And the Dark Sacred Night

by Julia Glass

  Sandra’s papers, divided into folders labeled with her clients’ names, occupy a rack to the right of the computer. To the left, in a jumble that appears belligerent by comparison, lie sheaves and scraps of information exerting pressure on Kit’s immediate future: a reminder from the dentist that it’s time for a cleaning; a request for a recommendation from a student he taught three years ago (the young woman somewhere out west, ignorant of Kit’s rudderless state of disemployment); the program from a poetry assembly where Fanny recited “Dover Beach” and three haiku by Basho (can they afford to send Fanny to a special after-school theater workshop?). Here, too, is a review clipped from the Times, praise for an exhibit of Tlingit drawings he wanted to see; it ended a month ago. Buried beneath these items, but not forgotten, are envelopes containing applications for two jobs at private high schools in the city. Sandra’s idea. “You know,” she remarked late one night, making this suggestion out of the blue, “I’ll bet some of the precocious teenagers at those schools are every bit as articulate, and possibly more passionate about learning, than the—I mean, you’ve said so yourself—than the mostly average students you had at the college.” Understatement of the century.

  Right again, Sandra. Fucking right again.

  Outside, the sky has lightened from cobalt blue to cinder-block gray, the default hue of an early November sky at 6:32 a.m.

  Will (Kit can tell from the blunt tread on the stairs) is coming down first, before his mother. This is rare.

  He comes straight into the study. “Dad,” he scolds, “did you sleep in my room? There’s like a huge mess on the floor.”

  “I needed guy company. SpongeBob and Max did the trick. But are you aware that the Uglies snore?”

  Will gives him the Dad you’re like totally insane scowl, a foretaste of adolescence.

  “Go make sure your sister’s up. Help your mother by setting the table.”

  “Can’t do both at once, Dad.”

  “Exercise free choice,” says Kit. “Prioritize.”

  Sandra’s in the kitchen. The coffee grinder roars. He sits still for a moment, waiting to see if she’ll come into the study, now that Will has returned upstairs. He hears cupboards opening and closing, the loose-change clatter of flatware being removed from the bin in the dishwasher.

  He pulls up Google Maps, clicks on Get directions. Though he hasn’t been to Jasper’s house in more than a decade, he could find his way there by memory, but he wants to see the journey quantified in miles and times, as a series of dots connected, the zigzag of thoroughfares linking Kit’s cookie-cutter cul-de-sac to that long dirt road. Perhaps the road has been paved by now; it pains Kit to think that some of the surrounding land might have been sold to developers, that the pine forest might be pocked with turf clearings and houses appointed to look like somebody’s misguided notion of grand.

  Will Kit actually drive down that road? Will Jasper have him? Is Jasper healthy, still working, still skiing—still teaching? (Till now, he hadn’t thought of their connection through teaching. Daphne, Jasper, Kit: all teachers.) By e-mail, a year ago—or, he cringes, possibly two—Kit had sent photos of the twins to Jasper. Jasper had thanked him, had said (hardly for the first time) that they would always be welcome; that it was high time those children learn to ski.

  Sandra heads upstairs to tell those children it’s time to get up for real, time to face the day: the fortifying meal, the gathering and packing of worksheets and books, the finding of hats and gloves; the catching of the school bus; and then, just an hour from now, the daily effort (for Will) and inspiration (for Fanny) of navigating school itself. Kit, as a small child, was more like Fanny: loved the lure of stories, basked in his teachers’ approval, studied his times tables and spelling lists without much nagging. His heart goes out to Will, for whom the soccer ball and football are siren song and gospel alike.

  Kit hears Sandra call the children’s names. “Waffles, anyone? Banana waffles with yogurt?”

  In stereo, small cries of pleasure. This is a treat. This is, and Kit knows it better than they do, a special morning. A distinctly different morning, that much at least. Mentally, he packs the suitcase he hasn’t used since the last conference he attended. The suitcase will have gathered dust.

  Now Sandra comes into the study. “Waffles?” What she means is We have an agreement, but do we also have a truce?

  He thanks her. “But syrup for me, not yogurt.”

  “Have you seen the price of maple syrup?” she says, though her voice is cheerful. “There’s jam.”

  She’s looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. She says nothing, too smart (and kind, really) to let on that it looks like she’s won.

  “I need to tell you,” he says, “that there’s a leak in the roof. Up front.”

  He hears her sigh, but she doesn’t tell him she told him so. “I can deal with that, call somebody. It’s no reason to put this aside.”

  He continues to stare at the map on the screen. “So. What if I find out nothing?”

  “You’ll find out something.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “What I mean is that you’ll learn or hear or see something new. Something will change. Something has to.”

  Sandra’s tone is free of impatience or threat. Her quiet certainty, however generic it may seem, infects him, just a little (as it has before), just enough to carry him forward, against his nature, toward taking the risks he knows he needs to take. In a figurative sense, she is pushing him down the mountain on skis; how fitting that Jasper is his destination, if not his hope.

  AS THEY FILED INTO their dedicated section, they laughed at one another and made faces. This was the season’s opening concert; only at concerts were they required to dress up. The girls, as discreetly as they knew how, struggled in vain to make peace with their garter belts and scratchy nylons; the boys moved their necks to and fro like turkeys, agitated by the confines of collar and tie. Daphne had chosen the yellow minidress with the square neckline and the long bell-shaped sleeves, one of two bought just for this summer. Her mother said it matched Daphne’s hair. Combed out loose, it felt almost like someone else’s hair; for the very first evening among these new friends, she would not be playing her cello. Campers did not take the stage until later in the summer, when the first of their collaborative pieces would be, as Natalya put it, “enough ready to pass for art.”

  The camp’s performance structure, its one extravagant nod to modernity, was quaintly known as the Silo. The stage, a perfect circle, protruded from a tall curved structure painted a classic barn red. Overhead, a web of steel cables and baffles fanned out above the near portion of the audience. Spectators with the expensive tickets sat in folding wooden chairs that were stored beneath the stage between concerts. Those farther back sat on blankets in the grass. The ground was more forgiving than the chairs, but the acoustics were inferior—and the bugs were merciless.

  Daphne sat between Malachy and her roommate Mei Mei. The campers’ chairs were close to the stage but off to one side, the sight lines less than ideal. They would be looking at the back of the pianist, the singer half-hidden in the curvature of the instrument. Esme McLaughlin, the season’s opening act, was a Scottish soprano renowned not just for her exceptional range but for the covers of her record albums, on which she reclined in verdant Gaelic settings wearing scanty evening gowns and shamelessly expensive jewelry, not a musical prop in sight. Her pianist, a married man, was allegedly her lover.

  As the campers gossiped and fussed, their anticipation kinetic, Daphne noticed that the adults seated in the center rows stared openly at them, smiling, as if they were an exhibit at a museum. Malachy waved to an older couple who called his name. “Too many people know my father,” he explained. Of all the campers, some of whom came from as far away as Europe, Malachy was the only one from Vermont, his home less than two hours north. He made fun of his father, a successful lawyer, but Daphne could tell that his scorn was just a veneer.

  Togethe
r, they read the program. “If this concert had a title,” Malachy said, “it would be ‘Dare Me to Sing It and I Will.’ All she’s missing is something from the Supremes.” Esme would begin with two Negro spirituals and an Appalachian folk song, followed by a trio of Schubert lieder, a Handel cantata, and, to leave her audience longing for more at intermission, Cio-Cio-San’s farewell aria from Butterfly.

  She came onstage wearing a gown that looked as if it were made of gold leaf. The skirt billowed dramatically from a cinched waist—the colored spotlights flashing on its folds as she moved—but the strapless bodice was so tight that Daphne wondered how the singer’s lungs could take in the air they required to produce such a powerful voice. Between each song, after the applause faded, the sound of crickets was urgent and vivid—yet every time Esme opened her mouth, Daphne’s ears shut out everything else, even the piano.

  At the intermission, as spectators rose to stretch out the kinks from an hour of sitting on their punishing chairs, she felt as if she couldn’t move, as if she’d become, literally, “all ears.”

  Malachy stood. “I’d better go find those friends of my dad.”

  Mei Mei wandered off as well, so Daphne was alone, glad for a chance to collect her emotions. She looked up at the lighting cables and the night sky beyond, then back at the deserted stage. Only now did she notice the blue Oriental rug on which Esme had stood. The piano gleamed like a Cadillac waiting by a city curb to carry its privileged owner somewhere important.

  It occurred to her that this was part of what they were being shown that summer: The Life. They were there to be drilled and tested, to learn that it could never be easy, and maybe to be noticed or even discovered, but they were also catching a flashy glimpse of the rewards for those who excelled. Daphne felt, for a moment, as if Esme were performing for them alone. The rich patrons with their city clothing, Esme’s fellow “artists” with their bloated egos, the locals with their picnic baskets way at the back of the field: all these people were merely set dressing, like the blue carpet, the potted gardenia plants flanking the stage, and the champagne bar at which the wealthiest ticket holders were toasting one another and scanning the crowd for celebrities. Daphne spotted Natalya, their dour taskmistress, in a short hot-pink dress, talking to the camp’s director, Antony Carpenter-Rhodes, and a handsome platinum-haired man in a plaid jacket. Natalya looked giddy; she was laughing, her magenta mouth wide open to the sky. She looked like a wax version of herself, a doll.

  “You haven’t budged. Esme put you in a coma?” Malachy was back, handing her a paper cup of water.

  “Just taking it all in.”

  “Yeah, this is the night we get it that we’re actually here. At this mind-blowing place with all these mind-blowing people. The fame! The glory! The girdles about to burst! Like, pinch me, man.”

  “Did you see Natalya?” asked Daphne.

  “You mean her benevolent twin? Do not be fooled, Swan!”

  He sat and opened his program. Side by side, they read the next round of songs they would hear.

  The lights dimmed and swelled. Spectators reseated themselves. Throats cleared; shawls were adjusted; the shushers shushed. Antony Carpenter-Rhodes stood and beckoned the campers to stand as well. The rest of the audience applauded them politely, briefly. Daphne felt herself smiling inanely. Malachy murmured in her ear, “How does it feel to be among the chosen people?”

  Their wooden chairs creaked awkwardly as they sat down.

  The air grew swiftly chilly, and Daphne wished she had remembered a sweater. She leaned toward Malachy, who did not pull away. The stage lights bloomed. Once again, silence fell, though only to be broken by a collective sigh when Esme appeared wearing a different but equally revealing dress, this one a column of pleated gauze, pink infused with silver. She gave them hymns, arias, a ballad from West Side Story, Mozart, and Ravel. Through all of her nimble, radiant, flawless singing, Daphne became increasingly conscious of the heat she felt through Malachy’s sleeve.

  When Esme finished, the audience stood abruptly and roared. Flashbulbs popped. One man stood on his chair and shouted “Bellissima!” at the top of his lungs. The singer bowed, blew kisses, applauded her accompanist. He was handsome, with cascading black hair and a beatnik goatee, but he was slight in build, and when he stood beside Esme, he looked like a page to her warrior princess. They held hands and bowed together. The applause did not fade. Then she spoke into his ear and, as he returned to his gleaming instrument, gestured that the audience should sit.

  Like a roomful of children promised sweets by their teacher, the hundreds of spectators became instantly still and took their seats. Esme watched her pianist until he nodded. The piano began slowly, the notes sparse and halting; Esme’s voice emerged with a sleepy languor. She sang, “J’ai compris ta détresse, cher amoureux …” In its first lines, the song sounded decorous; Esme’s smile was coy.

  Glancing down, Daphne saw that her left hand was only an inch from Malachy’s right. She returned her attention to Esme. The song began to unfurl, its tones warming in response to the passion in its plea, like a dress being gradually unfastened. Esme’s French was so pristine that Daphne could hear every word, could even translate most of the lyrics. “Loin de nous la sagesse, plus de tristesse.” Far from us wisdom, farther still sadness.

  Carefully, she allowed her hand to roll sideways until it rested against Malachy’s, in the narrow cleft between their thighs. If she were a fool, he would snatch his hand away. But he didn’t, and while his entire focus remained gravely on Esme—Daphne glanced sideways for only an instant—his hand lay against hers for the remainder of the song.

  I surrender to your wishes, sang Esme, leaning down toward the audience so that her breasts, barely contained, must have been almost entirely visible to those in the front center rows. Make me your mistress, she beseeched the handsome man in the plaid jacket, who happened to be in the front row. Then she leaned back, eyelids lowered in rapture, as the song rose to a rapid crescendo and plummeted to its blunt finale.

  Esme bowed sharply the minute the pianist played the last note, and once again—more hysterically, if possible—the audience exploded. But this time the pair of performers, in single file, left the stage.

  Daphne’s and Malachy’s hands had risen instantly to join the applause, but Daphne’s held the memory of his (so much warmer than hers). What a relief that her virulent blush might honestly be seen as a response to the performance.

  “What was that song?” she asked him when the applause had faded just enough to permit conversation. (It continued for a long time beyond Esme’s exit. Daphne’s palms were so sore that she had to press them against her hips.)

  “I have no idea, but man, whatever it was, it ought to be a controlled substance. She’d better lock her door tonight.” He laughed briefly. “Or not.”

  They filed out of their row and walked side by side on the pebbled path that led toward the girls’ dorm and, farther along, the estate’s old dairy barn, where the boys endured primitive sleeping quarters in scarcely converted stalls.

  “I feel like my ears caught fire,” he said. “Like I need to put them out.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said.

  They walked fast, arms folded tight against the chill, silent till they reached the fork in the path. Now, she thought. She didn’t have to stretch far to kiss him on the cheek. When he reacted by stepping backward, off the path, she was mortified.

  He looked at the ground, but when he raised his face, his expression was happy. He stepped close again and kissed her back, on the cheek, startling her almost as much as she had startled him. “That’s her effect on us, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” Daphne said. She willed herself to hold his gaze. Their arms were still folded against their bodies, both of them visibly shivering.

  “Night, Swan,” he said, almost a whisper.

  2

  Coming in From the Cold

  THREE KNOCKOUT SURPRISES in one blessed week. Possib
ly a threat to Jasper’s heart, and what’s going on here anyway? Has he landed smack in a fairy tale? Not three gold coins or three dancing princesses, no such luck, but three tasks for the would-be hero. Two of them obvious in their solutions—but both hard, neither pleasant, one a point-blank tragedy. Difficult, unpleasant tasks are otherwise known as ordeals. Ergo: two ordeals followed by a wild card.

  First, the biggest of the pines came down. Not like he hadn’t been warned of its demise. Hadn’t looked healthy for years, that tree, so maybe it succumbed to one of the dread blights spreading north with warmer winters. (Rumor has it the maples are already toast.) More likely it was crippled by the natural decay of aging; Jasper can sympathize there. It fell hard, shearing off the northeast corner of the house, gashing open his bedroom and the living room below. Came down, on a day of wicked wind, while he was at work, or no doubt his wonky ticker would have slammed to a halt. He dragged out the big ladder, yanked off dangling boards, and managed without breaking his neck, God knows how, to staple plastic tarps across the splintered wounds. Not good how touch-and-go his breathing felt after climbing that ladder a dozen times. Not good at all. Now he has to sleep through the flapping sounds, the sneaky drafts, the weird blue glow pulsing across his bed at dawn.

  Second: no more Pluto.

  Four days ago, the dog stopped eating; wouldn’t touch the chicken cooked up with rice. Day before yesterday, he stayed inside the shelter, wouldn’t get up. He was panting heavily, eyes oozing, ears limp. Without wasting the time to make an appointment, Jasper carried the dog to the truck, all hundred-some pounds of that almost-wolf, drove him over to the vet in Rutland, the space-age clinic with the fancy-pants diagnostic machines.