“Then you’re an employee, which may be even better.”
Jules shook his head. “Not an employee. The taxes were never paid. I was just right for the spot. I could give his boys music lessons, protect the house, and keep it quiet and orderly. He knew I had been in the army, that my parents had been killed by the Germans just as his wife had been, that I was a studious academic, compulsively neat, and that the only noise I would make would be Mozart and Bach.”
“What about Cathérine?”
“She was always quiet and contemplative. The sweetest girl. Full of weltschmerz well before her teens.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, Jules, I’m not a businessman and I have no money either. I talk and talk and talk, and people listen. But what’s left?”
“Books and writings.”
“All my books and writings will sit, paralyzed and mummified, on the shelves of the great libraries, taking up less space proportionately than that of a single skull in all the catacombs of Europe. Come to think of it, soon there won’t even be libraries but only digital electrical charges that no human can touch, in some Never Never Land where no one can go. I wish that, like you, I could have spent my life transported aloft, as it were, every day, in music. Instead, I’ve lived like a caffeinated parrot. After my interview with Polish TV, I’ll take the train to Biarritz, and although the baby and Michelle have given me new life, still, if it’s hot enough I’ll lie in the sun and feel at least three types of despair: despair that life is mostly gone and I’ve wasted it; despair that I cannot feel now what I thought I would if I saw all my struggles through; and despair that, because I don’t know any other course to take, nothing will change. Tomorrow I’ll speak for three hours to Polish television. I’ll try to be brilliant and charming. They’ll edit it down and propel it through the ether for twelve minutes. Then it will disappear. It will mean nothing.”
“How’s your health?” Jules inquired.
“The stent is holding, they say.” Fran?ois was tall and gangly. He had dark curly hair now half gray, and the various parts of his face seemed to have been added to it by different agencies at different times and in a great hurry. But despite this Picasso-like disorganization common to many Jews of Eastern-European origin, the force of his intellect shone through every aspect of his appearance, and he was as physically intimidating, in his way, as a bull. Those brave enough to debate him felt like they were facing a Tiger Tank on the Western Front. It was not fun, and some actually trembled as they stared at him. He was a man like a fortification. He faced you directly, heavily, talked rapidly and clearly, and every word was like a well placed shell taking effect with a deep concussion. “And your health?”
Jules, not as tall, was fit, his hair blond and gray, his face boyish, his features even. Despite his strength and gravity, he had an air of kindness and hesitation – which had always drawn women to him, disproportionately he thought, if not miraculously. Fran?ois conquered women. Jules loved them. “I’m fine,” he said. “In fact, it scares me. Nothing’s wrong, which at our age can’t be good. I fear that when I row or run I’ll drop dead without warning. I thought of tying myself to the boat so my body wouldn’t be lost in the Seine – so if they find the boat, they find the body – but then if I did go over, which in all these years I haven’t, not even once, I might be trapped by the line and drowned.”
“Jules, I just wanted to know how you were. I didn’t need a treatise on death and rowing.”
“I’m fine. I think.”
When they had dessert, with his mousse Fran?ois had tea. With his cake Jules had Badoit.
Just before they left, Fran?ois said, “Oh, by the way, would you be interested in writing some music, a theme, for a giant international conglomerate?”
“What? What kind of music? A theme?”
“For commercials. Telephone hold music. Their signature sound.”
“Telephone hold music?”
“Hundreds and hundreds of millions of people would hear it every year, and who knows? They might keep it going forever. You might get royalties.”
“What company?”
“Acorn and its many subsidiaries, probably the world’s largest insurance company – reinsurance, an investment arm, trillions of dollars. Literally, four or five trillions. At a reception and dinner at the American Embassy, I was seated next to one of their executives. His name is Jack something. I have his card at home.
“They’ve already asked Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Jean Michel Jarre, Hans Zimmer, Yann Tiersen, and I don’t know how many others. They went through an agent. Jack was complaining and hurt, because they all said no.”
“Telephone hold music? Why wouldn’t they say no?”
“But what’s the difference if the music is beautiful?”
Jules thought for a minute. “You’re right. There is no difference. If the music is beautiful the context is irrelevant. If it’s truly beautiful, it can’t be pulled down. Rilke wrote for a butcher’s trade magazine. Perhaps they should have known that.”
“They’re all so busy, you know, and rich.”
“How much money can you get for a jingle, anyway?”
Having saved the best for last, Fran?ois smiled.
“And besides,” Jules added, “they didn’t ask me.”
“Of course they didn’t. No one’s ever heard of you. You never cared to build an image. But I talked you up, and this Jack person thinks you’re one of the most famous composers in Europe.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“He doesn’t know that, and he’s the one who’ll bring the music – ninety seconds worth, but ‘strong, brilliant,’ he said – to the board chairman.”
“And who is that?”
“You won’t believe his name. It was Polish, and he shortened it.”
“Jewish?”
“Yes, and the chairman of maybe the biggest insurance company in the world. Fifty-five years old. If he likes what you bring him ….”
“What’s his name? What is it, a secret?”
Fran?ois started to laugh. He looked up at the ceiling, then looked at Jules’ as if confessing: “His name is, truly, Rich Panda.”
“You made that up.”
“I didn’t. It was Pandolfsky or something. Crazy parents must’ve changed it to Panda, and named their son Richard. Rich Panda. I bet they do a lot of business in China. You can’t necessarily understand these people – they’re Americans – but that’s beside the point.”
“Okay, then how much would a Rich Panda pay for a jingle?”
“That’s it precisely. This Jack something was drinking a lot of California champagne, and I’d seen him take down half a bottle of single malt at the reception. He told me how much. I don’t think he knows he told me, but I do know what they’ll go to if they like it. They’ve already decided. Assuming they’re pleased by what you might give them, you need only hold your ground and they’ll roll right over.”
“If in fact I get it, and I haven’t decided that I’ll do this, but if I do, you should have a percentage, as a finder’s or agency fee.”
“Okay. Pay for this dinner.”