14.

ZEINAB RASHID

Dear Ava,

I hope you and Allegra are pulling off that old sanity trick, all right; I think about you both often. I think about Karel, too, and Přem. I considered not writing this letter to you, and then I considered not sending it—I have a feeling this is a common reaction among those you’ve asked to try to put Přem in writing. In my case, there’s an additional sense of impropriety. It’s not right for the executor of Karel’s will to gossip and speculate about his state of mind when he wrote it. Anyway, if you’re reading this, I found a way to dismiss those scruples.

Karel was one of the first students to take my History of Music for Strings course, you know. And Allegra was one of the last. My first impressions of both students were so wide of the mark I can only laugh them off. I thought Karel needed a bit more self-confidence and Allegra needed a bit less. They both took an interest in my lecture on an eighteenth-century priest and an instrument he devised—a hypothetical instrument that could not be brought into actuality despite many years of labour. I didn’t realise the extent to which that story took hold of Karel Stojaspal’s imagination until I read “The Ocular Harpsichord”—have you read it, Ava, the novella Karel wrote? It’s all in there, in the chilling immediacy of Karel’s “I,” as he tells of Louis Bertrand Castel’s proposal to make music visible to the naked eye, and then every grain of the quicksand that drew him into its embrace as he failed. The ruin of his health and finances. The blighting of his view of Creation.

Allegra didn’t get it. She kept looking all around her during that lecture, seeking the point she was missing in the expressions of the other students. But then A’s viable ideas come in clusters; if one doesn’t ripen after all, there’s still a good chance one of the others will, so why get into a tizzy over the one concept? Karel adores breezy prodigal talents. He married one after graduation. A former classmate of his, in fact. Poppy Dixon. I was at their wedding, and then they moved to Newcastle once Poppy started as a 2nd Violin for the Royal Northern Sinfonia. Poppy was a bit too nice for Karel. No, what I mean is that Karel was too cruel for Poppy, but never allowed her to realise it. Karel’s cruel streak, his tendency to taunt and prod, so perplexed Poppy that he feared she wouldn’t put up with it. He hid that cruel streak from his wife and only showed it to his friends. Which was perfectly lovely for us, of course. However: I will let those stories die.

We frequently double dated when they were in town—me and Stefan, Karel and Poppy. We were just about old enough to be their parents, but we probably looked more like their grandparents. Those two had such a glow about them, and didn’t yet understand about mortgages and things like that. Karel said Poppy gave him music. She’d wake up humming, and he’d be off at once, setting what he’d heard into a composition. They had three years like that, then a very bad year—Poppy was so gravely ill—and we lost her.

My first point about Přem is that I don’t know anything about his mother. Karel would allow people to assume Přem is Poppy’s son, but he almost certainly isn’t. Of course, a downside of long-distance friendship is that it takes some time to become aware of a new factor in your friends’ life. I do, however, find it extraordinary that, after a decade of quarterly lunches without any mention of a new partner, fling, or any development falling between those two posts, Karel introduced me to Přem, who looked to be all of ten years old.

I asked the little boy how old he was, and he smiled at me and said, “Guess!”

Karel had been ill for about a month prior; he characterised it as a stomach complaint and told me his doctor found nothing wrong, and I believed him at the time, but I don’t anymore. I mean I believe Karel was laid low by what he called his stomach complaint, but I doubt he saw a doctor about it. He probably stayed at home all month, possibly feeling death draw near and shrinking away, and somewhere near the middle of all that Přem arrived. Dropped off by his mother, probably. I am volunteering this as a guess even though I don’t believe it. I’m not sure what I do believe concerning Přemysl.

I paid Karel an impromptu visit one evening. I didn’t tell him I was coming, I just took the train up to Newcastle and took a taxi to his house. That morning I had felt that something was the matter and that it might not be too late to fix it as long as I saw Karel that very day. Karel answered the door himself, looking better than I’d seen him in a while, and I felt as if I’d caught myself wishing bad things on him. I got a warm welcome and a cream tea from him, even though darkness was falling. We talked for hours. Přem was about seventeen by then. Karel was particularly pleased with how well he was doing at school, and was matter-of-fact about him continuing higher education close to home, so that he wouldn’t be out at night. I asked him if he didn’t think he was being too strict with Přem, and he began a circumspect answer, then his telephone rang upstairs. He excused himself; there was a call he’d been expecting all day. And almost as soon as he had gone, Přem was there. I don’t mean he had come in, I mean he was there. There was a lamp beside the chair I was sitting in; he switched it on and said, “Yes, Ms. Rashid, he is too strict. Thank you for being on my side.”

I may have simply gibbered for a moment; I just couldn’t get my bearings. He told me that, because I was on his side, he wanted to give me a present. I think that’s what he told me. Very strange, that night. When I think back to it, I think I must have . . . misunderstood somehow? “Misunderstood” doesn’t seem to be the right word, but he was saying nonthreatening things at normal pitch, yet everything he said scared the hell out of me. There had to be a misunderstanding somewhere. Anyway, he said he wanted to give me a present. And I thought, whatever this present is, I certainly mustn’t accept it. It was also beginning to be rather difficult to comprehend where exactly in the room he was. He switched on two more lamps and he seemed to be where they were and also by the bookcase and also, quite horribly, sitting at my feet with his elbows on my knees.

“A musician without an instrument,” Přem said. “A woman who will never marry . . . hmmm . . . I’ve got just the thing for you all the same. Don’t you want your present, Ms. Rashid?”

“No,” I gasped. “Go to bed.”

“But you’ll like it. The present. I can bring you someone. Anyone you want. Just think of someone and I’ll bring them.”

“Bring someone? From where?”

He switched on another lamp and said, “Anywhere . . .”

Karel got off the phone and came back, thank God. He gave Přem a hearty clap on the shoulder: “Bedtime, right?”

“Bedtime,” Přem agreed.

“I’ll just say goodnight to Zeinab, and then I’ll be with you.”

“Then you’ll be with me.”

I never visited Karel at home after dark again, even after he assured me that Přem was now “much better at night.” There are a couple of other stories about Přem from when he was ten or so; hearsay, so I’ll be brief with these. The first is that a pair of would-be kidnappers took Přem from the posh primary school Karel was sending him to, but returned him in the middle of the night. It’s the middle-of-the-night bit that made me think this actually could have happened; the kidnappers saw what he was and just took him home. There is this too: when Přem was asked for some description of the kidnappers, he said that one was a white man and the other was a white woman, that they were “not as old as my father,” and both of them made him sad. Why . . . had they harmed him somehow? “No,” he said, “they were fine at first, but then they started to look like this”—he drew two faces with upside-down smiles—“and after that they just kept crying and crying and crying . . . It was sad . . .”

The other bit of hearsay is to do with a violinist who Karel mentored for a while; a somewhat pudgy young man who was self-conscious about his weight. This violinist volunteered to play for Přem at night but couldn’t stay awake. At around six in the morning, Karel found the young man passed out in the second-floor bathtub with leeches writhing all the way up to his chin. Alive, fortunately, and later, the young man told a story (of sorts) about Přem “bringing the leeches because he knew I wanted to be skinny. He said it was the easiest way.” But Karel insisted this was “largely untrue,” whatever that means, and the violinist stopped telling his Přemysl tale once Karel threatened to sue. We’ll just have to shrug about that incident.

So far I have not been fair to Přem. As you will have seen for yourself, he was a great comfort to his father. His manner improved as he got older; at various points over the two decades I was in contact with him, I observed that he was getting kindlier, possibly sadder. He wasn’t musical, but I know that he pursued the visual arts with quite a lot of energy. I’ve heard quite confused descriptions of a series of “white paintings” he produced, but never saw one. And then he burned them all.

Before that there was a row about being cut out of the will, of course, but I’m not so sure it was about the money and property. I was there with Karel in his study. Přem came in with a contract for Karel to sign, threw the contract down, and said: “Change the will.”

Karel looked at him very coldly and asked what change Přem wished him to make.

“Leave it all to me. Your estate, or whatever it’s called.”

Karel snorted, but Přem said it again. “Leave it all to me. Unless . . . unless you think Ava’s right?”

Ava, you will have to refer to whatever argument/s you may have had with Karel and/or Přem here . . . I was hoping Karel would say something that hinted at it, but he just continued glaring until Přem said: “So I have to die when you die, do I?”

Karel looked at me and told Přem to be quiet. Ordinarily that was enough; with Přem, Karel’s word was law. But this time Přem went on. “It’s always like this . . . Why is it always . . . you will leave me, Ava will leave me . . .”

Then Karel, mainly to stop Přem talking, I think, said that he was arranging things like this for Přem’s sake. He spoke with his eyes on the contract Přem had brought in, turning pages and checking them before signing. He told Přem he mustn’t look for a replacement, especially not in you, Ava.

“You have to try to be on your own.”

I just stared down at the document the whole time; I had an idea that if I looked up, Přem would start talking about giving me a present again. You see, the worst of it was that I did want it—the present he said he had for me. He’d offered it seventeen years before and had shown me nothing but politeness after I’d turned him down, but I thought about it every day—a few times a day, actually—I should have accepted his gift—why was I so frightened of it? Now that I’m fairly certain he and I won’t meet again, I can admit that I behaved somewhat awkwardly in Přem’s company because I couldn’t quite trust myself not to catch at his sleeve and ask for my present. An old biddy like me pawing at a strapping young man like him . . .

Anyway, Přem didn’t speak to me that afternoon. Karel told him he had to try to be on his own, and he said something to the effect of “Karel, I will try to let go of her, but if I can’t, it’s not my fault.” Then he picked up the contract Karel had signed and left.

Karel told me he didn’t come home that night. The next bit of news I heard about Přem was that he’d moved out of Karel’s house. They reconciled, or seemed to, about a year later, after Karel collapsed. Přem donated his kidney and was at home with Karel again for a while—they may have had “bad” nights again, because Karel couldn’t play for Přem, and you’d stopped coming. This is inference, though, not anything I heard. You do have to wonder about his nights after he left Karel’s house; I’m sure someone fitting Přem’s description has left the good people of Dulwich with many a weird tale to ponder. Then, five months or so after Karel’s transplant, there was Přem’s art fire. And now . . . I suppose if there is anything more to know about Stojaspal, we have to wait for your birthday.

That said, I don’t believe Přemysl will intervene in the matter of this inheritance, Ava. He stated an intention not to trouble you—at least that’s what it sounded like to me. You’ve spent nights with him and been fine, so there isn’t anything he can do to you now.

Write me back soonest.

With love,

Zeinab