After the meal Anna had said that she was going out for an hour with Ivan to choose a birthday present for Rachel Henschel.
As they settled down with their coffee Aarons said, “I’m sorry that I seem to have got in the way of you and Anna being married. I didn’t know, I assure you.”
“Not to worry, Andrei. We’ve been very happy together.” He smiled. “But I’m glad we’ve met at last.”
“Anna told me that you play piano in clubs and hotels in New York. How long have you been doing this?”
Fisher laughed. “Since I was sixteen. I was lucky. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do.”
“What kind of music do you play?”
“Depends on the place. Sometimes it’s Gershwin, or Berlin or Kern. Sometimes it’s jazz. Blues and rags. That sort of stuff. Stride piano for the clubs with pink lampshades and Scott Joplin if the lights are bright.”
“What’s stride piano?”
“Well, technically single bass notes on the first and third beats and chords on the second and fourth. Like Fats Waller plays.” Fisher smiled as he saw Andrei’s blank look. “You’ve never heard of Fats Waller?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Fisher laughed amiably. “We’d better take you in hand. Have you ever been to a night-club?”
“No. Never.” Aarons shook his head and looked amazed at the question.
“I’m playing in a club tomorrow night. It’s quite pleasant. No hookers. No gangsters. How about you bring Anna, it’s a club she likes.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s on West 52nd between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.”
“Are you sure I won’t be an embarrassment to you?”
Fisher looked surprised. “Why should I be embarrassed?”
Aarons shrugged. “I don’t drink. I don’t know about jazz. And I don’t know how to behave in a night-club.”
“Anna will look after you. I’m doing a special George Gershwin evening. Both his parents were Russians from Petrograd. Some musicians say they can hear a Russian sound in his music. See what you think.”
The trip to the club had been a surprising success. Andrei had loved the music and was impressed by Sam’s playing. Sam was obviously a star performer so far as the club members were concerned and so many people had come over to chat to Anna. There had been only a moment’s hesitation when the waiter asked Andrei what he would like to drink.
“Could I have a glass of cold milk?”
“The drinks are on the house, Mr. Aarons.”
“That’s very nice. Well, maybe a hot chocolate if that’s possible.”
“Certainly sir,” the waiter said and back in the kitchen he’d sent one of the boys to an Italian coffee shop down the block.
There was a Gershwin tune that Andrei particularly liked, Sam had played it three times for him. It was a tune called “Liza.”
Andrei stayed for two hours and then left to catch the last subway train back to Brighton Beach. Anna stayed on with Sam Fisher.
It was 4 a.m. when Sam Fisher drove Anna back home. The roads were virtually empty and they had stopped to look at the building in Prospect Park where they were to rent their apartment. Sam wasn’t rich but he earned good money and the new place was being redecorated inside. There was enough space for Sam to have a piano and music room.
As he stood with his arm around her waist he said, “There’s enough room for Andrei to live with us if you wanted.”
She looked up at his face. “What made you say that?”
“He’s going to be very lonely when you’ve gone.”
“But that’s how he’s always been. He’s always been a loner. Even when Chantal was alive.”
“I think you’re wrong, honey. That’s just a pose.”
“Why should he pose?”
“I don’t know but it is just a pose. I’m sure of that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“The Gershwin piece he liked so much—‘Liza.’ Gershwin’s ballads all have words. They say what they’re about. And when a piece has words it belongs to the singer not the composer. ‘The Man I Love’ and ‘Somebody Loves Me,’ for instance belong to half a dozen vocalists.” He smiled. “Only jazz buffs remember who wrote ‘Tiger Rag’ but how many people could tell you who wrote ‘Please’? They would probably say Bing Crosby wrote it.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Everybody thought that George Gershwin was a loner. That’s what he seemed to be. That was what he wanted to be. But he wasn’t a loner. The melody of ‘Liza’ is the real Gershwin. Lush and loving, warm and longing. He came to hear me play some years ago and I spoke to him about ‘Liza.’ I said what I just told you. He got up from the table and walked away.”
“What made you think of all this?”
He smiled and shrugged. “It’s part of music and playing music. You don’t just think about the notes on the paper but the white spaces in between as well.”
“And Andrei is the spaces in between.”
“You’ve got it, honey.”
“And what am I?”
He laughed. “A beautiful chord in B flat minor—sostenuto.”
“You’re an idiot and I love you so much.”
“It’s freezing, we’d better go.”
As Anna lay in bed she thought about what Sam had said about her brother. She felt guilty that she wasn’t able to tell Sam about Andrei’s work. He never talked with her or Ivan about it but she knew that the things he asked them to do were all part of it. A chalked cross on a wall, a package in the cistern of a toilet in the cinema in Brooklyn. Dialling a telephone number and when it was answered saying that one word and then hanging up. A card tossed into a trash basket at the Union Square subway exit. Standing by a certain painting in the Museum of Modern Art so that a man could slip a catalogue into her shopping basket. The picture was always Picasso’s Guernica.
Cohen and his Manya had moved to a studio on East 10th Street near Washington Square. Manya was working on the cosmetics counter at Macy’s.
They were married in the third week of February and Aarons had
