How We Play the Game in Salt Lake and Other Stories

by M. Shayne Bell

  You’re watching the calcs, and they aren’t good. “Probability’s slipping,” you say. The total measures out at only 75.467 percent now.

  “What’s gone wrong?” Megan says, and it’s your job to find out.

  “Weather: heavy snow — the blizzard out there — 99.876 percent of all possible true time has that,” Paulo calls out. “Storm holds true.”

  You start checking the probability of each person waiting for the concert to begin having actually attended the concert, even during a blizzard, and they all check out at over 90 percent, including the governor. Franz keeps plunking at the key in front of the small audience, and now the Tabernacle tuner on staff is out helping him get it right. You hear that key plunk and plunk — always just a little flat — while you frantically run the calcs.

  “Mãe de deus — what key is that?” Paulo asks.

  “C sharp over middle C,” Megan says. “I’m checking that: comp’s going over recordings of past tunings of this piano in the Tabernacle — that key might be our problem. It rates only 48.575 of possible true time.”

  “That’s still high,” you say. “Let it run.” Sometimes the only way to find where time took a wrong turn is to let it play out to some completely illogical end and backtrack from that.

  Franz and the staff tuner get the key in tune, the plunking stops, and Franz hurries down the steps and through curtains to the space under the choir seats to enter behind Marian when the time comes. A young girl stands poised to pull back the curtains. While Franz and Marian stand there waiting to go on, the girl looks up at Marian. “Are you frightened?” she asks.

  Marian smiles. “A little,” she says. “But when I start to sing I always forget my surroundings and, as you forget your surroundings, you also forget to be afraid.”

  Marian nods, and the girl pulls back the curtains. Marian and Franz walk out. Suddenly there is applause, though not much since the Tabernacle isn’t full. The concert begins. Marian sings one selection from Handel, “Serse, Recitative and Aria”: “To win one’s true treasure one must be cunning,” the words go. “Vivacious laugh, a quick glance can make one fall in love. Sometimes it is necessary to trick and fool — ah, I can do all these things!”

  Marian’s voice is clear, the register deep and low at first. She sings with such confidence the notes seem effortless. The audience applauds, louder this time, and Marian sings Brahms.

  “The probability of this order of music is only 33.678 percent,” you say.

  “No other concert on the tour had this order so far,” Megan confirms. “It’s usually Handel, then a couple other Baroques, then Schubert.”

  But the Brahms is lovely, and you still can’t put your finger on exactly where time took its wrong turn. “Let it keep playing,” you say. After intermission Marian turns from Brahms to Tchaikovsky’s “None but the Lonely Heart,” and the applause is louder now, and the governor stands to applaud Marian. She sings more Tchaikovsky, then spirituals — to a standing ovation. Florence Maw is crying — trying to clap, then wipe her eyes, then clap some more — and the governor calls out “Ave Maria!” and the applause gets louder and louder. Marian sings five more spirituals as encores, and the small audience keeps calling her back. She sings an aria from Massenet’s opera Le Cid, and the governor shouts “Ave Maria!” again. When Marian comes out for the seventh time, she sings it. She knows which “Ave Maria” the governor is asking for: the Gounod, based on the Bach prelude. At the end of that song not only Florence is weeping. Florence and the governor go backstage to find Marian, Franz, and Bessie bundling up to face the blizzard.

  “You walked over!” the governor says to Marian, incredulous. “You’ll ride back with us.”

  And they do. Franz and Bessie and Marian all look at each other when the limousine stops in front of the hotel’s main doors, under the canopy, out of the storm. The governor and Florence sweep them out of the limousine and partway up the steps. “Let’s get you something hot to drink,” Florence says, and she starts inside through the revolving doors. The governor motions for Marian and the rest to follow. Marian hesitates, then suddenly pulls up the skirts of her gown and does follow.

  The doorman stops her.

  “What’s this?” the governor demands.

  “She can’t come through here, sir,” the doorman says.

  Florence stands on the inside now. She looks back, confused.

  “What do you mean she can’t come through here?” the governor says. “Isn’t she a guest at this hotel?”

  “I am,” Marian says.

  “Well, then.” The governor takes Marian’s arm and leads her toward the door — but the doorman actually puts out his hand and holds Marian back.

  “You can enter here,” the doorman tells the governor. “But her kind enters around back.”

  “They’re making Marian climb the fire escape to her room,” Franz calls out from the bottom steps.

  Florence pushes her way back out through the revolving doors, and the hotel’s night manager follows her. When he sees who is standing with Marian Anderson — the governor of the state of Utah and the first lady — he looks troubled.

  “Your doorman tells me,” the governor says, “that some of your guests may not enter this hotel through the main doors — including this woman, who happens to be the greatest singer of our nation, perhaps of the entire world.”

  “She is a Negro,” the night manager says, nothing more.

  “She is to be my guest for hot chocolate in your coffee shop. Florence and I are walking there with her. So how do we go? By way of a fire escape around back?”

  “Governor, you and the first lady may of course enter through these front doors. I’ll escort Mrs. Anderson to the coffee shop myself. We won’t be long.”

  “Through what entrance will you escort Mrs. Anderson?”

  The night manager says nothing.

  Florence steps forward then and takes Marian’s arm. “Are your rooms here adequate?” she asks.

  Marian nods.

  “What floor have they put you on?”

  “The sixth.”

  “And you climb fire escapes up and down to get to your room?”

  “Part of the way is inside through the servants’ entrance to the kitchens,” Marian says.

  “Would you be a guest in my home instead?” Florence asks. “We’ll take you through the front doors of this state’s governor’s mansion and put all of you in our guest rooms, then make ourselves hot chocolate in the kitchen.”

  “We’d be honored,” the governor says.

  Marian accepts. Franz and Bessie hurriedly pack their and Marian’s things, and they all drive with the governor and his wife to Utah’s governor’s mansion, where Marian stays as an honored guest.

  “Fast-forward, Megan,” you say. “Prepare for backtrack.” And while you and your team prepare to take the bubble back to find out where time went wrong, you watch events on this timeline rush by. The story of Marian and the governor and his wife is in all the Utah papers the next day, and the day after that in all the papers in America, and after that, abroad. Utah is shamed by what happened: but more than that, the governor introduces legislation outlawing discrimination based on race in all public institutions in Utah, and — after months of hard lobbying, behind-the-scenes deals, and arm twisting — it passes. Utah becomes a bastion of civil rights in 1948. It shows America the way forward.

  “Hold us there, Megan,” you call out. You know this didn’t happen. You wish you could lock it down, but you know this didn’t happen.

  “It could have happened like that,” Megan says. “It was in their hearts.”

  But it didn’t happen like that. You go back to 6:45:10:59:36 P.M., March 19, 1948, and you inch forward, checking every probability. You follow a different timeline. As you watch it, you think this must be what had happened. You see Marian climb out the window in her gold silk concert gown, the one with real pearls sewn on the cuffs and around the neck, and both Bessie and Franz go down the
fire escape with her to help her keep the gown out of the slush. “Good probability on that gown,” Megan says. “Marian hasn’t worn it since San Francisco.” You realize Megan isn’t checking probability calcs to say that; she’s just watching and using common sense. Marian had worn the burgundy in Vancouver just days before. She would likely wear a different gown now.

  “It’s the C above middle C — not C sharp — they can’t tune,” Paulo says while you all listen to Franz plunk the C above middle C over and over.

  “That C rates 86.277 of possible true time,” Megan says.

  “Close,” you say, in the middle of figuring the probability of filling the Tabernacle on the night of a blizzard — 5,667 people to be exact, which is how many attend on this timeline. But close isn’t good enough. Something’s wrong, again.

  Marian begins with the same Handel, then turns to Schubert’s “Suleika”:

  I envy you your humid wings, oh western wind

  For you can tell him how long I suffer, now we are parted! …

  Yet do not grieve him, but hide my sorrow.

  Tell him modestly, that his love is my life,

  That if I am with him, two will rejoice.

  Then Marian sings Brahms; after intermission, Tchaikovsky and the spirituals, as before. Marian receives a standing ovation again. Florence is crying — trying to clap, then wipe her eyes, then clap some more — and the governor calls out “Ave Maria!” and the applause gets louder and louder. There are cheers this time from the audience. The concert ends after five encores — the last the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria” — and the governor and Florence drive Marian, Bessie, and Franz to Hotel Utah and sweep them out of the limousine and partway up the steps. “Let’s get you something hot to drink,” Florence says. She starts inside through the revolving doors. The governor motions for Marian and the rest to follow. Marian hesitates, then suddenly pulls up the skirts of her gown and does follow.

  The doorman stops her.

  “What’s wrong?” the governor demands.

  “She can’t come through here, sir,” the doorman says.

  Florence stands on the inside now. She looks back, confused.

  “What do you mean?” the governor says. “Isn’t she a guest at this hotel?”

  “I am,” Marian says.

  “Then you are mistaken,” Governor Maw tells the doorman. The governor takes Marian’s arm and leads her toward the door — but the doorman actually puts out his hand and holds Marian back.

  “You can enter here,” the doorman tells the governor. “But her kind enters around back.”

  “They’re making Marian climb the fire escape to her room,” Franz calls out from the bottom steps.

  Florence pushes her way back out through the revolving doors, and the hotel’s night manager follows her. When he sees who is standing with Marian, he looks troubled.

  “Your doorman tells me,” the governor says, “that some of your guests may not enter through the main doors — including this woman, who happens to be the greatest singer of our nation, perhaps of the entire world.”

  “She is a Negro,” the night manager says, nothing more, as if that explained everything.

  “She’s to be my guest for hot chocolate in your coffee shop. Florence and I are walking there with her. So how do we go? By way of a fire escape around back?”

  The night manager hesitates. “Of course not, sir,” he says, finally. “Please, will all of you follow me.” And to the astonishment of the doorman, the night manager leads everyone — including Marian Anderson — inside, through the main doors. Guests sitting in the lobby stare, but say nothing.

  The calcs aren’t good. “We’re losing it,” you say.

  “I get only a 13.227 percent probability that the night manager would do what he just did,” Megan says.

  “But it was in his heart,” Paulo says.

  “Only 13.227 percent of it,” Megan says.

  “He just didn’t act on that 13.227 percent,” Paulo says.

  But you know that what was in the night manager’s heart doesn’t matter. What matters is what he actually did. “Fast-forward, Megan,” you say.“Prepare for backtrack.”And while you and Megan and Paulo prepare to take the bubble back, you let time run forward. The papers do not mention the governor’s intercession on Marian’s behalf the next day. He himself is quiet about it. He’s running for reelection that year and is not sure how his intercession would play with the voters. But he knows the general manager of Hotel Utah, and he suggests to him privately that he ought to change the hotel’s ridiculous policy of not allowing someone like Marian Anderson to walk in through the front doors. “I’ll change the policy at once,” the general manager says, and he does write a new policy that same day, but he sets it aside to think about it overnight. The next day he looks at it on his desk-top, then wads it up and throws it in the trash can under his desk.

  “Take us back, Megan,” you say.

  And you are back at 6:45:10:59:36 P.M., March 19, 1948, and you inch forward, checking every probability. You watch Marian try to hold the train of her green satin concert gown out of the wet snow as Franz helps her climb out the window of her room in Hotel Utah and start down the fire escape. Franz follows her out. Bessie closes and latches the window behind them, then takes the stairs down and exits through the hotel’s main doors. “99.678 percent probability on that gown,” Megan says. She’s talking from computer and hand calcs this time, not just common sense. Marian hasn’t worn that gown since Philadelphia.

  “It’s the B above middle C they can’t tune!” Paulo exclaims. “Nearly 100 percent on that, too.”

  “Lock it down,” you say. Paulo hits the timelock switch, and the time bubble shudders, then stills. You look at the chronometer in the upper-left-hand corner of your console and see that you’ve added 1 hour, 13 minutes, and 29.52.17 seconds to true time.

  This is not going to be a record shift.

  But everything on this timeline checks out at nearly 100 percent for hours after that. The Tabernacle fills with 6,104 people — it’s standing room only: the box office sells 138 standing-room tickets for $1.20, half price — and the fire marshal won’t let anyone else in. The girl at the curtains does not speak to Marian on this timeline. Marian begins with a different Handel, Floridante :

  Dear night, bring back my love.

  At times I fancy my beloved standing in the doorway but alas, ’tis only a dream — how long must I wait in vain?

  After that she sings another Handel, then Frescobaldi, Legranzi, four Schubert lieder, and the Massenet aria — all before intermission.

  “No Brahms,” Megan says.“We’re at 98.662 percent on that.”

  After the intermission, Marian sings “None but the Lonely Heart,” four other early-twentieth-century pieces, then the spirituals. Florence does not cry, though some in the audience do. Marian sings three encores: “Coming through the Rye,” “Will o’ the Wisp,” and the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria,” then she, Franz, and Bessie bundle up and walk back to Hotel Utah. Marian and Franz enter through the servants’ entrance and climb up the fire escape to their rooms, where Bessie has opened the windows.

  All your calcs check out at 98 plus percent. “This is it, isn’t it?” you say. You look back at Megan and Paulo. Their calcs match yours. You’ve got time right. You’ve seen what really happened the night of Marian Anderson’s only concert in Salt Lake City. “We have to lock this down,” you say, but after seeing what might have been you hesitate.

  “Come on, guys,” Megan says, finally.“We’ve got a job to do.”

  And you know she’s right. You don’t like it, but you know she’s right. You wish you had a choice, but you don’t. “Lock it down,” you say.

  Paulo does, and the time bubble shudders.

  You look at the chronometer: 4 hours, 17 minutes, 22.36.08 seconds locked down. “We beat Night Team A,” you announce. You look back at Megan and Paulo. Megan looks up from her calcs and grins, but that’s it. It doesn’t feel l
ike the times when you’ve had a good shift, beat Night Team A, maybe locked down a day without indignities in Marian’s life.

  “Batteries at 48 percent,” Megan says. “Air tanks at 60.”

  You can stay out a little longer. You let time run through the true-time night, checking the probabilities, locking down blocks of time as you go. At 7:30 A.M., Franz checks out for his party; Bessie and a bellboy load the luggage in a taxi; and Marian hurries down the fire escape and out the servants’ entrance to meet the train to Denver.You’ve locked down 12 hours, 9 minutes, 46.22.54 seconds — not your team’s best, but a good shift’s work.

  “Batteries at 14 percent now,” Megan announces, which is as close to the 10 percent edge as you come. “Air tanks, 33.”

  “Prepare for return,” you say.

  While the three of you make the necessary adjustments and check each other’s work, you let time run. You are still stationed above Hotel Utah. At 7:46 A.M. — you notice the time because you’re setting comp’s main chronometer for the return just then — two maids hurry out the back of the hotel with blankets, sheets, pillowcases, towels, and a bedspread in their arms. “Those were in Marian’s room,” Megan says. “She had the cream bedspread.” And for a short time, while you strap yourselves into your seats, you all watch to see what these women are doing with the bedding and towels from Marian’s room. They hurry through the slush and cold to the incinerator, where refuse from the kitchen’s breakfast is burning, and they throw everything on the flames and stand there to watch it burn.