“Au contraire, grizzly bear. Jazz is civilization.” Putting down his teacup, Pee Wee jumped up to his bass. “Listen.” Pee Wee leaned into the instrument, closed his eyes, breathed in deeply through his long sensitive nose, and, with an exhalation, played, “Bom bom bom beem boom bah bam bee ba-boom bah. Bom bom bom beem boom-bah bah bah BAH ba. Bom bom bom beem boom bam bam (bam bam bam bam) bam bam beem beem bam bam bam.”
As he played, his whiskers trembled and his tail twitched languidly on the backbeat.
“Those were the opening measures of Thelonious Monk’s ‘ ’Round Midnight.’ That’s civilization, man.”
Anna sipped her tea and set it down, wiping her mouth discreetly with the back of her paw.
“Now you address me as ‘man.’ I am a mouse, as you can see.”
“Oh, sorry, chickadee—ooh!”
“Whether a bird is closer to a mouse than a human is debatable. Listen, I thank you for the cup of tea and this most interesting discussion. I think I could write several articles about it. However, the purpose of my visit remains the same. Do I have your assurance that this music, or jazz, or civilization, whatever nomenclature you prefer, will come to an end?”
“Come to an end?”
“Finish. Cease. Yes.”
“Cease!”
“And stop.”
“Stop! Listen, you mad mouse witch doctor. I will not finish, I don’t care to cease, and I’ve never heard the word stop before in my life. You call yourself a doctor! How can you help patients if you have no feeling for music? Music is medicine for your heart. It’s what keeps it healthy. You must have no heart!”
“What!”
“That’s right. No heart!”
“Why, you uncivilized, spoiled, infantile—”
“That’s uncool, man.”
“—ignorant, louche, gauche, crass—”
“Very uncool.”
Still muttering unflattering adjectives, Anna scuttled out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
•
And so the painful matter rested.
Pee Wee refused to stop playing. If anything, he played longer, and played louder.
Anna found three more books of yellow pages and, tearing them up, and chewing them a bit till she had a hardy mass of mortar, plugged every little crack or seam that might let in sound from Pee Wee’s apartment.
It wasn’t a particularly friendly arrangement on either side, but this is how they kept it for the next three weeks, which is fairly long in mouse time.
•
And so the situation might have stayed except for two unexpected developments.
For the first time in his career, Pee Wee Brownback got stage fright. Up till now, when faced with a roomful of curious rodents, Pee Wee bounded into it, eager to share his music with any critter. But now, as his fame in the building had grown, he began to be afraid of disappointing his fans, of letting down his bandmates. In short, he feared failure. Finally, one night, in the middle of his solo in “One O’Clock Jump,” Pee Wee had suddenly become frozen. He couldn’t find the next note. His paws curled uselessly over the finger-board. He did not know what to do. After a couple of anxious measures, Spitball took over with an impromptu drum solo. Pee Wee stood as if fixed, pinned to a board, only his tail switched herky-jerkily back and forth.
From that point on, Pee Wee dreaded that this might happen again. Now, before every concert, his paws sweated. His whiskers gyrated madly. His mouse heart, already beating the normal mouse five hundred beats per minute, now shot up to a dangerous seven hundred and fifty.
Finally, the piano player, Fats Whiterback, took Pee Wee aside and said, “Hey, mouse. This is uncool. You’ve got to see someone about this. I think I know just the cat, pardon the expression. It’s a bird, actually. Dr. Anna Brownback. She’s the McShizz for all your mental problems. My brother-in-law went to see her. He’s not nearly so nuts now.” Slapping Pee Wee on the back, Fats Whiterback said, “Seriously, before the concert tomorrow night, see Dr. Brownback.”
•
Anna Brownback opened her study door to an unanticipated knock. There, on her doorstep, stood Pee Wee.
“You!” said Anna.
“Yup,” said Pee Wee, holding his tail between his paws and kneading it.
“How can I help you,” said Anna, not inviting him in.
“I’m here for a session. I need your professional help,” said Pee Wee.
“Not a friendly neighborly call, then.”
“Not exactly.”
“Lie down on the yellow pages.” Anna picked up her notebook and pencil. “What is troubling you?”
Pee Wee burrowed a bit in the litter of the chewed pages, then poked his head up, a few bits of paper clinging to his ears. “I get so nervous now before a performance, I can’t play my bass.”
“How too disappointing.”
Pee Wee looked into Anna’s large eyes.
“I’m serious! This is serious. Doctor, are you going to help me or not?”
Anna looked at Pee Wee for a long minute. She smoothed her whiskers back along her left side and then down her right. She put down her notebook and looked at Pee Wee again.
“Please, lie down. Soothe yourself. Of course, I will help you. That is my job. That is my profession.” She took a breath and rearranged herself on her spool. Then she looked sternly at Pee Wee and said, “You are simply suffering from too much caring. You have a big heart. You care too much about letting your audience down. It is perfectly natural in someone of your description. I noticed it right away when I saw you. Heart’s too big. Heart won’t listen to reason.”
Pee Wee lay for a moment slack-jawed and then said, “But what can I do? I have to play the bass!”
Anna picked up her notebook and wrote a few lines in it. She said, “Here’s what I recommend. Every evening, before a performance, read two pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Do you have it?”
“Yeah, I have volume eleven. I use it to make bedding.”
“Good. But don’t sleep on it anymore. No, you must stop that. Now you must read it. Two pages. This will increase your brain and shrink your heart at the same time. So next time you feel an attack of nerves coming on, your brain can simply take over and tell yourself that you have nothing to worry about.”
Pee Wee thanked Anna Brownback. But he left her study with his shoulders still slumped, doubtful about her suggested remedy. Nevertheless, arriving in his hole, Pee Wee read his two pages of the encyclopedia. And to Pee Wee’s delight, the next night at the concert he didn’t get nervous. His brain talked and his heart listened. He felt great. His playing was perhaps a little cooler than in the old days, but that was fine. Fats Whiterback, too, was impressed with Pee Wee’s night, especially his virtuosic two-claw plucking passages.
•
The second unexpected event to unsettle Pee Wee and Anna’s status quo came two nights later, on the one night a week Pee Wee had off. That night, he was lounging, thinking about the past few days, when he was surprised by a knock at his door, and then even more surprised when he saw who was standing on his doorstep.
“Dr. Brownback!”
“May I come in?” said Anna.
“Sure, I’ll make tea,” said Pee Wee.
“No, thank you. And, please, call me Anna.” Anna walked quietly to the living room and sat down.
“I’ve been meaning to thank you for your help,” said Pee Wee. “It worked right away.”
“I am glad,” said Anna. She scratched behind her ear with a large hind foot. “The thing is,” she said quietly, “I’ve been having trouble relating to my clients. This afternoon I wanted to stop a particular mouse from complaining so much. That wouldn’t be so bad, but I wanted to stop her complaining with a carving knife!”
“Like the farmer’s wife,” said Pee Wee.
“Pardon? Anyway, all these rodents, one after another, telling me their troubles, and waiting for me to help them! And for the first time in my career, I don’t much care
if I help them or not. So you see?”
“I see,” said Pee Wee. “What I don’t see, however, is why you’ve come to me.”
“Well,” said Anna, assuming the brusque tone of her first visit. “Yes. Certainly, it is unusual. Naturally, I have spoken with my colleagues. That’s the first thing I did. But frankly, I did not receive from them a great deal of understanding. Nor much useful help. Oh, we’re a macho crowd, we mouse psychiatrists. In fact, some mouse psychiatrists I know are downright heartless . . .” Anna’s voice trailed away and she gnawed in a distraught way at a toenail.
Pee Wee’s dark brown eyes shone a little more brightly.
“And then I remembered,” said Anna in a voice just above a whispered squeak, “what you said about my own heart.”
Pee Wee, sitting down next to Anna on the sofa, took one of her paws in his. He looked into Anna’s light brown eyes and said, “You’re worried, with all of your calmness and reasonableness and so forth, that your heart has gotten too small.”
“That’s it!” said Anna. “Oh, please, help me, help me! Make my heart bigger!”
“I know just the thing,” said Pee Wee.
•
Later that evening, Anna, following Pee Wee, crawled into the outside pocket of Shadow Sorenson’s bass bag and burrowed in among the old candy wrappers and rosin boxes.
“What’s that smell?” said Anna.
“I think it’s a little bit of chocolate mashed up in the wrappers,” said Pee Wee. “We might have a lick.”
“No, that other smell.”
“Oh, that’s the rosin. It’s what bass players use to make their bows sticky. It’s like a kind of rock.”
Pee Wee knew that on the one night Shadow didn’t play in a jazz band, he played as a substitute in the bass section of the New York Philharmonic. Pee Wee had made the trip to the concert hall with him a couple of times before.
“It’s not too far,” Pee Wee explained. “And remember, we’re perfectly safe in the bass bag. It’s when we get to the concert hall that things get a little touch and go. Still, it will be worth it for the sake of your heart.”
As a matter of fact, the trip was somewhat long. It involved a subway, a bus, and lots of rolling along the sidewalk. But when they arrived at Lincoln Center, where the New York Philharmonic performs, and made their first nose-pokings out of the bass pocket, Anna was agog. The crowds of elegant people. The sound they made. The lights all around them. And the smells.
“Pretty great, right?” said Pee Wee.
“Right.”
“Wait till you see the hall. Wait until you see our seats!”
After Shadow Sorenson extracted his bass, Anna followed Pee Wee carefully out of the bag. They ran along the walls of the dressing room and along the back corridors of the theater behind the stage. Pee Wee seemed unconcerned about being spotted by anyone.
“There’s loads of local mice here,” he shouted over his shoulder. “No one will worry about a couple of extras.”
When they passed an elderly mouse sauntering by in the other direction, Pee Wee wished him a cordial “Good evening,” but the elderly mouse hardly noticed.
On the threshold of the stage entrance they stopped. Anna blinked and blinked at the bright white-and-gold light making everything in the enormous room sparkle.
“Okay, now,” said Pee Wee. “Here’s the tricky bit. Better take ahold of my tail.”
Anna did. And then, by quick dashes, from one chair leg to another, along and under music stands, past a couple of cellos lying on their sides, they stopped just under the conductor’s podium.
“These are great seats!” said Anna, panting a bit.
“We’re not there yet. Just wait, I’m taking you to the luxury box.”
They waited in the deep shadow of the podium as musicians stepped onto the stage, finding their chairs, chatting with someone in the second violins, or sharing a joke in the trombone section. There was much honking and scraping of instruments—“noodling” is the technical term.
“Is this the music?” said Anna.
“No, no, they’re just warming up. Wait, here comes our seat.”
A queenly-looking woman, her golden hair piled in coils on the crown of her lofty head, was moving, like a yacht cruising into its home port, down the center aisle. At the very first row she turned to her left and gracefully sidled over. She eased into her plush seat. Loosening her rich sable coat—Pee Wee had never seen her without it—she slipped it off her shoulders, but let it still cradle her in its warmth.
“Now comes the really tricky bit. Follow me closely. Take my tail. You’ll need all your claws for this so hold it in your mouth.”
Anna, clinging with her incisors a little too tightly to Pee Wee’s tail—Pee Wee was too polite really to complain—tried to keep her little mouse heart from beating right out of her chest. Pee Wee ran along the edge of the podium, his whole svelte body very close to the floor. Then he scrambled over and down the front wall of the stage, clinging to a vertical crack where the sections of wooden paneling met.
This was all done in the couple of seconds that the lady’s head was turned strongly to the left, where she discussed something with her neighbor.
Now under her seat, Pee Wee and Anna paused for breath. When Anna had nodded to indicate she was ready, Pee Wee flung himself up into the folds of the lady’s fur coat. As Anna followed and began climbing, she could hear the sound of the lady’s high-pitched and excited nasal voice grow louder.
“And then her cell phone rang in the middle of it and I could have just died. It was too . . .” The lady’s voice cascaded down.
Anna’s heart beat harder and louder as they carefully clambered up the coat.
“So I said to her . . .” came shrill and loud in Anna’s fine ears. At last Pee Wee whispered, “In here,” and they both tumbled into the right-hand pocket of the coat, in among silk gloves and a fine scented handkerchief.
As Pee Wee arranged the gloves and handkerchief to his liking, he said, “Pretty deluxe, no?”
“Yes, it is,” said Anna, trying to recover her breath. “Wait a second.”
Anna began sniffing around the pocket, especially the scented handkerchief. Then she carefully peeked out of the pocket at the lady, returning almost immediately to Pee Wee’s side.
“I know this lady,” she said. “She’s Dr. Ackerman’s two o’clock on Thursdays.”
“Well, she’s also the Philharmonic’s eight o’clock on Wednesdays.”
“What if the lady finds us in here? Won’t she make a fuss?” “If she sticks her hand in, first hide in the corner, but if she does happen to touch you, just act like a fur coat, and she’ll never notice.”
“Yes, that can work,” said Anna, remembering Dr. Ackerman’s tissue box.
Pee Wee smiled. “But that’s never happened yet. She falls asleep in the first two minutes.”
Outside the pocket, the roarishness of the human voices was beginning to diminish. Anna and Pee Wee cautiously poked their noses out of the pocket. The lights of the hall had dimmed. By contrast, the lights directed onto the stage seemed indescribably dazzling, sending flashes of fiery light from each reflected French horn, piccolo, and cuff link. The wood of the stringed instruments glowed in warm browns and reds and near blacks.
Then a fine-looking man in a tuxedo strode quickly across the stage, stopping briefly to shake the concertmaster’s hand, and stepped onto the podium: the conductor.
Waiting for what would come next, Anna breathed in the rich symphony of smells that washed through her, exploding almost like fireworks in her nose. The rosin, the oiled woods and brasses, the wood of the stage, the thick velvet of the seats, the scent of the fur coat, and the lady’s elegant perfume, and even the rising smell of the musicians, as they began to sweat in anticipation of the evening’s work.
The conductor raised his baton and the smell of sweat rose with it.
Suddenly down came the baton, and the curling wave of sound that it unleashed
knocked Anna tail over head back down into the luxurious pocket.
“It’s too much! It’s too much!” said Anna. “I think my heart will break!”
Pee Wee reached a paw down to Anna and pulled her back up. “Don’t worry, it’s just Brahms. You always feel that way with Brahms.”
Pee Wee and Anna spent the rest of the evening hand in hand—that is, paw in paw—in the fur coat’s pocket. Anna’s heart grew larger in the first movement, broke in the second, healed during the third, and then split in half all over again in the fourth movement of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, but then what mouse heart wouldn’t? Even a rational heart like Anna’s can’t withstand Brahms when it is that close.
By the time they reached 777 Garden Avenue late that night, both hearts were mended, their neighborly feud was over, and before the first crocuses of spring had poked up their heads in the tree pits, Anna and Pee Wee had moved up to the eleventh floor into the walls of Miss Nancy’s apartment where there was space enough for a music studio, rooms for patients, and a nice cozy den for when their first litter would arrive at the beginning of the summer.
The Boiler
“WRENCH.”
“Wrench.”
“Needle-nose pliers.”
“Needle-nose pliers.”
“Sponge.”
“Sponge.”
Our building attendant, or super, Oskar, withdrew the upper portion of his blue-overalled body from a spaghetti bowl of copper tubing, oily bulbous receptacles, and silver faucet handles, and sat on his heels. He reached to his back pocket, pulling out a greasy handkerchief, and wiped his brow.
“How is she?” said Victoria.
“Oh, old Liesl has seen worse trouble in her time. Looks to me like all she needs is a new ancillary intake valve.”
“That sounds serious,” said Victoria, now wiping her brow with her own handkerchief.
“No, not really. It’s pretty routine,” said the super. “So long as we get a valve that fits, Old Liesl will be almost good as new.”
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