Time for Leib to rehearse his opera at
the Met. But how can he stop Renée
from learning the terrible truth?
Chor der Landleute und Hochzeitsgäste:
Glück auf! Glück auf! Zum Hochzeitsreih’n
Viel Glück und Segen Bringe!
Gar so stillen Muths wir zogen aus
Mit Hochzeitsklage wir zieh’n nach Haus Glück auf!
THOSE ARE THE very last words of my father’s opera. The Prince and Princess are married. The crowd shouts their huzzahs. Now, sitting at my isle of Formica, I take up my pen to produce a Leib Goldkorn translation.
Chorus of Rustics and Wedding Guests:
Good luck! On this day that you are wed
Blessings on this marriage bed!
With a song we march off to our houses
Where women do the trick that arouses!
Good luck! Good luck! Good luck!
Now we dance and sing and ****!
There! Finis. Tears of joy fill my eyes. Father! Dear Father! Your son has completed his task. But hark: here comes the Lithuanian, late as ever with my Dr. Brown’s. Hush. Let us hear him speak:
“Here you go, young fella. One cream soda. With a straw.”
Hee. Hee. Hee. Young fella! “Thank you, my good man. Here for your trouble is a handsome pourboire.”
Amusing to see the aged jaw drop wide: Is it because he is in a state of stupefaction at the size of his gratuity, a bright and shiny American “nickel”? Or is it because the youthful client he sees before him has just spoken with the venerable voice of the Graduate? Who can blame him for being surprised? For the fact is that the customer at the table, with paper and ink pushed one way and his breakfast omelet with side of sable pushed to the other, is a figure that neither you nor Mr. Mosk has ever seen before. Let us describe him:
On both cheek and chin, a black beard, cut in the style of Rutherford B. Hayes. Atop the head, a jet-black coiffure slicked back with Brylcreem—A little dab will do ya—creating the appearance of a Hungarian count.
The gals will all pursue ya.
Think R. Valentino.
You’ll look so debonair.
I rise to my full height—a confession: I have, into my McAns, inserted lifts—so that the waiter can assess my attire. Lumberman: long gone, replaced by a “sports” jacket with padded shoulders and wide lapels that hangs, Satmar-style, to the knees; trousers that are belted just beneath the male papillae and that, after loosely falling, are gathered at the ankles. Color coordination: plum-purple coat, pants mustard-yellow, mit Nadelstreifen. Finishing touch: pocket square and watch chain to the calf.
“You don’t,” mutters Mosk, “see these anymore.”
“Would you, good garçon, care to hazard a guess as to the age of your patron?”
“That’s you? Okay. Black hair. Black beard. Swell suit. Maybe forty-five. No glasses. No cane. Maybe forty-three.”
“Forty-three!”
“Tops.”
They’ll love to run their fingers
through your hair.
Honk! Honkety! Honk!
That is the call of the Continental. Abdoul, chauffeur. What is the expression—to walk on the air? I experience such pneumatics as I float toward the waiting limousine. Forty-three! Ha! Ha! Ha! Forty-three! Leib Goldkorn is incognito!
Honk! Honnnnnnk! Coming, Abdoul. Coming. Farewell, melancholy Mosk. Adieu to the Sturgeon King!
ROUTE: up Eighty-sixth Street and then, after right-hand turn, down Avenue Christopher Columbus. Genoese Jew. Downtown. Always downtown. Eighty-fifth. Eighty-fourth. Eighty-third.
There occurs, at this spot on our journey, one small incidental. We stop at a “red” light. The better to see the world around me, I roll down the smoked-glass window. Between our vehicle and the Teriyaki Boy establishment sits a green roadster with, at the wheel, an undoubted doxy. Blond, but black at the roots. Glasses for sun. Brünnhilde bosom. I lean from the limousine. I doff—this is the last item in my garmenture—my feathered felt. “Excuse me,” I say, in an Oxford intonation. “Might I inquire if you have the correct time?”
The ultimate test. For a heart-stopping moment nothing occurs. I lean farther. “I have left my Bulova at Chez Casa Blanca.”
Down goes her window.
“What?”
Lipstick by Chanel. Number 33, if I am not mistaken. “Allure.” With those coated lips, smooth and satiny, she makes a decided moue. Tongue tip! “Were you talking to me?”
“Ja! Shall we have a coition?”
Those words are scarcely out of my mouth when the light changes, and the relentless tide of traffic carries us off to our differing fates. But I have, in her neighborliness, all the evidence I require. Transformation complete. A youth! A youth! A youth of forty-three!
Eightieth. Seventy-seventh. And now Seventy-sixth, the boundary of the 10023 zip code itself. Seventy-fourth. Sixty-eighth. There are the towers, like huge blocks of unsinkable Ivory-brand soap, of the Abraham Lincoln Center. We cross the Boulevard of Broadway. Our vehicle slows and comes to a halt opposite the opera arches. A person stands in the plaza, a person whose voice rings out:
“Lee-ho! Lee-Leib!”
“Step on it, Abdoul! Allez!”
Meee-ow! Our G-force acceleration, the barking of orders, has awakened Hymena in her hamper.
“To what destination, sayyid?”
“Turn! Turn here! To the right. Rechts!”
With a protest from rubber tires, we flee onto Sixty-second Street. “Another right, if you please. Now you may slow. Stop there, at the Avenue Amsterdam entrance.”
May I explain? I had recognized at once the female who was standing near the spurting Fontana: heart-shaped face; chinny chin; hourglass figure, with more sand in the top. It was the Fleming! Beneath her nose, a nosegay, a bouquet of—were they marsh marigolds? Morning glories? Up they rose, at the end of an arm. She had seen the Continental and its passenger. Incontestablement, she was waving those flowers at me. But who was I? The echt Leib, born in November of 1901? Or the caballero with the key chain? Age forty-three. At this crucial moment, I lacked the courage to find out.
Now, at the stage door, someone else is waiting. Tall, with aviation-type glasses and three-part beardelet.
“Giuseppe! Signor Volpe! Here is the natural son of G. Mahler. In disguise!”
Like the Lithuanian’s, the intendant’s mouth drops open in surprise. Excellent dental work. Before he can close it, I pull down, on my chin whiskers, the elasticized straps. “L. Goldkorn. Graduate. Greetings.”
“Maestro! We have been waiting all morning. Where have you been?”
“Where the Grass is Greener, ha, ha, ha! I am happy to announce that the translation of Rübezahl is now complete.”
“Glad to hear it. But we’re hours behind schedule. We’re about to begin the rehearsal for the love scene. Between the Princess and the Prince. Let’s hurry backstage.”
“Lead on, Macduff!” So saying, I leave the limousine and, with Hymena at heel, enter the rear of the Metropolitan Opera.
No glamour here. Neither crystal chandelier nor diamond horseshoe. Velvet plush nil. What I see before me resembles the interior of the naval vessels we used to see in Pathé films: corridors and staircases, a warren of storerooms and coiled rope, all dimly lit and painted battleship-gray. From everywhere and nowhere the sound of pounding and the whine of multiple machines. I follow my guide into a small Otis-brand and after a short journey emerge into a mist created by a multitude of atomizers pumping in unison. About me are the tremolos of soprano and mezzo-soprano and contralto voices. Oh, and the boom of a basso and a bass baritone.
Now, dimly, I see a figure in the distance. “Lee-ho-lee-ho-lee-Leib!” cries this Valkyrie of the vapors. Through the drizzle, arms out, races the diva. “Lee-ho-lee-ho! Lee-Leib!”
In a flash I dart through the nearest closed door and slam it behind me. There is a bolt. I slam it too. I am, I see, in a W.C. The crucial question: Damen? Or Herren?
Inna these arms . . .
What? The words of Prince Ratibor. I whirl around. At the bottom of a stall, the kind for doing business, a pair of wingtips. Again, sotto voce:
Inna these arms . . .
Inna these arms . . .
Could it be? Is this our tenor? Out of retirement? I move to the adjoining booth and haul myself upward. As I do so the Prince, a cappella, continues:
. . . my love-a now safely lands.
I peek over the edge. A bearded fellow, trousers at ankles, elbows on knees, the classical position. In his hands, the libretto.
The response comes in a voice you know well:
Warm yourself on my mammary glands.
“Ha-ha. Leib Goldkorn translation.”
“Ah! Che perversità!” cries the Pavarotti, half rising, then tripping forward.
Already I am clawing at the bolt and dashing through the door. The diva has disappeared into the dewdrops. But not for long.
Lee-ho-lee-hoo! Lee-Leib!
The cry of the huntress. This time I dash into the shop for costumes, pull the first garment I see—it is that of a Carmelite nun—from its hanger, and throw it about me. With pins in my lips I practice the art of Jewish sewing. The Fleming bursts through the door.
“Oh, ho, yo-ho-ho!” she cries. “Maestro! Maestro mio! Where have you gone?”
All within bend over their stitches and their Isaac Singer machines. The soprano turns her eyes, like two Hershey’s Kisses, upon truly yours. “Have you seen Maestro Goldkorn?” she asks. “I need him for the love scene.”
At the sound of my name, linked with the word love. I experience storminess in S. America. Part of me wishes to throw open my garment and wittily cry out, Miss Fleming! Sweetheart! Get into the habit with me! Instead, I say not a word, as if I, like the Carmelite, had taken a vow of silence.
She turns. She departs. Yet the same game of hide-and-seek continues—first in the wig-maker’s shop, where she mistakes me for Madame Pompadour, or perhaps the curls I have donned belong to M. Antoinette; and then in the carpentry room, which the Valkyrie dares not enter, owing to the sawdust that hangs in the air. Thus she does not see the winged horse—
Up, noble steed, your wings beat, beat, and beat.
Three American inches? Egad! Three American feet!
—under which I am, with averted eyes, hiding.
Once the coast is clear I venture from this workshop and directly into the arms of the general manager.
“Maestro!” he exclaims. “Where have you been? The rehearsal has already started. Come with me.”
We once more enter an Otis, and descend to a level marked C. At once I hear music—yes, yes, it is my father’s score, the scherzo for the ballet. We advance down a passage. We turn a corner. The intendant opens a door. Suddenly I see before me a replication of the main stage of the opera house, complete with a pit for the orchestra. These musicians are vigorously sawing away under the baton of a squat, bespectacled fellow, through whose skull the springs of a divan seem to have exploded. Behind him, on the stage, ballet dancers are whirling and twirling.
I do what the Zanuck called a take two. Those were my cousins! Hipping and hopping, soaring and skipping, their arms sometimes skyward, sometimes floating like the wings of a swan. A moment, if you please, of nostalgics. I could not help but remember Cousin Kaspar, the son of my Uncle Rufus. It was he who had, at the Wiener Staatsoper, begged me to save his children by allowing them to perform in The Nutcracker. Alas, I could not save even myself. Yet here is one of those very same children, Rabbi Yitzhak ben Kaspar, dancing, with his own beloved sons, in the corps de ballet of the Metropolitan Opera.
“Look! Look, Couthin!”
It seems that, despite my disguise, which resembles the Smith Brother on the right-hand side of the cough drops, Abdi has recognized me. Now he stops his gyrations and cups his hands to his mouth:
“I am wearing tighths!”
The man with the baton sets it down and looks up toward the dancer. “Yes. And very well too.”
Giuseppe Volpe leans toward me. “That is our principal conductor, James Levine. He has been filling in for you.”
Odd, he pronounces the name to rhyme with wine; but I suspect it should be spoken to rhyme with the capital of our Austro-Hungarian Empire: Wien-Wien-Wien.
The plump principal sees us. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, addressing the one hundred and forty musicians. “Our maestro has arrived.”
With no further ado, this Rhymes-with-Fein beckons me down to the pit and holds out the baton. There is a brief sound of nocturnal crickets: that is, the string section is tapping, with their bow-backs, the tops of the music stands. In a daze, accompanied by the faint tintinnabulation of my watch chain, I approach the podium.
I have played many instruments at both the Wiener Staatsoper and the National Biscuit Company Symphonia. But never before have I been called on to conduct. For a moment I pause, the stick motionless, suspended. I think back one hundred years to the two men who shared simultaneously the directorship of this ensemble. A. Toscanini, with his finger to his lips, his arm in unwavering motion; and, with expressive gesticulations, his features reflecting both agony and joy, my undisputed dad. Who, at such thoughts, would not be inspired?
“A one-ah,” I declare. “A two-ah. A one-two-three-four!”
Downbeat.
But before the first note can sound, there is a cry from offstage left.
Oh, hoo! Ho-hee! Oh, Lee-hee-eeb!
The jig, friends, is up. It is the Fleming! Dressed like a princess in tassels and tiara, she rushes onto the stage. Rouged cheeks. Painted eyes. Hair: bouffant. Bosom: and how.
What to do? Where to hide? I thrust the baton into the hands of Rhymes-with-Stein and dash deep into the pit, where, humpbacked and hunched, I shoulder my way into the percussion section.
Ho-hoo! Hoo-la! La-leeeb!
Pulling my felt low over my forehead, I secret myself behind the lyre-shaped glockenspiel, by coincidence the very instrument I was playing on the night that Herr Göring expelled me from the Staatsoper.
“Leib Goldkorn!” cries the soprano, shielding her eyes and peering out over the rehearsal room. “Where are you?”
“Renée! Darling!” says Rhymes-with-Klein. “Thank goodness you’ve come. Where is Luciano? We have to start your scene.”
“I’mma here!” It’s the Pavarotti, now in costume, but still holding a rolled-up copy of the libretto. “Princessa Emma,” he says to the Fleming. “We gonna make-a da love!”
At that, Rhymes-with-Schlein raises the baton and, glasses flashing, gives the downbeat. There is a tremolando on the drums. Enter the woodwinds and now the brass. All about me soars the music of Mahler.
Above my burrow, I see a truly terrible sight. The Fleming is running on toes across the stage from the left. The Pavarotti stomps toward her from the right. They meet in the middle! What’s this? What’s this? The Prince is taking the Princess in his arms—the fat, swarthy arms of an Italian! An Untermensch! Renée! So delicate! So pale! Encircled in darkness! Horrors! He is kissing her! The Fleming! And she is kissing him back. Now—oh, bitter irony!—my very own words rise to torment me:
PRINCESS EMMA:
Oh, breast-to-breast and cheek-to-chin!
PRINCE RATIBOR:
At last you’re mine, my dear half-Finn!
Gracious! Have you ever seen such a thing? He is bending her backward!
Without thinking, in a reflex, I seize from the hands of the member of the American Federation of Musicians the twin mallets of my old instrument and with abandonment strike out the silvery chords:
BOING! BONK! BWAK!
Everything stops. The musicians put down their instruments, the conductor his baton. The two lovers, like guilty things, break apart.
The Pavarotti: “What’s-a dat? Che fracasso!” He writhes about, holding his ears.
The Fleming: “What a horrible noise!”
Rhymes-not-with-Queen manages to raise his baton. “We are artists. We must go on. Listen, the noise has stopped. Please, we’ll take it from where we left off.”
Downbeat.
Once again the soaring strings, the call of the clarinets, the playful trill of the piccolo. Onstage, the Prince takes the Princess once more in his sable arms. Only this time he bends her even farther backward, and yet farther, so that—oh, the shame of it!—all the men and women in the orchestra, including the two gentlemen on the bassoons, can see, rising and falling beneath her dickey, the twin hemispheres of the mams. Not only that: as a cloud will ofttimes blot the silver surface of the moon, so a dark, Italianate hand spreads like a fudge over the mounds of pure vanilla. She resists. Yes, she resists, beating her fists against the torso of the impassioned Prince. To no avail! Out of his mouth uncurls the long red ribbon of a Tuscan tongue. Heavens! He’s a-licking! A-licking!
And the band plays on.
PRINCESS EMMA:
Oh, Prince! Desist! Oh, God! Cease!
PRINCE RATIBOR:
But first you must feel what’s in my codpiece.
BWANG! BWONK! BAWANK!
A wailing rises through the room. The Pavarotti, hands to his ears, runs from the stage. All of my cousins, similarly holding theirs, dash into the wings. In the orchestra pit there is a tremendous commotion as, with sheet music flying, all of the musicians scramble to get out of what has become this grotto of doom.
In the midst of it all, Wine-not-Wien holds up his chubby hands. “Stop! Don’t go! We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Renée: “I’ve never heard such a horrible sound. Who is making this caterwauling?”
Futz! Fitz! Footz!
On the lip of the stage, tail out, all hairs outstanding, stands the heartless Hymena. The traitorous tabby is pointing directly at the caterwauler-in-chief.
All the musicians halt in place. They turned to stare at truly yours. I meet their glares with insouciance. “Ha! Ha! This vibraphone is not in tune.”
“Oh, there you are,” says the principal conductor. “Come back to the podium. I want you to lead the overture.”
A female voice. “Maestro?” It is the Fleming.
Mr. Le-wine answers for me. “Yes, this is Leib Goldkorns.”
Onstage, the soprano takes a step backward. Her mouth drops open, as if she were hitting a high C.
I hurriedly seize the baton and rap it smartly on the podium. I address my colleagues thus:
“Fellow members of the American Federation of Musicians. We are about to play the overture to the only opera written by G. Mahler, who, with Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, was one of the three musical M’s. We must not approach it as if it were a bagatelle by Pisk or any of the Second Viennese School. I ask you to remember this: In every piece of music, as in every work of art, we shall find the reflection of its creator’s life. In the opening bars of this opera the composer returns us to his youth in Iglau. Those horns and brasses? The bugle call of the military barracks. Yon silvery strings? The splash of the shining Iglawa. Mister clarinet and answering contra-bassoon? In you we hear the cry of the geese and the storks above the Bohemian-Moravian Heights. Our steady, four-by-four beat: that is the great rectangle of the Stadtplatz. Have I helped you? Do you understand? We are about to play”—Here is my life—“the autobiography of Gustav Mahler.
“So, gentlemen—and I see we have with us some musical ladies: Shall we once more begin?
“A one-ah. A two-ah. A eins-zwei-drei-vier!”
Downbeat.
Ach. What cacophony. A hubbub. A hullabaloo. The more I wave my arm, the more the violins screech and the horns bray. Such bellowing, barking, bleating. Yap, yup, yip. Now a wail, a whine, and a whoop.
This time even the principal conductor surrenders. “Run for it, boys!” he cries. “The animals are out of the zoo!”
At once the instrumentalists pour from the pit. The entire brass section runs off in a phalanx. The bell of a tuba knocks me to the floor. The harp of the fleeing harpist strikes the podium, which in turn topples onto my head. Seeing stars? I see them. The sound of fleeing feet fades away. No one is left in the rehearsal room or the stage but the son of Gustav Mahler. Oh. One other person. Princess Emma! In costume. She approaches the lip of the stage and leans closer. There is, I note, stardust in her hair and on her lashes. I manage to draw myself up on an elbow. Here, verbatim, are the first words I address to my beloved:
THE GRADUATE:
Greetings, Miss Fleming you are looking fine.
THE FLEMING:
Could this be you? Am I dreaming? Or am I in heaven?
THE GRADUATE:
Especially for someone born in 1959.
I believe that makes you, hmmm, forty-seven.
THE FLEMING:
And you, no white in your hair, no bend in your knee.
THE GRADUATE:
Correct, madam. I am a lad of just forty-three.
[TOGETHER]:
Are we both dreaming? Are we in heaven?
THE FLEMING:
He’s forty-three—
THE GRADUATE:
She’s forty-seven.
THE FLEMING:
Wait. The man I seek hasn’t a hair on his head.
THE GRADUATE:
Nor is there one on his chinny chin-chin.
THE FLEMING:
Are you the maestro himself? Or one in his stead?
THE GRADUATE:
Maestro? Me? You could say I’m sort of kin.
THE FLEMING:
I admit: I expected someone quite a bit taller.
THE GRADUATE:
We’re all a bit short, we descendants of Mahler.
THE FLEMING:
Hold on! Those ears! And that nose of a Heeb—
THE GRADUATE:
This nose? Does it belong to your lover, Leib?
THE FLEMING:
And that suit. Haven’t I seen it before in a photo?
THE GRADUATE:
Yes, yes. It’s in the style of Mr. Moto.
THE FLEMING:
And your feet, so delicate, dainty. What size are they, pray?
THE GRADUATE:
Why do you ask? McAns: Size five triple-A.
THE FLEMING:
I’m perplexed. I’m confused.
THE GRADUATE:
Fear not. It’s Leib Goldkorn in his very own shoes.
THE FLEMING:
Can it be? Is this the man to whom I have given my heart?
THE GRADUATE:
None other. The Graduate. I play no other part.
THE FLEMING:
My one! My only! Come closer, come near!
THE GRADUATE:
You won’t laugh? Won’t mock? Not a single jeer?
THE FLEMING:
Never! Look. For you I’ll open the whole of my blouse.
THE GRADUATE:
Miss Fleming! Can I be dreaming? My dear Zaubermaus!
THE FLEMING:
I adore you. I love you. Kiss you I must!
THE GRADUATE:
My Liebchen! My darling! Fitz! Footz! Futz!
Fitz? Footz? Futz? It isn’t a kiss. Hymena is licking my lips! And my cheeks! And my forehead! Could I have been dreaming? I blink my eyes wide. Yes, there is Renée, alone on the stage. Her mouth is still open, though not a single note comes out. I open my mouth as well:
THE GRADUATE:
My Schneckchengehäuse, the prettiest sight I ever saw.
No response. Except, with her teeth, the soprano begins to bite on her knuckles.
THE GRADUATE:
What is the matter? Do you have lockjaw?
Now she moves forward, to the edge of the stage. She finds at long last her voice. “Excuse me. Is it true? Are you Leib Goldkorn?”
I do not answer at once. Instead, I get with some pain to my feet and, one by one, climb up the steps of the orchestra pit and onto the stage. We are now no more than five feet apart. I make an Old World bow. I remove my feathered fedora. “Madam, I am.”
“The great-grandson of Gustav Mahler?”
“Not exactly.” And now I take a bite from the bullet. Off goes my wig.
There is an audible gasp.
“That is not all, madam.” So saying, I pull off my black bushy beard. “Ha, ha. Did you think I was Rutherford B. Hayes? Nineteenth pres—”
The soprano holds up her hand. “May I ask, Mr. Goldkorn: How old are you?”
“I will answer, madam. Have you perchance ridden on the Mombasa–Lake Victoria railway?”
“I see. I have made a mistake.”
To this there can be no reply. With a slight clink of my key chain, I turn to walk away.
“Wait.”
The voice of the soprano. “I have something to show you.”
With both hands she takes off her tiara. That is no surprise. But then with a tug she removes the hairpiece of Princess Emma. Her own hair, a reddish dun, lies matted against her skull. “There’s more,” she says. And there is—the whole of young Emma’s face: eyebrows and eyelashes, the stardust, the glitter. Mascara—Avon, “SuperShock”—and kohl. Also, powder, blush, rouge. Finally, with a quick motion, all the paint from her lips. I see her plain.
No spring chicken.
“Well,” says the soprano. “Do I look like her?”
“Who?”
“The woman in the other half of the photo.”
“You mean Miss Litwack?”
“Yes. Your Clara. Was she not your wife?”
“Ha! Ha! A definite penet—”
“The way you spoke of her. Gone! Gone! I was jealous. How you must have loved her!”
“She sat by the window, Miss Fleming. Drying, in the summer breeze, her nails. Maybe it’s Maybelline. On occasion, she would permit me blow on them myself. And once—”
An astounding thing now occurs. The Fleming, with her hand, takes hold of mine. “Every work of art is an autobiography,” she whispers. “Soon, on this stage, we shall tell our stories. Yours and mine. Together.”
Then, softly—and this is the sound neither of geese nor of storks above the Bohemian-Moravian Heights—she begins to sing:
O Komm! Willst du dich neben mich nicht betten?
The song of the Princess to the Prince. But she is singing it to me. Which is the dream? Was it the duet—
Are we both dreaming? Are we in heaven?
Or this dalliance?
O come! Lie with me in this bed of petals.
A last confession. Down Argentine Way, at Tierra del Fuego, Cape Horn, The Straits of Magellan:
CURTAIN GOING UP!
