The Voyage Read online

  “My mother is a handful at the best of times. She is not a mother out of the textbook. When I think about it, she was hardly a mother at all. I do not know what she was thinking. She would have no more children, she said to me. I was more than enough for her. She always had to be somewhere. If it were not for music, she would have gone mad, or something.” As she lay across his lap talking about her mother, the ship was going farther and farther away from her mother, quite a distance already, although still in the Mediterranean, the last of the Greek islands, as Delage had stroked her mother’s healthy blond hair, their farewell in the room, he thought of this as he stroked Elisabeth’s shorter hair, traces of her mother’s broad forehead, eyebrows, upturned mouth below him, even their breathing was similar, yet little interest in music; in that vital area she and her mother were opposites, he looked ahead to arriving home, to The Delage piano factory at the industrial edge of Sydney. He had sold just the one piano in Europe. Sunlight came through the porthole: a white egg shape lit up on the brown floor, enough for Elisabeth to reach down, very languid, to show her hand illuminated. Before she, Amalia von Schalla, could hesitate, or say no, would rather not, or that doesn’t sound like a good idea, consult her watch, or we have not yet had our coffees, Delage stood up and took her hand and raised her from her chair—who else had done that, in the last twenty years, and in public? “Come along, let’s have a look at the dangerous instrument everybody here wants to run a mile from. Don’t come, of course, if you’d rather not. I’d like you to come. And you don’t have to say a word.” For a moment, Amalia von Schalla’s composure in the dining room was even more regal than usual, until spreading to a slight smile. Her mouth was not at all thin and hard, which can happen as a woman grows older, even when she has no disappointments, or only a few. In the back of the limousine he realized he knew virtually nothing about the woman beside him, about the Schalla family, their position in Austrian society and Vienna’s musical world in particular; had he known he may not have invited her to the demonstration in a warehouse. At that stage, he didn’t know she had a daughter, Elisabeth, it hadn’t occurred to him to ask, he hadn’t asked many questions at all, absorbed as he was in the task of introducing his piano. “We are an old family, one of the oldest. It has its disadvantages.” The interior of the limousine was almost feminine in its spectatorish leather softness, impassive bearded chauffeur up front, not wearing a cap, a bodyguard a possibility, Amalia von Schalla seated as if she were at a music recital, a restrained restlessness which was repeated or emphasized by the cut of her suit and blouse; alongside such intentional elegance—finely tuned, successful—Delage began to have doubts about his piano, whether it measured up, whether his claims for it were true, or true enough, whether in the end he had been wasting everybody’s time in Europe, including his own. It was odd that he hardly knew the woman seated beside him, Amalia Marie von Schalla, as they drove in her limousine toward his humble piano, a mystery woman who remained very still, but seemed to be taking an interest in the streets they passed, as if she had never seen them before. When he tried to recall another woman who showed even one of Amalia’s minor characteristics he drew a blank. The driver was leaning forward, looking out for the address, Delage at the different styles of architecture and other sights. The old buildings, industrial, older than anything in Sydney or at least different, carved stonework above the windows and doors, left him feeling out of place, it would be difficult, it already was, the factory in Sydney (its tools and equipment, leases, capital owing, telephones, office chairs—they had an Italian espresso machine) and his staff, who at least took notice of him, were far away, while here the heavy unwelcoming city went about its business, even down the side streets, his presence not making the slightest difference, all of which increased his doubts about the new piano. Stopping and reversing, the chauffeur said something in German, swearing, Delage assumed. There was too much clutter in his life, he could see, small objects, the blank spots in between, a life of stumbles, of heading in a general direction, people close by, only a few within arm’s length, one or two, reasonably energetic still, all of it leading to the piano now up and running, a piano of possible importance, but that was all. It was what his sister had been alluding to for years. “Hey! I’ve forgotten to shave. That’s not like me.” “So you have”—a different smile from her, one side of the mouth. They had left the car and crossed the street, Delage taking her arm, into an office where a man with red hands sat at a desk, a crucifix on the wall above, Amalia von Schalla speaking in German, “the Delage piano from Australia,” the man led them through the office, along a corridor, another door, and switched on the lights. A mass of seabirds had settled on the water, a floating pattern rising and falling, as if to music, the fluorescent lights stuttered and finally came on full, revealing to them, looking down from about half a dozen concrete steps, a sea of pianos, black, wall-to-wall, room for not even one more, similar to contemporary artists who fill a gallery floor with nothing but thousands of small standing terracotta figures, or arms from dolls, or broken chairs, or hair, or artificial eyes (or shoes, or arranged on the floor small photographs of men from a poor village somewhere, and even one gallery space in Berlin filled with nothing, just wall-to-wall air), an initial shock through incongruous exaggeration, momentary, banal if considered for a moment, but gazed upon with reverence by gallery visitors, a profound experience for them, such is the necessity of diversion, the seabirds flew off to form another pattern, to the left the glossy black mass of concert grands was broken by one under calico, hidden under wraps. “Spot the Delage. Which one do you think?” Again he took her arm, finding a path through the pianos in storage, the great names shoulder-to-shoulder in polished head-of-state limousine black, which had them all looking the same or similar, easy to become lost among them, it was necessary to advance sideways in order to squeeze a way between them, until in from the left they reached the one under wraps, found a space, more important a stool for her, where the magician or the shark from the Antipodes assumed the posture of a showman, made a ridiculous trumpet fanfare with his mouth, believe it or not, anything to amuse her, a woman, his awkwardness due to the circumstances, in a sudden movement whipped off the dust-sheet. The sight of his piano, the first to arrive on European soil, made him wonder if he had been away from Sydney for too long. Crowded out to one side by the regimented black of the European concert grands, the Delage was revealed as nicotine-brown, the color of a bantam rooster, and stood out accordingly. It was like his cousins from the sticks the year they’d gate-crashed a family wedding in Sydney, wearing loud neckties. This was what he was up against in Vienna! Already there was enough prejudice against the interloper without color becoming a factor. Black, as in piano, represented depth of feeling, before even a single note was played. Nicotine-brown—what did that represent? The Delage Piano Company produced most of its pianos in jet-black, the most popular choice of buyers, he wanted to say, maple, oak, Huon pine were some of the timbers used, yet the same company, his, was staffed by thoughtless bludgers who in their thoughtlessness, general slackness, their casual amateurism, send one of the pale brown (with inlaid mother of pearl) models by mistake, obviously a mistake, a color of piano which may have gone down well with buyers in southern Queensland, or parts of the Middle East, but not in Vienna, the music capital of Europe. Delage had his arms folded, looking down at his shoes which were parallel to a crack in the concrete, and noticed one of his laces undone, the difficulties ahead, the piano’s future, his future and the factory’s future, still without turning he gave a “tomorrow’s another day” shrug, which was how Amalia von Schalla read it from behind, his optimism or resilience, one or the other, or even both, not, she saw, a man given to moods. “What would you like”—lifting the lid, “Chopin, George Gershwin? You choose.” Before she could answer, he sat down and began playing honkytonk, rapid, loud, improvised, hardly appropriate under the circumstances, completely inappropriate, as a matter of fact. Not only did the color of the dem
onstration model lack the necessary depth, the choice of music and Delage’s hectic playing, switching without a pause to other tunes, did not match the occasion, the moment, Amalia von Schalla of all people, what was he thinking?, unless it was his way of expressing disappointment, or washing his hands of a fiasco. And straightaway the sound was cleaner, sharper than the normal piano sound. “The hammers travel a shorter distance,” came the explanation, still with his back turned. “As a result, there’s less vibration of the strings.” He struck a middle C again and again, expressing frustration aside from anything else. “Why anyone would bother to play an old Steinway,” he shouted over the playing, “is beyond me. They’re a load of rubbish. The old pianos get away with blurry notes, you can hear the hammer bashing away at felt, not like this. You hear the difference? The old pianos are stuck in the old sound.” He moved in and out of Liszt and Lara from “Doctor Zhivago,” and finished by flinging out an arm and throwing his head back, in mock homage to the virtuoso who continues to play the Old World pianos, as he put it, which was when Amalia von Schalla saw he had mismatching socks. The man was not a good seller of goods, the advantages of his product were self-evident to him, and there were as well the many years which had gone into perfecting his piano: his signature there in a gold flourish above the lid, which produced in her a strange feeling of pity. Amalia von Schalla was drawn to gifted men, especially those involved in music or art of some sort, for if anyone could properly understand her it would be one of them, perhaps only them. Taking her hand was to be expected, she allowed it, other gifted men had taken her hand, although she looked past him, Frank Delage, to the yellow-brown piano. “Do you know, I am beginning to like it. It has an interesting quality.” In a fit of eagerness, Delage dropped her hand, “What? Not the color, surely?” With her head to one side she continued the appraisal. “It would not look out of place in drawing rooms in Vienna, let me tell you.” Since there was bad taste in abundance at every turn, including the ornate preferences of her own husband, an otherwise austere man, the glossy piano made in Australia from pale timber would fit in without difficulty. Entire apartments were decked out in pale tables and chairs, touched up with gold. Chandeliers were a feature, even in cake shops and hair salons. And amongst Vienna’s endless bric-a-brac, men of all ages, in fact men across all of Europe, had taken to wearing enormous attention-seeking watches on their wrists, as if watches were jewelry and men should decorate themselves, a frightful lapse in taste that has left many shaking their heads. After he replaced the dust-sheet, careful to tug it down at the corners, almost forgetting her as he carried out the task, another man would have flung it over and left it at that, she observed, drew her to him after he straightened his back, a simple movement the way he pulled tight the dust-sheet, and took a freedom he didn’t understand but allowed anyway, her cheek, to her breast, which waited for him, its soft warmth filling his hand; the density of the pianos in storage prevented him from finding, out of the corner of his eye, a place hidden from view, on top of which was the fluorescent lighting, before he realized she could not escape, grand pianos close behind and to the sides, giving the impression, an entirely false impression, he had trapped her, forcing himself upon her, a woman must be allowed space to slip away. Although watchful, wondering what would happen next, Amalia von Schalla was reassured by the eyes which remained close to hers, no ice in either one, khaki, her husband’s clear blue beginning on her wedding night. By then his hand had fallen away, “Very good of you, it really was. Who else would come here? Anyway, so now you’ve heard it.” Amalia von Schalla wanted to laugh, disheveled, even if she knew there was not a hair out of place. “You are grateful to me?” “Of course. By that I mean—” “If you could only see yourself, you’re red in the face.” At this point Delage would normally cough, or come out with a quip, or crack some sort of joke, anything to deflect the attention, although here he chewed his lip at what expression to adopt, solemn, jovial, modest, an appealing awkwardness, up to their waist in pianos, she not so much looking at him but surveying him. The door above the steps suddenly opened, metallic, followed by a harsh gurgling voice, which could have been an order or a question, enough to trigger in Delage a newsreel of crouching soldiers, tanks, black smoke, dead horses, old women wearing head scarves. “He says he has to lock up.” “My concert is over, and just when I was getting warmed up.” At last she threw her head back and released her face, she was less regal, new vertical lines formed from the mouth down, how the beauty of some women increases with age and laughter, and looked away. The deck, such as it was, had a steel floor painted brick-red, which interested Delage—so much metal surface in the world!—as he leaned over the rail, his elbow touching her sleeve, knowing her hardly at all, everything she said was new, the way it was said especially.