"Who are you?" Gathering his wits, he waved her off. "Get away from me!" He turned back to his path. The woman kept up with him.
"Who asks to be born with a gift?" she said. "It made you a fluke, an anomaly, an aberration...a freak."
Benjamin paused, set his jaw and faced her. "No. It didn’t." He stormed away. But he remembered.
He had walked out on the stage where a second platform was built for him to stand upon.
In front of him bobbed a sea of shadowy faces, all gathered to hear the child prodigy. In the quiet moment before he started, a single cough blasted across the concert hall and Benjamin wondered if he had the nerve to go on. But he nodded to the conductor instead of running off stage. Violin tucked under his chin, he performed Mendelssohn’s concerto in E minor. When finished, the thunderous applause was like an earthquake beneath his feet.
"There’s nothing wrong with what I do."
The woman gracefully waved her hand, distracted as if half-contemplating getting her nails done. "Let me ask you, then, could you stop playing? Give it up forever?"
He halted. "Why would I do that?"
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a couple watching him. They couldn’t see her. Rounding on the pair, he blurted, "What?"
Neither said a word, but stepped away.
The woman had vanished once again. He staggered back.
He ran down the dark street. He needed a place to be safe. Somewhere quiet where the curious, or his fans, or detractors would leave him alone to sort out his own mind.
He needed sanctuary.
The idea ran through his head like a bad joke. Except, right now nothing about his life seemed even remotely funny.
Benjamin waved down a cab and climbed in.
"Where to?" the goatee sporting cabbie asked in perfect English. "Notre Dame Cathedral."
Even though the cab smelled like an ashtray, Benjamin sat back and sighed.
"I saw the news," the cabbie said, his voice low and deep. "That woman, all she wanted was to be the best, and for many years, no one played the violin better. Why couldn’t you have said something? Even if you had to lie, why couldn’t you just make her feel good?"
He sat up. "I don’t want to talk about it."
The cabbie peered at him, his voice thick with accusation. "You could have done something. You could have helped her."
His body tense, Ben blurted, "I didn’t even know her...I knew of her. If she got that idea it was because of critics and other people’s gossip. If I knew how she felt, I would have been happy to call her the best. I would have gone out and bought her a goddamn crown."
The vehicle immediately swerved to the curb and stopped. The cabbie turned all the way around and began babbling in French. His perfect English vanished. Like the woman. He jutted a finger toward the door and barked what Benjamin could only take as a command to get out.
He scrambled to obey.
Benjamin watched the car speed away. Back against the nearest building, arm wrapped around his violin case, he waited for his heart to slow down. His gaze traveled upward through the tangle of rooftops and the haze of light, all the way to the faded stars overhead.
Another cab, full of revelers who whooped and waved, rolled past. A girl stuck her head out of the window, pointed back at him and cried, "Benjameen Toll! Je t’aime, Monsieur Toll!"
The cab traveled well down the street before he heard a man’s voice, possibly her boyfriend, shout, "Stupeed Amereecan!"
For the first time that night, he laughed. He thought of comments the New York Times most noted music critic made about him before his debut in Carnegie Hall.
While many are wildly anticipating the arrival of young Mr. Toll to the New York City stage, one must first marvel that such a talent has managed to come to us from the midst of the corn-fed Midwest ...
Not excited about seeking another cab, he walked to the closest main drag and read the street sign. This was the Rue Lagrange, Notre Dame wasn’t all that far. If he didn’t get run over crossing the bridge it was just a good stretch of the legs.
Ben’s ears picked up the sound of a violin playing Monti’s Csardas and in spite of himself, he had to seek out the source and listen, if only for a minute or two.
At an outdoor corner café’ he watched a young man in blue jeans and black t-shirt play his heart out. A note missed here and there...the harmonic section skipped completely. Maybe it was too difficult a part, or perhaps his violin didn’t speak well. It didn’t matter. The young man played with such total joy, the very atmosphere around him danced.
Benjamin leaned against a lamppost.
The song ended, people applauded and Benjamin joined in. The young man glanced up, noticed his violin case, beamed and rattled off several French words.
Ben thought the man asked if he played violin. But when Benjamin did not answer immediately, the young man went on to ask in mangled English, "Monsieur! Dooo yooo pleh?"
Benjamin nodded and the man, excited, waved him over.
"Your playing…" Benjamin made a bow stroke gesture in the air, "…tres bien! Tres bien," Ben said. Palm out he asked, "Ravel Competition?"
The man laughed and shook his head. "No, no! I am not so good. I play here and it gives me joy. But, je m’appelle…uh, my naaame eez Ives. Would you care to, how do Amereecans say, jam?"
Benjamin liked this guy. "Sure. Let’s do it."
Ben placed his violin case on one of the café tables, but before he could pull out his Stradivarius, he saw the woman glide into the café and take a seat.
He felt her presence like daggers. Ben picked the case back up and tucked it under his arm. "I’m sorry, I have to go."
Ives’s eyebrows sprang upwards. "But, monsieur…" "I have to go!" Ben spun and hurried away.
He headed down the road towards Notre Dame. As expected now, the woman appeared by his side, her presence shrouded in silence.
"Did you enjoy it?" she said at last. "Enjoy what?"
"Atonement, Monsieur Toll. Only atonement will bring you peace."
Benjamin stopped and faced her a moment. "Here’s what I don’t get. I know that I didn’t do anything or say anything that would have hurt Madame Gissette. I know that. So why can’t I get her out of my head, and why in hell am I talking to YOU?"
"Zomezing must surely be amiss. Or else why would I be able to act as your councilor?" "You’re not counseling me, you’re driving me crazy."
"I have only asked you to picture your life without playing. If zere is a zing you cannot give up, zen is it not obsession? Is zat ze proper way to live?"
"Why do you want me to give up the violin?" "Why do you?"
She vanished like a dissipating cloud. "I don’t want to!" Benjamin yelled.
The Woman in Black leaned with her back against a street lamp, a ghoulish lady of the evening.
"Zen why are you so afraid to consider Madame Gissette?"
Muscles tightened, he clenched his fist. "Don’t you get it!" he exploded. "She’s all I’ve considered the past three days. I close my eyes at night and she’s all I see. When there’s nothing to hear, I can still hear her. I can’t stand it!" He made an angry, guttural sound and continued on.
He pictured the day so clearly. The Ravel Violin Competition, held in Paris, attracted the finest violinists in the world. They asked him to come help judge the contestants and he considered it a high honor.
On the last day, he headed out of the conservatory. Madame Gissette confronted him. He could see her perfectly coiffed hair in neat frosted waves around her head. She wore a green jacket dress with matching pumps and carried a music satchel instead of a purse. When he saw her making quick strides towards him, at first he felt merely curious. Her face darkened, a building thunderhead of anger preparing to unleash. A vein throbbed in the middle of her forehead. When Madame traveled within ten feet of him, she broke into a run. Seeing the usually dignified lady act so strange, Ben stood, jaw dropped. Then she let out a blood curdling shriek and ran fa
ster.
"You! You have done zis to me. I was loved by all, and zen you have come." "Madame, I-I don’t know what you mean."
"I have heard zee zings yoo say about me!" "What? I didn’t say anything ..."
"You lie! All Americans lie! I was zee greatest violinist in the world. And now you come along and I have been made nozing. Do yoo ‘ear me? Nozing! You have done zis. You have caused zis. No one else." She spat at the ground before him as cameras flashed. Then, to his unending horror, Madame Gissette reached into her music satchel, drew out a nine-inch blade and plunged it into her belly again and again.
Warm wet liquid splattered across his face. He lunged forward shouting, "No!" But security guards gripped him and hauled him out of the way.
He watched as Madame Gissettte’s eyes bulged. She lifted the knife and crimson flowed off the blade. She staggered and dropped. A discarded rag doll. A thick terrible stench, like freshly sheared copper filled the air along with the sound of so much blood exiting a body that he actually heard it gush.
Ben sank to the ground near the door of Notre Dame, his eyes brimming with tears. He wrapped his arms around his violin case. Exhausted, he rose and stumbled the last few steps to the door.
The hymn finished as he stepped inside. In the silence his footsteps echoed. Coolness, as one finds in buildings built of stone and mortar, greeted him. The magnificent pipe organ sat filling most of the altar under soft illumination, otherwise hundreds of candles formed the sanctuary’s only lighting at this hour. Here and there a parishioner sat, heads bowed in prayer. At the altar, a very young woman lit a candle and placed it in a holder along with a sea of others. He walked to the front of the sanctuary and lit a candle. For Madame Gissette.
Madame, I can’t imagine what kind of pain drove you to do what you did, but I am so sorry if any actions of mine or any words out of my mouth hurt you. Your playing was sublime. I never called anyone the best in the world, but if it had occurred to me to do so, if I had ever been asked, I would have said your name.
"Is your guilt assuaged, Monsieur Toll?"
Benjamin froze, his eyes brimming. The Woman in Black stood by him, and something in his heart gave over to hopelessness. This was supposed to be a place of sanctuary and yet she had followed him in. He would never be rid of her.
"I saw you," he said, his voice low. "You were there when she…she…I saw you talking to her on the way out of the conservatory."
"Yes, I shared with her many zings about her life, her position in society." His voice a low hiss, he turned to the woman. "It was you!"
The Woman in Black laughed. "Playing the violin gave her meaning? But it is so very little when you stop and consider," she waved her hand lightly in the air, "all of eternity."
"So what if it’s all she had?"
The Woman in Black strolled into the shadows. In what might have been a seductive gesture in other women, she peered at him over her shoulder and whispered, "It’s all you have."
He had no objections left to voice. Cutting and cruel, her words were nevertheless true.
"Is that why you’ve come?" he called after her. "You think you can get me to do the same thing?"
Ben gave it little notice, but movement told him parishioners were leaving. No doubt anxious to escape the madman.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned. The Woman leaned forward and barely able to contain her amusement, whispered, "Why, we are a nation zat believes in equal outcome. Of course, you are next. Why should one be so gifted and the next person not? And you, you come from a stock of people better suited to becoming grocery store clerks and shop keepers."
Benjamin rolled his eyes. "So? Most of France doesn’t seem to a have a problem with food stores or shops, why should I?"
"You have no business here. You should have been born twisted and incorrect. Instead, you were given a gift so huge even you do not understand. Were you to lose it, you would no longer exist. Better to turn over to me your worthless, empty soul."
The Woman in Black leaned close and whispered. "Ah, yes, and were you to leave here now, I could promise you many women to your liking. There is time tonight. Perhaps you would like to see to your pleasure? But whether you stay or not, know that I will be staying...day in and day out...right by your side until you are dead."
Benjamin’s shoulder’s fell.
Heart heavy as concrete, Ben stumbled to the front row and sat. The woman appeared on the other side of him, like a bird of prey swooping in for the kill.
"I will make you an offer," she said from behind her black veil. "I will go away and leave you forever, if you will give me one thing."
"What’s that?" he asked.
"An offering. You carry a gentleman’s knife in your pocket. If you use it to cut off just one hand, I will leave. A small trophy."
Weary, he said, "Three days ago, I never would have thought that there might be something wrong with me for being able to play the violin. I don’t get what’s happening to me."
"I have rights to you," she hissed. " Too many times you have opened the door, and now I have entered. All your life, you acted as if salvation comes from your silly wooden box laced wiz sheep-intestines. Idolator! Salvation eez through me and me alone! Come, Benjamin. Give me your offering. I demand it."
He glanced up. A light came on. A tiny sliver of hope weaved its way across the back of his mind and surrounded the word…Offering.
Benjamin stood and picked up his violin case.
The Woman in Black demanded, "What are you doing?"
Without another word, Benjamin opened the case and took out his Strad. Walking to the side of the altar, he placed the instrument beneath his chin. He had lost track of how many thou- sands of times in his life he had performed that single act.
The Woman in Black raged. "I will kill hundreds! It will be your fault. Yours. No one else." Ben ignored her, closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Rosined horsehair caressed silver strings as Ben played the song that spoke to him, Ave Maria. Under his touch, the violin felt alive. Rich, pure tones resonated throughout the instrument and declared the things he had no words for. The song flowed deep into his being, cleansing and nourishing his very soul.
Ben let the melody soar. It rose higher and higher until it filled the whole cathedral.
The Haunting of Mabel
Jason Hubbard Derr
The old man placed three rolled cigarettes in front of him, hesitated and then took the one from the left and placed it to his lips. A young waitress, maybe 16, the sort that every man confused for either his daughter or his whore, came over to fill his glass again.
"Ain’t no smokin’ in here, shug. New law passed by them lie-bra-ls in Warshington."
This close to the freeway the old man felt that maybe the accent was a bit of a show put on for the tourists.
"I ain’t smoking, darling. Gave that up near 20 years ago. Just like the feel of the things in my mouth. I’ll have the cheeseburger and fries, hold the pickle, extra tomato." He gave her a wink as she walked away. He smiled as she winked back, hoping Mabel wouldn’t mind. He liked to flirt, but would never stray. He pushed a cigarette across the table to her.
Many traditions around the world have ritual of offering tobacco, or other harvests, to the spirits of the dead. So it ain’t anything new, what just happened here. The old man had no idea how many of those traditions could see their ghosts, watch as they reached down into the offered object and take a shadow of its essence, place it to their lips, light it on fire and draw a deep, satisfied breath from it.
"Those things are going to kill you," he said with a knowing smile. His wife, his late wife, gave him a tight, unimpressed smile. She’d been dead fifteen years and never let him forget it. Late at night he could hear her hacking away, a ghost breath of cancer and yellow teeth at the edge of his perception. She blew phantom smoke in his face as the Madonna-like waitress put his food down.
"Thank you, darlin’."
Mabel frowned and he real
ized he had called the waitress ‘darlin’ twice in a five minute window. He would ignore the old woman and her faint, showy scowls of disapproval. If he had learned one thing being married to this woman it was the variety of her moods, the sudden turn of her affections, the petty jealousies of women, car and career, anything that caught his eye. If he had learned another thing being widowed to the woman it was that her ghost felt things much more fiercely.
He put his cigarette down, tipping it against his plate so the soggy end would not touch the table, and started in on his meal. Definitely not the best hamburger he had ever had, that honor went to the burger he had in 1976 after a sales trip had taken him into Richmond and he had sold the services of his employer—a small, unimpressive photocopy repair service—to a very large and very wealthy firm. Now that burger’s victorious delishiness was more than memorable. An almost erotic blend of taste and smell and juice and mess. It had taken an hour to eat, each bite a moment of poetry. The dancing girls had watched him with glee, erupting with laughter and applause as he had finished his last bite.
Life and work had been mundane these last fifteen years, too little copier ink on his hands, too many photos of Mabel to remind him of her passing and too few children and grandchildren to distract him from the deep itch of his soul. Mabel, being a ghost and all, was not able to communicate directly to him. He could at times read her expressions. When she was really angry, she would spook the cat. At her worst, she would up the level of haunting to include the movement of objects and the addition of supernatural cold spots to the already heat-deficient house he lived in, alone, all these years later. These moments were rare and took too much out of her to do on a regular basis, and she would vanish into the netherworld, he assumed, or, at the least, from the corkboard of his own mind.
The young waitress—her name-tag, perched over her left breast where she had missed a button on her uniform, claimed she was Sarah. The top globe of her breast peeked out like a little pink window. Sarah brought him a refill of his coke and smiled at him again with her perfect, pretty little teeth. He picked his hat off the bench beside him, put it on top of the fading grey scrabble of hair and tipped it at her, which brought a short, fat giggle from her. He put the hat back down again, took a sip of his Coke, a bite of fries and then looked up into his wife’s eyes.
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