“I’m done.”
“Clarisse,” Mother called.
Clarisse entered and cleared away the plates.
“Can I be excused?” I asked Mother.
She nodded.
“Elliot, come with me.” I looked at my brother. He slid from his chair and walked beside me up the stairs.
I knocked on Robert’s door.
“Go away.”
“We’ll only be a minute.”
I opened the door. He lay on his bed hugging his book. The fish tank bubbled, all the golden fish mouths opening and closing, fins gliding along the glass edge, dipping behind the greenery.
“Want to come up?” I looked at the ceiling, meaning Peter’s room.
“No.” He tugged at his pillow. “I have to finish my book.”
Elliot stepped closer to the fish tank. He smudged his finger slowly across the glass.
“Don’t touch it!” Robert barked. “It’s the rule, remember?”
“Elliot won’t hurt the fish.”
“You’re not supposed to touch the glass. It upsets them. Go away.”
He put his hands over his ears and started humming loudly.
“Okay, shh!” I said, touching his foot.
Mother called up to me, her high voice penetrating the door. “Sarah! What about piano?”
I took a deep breath.
“I’m coming.”
“Robbie, I’ve saved your dinner,” Mother called. “Don’t you want it?”
“No. I’m not hungry!”
“Elliot!” Mother called for the third time. “Time for your bath. Clarisse will be up to help you.”
I went back downstairs. The dining room table had been cleared of all dishes, but the tablecloth, yanked up on one side, looked undressed against its will. The chandelier glared like a searchlight. I turned away and stepped down into the living room. There, the piano waited, so patient and tranquil. I slid onto the bench and surveyed the pattern of black and white keys. Rosewood gleamed from furniture polish. I opened my red Thompson book and began finger exercises. The small reading lamp cast a hot, intense yellow light on the pages.
My fingers moved up and down the keys, stroking the black sharps and flats exactly right. After I finished my finger exercises, I turned to simplified versions of Beethoven sonatas. But as I worked my left and right hands so that combinations of notes and chords fit together in a sound puzzle, I heard them again, arguing in Father’s office.
I tried to play louder, pressing the pedal down and holding it to the floor. But I heard... “Do you understand me?” Father whined. After a short silence, I heard his shrill high-pitched retort. “Christ, Jesus, Irene.”
I tried to play faster and louder but their voices outplayed all the notes. My fingers couldn’t move quickly enough, so I started to sing: “To dream, the impossible dream!” I let my voice shout out the words, changing to a higher pitch like a kite taking a sharp turn in the wind. My fingers stopped. “To dream!” I sang, hoarsely, holding the word “dream” as long as my breath sustained it. Mother opened the door.
“Sarah, please. Go upstairs. Have you done your homework?”
I slipped off the bench.
“This house is driving me crazy!” I stomped up each carpet-covered step, straight to the bathroom and locked the door. I turned on the bath and undressed while the tub filled with hot water. In the bathtub, I held my breath and put my head underwater to muffle sounds. But I still heard my parents’ bedroom door slam. Father walked heavily down the stairs and down again to the basement stairs.
In my bedroom I put on a flannel nightgown, one with small, green flowers. The steamy air hung between my legs. A colder, dry air splashed against my neck and face.
Father marched back up the basement stairs. He stopped in the kitchen. I heard a crash, then the banging began. The banging sounded different, exuberant, like a proud call for attention. I snuck down to see what he was doing.
I peeked into the kitchen at the very moment he let go of the toolbox. The box was a large, oblong metal container filled with mechanical objects that are a mystery to people like Father who lacked an aptitude for tools. A vial of nails broke open and scattered across the white kitchen floor.
“Christ!” He grunted and looked around, spotting me.
I stepped back.
“Oh, so you want to help?” he said huffing. He knelt down and turned the toolbox upside down. A hardware store of hammers, nails, clippers and screwdrivers fell out.
“What are you doing?”
“See that?” he said pointing to the small broom closet. “I’m going to rebuild it. It’s a terrible configuration of space. Under-utilized.”
“Now?”
I looked around me. Clarisse had packed the kitchen away neat and tidy, except for the mess Father was now making. Every glass and dish had been rinsed and carefully placed in the dishwasher; the lights dimmed except for the spotlight above the sink. The dishwasher had already begun its ritual of clicking followed by a series of small explosions. I smelled the dishwashing soap, as if it were God’s breath exhaling into the room. The floor had been swept. Countertops scrubbed, every last crumb, spot and drop sponged away. The aluminum sink and faucet towel-dried and left smudgeless as polished pewter.
“If you want to help, you can go downstairs and bring up the small boards.” He got on his knees and plucked the hammer off the floor.
I went down to the garage. I could not recall a single day Father had used a hammer well. Then I heard another thud upstairs. I picked up two boards, one under each arm, and started back up. I heard another bang. He started hitting repeatedly, faster and faster, a flurry of banging and thudding.
Father swung the hammer toward the ceiling then down again on the broom closet’s flimsy walls. Half the closet had caved during my short absence. The destroyed closet put me over the edge and I started laughing uncontrollably. The night had been a snake pit of bad behavior. Everything about it came launching out of my mouth in giggles to the point of tears.
He stopped and stood back to catch his breath.
“Piece of cake,” he said, looking at me.
Both Robert and Elliot came down to see about the noise.
“Stand back, now.”
He lunged forward and hammered on the other wall until he broke through.
“Watch it, watch it.”
We three stepped back out of the kitchen. Splintered closet walls, a scattering of old nails on the floor toppled haphazardly around Father. He used the claw of the hammer and pulled out more nails and pieces of plaster.
“Stay away from the nails. Stand back.”
“You never build things,” Robert said.
Father puffed and leaned on his hands and knees. “This should be very easy.” He stood up and wiped his wet forehead. The hammer dangled from his hand. The dishwasher clicked again and went into the rinse cycle, whooshing and throbbing, the fan inside spinning round and round.
“Clear out. Go on. Let me finish in here.”
He waved us away good-humouredly, looking highly satisfied, almost calm after so much wood bashing.
I went to my room and put my stockings on again, then put them away. Above, I heard Peter strumming his guitar, stopping and starting, something he did when he was writing a new song. The guitar came through as a faint humming through the walls. I was proud of him. He had dared to speak up, make a change. Mother, by contrast, resumed her usual night activities in the bedroom with the door closed, talking on the phone with a country club friend.
“Oh, shit. Christ!”
Below, Father’s chopping stopped. The house grew densely quiet. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. The heat from my bath earlier had cooled to water droplets, covering surfaces in liquid lace.
Father climbed the stairs and went into his bedroom. Water pipes squeaked as he turned his shower on. Mother came out and urged Robert to bed, calling up to Peter to get Elliot settled.
When it seemed Elliot would be a
sleep, I went up to the attic. Peter lay on the floor with his earphones, listening to music in the dark. I parted the curtain of beads hanging in his doorway and tapped him on his knee. His bedroom shag rug felt warm and fuzzy between my toes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“He’s brain baked,” he said, sitting up. A thin melody came out of the earphones like far away traffic. He turned the volume down. “He thinks he’s normal. It’s amazing.”
I sighed.
“You know how hard it is to get a job playing music? Six bands tried out for the dance. We beat the guys that played last year.”
“That’s great.”
“What’s his problem? What’s he got against me?”
“Maybe he envies you.”
“Right. He’s a creep. Certified. Graduation and I’m outta here,” Peter said, surveying his room.
I went over to the window and looked out. It was too black to see the long backyard, but if I were a bat hiding in the eaves, I would swoop in and out of everything.
“What do you want to hear?” Peter crawled over to his record collection. He had over two hundred albums stacked on the floor.
“You pick.”
“What are you two talking about?” Mother asked, standing at the door. She had changed into a white blouse and black slacks and had combed her hair, but she did not look refreshed.
“Nothing,” Peter said.
“Don’t wake Elliot. Keep the music down. It’s a school night.”
She went downstairs.
“She acts as if nothing happened,” Peter said, dis-believing. He pulled out an album by Jimi Hendrix. “Listen to this song. I want to play it at the dance.”
He played “Crosstown,” lifting the needle and replaying sections of the song at different points in the melody. He hummed accompanying parts for each instrument — guitar, piano, bass guitar. He played the drumbeat on his knees, stopping the song again when he missed a beat, over and over until he got the rhythm right. I felt privileged to be included.
~~~~~
In the morning, I heard Clarisse putting pots on the stove downstairs. The smell of coffee and the sound of Father’s gruff voice percolated brightly.
“Up and Adam everyone!” he shouted from the front hallway. “Time waits for no one. Sarah! Elliot! Rob-hurt! Everyone up! Good-bye!”
The door shut with a whomp. Farther started his car and drove to work instead of walking to the train. He did that sometimes. I got up and inspected the clothes in my closet. I didn’t have anything black so I put on a red plaid skirt and matching red sweater. My Jewish star gleamed against the red wool. I reminded myself that if someone said “Kike” again, I would say something and if things got bad I would go to the principal, or Mr. Edwards. I would make those people at the fence understand. I tucked my stockings inside my French textbook.
Downstairs, Mother stood at the stove in a blue silk robe, stirring hot cereal.
“I’m late,” I said, crossing the kitchen, one arm in my coat jacket.
“What about your breakfast?”
“Can’t.”
I tiptoed around the lumber hive, which rose to a peak high as my shoulders, in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“Elliot, sit down and eat,” Mother said.
I opened the back door. A cold breeze shook me as I ran down the steps to the driveway. When I reached the library in town, I went to the girls’ room, a tall, narrow room with green and white square tiles. The steam radiator clanked with rising heat. I put on my stockings and lipstick. I felt glamorous when I stepped outside again, the chilly air shimmering like metal springs up my sleek, almost naked legs. I hurried to school without running. I wanted to see Margaret and Sophie — and Anthony. I couldn’t wait to get back inside those dim, overheated halls.
Chapter Nine
Solo
Peter and I prowled the halls of New England Conservatory looking for Mother. We were not in the best part of downtown. The Conservatory bordered Roxbury and the South End in Boston; a jewel set between decrepit buildings and heroin addicts. Mother had dropped us off to find a parking spot.
It had been years since Mother had seen Mrs. Janson, whose amazing daughter, Justine, excelled as an opera singer. The idea of seeing an old high school friend and her prodigious daughter spawned happier expressions on Mother’s face at the dinner table and later, when she came into my bedroom to kiss me good-night. She sat where my sheets folded over the blanket, and talked the way she sounded before parties or outings at the country club.
“Justine started singing when she was two,” she said standing in the middle of my bedroom. She’s simply one of those people who knew what she wanted right from the start.” Mother pointed her small chin upwards to reinforce this idea.
“Is she nice?” I asked. “Is Justine friendly?”
“ Friendly?” She turned to look at me, lying on my back. “I imagine. Her mother certainly is.”
For Justine’s recital, Mother wore an aqua blue wool pantsuit, which looked arresting next to her short, blond hair. Her mohair coat smelled of plastic wrap and bittersweet dry-cleaning chemicals. Peter threw his army jacket over his bell-bottom jeans, the ones he never washed, which caused mother to grimace as usual, but it was the only way he would agree to go. I wore lined woolen slacks and a navy blazer with silver buttons the size of radio dials. Mother looked at me with approval, which mattered to me.
Dora was back but it was her day off on Sunday, so Father stayed home with Elliot and Robert. Peter would have driven, but his foot, wrapped in an ace bandage, was re-injured from leaping off our high school stage during his Rolling Stones-inspired guitar performance. The doctor told him he had to wait two more weeks. I sat in back of the Cadillac, all eyes on Mother’s driving. Peter sat in the passenger’s seat.
Ever since she half submerged her Thunderbird in Gooseneck Lake, she avoided driving at night. But she made an exception today. She did not want to miss this chance, as if witnessing Justine’s greatness might infect us all.
“Justine’s a true prodigy,” Mother said, gripping the wheel. “She knew what she wanted and pursued it. That’s what it takes. Beverly told me that Justine sang the National Anthem in first grade, in front of her entire school. Isn’t that something?” Mother’s voice shifted to higher, emotional registers. When we didn’t answer, she said, “Isn’t that something?” as if Peter and I were already heading down a road to anonymity.
I drew circles on the car window, certain I could offer something important to the world, too, like Justine, I just didn’t know exactly what, yet. Peter and I sang, but not opera. I wanted to wrap myself in soulful folk harmonies, not satin gowns. Laura Nyro. Joni Mitchell — singers like that. Peter played rock guitar. But that didn’t count for Mother. Classically trained in violin from the age of six, she considered our newer forms of music substandard.
As she exited the highway and entered the city, she braked and accelerated at the slightest provocation — a car passing to our right, a pedestrian waiting at the crosswalk. Snowbanks from the last storm narrowed the lanes. The February sky swept us into early darkness. Then, a light snow started.
“You’re braking too hard,” Peter said. He looked miserable in front. Pale brown bangs covered his eyes as if to block a harsh view of life ahead. On the sidewalk, strangers wore hurried looks, rushing to finish errands before stores closed.
“I can only do what I can do.” She took a long, jittery drag of her cigarette, leaving her pink lips on the filter. We didn’t say anything again. I’d heard this phrase from her too many times, but it still unfurled inside the car like her cigarette smoke, flattening against the ceiling, flattening us.
Finally, Mother said, “Beverly also told me that Justine practices four hours a day, but that’s what it takes when you strive for greatness.” She leaned toward the windshield. “There are no shortcuts about that.”
“Is that how long you practiced?” I asked because I had no idea. She rarely talked about her musical
days playing violin.
“Yes, centuries ago,” she said, sighing.
~~~~~
In the car, she reached for her cigarette again, her middle finger and thumb wincingly misshapen. She took extra pills before this trip because her finger joints throbbed like suffocating hearts, especially in damp, cold weather. Did all mothers take pills?
Downtown, we circled around the block, past several filled-up parking lots.
“I’ll let you two off,” she said.
“What will you do?” Peter asked.
“I’ll find a spot. Go.”
“We’ll stay with you,” I said, leaning forward. I hung my arms over the front seat.
“Hurry. Go on. I don’t want you to miss the beginning. It sets the tone.”
She dropped us off at the front entrance and we watched her turn in the direction of nearby Symphony Hall, where Mother played once in college. Her red brake lights flickered as she merged with other cars.
Now her violin lay in a cool corner of her bedroom closet like a dated history book. Once a year, she picked it up and tapped the strings, stroking the bridge with one finger. She’d place the chin rest under my chin and for a moment I’d see her face change, soften, open up to a world beyond the one she found herself in, and that included me. She held the bow for me, then sawed my arm back and forth across the bridge and together we listened to the breathy, sleepy strings.
“All dried out. They sound terrible.”
She stopped sawing and her mood changed.
“You could buy new ones.”
“What’s the point?”
When people asked why she no longer played violin, she said, “arthritis and children,” and gave a quick smile, as if having children was some kind of ailment. I know she didn’t mean to hurt me when she said that, but she did.
~~~~~
Inside the conservatory I saw ornate plaster ceilings, moldings wide enough to curl up in, chandeliers intricate as beehives. The building captured some essence of beauty and hope, seemed to offer a permanent escape from ugliness and despair. Maybe Mother was right to bring us here, after all.
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