Wild Roses

by Deb Caletti

  Maria Lager Manzoni, grocer’s daughter: Father finally gave me Saturdays off Let me tell you a secret—that’s when my Pia was conceived. Eli and I held hands through that child’s sweet and tender playing, went home with passion. We barely closed the front door.

  Honoria Maretta: No child was ever mine like he was. Like a son to me. I loved that boy.10

  Here is what I remember about the rest of that night.

  Dino puts a coat around my mother’s shoulders. His own smells of cigarettes, like the boys in detention. I tell him I am sorry, but it is really more the sadness of his life I am expressing compassion for, rather than my anger at him earlier. There is too much between us for that. And too much that he’s done that cannot be excused by the past. Still, I feel bad for the pain he felt. The pain he continues to feel. Maybe he chooses not to see me, as he has chosen to stop seeing other things in his life.

  My mother drives. Dino sits in the passenger’s seat. I see in the reflection of the glass that his fingers are moving in the air, on the strings of the violin that rides in its case in the trunk.

  We take the ferry, stay in the car. I have seen Dino perform only once before, and Mom has seen him several times, but it was never like this. Never a release of new work after so many years, never so much riding on the outcome. Last time he was not nervous, but now his edginess infuses the atmosphere. Mom turns on the radio, but Dino switches it off. She helps him straighten the wings of his bow tie, then he flips the visor down and studies it in the mirror. Unsatisfied, he undoes it, ties it again. His hands tremble. I smooth the velvet of my dress again and again with my hands. I think about Ian, who in a few months will board an airplane for Philadelphia, but will tonight be somewhere in that audience. I think about how everyone is just a small person on a big earth in a bigger universe. I think about how everyone struggles to do the best they can in this imperfect place.

  We arrive at the concert hall early, of course. We are backstage, where there is the chaos and noise of people and instruments and bright lights. My mother knows a few performers there, and I can see her watching Dino with sideways glances even as she speaks to them. Dino is using grand gestures and a big voice, but he is sipping water and once again I see his shaking hands. A violist asks me questions about school that I answer as I smile with a politeness that tries hard to hide my impatience. I feel like I am talking to her forever, as she tells me what a shame it is that our schools do not make music programs a priority.

  Mom rescues me. She whispers that she feels underfoot, that they want to practice a few measures. The conductor looks relaxed, laughs a lot. She tells me that he will be good for Dino, and that we can go get a coffee. I guess we could use some Optimism in a Cup right then.

  We go out into the lobby, where it is mostly quiet still, and where there are huge posters of Dino staring out at us wherever I look. It reminds me of The Great Gatsby, which we read in English last year—something about that big sign that signifies death, or something or other that I can’t quite remember. We find a coffee stand, share a latte, eat a biscotti, so that Mom must go to the bathroom again to fix her lipstick. By the time the audience begins to arrive, she will have made four trips to the bathroom, not that I can blame her.

  It feels like we are waiting forever. My feet hurt in those damn shoes. Whoever decided that high heels were a good idea for women should have had to wear them every day of his life, which would be punishment enough. Everyone smiles at my mother, and my own face hurts from so much smiling. I keep looking around for Ian, but know that with all the people there it will be unlikely that I will see him and have the chance to talk to him about getting into Curtis. The ushers arrive, and Mom decides to go backstage and check on Dino one more time before the show begins. I go back to the bathroom for lack of anything else to do, and to avoid the stares of the Dino posters. His hair is swept back from his face in them, silver and black, and he looks handsome and intense. It occurs to me that he is someone I know, someone I live with. But do I really know him? Anything about him, except the way he wants me to walk down stairs, turn a faucet off, close a door? This strikes me as sad—what a stranger he and his life are to me. In the bathroom, I wish for a vice—smoking, drinking. My best vice, Hostess Indulgence, sounds stomach turning and hugely lacking in vice-ly power at the moment. The bathroom has the paper towels stacked in a basket, and I wonder how long they will last before the dispensers with the twirly narrow handles will have to be used.

  The bathroom begins to pack with perfumed women in sequins and big coats. I leave to find that the lobby is filling fast, with rushing people and lingering people, people in heavy jackets and others fanning themselves with their programs. It’s amazing how loud it is in there, after the several hours where the only noises were footsteps on carpet. In spite of Dino’s complaints about his venue, I know that the hall is one of the best for sound, a building built within a building to keep the life of the street out. Now in the lobby, we are standing in the middle layer, the protective atmosphere.

  Mom comes out again, finds me looking out of the glass wall into what is now night. It’s dark and has been raining, and the street is glossy. Cars are jammed up all along the road, and a light turns red and someone honks. In every one of those cars there is a story, or a hundred stories. For every light on in all of those huge city buildings, there is a story. No one knows what I am about to face, no one knows my story, and neither do I right then. I think about Ian and I scan the crowd for his face, and kick myself for not making a plan to meet him somewhere here. This place, a night like this, will be his place, too, his night. I wonder if his hands will shake as he takes a sip of water before his performance.

  Mom grabs my arm. It’s the second time she’s done that. She tells me we have to hurry, that we should be seated by now. We walk past the ushers and down the sloped, carpeted ramp. Some of the family of the other performers stay backstage, but Dino has always preferred his support in the audience. I know from Mom’s own performances that when you look out from a lit stage, all you can see is a blackness, the sky without stars. You wouldn’t even know there were any living beings out there. I guess it’s nice to know that there is something familiar and loving in that sea of darkness.

  We travel down the rows of seats and I am lucky I don’t fall on my ass in those shoes. All of those people in their suits and fancy clothes, holding hands or whispering to each other or reading their programs and scanning the names of all of the contributors to see which of their friends gave money, all of them are here to see Dino, to say that they saw him, to be able to tell the story tomorrow and in the days to come. You can feel the excitement in the air, in that reserved way of people in an elegant place—all good manners and shifting sideways to maneuver past each other and whispered excuse me’s.

  We sit next to that weasel Andrew Wilkowski, and some other woman who is from the recording company, I think. I can smell her perfume from where I sit, one of those sorts that are not sexy so much as stalking. The strong odor jars me out of the nervousness that I feel, this psychic-hypercommunication that Mom and I have going between us, anxious electricity. The perfume is helpful because now I am just plain annoyed, and the annoyance puts me in full fault-finding gear. The woman has a little run in her stockings right at the point of her ankle. With any luck, well see it zip up her leg like a spider crawling up a wall.

  I look behind me. Every seat that I can see is full. Every one. No one is even in the bathroom. I know that somewhere behind me, Siang Chibo sits with her parents. I know that Ian is there with his mother, tickets given to them compliments of Dino. I wonder if they can see me, if their eyes are on me. People in the front row turn to us and say things to Mom, shake her hands. They are probably the people whose names you see in the program under CONTRIBUTORS, the ones who have been in our house on Thanksgiving. We are in the second row by choice—my mom hates sitting in the front row. She says that all you get is a view up Dino’s pant leg, but I don’t understand how this is any better. I
f I had my choice, since I had to be there, I would rather sit in one of the overhanging pods, those special boxes that remind you of ladies with piled-up hair and opera glasses, or maybe of President Lincoln being shot, but Dino doesn’t like us in the balconies. Better yet, I’d sit in the farthest back corner. I’d put my coat around me, close my eyes, and pretend I’m listening to him on a CD. The idea of him on the stage in front of us is too intense. It’d be more comfortable watching the surgery channel on a big-screen TV This is not some stranger giving us a show—we will bring home his success or failure. We will live with the largeness of this event for days, the monumental fact of this one man with these people in his hands.

  The lights dim, and Mom grabs my arm. We look at each other in the dimness, and I’m surprised at how fearful her face looks. We know Dino won’t be performing right away, so there is no reason for this stomach lurching just yet. But when the curtain opens and there is such silence, only a few rustles and a throat being cleared, and the symphony is revealed, dressed in black, with instruments held in readiness, you know it has begun and whatever happens is inevitable.

  The conductor enters, and we like him already. His hair is loose, and it is as swinging as his walk. He bows to the audience, and his wide smile says he is enjoying every moment of this, that we should relax and come with him where he is about to take us. The crowd breaks into applause—Peter Boglovich is well loved, known for his passion for coffee and pastries and other men. He steps up onto the conductor’s stand, and raises his baton to a pinpoint in the air. And then they begin.

  There is a frenzy of bowing, the slightly forward tilt of the musicians’ bodies, their slight sway. I can feel my mother relax through the piece. I look over at her and see her smiling slightly.

  The symphony plays two more pieces. After the third there is silence, and my mother takes my hand and holds it. Hers is sweaty, and I wonder if she has stopped breathing. Peter Boglovich is speaking, although his words are underwater. He turns to face offstage, applauds to Dino, who emerges from the wings. There is thunderous applause, which goes on for a long time, as Dino looks out into the black sea. In spite of all of the people around him, he looks alone, this one man who was once this one young boy. He takes off his tuxedo jacket, hands it to the conductor. Dino takes his place slightly left of center.

  The first piece is titled Giardino Dei Sogno, Garden of Dreams. It is surprisingly upbeat, almost cheerful. He smiles as if he is remembering something sweet. His white shirt billows softly. The symphony joins him after a while, an easy, lovely mix of a walk in good weather. My mother’s eyes never leave him; it’s as if she is breathing for him. The piece ends. The crowd’s applause is warm and full, but not overwhelming and astonished. Dino bows and his hair falls down over his face. He stands upright, gives the crowd a nod, and then raises up a hand in acknowledgment. This man, whom I share a house with and who uses the same silverware as I do, seems so removed from me that I could forget that I know him at all.

  Dino walks offstage, and the curtain closes. The lights come up, and it is intermission. He will play again afterward. I hear my mother sigh a breath of relief, and then she puts on her smile to receive congratulations of the people who turn to take her hands again. They are being polite, I can tell. Underwhelmed. I stand and stretch, look around. Look up into the crowd and try to meet Ian’s eyes, wherever they are.

  My mother is leaning forward and talking to Andrew Wilkowski, who I notice for the first time is wearing a rose in his lapel. His wife is talking to the record company woman, who can’t seem to take her eyes off of my mother. I check out the crowd and have a weird surge of panic at the sight of one man in our row across the aisle. For a minute, I think I am looking at William Tiero. I think the man looks just like him. In fact, I become sure in a moment that it is indeed William Tiero. This is what living with a paranoid can do; it makes you fear the worst things. My heart actually thumps around in anticipation of trouble. When Mom leans back in her seat again, I point out the man. Isn’t that William Tiero? I ask.

  Don’t even think such a thing, she says. And then she tells me who she thinks he looks like, names someone I’ve never heard of, a movie actor probably. She tells me this man’s nose and chin are too round, and that his hair is wrong. It is not William Tiero.

  A woman comes to the front and asks if she can take my mother’s picture. Andrew Wilkowski intervenes and says no, but my mother says she doesn’t mind. The woman has a hard time figuring out her own damn camera, then realizes it hasn’t been wound forward. Andrew Wilkowski reminds her to keep the camera in her purse during the performance, and the woman snaps something back to him about knowing full well the protocol. She gives us something to talk about until the lights dim again.

  The symphony performs one endless piece and then there is Dino again. There is a long silence before he begins, and when he lifts his violin to his chin, he closes his eyes. It is a solo piece, parts of which I have heard again and again, but have never known the title of until I had picked up the program earlier that night. Amore Dolce Della Gioventù, Sweet Love of Youth. He begins to play, and for the first time I hear the piece unbroken. I see the entire picture. I know its name. It is strange to me that I have before this moment only known fragments and not the whole. I wonder what made him write it. I wonder if it was memories of his days in Paris as a young man, or if it was something more recent. I hear the notes, this most beautiful, tender arrangement of feeling, and I see him drawing back the curtain of the upstairs bedroom window of our house, see him watching Ian and me on the grass that night. Could he have seen something more than just his anger that night? Or is every person in this room feeling as if he was there the moment they fell in love? When the piece is over there is silence in the hall, and then frenzied applause. Shouts of Bravo! The record company woman wipes a tear from her face. He has triumphed.

  He barely pauses to accept the applause before he moves to his next piece, the dreaded third composition that has given him so much agony. It is titled simply Lunetta. It is a piece that begins with just Dino’s single, mournful violin, until the orchestra floats in, it seems, section by section until all the performers are playing so furiously that it is as if their instruments might alight at any moment. He has composed the music for each instrument, written every agonizing note, and it is true—he is a genius. The emotions pour forth, the definitions of love and life and struggle. Dino himself has his eyes closed—he is lost to this frenzied place. He grimaces, as if it is causing him pain; his shirt billows, comes untucked. His sleeves are swaying a rhythm of white, and this close you can see the sweat forming on his forehead. I hold my own breath—it is that kind of music, where you are almost afraid for what might happen next, afraid of where this group cry to the universe might bring us. I look over at my mother, and see her hands clasped in her lap. Her own eyes are closed, and she is smiling. She is gone to wherever music and passion can take her, and I see on her face why she loves this man and what it means to her to simply be part of this moment. I understand that that is what all this has been about—her ability to be here in a way that is more intimate than anyone else in the room. To have a piece of it that no one else has. This is why she has stayed.

  I think of my father right then. I think how my mother has needs that he cannot fulfill. In some part of him, held secretly in his palm, maybe, I know he holds out hope that she will return to him. There is a part of me that right then opens up my own palm, unfurls the clutched fingers, and lets the hope out.

  The audience is transported, and Dino is the one leading the trip. I am afraid for him—he seems so overcome, so lost and found at the same time that I wonder how he’ll manage it. He leans over the violin, and the energy and fire he pours into that instrument is the brightest flash of light, a gamma ray burst, the death of a star and the creation of a black hole. The piece has ended, this piece that has caused Dino so much agony, and the audience explodes with applause, shouts, and rises to its feet. This surpasses triumph, but D
ino looks depleted, exhausted to the point of collapse. He just stands there for a while, looking into the blackness of the audience as if wondering where he was and how he got there. Lunetta, I learn later means “Little Moon” in Italian. His mother’s name.

  Someone has the bright idea to turn up the lights a bit so that he can see the people on their feet, their hands in the air. His eyes settle on us, the record company woman, my mother and I, then move across the performance hall.

  There are lucky and unlucky things about that night. The unlucky things are obvious. The lucky thing is that someone closed the curtain a bit too early. As the heavy velvet drapes shut, the applause finally quieted, and the rush out began immediately. That was the lucky part, that there were many people who had already made it through the doors before Peter Boglovich and a French horn player lost their grasp on a Dino who was trying to make his way out to the audience through the side curtain. He had thrown his violin down—that’s how they knew that he was suddenly outraged and out of control. Thrown it hard enough to cause a thin crack down the back.

  No one hears anything, although Andrew Wilkowski’s envelope wife would later claim she heard the splintering of the wood, which was an impossibility and a lie, given the noise in the auditorium and the chatter of the record company woman. We gather our coats. There is supposed to be a brief reception now for a few important people. This is fine for the record company woman, as her perfume is still going strong. I do not know that in less than a minute, Ian will know my secret. That everyone will.