The Extra

Fifty

THE CHARTERED JAPANESE AIRCRAFT looked old, but the cabin was spotless. Most of the instruments were stowed in the belly of the plane along with the musicians’ luggage, except for the flutes, clarinets and oboes, which would easily fit in the overhead compartments. A few violinists who deemed their instruments priceless received special permission to keep them in sight during the flight. There were only twelve seats in business class, which were reserved for the conductor and his wife, as well as Herman Kroon, the deputy mayor of Arnhem and his wife, the Japanese cultural attaché who initiated the trip and the young composer Van den Broek. The remainder were allotted to senior musicians, most of them not young. Noga was seated, of course, in tourist class, beside a contrabass player, Pirke Wisser, a plump, middle-aged Dutch woman who, it turned out, was a grandmother.

Just after takeoff, at three in the afternoon, one of the pilots came out of the cockpit and with the help of a digital display briefed the passengers about the flight, which would first head north, not east, since the polar route was shortest. Thus now, at summer’s end, the sun would shine during most of the flight, and only an hour or two before landing in Japan would they encounter the starry night sky.

Winging over the North Pole struck some of the musicians as a bold, even presumptuous undertaking for an older airplane, and there was macabre joking that the orchestra’s crash into a giant iceberg would be a boon for Arnhem, not merely relieving the municipality of a budgetary burden, but obviating any costly search for bodies and instruments. For some musicians, fear of flying is intensified by such black humor, and there are calls for self-control and silence. All are exhausted following the festive farewell concert, and since the sun will stand still in the heavens, it’s best to lower the shades.

Crammed in her seat beside a round window, the Israeli harpist floats above white lakes of ice, pondering her interrupted dream. Will her imagination manage next time to chat with her silent father, the extra? Now that the dream has been interpreted, will she be able to dream it again? She smiles sadly at the grandmother beside her, a tall, stout player in whose hands the contrabass seems like a violin that grew up and stood on its feet. The Dutch woman smiles in return, and is well aware of her neighbor’s concern. Yes, based on many years of experience with the orchestra, she believes that someone will be found in Japan to play second harp. “Everyone in the orchestra,” she says, “especially after such demanding rehearsals, is determined not to forgo the Debussy.”

Meanwhile, the Arctic Ocean gets bigger and whiter, and the words of the older musician do more to allay her concerns than the promises of the conductor and the administrative director, and Noga asks if she’d like her to pull down the shade on the midnight sun. “Light never bothers me,” the grandmother replies. “I can sleep peacefully even when the grandchildren read or play by my bed at night.” Grateful for her reassurance, the Israeli inquires as to the number and ages of her grandchildren. “Only seven for now,” answers Pirke Wisser, and Noga asks to see pictures, but this grandmother does not carry pictures of her grandchildren to faraway places; they are engraved in her mind. Instead, if the harpist would like, she can tell some amusing stories about them.

Feeling warm and secure alongside the grandmother, Noga leans her head on the glittering window and slips into a cozy nap, until someone touches her gently. The elderly first flutist, her occasional lover, seated up front with the notables, would like to introduce her to the conductor’s wife, who wants to thank her.

“Thank me for what?”

“For the whip you brought her.”

“Brought her?”

“What you give to her husband belongs also to her.”

On most of the tray tables in tourist class dinner is being served, a combination of Japanese and Western food. “Wait,” she says as Manfred pulls her from her seat, “I’m hungry.” “Don’t worry,” he says, “up there wonderful food is waiting.” And he leads her down the aisle, opens a curtain and escorts her into business class, redolent with alcohol fumes, where the inebriated conductor, in stocking feet and short pants, greets her cheerfully and introduces her to his wife, a loud and pretty American, also rather tipsy, who gives the harpist a big hug. It turns out that the maestro’s wife is more excited by the idea of the whip than the whip itself. For the gift of a whip to an orchestral conductor is not merely, in her opinion, an amusing stroke of brilliance, but a call to action. So she intends to show the whip to conservative conductors who are wary, like her husband, of postmodern, experimental music. A whip, not a waving baton, can prod the unwilling, among players and conductors both. She points to the young composer Van den Broek — cocooned in a blanket, like a corpse shipped home from the battlefield — and says to Noga, “Here, for example, you have a talented young man who gave the world original, melancholy arabesques, but everyone, my husband most of all, is still plotting how to cut some of its eight little minutes.”

Amused by her remarks, Dennis and Herman don’t try to justify themselves, and Manfred hands his friend a glass of wine, vacating his seat so she can sit down and sample the luxuries of business class. She is excited to be included in such lofty company and sips a little wine, but is reluctant to try the food, and still standing in the aisle, she turns to the conductor to plead the case for her harp. Will it be possible to find another harpist, without whom Debussy cannot demonstrate his genius in Japan?

“Why, dear Venus, do you worry so? If we don’t play the Debussy in Japan, we’ll play it when we get back to Europe.”

“That’s true, Maestro,” she says, her voice quavering. “I know we’ll play it in Europe, but it’s important to me to also play the piece in a distant land for a foreign people with an ancient culture. Remember too, Maestro, that for three months in Israel I didn’t touch a string, and when I returned, you all made me so happy with a piece you chose not only for the Japanese but for me as well. Because as we all know, La Mer is not only ‘the sea’ but ‘the mother,’ and no doubt a Symbolist composer like Debussy was aware of this and also intended to make a connection between the two. So this piece will connect me with my mother, who chose to stay alone in Jerusalem, a complicated city that gets more so all the time…”

Unexpected tears flood her eyes, and the conductor’s wife offers her a paper napkin, seizing the moment to speak for her husband.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find you a partner, but it will have to be an experienced player. There’s only one rehearsal before the concert.”

And the maestro, with a loving smile, confirms his wife’s words.

Now, in the presence of his colleagues, Manfred unabashedly throws an affectionate arm around his friend, and she knows that her tears arouse not only his compassion but his lust, and again he urges her to sit in his seat and eat his meal. But she declines, saying she has a seat of her own.

Meanwhile, the captain’s voice is on the loudspeaker, announcing that at this very moment the plane is passing over the North Pole, and everyone is invited to take in the view and preserve it in their memory.

But to remember what, and how?

For in September the North Pole is no longer lit by full sunlight but by a hazy, weak sun stuck at the horizon, neither rising nor setting. The barren, frozen land at the top of the world is wrapped in a dark twilight that blurs the view. In strangely fearful silence the passengers are riveted at the windows, searching for a marker, a structure, a flag or just a pole, to engrave the sight in memory.

Manfred gives Noga his window seat so she too can get a good look at the crown of the world. Her eyes aren’t focused on the earth but at the sun, which sits on the horizon like an overripe orange. Might the planet Noga be found nearby? Her father would tell her to look for it just before sunset or sunrise, but who knows what sunrise and sunset are here?

“Maybe the planet… Venus… is out there,” she whispers to the flutist.

“Where?” he asks. He turns to the flight attendant and requests permission to enter the cockpit — perhaps from there it will be possible to locate Venus. They gingerly step into the darkened cockpit, cradled in polar twilight, and amid greenish dials and glowing levers they are welcomed by little bows and the soothing smiles of angular eyes.

The two pilots ferrying a European orchestra to the Far East are accustomed to such requests, and they rotate the phosphorescent radar to locate the desired planet, and direct the attention of the two musicians to a solitary disk glimmering on the horizon, loyal to the sun that stubbornly stays put twenty-four hours a day.

“Venus,” say the two young pilots, pronouncing the sweet name of the ancient goddess. After the sun leaves the North Pole to allow a long night to spread its wings, this planet will vanish as well.