Symphony of Secrets

A Columbia professor named Kevin Bernard Hendricks, who goes by Bern, is listening to Delaney’s Quicksilver symphony. Bern considers canceling class in order to listen to the rest of the symphony, but he ends up canceling class to attend a meeting at the Delaney Foundation. Mallory Delany Roberts, the Foundation’s executive director, emails Bern and asks him to help with an urgent project. Bern thinks about his late adviser, Jacques Simon, and calls Mallory.

Mallory tells Bern that some of Delaney’s documents have been found. Mallory wants Bern’s help with the documents. Bern asks about the project, but she insists that he sign a nondisclosure agreement before she gives him any details. Bern theorizes that the Foundation has found a part of Delaney’s lost opera, Red, and agrees to come to the Foundation that night. Mallory sends a plane to take Bern to the Foundation.

Bern worries about the appropriateness of his outfit as the Delaney Foundation’s plane transports him to Manhattan. He also thinks about Delaney’s opera, Five Rings of Olympia. Red was Delaney’s operatic ode to America. However, Delaney lost the music that he wrote for Red, and this mishap tarnished his reputation. Although Delaney tried to recreate the music, it was poorly received, and Delaney was found dead after the premiere.

Arriving at the Delaney Foundation, Bern is eager to improve Delaney’s reputation by helping with Red. Mallory introduces the Foundation’s counsel, who insists that Bern sign the nondisclosure agreement and relinquish his phone while viewing the document. Bern is given copies of the manuscript, which includes the entirety of Red. Bern promises to finish reading it that night.

As he sight-reads the score, Bern compares the lost version of Red to the lesser version that Delaney reconstructed. Delaney, who was both a composer and a librettist (a person who writes the text of an opera), had annotated the music with his famous “Doodles,” which are various idiosyncratic symbols. These so-called “Delaney Doodles” have been the subject of 14 or more dissertations over the years. Bern’s late boss, Jacques Simon, and others have proposed a variety of theories about why the reconstructed version of Red was not as good as Delaney’s previous works. The newly discovered manuscript impresses Bern.

After he finishes his sight-reading, hearing the music in his mind as he reads, he meets with Mallory. He shares his initial awe of the opera, and she asks him to transcribe the lost score. Mallory has chosen Bern because of his work with Jacques on the Rings Quintet and because he is a “DF kid.” This means that the Foundation gave him a French horn when he was in middle school as part of their philanthropic program called Dream A Song. Bern reflects that the program changed his life, eventually leading him to study musicology at Columbia. Now, he happily agrees to work on Red.

Mallory says that the premiere is set for March 15th, which is only six months away. The Rings Quintet project took multiple years to complete, but Bern optimistically agrees to Mallory’s deadline. She shows him his new office and tells him that they found the score when they were doing some restorations on a Delaney property. Bern asks to see any other documents that were found with the score, as well as the digitally scanned version, and Mallory agrees. When he finally gets his phone back, he discovers that it is almost midnight. The Foundation puts him up in a room at the Plaza Hotel. Bern listens to Delaney’s music as he goes to get a late-night slice of pizza.

The next morning, Bern gets fingerprinted and has his retinas screened by security at the Foundation. To get through the 811-page opera by the deadline, he will have to complete five pages of transcription per day. Mallory introduces Bern to his new assistant, Stephanie. She agrees to help him find housing and obtain access to the other documents found with the manuscript. Copies of these documents arrive a few hours later. They include a full page of the Delaney Doodles. This page also has the word “JaR” on it.

Another document features a draft that includes Delaney’s revisions and comments. The comments include the title of the chapter. This is a rare find, as Delaney destroyed all other rough drafts. Bern wants to write a paper about the working document, but he has to focus on getting Red ready for performance. As he works, Bern reflects that both he and Delaney are from the Midwest. Bern has been obsessed with Delaney for many years and is thrilled by the opportunity to restore Delaney’s reputation. However, Bern needs help.

Bern calls Eboni, who lives in the Brox, and they talk about pizza. When they were at Columbia, they tried to find the best pizza in New York City. They planned to someday open a pizza shop if their other plans fell through. Now, Bern tells her that he is working at the Delaney Foundation and needs her help. Eboni was the computer analyst for the Rings Quintet. Bern tells Eboni that she will be required to sign an NDA before he can tell her about the project.

When Eboni arrives at the Foundation, she refuses to sign the NDA. Bern signs for her and tells her about the project. Bern thinks about Eboni’s intelligence and her work with computers over the years. She wants the Foundation to send the files to her and stipulates that she will only work on them during business hours. Bern promises to buy her pizza when she completes her work on the files.

The Foundation agrees to Eboni’s demands, and she begins her work with the files. Bern arranges for a leave of absence from his job at the University of Virginia. When Eboni returns the files, Bern buys her pizza at Baranocchi’s Pizza in the East Village. The narrative describes past moments from their quest to find “the Best Pizza in New York” (75), and they discuss the quality of their slices.

Bern tells Eboni about the word “JaR” that he found in the Delaney Doodles. Eboni tells him not to worry about it. After they part ways, Bern continues to work on the opera with the aid of Eboni’s files, turning out at least five pages per day. A few days later, he talks to Stephanie about the “JaR” search being undertaken by the tech team. The Foundation also hired fellows from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Lomax Cuellar from Columbia to analyze the doodles. Bern asks that Eboni be allowed to analyze them as well, and Mallory agrees.

That evening, Eboni comes to the Foundation and looks at the Doodles. They discuss the enigmatic markings, and Eboni is confident that she can decode them. However, she has no luck searching for the meaning of “JaR,” or any variants or similar words.

About a week later, Eboni complains about not being able to see the original documents in addition to the copies. Mallory comes in, and Bern introduces them. Mallory and Eboni talk about a mutual friend and about pizza. Then, Eboni asks to see the original page with the word “JaR” on it, mentioning that it has been more than a month since they promised Bern a look at the originals. Mallory objects, saying that the Foundation “can’t just have anybody” look at the originals (88). Eboni criticizes the racist nature of this statement, and Mallory apologizes. Then, Eboni insists that she and Bern be able to examine the originals to catch anything the scanner might have missed.

After Mallory leaves, Bern quietly worries that Eboni might get him fired. Eboni assures him that the Foundation will not fire a Black man because it would be bad for optics. The following day, Bern gets an email from Mallory saying that the originals are ready for viewing. After Bern and Eboni observe a considerable number of security measures, they are finally allowed access to the documents. Bern notices something, but he does not want to say anything with the camera in the room, so he uses code words that he devised with Eboni when they were graduate students.

Back in his office, Bern writes a note on a sticky pad, arguing that they should tell the Foundation what they have discovered. Eboni shakes her head, and they go outside. Once outside, they discuss the fact that the scanner misread the word “JaR.” It is actually “jor,” which has not been included in any of the searches. Bern also thinks that the word is not written in Delaney’s handwriting. Eboni argues against telling the Foundation of their discovery. When they return to Bern’s office, Eboni does a search for “jor” in the Foundation’s database and discovers a name: Josephine Reed, or Jo Reed.

The search for Josephine Reed in the Foundation’s archive reveals that she traveled with Delaney during his initial European tour. Previous scholars have assumed that she was a servant and was no one of consequence. In the middle of the night, Bern contemplates the lack of scholarship on Josephine while listening to the Quicksilver symphony. Eboni texts him with a theory that Josephine is Delaney’s “secret baby mama” (102). This thought comforts him, and he oversleeps.

At 9:30 a.m., Bern returns Eboni’s missed texts with a call. Eboni has run a facial recognition search and has found Josephine in several photos with Delaney. Eboni beats Bern to his office. They fear that the room is bugged, so when Bern arrives, they communicate by typing in a Word document while talking openly about pizza and other innocuous subjects. Comparing notes, they discover that Josephine appears in records dating from 1919 to 1923. Eboni thinks that Delaney learned to hide her from public view after that. Then, they look into the records of Ditmars & Ross, Delaney’s first publisher. The Ditmars & Ross files in the Foundation archive come from Samantha Bell, the granddaughter of the publisher.

Bern and Eboni go outside and call Samantha. She says that she still has some of her grandfather’s papers in Yonkers. Bern asks to see them, and she agrees. Bern and Eboni take a cab to her house and offer to buy the documents, which fill six Bankers Boxes.

Bern and Eboni open the boxes in Eboni’s office, looking for Josephine’s name. They find records of her employment as a cleaner for the music publisher, which date from 1918 to 1919. The address they find for Josephine is Delaney’s address. Eboni believes that Delaney had to hide her when she got pregnant. Because Josephine was Black and Delaney was white, their hypothetical baby might have influenced the latter’s “affinity with the Black community” (114). Bern and Eboni hypothesize about the racism that Delaney and Josephine’s child would face. Bern believes that the second champagne glass in Delaney’s dressing room was for Josephine. The next day, Eboni texts Bern, asking him to come back to her office. When he arrives, she tells him that she researched Josephine Reed’s family, who lives in Oxford, North Carolina. They look through the Reed family records that Eboni found and find a good lead—Charles Hill. Eboni suggests that the Delaney Foundation can fly them south, and Bern thinks of a specialist in Durham that he could consult.

In Oxford, Eboni and Bern meet the family that lives in a house that the Reed family used to own. The house now belongs to Charles Hill, but he is in a nursing home. They discover that Howard Reed’s daughter, Earlene Hill, is still living in the house. Earlene is Josephine Reed’s cousin, but she doesn’t know what happened to Josephine. Earlene does remember that Josephine played piano, and Bern asks if they know Delaney. The family is not familiar with the name, but they do recognize his music. Eboni shows Earlene and her family a photo of Josephine, and they think there is a family resemblance. Judy, one of Earlene’s daughters, eventually remembers that there is a trunk with the name Josephine on it in the basement. Inside the trunk, they find pages of Delaney Doodles. This stuns Bern.

Bern looks through the doodles that are written on various pieces of paper, including napkins, envelopes, and notebooks. They find a form that reveals that the trunk was left in the Pennsylvania Station. Bern buys the trunk for $2,500. Once they get in a cab, Bern says that he wants to tell the Foundation about their discovery, but once again, Eboni disagrees.