The Extra

Forty-Seven

FOUR DAYS BEFORE LEAVING for Japan, at the morning rehearsal for the farewell concert in Arnhem, the orchestra plays a Haydn symphony and Noga goes up to the balcony to hear it from there. Seated below her in one of the front rows is a man dressed in overalls, presumably the workingman Manfred had mentioned. Christine is not sitting next to him, but her scarf is lying on his lap. The man intrigues Noga, and worries her as well. She goes to the other side of the balcony to get a better look — a well-built man, his face somber, suspiciously eyeing the onstage activity. When Christine enters the hall, still in the long baggy dress that conceals her curves, he stands up and holds her. He seems to want to take her out of the hall, but she refuses, sinking into one of the seats, hiding her face.

Later, as they begin the Debussy, Noga senses a strong smell of perfume that seems intended to mask another smell, perhaps of vomit. While the musicians tune their instruments, she asks Christine how she feels. “I’m fine,” says Christine, straining to smile. “I felt dizzy and a little nauseous.” She searches for the right words in English, then adds, “But that is expected now,” and it is clear that she regrets the explanation, and in her embarrassment, despite the drumbeats, she misses the conductor’s cue for her first note.

So she’s pregnant after all, decides the first harpist, who again notices that little round bulge under the folds of the long dress. But why is she disguising her pregnancy? Is it for fear that the orchestra’s medical insurance will not cover her trip to Japan?

The rehearsal does not go well. The music is halted after every few bars by an angry baton. The beautiful tone achieved with great effort in previous rehearsals has gone tinny, the fluid transitions feel rough. “What’s going on?” shouts Van Zwol. “What the devil happened? This isn’t Debussy’s La Mer, it’s a muddy tsunami that will repulse the Japanese. Remember, people in the Far East understand music no less than we do. And they pay us a lot of money and bestow a great honor on our humble municipal orchestra by inviting us to such a prestigious city. So please, wake up, concentrate. If you don’t, I’ll replace the whip with a machine gun.”

Sometimes a wrong note by an unidentified instrument spreads through the orchestra. Van Zwol is aware of such an error, yet in the flurry of playing cannot locate its source. But Noga can. The second harpist did not press the pedals in time, and the error spread to the strings and undermined their precision. Noga tries to alert her neighbor to the mistake, but Christine’s anxiety and weakness only compound the blunder. The conductor finally locates the problem, stops the music and returns to the beginning so the piece can regain its honor.

When the rehearsal is over, Noga inquires if the dizziness and nausea have waned, and asks about the pregnancy.

Christine is at the start of her fourth month. Your first pregnancy? Almost, essentially, not counting a youthful abortion many years before, no connection to her present partner. And with curiosity mixed with vague anxiety, Noga persists: “Is he your husband?” “Almost,” she says again. “Not really. We’ll have to wait for the birth to make the marriage official along with the citizenship.”

“He’s not a citizen?” probes the Israeli.

“He is almost. He has a work permit as a port traffic controller.”

“And he’ll go with you to Japan?”

“To Japan? No, on the contrary, he wants to prevent me from going.”

“Prevent?”

“He is concerned about the pregnancy on such a long trip.”

“Explain to him that you are essential, that there’s no La Mer without the dialogue between the two harps.”

“He understands, I did explain, but he doesn’t care. That is why I am in despair. He is here to sabotage the trip.”

“Have you informed Dennis or Herman about his objection?”

“Not yet. If I told them, they would find another harpist to play, even in the farewell concert tomorrow, so I am waiting.”

“Christine,” Noga says calmly, straining to suppress fear and anger, “if you delay telling them till after the concert, it will be too late to find a replacement for the Japanese tour. In fact, it’s already late. It’s not fair to hide from the orchestra that your husband doesn’t want you to go.”

“He’s not my husband.”

“That’s irrelevant. Whoever he is. If you keep silent, they won’t be able to find a new harpist for such a long and difficult journey. You must let them know immediately. You are putting the whole repertoire in danger. Without the second harp there is no way to perform the piece.”

“That’s right.”

“Which is why you should do the right thing.”

“Perhaps… perhaps in Japan,” Christine says despondently, “you can play Schubert or something else instead of Debussy. There are enough suitable pieces in the repertoire of this orchestra without a second harp or even a first harp.”

“No, no,” shouts Noga, “no Schubert, no Mozart, no Beethoven, no nothing. We will play La Mer. That’s the piece the Japanese are waiting for, and we will perform it.”

“So what should I do?” agonizes Christine.

“Tell Dennis and Herman immediately that you are not going to Japan.”

“But perhaps I will go after all.”

“How?”

“Perhaps I can convince him that nothing will happen to the baby… Perhaps you will help me… Perhaps you will explain to him that without the second harp Debussy is lost.”

“All right, I’ll try, I’ll help you, and so will other women players. We’ll look after you on the trip. But first you must inform Herman and Dennis, otherwise I will warn them.”

“You cannot go in my place.”

“I will go if you don’t. Because you must not steal this unique piece of music from the rest of us. La Mer is also la mère, the mother, and you of all people, being French, must understand the significance of the connection between the two words. I left my elderly mother in Jerusalem, and that’s why I want so very much to play her on my harp.”

“To play your mother?” Christine is dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.”

They are now standing in the lobby of the concert hall, and musicians walking by seem to sense the tension between the two harpists and walk faster. The man in the overalls emerges from the auditorium and hurries to his partner. From close up, he looks handsome and sensitive, yet the hand he extends to Noga is rough, hard. His skin is dark and his hair curly, but his sparkling eyes are blue as the sea, possibly strengthening his claim to citizenship. He positions himself between the two harpists, suspecting that the Israeli is trying to persuade his girlfriend not to forgo the trip to Japan.

“What’s happening?” he asks his girlfriend in French.

“What should be happening?” she answers coldly, dismissively.

Convinced now that the first harpist is the one obstructing the withdrawal from the tour, he switches to English, so Noga will understand, and asks Christine to do exactly what Noga had just insisted on, which is to go to management immediately and inform them.

Christine merely shrugs, but Noga, realizing that she and this man are in agreement, intervenes. “You’re right,” she says, “Christine must tell them now, otherwise they won’t have time to find a replacement.”

Strengthened by the ally he had assumed was an obstacle, he moves quickly. Gently but firmly he puts his arm around his partner’s waist and steers her toward the office.

Expecting to be met with anger, Christine considers asking the Israeli to accompany her, as if hoping that the dialogue between the wind and the sea could be played by one harpist alone. But as they approach Herman’s office she decides that Noga’s presence would make matters worse. She also insists in French that her partner wait outside, and enters quietly to bear the bad news that might wreck the repertoire of the tour.

Slowly the guardian of the pregnancy begins to relax. First he stands by the office door, trying in vain to overhear the conversation inside. Then he sits down on a bench in the hallway, stretches his legs, sees no one around but Noga, takes a single cigarette from his shirt pocket and sticks it in his mouth. But before he can light it there is the sound of rapid footsteps in the corridor, and Dennis van Zwol arrives in a panic, summoned by management to deal with the incipient dropout. Identifying the progenitor of the bad news, he knocks the cigarette from the man’s mouth with the flick of a finger and growls in French, “No smoking!” Turning to Noga, as if she too were responsible, he says in Dutch, “Tell me what’s going on? What’s the story here? What was she thinking?” He doesn’t wait for an answer but disappears into Herman’s office to fight for the integrity of the repertoire.

Noga looks at the boyfriend, who retrieves the damaged cigarette from the floor, shreds the paper and collects the tobacco in his hand. Without a word or a glance at the harpist, he sits back down, determined to guard Christine’s pregnancy at all costs. Now Noga takes a closer look. His dark skin is velvety smooth, his thick curly hair is black as coal, and the northern blueness of his eyes blends the world into one country. Her heart is heavy. From the speed with which the conductor was summoned, she gathers that it will be hard, if not impossible, to find a harpist at the last minute who will be able to get ready overnight for such a long and distant journey. After so many exhausting, exhilarating rehearsals, Noga thinks with a pang of despair, will Debussy be forced to cede his place to some same-old Schubert or hackneyed Beethoven?

And now her memory conjures a movie extra, a disabled woman in a wheelchair waiting outside the closed door of a room that masqueraded as a hospital room. There too, beside her, stood a stranger, a handsome actor whose bare chest gleamed under a white gown. An imaginary doctor whom she would soon be directed to surprise in the midst of forbidden lovemaking, and he, spontaneously, would pluck her from her wheelchair and, with a mixture of anger and pity, carry her in his arms to her sickbed and cover her, as if to blot out the shame he had brought on himself.

But now there is no director to tell her what to do. She has no choice but to direct, produce and write her own script — to give voice and movement to her thoughts so that her harp will play a piece of music whose beauty floods her soul. She gets up her nerve and approaches the man in overalls, who sits on the bench with his eyes closed and head tilted back.

“Excuse me, sir, may I have a few words with you?”

He opens his eyes.

“I wanted to tell you that although I respect your concern, you are going too far. Now you are not only making things harder for Christine, but for the entire orchestra.”

He tenses but doesn’t interrupt.

“Millions of pregnant women,” she says, raising her voice, “travel, fly, go about in the world, and nothing happens to them.”

“It takes all kinds,” he says offhandedly.

“After all, our Christine will not be asked to climb mountains in Japan, or dance in discotheques. On the plane she will rest. Others will lift and wheel her harp, so she will only need to put her fingers on the strings and play.”

“I know,” he snaps, “but still.”

“In general,” she insists, “the female womb is far stronger and steadier than men imagine, and pregnancies have survived wars, poverty and famine, even concentration camps.”

Now he is irate, but remains calm.

“Yes, I also sometimes pay attention to what goes on in the world, but Christine is not in good health and not young, and it was not easy for us to get pregnant.”

Although Noga is rebuffed at every turn, she believes that the fate of the sea is in her hands alone.

“You should also know, sir,” she says, sitting down next to him on the bench, “that in our orchestra there are women who have given birth to children and have a lot of experience, and we have a violinist and an oboist who are grandmothers and were present at the births of many babies.”

With an ironic gesture he salutes the mothers and grandmothers, but does not yield.

“I have respect for them all, but what can they do if she starts to bleed, or if to save the pregnancy she has to stay in bed for a long time, and in a strange and foreign country?”

“Why strange? Maybe foreign in culture and language, but otherwise everything in Japan is modern and rational, often more so than here in the West.”

“You have been there?”

“No, but everyone knows that about Japan. Besides, Christine will not be alone. We will all be with her, look after her.”

His patience runs out.

“But there will be visits to temples and flights to Hiroshima and other cities. Christine is a fragile woman and not young, and this pregnancy is important and precious for us. We cannot take chances.”

But Noga won’t give up. She has not played a concert for three months, and she is desperate to perform in front of an audience.

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me your name?”

“Saharan.”

“May I ask where you are from? Where you were born?”

“In Iran, in—”

“Tehran?” She tries to be helpful.

“No, in a place you never heard of.”

“Then please,” she implores, “please, sir, trust me. I personally pledge to be with Christine at every moment of the trip. You were at the rehearsal, and perhaps you noticed the dialogue between the two of us, two harpists who have not only a professional partnership but also a human one, so it’s natural for me to take personal responsibility for her well-being.”

“Who are you, anyway?” He tries to get to the root of her stubbornness.

“What do you mean, who am I?”

“Am I allowed to ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“You speak with such confidence — how many children have you given birth to?”

“How many children?” She smiles uneasily and gets up from the bench. “How is that relevant?”

“Why not? After all, you are asking me to trust you.”

She shudders.

“I haven’t yet given birth, but…”

And to her surprise, he is not surprised, as if he anticipated her answer, but instead of puncturing her arrogance, he studies her with interest and asks gently, “Why? Because you couldn’t?”

“No. I could, but I didn’t want to.”

Now he won’t let go, as if her promise to watch over his partner’s pregnancy has exposed her to the same blunt challenge voiced by Elazar, the eternal extra, at their first meeting, though now in a foreign language: “How do you know you could, if you didn’t want to?”

“I know… I know.” She holds on to the scene that is disintegrating in her hands. “If I want to, I can have a child.”

“Of course, and we shall all pray for his health,” he graciously promises, in his name and in the name of his partner, who at the moment is being badgered by her bosses. “Meanwhile, until your wish for a child is awakened, respect our wishes, for we need our child, and no music has the right to stand in the way.”

As he speaks, his fist springs open and flakes of tobacco scatter like sand. Since he is loath to kneel down before her and pick them up, he stands and brushes them aside with the toe of his shoe. And to indicate that the conversation is over, he strides to the end of the corridor, opens wide a small window, lights a fresh cigarette and expels the smoke into the world.