When the symphony orchestra collapsed in ruin after years spent floating, half-dead near bankruptcy, all the musicians were thrown out of work. At that time nearly everyone was out of work anyway—many of them discovered soup-kitchens and soon found employment at menial tasks. A few—the lucky or the talented, but mostly those with both luck and talent—found other musical work well below stevedore's wages.
Jurgen had tremendous talent but no luck, yet he could not imagine any other life than being a violist. He would not look for non-musical work—everything was unsuitable, and certainly unattractive. He took the little savings he had and went West thinking to find a place less crowded with hungry musicians. Rather than spend his money on transportation he settled on a romantic adventure: he made friends around the freight yards and rode the rails west until he arrived on the outskirts of a comfortably large city with a clean look—and there he decided to make his home. The city was familiar to him, as a professional musician: it boasted a fine orchestra whose conductor, one Laurence Lamonte, frequently found shockingly intimate details of his flamboyant life splashed across the pages of the tabloids.
In River Street, on the wrong side of the tracks, after hours spent walking from the fashionable districts gradually down the economic ladder into a grimy, dilapidated neighborhood, Jurgen found the Charleston Residence Hotel. Brownstone, four stories tall, it had two windows boarded up on the third floor and unmistakable blackened marks from a conflagration that had never been cleaned away. There was a sign in the window advertising a weekly fee he thought he could manage—if the sign was not out of date. It was yellow, curling at the edges, and could hardly be read behind a smudged window laced with years of accumulated cobwebs. It did not seem like a wholesome place—but the price was right so he walked into the tiny lobby.
"Have you any rooms?" he asked. He had his viola case tucked under one arm and his cracked leather valise dangling from the other hand.
A short, bearded and balding man in a brown, pinstriped suit that might once have been new, stood at the front desk. The stub of a stale cigar not two inches long was stuffed between his lips. He cupped a hairy hand to his ear.
"I asked," Jurgen stated in a much louder voice, "whether you have a room to let."
"Yeah, we got a lot of rooms." The man grinned. "How many you want?"
"One will be sufficient, thank you." Jurgen carefully laid out one week's rent on the counter. "This is a week in advance." The man cupped his hand to his ear, and Jurgen was compelled to repeat himself loudly.
The man swept the money away—into a vest pocket—and handed his new resident a rusty key attached to a length of twine. Scrawled on a paper tag attached to the twine were numbers: a three, separated by a dash from the number thirteen.
"By the way," Jurgen inquired loudly, leaning forward, "you don't mind if I PRACTICE the VIOLA during the DAY?"
"Violin?" the man yelled back, with a dismissing wave. "Just so I don't get no complaints, you do what you want."
Relieved at last to be in some lodging—his last few nights had been spent in damp freight cars, cowering with one or another group of indigents—Jurgen ascended the stairs quietly to the third floor. Room thirteen was the last door on the right at the front of the building. He opened the door after some fumbling with the key. His room proved to be the one with boards on the windows. Only one window, on the left, was not boarded. The inside had been freshly painted, with white paint. The floor was painted a deep gray and partly covered with a threadbare carpet patterned mostly in shades of brown.
Jurgen fumbled for the light switch and pushed it with a loud click. A single bulb glowed dimly, suspended from a long wire in the center of the room. He thought that was par for the course. At these rates, he could not have expected much more. Setting down his valise, he thought he would be in better lodgings uptown, as soon as he found work. He laid his viola case reverently across the raw, wooden arms of the room's single chair. In the far left corner was a single bed. It had no sheets, but a few worn blankets folded neatly at the foot of the mattress. Along the opposite wall stood a sink with a cracked mirror hanging above it, a flush toilet with a broken ceramic handle, and a closet door—again with a broken handle. No towels. Putting his valise upon the bed, Jurgen went back down the stairs to see about sheets and towels.
"This is a residence hotel," the proprietor told him, pushing back the few hairs on his head with one hand. "Sheets in the hall closet at the far end—towels too. Maid comes once a week. Toss your sheets and towels down the chute on Tuesday morning. Don't use too many."
"Thank you," Jurgen replied, making a sincere effort at politeness. He went back up and got a set of sheets and a towel, then made his bed.
Afterwards, he sat on the edge of the bed and opened his valise. It contained underwear, a well-used black suit with tails, a silk shirt, a silk hat, soap and shaving kit, and sheaf after sheaf of printed music. Everything else he had sold as necessary; his cash was securely fastened around his waist in a money-belt. He wondered if there were a trustworthy bank in the neighborhood. Tomorrow, he decided, he would have to go look.
Jurgen surveyed the room carefully before turning in. On the back of the door a relatively new calendar was posted with two thumb tacks. It featured a blonde woman with exquisite, long legs and a coquettish smile—advertising a well-known brand of chewing tobacco. It was the fourteenth of November, he noted. Fifty-seven years ago to the day, his grandmother had arrived in New York harbor from Hungary, dragging two young children behind her—with less money in her pocket than he had. He pondered her memory for a moment—she had been his first musical mentor—then went to switch off the light. He laid down on the bed beneath fresh cotton sheets and listened to the far-off sounds of the city—automobiles and trains, mostly—until he fell asleep.
Early in the morning, just after sunrise, Jurgen practiced the viola quietly for an hour or so. He had no clock, but when he judged, by the sounds in the street that the time was past ten, he left the hotel with his viola case under his arm. He spent the day wandering from street-corner to street-corner in a nearby business district along the river-front and by late afternoon had earned enough money for two full meals. He played mostly Stephen Foster songs—everyone knew them and they never failed to bring smiles. Occasionally a nice old lady would stop, and blushing, ask whether he knew one or another of the favorite tunes of some prior season. As often as not, he had never heard of the tune, but when he did know it, he laid into the instrument with such vigor that they always left a good fistful of coins in his open case.
At a nearby hash-slinging café where the cook had anchors tattooed on both arms, Jurgen ate breakfast. The waitress wore silk stockings beneath a soiled uniform with pink and white stripes—and kept a pencil behind each ear, both of them dull with their ends chewed. Jurgen reflected with some amusement that his description could fit the people as well as the pencils.
The next several days passed in much the same manner. Each evening, rather than hastily becoming a regular at any one café, Jurgen preferred to try all of the nearby places in the hope of finding the most comfortable of the lot. On Thursday evening he saw a small sign he had never noticed before, though he had walked down the same street several times. Neatly lettered by hand in blue upon a white ground—it said simply "Calcutta", with a downward pointing arrow. Jurgen descended the dark stairwell, passed one steel door tightly closed with a padlock, and found the next door unlocked. The same name was painted on the door at eye level. He pushed it open and walked in, thinking he might have found a restaurant a bit more exotic than the typical run of cafés in the neighborhood. The lighting was dim, the decor dark and spare. The place was lined with booths near the door, but opened into a space taken over by a checkerboard tiled floor.
He could see there were only a few customers—not more than five or six people, all told. He looked around slowly, holding his viola case under one arm, the other hand laid across the top of it. He was the only white person in the establishment.
Nobody turned to look at him, but kept right on with what they were doing—drinking and smoking, talking quietly. It seemed comfortable enough—and he saw some things of interest at the far end of the room. There were four tables at that end, under dim spotlights.
Jurgen walked slowly past the booths toward the spotlights. A double bass sat on its side near the wall as if it were the subject of the spotlights' illumination—it might jump up and break into song any moment. An upright piano stood on the left, lurking warily in the shadows, its top opened like a gaping jaw. Jurgen knew this all meant music, and he made his way between the tables to sit at the one nearest the instruments. It was partially shadowed; an unlit candle stood in the middle of the round table—a square table-cloth in white and red checks draped haphazardly, held in place by the candle. Jurgen sat slowly on the nearest wooden chair, facing the music; it creaked when he put his weight on it. He set his viola case on the table and slid it over so he could rest his left elbow on it.
He felt something stir, and looked behind him. A young woman in a sleeveless sky-blue dress approached out of the shadows. Her hair was pulled back tightly against her head, white teeth gleamed in her dark face. She put one hand on the back of the nearest booth, and leaning upon it, spoke to him.
"What'll it be?" she asked with quiet confidence. Her chin rose when she finished asking, and she tilted her head to one side, smiling.
Jurgen gazed at her—she had a pretty face with a narrow chin and strikingly high cheekbones; her black eyes sparkled in the spotlight. He did not really feel like drinking anything intoxicating. "Something soft," he answered. "Something quite soft and preferably cool."
She nodded and shoved herself off gracefully, trailing one hand. Jurgen waited in silence, staring at the back wall. In a few moments, the musicians—three black men in baggy workmen's clothing—returned to the stage, gliding in stealthily, creeping from a door to one side. Without a word, they sat down and took up their instruments. The bass player heaved his double bass upright, then sat upon a high stool and plucked a few notes. The third man carried a clarinet, and standing in the center, whipped his fingers through a few scales without making any sound. They stole a few glances at each other—then broke simultaneously into a molten jazz number, hot as a blast furnace. Jurgen sat back slowly in his chair. The blazing tune crackled and sparked, then settled into a long, burning ember; he could feel the thin layer of ash building up around the coals until it gradually settled into a warm mound of slow heat.
The young woman appeared with a Coca-Cola in a tall glass—Jurgen only glanced at her when she set it down, and returned his attention to the musicians. She slid past his table and strode under the center spotlight—the clarinetist moved to one side without missing a note, nodding at her. She whirled around, snapped her fingers to pick up the slow beat—and launched into song, so softly at first, he was not sure she was singing.
Her voice soon rose in a solo, weaving in and out of the clarinet's melody. Flames rushed up to greet her voice—Jurgen felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck and across his scalp. She sang without words; low tones with all the plaintiveness of an English horn, blending into the ensemble; and at times her voice rose like a whispering flute and broke into autumn leaves, tumbling in a light breeze—the fire crackled behind her.
The splendor of it entranced Jurgen and he forgot his drink, putting both elbows on the table to watch the woman sing. Her voice was so rich, so well-trained and supple—he could have imagined her on the opera stage, singing mezzo-soprano.
The ensemble rushed to a climax that shattered like a glass against stone, and was silent. There were applause from the dark café behind. Jurgen could make out each individual in the audience—pitifully few customers to hear such a singer! He applauded firmly, with authority, and continued until the last clap had died behind him; three more decisive claps and he stopped.
The band played a few more numbers, standard blues fare and a popular show-tune or two—the young woman sang, standing perfectly still with her eyes closed, alone beneath a spotlight. She bowed at last, arms outstretched with a beautiful smile, and strode into the back. The musicians followed her out to take another break.
The pianist lagged behind, following the others to the door, then turned around and sat down at Jurgen's table, pulling his chair close. The man had a few days' growth of beard. He was completely bald—perhaps shaved, Jurgen decided—and his smile revealed one missing tooth and two silver teeth. When he spoke, his voice was deep and bubbly, like a slow pot of soup, simmering. "Don't get many o' yer kind here," he began.
Jurgen flushed suddenly and swallowed, feeling a sense of impending panic. He gaped momentarily, unable to think of a reply. Might it be prudent to withdraw?
The man sat back and laughed loudly, thrusting his thumbs into his belt. He thrust his head forward suddenly, grinning. "I mean—you play that fiddle or jes set yer elbow on it?"
Jurgen felt instantly relieved, and regained his composure. "Certainly I play it," he said, returning the man's smile with some hesitation.
"Maybe you'll play somethin' for me? Maybe I'll buy yer drink, too."
"Well—I—I've never played much—any—jazz," Jurgen said slowly. "Folk tunes, show-tunes—on rare occasions. I'm a symphony violist, by profession."
"Oh," the man answered, wrinkling his brow. "I see. Well, it don' have to be blue—jes wanna see what you got... If it ain't much trouble?"
"Alright." Jurgen pulled his viola case toward himself, and scooted his chair back to give himself some room. He opened the case, strummed the strings once to check the instrument's tuning—close enough, he decided. While he rosined his bow he tried to decide where he should start. He settled on a Hungarian folk tune his grandmother used to play for him. It had a homey, intimate quality; rather simple and easily manipulated. He readied himself and then poured his heart into playing that tune—he worked it around, swished it a few times, tried some variations, caught the fever, and finished off with a fast spiccato variation.
"Sounds like gypsy music," the man said when he had finished. "Hot blood."
Jurgen smiled. "My grandmother—was Hungarian."
"Say," the man said, laying his hand atop the viola case, "why don' you join us awhile? Play anything you like—jes name it. We know 'bout most anything." He stood up and thrust out his hand. "My name's Al," he concluded.
Jurgen clasped his hand. "Jurgen. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Al."
Al chuckled. "Nah, jes Plain Al. Come on over here..."
When the other musicians returned, the young woman—Al introduced her as Mabel—sat at the table Jurgen had vacated. He took one chair and joined the clarinetist under the spotlight.
"Do you know—uh..." Jurgen paused. "How about 'Nice Work if You Can Get It'?"
"Mmm. George & Ira...," the clarinetist intoned reverently with a wide grin. "Ever'body knows that one..."
They played a seething rendition that soon had Mabel on her feet, improvising alongside Jurgen. She stood facing him, doubling over to peer into his eyes, undulating while they ran on in imitative counterpoint, two fish in a creek spilling down a mountainside. The piano and clarinet stopped while they took the tune up on their own, turning it over, peeking into all the hidden motives, each musically entwined in the other. Mabel was breathless when they finished, and let Plain Al take a solo before leading them all back into the melody—Mabel broke into the last verse and belted it through the room. There were pitifully few customers to applaud.
The place was closing up, and Al sat with Jurgen and the other musicians around a table. They each coddled a tall Coca-Cola mixed with bourbon, and talked and talked, shooting answers and questions at each other like they were playing hot-potato. They were all semi-professional—none of them were paid for playing at Calcutta. Mabel and her brother ran the place, under the eye of a kindly landlord who never bothered them; he came in once or twice a month, sat through a few songs, and left. Mabel and her brother provided free food for anyone who wanted to play for the evening. Times being what they were, they could not afford to hire anyone to play—and had nothing else to draw any clientele. The musicians all held regular jobs, off and on—mostly off, they admitted—and Calcutta was like their own private paradise, where they were real musicians, where people came to hear them play. They were a comfortable bunch, wiling away their evenings with music, going home with full stomachs.
Jurgen felt exhausted—he had been up since dawn—and when he had finished his drink, begged to take his leave. He cradled his viola case under one arm. "I'm wondering, Al," he said as he stood up. "How this place came to be called 'Calcutta'?"
Al laughed. "That's Mabel's idea of jokin' I guess. Mabel, she reads a lot—got some fine schoolin' too." Jurgen did not comprehend immediately. Al flashed his silver teeth and leaned forward with wide, laughing eyes. "Black Hole o' Calcutta?"
Jurgen chuckled. "I think I understand. Good night, Al."
"Come on back soon, Yoorgin," Al replied. "Play some more with us."
"I'll do that." Jurgen put his hand to his head, then remembered he had no hat. He smiled and walked out.
Jurgen returned to his room long after midnight, turned on the single light, and sat upon the bed to look through his sheaf of music. He tossed the music aside after a few minutes and laid down to think back over the evening. It had been a long time since he had had as much fun—sheer enjoyment—as that evening with Plain Al and Mabel. She was remarkable—sophisticated and graceful—they had played together as if they knew each other intimately.
Something fluttered and fluttered against his eyelids—he opened his eyes and looked up. A moth had somehow got into the room, and fluttered around and around the lightbulb, casting shadows that flitted. Annoyed to be cast from his reverie, he took his towel and began flicking at the moth as it circled and circled. Something about the lightbulb caught his attention then—it was unusually shaped. He pulled the chair over beneath it and standing carefully on the chair, looked at the slowly swinging bulb before reaching out to grab the socket. Stamped upon the end of the bulb in rough, smeared letters were three words: Made in Hungary. He almost lost his balance for an instant, and jumped to the floor with a thump. There was an immediate answering thump from the room below, and Jurgen mentally apologized to his lower neighbor.
* * * * *
Two days later, on a Saturday evening, after what had become his accustomed daily rounds of playing on street-corners—Jurgen found himself again descending the stairs into Calcutta. The place was noisier than it had been before. There might have been thirty people inside. He found a seat at the booth closest to the spotlights—the open tables were full. A young waitress in a slinky white dress came over to serve him. He decided to have dinner there—a repayment to Mabel. The last time, he had only ordered one drink, and when he thought back over the evening, decided that he had in fact never paid for it or any of the drinks he had with Al and the others. At least he could give her some business by ordering dinner.
"Where's Mabel this evening?" he asked.
"Huh?" The waitress seemed confused. She let one knee bend, and ran a hand quickly along the strap of her dress.
"Oh," he stammered, "I thought Mabel would be here."
"Oh, she's here," the waitress said, puzzled. "She don' work tables though." She leaned on the table with one hand. "Can I get you something to drink first?"
"I'll have a Coca-Cola."
The waitress left and came back with his drink. She set it lightly on the table, with a battered cork coaster beneath, and slid it in front of him. He ordered a few side dishes—words spilling willy-nilly from his mouth while he glanced over the menu. He was uncertain how much he should order and ended up ordering far too much food to eat alone—but he felt that he really owed Mabel something. Plain Al showed up later; Jurgen walked over to say hello, and to thank him for so kindly allowing him to play the other evening. Remembering that he had plates of untouched food, he invited Al over to his table. They ate together and talked about the late George Gershwin.
"Pity how he passed away so suddenly, ain't it?" Al observed quietly.
"I'm sure he'll be counted among the greatest," Jurgen replied.
Jurgen joined the band and they spent the rest of the evening working over tunes they all knew. Mabel came out and sang with them, and they rounded out the evening with a few long numbers just for the enjoyment of listening to each other. The crowd seemed more appreciative than it had been before—Jurgen believed that anything would have been an improvement. There were simply more people present, so he felt they were more appreciative, but he guessed it was all part of the same thing they heard every Saturday night in Calcutta. There were a couple of other musicians—a hot young sax player with a large belly and a low-hung belt that barely held up a pair of wool pants with worn knees. There was a wrinkled old man, half blind, who played blues with his beat-up guitar—he had a hole the size of a silver dollar in one shoe and he wore no socks. It was far from the symphony, but Jurgen thoroughly enjoyed his second evening in Calcutta.
* * * * *
Dropping into the Calcutta to play the evening away quickly became a pleasant habit over the next few weeks. Jurgen came to consider his previous life as having been sheltered from some of the finest home-spun music he had ever heard, and he decided there was much to be learned here. Whether they worked in factories or restaurants, or tended stores in the neighborhood, the people who congregated around Mabel all seemed to have one thing in common: concentrated musical talent. They were all masters of jazz melody. He looked forward to his regular visits—an especially welcome diversion after playing all day in the cold, hanging around employment lines looking for symphony work. The pennies he earned during the day mostly ended up in Mabel's coffers—where Jurgen thought they should be. His own savings began to dwindle. He increased the hours he spent searching for good employment.
It seemed to Jurgen that every time he descended the dark stairwell to Calcutta and opened the door, there were more customers than had been there the last time. On the last Saturday night before Christmas—it was Christmas Eve, in fact—Jurgen arrived, thinking he would have dinner there. He threw open the door and found the whole café crowded far beyond capacity. Every booth was full, and there were two new tables plunked down in the corner nearest the spotlights. Every table had an extra person or two squeezed in. The place was like a morning train, but the atmosphere of celebration swirled through the room with the blue haze of cigarette smoke. Jurgen went slowly forward toward the lights—but could not find a seat anywhere. The musicians were out on a break, so the customers all talked among themselves, laughing and cheering. He was about to ask someone at one of the tables if they would mind him crowding in to watch, but Al spotted him from the back doorway.
"Yoorgin! Come in back a while," he yelled, flailing his arm.
Jurgen waved back and pushed his way between the tables. "Excuse me. I'm very sorry," he said as he squeezed through, carrying his viola case over his head with both hands. He made it to the door, and Al pulled him into the back.
"Here, have a glass of bourbon," Al said with his silver-toothed grin. "Christmas Eve's time for a little celebratin'!"
Al brought another rickety wooden chair over to a small table where the musicians were gathered. Seated on one side was Mabel, dressed in a fine long gown that sparkled with red sequins, her hair tied up in a bright green turban; long dangling earrings. She was the picture of Christmas, with a tipsy smile. A chef and two young men in soiled aprons worked the kitchen stove and oven, clanking pans and mixing bowls at the far end of the room; the lights were bright.
"Jurgen," Mabel said as he sat down, "I was hoping you'd be here this evening. I have something for you." She slid her hand into the bosom of her low-cut gown, sending a ripple of laughter among the musicians. "It's a Christmas present," she whispered, fishing deeper and deeper—her shoulders wiggled in mirth. "If I can find it..." She drove her hand deeper to keep them all laughing.
Jurgen pulled his chair closer and held his viola case upright between his legs. Al pushed a tumbler of bourbon in front of him—and Mabel slapped five dollars onto the table with both hands. "Now you go on and take this," she insisted. "Ever since you showed up here, business has been getting better and better. I want you to know how much we appreciate it."
Jurgen looked at the bill—it was a crisp, fresh five-dollar note that had been folded, only once, in quarters. "Thank you, Mabel," Jurgen said, then paused to fumble with his glass. He did not touch the bill, but left it sitting on the table in front of him. "I'm speechless." Everyone laughed.
"Now you just sit here a while with me," she continued. "The rest of you go on out and play for a while. I want to talk to Mr. Jurgen in private." A low murmuring sound swept them, and they backed away. When Jurgen and Mabel were alone, she raised her glass. "Here's to good business," she said.
"To good business," Jurgen replied, raising his own glass and clinking it delicately against hers. "And a Merry Christmas to all..."
"Now that," Mabel said, "is what I wanted to talk about." She spoke quickly, with clarity—as if she had a speech memorized, and was delivering it for an audience. She punctuated her sentences with wispy motions of her long-nailed fingers. "I've been wondering to myself just what kind of man you are. And I've concluded that you're a pretty poor man." When Jurgen's smile suddenly dripped away she stopped and closed her eyes theatrically. "Oh, that was unfortunately phrased. I mean... you're not a wealthy man."
Jurgen sat up straight, and Mabel laughed—then set her glass down on the table. "It takes no Sherlock Holmes," she continued, "to see that. Why, you've been in here nearly every evening coming on six weeks—and in all that time, I don't believe I've seen you in any clothes but the rags you have on now. You must wash 'em, cause you don't smell like my grandpa's barnyard—but I'd guess you don't have any other clothes."
Jurgen felt himself redden, and looked down, swirling the bourbon in his glass until it ran up along the edge, almost flowing over the rim. He should have packed a much larger wardrobe, and left most of his music behind.
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"Al once told me you read voraciously."
Mabel tossed her head and laughed. "Not in those words, I expect. But he's right. And Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorites."
"Well," he answered slowly, "I must admit I'm rather between full-time engagements at this time...and my wardrobe is minimal at the moment... I do own a suit, and a top hat..."
"So I've been asking myself," she interrupted, "how you live, and where you live. I've seen you on street-corners a few times, too. Maybe that's all you do—play your viola—I know well enough it's not just a 'fiddle'. So, where are you living now?" She hung her wrist limply. "Are you on the street?"
"I'm presently lodging at the Charleston."
"Hew!" she exclaimed, waving her fingers. "That place? Nobody of any worth lives at the Charleston. It's full of winos and whores."
"It's inexpensive," Jurgen replied. "The decor leaves much to be desired. But I'm afraid that I'll have to be moving along to even cheaper lodgings by the new year."
"That bad?"
Jurgen nodded. He could probably hold out for another month or two, but by then, he would have to close his new bank account.
"Well," she continued, "the Charleston is bad enough. I just won't stand for one of my friends hanging his hat in a place like that, or worse. Do you need a place to stay?"
He knew she was sincere, but the situation felt uncomfortably close to charity. His grandmother had always warned against even seeming to be in need of charity—let alone actually needing help. "Really, Mabel, I couldn't presume to burden you with..."
"Now, stop it Jurgen," she said with a shake of her head. She scooted her hips forward, cupping both hands around her bourbon carefully as if she were settling in for a serious talk. "Business here has never been better—and I think you've had a lot to do with that. You bring a new sound, and people are paying to hear it, and drink a few, and they're eating food, too... My friend Dotty, just the other day said to me..." Mabel pressed her hand to her breast and forced her voice to a higher pitch, "Mabel, honey, I hear deyz a strange waat boy down at Calcutta—plays jazz on de fiddle."
Jurgen laughed at her feigned accent.
Mabel let her voice drop to its normal pitch. "Are you looking for regular work?"
"Nothing seems to be available in my line."
"Listen. First thing, we have to get you out of the Charleston. Now, my brother's got an extra room—and he's already said he'll put you up, cause I've asked him—any friend of his sister is always welcome. So that leaves work."
"I really could not allow you to do that..."
"Well, hear me out, first, before you say that," she answered. "I'm not half finished."
Jurgen put up a hand to acquiesce. "I'll hear you out."
"My old friend Dotty," she began. "We went to school together you understand—when we were children, anyway. Now, Dotty works for Miss Edna. And Miss Edna thinks the world of her because she's so neat and organized. Miss Edna herself is a flighty thing—she can hardly paint her own lips with both hands."
Jurgen laughed, then bent forward and cupped his glass the way Mabel cupped hers, rolling it between his palms. Mabel had such a way of expressing herself.
"Now Edna's lover-boy is a man named Lamonte. I don't know what he sees in Edna—to look at her you wouldn't think she can do anything right." She winked. "Miss Edna's got something softer than brains; and it's not in her head."
Only the first part of what she said really caught his attention. "You're speaking of Laurence Lamonte, the conductor?" He took a quick sip of bourbon and rolled the glass again between his palms, wondering where she was leading; almost seeing it.
"That's the man," Mabel replied with a firm nod of her head. "With a little help from Edna—getting Lamonte in to hear you play—you'll have something decent in no time." She sipped her bourbon slowly, regarding him. "It won't be difficult."
"Why not?"
"Oh," she replied, moving closer with narrowed eyes. "I know his secret—Dotty told me. Our Mr. Lamonte enjoys slipping off discretely on occasion to hear some... jazz..." Putting both palms on the table, she whispered. "The way I sometimes slip off to sing... Schubert."
Jurgen laughed and sat back in his chair. "Schubert." He did not feel particularly surprised; she probably sang all of Schubert's lieder beautifully. She sat regarding him with a half-smile, and appeared to be finished with her speech. He thoughtfully tapped on his glass a few times, mulling over the proposal, gazing at his fingers. Finally, he looked up to meet her eyes. "You know just what to say."
Mabel smiled and reached out to pat his hand. "Be here tomorrow," she replied, "with your luggage, and I'll take you to meet my brother." She raised her glass, and met his in the middle of the table with the lightest of taps.
He sipped. "I couldn't have asked for a nicer Christmas."
"I could say the same about you." She sipped once, then slapped her glass down and stood up, adjusting her sequined gown around her hips, then leaned over confidently. "I'll soon have you joining my secret musical soirées, too." She pointed at the table. "Now, don't forget your five dollars. Let's go make some Christmas music." Jurgen slipped the bill into his shirt pocket, then followed her out the door and into the spotlights.
* * * * *
On Christmas Day at eleven, Jurgen checked out of the Charleston Residence Hotel. Packing took only a few minutes, as he had little in the way of possessions. When he finished packing, he switched off the light and set his valise and viola case down outside the door. Leaving the door open, he went back into the room and, holding a hand kerchief in his palm, stood on the chair to carefully unscrew the hot bulb from its socket. He closed the door behind him, then crouched in the hallway and put the Hungarian lightbulb into his valise, carefully wrapped inside his silk shirt.
It was several nights before Christmas, and all along the freeway, cars were lined up like a vast herd of red-nosed reindeer being led off to slaughter. I glanced away from the sight and reached out to snap off the radio. I'd had far too much of the Messiah since Thanksgiving. You'd think a respectable classical station could think of something more original to saturate the airwaves with. But I knew that even if I changed the station, I'd get White Christmas, or Blue Christmas, or Dixie Christmas, or some other form of musical blasphemy. Traffic moved along sluggishly, inching up a long, curving hill. It was raining heavily—one of those sudden tropical storms, only it was happening in a refrigerator. I had the windshield wipers on full, but still I could hardly see the vehicle in front of me.
Along with every other irate father, uncle, brother, and son who was late for some engagement or another, I was in the fast lane. I had gotten caught in a last-minute sales meeting, and I was going to be late for my daughter's concert if the idiot in front of me didn't hurry up. The offending car was a Jeep, jacked up on all fours with tires big enough to dwarf a road-grader, and had struts and shock absorbers and what-not sticking out all over the undercarriage—a real useful piece of machinery for navigating the treacherous Silicon Valley freeways: when you see a car you don't like, you just roll right over it. The Jeep had one of those typical California vanity plates, held in place by a brass frame which, had I been able to read it in the dark, would have said "My other truck is a Mack." The driver was pumping on his brakes continually, no doubt keeping time to some Country Christmas Hit Classic. Lounging on top of this pinnacle of western automotive engineering was a Christmas tree, lashed with a couple pieces of thin twine—probably on its way to a living room hung with paintings of nudes on black velvet, and soon to be littered with tacky country decorations and strings of popcorn. The tree listed to one side, bobbing over the edge of the Jeep's roof in time with the blinking brake lights. The driver's girlfriend was smooching up to him in the front seat—I could see her outline through the back window, practically sitting in his lap... maybe she _was_ in his lap. I started thinking they probably deserved to lose the whole tree. They'd have a real nice surprise when they got home without it.
I reached over to turn on the radio again, thinking the hourly excerpt from the Messiah might be over by then. I should have brought a tape from home, but I'd barely had time to change my suit. Just when my eyes were averted for an instant, the Christmas-tree bedecked vehicle in front of me decided to drop its load. I felt my car go bump, bump, and slammed on my brakes before I even looked up. The car behind me skidded and swerved to one side, then leaned on his horn as if he'd run into an iceberg. I just hit the emergency lights and leaned on my own horn. The guy in front, perhaps hearing the tooting chorus behind him, stopped just down the road, and like an idiot, put his Jeep into reverse and came hurtling back toward me. He skidded to a stop and put on his emergency lights.
What kind of jerk ties down a Christmas tree so loosely that it flops off in the middle of a freeway? We were only doing twenty miles an hour—in the rain, no less. I thought I would have to get out and check the extent of the damage, and I wasn't happy about slogging in the rain with my dress shoes on. Hallelujah, the jerk stopped, anyway, so I could at least get the name of his insurance company—I'd already memorized his personal license number (which doesn't bear repeating—I'd always thought the DMV had standards of decency).
I hopped out, trying to pull up the collar of my overcoat even though it wouldn't quite cover my head, and started walking forward to have a few choice words with Mister Country Jamboree in the over-endowed automobile. Of course, CJ (as I then dubbed the driver) bounded out of the Jeep and headed my way, tucking in his shirt as he walked. One look at him, and I almost turned around and left—CJ could have been Paul Bunyan's twin brother. He had the shirt to prove it, too: red and black lumberjack style checks, with the top three buttons undone, and chest hair that was thicker than my beard. He also wore cowboy boots and wide red suspenders.
"Holy moley, mister!" he yelled with a tone of real concern. "You alright?"
I was about to lay into him when his gum-chewing girlfriend appeared from behind, tucking herself into his armpit. "Oh!" she squealed, "Ah'm so sorry! Looks like our tree smashed up your brand new car!"
My car wasn't exactly brand new, but I looked around to where she pointed. Sure enough, the front grill was bent in and one headlight had gone out, the glass completely smashed. The tree itself was nestled cozily under the car, nuzzling up against the oil pan.
The look of childish helplessness on both their faces—and frankly what I considered might be a moderate dose of dull wittedness—somehow got to me just then, and I couldn't quite bring myself to swear at them. Besides, the fastest thing to do would be to shrug it off with a happy face, extract their battered shrubbery from beneath my car, and be on my way. I decided that silliness would carry the day. "Merry Christmas!" I called, throwing out my arms. "Sorry about your tree!" Both of them lit up in grins.
"Look—he ain't even mad," the guy said to his girlfriend.
She batted her lashes in astonishment. "We're awfully sorry about this," she chimed, wagging her head.
It only took a minute to get the tree out from under the car. All the while, I was thinking of how to explain it to the patrolman who would undoubtedly appear in a moment: it's just another roadkill, officer, nothing to be alarmed about; I'm sure it happens all the time, what with all these trees swooping down on unsuspecting holiday merrymakers.
The tree was pretty battered up around the lower branches, but it really could have sufficed to cheer someone's holiday—if one cut off a couple feet from the bottom and turned the bad side toward the wall so it couldn't be seen. You only decorate half the tree anyway, right? I started trying to explain this to my countrified acquaintances, but they would have none of it.
"Look, mister," CJ drawled, propping up the tree with one hand. "We busted out yer headlight. Hell, the least I can do is give ya the tree."
The woman tilted her head and shot out a hand to touch my arm. She had a horrified look in her wide eyes that I could see even through her dripping mascara. "You ain't already got one do ya, mister?"
I glanced at my watch and tried to weasel out of it. I'd already nixed the idea of a Christmas tree—told my family (meaning my daughter, Jenny) we weren't having one that year, and that was final. They just shed all over the carpets and had to be tossed out at precisely the right moment in January or the city garbage folks wouldn't pick them up. We'd had a tree one year that sat around well into February because we missed the magic pick-up date. I finally chopped it into little bits and threw it out a piece at a time over the next six weeks. I had no use whatever for a Christmas tree.
In the end, I didn't want to argue with them—it was cold, exceedingly wet, and I was already going to be late for the concert. So CJ helped me load the mortally wounded conifer into my trunk. We groped around for the twine, but couldn't find it, so he battened down the lid with his girlfriend's belt. She had high-tailed it back into the Jeep to wait for him out of the rain. He whispered into my ear while he cinched up the belt. "She don't really need her belt," he said. "I'd have it off her in another couple o' miles anyways." He gave me a wink and wished me a Merry Christmas.
By the time I arrived at the hall, the concert had long since begun and it was almost intermission. I detest arriving late for these things, and I had to wait around the lobby until the first part was over. I was thankful I'd not been any later. Jenny would have been sorely disappointed if I'd missed her big debut: about twenty minutes from the time I arrived in the lobby, she was scheduled to begin her first public performance as a featured soloist—playing "Harold in Italy". If you don't know it, it's a fine piece of music, but it's not in the frequently-performed repertoire, because it's sort of a half-fledged concerto for viola. Not the violin or the cello—the viola: underdog of all orchestral instruments.
My daughter Jenny wasn't always a violist. We started her out right on the violin—something I considered a respectable instrument for a young lady. My ex-wife and I had faint hopes that someday she'd be a concert violinist—Jenny was that good from the time she picked up her first quarter-sized fiddle. We spent a fortune on expensive teachers, and as soon as she was ready, we started her on the long track: youth symphony. But just after her fourteenth birthday, something happened to her brain. I don't mean a pre-mature stroke or some kind of lesion. She came home one day with this hideous dreamy look in her eyes, and she puttered around the kitchen nervously helping me cook. She wasn't talking very much.
I didn't want to probe, figuring she'd tell me what was on her mind when she was ready. "I have to go to Milan next month," I said, trying to be cheerful.
She was tearing lettuce leaves into microscopic fragments, and she looked up. "Will you see Grandma?"
Jenny meant my mother—fountainhead of all family quirks. As a bright-eyed Italian girl of seventeen she married her American sweetheart and came to the States. It turned out to be a terrible marriage, and years later, after dutifully raising four kids, she divorced my father, American style, and went home to the Old Country. Jenny had only met her a few times, but when they did meet you couldn't pry them apart.
"Uh-huh. I thought I might take you along, if you can stand it," I teased. I pulled the salad bowl away from her and tossed in the tomato I had been cutting. "We'll leave the day before spring-break."
She brightened a bit at that, and with a very limp wrist, laid a whole leaf of lettuce on top of the chopped tomato. "Can we stop in Vienna?"
"Oh, I don't know, Jenny... Maybe for a day or two."
She put on a weak smile. "Can we go to the opera?" she asked softly. Jenny's enthusiasm for opera was phenomenal. She must have inherited that from my mother, too—I always thought half the reason she went back to Milan was because they did too many German operas in San Francisco.
"Only if you can drag Grandma along." I picked up the salad and two bowls, then waltzed away toward the dining room.
Over dinner she made her momentous announcement. I had just put a big bite of steak into my mouth and was chewing thoughtfully. I even recall we were listening to something by Prokofiev.
"Daddy, I'm going to switch," she said quickly with an air of non-chalance.
I paused, finished chewing, and then fell right into the pit. "That's fine, honey..." Another pause. She wasn't looking right at me, and I leaned over to try to catch her eye. "You're going to switch what?"
She stabbed at her steak, fork delicately held in her left hand just like we'd taught her all her life. "To viola." She slid a small piece of steak into her mouth and started chewing.
I gagged, and put down my fork, but she kept on chattering with her mouth full, trying to convince me before I could even voice the beginning of an objection. Finally she appealed to my conceit. "You want me to be a great musician, right Daddy?"
I tried to agree that had been our hope, but I was still trying to catch my breath.
"Well, I'm sitting third-desk right now. Do you know what that _means_?" she whined. "I'll never get anywhere in a concert career. You have to sit first-desk—or be the concert mistress."
I coughed a couple more times. "But you're doing fine," I insisted. "You're the best."
She gave me her old half-frown, pulling down one side of her mouth and screwing up her eyes, then rolling them away toward the ceiling. "Daddy," she said, "I'm not the best. Mary is the best." She pushed another piece of steak onto her fork. "I'm sitting third desk with Deadpan Wang." She got that dreamy look again, and balanced her fork on two fingers. "But if I switch to viola—they're always in greater demand you know, because fewer people play viola, Daddy—I could be sitting first desk."
"Look," I told her, "you've already won a couple of competitions, are you going to throw all that effort away, and take up... the _viola_?" I actually gulped.
"_You_ might call it winning," she shot back, "but I've never taken better than second place."
"What about the cello?"
"Daddy," she whined again, putting down her knife and picking up her milk. "The technique is too different—you should have started me on cello ten years ago."
"Does your mother know about this?"
She twirled her fork among her green beans and wouldn't meet my eyes. "No." She looked up with knotted eyebrows. "She doesn't care."
"Jenny, she does too..." I let that trail off lamely and we ate in silence for a while.
Now, I had nothing particular against the viola, as an instrument. Frankly speaking, I've known a couple of violists pretty intimately—and I've always found violists to be warm and tender people. Much less high-strung, so to speak, than violinists. Not quite as passionate as cellists. But I would hardly have considered the viola to be a prestigious solo instrument. How many famous violists can you name? How many great viola concertos? "The repertoire is too limited," I said, speaking what was on my mind. This fact did not deter her determination.
"Mr. Rossi thinks I'd make a great violist," she replied. There was that look again, right in her light brown eyes. Just like her mother.
I had a sudden insight: my teenage daughter had a crush on the conductor. He needed a violist, and apparently he was astute enough to take advantage of a young girl's infatuation to get one. Maybe I'd have a word about cradle robbing with Mr. Rossi. Well, no that was a bit much, I decided. Jenny would have given me the silent treatment for a week. I'd have to stay calm. I told her to think about it for a while, and after a couple weeks, if she still wanted to descend to being a violist, we'd see.
Half an hour later, while I did the dishes, she was on the phone to someone, and jabbered away for a couple of hours to her friends while she dragged the phone all over the living room. I decided again I'd have to join the modern age and get a cordless phone. She probably was about ready for her own private line. I thought maybe I ought to make her pay for it, too.
Jenny worked her way up to first desk within a year of taking up her beloved viola, and despite myself I was beginning to be slightly proud of her. She really was in higher demand, and was constantly so involved with chamber ensembles, youth symphony, flitting here and there, that a lot of her schoolwork was suffering noticeably. Her grade-point average dropped until she was barely maintaining a "B". We had a little talk about that, and decided mutually (or at least I like to think it was mutual) that she needed to pull it up, or I'd pull the plug on all her extra-curricular activities.
So there I was, three years later, pacing the lobby, waiting. I heard applause in the auditorium, so I snuck in the door. The hall was packed solid. At least it seemed packed solid for a moment. I found a pretty lousy seat near the back and plopped myself down while I looked around for something closer. I spotted an aisle seat near the middle, so I moved down and slid into it. I need not have rushed—it was intermission, so I sat there for ten minutes contemplating. Soon, the orchestra filed back in and the audience bustled around to reclaim their seats. The conductor, the notorious Mr. Rossi, re-appeared on stage, and the orchestra stood for him. I waited through the next torturous work on the menu, hoping it would be over quickly. When it ended, I clapped a couple of times and hoped the rest of the audience didn't go wild.
When the applause died out, I found I was holding my breath. Then, Jenny appeared in the wings, and strolled forward, her instrument dangling easily from one hand. I could see her scan the crowd and smile—she was really just looking for me. I felt like waving, but that would have been gauche, so I kept my hands to myself. There she was, her black skirt billowing from a waist and hips that resembled her mother's gorgeous figure more each time I noticed it. Her starched white blouse almost crackled. She had spent half an hour fussing over it with the iron, then spent another half an hour getting every speck of lint off her silk skirt. I noticed that her shoe-laces were untied, as usual, and broke out in a smile. At that instant, she tripped over the foot of a music stand—an intense foreboding chill shot through my spine and flashed along every nerve in my body when I saw her sailing headlong toward the floor. A gasp went up from the crowd, and the applause stopped immediately.
Her reflexes, I must admit, were those of a well-bred cat, and her instinct for self-preservation must never have been stronger: her viola never hit the floor. The conductor, wheeling around when he heard the clattering sound, stepped from his podium to assist her in standing again. One of the violinists, whose improperly placed music stand had done the damage, put down his violin to pick up the debris. The conductor had a few words with Jenny, and then he escorted her off the stage. She limped, and would put no weight on one leg. Rossi's arm seemed to be practically fondling her chest and I felt a surge of fatherly irritation. I was already on my feet when they started off, and was trotting down the aisle toward the front of the auditorium.
"I'm her father," I shouted at the old ladies who tried to stop me from ascending the side stairs. By then, some numbskull appeared from the wings to make an announcement that there would be a slight delay, and ask the audience to please wait a few moments. "Tell 'em a few jokes," I suggested as I dashed past. I didn't wait to hear what he said next, but ran into the back, looking for the green room. I was certain that's where she would have gone. I hoped they had a doctor handy.
In another minute or two, I was with Jenny and the infamous Mr. Rossi, who had his arm around her waist and was consoling her in oily whispers. She sat with her priceless viola set across her lap—well, it was priceless enough to me, as I couldn't afford to buy another one like it even if I sold both of my cars. Her bow had been snapped in two and was draped across the viola, two pieces of splintered wood dangling from white horsehair. She wept into the palm of one hand.
"Darling, are you OK?" I asked, rushing up to her. Mr. Rossi wisely removed his roaming hand and stood back a few steps.
"I think I just sprained my ankle," she replied, but that was not the uppermost thing on her mind. "Oh, Daddy—look at my bow!"
"Hey, we can get a new one," I told her, lifting it up. "I saw the way you saved your viola," I said, trying to sound cheerful. "It was a great maneuver!"
She didn't smile. "But... how am I going to _play_?"
I turned to Mr. Rossi. "Look, I'll take her to see a doctor, and..."
"NO!" Jenny screamed. "I have to go on! There are people waiting out there!"
"Honey," I replied, "you have to see a doctor right away."
"Daddy—people paid _money_ to see me play tonight..." She started crying again. "If I don't go on I'll be humiliated forever!"
Under his breath, Rossi was making ecstatic noises in a thick, and quite ineffable, European accent. He sounded like a bad Italian wine with a French label—bottled in Austria and shipped via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Alaska where it was smuggled south on a Canadian ship. "She eez a true artiste..."
Try as I might, I could not convince her to come away with me. She was stubborn in that way—more stubborn than her mother had ever been. Mr. Rossi was no help at all in the matter either: he seemed to agree with her!
"But you can't stand up," I added, still trying to convince her.
"I'll sit," she replied curtly. Her tears had all dried up by then.
"Oh yais, eets no problaim," Mr. Rossi interjected, "we'll seemply yoos ainuther baow." I shot him a look that shut him up immediately.
Jenny insisted on performing. She always carried another bow, and now the wisdom of that practice was proven. Unfortunately, it would have to suffice, though she had repeatedly decried it as being "quite an inferior stick" for playing anything serious. She got her elitism from her mother, too.
Mr. Rossi clapped his hands, entirely relieved. "Ah, but ZEES awdiense weel nevair hear souch subtle deefferense!" I knew what he meant too—the auditorium was filled with hundreds of glassy eyed parents, siblings, and tiny tots; half of them probably could not even spell "viola". Mr. Rossi practically pranced away—off to see the numbskull and make another announcement: the soloist was unharmed; the show would go on.
Jenny had only one further thought: she'd had enough time to stop shaking, but she was so unnerved by the experience that she decided she could never trust herself to play from memory. "I really must have the score, Daddy. I should."
The ladies of the green room were bustling around, trying to fawn over her, but keeping a respectful distance from her father, whom they correctly perceived to be an ape in a touchy mood. Oh, yes, they all agreed whole-heartedly that it would be no disgrace at all. Plenty of soloists had played before with the music in front of them. And considering the state of her nerves, the audience would be so relieved—and honored—to have her play at all, that they would forgive the minor irregularity of playing from the music. By all means, she must have the score.
Reluctantly, I finally gave in and knelt down to tie her shoe-laces. She could not stand unassisted—we tried a few experimental steps and she collapsed immediately under her own weight. One of the ladies produced an ace bandage, so we tied up her ankle, which had swollen so much it looked like a baked yam. A chair was taken onto the stage for her to sit. And of course, since she would be playing from the score, she needed a page turner.
It was the hand of fate: I knew the music, and I was wearing a black suit. "Honey—I'll turn the pages," I offered boldly before anyone else could volunteer. "Just like we used to do."
She gave me that little-girl smile—I'd hardly seen it in ten years, but it made me feel like a real father again. "Oh, Daddy, would you?"
"Come on," I said, putting my arm around her. "I'll escort my princess to her throne." She laughed, and we left the green room with her limping along beside me.
Now, I'm not much of a theatre person. I never attend plays, and the last time I was on stage I was in the third grade. By the time we reached the wings, I knew my face had already turned the color of a ripe tomato and I was sweating. I should have let one of the bustling ladies turn pages for her. How I could face an audience, I had no idea. I concentrated on keeping my daughter's weight off her sprained ankle.
As we sat down, I had a brief moment to look out and feel terrified. The auditorium was dark, so I could only see the first few rows. And I could sense the breathing masses beyond the lights, hovering expectantly in the shadows, ready to slash me to ribbons. A hot wind was blowing in over the bobbing heads in the front; their forked tongues wagged angrily as they coiled slowly. I could almost see the sand whipping across the dunes. They were pretty damp dunes, though, since it was a rainy night. I could feel the intense humidity in the breeze. The conductor gave a nod, with a broad smile in our direction, and the orchestra struck up with the soft introduction.
I panicked at first, shooting my eyes across the page of music, trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. Where was the first page turn? I couldn't even remember how to read the little black dots. The page took on the look of an obscure foreign document splayed out across the music stand, filled with incomprehensible ink blots. It was a Rorschach test for the incurably insane. The whole scene was backed by the restless, peering faces of the audience. I closed my eyes briefly, trying to calm myself. I snapped them open immediately, however. If I had my eyes closed, I would miss Jenny's signal. If that happened, I knew all would be lost for certain. I'd be laughed off the stage, and she would be ruined before she had even begun.
Only an eccentric maniac like Rossi the Terrible would have picked "Harold in Italy" for the finale of a Christmas concert. It's not seasonal in the least—what was wrong with something seasonal that didn't require a viola solo? But I guess, the orchestra was ready, Jenny was ready—maybe under his mop of stringy and vaguely European hair he thought it would be an exquisitely quirky touch to perform it for Christmas instead of waiting until spring.
The first few page turns passed without incident, and my heart-rate steadily decreased toward normal. She nodded knowingly at just the right instants, and I managed to turn the pages without spilling everything all over the floor or uttering a primal scream. After that, each page turn became easier, and I found that by the time we were well into the piece, I was breathing again, and I could follow the score. I began to get cocky too, and took a few glances at the audience out of the corner of my eye. I could feel the rapture, starting up out there somewhere like a wisp of cool air. She was playing beautifully, passionately. Mr. Rossi was conducting as brilliantly as he could—at least his expansive gesticulations looked fervent. I had heard the piece so many times—the solo passages anyway—that I knew it by heart. But hearing it then, pouring from Jenny's viola backed by the shimmering of Berlioz' orchestration, it took on a sublime quality that I had completely forgotten. It had been a long time since I had really listened to "Harold in Italy", and all the old memories started to come back.
The second movement has a quality like a caravan painted in broad, colorful strokes. It starts out very softly, and builds up as the caravan approaches, passes by the listener, and then eventually recedes into the distance. It's a striking section, and personally I think it's the best part of the whole work. By that time, I was alert again, and was trying to gauge the audience reaction. I had started to recognize individual faces, and remember where they were—I had been turning pages for more than fifteen minutes. I kept track of where people were looking, whether they folded their hands, how they tilted their heads at certain points. I didn't hear a lot of coughing and shuffling either. As my eyes grew accustomed to looking at them, I could see further, beyond the first few rows. They really were—I suppose a Victorian might have said "transported"—by the music. I flipped the page again at Jenny's nod.
I had noticed previously one rather large woman near the front row. She was all dressed up with several long strings of pearls and a long dress of medium golden-brown shades with lacy white frills and a high collar. She had pale, white skin, and her brunette hair was tied up in a hideous bun and topped with a white flower. The whole outfit made her look like an overdressed turkey dinner with all the trimmings and those little white caps on the drumsticks. She seemed for a long while to be even more "transported" than anyone else. I could see the rouge on her cheeks; her lips were parted and she bent forward. The next time I chanced to look her way, near the end of the second movement, she was crying into her handkerchief.
At that moment, as the caravan was fading into the distance, I had a kind of revelation that I'll never forget. This is what it's all about, really, I told myself. This is Jenny's life, and the kind of emotions she can evoke in an audience are her special gift. Maybe I had never really come to terms with the direction she had chosen. I started to feel tingly and blurry eyed. If she, with her playing, could bring tears to even one large woman in a worse-than-average audience, she must also be bringing joy to another, and at least some feeling to someone else; maybe everyone else. If she really wanted to do that with a viola instead of a violin—bringing a new kind of life to a little regarded solo instrument—I felt I could finally accept it. Somehow, over the past three years, my opposition to her taking up the viola had completely blinded me to the fact that she was actually succeeding. It felt like her destiny beginning to unfold. I was sitting on stage with my seventeen year-old daughter, actually participating in her debut as a soloist. How many fathers have that opportunity, I wondered. I felt a growing sense of privilege attending the event, and I was elated by the time the third movement was over. Jenny would fly away from me, of course, into some concert career, climbing ever higher—the inevitable result of a child growing into an independent woman with a great art to unleash on the world. Whether she ever became a famous soloist or not, I thought at that moment, was irrelevant. It was really the ambience that she lived for; not only the brief moments of performing, but also the people around her—the friends with whom she played and passed her time, the practicing, the dedication; even Mr. Rossi, whether I really liked him or not. I could hardly keep tears out of my eyes long enough to turn pages through the end of the fourth movement.
When the music finished and the last blast faded into the walls, there was fully ten seconds of absolute silence in the auditorium. What happened to all the tiny tots? I almost wondered if the audience had gone to sleep! The applause began from the front—the large woman held her handkerchief between two fat fingers, and was applauding wildly, ecstatically, leading the crowd. I had never seen such fervor in a spectator. She was shaking her head, back and forth—I could see the tears glistening on her cheeks—she threw kisses. In an instant, the applause grew to a tremendous roar that crashed against the front of the stage... and then the audience, en masse, were on their feet. I could almost not believe it—a standing ovation for "Harold in Italy"? No, it was all for Jenny.
The reception afterwards was gorgeous. I stood back, still hovering close to Jenny while she took the greetings of her friends and random members of the audience, including the large woman with the handkerchief. I sipped a California white wine that was far too young and sassy, and let her bask for nearly an hour. She still could not stand up, of course, so they had brought her a padded chair from somewhere, and she sat straight-backed like a little monarch, with a big bouquet of pink roses nestled in the crook of one arm, nodding and smiling. The other hand was perpetually extended to receive other hands—and on a few occasions to receive a kiss from some lecherous old geezer.
It ended all too soon for Jenny, I could see. But when I glanced at her face as the last of the stragglers were leaving the room, I could tell she was dead tired. The pain in her ankle could not be masked any longer either. She winced and stretched out her legs when I approached.
"Daddy, let's stop by the hospital on the way home, OK? Just to make sure it's not broken or anything."
I laughed. "Sure thing, Jenny." She had always been small, like her mother, and had never grown too big to carry. I lifted her up, and holding her viola case in one hand, carried her out to the parking lot. The rain had stopped, and half the clouds had dispersed. The moon lit up the remaining clouds like big silver scoops over the far hills—and a few stars twinkled overhead in the cold air.
I whirled around, and around as I walked. "Let's see," I kept saying, "was it this way?" And I would whirl her one way. "Or was it that way?" She was in giggles, with her arms clasped behind my neck.
We found the car—I knew where it was all along, but I was having fun. When we reached the car, I set her down on her feet for a moment to fish my keys out of my pocket. Meanwhile, I handed her the viola case, and she took it absently. She turned around then, and seeing the front of the car for the first time, burst out in a squeal. "What the hell happened to your car?" She limped to follow me to the door.
"Little mishap on the freeway," I replied, unlocking the passenger door. Her eyes went from the front grill back along the side of the car. I couldn't help smiling when her eyes stopped at the trunk. It was half open, with big sprigs of fir tree bulging out all over.
"Oh, Daddy..." she whispered, clutching my shoulder. I heard that warm tone come back into her voice and she embraced me. "You said we weren't going to have a tree this year..."
"Changed my mind, honey," I replied. "Besides—it was too cheap to pass up." I grabbed her viola case out of her hand. "Got it from mah ol' frenn CJ," I drawled.
She looked at me like I was made of goat cheese. "What?"
"Get in, I'll tell you about it on the way," I answered, holding the door for her. "Poor thing had an accident on the freeway, but it ain't nothin' a little amputation won't fix."