Return of the Song

by Phyllis Clark Nichols

  Gretchen sat resolute, staring into her teacup. “Caroline, I’ve lived with Mr. Silva for nearly twenty-eight years, and I’ve learned how not to upset him. I want to be honest with you, but I really do not wish to worry you. It would enrage him to know I had brought Bella to see a piano teacher. He does not like her to be out of the house. That is why I must be so secretive. It is not my nature to be dishonest and to hide things from my husband, but somehow, I think God will forgive me. I am only trying to get help for Bella.”

  “I must ask you this. Has he ever beaten you?”

  Gretchen looked away and was hesitant.

  Caroline sat in silence, determined to wait for Gretchen’s answer.

  “Oh, I do not want you to think badly of Mr. Silva. In many ways, he has been good to me.”

  “I’d really like to hear more about how he’s good to you.”

  “It is a long story that started in the old country. I’ve told you about my family and my grandmammá’s coming to live with us, and how much I loved her. My grandparents and parents were White Russians living in Hungary, then Austria. It was expected of me to marry someone from the White Russian community in our city. It was not an arranged marriage that involved money, but it was expected that all the Russian girls would marry Russian young men.”

  “Did you have a choice?” She sipped her tea.

  “Yes, one always has a choice. But the choice is not always between what is better or best. Sometimes the choice is between what is better or worse. The consequences of disobeying my parents’ wishes would have made my life most difficult.” Gretchen held her tea, never taking a sip.

  “So, you chose to be obedient?”

  “Yes, at first.” Gretchen paused. “There was a couple who owned a small market two blocks down the street. They lived in a comfortable apartment above the market. The owners were getting old and planned to give the business to their eldest son, Peter. I was nearly seventeen, and Peter was almost thirty. He was shy but a responsible and dutiful son. Peter’s parents convinced my parents that I would have a very good life as Peter’s wife. So we began the courtship in the way of our people.”

  “Did you have feelings for Peter?” Caroline studied Gretchen’s face. The breeze picked up, whirling petals from nearby rose bushes.

  “Yes, I think so. But really, this was not about my feelings. It was about security. Peter and his parents were very kind to me.” Gretchen hesitated. “Caroline, this is a very long story, and perhaps I will tell you all the details someday. But what you need to know is there was a dreadful incident that changed everything. This incident shamed me, and I could no longer remain in my parents’ home. They did not know of the shame, but I did, and I could not bring it upon them, so I ran away.”

  “At nineteen?”

  “Yes, at nineteen. History has a way of repeating itself, does it not?” Gretchen picked up a rose petal and inhaled its fragrance.

  “You’re thinking of your daughter, Karina?”

  “Yes. Perhaps I brought it upon her.”

  “I don’t think it works that way, Gretchen.”

  “I must finish my story before I lose my courage to tell you these things.” Gretchen bowed her head. “I had no money, so I took some of my grandmammá’s jewelry and her silver hand mirror. I knew my mother hid her money in a teapot in our dining room, and I took some of it. I did not take it all—just enough.” Gretchen paused to sip her tea.

  “Enough for what?”

  “I did not know at the time. But I could not bear to think I had taken it all. I packed a small bag and pretended I was going to the market, but instead I went to the train station and bought a ticket to the farthest place my money would take me and still leave me money for food for a couple of days. I got off the train in northern Germany.”

  “Did you have family there?”

  “No. I was alone in my shame. I got a job at a small café. That is where I met Mr. Silva. He was in the US Army and was stationed at the base there. Ernesto rescued me from the trouble I was in and took care of me. He married me and got the papers necessary to bring me to the United States.”

  “Were you in love?” Caroline noted this was the first time she had heard Gretchen call Mr. Silva “Ernesto.”

  “What is ‘in love,’ Caroline? If gratitude is love, then I was in love. I think maybe in the early days, there was infatuation. Ernesto was lonely and homesick and did not get along with the other soldiers. I was lonely and homesick too. So I became his wife and friend. I was his whole world, and he took care of me. Maybe that is love.”

  A sadness darkened Caroline’s thoughts. I lost David, but I would bear the pain of loss just to know the intensity and the joy of his love. Gretchen has lived more than half her life never knowing this kind of passion.

  “It was only after we came to the States and he finished his tour of duty that we went to his hometown. By that time, Karina was born, and our lives were changing. Ernesto found it difficult to go home again, and he couldn’t find work. When he found a job here, we moved to Moss Point. In the early days, our life was good. We had a few friends. We went to church and to the movies and even on picnics down by the lake. But people would stare at me and say things about me, and he became very jealous. So we began staying at home. It was then that his drinking and his rages started. His old demons returned. That’s when . . . that’s when . . .” Gretchen could not finish.

  “Is that when he became abusive to you?”

  “Yes. He did not mean to hurt me, and he only hurt me when he was drinking. But he never touched Karina. I always protected her, as I told you before.”

  “Is he still beating you? Is that why you wear the sweater?”

  “No. No, he has not hurt me in a long time. I wear the sweater to cover these.” Gretchen set her teacup on the wrought-iron table and slowly pushed the gray sweater up her left forearm. Caroline saw deep-purple scars in contrast to porcelain-white skin—scars from past injuries. Worse than those scars was the pain in Gretchen’s eyes as she described what happened.

  “Mr. Silva was drinking and became agitated when Bella broke the knob on the television. I feared he might hurt her.” Gretchen hung her head. “Oh, I cannot tell you this. I cannot bear for you to think of me this way.”

  Caroline brushed a rose petal from Gretchen’s shoulder. “It’s all right. I know whatever you did, it was out of love for Bella.”

  “Oh, I would have died of sadness had he hurt her. She was only four. I was in the kitchen when I heard him scream at her. I just picked up a knife without thinking about it. I just did it. I ran into the den. Bella was screaming, and he had grabbed her hair. When he saw the knife in my hand, he released Bella. He snatched my arm and took the knife away. I was so afraid and told Bella to run to her room and lock her door, but she would not. She saw it all.”

  Her trembling caused her teacup to rattle. She set it down and continued. “It was as if someone else had entered his body—someone I did not know. He started flailing his arms with the knife and threatened to kill me. I raised my arms in defense, and he began slashing me. I can still feel the burning blade when I remember.” Gretchen rubbed her forearms. “I was bleeding badly. I just fell to the floor unable to defend myself any longer. When he saw all the blood, he came to his senses and became the man I knew. He bathed my arms and bandaged them and took care of me for days.”

  “You didn’t go to the hospital? Or to the doctor?”

  “Oh, no. If I had, there would have been questions and an investigation, and Mr. Silva might have gone to jail.”

  “But from the looks of these scars, you needed stitches.” Caroline raised the sweater slightly on Gretchen’s right arm.

  “My arms healed after several weeks. He bathed the wounds and covered them in salve. He promised if I would stay at home and keep quiet about this that he would never touch me again. I moved into Bella’s room, and my arms healed. But my heart for Mr. Silva did not.”

  “I can certainly understand why.” Ca
roline gently squeezed Gretchen’s scarred forearm.

  “He still takes care of me. I have food and clothes and someplace to live.”

  “But you live as his servant and not his wife?”

  “It is the way we live, Caroline. I do this for Bella.” Gretchen pulled the arm of her sweater back down to her unblemished wrist.

  Caroline stared at the Cherokee roses on the fence and sat quietly for a moment. “Gretchen, what if I could make it possible for you and Bella to have a better life? A way for Bella to develop her musical gifts and for you to have freedom to live, freedom to go places and have friends. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, this is not possible.”

  “What if I could make it possible?” Caroline had no clue as to how she would make it possible, but she knew she would try.

  “I do not know. I do not know. I have no other family. I fear my parents are dead. I know nothing of my sister. When I took their money the day I boarded the train, I never saw them again. I am dead to them. Mr. Silva has been good to me, and I must not abandon him. That would not be right.”

  “Gretchen, I really don’t know what to say, but this I know: Mr. Silva has not been good to you or good for you. There is more to life than having a roof over your head. You don’t owe him for that.”

  “Caroline, you know not of what you speak. I owe him much.”

  “From what you’ve described, you’re no more than a slave to him. I’m all for loyalty and keeping families together, but not when there’s such violence. And you have Bella, and I don’t think you understand about her gift.”

  “You’re wrong, Caroline. I do understand. Bella is God’s gift to me. I’ve known for many years that she is different, and I have prayed for so long that somebody else would know it too.”

  “If what you’re saying is true, and you think I’m the answer you have prayed for, then you must trust me.”

  There was a long silence. “I do trust you, Caroline. I do. But I do not know what to do.”

  Suddenly Gretchen’s situation made sense to Caroline. She had heard Sam talk about inmates who served long sentences and were finally paroled. He described how many of them violated parole so they could go back to jail. Their prison cell was a safe place, a place where they had to make no decisions. They had lost the ability to live with freedom. This was Gretchen. Living with her husband, as bad as it was, had become a safe place for her.

  “Then I’ll tell you what to do,” Caroline said in a confident manner most unlike her. “The first thing to do is to get Bella to the university. We’ll not tell your husband about this. We’ll go up and back in one day on a day when he’s on the road. That’s the first step. Then we will trust God to guide us for the next step after this one. Will you do that?”

  Gretchen paused thoughtfully before saying, “Yes, I will do that.”

  Caroline was satisfied. She knew Gretchen had taken the first step.

  They went inside, both smiling and much lighter of heart. Bella had never stopped playing and smiling. Caroline joined her on the piano bench, first playing a song and then Bella repeating it. She believed Bella would have gone on with this for several more hours, but Gretchen once again removed Bella’s hands from the keyboard, helped her stand, and said their goodbyes. Caroline walked with them to the street and watched as they went hand in hand with Bella pointing to the woods.

  Summer afternoons in Moss Point were famous for thundershowers. The mornings were hot and humid, and by midday the prelude to the storm began when the sultry, thick clouds gathered, washing the sky with shades of gray. As if on cue, distant thunder alerted farmers to come in from the fields and children to come in from their play. Then the crashing of thunder and lightning bolts began, followed by the downpour, as if someone had punched the release buttons on hundreds of bottom-heavy clouds.

  Caroline stood at her window during the prelude, watching the clouds move into position and dreading the storm. When the thunder began, so did her ritual of brewing a cup of tea, turning on a Mendelssohn CD, grabbing a book, and cuddling up in her favorite chair away from the windows. When the afternoon’s stormy sonata was over, she returned to the window to watch for the rays of sun coming through the haze and the steam rising from the warm stone on the terrace floor. But soft, misty showers lingered. No streaks of sun piercing the clouds and no rising steam, just a steady drizzle. She had just brewed her second cup of tea when the phone rang.

  “Hello, Caroline. This is Roderick Adair.”

  “Hi, Roderick. Are you on this side of the Atlantic?” She sat down at her desk.

  “As a matter of fact, I am. I just arrived at LaGuardia. How are you? Well, I hope.”

  “I am very well, thank you.” She contemplated why he hadn’t waited until he got back to Lexington to call her. “And yourself?”

  “I, too, am very well and very glad to be home. This trip seemed longer than usual.”

  “But productive?”

  “Yes, productive. That’s an appropriate word for an arduous trip that left little time for relaxation.” He paused. “But I’ll be in my favorite trout stream at sunrise in the morning.”

  “Let’s hope that’s productive too. My brother’s quite the fisherman, and there’s nothing quite like fresh trout, coleslaw, and hushpuppies—my mother’s, of course.”

  “Oh, please tell me you make them too.”

  “Hushpuppies? I try, but they’re never quite like Mama’s.” Caroline looked at her desk and the photograph of her parents taken at their anniversary party.

  “Not much in life is like our mothers.”

  She noted a bit of melancholy in his voice. “I must ask, why in the world are we talking about hushpuppies when you could be telling me all about London? How was it?”

  “It was London. More meetings than I can remember, a few quiet dinners, no fishing, no theater, no music, and lots of rain. Have you been to London?”

  “Yes, once, as a college student. I quite liked it. They’re such practical people, not overly friendly but practical. My friends think me an Anglophile. I love the British writers, I love the weather, and tea runs in my veins.”

  “I’ll make note of that. What has filled your time since we last talked?”

  “Someone extremely interesting.” She thought of Bella.

  “A young man worthy of you?”

  “Oh, no. You misunderstood. There are none of those in Moss Point . . . I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I’m no one to require worthiness on a man’s part. But I’m not seeing anyone in Moss Point.” She was grateful he could not see her scarlet cheeks. “Guess I should follow my grandmother’s advice. Grand Ma’am always said to polish your shoes with vanilla flavoring. Tastes better when you stick your foot in your mouth.”

  She frowned. How could I have made such a stupid remark?

  “I think I’d like your Grand Ma’am. But perhaps there’s a gentleman from somewhere else?” he continued his inquiry.

  “Afraid not. My work consumes me. You sound as though you would understand that.”

  “I do, and I’m intrigued. So, tell me, who is this extremely interesting someone?”

  “It’s a long but very interesting story, and you’re between flights. Perhaps I’ll tell you about this person later.”

  “Would fifteen minutes later be all right?”

  “Fifteen minutes, but you’ll be in flight.”

  “Planes do have phones these days, and I’ll be all alone with two hours in the air. Give me fifteen minutes to make contact with Acer. He’s my pilot. And I’ll call you back as soon as we’re safely in the air. Fifteen minutes . . .”

  Roderick did just as he said, but during that fifteen minutes, Caroline replayed their entire conversation word for word many more times than fifteen. He had cleverly found out she wasn’t dating anyone. She would need to be more careful and maintain the same mystery that surrounded him.

  When he phoned, they small-talked about flying for a few minutes before Roderi
ck asked her again about the extremely interesting someone. She began with the story of the intruder and ended with Gretchen’s last visit and her plans to take Bella to the university. She had intended to omit the part about “David’s Song,” but somehow it just slipped out as she interrupted Bella’s story briefly to explain the song was hers. When she paused, Roderick commented and asked leading questions until she had finished Bella’s story. They both agreed she was taking on a rather awesome responsibility.

  “You are an excellent listener and such an insightful thinker, and I fear I’ve done all the talking.” She also realized it had been a very long time since she’d had such a comfortable conversation with anyone.

  She was nearing the end of the story when Acer announced to Roderick they were fifteen minutes away from landing. “Caroline, may I be so presumptive as to say I’d like to help you? I know you have friends at the university, but I’d like you to know about my sister.”

  “That’s not presumptive, and I’d really like to hear about your sister.”

  “I have an older sister who is a psychiatrist and is affiliated with Boston University where her husband is also a professor. Dr. Sarah McCollum is her name, and coincidentally, she has done some study and work with autistic children. With your permission, I’d like to tell her what you have told me about Bella this afternoon.”

  “By all means. I know enough to know that I’m in way over my head. And perhaps my role is only to get Bella and Gretchen out of this dangerous situation and into the hands of people who can help her develop her gifts. I’d be most appreciative of any help at this point.”

  “I’ll give her a call, and she might want to call you directly. May I give her your number?”

  “Of course. You know I’ve talked all this time about Bella and not one word about this upcoming recital in a couple of weeks.”

  “That was deliberate. It gives me another reason to call you tomorrow. May I?”

  “Yes, but this time you must do the talking lest you think I don’t know how to listen. I’m normally the quiet one.”