in the trial.

  "Yeah, I hope so," he muttered. "Maybe they'll have a demonstration and get some guy to walk on coals or something!" He laughed again at his own comment.

  I remembered from his voir dire that Gary was in his forties, but he looked twenty years older, probably from working in the sun. It was hard to believe we were so close in age. He had a round, protruding belly over skinny legs and a completely flat behind. I noticed this only because he was always tugging at his pants, as if he was used to having to keep pulling them up. He asked if I followed sports at all.

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  When I answered that I didn't, he told me that, the night before, the Dodgers had suffered an embarrassing defeat.

  ''Against a shitt)' team, too," he complained. ''It doesn't make sense, you know.> A great team plays a shitty team, there shouldn't be any question. But when you get a shitty team against a good team, it rubs off and everybody plays shitt>'."

  Relieved that he had at least changed the subject, I said that the same thing often happens in music. You can hire a terrific performer, but make him play with a weak orchestra and you'd be surprised how badly he'll play sometimes.

  "Yeah," he said, nodding. "You know, my parents made me take piano when I was a kid for a few weeks. Man! Did I hate that— I made 'em let me quit. But now I have a kid, and my wife wants to make him take piano lessons. You're into music—what do you think.> Should kids take piano because it's good for 'em, or do you think it's a waste of time if they don't seem interested? I mean, my kid's not begging for piano lessons."

  I don't think anyone knows the answer to this question, so I said that it depended on the child; some seem to get a lot out of music lessons, some don't. You can't tell until they've tried it.

  Maria-Teresa was standing close enough to overhear our conversation. She drifted over and commented that her mother, who had always liked the sound of the accordion, made her take lessons on it for nearly a year. The lessons ended when the family acquired a new puppy who chewed the accordion apart and buried the biggest pieces in the back'ard. "My mother had a fit." Maria-Teresa laughed. "But I snuck him treats for a month after that. I hated that accordion." She had a beautiful smile.

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  "Do you ever wish you'd stuck with it, though?" I asked her.

  She looked at me suspiciously and asked, "Have you heard an accordion lately?" That was her answer; then she excused herself to go outside for a cigarette. I laughed, but she'd already left. It took me a few seconds to realize she was being humorous.

  Maria-Teresa's story reminded me of the night Wolfgang Bruggen, one of Germany's most influential financiers and statesmen after the war, made my mother and me the guests of honor at one of his elaborate dinner parties. As usual I felt uncomfortable through most of the dinner; the other guests and even my distinguished host seemed uncertain whether to speak to me as a child or as an adult, and in such august company I hardly dared initiate conversation on my own. Eventually, as almost always happened at those events, the group settled into eulogizing me rather than speaking with me.

  To make matters worse, Herr Bruggen's eighteen-year-old son (I was fifteen) sat next to me with a pinched expression on his face, and avoided even looking at me. Just before the dessert course, Herr Bruggen brought all conversation to a halt with a wave of his hand, gestured in my direction and announced, "I would like you all to consider this: six hours a day, practically since the day he was bom! And he never once had to be told to practice. Think of what each of us could have done with that kind of spirit! Think of it!" Having said this, he glanced pointedly at his son, then invited us to try the caramel custard.

  After dinner, as the adults shifted over to the living room to smoke and sip brandy, Herr Bruggen ordered his son to

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  give mc a tour of the estate's flower and herb garden. Once outside, the young man dutifully but joylessly identified the various shrubs and plants until I finally asked him, ''Do you like to grow things?"

  'Tve never planted a thing in my life," he answered.

  ''Me neither. Tm not big on flowers," I said, hoping to impress the older boy. Because of the difference in our ages, and perhaps because I sensed he didn't like me, I craved his approval. A kind word from him—or better yet, a irile gesture such as confiding in me a forbidden exploit or asking if I wanted to see his car—would have meant more to me than all of his father's accolades. Instead he squinted at me and muttered, "My father really enjoys doing this, you know. He gets somebody like you to come over to the house, he talks about how great you are, and it's supposed to make me want to go out and do important things. But do you know what would happen to me if I said I wanted to be an artist or a musician.^ Christ, I'd be disowned in a minute. These dinner parties are pure buUshit, is what they are."

  Then, as if to make the point that he wasn't going to be forced to admire me, he went right back to identifying shrubs. This incident, like Maria-Teresa's stor' about her mother and the accordion lessons, makes me wonder how nature could have designed human beings to be so eager to make children, yet so uncertain about how to raise them. VMien do you let children follow their own instincts, and when do you push them to do what you wish you had done vourself?

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  The state's first witness, Benjamin Frederick Ellis, was a tall, thin man wearing a suit that looked as if it must have been sold in only three sizes—small, medium or large. He made his way toward the fi-ont of the room, holding his arms stiffly at his sides, seeming very self-conscicus. He looked only about forty years old, but he was completely bald. As he walked past the jury box, I saw that his hair had not fallen out but had been shaved.

  I saw Ellis glance angrily at the accused murderer on his way up to the stand. The defendant smiled and nodded enigmatically; I couldn't tell if he was putting on a "spiritual master" act by pretending to forgive his accuser with a pious smile or was truly off in a fantasy world of his own. Mr. Ellis took the oath and then sat down, sitting bolt upright with his hands folded symmetrically on his lap. I've noticed that Americans who become interested in Eastern mysticism always have to find ways to let you know it; they sit on the floor with their legs crossed even when there are chairs available, with their spines unnaturally erect, like West Point cadets. Mr. Graham stepped up to the witness stand, resting one foot on the platform and draping his right arm across the

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  railing. He seemed to be trying by example to make the witness relax.


  Mr. Ellis introduced himself as the senior resident monk at the Los Angeles Zen Foundation church, which explained the shaved head. He nervously described what happened on the day of the murder. The members of their church were conducting an ''intensive meditation retreat." According to tradition, for one week they held to a rigorous daily schedule of getting up at four o'clock in the morning, chanting in Japanese, performing hundreds of full prostrations in front of an image of the Buddha, and sitting absolutely still for up to sixteen hours a day in meditation. They went to bed at eleven o'clock at night, but many of the students, Ellis explained, only pretended to do so; to show their determination, they would sneak back down to the meditation hall in the darkness and continue their efforts. The purpose of the meditation, he explained, was to try to find a solution to a seemingly irrational puzzle that the Zen master had privately assigned to each student. You could solve the puzzle only if you had a transformational insight, which they called "enlightenment."

  ''On the fourth day of the retreat," Mr. Ellis told us, "Philip started . . . um, breathing loud. This was in the morning, when we were sitting. Everybody thought he was just making a big push to concentrate, so no one bothered him about it."

  Afi:er a lunch eaten in complete silence—talking was forbidden for the entire week—they again began sitting in consecutive fifty^-minute periods. I was wondering, and I'm sure all of the other jurors must have been as well, how can anyone actually do this.> The thought of having to sit cross-legged on the floor for even half an hour without budging, concentrating on a puzzle, struck me as being almost unimaginable.

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  And then to do this for an hour at a time, sixteen or more hours a day—does it feel good to these people? Or is it a form of penance, like flogging yourself or saying thousands of Hail Marys, a test of endurance that gradually makes you feel euphoric? Then I realized, with a sense of irony, that I probably knew more about it than I gave myself credit for, because I had practiced the cello six or more hours a day for nearly thirty years straight, which many people would consider an unbearable schedule.