The Violin Conspiracy(80)

In May—only a month before the competition—Leonid Molchalin, one of the world’s foremost Tchaikovsky authorities, had deigned to bestow his insights upon Ray: Molchalin’s teaching schedule at Juilliard meant that he would be available only once school was out, in mid-May. Ray would stay in New York to work with him.

Later, the FBI and Alicia Childress would tell him that his regimented schedule made it easier for the thieves to track him, so he could blame himself for his own stupid predictability; but on May 16, the day of the theft, Ray was still pointlessly unaware, still believed that a strict schedule would help him. He’d practice ten to twelve hours a day, minimum, with lessons in the late morning every other day. He wanted to practice more, but physically he knew he couldn’t: carpal tunnel syndrome could kick in, or tendonitis. It wasn’t worth taking the risk.

May 15—a month before he was slated to fly to Moscow—was Ray and Nicole’s last full day in Manhattan. The morning’s schedule would be identical to the previous five days. Only the late afternoon and evening would be different—a celebration of his last lesson. They were scheduled to leave New York the following day.

So he woke that morning before the 6:00 a.m. alarm, crept out of the room, down to the hotel gym, and worked out for an hour. When he returned at seven, Nicole was awake. He poured the last bowl of cereal, drizzled the little bit of milk that was left in the hotel refrigerator, and then practiced till eight thirty. He slid the violin back into its case, kissed Nicole goodbye, and headed out into the Manhattan morning. Commuters in long tan overcoats swam along the sidewalks, staring at their phones. Garbage trucks roared past. He headed down Fifty-Third, turned up Seventh Avenue toward Lincoln Center and Juilliard.

One of Leonid Molchalin’s earliest teachers actually studied with Adolph Brodsky, who worked with Tchaikovsky himself on the famous Violin Concerto. Russian-born, with decades of experience as a performer and a teacher, Molchalin had been a student of Ivan Galamian and Isaac Stern and a member of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. It was pure luck, and a lot of Janice pulling strings, that Leonid agreed to meet with Ray—and they only had a few weeks together. Molchalin was heading to Europe soon to play with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

Now above Ray loomed Juilliard’s dramatic steel and glass. Inside, he breathed in its aroma of Pine-Sol and air-conditioning. Most students were gone, and the halls echoed as he ascended to the practice rooms on the second floor. He started warming up. Leonid—a short man in jeans and a shapeless dark green polo shirt—arrived a few minutes later.

On this final morning of Ray’s lessons with Leonid, they practiced the Tchaikovsky Concerto over and over again, Leonid drilling Ray on the interpretation in the third movement. Finally Leonid nodded. “From now on, you must just practice and make it your own. Even more your own. Your sound is very pure, very Russian.”

Very Russian. It didn’t get better than that. Ray packed up the violin, slung it over his shoulder, headed out and down Sixty-Fifth to Central Park, weaving past bicyclists and a waffle stand toward Seventh Avenue, and then back to the hotel. It was 1:30 p.m.

Nicole reappeared around two o’clock—she’d been shopping for her niece whose birthday was next week—and set her packages down just inside the door. She kicked off her shoes and lay back on the bed, listening to him play, or reading her novel, or both.

A little after 3:00 p.m., he set the violin back in its case and spooned with Nicole on the bed for an hour, exhausted, the music of Tchaikovsky and Mozart in his veins. He got up and practiced again until just after 6:00 p.m.

Then, a little after six—he later told the investigators between 6:05 and 6:15 p.m.—he put the violin back in its case for the last time, closed the clasps, put the case on the bureau, below the TV, where he always set it. He shucked off his T-shirt and jeans, padded naked into the bathroom for a shower before dinner. Nicole, who’d showered, was right outside, putting on her makeup in the bathroom mirror.

They were meeting Leonid Molchalin and his partner, Gary Broussard, a science writer for the New York Times, for dinner on the Upper West Side. They would rather have taken the subway—cheaper, and faster during rush hour—but Ray was always very conscious of the violin and would rather take a car instead. If he had only taken the subway, despite his own instincts.

Dinner at a fancy Indian restaurant: Ray sat on the banquette, his back to the room, violin next to him. They talked about music, of course, and the Tchaikovsky Competition, and Gary held forth about some theories about what gave the Stradivarius its unique sound—some thought it wasn’t the wood or the perfect proportions but actually the varnish that coated the instrument.

Ray, several glasses of wine in, asserted that it was none of those physical characteristics—that Antonio Stradivari had, magically, somehow managed to imbue his instruments with a life of their own, with soul. They could laugh at him all they wanted, but he was convinced of this—his violin was vastly more than the sum of its parts.

The four of them together polished off three bottles of wine—they were musicians, okay? everyone knew musicians like to drink—as well as assorted cocktails, so that when they staggered out into the balmy May night, the streetlights spun slightly, and Leonid barely avoided a delivery guy biking on the sidewalk without headlights.

“Watch it, buddy!” Gary yelled after the cyclist, who zoomed off, unconcerned.