by Frank Conroy
"The cab runs fine," Al said.
"They put me on suspension a while back. A frame-up. Just politics. Politics and lies."
"Claude tells me you stopped working."
She looked at the boy, and once again Claude had the strange feeling that she didn't really see him. "He sure can play. You ever hear him play?"
"Yes, ma'am. I have."
"Call me Emma."
"All right."
"He's got it," she said. "They're helping him because they know that."
"Yeah, well, he's still gonna need his momma."
Claude flushed.
Emma gave the faintest smile and shook her head. The boy didn't know how to read the gesture. It could be denial, but also bemused acceptance. He glanced at Al, whose eyes did not move from the woman's face. "You in trouble," Al said.
She remained motionless, staring down at the counter.
After a long time Al said, "How you going to make your way, Emma?"
The question hung there. Claude was astonished at the whole situation—at Al's directness, his mother's silence, the way in which these two strangers acted as if they'd known each other for years. He felt like a child. At the same time he was so curious he actually held his breath.
He saw her tears, falling from her motionless head to the counter. His astonishment gave way to something like nonbelief as he saw her reach out and place her hands over Al's. She still did not look up. Now he could see a faint trembling in her shoulders.
"Claude," Al said, "your momma and me gonna have a little talk. Why don't you go down to the corner and get yourself a Coke for a while? Okay with you?"
Stunned beyond speech, Claude simply nodded, and after a moment moved away, across the room and out the door.
9
THE PUERTO RICAN MAID, whose name was Isidra, carried the large tray bearing the tea service and placed it on the low table in front of Catherine on the couch.
"Where's the cinnamon toast?" Catherine asked. "I expressly ordered cinnamon toast."
Isidra gave a small shrug.
"Well?" Catherine's voice was sharp.
"I don't know this toast." She spoke reluctantly, her ordinarily pretty face fixed in sullenness.
Claude, sitting on the floor on the opposite side, broke in without thinking. "It doesn't matter." He looked over at Peter, also on the floor, at the end of the table, for support.
"Mmm," said Peter, his head wobbling.
Catherine glared down at Claude. "Stay out of this. You're a guest. You're barely a guest." She turned to Isidra, who stood stolidly, staring at the mantelpiece. "Well then, bring us some biscuits. The British kind in the long brown box."
Isidra left.
"Insolence," Catherine said, raising the teapot. "Nothing but insolence. She wouldn't dare if Dewman were here." With slow, almost studied movements, she served Peter, Claude, and then herself. She sat back on the couch and took a small, thoughtful sip. She wore a simple white cotton blouse with half sleeves and a dark plaid skirt. Claude could not take his eyes off her—the smooth porcelain perfection of her forearms, the faint touch of rose in her cheeks (from anger?), the hair so black it seemed wet, and above all the dark eyes. He could not tell—could never tell—if she was aware of how intently he studied her. For more than half a year he had waited in vain for the slightest sign of recognition.
"I'm going to give a soirée," she announced.
Peter slurped his tea. "What's that?"
"An evening of light entertainment. Some music. A brief dramatic interlude on stage. A tableau vivant. You and Rawlings will start it off."
"I told you I'm quitting," Peter said. "I don't want to play anymore. It's boring."
"Just this once. For me." She sipped again, shifting her glance to Claude over the rim of her cup. "Do you think he should give up the violin?"
Claude hesitated, wondering if it was some kind of test question. He was perfectly prepared to lie to give her the answer she wanted, but he couldn't tell what she wanted. "Well, why do it if he doesn't like it?"
Isidra entered with a plate of biscuits. She put them on the tray and withdrew.
Catherine picked up a biscuit. "If he stops, you won't get to come here anymore." She took a neat bite.
"Oh yes he will," Peter said. "I'll invite him."
Claude had in fact agonized over this very point. He'd done everything he could think of to keep Peter amused, bringing in little pieces (a la Weisfeld years ago), pop tunes, snippets of jazz, and folk music, but the boy seemed unable to get any pleasure out of it. He approached everything perfunctorily. "Turkey in the Straw," "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?," "Clair de Lune," and "Bolero" were all ground out with listless accuracy. As Claude grew more fond of the precocious boy, he began to feel guilty at the way he was using him. As well, it wasn't often that Catherine so much as said hello. She seemed constantly preoccupied, her whole manner suggesting that higher, more important, more adult matters had a previous claim on her time and attention.
"So," she said, "five minutes of music to set the mood. Rawlings will pick something."
"And what is the mood?" Claude asked.
An infinitesimal crumb clung to her bottom lip. As Claude stared, his body quickened. He felt a tingling sensation and blood roared in his ears. He imagined taking her lip gently between his teeth, picking off the crumb with the tip of his tongue, feeling the heat of her head on his face, inhaling her scent—all of this in a split second so powerful it made him dizzy. "The mood," she said, catching the bit of biscuit with her own red tongue, fast as a snake, freezing his heart, "should be wistful. Simple. Elemental. Almost sad. It will introduce the myth of Daphne and Apollo. I'll need your help onstage, but don't worry, you won't have any lines."
"I don't want to," said Peter.
"I know. But you have to."
"When?"
"They're giving a dinner party."
Claude, emerging from his fantasy, heard only the last part of this. He wondered at her confidence, because Mrs. Fisk had been ill for some weeks, confined to her bedroom. White-uniformed nurses were on round-the-clock duty, and once the doctor himself had walked through the living room during a session. Peter had explained that his mother had retreated like this, for weeks at a time, for as long as he could remember.
"What's wrong with her?" Claude had asked.
"First it was TB. We couldn't go into that part of the house, and the nurses wore masks. Now it's because she's delicate." The way Peter had said "delicate" made it clear he was repeating it without understanding it, the way he did with music. "I don't remember the TB very well. I was little then."
Sipping his tea, Claude got an idea. "What about a trio? Piano, violin, and flute?" He would be in charge of the rehearsals, of course, and the thought of having that small bit of dominion over her was thrilling. He would be gentle, but firm.
She glanced at him, alert, for all the world as if she'd read his mind. "I'll consider it," she said crisply.
Weisfeld and Ivan sat on opposite sides of the counter, next to the harmonica case, while Claude waited on a customer up front.
"So tell me," Weisfeld asked quietly, "how's it going with him over there?"
"I would say extremely well. He's getting high marks in everything, apparently. He seems to have read a great deal."
"I mean with the other boys. The social part of it."
Ivan frowned for a moment, thinking. "He's a bit standoffish. What's the American word? A loner. But people respect that. Some of them seem slightly awed, in fact."
"He doesn't tell me much about it," Weisfeld said.
"Oh, it's fine. Really."
"What about this urchin business? He mentioned it back at the beginning. He wanted to know what the word meant, and I had to drag it out of him where he'd heard it."
"Well, that's what they call the tough kids around First and Second avenues." Ivan gave a quick, rueful, apologetic smile. "The school is quite old. Something that just hung on, I suppose. Rem
nant of the nineteenth century."
"They don't ... they wouldn't ..." Weisfeld's voice trailed off.
"No, no," Ivan said quickly. "Absolutely not. I mean to say, of course he's a bit exotic to most of them, but he's awfully clever, and they see that. And then there's the music. He almost never does it, but all he has to do is sit down and play, and suddenly twenty people are there listening."
"Does he need anything?"
"I don't think so."
"Are his clothes all right? Does he dress right?" Weisfeld stroked his mustache nervously.
"Mr. Weisfeld," Ivan said, "believe me, everything is fine."
"Good, good." Weisfeld nodded his head. "I'm glad to hear it. You're a fine young man. He's lucky he met you."
"No luckier than me," Ivan said.
Weisfeld studied Ivan for a moment. "This is good," he said.
Claude came down the aisle and rang up a sale on the cash register. "Ukulele madness," he said. "I don't understand it."
Weisfeld shrugged.
"Arthur Godfrey?" Ivan offered.
"Take your friend downstairs," Weisfeld said to Claude. "Show him your studio." There was the faintest spin of self-mockery in the word "studio," discernible only to Claude.
Claude led the way as they descended to the basement. "It's funny, my room at home is always a mess." He clicked on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs. "But I keep this organized."
The space had evolved over the years. Only a small portion, to the rear of the building, where they now stood, was used for storage. The rest had indeed become a sort of studio, albeit without natural light. The walls had been whitewashed, the cement floor covered with cheap beige carpeting to absorb sound ("Remnants," Weisfeld had said; "a guy in Brooklyn going out of business; he practically gave it to me"), and now pine bookshelves crammed with music stretched along the far wall. Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. It was a clean, orderly place.
"Here," Claude said, going to the first worktable, "I read scores." A straight-backed wooden chair. A Zenith phonograph. Neat piles of long-playing records and carefully stacked columns of music—piano, orchestral, and chamber. He moved down to the next worktable. "Here I write." Pencils, pens, bottles of India ink. A manuscript in progress lying half open. He crossed to the gleaming Bechstein and gave the case a little rub with his elbow. "And here I play."
Ivan strolled by, touching things lightly. "This is wonderful," he said.
"I practically live here," Claude said. "It's hard to leave sometimes."
Ivan nodded.
"Even copying—you know, writing out parts for people—I can lose track of time down here. It's terrific." He pointed to a blackboard in the corner. "Mr. Weisfeld taught me harmony on that. Theory, other stuff."
"How long has this been...?"
"Oh, God. Years." Claude sat down sideways on the piano bench. "I can't remember how old I was."
"And he just gave you all this?"
"Yes."
"Remarkable."
"And the piano was left to me in a will by Maestro Kimmel, the Hungarian composer. I used to practice on it in his living room when I was a kid."
Ivan went to the bookcases. He gave a small sigh. "I envy you. You know what you want and you're going after it. I feel like I'm just thrashing. I get excited about something, and then a few months later I get excited about something else. I just dip in here and there. Typically British, I suppose. The truth is, I don't know what I want to do."
Claude looked down at the floor for a moment. Then he turned to face the piano. "Let me show you something. It's really neat. Can you read music?" He moved to the bass end, leaving room for Ivan, who sat down beside him.
"I had recorder lessons years ago," Ivan said.
"Okay. This is baby simple." He pointed to the music he'd written out. "It's just this phrase over and over, except here it's E and here it's E-flat." He played the twelve-bar sequence rapidly. "See? It's called 'Blues in the Closet.' "
Ivan played it, haltingly but correctly. "What're all those funny symbols underneath, there?"
"That's jazz notation. They don't write everything out. They do it that way. They're all sevenths. Now play the melody again, and I'll play the traditional blues harmony."
Ivan stumbled at the start, but then got it right. Claude played simple dominant sevenths, three of them, spread out over the twelve bars.
"That's fun," Ivan said. "Let's do it again."
When they'd finished, Claude pointed at the symbols. "I met a jazz player and he gave me these. A saxophone player named Charlie Parker thought this up. Play the melody again and listen to the difference."
This time Claude played a series of shifting chords, a pattern of major sevenths moving down to the subdominant, and then another cycle of fifths starting in the minor, back down to the tonic. Despite the fact that he was playing two chords to the bar, for a total of twenty-four versus the traditional three, it fit the melody perfectly. A rich harmony, filled with different colors and propulsive energy.
"Good heavens!" Ivan cried. "What did you do? That's wonderful. Do it again."
Again they played it through together. "See how it fits?" Claude asked.
"Like magic," Ivan said.
"What's really amazing is it works with every blues line. All of them. The simple and the complicated." He played the Parker chords against a nonrepetitive blues melody called "The Swinging Shepard Blues," and then against a tricky melody of Parker's invention. "Works every time," he said. "Instead of just staying on the tonic for four bars, waiting to go to the subdominant, he sets up this ride and carries you there. And I love the change from major to minor. They call it bebop."
"I've heard of that. I thought it was supposed to be wild—wild music."
Claude laughed. "Oh, they do tricks with the instruments, and there's so much movement in the harmonics and stuff. But really it's straight out of Bach. I mean, Bach could easily have written that blues harmony."
"You're kidding."
"I'm serious. In fact, I don't know why it took so long. Somebody could have done it fifty years ago. But then Parker is incredibly inventive. His stuff is full of counterpoint and cycles. It's baroque, really."
Ivan stood up and went over to the phonograph. "You haven't had Dr. Satterthwaite yet, have you?"
"No. I have to do all the required courses. I can't take any music for awhile."
"You should have some interesting discussions. I heard him talking about jazz once in the teachers' lounge. He thinks it's barbaric. He doesn't think it's music at all, just noise."
Claude thought for a moment. "That's strange. Of course it's music. I wonder why he would say that?"
"He's a bit of a stuffed shirt," Ivan said. "Icy. The way his lips are always pressed together, as if he's angry about something." He started going through a pile of records. "Have you got any bebop in here? I'd like to hear it."
Claude sprang up. "Sure. I've got some seventy-eights of Parker. I'll put it on. You'll love it."
Most of the furniture in the living room of the Fisk mansion had been removed, and six large round tables, each with a white cloth and a setting for twelve, had been placed at the end of the room near the stage. The men wore dinner jackets, the women long dresses, and the air hummed with their voices, their laughter, and the clink of silver, china, and crystal. Candlelight made their faces glow and their eyes shine. Maids in black uniforms with short white aprons moved continuously back and forth, carrying plates, bowls, and large dishes of food. Two men in black, less hurried, served wine, hovering at the shoulders of the guests.
Claude, dressed as instructed in his tuxedo (the same that had once been Anson Roeg's), sat at a smaller table for four on the periphery with Peter and two large men named Dennis and Pat, the mayor's bodyguards. They ate steadily, making no attempt at conversation with the boys, their eyes scanning the room, coming back always to the central table where Mrs. Fisk sat with the mayor, her father Senator Barnes, and others. Dewman was
at the next table with Balanchine, a few of the top dancers from the ballet company, and Nelson Rockefeller. Peter had pointed them out to Claude.
"And see that girl in the gray over there," he said now, pointing with his fork. "That's Betsy Lafarge. From the side with the name but no money. She's at Brearley with Catherine. Dicky isn't paying her a bit of attention."
"Who is Dicky?" Claude asked.
"Dicky Aldridge. Dumb as a stick, but he's at Princeton." Peter moved his head very close to his plate, peered down through his glasses, and cut a small slice of his beef Wellington. "He'll probably get drunk. He almost always does."
"This is good," Pat said to Dennis.
"It's okay," Dennis said. "But there's no gravy."
"Never had this before, with the crust and all," Pat said.
Through all the hubbub Claude suddenly heard Catherine's sharp laughter. She sat between Dewman and Nelson Rockefeller, a glass of red wine in her hand, her head tilted back. As she lowered it, smiling, Claude saw the hollow in her throat, whiter than the pearls around it. Now she was talking quickly, making gestures with her free hand, seeming to address the table at large. Some of the men leaned forward, polite and attentive. Claude felt a pang of jealousy.
"I wish I was older," he said.
"I don't," said Peter. "Everything's just going to get worse."
"You can say that again," Pat said, surprising them.
Claude had been waiting for an opportunity to address the men. "My mother says the mayor is crooked. Is that right? Is he?"
Dennis had a bit of roasted potato halfway to his mouth. He stopped, raised his eyebrows, and then completed the gesture. "Is that your mother sitting there with him?" he said, chewing. "Talking so nice? Throwing this nice party?"
"That's not my mother," Claude said.
"That's my mother," Peter said.
"Oh, I see," Dennis said, nodding to Claude. "And where's your mother, then?"
