Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  “Same here, and please call me Bix. Everyone else does. You should be proud of your daughter. She’s really quite gifted.”

  During their conversation, the teacher had kept his left hand on Sarah’s shoulder. It was a gesture Rosen had made often, when his daughter was a little girl at the piano and he’d helped her count the rhythm. Was that why he felt uneasy? Was jealousy the reason he wanted to knock Bixby’s hand away? Returning to the lobby, he followed a line of parents filing into the auditorium. He checked his seat number, as the house lights dimmed, and found his place, past Bess, next to Shelly in the center section about ten rows up. He’d passed two empty seats in the row; otherwise, the auditorium appeared filled to capacity.

  As the curtains opened, Martin Bixby ambled into the spotlight. The audience applauded warmly, a few of the people around Rosen chuckling at the teacher’s casual appearance.

  “That’s Bix,” a man in the next row said, laughing.

  The teacher said, “Welcome to our annual spring ‘Arts in Life Festival,’ brought to you by the freshman and sophomore classes of Arbor Shore High School.” He went on to thank the administration, his colleagues, the parents, “. . . and, most of all, your wonderfully gifted children. Now, without further ado, on with the show!”

  More enthusiastic applause, as the two boys dressed as a horse trotted on stage and tried tap-dancing to “Mr. Bojangles.”

  Shelly whispered, “I wish Sammy Davis were alive to see this.”

  After the boys finished, a series of acts followed, as varied as one might expect from a group of teenagers. The violinist’s music was far better than his attempt to impersonate Henny Youngman. When “Cyrano” finished his speech about having fallen from the moon, Bess leaned over to congratulate the two people sitting beside her.

  The final act listed in the program before intermission was “Margarita Reyes in a selection from Carmen.”

  The flamenco dancer entered the stage. Clicking her castanets, she whirled to a medley from Bizet’s opera. Her tight blouse and swirling skirt revealed a woman’s body. Eyes half closed, nostrils flaring, she flaunted a sensuality that caused several men in the audience to shift in their seats and loosen their ties. Watching these men as much as the girl, Rosen felt his throat tighten. He thought of the children of Israel dancing shamelessly before the golden calf.

  When the girl had finished, there was a long silence, followed by a scattering of applause. Only when the house lights went on to signal intermission did the audience rise from their seats. For a moment, each person seemed ashamed to look his neighbor in the eye. Then the small talk began, rippling through the auditorium like a prairie fire. People spoke about everything—except the dancer.

  Again Bess congratulated the couple sitting beside her. “Chip did a wonderful job as Cyrano. He shows the same panache in my English class.”

  The woman smiled. “‘Panache’—isn’t that a euphemism for ‘pain in the neck’?” She was about forty-five; her figure, in an emerald green jumpsuit, looked trim and lithe as a gymnast’s. Her strawberry blond hair was cut short, accentuating her green eyes and generous mouth.

  “We’re so looking forward to hearing Sarah and Nina. You know the girls practiced at our place a few times. We never realized the piano could sound so beautiful, did we, Byron?”

  But the woman’s husband was already standing in the aisle and stretching his long legs. The charcoal sweater and gray slacks went well with his silver hair and ruddy complexion. Both walked briskly up the aisle, the man pausing to run a hand through his hair.

  Shelly said to Rosen, “That was Dick and Kate Ellsworth. You’ve heard of Ellsworth-Leary Investments. Nina Melendez lives with them—her mother’s their housekeeper.” He asked Bess, “You see the empty seats next to the Ellsworths? What do you suppose happened to Mrs. Melendez?”

  “I don’t know. Nina said both her mother and aunt were coming.”

  In the lobby Bess moved amiably from one set of parents to the next. Content to let her go, Rosen walked outside and deeply inhaled the cool breeze. He was surprised when Shelly followed him.

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “Of course not, but you don’t have to entertain me. If you’d rather go around with Bess—”

  “I wouldn’t. Look, it’s not that I don’t like being with her. It’s just those people she hangs out with.”

  “Your neighbors?”

  “Yeah, my neighbors. She gets along with them, because she teaches their kids and because, Goddamnit, she doesn’t give them the choice not to. Talk about chutzpa. Well, you know Bess.”

  In the moment when the two men shared a brief smile, Rosen finally admitted to himself that he liked Shelly Gold.

  “I see your commercials on TV all the time,” Rosen said. “I like the new one.”

  “Which one? Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing, while the voiceover’s singing ‘Feet to Feet’?”

  “That’s good, but I’m thinking of the big lumberjack who can’t do his job because of sore feet.”

  “Paul Bunion.”

  “Yeah. Very clever.”

  “People like humor in the face of adversity. Believe me, having fallen arches is no picnic.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Shelly nodded curtly toward the people inside. “Even though I’m a doctor, even though I can buy and sell most of those schmucks twice over, I’ll always be to them what my grandfather was the day he got off the boat. A dirty little Yid.” He winced as if slapped. “Take Ellsworth, the guy sitting by Bess. I was good enough to invest a hundred thou in one of his real estate deals, but not good enough to invite over to his Goddamn house a block away for a drink. I’m not asking for dinner, just one lousy drink. But not even a sip of water from his backyard hose, like the Mexican gardener, for Chrissakes?” He shook his head sadly. “Not even that.”

  “Look, Shelly, we’d better get back.”

  “You know, the only other Jew besides Bess who can take on these snobs ‘mano a mano’ is your brother.”

  Rosen stiffened. He hadn’t expected this; the last people he wanted to talk about were his family.

  “Yeah, as God is my witness, one day there’s a board of directors meeting at the hospital. A big problem about insurance—some actuarial bullshit. Everybody’s arguing—a real ‘tsimmes.’ All of a sudden, Dr. Aaron Rosen takes the elevator from cardiology and walks into the boardroom like Moses coming down from Sinai. He has his say, walks out, and suddenly everyone’s nodding ‘yes’ and meeting adjourned. Some brother you’ve got.”

  Rosen bit his lower lip. “The lights are flicking. We’d better get back.”

  Settling into his seat as the curtain once again opened, he tried not to think about his brother, because that would mean thinking about his father, and the cross-examination he feared most would begin once again. Should he visit the old man? Twenty years had passed since his father had sent him away. Twenty years, and it still felt like yesterday.

  His attention was diverted to a grand piano slowly being wheeled onto the stage. The program read, “Nina Melendez and Sarah Rosen—a musical interpretation of the poetry of Gabriela Mistral, Nobel Laureate.” Two seats away, Bess leaned forward, her lips parted in a smile.

  The girls walked onstage, Sarah sitting at the piano and Nina standing before a microphone a few feet away. They glanced at each other, blushing, then Sarah began playing a piece she herself had written. It was beautiful, and the beauty lay in its simplicity, a soft melody that fluttered on butterfly wings through the auditorium.

  After a few minutes, the music grew even softer, as Nina closed her eyes and began singing in Spanish. In her white dress the girl seemed so innocent, almost ethereal, yet her voice carried such longing, that Rosen suddenly felt heartsick for something he wasn’t sure of—something lost that could never be reclaimed.

  Nina stopped for a moment, then sang in English:

  Because you sleep, my little one,

  the sunset will no longer glow: />
  Now nothing brighter than the dew

  nor whiter than my face you know.

  Because you sleep, my little one,

  nothing on the high road do we see,

  nothing sighs except the river,

  nothing is except me.

  She continued, the words of a mother’s lullaby, while Rosen watched the innocent face of his daughter, remembering how he rocked her to sleep with the old Yiddish songs his mother had sung to him long ago. He felt her in his arms. “Shayna, Shayna.” Suddenly he realized that was what he was heartsick for.

  It seemed so long ago, but Rosen tried remembering what being a family had been like—the small apartment in Chicago with Bess and little Sarah. He thought, at the time, how secure they were in the old neighborhood, his work, and their marriage. But the neighborhood had grown bad, his practice put him on the road too much for too little money, and the marriage broke apart. And now, Sarah growing up—what protection was there for her, for anyone? Denae Tyler, the black girl taken a half block from her house, raped and murdered—what protection had there been for her?

  What was left for her family? To grieve; to curse God and die, as Job had considered; or to strike back blindly in revenge? What had the dead girl’s uncle said about Sarah, banging his fist against the car:

  “What if it’d happened to her! . . . I hope they do her next!”

  His hands gripped the armrests. He heard the applause, saw Sarah walk beside Nina, then both girls bowed awkwardly. As they left the stage, he steadied himself and walked up the aisle. The lobby was empty, except for a boy and girl behind the refreshment stand who stared at him curiously.

  Inside the men’s room, Rosen leaned against the sink and splashed cold water on his face. He’d told Bess it was silly to worry about Sarah’s safety; now he only needed to convince himself. If his daughter couldn’t be safe in a place like Arbor Shore, where could she?

  He pulled at the cloth towel rack several times, drying his face and hands, then returned to the hallway. Debating whether to return to the auditorium—there were probably another half dozen acts—he was distracted by several voices shouting from the corridor leading to the rehearsal room.

  It wasn’t just the number of people shouting, or the Spanish mixed with the English. It was the intensity of the exchange, along with a strange litany of accusation and denial.

  A woman kept screaming in Spanish. Rosen knew enough of the language from his early “pro bono” work with immigrants to recognize words like “toca”—touch, and “hija”—daughter. The word “diario,” which he thought meant “newspaper,” was repeated several times. Another woman was translating, but she spoke so quickly that he missed most of what she’d said. Something about touching or hurting the other woman’s daughter. A man tried to deny it but was continually cut off, like a dog slapped across the snout for whimpering too loudly.

  Stepping into the corridor, Rosen saw that the argument was taking place in Martin Bixby’s office, its door ajar. The man’s voice was Bixby’s, and his protests only made the women’s voices angrier. Rosen was about to step back into the hallway when two other voices made him freeze in his tracks.

  “No, Mami, no! Estás equivocada! Nada pasó! Nada pasó!”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Melendez! Nothing happened! Please!”

  That last voice—Sarah’s!

  He walked slowly through the corridor, holding the wall as if he were a blind man, and listened at the open doorway. Sarah and the other voice—Nina’s—joined in the teacher’s denials, but the cacophony of voices grew too great. He walked into the office.

  Two women, their backs to him, were arguing with Nina in front of a desk. One waved a spiral notebook in her hand and shouted, “Tu diario lo dice!”

  “No, Mami,” Nina sobbed, “nada pasó!”

  “Tu diario lo dice!”

  The woman next to her looked past Nina and translated, “Your diary says so! Well, Bixby . . . what about it?”

  “You both don’t understand!” Sarah’s voice.

  Moving closer to the desk, Rosen saw his daughter behind Nina, protecting Bixby, who had wedged himself into a corner made by the wall and a file cabinet. Hands raised in front of his face, he was shaking violently.

  “What’s going on?” Rosen asked.

  The translator turned. About thirty, she looked remarkably like Nina, the same delicate features and thick black hair, hers tied into a long French braid. Cocking her head, the woman looked Rosen up and down, as if deciding whether this was any of his business.

  Finally she said, “This man . . . this teacher Bixby . . . has been molesting my niece. Her mother has Nina’s diary that tells everything.” Her English was perfect, with just the trace of an accent.

  “No, Tía!” Nina shook her head violently. “Nada pasó!”

  Nina’s mother took a step forward. Her eyes widened and, in the heat of anger, lost their focus. They were terrible, those eyes—searing, yet chilling him to the bone.

  “Nada pasó!” she screamed, and with a trembling hand slapped her daughter across the face.

  Bursting into tears, Nina ran from the room.

  When Sarah started to follow, Rosen grabbed her. She struggled against him, and their eyes locked.

  “Not now, Daddy.”

  “What about this?”

  “Not now. Nina needs me.”

  He let her go. She hurried past several students who had gathered at the door, as well as a slouching man in a blue three-piece suit. He was bald and heavy-jowled, like an old bloodhound.

  The man stepped forward timidly. “Uh, is there some sort of problem, Mr. Bixby? Perhaps we could discuss it in my office after the performance.”

  “Dr. Winslow!” Bixby whined.

  Rosen pushed through the crowd and returned to the lobby. He heard laughter from the auditorium, then applause. The performance was still going on. The girls wouldn’t have gone in there. Maybe the ladies’ room, but he doubted they’d remain in the building.

  Rosen walked along the sidewalk, parallel to the parking lot, which ended in a baseball field. He saw the two girls sitting together on the outfield grass, illuminated by a haze of moonglow as if they were fairies. He stopped at the edge of the field and waited.

  It was enough, at that moment, to know Sarah was safe. Even though he realized, from what had occurred in court that afternoon and in the teacher’s office a few minutes ago, there was precious little he could do to protect his daughter from anything. So Rosen waited and kept his gaze fixed upon her, afraid that if he blinked, like a fairy she might disappear forever.

  Chapter Three

  The walls were lined with built-in bookshelves, made of the same dark wood as the long table that stretched the entire length of the conference room. The shelves were filled with volumes on educational theory, educational law, and educational curricula, as well as dozens of classroom texts. Once their bindings might have offered a rainbow of colors—perhaps even have made the room a bit cheerful, but over the years they’d faded to dullish green or brown. A coffee urn gurgled in the corner; its aroma mixed unpleasantly with that of lemon furniture wax, like a tropical drink gone bad.

  It was Friday afternoon, the time when Rosen had hoped to begin a weekend together with Sarah. The fun he’d planned for them—pizza, their favorite Bogart videos, a Cubs game, even a jazz club. Most importantly, they’d get to talk like they used to. But that was before last Wednesday night and the accusation made by Nina’s mother. Now neither of the girls would speak to anyone except each other.

  “I don’t know anything, Daddy,” Sarah kept repeating, like a hostile witness taking the Fifth Amendment. Only that and “Nina needs me.”

  If Bess hadn’t told him of this meeting with the principal, Rosen would have demanded one. Something had to be done.

  Dr. Winslow sat at the head of the table, his large body slumped forward like a partially deflated balloon. He was complaining about “those awful nicotine patches” to Kate Ellswort
h, whose son had played Cyrano in Wednesday’s performance. With her white blouse, black skirt, and leather slipcase, she might have just left her office downtown and taken the train home.

  Next to her, and across from Rosen, sat Nina’s mother and aunt. Mrs. Melendez wore a simple green dress with a white starched collar, but even that couldn’t hide her heavy breasts and wide hips. Her lips were fuller than her daughter’s and her nose broader, but she had the same beautiful dark eyes. Her face was framed by thick black hair, which curled at the shoulders. Her hands gripped the spiral notebook Rosen had glimpsed on Wednesday evening—Nina’s diary.

  The other woman’s hair cascaded down her back. Two silver barrettes, clipped above each ear, kept it in place. She wore a pair of jeans and a baggy sweatshirt with the emblem of F.A.C.E.—“Fund a Child’s Education.” It was a stunning logo, which Rosen had seen throughout the country—the silhouette of a long-haired girl with delicate features staring into a book. The silhouette reminded him of someone, but who?

  To the principal’s right, Martin Bixby curled back in his chair, his hands resting heavily on the armrests. His sport coat, a brown tweed with leather elbow patches, looked tight at the shoulders and was unbuttoned. The teacher’s face remained expressionless; only his eyes shifted, like a caged animal’s, from one person to the next.

  Dr. Winslow kept glancing at his watch. “It’s nearly two-thirty. Mrs. Gold should be here any minute—just a matter of having someone cover her last class. I do have another meeting at three. Uh, Mrs. Melendez, whose daughter Nina is a sophomore, has asked for this meeting. She’s with Ms. Lucila Melendez, her sister.”

  “Sister-in-law,” Lucila corrected.

  “Excuse me. Sister-in-law, and quite an artist, I understand. As for Mr. Melendez . . .?” The principal paused.