The Night Singers Page 4

  “I’d be happy to drive you back any time,” she replied. “However, since you’re so interested in the local geography, let me show you this map. My grandfather Cannon was a cartographer.”

  He followed her to the wall by the stairs. “How long has your family lived in Chester?”

  “Since before there was a Chester.”

  “How long is that?”

  “People on Father’s side settled here in 1750.”

  He was in over his head, a working-class lad tête-à-tête with a Daughter of the American Revolution. Surprise, he reminded himself. Be open to surprise.

  “See,” she pointed to the attractively rendered, vivid map, “Here’s Chester.”

  “And here,” he indicated, careful not to touch the glass, “is where we walked.”

  She beamed at him. “That was a lovely day. The picnic. The marten.”

  He bent down slightly, smelled her drawing closer.

  Paul woke at 3am and felt her satiny arm across his chest. He opened his eyes.

  Yes, here they were in the moonlit bedroom with its heavy bureaus, the antique cherry wood rocking chair. A slight breeze swished the lace curtains in and out almost to the rhythm of her breath.

  She stirred.

  Lightly he kissed her forehead.

  She moved up and licked open his lips.

  Her breasts felt firm and the nipples rose to his touch. Carefully, he lay on top of her. Of course her strong hiker’s body could bear his weight. Entering her slowly, slowly, he thought of the ash leaves opening so gradually, seductively outside his studio window.

  “More,” she murmured. “Closer, Paul.”

  Now they lay side by side.

  He was all the way inside her again.

  She squeezed and pumped her body over his hardness.

  Caught in his own pleasure, it took him a minute to notice tears on her neck.

  “Are you OK, Eleanor?”

  “Yes … deeper,” she whispered. “Deeper, dear.”

  Then—cries, moans, a night animal keening as she came, her orgasm circling his penis.

  Soon he climaxed as well.

  He remained inside her, content, amazed, until she fell asleep. Gently he pulled up, but held a hand gently on her hip.

  When Paul awoke at five, he noticed she’d turned away. Facing the wall, her body moved in the even tempo of sleep.

  As he tried to doze off again, Muriel appeared. Muriel in the kitchen. Muriel singing along to a corny country and western song as they drove through the ghostly Badlands to the Black Hills. Muriel making the first snowperson of the season, her own face crimson from the early November cold. Paul wondered if she would have him back.

  His lungs filled with icy guilt. He recollected Eleanor bending forward in his studio chair asking, “Do you write about grief?” No, he thought, I just cultivate grief.

  When he awoke again, day was well past sunrise. After a quick shower—yes, he had been right, lavender soap and shampoo—he dressed and made his way downstairs following the blessed aroma of coffee to a large kitchen filled with light.

  She had set a place for him at the old round table by the window. Sweet rolls, yogurt, papaya, cereal, milk.

  An envelope marked “Paul.”

  He picked up the mug and ambled to the coffee maker.

  A note.

  Had she fallen head over heels and was now too embarrassed to face him?

  Slowly eating his succulent fruit and yogurt, he stared out at the white and pink crab apple trees. “Birth trees,” she had said that day on the mountain. Verlyn had planted one each on the birthdays of Audrey and Kevin, the family’s first year back from Kenya. These trees were lusciously full now, so abundant that the slight breeze turned petals into pink and white confetti.

  A second cup of coffee in front of him, he summoned courage to open the envelope. Inside he found a pretty card: blue cornflowers pressed against white linen paper. Her penmanship was as precise as he imagined.

  “Thank you, Eleanor.”

  Thank you, he thought. His own pleasure was checked by a dread of hurting this exceptional, yet vulnerable woman. He remembered her word during their first encounter: lesions.

  That afternoon he sent irises.

  The next day he planned to phone, but then couldn’t imagine what to say.

  Unconscionably, he let himself be drawn back to writing. The deadline for his second concert was approaching too fast. Several days passed before he was struck with severe remorse. What had he done in his self-absorbed, fulsome embrace of Les Printemps? How could he explain that she was perfect, too perfect for him. He needed the roughness of South Dakota, the edge of Muriel? How could he apologise, repair …

  One morning, a week after their liaison, Paul retrieved a blue vellum envelope from the mailbox. Immediately he recognised the handwriting. He brought it home to the studio, further aggrieved that he’d dithered all week instead of phoning Eleanor or dropping by. Once more he’d taken the passive, cowardly role. How could he ever make amends? He fixed a ham sandwich and sat down with the letter.

  Paul dear,

  The irises were stunning. I should have written before this.

  Forgive me, Paul, for being absent that morning. I thought it might be easier for each of us this way. The surprise of your friendship has been a blessing in this otherwise sorrowful year. That night was astonishing and beautiful.

  He should have done something before she had had time to fantasise. He put aside the half-eaten sandwich.

  When I awoke, I realised that you helped me crash through my wretched numbness. I hadn’t forgiven Verlyn for leaving me here alone. And that night with you, it was so splendid to be alive. Some part of my misery was transmuted into sadness, a sadness I can carry now. I was able to find and love Verlyn again.

  Whatever your own feelings about that night—pleasure or bemusement or other—I know in my bones that our friendship will last. With thanks for this magnificent surprise.

  Your loving friend,

  Eleanor

  He sat back, shaking his head at his denseness and egoism. He took a deep breath of melancholy, of humility.

  Paul was always restless before a debut, but this final evening of the Festival was especially nerve-wracking. He had tinkered with the scores until beyond the last minute.

  The first two pieces went well, although he could have shot the cellist in the fourth movement. Then she did recover quickly. The last sonata, “The Marten and The Porcupine,” of course was for Eleanor.

  At intermission he watched her chatting with friends. He kept a distance, from everyone, too bottled up for conversation.

  As lights went out for the last sonata, he watched Eleanor take her seat in the front row next to Magistrate Avery.

  The pianist began.

  He closed his eyes to concentrate, but found himself thinking about the long summer nights ahead in South Dakota, those fiery sunsets and Muriel’s email on Thursday saying sure, she’d be happy to take a trip—no strings—to their old trails in the Black Hills.

  Paul tuned into the closing oboe solo, delighted by the flawless delivery.

  The tent exploded in applause. Startled by such clamour, he froze in place.

  “A standing ovation!” the artistic director whispered to him.

  He nodded numbly.

  As house lights went up, the director nudged him forward.

  Paul shuffled on stage for a bow.

  Peering out, he nodded to each of his composer friends, thankful for their stimulation and comraderie.

  Maestro Thaddeus clapped his hands above his head. “Bravo! Bravo!”

  Avery was waving his cane, grinning.

  Finally, he looked at Eleanor.

  She smiled as she threw a small bouquet at his feet.

  He thought she looked a little tired, tense, but that was probably his imagination.

  He bowed deeply to the audience. Then, extending his arm, he turned their applause back to the musicians.


  Until Spring

  Dad stood by the glass doors staring out at the snow. His kind, furrowed face was pensive, and I guessed he was searching after the four deer he had sighted earlier.

  I landed thirty-two hours after the accident. Robert made it in eighteen, but it’s easier for my brother to get to St. Paul from LAX than for me to make connections from Burlington, Vermont. Mom was back home by the time I arrived, her leg in a cast and her left hand gingerly holding an ice pack against her head now and then. The bump on her skull looked like a goose egg amid a nest of grey curls. She couldn’t quite believe the swelling or the fact that she had been unconscious for two hours. Couldn’t believe that a veteran driver of Minnesota winter roads had skidded into a sixty-foot oak tree, totalled her new SUV and almost killed herself. During the early morning, her best time of day. The woman who never wanted to make a fuss had scared the wits out of her little family.

  Reverence was an unusual mood for us. It felt like a wake, but no one was dead. Or a resurrection service months before Easter. As we huddled in the warm living room away from tundra winds, we were all dazed by the accident, stunned by Mom’s survival. I bit into a cookie: store-bought chocolate chips Dad had set out on the coffee table. The taste upset me unaccountably. Our family never bought packaged cookies. Mom was a State Fair winning baker. It was so rare these days for the whole family to get together than when we did, the coffee table was piled high with homemade bread, large plates of cheese, fruit, olives, gerkins. Maybe a little too much wine since Dad had joined that Sonoma Chardonnay Club. Today the entire spread was a sad dish of cookies. No one else had touched them.

  Mom was telling Robert about the accident for the fourth time since I arrived.

  Standing in front of the unlit logs in the fireplace, I nibbled, then put the half-eaten cookie on a paper napkin. I walked over to Dad, draping my arm around his bony shoulder.

  “Hi there, Karen,” he smiled thinly, then continued peering out.

  These last two days must have been hell. Worse, in some ways, for him, than for Mom. He looked so handsome and healthy, the afternoon light sharpening his ruddy cheeks, dark hair. Retirement suited him.

  We were, in many ways, a fortunate family. Most of the big battles were over. All Mom and Dad seemed to demand now were grandchildren. However, at 30, I was just starting my medical practice. Robert was gay. After operatic scenes, then long, earnest talks, our parents had finally accepted Robert’s partner into the family. Now they were pressuring him to adopt.

  Dad looped his arm around my back, then returned to the scene outside our glass door.

  This was the first time I noticed it, sun gleaming on the caramel wing tips and the darker inside feathers, tail sticking up in the air, head buried beneath the snow.

  “Gorgeous,” I said.

  “Yes,” he murmured, nodded, stared more closely.

  From behind us, I could sense my brother’s frustrated patience as he listened again to Mom’s detailed story.

  “What do you think—a hawk?” I whispered to Dad.

  “Yes, an adolescent hawk,” he said sadly. “Must have hit the glass. But he didn’t leave a mark.” Dad raised his hand to the clean pane. How dry and mottled his fingers looked—I hated the aridness of Minnesota winters. Mom used to exclaim about his beautiful hands, those piano fingers.

  “It looks like a painting, a sculpture,” I noted, wondering at our furtiveness.

  “I thought about going out and moving it, burying it or something,” Dad mused, “but the snow is so pure. I didn’t want to leave boot tracks.”

  “Right,” I nodded. “This is fine. A decent resting-place. Besides, it’s so beautiful, like a work of art.”

  Mom’s voice from across the room. “Are you talking about the bird?”

  We each turned to her.

  “The bird in the snow?”

  I shook myself from a reverie of gratitude for the recovery of this plump, gregarious, sixty-five year old woman who had been the centre of each of our lives. “Yes, Mom, the bird.”

  She rose with one crutch and, leaning on my brother, hobbled toward us, stopping three feet back from the glass. “No sense getting a chill,” she said. “Can you see it, Robby?”

  He nodded, straining for a closer view, but was held back by supporting Mom.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked anxiously. “An owl?”

  Stupidly hurt by her question to him—for Dad and I had always been the birders—I began, “No, Mom, it’s a hawk …”

  Robert confirmed, “Owls don’t have tails like that.”

  I peered out toward the end of the garden for the deer. It was one of those brilliantly sunny sub-zero February days when the snow squeaked beneath your feet as you walked. Never got quite this dry-ice cold in Vermont and I was filled with a longing for the home and family, which surrounded me.

  “We’ll leave her that way until Spring,” Mom said gently. “Or until nature claims her in some other way.”

  All of us watched silently by the glass door. I don’t know what the others saw, but I noticed the naked gingko, a tall, thin maple and the browning lips of a juniper bush down by the stone bench. My gaze continued all the way to the frozen lake across the road. I looked everywhere, yet couldn’t spot the deer.

  Fire at the Farm

  Prill glances thoughtfully at the dusky leaves of her sturdy tree. This year, she resolves, she’ll pick the olives, preserve them in pungent brine. Already she can taste the chewy flesh, lush with garlic and salty oil. Grandpa always said olives were the best defence against disease, that they infuse you with a taste for the good life.

  Her family has lived the good life in their farmhouse for over a century. She tries to maintain tradition in a shifting world. This is hard when the world growing up and around your home is in San Francisco. She loves looking out at the ancient olive tree which Great Grandpa Leo brought from Abruzzi.

  Prill continues working on the wool and silk tapestry, the last in her series for next month’s exhibit. She’s had to postpone the opening twice because of that dreadful real estate ordeal three months ago. Daily, now, she resolves to forget the pointless, tragic violence. All that is over, she ruminates as she checks the tree again and carries on weaving, finito. Green silk swims nimbly through the creamy wool. No agricops at the border when Leo arrived; he brought slips and clippings and seeds to San Francisco where he intended to be a cowboy farmer in that Mediterranean climate on the other side of the world. Leo knew what he wanted and got it—a family prerogative passed down in the best sense to Prill. Over the generations, his farm was divided again and again until she inherited the farmhouse on a small plot. Her favourite cousin, Fred, got the adjacent lot, with the olive tree.

  Prill lives simply, her days not unmarked by joy or grief. Joy in the person of her son Tony, a dark, handsome young man who dredged up all the Italian genes from his father and her great grandparents. Prill’s side of the family developed a penchant for marrying Anglos, which is how she became blond, blue-eyed and named Priscilla. Prill, she claimed in the sixth grade. Prill Donatello, when she married the son of Milano immigrants. Joy in her son’s frequent company. Grief in her husband’s sudden death.

  Dear, dear Silvio—she had begged him to slow down. Grateful as she was for the furnishings that his canny investments installed at their increasingly elegant “heritage house”, she urged Silvio toward healthier, less stressful habits. He’d laugh, “If I sat at a loom all day like you, I’d die of boredom in a week.” The massive coronary took him in twenty-four hours.

  Tonight is unusually hot for June and she savours the faint breeze flowing between the east and west windows. She’s set the Goldberg Variations CD at a soft volume, so as not to disturb the neighbours. She might live in a landmark farmhouse that survived the Earthquake and Fire, but she has no illusions of invulnerability or wide-open spaces. She’s lucky with her neighbours—most of them—who also tend their gardens, hose down their sidewalks and keep the musi
c low.

  This front room is perfect for work, really. Prill has become even more thankful for her ancestral haven since Silvio’s death; it’s as if the house embraces her, holds her steady.

  She was just surfacing from paralytic mourning when Cousin Fred lost his mind.

  “Why Freddie, why do you want to sell to that voracious realtor? You know he works with developers and they’ll want to build condos, using up every inch of ground. They’ll want to chop down Grandpa Leo’s tree.” They sat across from one another in her living room drinking strong black coffee.

  “Prill, dear, I have five college tuitions to pay. I need to make a profit.” His familiar voice was both patient and ironic.

  “But you could sell the place to that pleasant couple from Hayward. They adore the tree.” She sat back in her mother’s green armchair.

  “You’re an artist, Prill. Silvio would understand. In business you take the best bid.” He spoke louder now and averted his gaze.

  “Profit,” she sputtered. “How about fairness, civility, family loyalty?”

  “Listen, honey, Grandpa Leo has been dead for a long time. And he would let go of the tree. He was a man of adventure, of progress.”

  “Progress!” She was going to start yelling in a minute, yelling at Fred who had been like a brother when she was growing up.

  During the next month, she struggled toward compromise. Maybe she could borrow the $5,000 and pay Fred the difference. The bank officers didn’t understand. Then she decided that a good gardener could move the tree to her small lot. One month and four gardeners later, she accepted that the olive tree was too old to be transplanted.

  Something turned in her. Maybe all this came too soon after Silvio’s heart attack. With raging powerlessness, she had witnessed his strength ebbing hour after hour in the ICU. Or maybe the root of her tenacity was simpler to locate. She had watched the tree through each season of her life; she couldn’t imagine continuing without it.

  Private, diffident Prill found herself going door to door with a neighbourhood petition to preserve their family olive tree. Aunt Winnie admonished that this campaigning looked unseemly, so soon after Silvio’s death.