A doctor came up to them then, to ask Cybil to fill out some paperwork, and Cybil allowed herself to be led away.
Fluorescent lights gave the room a bluish tinge, and as Remy sat, alone, she felt sick to her stomach. She stared at her hands in her lap, clasped them, unclasped them. She changed the cross of her hands, right over left, which felt unnatural, and looked down at her thumbs crossed one over the other. When she was very young, she had looked at her hands one day while washing up for dinner and, seeing the tap water fall over them, thought to herself, These are my hands, and they will be my hands when I’m old, but they’ll be different, they’ll be older hands. And the thought had seemed profound and overwhelming, and had been followed by one of those unanswerable questions: Are they still the same hands?
A year or so ago, her colleague Carole had accidentally sliced the tip of her left-hand forefinger while cutting a cucumber—and had refused to be rushed to the emergency room for stitches, terrified that surgery might compromise the sensitivity in her fingertip. Instead she had some kooky ultraviolet light contraption that a friend had rigged up, under which she placed her fingertip for hours each day, to help the skin of the sliced section rebind itself. After a week, like magic, the fingertip was fully healed.
If it could happen for Carole’s finger, all back to normal and good as new, then it could happen for Yoni, too. Remy clasped her hands the other way. Though it was nothing she had been brought up to do, she decided to pray. Please, please, let him be all right.
And now she found herself making a pact with a God she had never really thought much about: If you let him live, I will forgive everything. I will forgive Nicholas, forever, no matter what he did with that woman. Just let Yoni live, please.
As if hearing this, Nicholas materialized. He walked up to Remy briskly, pale, frowning. His left arm was in a sling, the wrist bandaged. “Have you heard anything?”
“My God, what happened to you?”
“Let’s just say I avoided a fight. Is Yoni all right?”
“What? Jesus.” Remy felt her heart plunge all over again, at the life Nicholas must lead without her. Just how many secrets did he have? But all she said was, “We’ve been waiting for you. He needs surgery. Right now he’s sleeping.” Then, feeling furious all over again, she couldn’t help asking, “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
He nodded toward his arm. Then he sat down and asked, “Is Cybil with him?”
“She’s with the doctors. There are lots of . . . decisions.” Remy realized her jaw was shaking. The quick thumping in her chest seemed suddenly faster. “What the fuck, Nicholas?” she asked quietly, but he just shook his head.
They waited.
“Well, here we are,” Nicholas announced after many minutes, as if they had already completed long laps.
Remy said nothing, just looked down at her hands until a nurse finally came and told them they could see Yoni now.
THEY WERE USHERED INTO A SMALL BRIGHT ROOM. “HEY,” CYBIL SAID weakly, and then, “Oh, no—what happened?”
“Never mind,” Nicholas said, “I’m fine,” and then nodded hello to Cybil’s sister, Trude, whom he and Remy had met a number of times. She was holding Ravit, who was awake yet oddly peaceful, grabbing onto some small purple fuzzy thing. Yoni lay in the bed, motionless, eyes closed, asleep.
Nicholas watched Remy go to Yoni and say, “Hey, you,” in a low voice. Her kiss on Yoni’s pale gray cheek met no reaction other than a tiny twitch of his face. “Jesus. Look at you.” She burst into tears. “I’m sorry to cry,” she said, turning her head away.
Her face was wracked, as if Yoni were her husband and not Cybil’s. Nicholas felt suddenly confused, nearly dizzy—from the painkillers, probably. And from the fact that this was real, this awful scene before him was actually happening.
He dropped down into one of the plastic seats, overwhelmed.
“We have just a few minutes,” Cybil’s sister said tightly, absently rubbing the baby’s back; Ravit had begun to squirm, and Cybil reached for her. “They have to prep him for surgery.”
Nicholas nodded, because he found he couldn’t speak. He felt panic coming on, though he told himself it would all be all right, of course Yoni would be fine. But the panic was still there, rising. He hadn’t felt such a thing in years, in decades, not like this—not since that day in Italy, at the train station, when he hadn’t known who had died.
He wanted to reach out for Remy, hold her, but did not dare; instead he stood and moved toward the bed where Yoni lay, gray-looking, not right at all. No mischievous smile, no flicker in his eyes. Nicholas still heard the echo of their breakfast conversation, Yoni’s quiet anger, the way he had nodded his head so slowly, as if to prevent himself from bursting. I’ve already done all I can. There’s nothing more I can do.
A thought whipped through Nicholas: that the episode might have somehow triggered this attack. But no, these things were common enough. Every winter Nicholas read in the paper about men not yet old keeling over from the mere effort of shoveling snow. Even the ones who seemed fit, who rode bicycles and, like Yoni, jogged and went on hikes and drank protein shakes. They, too, succumbed. Sometimes it was simply congenital; you can’t help what goes on in your heart.
Yet a horrible guilt clung to him. “I’m sorry,” Nicholas mouthed, but no sound came out. Leaning down, he managed to whisper, “I love you, Yoni. Please. Get well, hmm?”
He waited, as if Yoni might speak. Despite the nearly imperceptible movement of his eyes beneath their lids, Yoni simply lay there while everyone stood watching him, this man they all loved, except that it was no longer the same man.
WHEN THEY RETURNED TO THE WAITING ROOM, NICHOLAS DROPPED carefully into the seat next to Remy. After long, awful, silent minutes, he said, “I guess this is what it means to grow up.”
Remy turned to look at him. “For you. The rest of us grew up a long time ago.” She let her head drop into her hands. How can I stay so angry, even now? What does it even matter? I made a worse mistake. I broke up a family. Who am I to feel wronged? Other people can turn the other cheek. Look at Hazel the other day, so kind to me. I turned her life upside down, and in return, she has been nothing but kind to me, really.
But, of course, Remy reminded herself, that was who Hazel was: a person who gave. She had shared, if unwillingly, her life with Remy—her daughter and her family—with all the grace she could muster. She had given, and had forgiven.
To be able to do that. What Remy would give to be able to do that.
She looked up to see Cybil’s sister standing in front of them, her face pale. “They’ve stopped the surgery, there was a problem. Cybil’s with him, but they won’t let me in with her. It looks . . . It’s not good.”
Remy began to shiver. That small sentence—“It’s not good”—those short, benign adjectives that people use to deliver the most deadly of news.
Nicholas was asking questions now. Surely there must be a way, he was demanding, almost belligerently, as if it were Cybil’s sister who had caused all this trouble in the first place. “Surely there’s something they can do!”
Remy didn’t hear the response. She was biting her lip so hard that she tasted blood. “It’s not possible,” Nicholas said, angrily, when Cybil’s sister had left them again.
Remy thought of Cybil, what a good mood she had been in the other day, Ravit a neat little package there on her chest, and the backgammon board in its bubble wrap. Remy could practically see it now, leaning against the wall.
A new kind of pain crashed through her. This very moment, Yoni was in a room somewhere fighting for his life. Impossible, that they might have to live without him. And yet it was what people did, of course. Continued.
“It’s not possible,” Nicholas repeated, in a murmur.
But yes, Remy told herself, of course it was possible. Yoni was a casualty of something beyond health or illness. It seemed clear this disaster was something she and Nicholas, their own misdeeds, had led to, inevitab
ly.
Remy held her arms around herself, to try to stop the shivering. Then she let go, because nothing would do.
The pact she had made, her pact with God . . . It was the wrong pact. She saw that now. It was too easy. A selfish pact. One where she could keep everything for herself. But a fulfilled wish was not a reason to forgive. It was the unfulfilled wish that was the reason. Forgiving despite that.
A fullness came over her, a furious clarity.
Yes, that is why we forgive: because we live only so long, and love only so long.
She said none of this to Nicholas. But as if hearing her, he made a small motion with his arm, as though to lift his hand to hers, before his face broke into pain. Remy reached for his other hand and curled her fingers around his. She continued to hold on, for what felt like a long time, and prayed in a silent, ashamed way.
They were still sitting like that when Cybil came toward them, dreadfully slowly, her face as they had never seen it, so that even before she had reached them they had begun, already, to understand.
IT WAS VERY LATE WHEN THE THREE OF THEM ACCOMPANIED CYBIL and Ravit home. Nicholas felt he was moving through someone else’s life. Cybil made the first call, to Yoni’s brother in Haifa, but the effort was too much; after that, Trude and Remy took over while Ravit slept in her crib. Nicholas sat on the sleek gray sofa and held Cybil as best he could with just his right arm. His other arm hung in its sling, wrist bandaged, useless.
If I had known, he wondered, that would be the last time I would speak to him . . . But what would I have done differently? What could I have done that would have made it any better? In a way, he’s always been cross with me.
Well, I could have run after him. Told him how much I love him, and that I forgive him.
Forgive him. Where did that come from? Really there had been an opposite dynamic, as if Nicholas owed Yoni something, always the sense that Nicholas was in the wrong somehow.
Well, there was something else. It had to do with that odd period years ago, those uncomfortable months when something had gone on with Remy. Whatever it was, Nicholas never quite understood, only that it was something she must have told Yoni, something he held over Nicholas—because for a while there had been such uneasiness around him.
Cybil fell briefly asleep on Nicholas’s good shoulder, but then awoke and cried again, great loud sobs that became hiccups. Nicholas had to fight himself not to join her.
Night had begun to turn to day. Remy scrambled some eggs. Nicholas was amazed that although he had no appetite—surely none of them did—all four of them ate, swiftly, automatically. Nicholas had to hold his fork with his right hand, making him feel even stranger.
Ravit ate, too; the three women took turns feeding her some green puree with a baby spoon.
When Cybil’s sister asked, in a hoarse, tired voice, “So, what exactly happened to you, again?” Nicholas just said, “I got my comeuppance. Let’s leave it at that. I’m too ashamed to admit how this happened.” The wrangle at the club seemed something from days ago—from another lifetime.
That was when Cybil stood, quickly, and ran to the bathroom. They could hear her vomiting. Trude went to help her, and so it was just Remy and Nicholas, sitting across from each other, and Ravit in her swing seat, as the sun rose. Remy spooned some more green mush out of the jar, and Ravit played with the purple spoon. Remy touched Ravit’s plump cheek. Then Remy’s face crumpled; she began to sob.
Nicholas watched, paralyzed, as Ravit reached out for Remy’s hair. He still heard the anger in Yoni’s tight, furious voice: You have no idea, that’s for sure.
And yet Nicholas knew how much Remy loved Yoni, and that Yoni cared just as deeply for her. He wanted to scream at Yoni, I know, I know!
From the bathroom, the sounds came again, Cybil retching into the toilet, while Remy reached down and wrapped her arms around her own abdomen, her face collapsing all over again. The pure physicality of all this grief was horrifying.
You have no idea.
But I do! I know I’ve always failed you, somehow.
And yet it did seem, now, that there was something he did not know, something that kept him apart from the vast grief in this room. He pictured Yoni’s face in the diner, the familiar frustration suddenly too much. Well, that sort of anger could happen when you were close the way they were. And there had always been envy, of course—Yoni always wanting what Nicholas had.
Nicholas sat up straighter at the thought. He turned to look at Remy. She had put her hands up over her eyes, like a grieving widow.
Cybil was still retching into the toilet. “I’m sorry,” Nicholas heard himself stutter, “but I think I have to go home now.”
Remy nodded. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll stay here as long as Cybil needs me.”
Shaking, he stood. Even his legs felt weak. But he managed to walk away from her, this woman grieving for her other husband.
IT WAS HOURS LATER WHEN REMY HEADED HOME. SHE HAD FALLEN asleep on Yoni’s hard gray sofa, awaking to find Cybil’s closest friend and a neighbor setting up trays of food, taking charge for the next shift.
Carrying her violin case as if it were any other day . . . The air was sweet with springtime. Yoni, what happened to you? But she knew, of course: his heart had broken. Of course it had. An entire life spent trying to refind that one true love. How long could a heart stand it? Missing someone, yearning. It was just that combination—loss and desire—that had been Yoni’s very essence.
At home, the house was quiet. Nicholas had fallen asleep atop their bed. Seeing his wrist in its bandaging, Remy bridled again at how separate the two of them had become, how little she understood him, and could not bring herself to lie down beside him. Instead she went downstairs to sit in the light-filled music room. The air sifting through the windows made her feel briefly stronger.
Nicholas’s pages were still spread atop the piano. Remy didn’t even need them anymore, except for the final movement; the others she knew by heart. Just glimpsing the manuscript, she itched to play the piece again, to be back inside that alternate world, instead of here in this room on this horrible day.
She took her violin from its case, tuned the strings, tightened her bow. Closing her eyes, she thought back to the opening bars. Her bow met the string, and soon she found herself among those mysteries she was still trying to understand, those questions still taking shape. Playing from memory always held this quality for her, as if inhabiting a nameless space whose light and shadows became gradually—with each playing—more clear to her. Already she sensed, this time, a leap forward in her comprehension, her playing no longer a matter of mere translation. The music had become a part of her, so that she felt, this time (though tears streaked her cheeks), its meaning.
Yes, she heard it now. Those measures that had been haunting her—the wisp of something she almost recognized. Notes she had already examined closely. She stopped and, this time, instead of playing them as written, reversed them. Played them backward, just like that.
It was a riff from the Franck sonata—the one she and Nicholas loved to play together, the one she had learned in that long-ago summer with Conrad Lesser.
She laughed out loud.
Then she went over to where the pages of the manuscript lay and took them up, seeing anew these marks her husband’s hand had made, this code whose secrets she only now understood. She turned ahead to the next movement to see what he had done.
This time he had inverted the notes, had them going down instead of up, but again with the original rhythm intact. And in the third movement he had used the same notes and rhythm but rearranged their order, like an anagram. She looked ahead to the fourth movement, where he had shuffled them yet again. How amazing—how stupendous! To see in this pattern of dots and stems the constellations of another soul.
Just a little string of notes. But to Remy they were a secret message just for her. She saw that now, as she began to play the solo section of the final movement. With each stroke of her bow she fe
lt Nicholas’s love course through her, immense and many colored, nothing he could have put into words, nothing he could speak aloud. Its expression was this.
“That was gorgeous.”
She looked up to see Nicholas, and was surprised all over again by the bandaged wrist and the sling. His nose and eyes were red from crying. Remy went to him, leaned into him, and felt him lift his right arm around her.
“Thank you,” she told him. “For the violin part.”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard it played. I thought I’d surprise you. It’s . . . You’ve made it beautiful.”
“I’ve been working hard on it!” Remy gave a little laugh—her first laugh, she realized, since the events of last night. Not even a day had passed, and already she had laughed. She felt she had betrayed Yoni.
“I can tell,” Nicholas said. “I’m honored.”
“Well, I wanted to use it for an audition, actually.” She stepped back, paused just briefly before telling him about the orchestra in Barcelona. As she spoke she could see that she had shocked him. “I mean, who knows if it’s even a possibility, who knows if I’ll really want . . . well, I mean, I want to be sure of at least getting an audition.”
“I’m sure you’d be selected,” Nicholas said, as if in a trance. The expression on his face prevented Remy from saying more. In a slow, heavy voice, he told her, “Barcelona was the first city I ever visited in Spain.”
“I remember you telling me about it.”
He said, “I don’t suppose you want me there. Not that you even asked, I mean, I don’t mean to suggest—but if you did—”
“Honey,” Remy said, taking his good hand in hers. “Honey.” There was so much she wanted to say. But a lump had formed in her throat. “Here, come help me. Let’s try the final movement.”
Nicholas nodded at his sling. “I’m afraid I can’t accompany you.”
“I mean to turn pages,” Remy told him. “I don’t have all of it from memory yet.” She laid the stack of pages before her, and Nicholas came to stand at her side.
She began to play.
Sight Reading Page 31
