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The Time Between

Page 14

by Karen White


  Without turning around, she said, “When you are done with breakfast, maybe you’d like to join us at the kitchen table to help with the new covers.”

  I frowned. “Why would you think I would be interested in that? I can barely hold my spoon.”

  “True. But it’s obvious you like do-it-yourself projects.”

  “I do not, and I have no idea what you are talking about.” I took a quick bite of my oatmeal, burning my tongue, looking away to show my dismissal. My mother had used that technique, and it had always worked. But Eleanor was not as easily dissuaded.

  “All of the paintings in the house—they weren’t professionally framed. Did you do them all by yourself or did Bernadett help you?”

  My spoon froze halfway between my bowl and my mouth. I lowered it back to the bowl, then lifted my gaze to meet hers. “When my sister and I came from Hungary, we had the artwork from our home in Budapest but very little money. We were dependent on our sister, Magda, and her husband for food and shelter. I did not want to waste money on framing when I believed it could be done with more economy.”

  Her defiant stare met my own and held, as if we were each daring the other to break contact first. We were saved when Finn reentered the bedroom to remove the breakfast tray. He had apparently overheard at least a part of our conversation.

  “Aunt Helena, maybe we should get all the paintings reframed. I would hate to think any permanent damage is being done.”

  I allowed the tray to be lifted from my lap as I prayed that my breakfast would not come back. “They are fine,” I said. “There is nothing to be done with them.”

  Finn stood in the doorway with the tray in his hand and stared at the painting of Moses. “I still say that we should at least have an art appraiser come in and give us an estimate of their worth.”

  I shook my head. “As I’ve said again and again, I do not want strangers in this house, pawing over my belongings. There will be time enough for that after I am dead.”

  He turned away, but not before I saw his mouth tighten. This argument was an old one, and one which I could not afford to lose.

  Eleanor began to follow him out of the room until her attention was diverted by the old gramophone in the corner of my room and one of Bernadett’s baskets that sat beneath it.

  “I forgot about this basket. Is there more piano music in here? I’ve seen the records but didn’t dig through them to see if there was anything else at the bottom.”

  Before I could reply, she’d reached into the round basket and lifted one of the records. “Are these very old?”

  “Obviously.” I leaned back against my pillows, watching her with mild disinterest. It was startling how easily she distracted herself from the bigger problems in her life with mundane tasks, refocusing her mind on things she could control and direct. In the end, Bernadett had been the same way, packing up her music and closing up the piano as if the rest of our world was not falling apart. As if sprinkling a little water on a house would save it from fire.

  She began flipping through records, pausing over one that still had its cover. Holding it up, she read the label out loud. “The Szarka Sisters?”

  “Did Finn not tell you? My sisters—Bernadett and Magda—and I were quite well-known in Hungary and had great plans for moving to America for our singing career.”

  Slowly, she read the small print under the title out loud. “Featuring ‘All Alone’ by Irving Berlin.”

  “That was recorded in 1937.”

  Eleanor looked down at the record again, as if I had spoken in Hungarian and she was attempting to translate. “You recorded an album?”

  “Yes. We were quite the success in England.”

  She approached the bed, the record held carefully between the flattened palms of both hands. “So you sing, too.”

  The old pride surged back in me as the good memories resurfaced. “We were compared to the Andrews Sisters—but we were much prettier.” I never would have admitted that before, but I was an old woman, and false modesty was something I had easily let go of along with my blond hair and straight fingers. “We were approached to record ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B’—which would have meant a new record deal and a move to America—but we had to turn it down. Bad for us but a good thing for the Andrews Sisters. But Magda got married in 1940 and her husband did not think a respectable wife should make recordings. And then there was the matter of the war.”

  “The war?”

  I sighed. “World War II. Perhaps you have heard of it.”

  At least she flushed. “Yes. Of course. I studied it in school, but history wasn’t my favorite subject.” She tilted her head. “Is that why you had to stop—because your country was invaded by the Nazis?”

  I frowned at her. “You need to go back to your history books, Eleanor. Hungary was part of the Axis powers. We were allies with Germany. At least in the beginning.” I closed my eyes, praying for patience, anticipating her next question. “No, I was not a Nazi, nor were any of my family or friends.” I paused, remembering how long we had clung to our old lives in Budapest as if nothing had changed. As if we didn’t know that the rest of the world was on fire. Perhaps it was human nature to attempt to avoid disaster by averting our attention to the mundane. Meeting her gaze, I said, “We were able to escape during the Nazi occupation in 1944. And then we came here.”

  She regarded me for a long moment, as if she knew there was more to the story, that my telling of it had been merely an accounting of the breeze before a hurricane.

  “Did you ever go back? To Hungary?”

  The familiar burning in the back of my throat began, and I knew I would not try to speak. I simply shook my head, the one action keeping in check years of absence, of lost friends and history, of my own past.

  She focused on the record she held. “Does the gramophone still work?”

  I shrugged. “It has been a while since I listened to it, but I imagine it still does. It is a portable model, one you have to wind up.”

  Her eyes brightened. “I’d love to hear one of your songs. Can I play it now?”

  My heart seemed to shudder in my chest. Each night when I went to sleep I prayed that I would not hear my sisters’ voices, afraid of what they would say to me. I could not bear to hear them now.

  “I am too tired. Maybe later.”

  She stored the record back in the basket, trying to mask her look of disappointment. “I’m sure Gigi would love to hear it, too.” She paused by the door. “Since ‘All Alone’ was written by Irving Berlin, I bet I could find a copy of the piano music on the Internet. If I can rework the melody into a simple piece, I could teach it to Gigi. It might be fun for her.”

  I wanted to protest but could not think of a reason that would make sense to her. She said good-bye as Nurse Weber came in to bathe me, but I sent her away, saying I was too tired. I lay in bed for a long time, remembering the words to the old song, recalling the day we had recorded it in the small studio in London. I longed for a cloudy memory, to be unable to remember my past. But my memories remained, like green leaves on an oak tree in the dead of winter, a fitting punishment for those of us who would prefer to forget.

  Eleanor

  I stood in the sunroom and looked out at the reddening sky, the hazy edges of the clouds like smudged memories. It would be full dark soon, yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave. The dinner dishes had been cleared away, Teri Weber was with Helena getting her ready for bed, and Finn and Gigi were on the screened-in porch that faced the marsh playing Go Fish.

  I had spent a full half hour explaining the rudiments of the game to both of them, astonished that they had never played it before. Gigi picked it up right away, but Finn took longer, analyzing it for strategy and nuances that didn’t exist. I finally gave up, dealt myself out of the game, and then excused myself before I was forced to shake him.

  My embarrassme
nt over my lack of knowledge about Europe in World War II niggled at my brain, and I was determined to set things right—at least to the point where I could speak knowledgeably with Helena the next time the subject was raised. If she allowed the subject to be raised again. She had been flip in her comments, but I’d seen the strain in her face and the light fade from her eyes as she’d spoken.

  I had left my home at seventeen because of Eve’s accident, yet I’d only been less than an hour away. But Helena had left her home because of a brutal war, had traveled across an ocean to another continent and never returned to the place of her birth. My own losses had taken years—my father’s death and then the accident; hers had been accomplished within the span of a few months. I wondered if one was easier than the other, if the pain of loss was the same as the pain of removing a bandage, if it hurt less if one did it quickly.

  I turned on the table lamps and floor lamp between the armchairs, surprised to see that the opened book was still on the ottoman, the afghan on the back of one of the chairs still rumpled, as if the occupant had just stood and left the room.

  I picked up the book, then glanced at the cover as I closed it. The Art of Origami. It was bound in clear wrap, indicating that it might be a library book, and when I opened up the back flap, my suspicions were confirmed. Stamped in red ink on the inside cover were the words “Charleston County Public Library,” and below that was the address for the Mount Pleasant location. Stuck inside the front cover was a small receipt-like paper with the date due printed across the top: February 13, 2012.

  Seeing as how the book was now almost four months overdue, I placed it on a table by the door with plans to ask Helena if she’d like for me to return it to the library. It was a small task, and certainly one that would fit under my broad job description—not to mention alleviate some of the guilt I felt in sparring with an elderly woman who’d only recently emerged from death’s door, regardless of how much she encouraged it.

  I focused my attention on the bookshelves that lined the doorway wall—the only solid wall without windows in the room. I’d noticed them during my brief tour of the house but hadn’t yet had a chance to find out which books the two sisters had collected. I was hoping to find a Hungarian history book. If I didn’t, I could always look in the public library, since it appeared I might be heading that way anyway.

  I perused the shelves, sneezing several times as I removed books that looked like they hadn’t been touched since they’d been placed there. There were books on the history of Edisto and Charleston, on architecture and agriculture, on gardening and sweetgrass baskets, along with stacks of old National Geographic magazines and issues of Good Housekeeping.

  “Can I help you find something?”

  I turned to smile at Finn. “Had enough of Go Fish?”

  He ran his hand through his hair, back to front, leaving it sticking up all over. He didn’t seem to be aware of what he’d done, and I was unsure if I should mention it. His hair was always so neatly combed at the office, but something about the air on Edisto seemed to change us all.

  “After suffering four back-to-back defeats, I gave up. There really isn’t a point to the game, is there?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “Next time I’ll teach you the game of war. That one’s even more pointless. Although I have to say that I spent hours and hours with Lucy and my sister when I was a girl playing cards. I didn’t seem to think there had to be a point to our games.”

  He studied me with sober eyes. “I’m glad you’ll be spending more time with Gigi. She needs to know someone who can teach her how to play like a child. After all she’s been through, I have to remind myself sometimes that she’s only ten years old.”

  “She’s a great kid, and I enjoy spending time with her. And I don’t mind teaching her how to play the piano. If she wants to pursue it after I’ve taught her the basics, I’d be happy to help find someone who’s a much more suitable teacher.”

  He had the same look in his eyes that Helena had when she was ready to argue, so I turned back to the bookshelves. “I’m looking for books on Hungary. Your aunt spoke a little today about Hungary during World War II, and I’m embarrassed to say that I was clueless. I want to brush up a little on my history so I won’t embarrass myself again.”

  He came to stand next to me, using his height to scan the highest shelves. “I really don’t think you’ll find anything here. They were proud of their Hungarian roots but fiercely proud of being American. They never really talked about their later years in Hungary. It was almost as if they wanted to pretend that their lives had started in 1944, when they moved here.”

  “But they taught you the traditional Hungarian courting dance.” I looked up at him, unable to resist a smile.

  “Yes, they did that. I think mostly because it was a happy memory from their own childhoods and they wanted to share that with me. Much like your piano playing, I would think.”

  I stared at him for a moment, then looked away, confused. My music had been the happiest part of my childhood. But I had locked it away when my father died, as if it were a part of him instead of me. It had never occurred to me that it was something to be shared or celebrated as part of my past. To me, my past was like the ocean, hiding riptides that could suck you under when you least expected it.

  Eager to change the subject, I said, “Do you speak Hungarian?”

  “Only a little—learned from my grandmother, Magda.”

  “Helena said something the other day, and she translated it for me, but I wondered if . . .” I didn’t finish, realizing how what I wanted to say would be interpreted.

  A corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “And you wondered if she might be embellishing it or telling you something else completely.”

  “Yeah. Something like that,” I said, smiling back.

  “What did it sound like?”

  I bit my lip, thinking hard about the odd vowels and consonants. “Like ‘Mindankee a maga shar . . .’”

  “Ah, yes. Mindenki a maga szerencséjének kovácsa,” he said, pronouncing it expertly. “I only know it because it was something my grandmother said often, usually directed at my father when he and my mother were arguing about me.”

  I brought my eyebrows together. “Helena said it had something to do with the relationship between sisters.”

  “In some ways, I suppose it can. But an exact translation is more like ‘Everyone’s the blacksmith of their own fate.’”

  I looked outside the broad wall of windows, wondering what Helena had been trying to tell me. A flash of light arced across the sky like a silent wish, and I found myself heading for the door. “I think I saw a shooting star,” I said, not waiting for Finn to follow.

  We stood in the grass staring up at the summer sky littered with stars. The quarter moon hung high, a dim nightlight that allowed the stars to glow against the darkness. We stayed like that for a long time, each of us knowing that we’d missed the shooting star, but still holding out the hope that against all odds we’d see another in the same corner of the sky. As if, somehow, we both could still believe in possibilities despite all evidence to the contrary.

  The music of the night marsh flooded my ears, transporting me back in time to this same place, but to a time when music filled my heart, too. Finn stood close to me, close enough that I could hear him inhaling deeply.

  “‘If moonlight could be heard, it would sound like that,’” he said softly.

  I faced him. “Nathaniel Hawthorne, right? Daddy used to say that all the time.” The memory made me smile, something I’d never managed to do before when remembering my father. I wondered what had changed. Maybe I was just growing older, the time between my childhood and now like a river heading toward the ocean, changing slowly until it was nearly unrecognizable at its end.

  Finn started to say something but stopped when the back floodlight was switched on, erasing the marsh and
the river and the sky in a blinding pool of light. We turned toward the sunroom and saw Teri Weber waving a can of insect spray at us.

  As if on cue, I slapped at a mosquito that had landed on my arm. “I need to get going,” I said. “It’s getting late.”

  He nodded, then followed me back into the house. During the long drive home, I drove slowly with the window down, listening for the marsh music and wondering what Finn had been about to say.

  CHAPTER 15

  Eleanor

  “Hi, Ellie.”

  I looked up from the smooth leather of the new client folder in which I’d been stuffing company information and the cover letter signed by Finn, “Hampton P. Beaufain.” Gigi’s dark gray eyes smiled at me from the edge of my desk, her father standing behind her. He was wearing another dark suit, his hair perfectly combed, his face serious. I wondered how soon after he crossed the McKinley Washington Bridge onto the mainland the transformation began, and if the mental or the physical changes were harder to accept.

  I stood, aware of Kay Tetley watching from her desk. “Good morning, Genevieve. Mr. Beaufain.”

  Gigi smirked at my formality but didn’t say anything. I looked up at Finn, surprised to see him. He was usually in his closed office when I arrived in the morning, went out with clients for lunch, and was back in his office alone or with clients when I left in the afternoon. He still brought back food from lunch on the days when I stayed at my desk—days when I came in late or left early for Eve’s doctor’s appointments and Wednesdays when I headed to Edisto.

  “Hello, Eleanor.” Finn’s hands rested on Gigi’s shoulders, and he wore an expression on his face that I didn’t recognize. If it had been anybody else, I would have thought it was uncertainty.

  He cleared his throat. “I have a favor to ask.”

  Gigi piped up. “I was supposed to be with Mommy this week, but my camp was canceled and she can’t stay with me all day and I don’t want to stay with Mrs. McKenna because all she wants to do is play bingo and watch her soaps.” She rolled her eyes. “And I need to go shopping. Mommy was supposed to take me, but now she says she can’t.”

 

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