I think it must be around 25 years ago that I was able to maneuver all my office hours into 4 days, Monday thru Thursday, and thus I had Fridays off. Sondra always continued working Fridays so I ordered the best single New York Philharmonic subscription seat I could find for a Friday morning series.
For my section, I chose a box seat in the first row of the First Tier on the orchestra’s right, a little behind the conductor. I wanted to see everyone playing in the orchestra, and I liked the perspective from above. (I was able to look over the conductor’s right shoulder and watch the baton. From that angle I could also see the score but make out nothing. Only when something atonal or ultra modern was being performed would I find myself actually watching the conductor deftly turn the pages. Then I would be anticipating the sudden appearance of a blank page, signaling the merciful end of the piece.)
Chance had put me next to Leda. (My immediate association, perhaps like yours no doubt, was the swan. She was the first person with the name Leda I had ever met. I had encountered the poem in high school and that was all I had in my memory bank.) For 25 years, Leda and I sat next to one another. She had the seat to my right. Facing forward only showed me the left side of the hall. Whenever something was performed, I looked to the right. Leda was always in my peripheral vision. Within a relatively short time we learned each other’s stories.
Leda was a slender woman, who even 25 years ago had short snow white hair. She wasn’t old but she was definitely older than me, five years I guessed. Leda and her husband were Czech refugees. They were academics who had found shelter in the institutional world of higher education. He taught science and did research. I think he was well known in his field. She did library science.
Leda was born in Prague before the outbreak of the Second World War. She has memories of the Germans occupying the city. Somehow they survived the Germans, and then went ahead and survived the Russians. She told no harrowing stories. You just got the impression that everyone put their heads down and plowed on. I don’t remember hearing any dramatic border stories either. There was no escaping through the iron curtain concealed in hay wagons or stowed away in the trunks of cars. I think Leda and her husband just pressed ahead and somehow navigated through one country’s bureaucracy after another, using their academic credentials and connections.
Leda and her husband both loved classical music. I think he really loved the music more than his wife. At intermission, Leda and I would often discuss a piece, share feelings, and compare opinions. We did so gingerly. We both knew neither of us were musicologists, although Leda, growing up in Prague rather than Dallas, was miles ahead of me. We were timid about our opinions; we tried hard not to seem pompous and bombastic; we didn’t want to add arrogance to our ignorance. Leda generally stated what her husband thought of the piece. She spoke using an unfamiliar but definite European accent, with a small soft chirp-like voice.
I never met her husband. By the time I met Leda, her husband was house-bound. He had retired from teaching. He could no longer go to the symphony. But he listened at home continuously to his records, which were almost always being played. He had some progressive neuromuscular disease, something like Lou Gehrigs or ALS. By the time Leda and I had seats next to one another, he needed a walker to get to the bathroom.
I always had an easy drive from New Jersey, and later, a short subway ride, to get to the concert. Leda came from the Princeton area on public transport. She had to leave very early to guarantee the successful completion of her many connections, and so, she was always sitting down in the row when I arrived. I’m not a people person and conversation does not come smoothly to me. Nonetheless, Leda and I quickly grew comfortable with one another. I could see that Leda was a people person. That was always apparent as I was typically the last in the row to come in. Leda would immediately break off an ongoing conversation and turn to me. From then, she talked exclusively to me. I was flattered but a little embarrassed. But secretly, I have to admit there was a part of me that relished it. I liked her and admired her. I was proud of our relationship.
For 25 years, we sat next to one another. Like everyone holding subscriptions, we would meet annually sometime in the fall, and 7 or 8 concerts later, usually in late spring, we would say goodbye to one another, “Have a great summer, see you in the fall.“ There might be a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Once, she kissed me on the lips.
Our Friday morning subscription series relationship never really went beyond the concert hall. Once I had 2 extra tickets to a different orchestra that some friends couldn’t use and Leda brought a girl friend and met Sondra. Whenever Leda couldn’t make a Friday morning performance, she would send a friend, who always introduced herself by telling me what nice things she had heard about me. I always felt funny being described thus, as nice.
Once, Leda invited me for lunch after the concert. I might of gone at other times, but that day I really did have pressing business. I turned it down with some reluctance and some ambivalence. Did I want to try to get Leda into my bed? We were both senior citizens and she was a few years older. Nonetheless, I could still fantasize about her. I am a man, after all. Fantasies are part of our inheritance and the thought of her could still be arousing. Good for her!
Then, about 4 years ago, I noticed a change in Leda. I could sense that she was carrying an extra burden. I learned that her husband had declined. Mentally he was intact, he still listened to and loved his music, but his physical limitations had become so onerous that he could no longer be managed at home, even with the extra help. He would have to go into a skilled nursing facility, a nursing home. Once there he turned out to be demanding and she had to come every day. She became his unofficial care manager, in charge of overseeing his care, that it was carried out properly, the correct medications were given, and the right people (hired from out her own pocket) came on time as scheduled. It seemed to me to be practically a full time job. I could hear the pride in her voice as she told me how she asserted herself and restricted her visits to only 4 hours on weekday afternoons. Besides, the facility was not near her home and she was never comfortable driving, but she went nonetheless. I tried to ease her strain by urging her to take more time for herself, offering whatever psychological nostrums I could, designed to ease any guilt she might have. She was already doing her maximum. No one could rightly expect more. She should give more time to herself. And so on.
The state of her husband’s health was always the first thing we discussed whenever we sat down next to one another before the beginning of the concert, whether 2 weeks or 2 months had passed. I was never surprised to hear that he had a serious bout of illness, that he had to go to the hospital for a kidney infection or a pneumonia, but typically I was surprised that he pulled through and was back in the home. I wasn’t exactly wishing him dead already but I did not find myself hoping he pulls through miraculously. What value was there to prolong his life? (I didn’t say anything, just thought it.) And yet, he still insisted when she came in the afternoon that she play the records he loved.
I last saw Leda on Friday morning, January 31, 2020. It was a wonderful concert. Like everyone else, we gave no thought to peripheral news stories. We didn’t mention those rumblings from the sea floor that soon would trigger a tsunami. Our focus was on the piece we were about to hear. They would be performing Elgar’s Enigma Variations. I looked in the program and read that the heart of the work, “Nimrod,” was thought written in commemoration of departed friends. Leda and I discussed the upcoming planned renovation of the symphony hall. There would be at least one whole season where the hall would have to be closed and the orchestra would be playing in different venues temporarily, all across the city. It was still early and no official schedule was out. We agreed that when it came out, we would make the necessary provisions needed to continue sitting together. It was too early to worry. We still had time. We were wrong.
I haven’t stayed in touch with Leda throughout the pandemic. I sometimes had the thought but never acted on it. Now I read a story in the papers about the progress of the symphony’s plans for renovation and I realize that it will be another two years in the future at the earliest before we can reclaim our seats. Who will still be around?
And then it occurs to me, did Leda and her husband attend the symphony together? (I never bothered to ask.) Had these two seats always been Leda’s and her husbands? (I never bothered to consider it.) I had always assumed, without evidence, that Leda and I reached our adjoining seats 25 years ago, coincidentally together, from the outside, a product of a random shuffle. But maybe Leda had been sitting there for years with her husband. Maybe it was his seat I was taking. Would I ever get the chance to ask her? Would I really want to know her answer?