The Soloist (19 page)

A part of one letter, however, impressed and interested me. It read: “… sometimes when I’m sitting zazen in the main hall an intense thing happens, which happens to people who are on the brink of satori. I’ll be listening to something, like the temple bell, or the garbage truck backing up every morning at around six, and if I hit a certain kind of state of mind, I can suddenly
see
the sound or taste it! Like the sound of the bell is dark green and shiny or it tastes like those slippery mushrooms that come in cans. The truck backing up has one of those beeping sounds when it goes backwards and the beep is bright yellow and has a metallic taste, but when he revs up the engine that’s black, and for some reason it doesn’t have a flavor. This could be a makyo, which means a kind of illusion that advanced Zen students get and I’ll have to push through it, or it may be an early taste of enlightenment.”

This interested me because when I was very young one of the reasons I was able to hear a piece of music and then play it right back without having to look at a score was that for me each musical phrase had not so much a color or flavor as a texture, and if I could remember the sequence of textures, I could automatically reproduce the sounds. Philip’s mention of “slippery mushrooms” suddenly brought a flood of memories for me. I could even recall a few of my textures, particularly the ones I associated with slow, haunting melodies.

There were phrases that felt like satin or feathers, and others that had the texture of coarse sand or polished marble. These memories were so pleasant that I fell into a grateful reverie for a while, where I remained until Judge Davis announced the morning break.

As the other jurors were standing up to file out, Maria-Teresa casually asked me if I would like to join her later for lunch. I was thrilled but nervous at the same time. Though there was nothing wrong with our eating together, there was the as yet unacknowledged fact that she was married. I knew, of course, that the only reason I’d gravitated toward her was the way she looked, but I certainly didn’t intend to make a pass at her. I simply wanted to enjoy the fact that someone so physically attractive would pay attention to me.

I wasn’t completely without experience around women; I had nearly fallen in love once, in my late twenties. Naomi was a violist who played in a semiprofessional quartet with Martin, the well-read violin instructor. He thought she and I might hit it off, so he invited Naomi and me and a few other musicians over for dinner one night. I was attracted to her, and Martin strongly encouraged me to call her up, assuring me that she was interested. As usual I felt hesitant about doing so; instead of calling her right away I experienced a surge of renewed determination and practiced until I thought my arms would drop off, hoping to make progress toward
solving my problem so that I could at least tell her that I was preparing a concert. But when that effort brought no results, I yielded to Martin’s exhortations and called her up.

We dated for several months, but it was an awkwardly platonic relationship. For most of our dates we went to concerts. When we didn’t go to concerts, we talked about concerts or about music in general. She liked to talk about her quartet and solo work, but when she asked about my playing I could only discuss the past. Since we were both musicians, and had been nothing else since childhood, we had little else to share. We might have become great friends, but hanging over us was the expectation that we become something more than friends. Specifically, the expectation was that
I
should turn us into something more than just friends; she was a traditional-minded young lady and was clearly not going to initiate any of the activities I had in mind.

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 easily 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
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 gentle 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,
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 further reflection it occurred to me that the fact 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 affected 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 Davis agreed with him and overruled the objection. The senior Mr. Weber evaded the question by saying 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 having 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 fancy 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
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.

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. “I’m 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 military 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
had a job and his family had some money, and I didn’t. I guess I’m 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.

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.