The Savior (9 page)

L
ate in the afternoon, a guard came to take him to the “concert hall.” He wasn't the same one who had escorted Keller the first day, nor was he one of the guards who had been posted alongside the walls. They all looked even more alike to Keller than the prisoners. He hadn't paid much attention to them anyway, having seen their types in the Army dozens of times before: the jowly, overfed variety and the square-jawed strutting heroes, whose tight lips were always drawn into a thin line except when they were shouting orders. They looked at you, yet their steely eyes didn't let you in when you spoke; you could tell there was a moat between you and them even if you were only three feet apart. But Rudi (he told Keller his name within two minutes of walking together) was different.

His dark brown eyes were soft, almond-shaped, a bit puzzled-looking behind his glasses. His build was slight, there was no swagger in his walk, and even the gun he carried seemed less dangerous in his hands than it would in anyone else's; he held it loosely and it swung back and forth like a toy with his footsteps. His full lips were pursed most of the time, his brows drawn toward his eyes as if he were continually contemplating some philosophical problem just beyond his grasp.

Gottfried felt an immediate kinship with Rudi, especially when he began to ask some questions about Bach, but the young man's presence here disturbed him. He wished he'd met him years earlier, after a concert somewhere, in one of the cities that he visited while on tour. Or maybe in a park, or on the street—anywhere but in this place. He looked like a university student who'd been drafted, like almost everyone else who hadn't volunteered for the Wehrmacht. Somehow he had ended up here, in the SS. That meant it could have happened to anyone.

“You play a lot of Bach, don't you? For violin, by itself?”

Gottfried nodded, surprised that a guard would have any interest in what he played.

“I used to have a recording of the Chaconne.” He smiled and shook his head. “The discs got scratched and finally wore out because I listened to them over and over. I couldn't believe a single violin would be able to do all that.”

And Gottfried could hardly believe that a man wearing that uniform would have the curiosity or the passion it must take to listen to Bach's Chaconne so many times. Nothing in his experience with the wounded soldiers had prepared him for this.

“Tell me, what does it feel like when you play it?” Rudi asked.

“Well, it's a privilege, of course.” Gottfried thought of some of the difficulties he'd had while practicing the piece recently, trying to get a pure sound in the chords despite the fatigue that would build up in his left hand. “And a challenge. Not always easy to live up to.”

“The first few times I listened to that recording, I wondered if the violinist was improvising some of it—that stormy section, you know? It works up to such a huge climax, then parts of it are like a chorale, and other parts…well, almost like a sermon, but without words. It made me wish I could play an instrument.”

“A sermon…I've never thought of it that way. You must be a churchgoer.”

“Used to be,” he said quickly. Gottfried wondered if church attendance was a sore subject for Rudi, as it had been for him.

“And a concertgoer,” Gottfried suggested.

Rudi sniffed. “Not lately. Before the war, yes, when I had time—if I could afford a ticket.”

As they walked on, Gottfried remembered arguing with his parents about whether or not music—in itself, without text—could provide a religious experience. At the age of eighteen he had invoked the Chaconne as an example of music's spiritual power when he stopped going to church every Sunday. They couldn't understand; they'd never been
inside
a piece like that, never felt their entire bodies galvanized by the massive sweep of those arpeggios, never held their breath in the hushed, hymnal phrases in D major just after the storm.

He wanted to learn more about Rudi, especially what could have caused him to join the SS. But there was no way to ask him about that directly, so he began with a simple question.

“From Leipzig,” Rudi answered. “Bach's city.”

Gottfried remembered the imposing statue of Bach, the Cantor of Leipzig, in the square next to the church where he labored for so many years. “Did you ever go to the Thomaskirche?”

“My family attended services there every Sunday. Once at Easter time—it must've been the year before the war started—we heard a performance of the
St. Matthew Passion
in the Thomaskirche. I was sixteen then, and it made a huge impression on me, on the whole way I looked at religion and music. And the world.”

“I can imagine. It's overwhelming music, and in that setting, with the spirit of Bach hovering in the air…”

“When I was home on leave a couple of years ago, I bought a recording of the
Passion,
which I've kept with me ever since.” His voice dropped to a half-whisper. “I have it here, and a small turntable that I keep locked under my bunk. Not that there's any rule against simply having one.”

“I suppose you don't want to draw their attention to it.”

“No one would mind if I played the ‘Horst Wessel Lied' or some of those dance tunes they like to listen to. Anyway, when the others are out, if I have a free hour, I play two or three of my Bach discs very softly.”

“That's too bad. You can't possibly get the impact of the big choruses that way.” Gottfried looked at the mud and ice underfoot, then at a row of blocklike huts just beyond the fence they were skirting. He wondered if he should hide his astonishment to be speaking with anyone here about that glorious music, whose message was so at odds with what surrounded them.

“It doesn't matter. It's enough to remind me of the way it sounded—and felt—in the Thomaskirche. And when the loudspeakers are blaring at roll call, if I'm not on duty, I go back to my barracks and listen at normal volume. I even bought a score to be able to follow the text while I listen, but it's frustrating because I can barely read the notes.”

He paused for breath, but it seemed like something was still on his mind, some question he wanted to put to Gottfried. His eyes were fixed on the ground a few steps ahead of them, and he moved his lips once or twice as if he was about to speak. Maybe some of the music was running through his head and he was mouthing the words, Gottfried thought.

“Have you ever played it?” he finally asked.

“
St. Matthew
? Yes…years ago, in Cologne, I was concertmaster of the second orchestra for a few performances at the Gürzenich.”

Rudi stopped walking for a moment and turned to look directly at Gottfried. “So you played the violin solo in the aria about Judas and the thirty silver pieces?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes, I did. What's it called again? Oh, yes: ‘Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder.'” He remembered the rapid scales that evoke the sound of coins bouncing on the floor of the Temple when Judas throws them down. “But why are you so interested in that aria? It's not the most special one.”

“The whole piece is overpowering, but—can you believe it?—for the past few months I haven't been able to get that little tune out of my head. It's so bouncy and lighthearted.”

“It was fun to play, but I would have liked a chance with the other violin solo, the one in the ‘Erbarme dich' aria.”

“My question is, why did Bach write it that way? Judas is in despair, he's about to hang himself, and here we have an aria in G
major.
Not minor. No soul-searching, only tone-painting, the clink of those coins on the Temple floor. It's strange, coming so soon after the ‘Erbarme dich.' Haunting, the lilt of
that
melody—some of the saddest music I've ever heard. But then, a few minutes later, a cheerful tune comes along, with miniature fireworks for the violin. I don't get it.”

“I'm no expert on sacred music, but it must be for the sake of contrast.”

“I don't think that's enough of a reason. You have to understand, it's only because I love Bach so much that this bothers me. I know I have no right to say this, but…he could have done better. Remember how the Evangelist tells of Peter's despair when the cock crows and he's just denied Christ for the third time? There's such pathos in the way Bach set those words. So why didn't he show the same kind of imagination when Judas is asking for his Jesus back, when he realizes the coins mean nothing to him?”

“I'm sure it's not a question of lack of imagination.”

Gottfried had never given much thought to the psychological nuances of the various arias in the work. The musical vision in
St. Matthew
was so huge, so compelling, that he'd simply accepted the different keys, tempos and moods as a given. The story of Judas' betrayal had always made him uncomfortable; now he struggled to remember the details, to find an explanation of Bach's choices that would make sense to Rudi, and to himself.

“The difference must be that he wants us to identify with Peter, but not with Judas. The aria isn't sung from his point of view: we see him from the outside, so all we hear is the clink of coins.”

Rudi tried to say something, but Gottfried continued, afraid he'd lose his train of thought. “We don't experience his longing to get Jesus back, we've only heard about that secondhand from the Evangelist. Anyway, by the time this aria comes along, I think Judas has
already
hanged himself. Yes, that's right—it's too late for him. He's ‘the lost son,' throwing the blood money at our feet.”

Rudi shook his head. “I still think it's an opportunity Bach missed. I mean, the man has just killed himself. Why make it so damned cheerful?”

“Remember, he wrote the
Passion
for a congregation, not a concert audience. It was a way for people to come together in worship. So I guess this aria is in a major key with that bouncy rhythm to show our detachment from Judas' treachery, to rejoice in
our
rejection of that money. It doesn't matter how he felt when he threw away those coins.”

“Yes, Bach and his congregation could afford to detach themselves from Judas.” Rudi grimaced. There was a bitter edge in his voice. “And from Pilate, too. But today…here”—with his gun barrel he made a vague gesture toward the fenced perimeter of the camp—“it's impossible.”

Just then Gottfried noticed the same cluster of inmates he'd seen that morning, hoisting sacks and crates onto a railroad car. A couple of guards were poking them in the ribs with their truncheons, prodding them to work faster. Rudi grabbed his arm and hastily steered him around the corner of a warehouse.

“Judas knew he'd done wrong and tried to undo it,” he whispered. “He tried to give the coins back, but the High Priests wouldn't take them.”

His grip tightened above Gottfried's elbow, and they stood still for a few moments. Gottfried knew Rudi wanted more of an answer from him, but he could find nothing to say.

“He was just the pawn of larger forces.”

Gottfried felt an impulse to look through a window again, but didn't dare.

“It's supposed to be a religion of forgiveness,” Rudi added plaintively, as if it were up to Bach, or the man who had written the text he set, to determine what would happen to the soul of Christ's betrayer.

“Maybe there are some sins that can't be forgiven,” Gottfried said at last.

Rudi bit his lip and let go of the violinist's arm. They walked on in silence. When they got to the hall, Gottfried could see that the prisoners were already inside. Rudi left him at the door, wishing him good luck even though his brow was furrowed and he was clearly still upset about Bach's portrayal of Judas. Gottfried wished he could have given him a more satisfying answer to his question.

 

The first thing he noticed was that no guards lined the walls today. As he took his violin out of its case and tuned the strings, he wondered why.

Their withdrawal must have been the next step in the Kommandant's procedure. His performances had to seem different from everything else here in order to have their intended effect on the inmates. That must be the idea. Music had to be brought back into their lives, undiluted by the presence of guards.

It all seemed to have been worked out in advance. And his cooperation had simply been assumed; it didn't matter how he felt about it. Well, what if he only went through the motions and played just badly enough to sabotage the experiment?

One of his pegs slipped because the weather was so cold and dry; the E-string went down more than an octave. Keller took his time tuning it back up and adjusting the other strings, trying to sort out his thoughts.

The guards had been withdrawn from the room, but that didn't mean they weren't watching. Or listening somehow—though with their tin ears, conditioned by the fox-trots and tangos blasting from those loudspeakers, they probably couldn't tell the difference between Beethoven and a Strauss waltz. Or between a refined tone and a scratchy one, with wooden phrasing like Ernst's pupil. They'd never know if he was holding back.