called her "a musical ignoramus")-shc continued to forget and speak her mind. Nimram praised her, needless to'say, no matter what she said. Certainly there was never any harm in her words. Even her cunning, when she schemed about his "image" or the IRS, had the innocent openness of the Michigan fields around her father's little place in the country, as he called it-a house sometimes visited, long before her father had bought it, by the elder Henry Ford. There wasn't a great deal Arline could do for him in the world, or anyway not a great deal he could make her feel he needed and appreciated -aside, of course, from her elegant company at social gatherings, for instance fund-raisers. She was "a good Michigan girl," as she said; Republican, a member (lapsed) of the DAR. * Subtly-or no, not subtly, but openly, f1agrantly--'-she had been trained from birth for the sacred and substantial position of Good Wife. She was a quick learner-even brilliant, he might have said in an unguarded moment, if Nimram ever had such moments-and she had snapped up the requisite skills of her position the way a street dog snaps up meat. She was not a great reader (books were one of Nimram's passions), and music was not really her first interest in life, except, of course, when Nimram conducted it; but she could keep a household like an oldtime Viennese aristrocat; she could "present" her husband, choosing the right restaurants, wines, and charities, buying him not only the exactly right clothes, as it seemed to her (and for all he knew she had unerring taste, though sometimes her choices raised his eyebrows at first), but also finding him the exactly right house, or rather Brentwood mansion-formerly the home of a reclusive movie star-the suitable cars-first the Porsche, then on second thought, of course, the Rollsthe suitably lovable fox terrier, which Arline had named Trixie. She had every skill known to the well-to-do midwestern wife, including certain bedroom skills which Nimram waited with a smile of dread for her to reve~J, in her openhearted, Michigan way, to some yenta** from People magazine or the L.A. Times. But for all that, she had moments, he knew, when she seemed to herself inadequate, obscurely unprepared. *Qaughters of the American RevoJution-a patriotic association of women whose ancestors were early settlers in colonial America.
"Do you like the house?" she had asked him once, with a bright smile and an uneasiness around the eyes that made his heart go out to her. It was only his heart that got up from the chair; the rest of him sat solid as a rock with a marked-up score on his knees. "Of course I like it," he'd answered. "I love it!" When they were alone or among intimate friends his voice had, at times, a hearty bellow that could make Arline Jump. "Good!" she'd said, and had smiled more brightly, then had added, her expression unsure again, "It does seem a solid investment."
might have said, if he were someone else, "What's the difference? What's a house? I'm the greatest conductor in the world, or one of them. Civilization is my house!" That, however, was the kind of thing Nimram never said to anyone, even in one of his rare but notorious rages. Her look of uncertainty had been almost anguish, though she labored to conceal it, and so he'd laid down the score he was finding with, had renounced the brief flash of doubt over whether he should leave it there-defenseless on the carpet, whel.'e the dog could come ,in and, say, drool on it-and had swung up out his chair and had stridden over to seize her in his arms and press his cheek to hers, saying, "What's this craziness? It's a beautiful house and I love it!" There had been, apparently, an edge of uncontrol in his heartiness, or perhaps it was simply the age-old weight of the world distracting her, time and the beauty of things falling away, nothing sure, nothing strong enough to bear. her upnot yet, anyway, not as quickly as thatnot even the strength in her famous conductor's arms. ''I'm sorry," she'd said, blinking away tears, giving her embarrassed midwesterner laugh, "Aren't I a fool?" -biting her lips now, taking on the sins of the world. "Come," he'd said, "we eat out." It was his standard response to all sorrows no energy of the baton could transmute; a brief arrogation of the power of Godno offense, since God had no interest in it, it seemed.
or
she'd begun, "But dinner's been-" drawing back from him, already 'of two minds. "No, no," he'd said, tyrannical. "Go get dressed. We eat out." Candlelight burning through the wine bottle, silverware shining like her dream of eternity, people across the room showing one by one and four by four their covert signs of having recognized the famous conductor, a thing they could speak oftomorrow and next week, next year, perhaps, buoy themselves up on in dreary times, the memory of that dinner miraculously blessed, as if God himself had come to sit with them. The tuck of private amusement and sadness touched the corner ofNimram's mouth. He was not a man who had ever given thought to whether or not his opinions of himself and his effect on the world were inflated. He was a musician simply, or not so simply; an interpreter of Mahler and Bruckner, Sibelius and Nielsen-much as his wife, Arline, buying him clothes, transforming his Beethoven frown to his now just as famous bright smile, brushing her lips across his cheek as he plunged (always hurrymg) toward sleep, was the dutiful and faithful interpreter of Benjamin Nimram. His life was sufficient, a joy to him, in fact. One might have thought of it~ and so Nimram himself thought of it, in certain rare moods-as one resounding success after another. He had conducted every major symphony in the w~rld, had been granted, by Toscanini's daughters, the privilege of studying the scores of Toscanini, treasure-hoard of the old man's secrets; he could count among his closest friendS some of the greatest musicians of his time. He had so often been called a genius by critics all over that he had come to take it for granted that he was indeed just that-"just that" in both senses, exactly that and merely that: a fortunate accident, a man supremely lucky. Had he been born with an ear just a little less exact, a personality more easily ruffled, dexterity less precise, or some physical weakness-a heart too feeble for the demands he made of it, or arthritis, the plague of so many conductors-he would still, no doubt, have been a symphony man, but his ambition would have been check~d a little, his ideas of self-fulfillment scaled down. Whatever fate had dealt him he would have learned, no doubt, to put up with, guarding his chips. But Nimram had been dealt all high cards, and he knew it.