by Jeffrey Lent
She came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Let it rest there, a quiet moment. Then she said, “What happened?”
He didn’t look at her but said, “I slipped on the ice.”
“You’re bleeding. Let me get the Mercurochrome.”
Now he turned. He said, “No. I’m fine.” Then his eyes blinked. Blinked again. He turned away from her and leaned again over the table. “But I broke my fiddle. Oh, Jesus, my feet went out from under me and I went down with it held against my chest and I did everything to stop myself but still I heard it popping like twigs snapped.”
Then he said, “Oh dear.”
“How bad is it,” she asked. “Is it ruined?”
“I’d think, how if felt.” A long moment. “I don’t know.”
“Well, look and see.” Her hand rubbing the cords of his neck as he peered down at the table, at the fiddle.
After a moment his hands came free of the table edge and he lifted the fiddle, then turned it over, studied it, then a soft suck of air from him as he again set it carefully as a newborn upon the table.
She waited, kneading him.
He said, “Well, it’s bad. The bridge is snapped off. And the back is cracked. A hairline but a crack is a crack. And likely the body is separated from the sides—you can’t tell just by looking. The neck is the same way—damage you can’t see.”
She said, “Who can tell you, better?”
“I don’t know. My dad, maybe. Or just me, looking at it longer.”
She took a long pause and then said, “What I think? Is you can fix it. If it’s not smashed to flinders, which it’s not, I think you can fix it.”
He turned then. Faced her. He said, “I don’t know the first thing about such things.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But I think you do. I think you just haven’t wrapped your mind around it yet.”
He was silent again. Then turned back to the table and lifted the little fiddle up and with his careful hands turned it about, peering close. Took his time. Then set it down again and turned and said, “I don’t know.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’m filled with I don’t know more of the time than I care to admit. Why don’t you sleep on the idea? No telling what your mind will churn up. Meanwhile, is there the least chance you’re hungry for supper?”
She woke in the night, spooned tight against him. From beyond the windows she heard a scrape of wind, now and again a splinter as small limbs from the trees gave way with their coat of ice, a sharp snap. She knew he was awake also, could feel the tension in his back, the careful slowed flow of his breathing. He didn’t want to talk. She guessed the ice-snapped twigs, branches, might echo in his ear the sound of the crack of the fiddle as he wounded himself trying to save it. She didn’t know—it could be other things kept him awake. She didn’t know him, so many ways. But knew him better than she ever had before. There lived a question in this contradiction but she wasn’t sure what it was except that some part of her feared it. Feared both the question and the possible answers. She pressed forward a bit, the length of her against the length of him and nuzzled his neck briefly, barely, as if she were sleeping. And then she was.
When she woke again it was to an empty bed and an empty house. The storm had passed and pale sunlight struck though the one east-facing window; a day already well under way. There was a pocket of warmth about her under the covers and she held there a bit, savoring the warmth and unsure of her day. Then an idea came to her and she flushed with it and pushed out of the bed and danced on the cold floor as she shucked her nightgown and dressed quick as she could and went down the stairs, already feeling the heat rising. Downstairs was warm with the furnace and parlor range filled and the percolator sat upon a ring of the electric stove, curls of coffee steam from the spout.
Otherwise the house was empty. She walked into the parlor and the fiddle case was gone. And she recalled her words of the night before but also the thought came to her the middle of the night. She drank a cup of coffee and stepped out into a new day. Every tree was outlined in thick white frost, not just around the yard but spreading down into the village, outlining the bends of the river and rising up the hill beyond where the crown of the hill was a shimmering halo of trees clearly defined, clumps of intricate dazzling lace, backlit by the sun and the dense blue sky above. A morning to take your breath away. The truck was gone, the chain-marks biting hard through the shimmering ice. Down the hill but where else would he have gone?
Midmorning there was still no sign of him and she’d finished her Saturday cleaning. She sat at the table and drank another cup of coffee as she wrote out her list, then dressed and went out. The sun had done its work; the ice retreating into slush and the air was warm—a moment she almost felt springlike. She got in her car and easily drove down the hill.
She was distracted in her shopping, checking her list and returning to aisles just gone through to retrieve this or that forgotten item, when she realized she’d somehow expected to find Oliver here. And was grinding a pound of coffee, anxious of a sudden to finish up and return home when she felt a hand on her shoulder and his father’s voice: “Ah, my lovely daughter-in-law. Such a pleasure, always my eyes. A vision. And here, this morning, gracing my premises. To what is owed this honor?”
She took the bag from the snout of the grinder, folded down the top and set the coffee in her basket before turning. She said, “Morning, Ed. I’m doing my shopping, much like half the town. Saturday morning.”
“Of course.” He grinned but his eyes were serious. They’d never talked about it but she was certain that, while Jennie might feel Oliver was simply taking time to renew himself, to come fully home, Ed might suspect, as Ruth herself did, that a more fundamental change had occurred—that the lighthearted boy was gone for good and whatever version had replaced him might temper in time but would never become the lighthearted easygoing near-duplicate of his father in the family business.
And out of her own worry and uncertainty, without having thought she would, she now asked, “Say, Ed? Oliver hasn’t been by this morning, has he? Early?”
“Not that I’ve seen. Why would he?”
Backtracking, she said, “No reason. Just curious.”
“Are things all right? You got a problem?”
“No,” she said. “We’re fine.”
“So where is he, then? You come asking me.”
She paused, knowing, though Oliver had never said as much, that his fiddle playing was a secret from his father. For his own reasons, perhaps reasons from both of them. Or maybe it was a secret best not held, especially given the accident the night before. Her words to Oliver about finding a way to repair the fiddle now struck her as bold nighttime talk that withered in the hard bright light of day. And she had a vision of Oliver driving the truck around the backroads, up amongst the hills, holding yet another skim of grief or sorrow upon the well of it all within him—a small grief she thought but one that could loom large for him. And an idea bloomed.
She said, “Ed? I want to buy a fiddle. You have any back there with the instruments?” As, keeping her face turned toward him she made her way down the aisle, toward the end that would connect into the room where the musical instruments as well as the children’s games and toys were displayed.
He followed, studying her. Then reached and placed a hand on her shoulder. She almost shivered under his touch but stopped and turned again as he asked, “What do you want a fiddle for? We got violins for the kids, not sure one of em could truly be called a fiddle.”
Quickly, as if her teeth might clamp her tongue she said, “He’s been playing the fiddle. The small one you gave him a long time ago. He’s been doing that six, seven months. I do believe it gives him solace. Eases something inside of him. I don’t know but I know he’s been doing it regular.”
Ed interrupted. “Not surprised. He’s got it in the blood. Letting a music come out is good for any man. Why you looking for a fiddle—I know that one you’re
talking bout—it’s small, made for a boy, but it’s good. No need to buy some cheap ill-made thing. I never said that—I don’t sell that sort of stuff. But … what? You looking for a Christmas present, is that it?”
And then she told him of what happened the night before. Holding back only her suggestion that Oliver might repair it himself but otherwise repainting the scene at the table, the wounds he’d gained on the ice, his litany of the damages he understood had occurred upon the little fiddle. As she did so, she felt a greater understanding of her husband’s pain and sorrow, also how terribly glib her suggestions had been. And remembered his hidden wakefulness in the night, a condemnation now of her thoughtlessness. Some inner part of her writhed and she wanted only to be home. She knew her father-in-law was looking at her but she studied the shelf before her—reached out and ran a finger across the label of a jar of jam.
“You,” Ed said. “You wait right here. No, finish your shopping—I’ll be a few minutes. Maybe ten. You get done and I’m not by the register you can sit in your car, you’d rather. But I’ll be quick as I can. I got just the thing for him.”
Wicked can be December—not a full winter month, but also only a paring of fall. The late morning was warm, eaves dripping but on north sides making icicles, heaps of snow disintegrating into gray slush, then water, flowing away to meet other small braided channels of water, downstreet, all flowing down. Downhill. Toward the suddenly roaring river, open and free of ice and so taking in this flow of melt. She sat and smoked with the car door open and her galoshes propped up on the small running board. Waiting and again unsure of what she’d done. People, mostly women, most whom she knew, flowing in and out of the store, passing her, waving and calling H’lo, Good Day, the like. Responding in kind but brief as she could, letting them pass by and no too few of them, she was sure, passing by happily, others the curious sideways glance, and those also waving and calling with good cheer. She knew what each one thought and intended and she knew nothing at all.
Ed came out on the stoop of the mercantile and peered about. Cradled against his side was an instrument case. He spotted her and came over and handed it to her. She turned to place it on the seat beside her as he said, “There. I put new strings on it. Take that to him.” Then he was gone. As if he knew she needed him to do this, in this way.
She drove up the hill and carried the groceries in and put them away. Then she returned and lifted out the case and stood in the warm sun and turned it over in her hands. It was old, the alligator hide chipped and fungal. But it seemed a good weight in her hands. She carried it in and placed it on the kitchen table. She looked at it a moment, then carried it into the parlor and set it on the side table, where the small fiddle’s case had always been.
She waited until it was an hour past noon and couldn’t wait any longer so she opened a can of soup and warmed it and ate it with a peanut butter sandwich. She had a fresh chicken to roast for supper—what they ate every Saturday night, so most Sundays she made a chicken pie with the leftovers. Then she made a pot of tea and sat with a cup and saucer at her desk and began to correct papers. She struggled to concentrate for a bit and then was well lost in her work.
But heard the truck when it pulled up outside. She started, glanced at the clock and saw if was almost half past three. Her first thought was That chicken should already be in the oven but she was up and moving toward the door, then fell back and stepped to the side of the kitchen window that looked upon the yard. He was out of the truck, lifting a wooden chest from the bed of the truck, glancing toward the house. She pulled back, feeling she was spying, then eased forward and lifted the edge of the curtain to watch as he carried the chest around the back of the barn to his workshop. He came back and did this again, a different chest, longer, narrow. Again he cast an eye toward the house, but briefly. She watched then how he walked; the least bit of a stride, and knew whatever this all was, he felt it to be a good thing. The third time he pulled out a pair of old milk crates packed to the brim and again headed to the barn. And she had a flurry.
Too late to roast the chicken, no idea if he’d had lunch, no idea what he was up to. So she put the kettle on and poured out the cool tea and rinsed the pot and waited for the water to boil. She’d have tea ready and that was the best she could do. She took a package of sugar wafers from the cupboard and spread them on a small plate. The kettle whistled and she filled the teapot and behind her the door opened. She turned slow but easy, no false smile spread but her face piled up with curiosity and concern. And he saw that, as he’d likely expected and gave her a small grin. He was carrying the case of the busted fiddle and he set it on the table. Then he stepped and held her elbows in his hands and kissed her forehead, nose, lips.
“My Lord,” he said. “What a day I had.”
The kiss upon her lips sparkled through her. How could I not love this man rippled her brain, and then the shock of idea that she might not love him. Never before thought.
“Where’d you go?” she asked, a fair and neutral question.
“Canaan,” he replied. “To try and find a man called Archille Descoteaux.” He paused and said, “What you told me yesterday? About letting my mind rest and seeing what might churn up? It worked.”
She couldn’t recall that particular statement but nodded.
“And I finally went to sleep last night—this morning, knowing there was something and I woke early and the name was right there, front of my mind. So I let you sleep and made coffee and thought about that name. And I knew he was from Canaan and I knew he made fiddles. I don’t know if maybe my dad told me about him when I was a little boy or maybe my grandfather—my grandmother for that matter. And I thought about going to ask Dad, guessing he’d already be at the store but then I thought, I do that he’s going to ask questions maybe I don’t want to answer but more than that—he finds out I’m headed to Canaan he’s going to turn up other names; great-aunts or -uncles, second cousins, people he’d want me to look up. Which was not my idea for the day. So I just drove on up there. I should’ve left you a note—now that I think, I should’ve—but at the moment it was important I just go. As if I could be talked out of it so easy. A harebrained notion, it felt a tad bit.
“It’s a fair drive but I left early and it was early still when I got there and I just went into the store and asked if old Archille was still alive and where could I find him. The fellow said, ‘What you want him for?’ and I said, ‘I got a broken fiddle I’d like him to look at,’ and he said, ‘He don’t do that sort of work anymore,’ and I said, ‘I’m looking to see if I can learn to do it myself.’ And remembered then to buy some cheese and dried sausage and a couple cans of food to take as a gift, the way those things used to be done, and the storekeep told me where to find him.
“I drove out and found the house easy enough, right where he’d said it would be. One of those old houses with a shingle roof and clapboards once painted yellow and trim once was blue, all peeling, and no car in the drive but the porch stacked high with wood, upstairs windows patched with cardboard or tin hammered flat. An old daybed out on the porch, the stuffing sprung. So I stepped out of the truck and carried my little fiddle and walked up and knocked. And he opened the door and spoke French and I excused myself in French and he nodded and told me to come in. Gave me a chair and poured tea thick as pitch for both of us, asking me who I was and I did my best to tell him and that got things going. Ruthie, I don’t know how this whole business will work out but if I get a reason to go up again, I’d take you, I would, if you’d come—”
“Of course I would.”
“—Because, because, well, it was interesting. To see something of where I came from. To hear him, to see him but also—no wait: He had on those old black wool pants with faint white stripes in them and a hand-knit sweater that looked to be about two inches thick and maybe once years ago he stood five feet tall. A mustache like a paintbrush but fresh-shaven otherwise and a tousle of hair still mostly black. With eyebrows to match and a goodly spurt o
f hair from both ears. A grand old man, is what I’m saying. And all the time we’re sitting drinking tea his eyes were jerking to the fiddle case I’d laid on the table but he kept on talking about family, and I have to tell you mostly I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his or the ways both met up and linked one way or another. Likely some of all.”
Oliver paused then, looked off from her, ate a sugar cookie and swallowed the last of his tea. She waited because she knew he wanted her to and then he said, “What you have to understand is Archille Descoteaux is famous. His brother Hermenegil, also. And their father, Arthur. And going back from them, I’m sure, but those were the ones came down from the Townships and made fiddles. Beautiful fiddles. Likely, some one or more of Descoteauxs have made fiddles three hundred years or longer. Not violins, they’d never known what a violin was, but fiddles. From log to lacquer and every step in between. Well, I’m boring you, aren’t I?”
“Not one whit. Go on, tell me more.”
“Long and short he was in the middle of a story about Alice Evangeline, who was either his grandmother or a girl he’d loved long ago or maybe even was a song—he kept going from English back to French—it didn’t matter because I knew he’d taken me in, you know what I mean? That I was home, as far as he was concerned. Almost as if he’d been waiting for me. Then he ended his story or maybe stopped it midstream and reached and tapped the case of my fiddle and asked me what I had there, what I wanted from him. I told him how it came to me and then what happened—that I found it again after so many years and then slipped on the ice and busted it.
“He opened the case and lifted it out and held it up, turned it around in his old hands, back and forth, up and down, brought it close to his face—Ruthie, I swear he smelled it. Then, his hands still running over it he looked at me and said, ‘Yup I made this one. I remember her. Ain’t forgot a one of em. But I can’t help you—my eyes are gone, my hands shake, can’t barely slice cheese without making blood, let alone shave a splinter clean or lay a bead of glue. I was to rummage I might find a bridge could work or be sanded down to size. But I ain’t it, no more, yes?’ He reached up and tapped his temple and said, ‘A old song. The mind knows what the hands can’t do. A sadness, is all it is.’ Then he ended, ‘Imagine that.’