Read Online Juice by Stephen Becker - Free Book Online Page A

virtues at all; but in good times it was easier to disguise them. Now they were naked; this was the world. So I took my money and I came here. Not expecting to find anything better; simply unable to bear Europe without her disguise, like marrying a beautiful woman and waking up the next morning to see her without make-up, without hair, without teeth.
    â€œSo I came here, and moved to the mountains and composed, and a film composer, the son of an old friend, eventually asked me to do something for him. It was not bad work. The limitations are severe, and many producers are too literal: they want music to accompany the opening of a door, music to accompany a kiss—I did variations on the Liebestod for a Flavia Montrose seduction scene. No one but the musicians recognized it. It was a great joke.” Landauer laughed at his joke. “What did it matter? And I lived among my books, my records, my photographs, the old newspapers. And slowly my music began to be played: New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Louisville. And I went to the parties where they put up with me because I would play for them and there was cachet to having me. So I exaggerated, of course. I ate spaghetti with my hands because they would put up with it. I wanted to find out how far they would let me go, you see. I thought of seducing a hostess; but I am not the seductive type. Once I kicked a dog, a poodle. I was asked to play just the same, and was treated just as politely. I was very sorry for the poodle and gave him six canapés afterward, of pâté de foie gras. In my home if I had a dog and someone kicked him I would slap the man and throw him out. I have no dog. I have a cat, a big Siamese monster named Henry Purcell, sent to me by an admirer. I call him Harry. I like him very much because he hated that housekeeper.” Landauer sat upright suddenly. “My God! He has not eaten! He will die! You must take care of him, my friend. You will, please. As soon as you leave me, go fetch him. Take him to your own place.”
    â€œAll right,” Davis said. “If he’ll come.”
    â€œHe’ll be hungry,” Landauer said. “You can bribe him. Take liver.” Landauer exhaled a smoke ring and beat time through it with one finger: one, two, three, four. “I also like Henry Purcell, the real one. When I was only four I played the second viola part in a fantasia of his. Yes, yes. It consists of the C. The second viola plays one unbroken C throughout the movement. I was quite good. I played it with considerable feeling. My bowing was perfect.” He grinned. “Boccherini I do not like. I am afraid I may be the Boccherini of my time.”
    He stopped grinning. “You see what it was like. The life. Alone. Really alone. Only the letters, from all over, and then they diminished. The concentration camps, the war, the new musicians who did not know me. Sometimes I would say something outrageous and it would be published. Then the letters would come. From virgin harpists in London. How dare you, sir? Do you not know that Tovey said this or that? I like Tovey, which is the funny part. But even the things I loved, I had to mock. Do you see that? They were too good for this world, so I would not let my own admiration lead this world to admire them. The idea that these imbeciles should love what I loved was unbearable.”
    He drank, and poured more beer. Davis held his glass toward the bottle. “Thank you for bringing the imported,” Landauer said.
    â€œAnd that was also the problem with Willie,” he went on. “Willie came to me after the old bitch died. Obit anus, abit onus, did I tell you? You know it. All right. Willie was a nothing. He was not even intelligent enough to be corrupted, at the age of sixteen. He was a Gibraltar of purity and stupidity. He was also beautiful, and he would listen to music by the hour. What else could I ask? That he be intelligent and therefore cynical? Worldly and