— what an odd turn of phrase.
“These must be his parents,” Lucy calls back. “Fine old gent with heroic sideburns. His mother looks like an unforgiving creature, sucked-in cheeks. Mind you, photography was a big deal in those days.”
When Toby doesn’t speak, she pokes her head back into the studio. “His mother’s family was in the shipping business back in Poland.” She stares for a moment when he doesn’t respond.
Toby practised for four hours this morning. His hands are supple as heated putty.
Hirsch wrote that music came to him as dictation from a mystical source. He studied the kabbalah and other texts and even met Krishnamurti one summer.
“They held salons for artists and musicians on the last Thursday of each month,” Lucy says, returning to the hallway. “Here’s a tiny drawing by Paul-Émile Borduas that must be worth something. Madame Hirsch, quote, ‘cooked massive stews for the hungry children and artists.’ I bet she did.”
Leopold might be out in the park with the children when sound came to him, sidelong, like the cranked-up music box of the ice-cream vendor or pretzel sellers. He could work anywhere at any time, because, as he famously wrote, music emanates from the world around us, from trees and sky to machine noise and the whirr of telephone wires. To receive these sounds, Hirsch trained his ears and mind to enter a state he termed the Receptive Cone.
Toby has experienced it in himself, a sensation both glorious and unnerving. He feels the enchantment grow in him now, so close to the master.
Lucy cries with delight. She’s found the nursery. Reluctantly, he leaves the studio with its moist smell of tobacco and old books. Lucy stands in the middle of a room with a sloped ceiling and a mitred window that looks onto a brick-and-glass building that wouldn’t have been there in Hirsch’s day. A rough-hewn cradle sits on the floor, plaster doll tucked under its miniature quilt. She picks up a pint-sized hairbrush from a shelf and slowly whisks it across her forearm, then lowers herself onto the rustic bed, perching next to a teddy bear, minus most of its fur.
“The little ones are so dear,” Lucy says, glancing up at Toby as if waiting for him to echo her sentiment.
When he doesn’t respond, she appears almost cross, an expression Toby recognizes: Jasper gets this way when he thinks Toby should act more interested in what is going on around him.
Lucy asks, “Do you know who else lived here?”
“Relatives from the old country.”
“Polish and Russian Jews fleeing the pogroms, escaping their ghettos before the Nazis blew through.”
A cold snake enters Toby’s gut. He knows this change in tone. Usually, it comes from old people. To this point they’ve been cordial, but once they discover he’s got measurable cc’s of German blood in his veins, he’s implicated in the crimes of the century.
Lucy rises slowly from the bed and wanders over to the flip-top desk where she lifts a piece of sky from a jigsaw puzzle and ticks it against her teeth. “Think of the terror that made them leave and how difficult it was to land here with just the clothes on their backs.”
“My sympathies are with the ones who didn’t escape,” Toby says.
“Quite so.”
“I contain the whole range of human feelings,” he adds, unable to mask the defensive tone.
She runs her minesweeper eyes over him, then sets the puzzle piece down. “Of course.”
Why does he feel accused of something?
Leopold Hirsch tiptoed in at dawn to gaze at his sleeping children, three girls curled up on the one bed, and he listened to the raspy chest from the littlest child who would later die of pneumonia. It can be a curse to hear too much.
They step out of the haunted room into the corridor. This part of the hallway is decorated with faded manuscripts displayed behind glass, most too spotty and stained to recognize, though isn’t that the opening fragment to the adagio?
“Bathroom,” Lucy says, stating the obvious as she peers into the adjoining doorway.
A rusty streak blisters the surface of the claw-foot tub that rests on four chunks of wood, and there’s a distinct whiff of drains. Sitting on the pedestal sink is a sponge so crusty you know it hasn’t touched water in decades. That step stool must be for little Laura, pictured in the photos down the hall.
As Toby pulls back into the corridor, music starts up, gypsy violin drenched in melancholy, but when he glances around, he spots a speaker tacked in the corner where he’d hoped to see an old gent in a frayed suit, sawing away.
Hirsch adopted folk music in his compositions, wove old tunes into sophisticated new world caprices and sonatas. The violin crests and hangs in on a long fermata — and that’s when Toby hears footsteps climbing the narrow staircase. So far they’ve been the only visitors to the museum. Leopold Hirsch is a little-known figure on this side of the Atlantic. The steps pause on the landing, and through the sound of music they pick up the gasp of heavy breathing.
A stout man in his sixties pulls himself up the final flight of stairs. He wears a suit of timeless cut with shiny shoes. “Welcome, welcome,” he pants, sweat pooling on his brow. “Tell me, fine people, where are you coming from?”
“Toronto,” they chorus.
“Excellent.” He slips a pad and pencil from his pocket and writes this fact down. Toby notes his badge: the leopold hirsch society.
“You have been born there also?” the man asks.
Eastern European accent, Toby judges. “That’s right,” he says, watching as this, too, is written on the small pad.
“And you, madam?” Before Lucy can respond, the man begins to cough violently, and the visitors step hastily out of range.
This is how it begins: a propelled spray of saliva, an enclosed space.
“Pardon me, friends,” he says when he’s recovered. Then he turns to Lucy, pencil poised.
“Born in Calgary,” she says.
“And you enjoy our exhibition? Is interesting and provocative, yes?”
“Very,” Lucy assures him.
“We have restored this house for the enjoyment of musicians and followers of Dr. Hirsch. Maybe you would like to join our society. The dues are modest.” He stares at them in the gloom of the hallway. “Perhaps you have relatives in Poland or some special interest?” When there is no immediate response, he peers at Lucy’s badge. “Ah, a guitarist from the competition! Such an honour. I have been waiting for you people to come and visit our modest museum, but you are the first.” He flushes with evident pleasure and turns to Toby. “You, sir, are also one of the talented musicians?”
“I hope so.”
“Then you must follow me to Special Collections,” the volunteer insists. “An area where we allow only certain people, scholars and professional artists.” He beckons them toward the stairs, talking excitably. “We will begin with early letters sent back to his father. Perhaps you don’t know that
