Listen for the Singing

by Jean Little

  When he had learned the alphabet, Anna got, again through Mrs. Schumacher, a book of simple stories for him to read and a Braille slate and stylus and some stiff paper so that he could learn to write. Rudi was horrified when he realized that, since he had to poke the holes through the paper from the back, he had to reverse all the letters he had just mastered frontwards, to make them come out the right way around. But when he actually tried doing it, it was not as difficult as he had imagined. Anna got pretty good at it herself, writing messages for him to figure out. Since they were both doing it, their mistakes were more amusing than discouraging.

  “This way, you’ll be able to take notes when you’re back in college,” she said, oh so casually, one afternoon.

  “Listen, lady, don’t rush me,” Rudi warned. “I’m not nearly ready to think about —”

  “Here,” Anna interrupted, keeping him busy, “read this.”

  As the days passed, Rudi grew more and more excited and also more and more restless. Having emerged from his cocoon, he wanted to fly.

  “I wish I could go OUT!” he cried, after an hour’s hard work. “I feel like a bird in a cage.”

  Anna laughed at him. “You’re the funniest looking bird I ever saw.”

  Yet the next afternoon she got away from school early.

  “Come on!” she said, running up to his room and banging in. “I’ll take you out.”

  “Out? No, you won’t,” Rudi declared, his jaw setting.

  For a moment, Anna felt so frustrated that she wanted to hit him. Then she realized he was afraid.

  “I don’t have time for you to get into a mood right now,” she half-yelled at him, keeping her flash of insight to herself. “Mama and Papa are at the store. The others are all at the final play-off rugby game between us and Bloor. They won’t be home for hours. We’re perfectly safe. Nobody’ll know but us. Rudi, outside it’s gorgeous! Crisp and smelling of bonfires …”

  “I don’t want people to see me,” he said, his voice low.

  “Coward!” Anna taunted. “What do you think is so special about the way you look? I’ll wear dark glasses too, if it’ll make you feel better. It’s so sunny that nobody would think a thing about it. I’ll be your cane. We can just go around the block, if you want. Come on.”

  “You don’t have to wear dark glasses,” he said, getting up slowly, his face gradually relaxing and then actually growing eager. He grinned in her direction. “You’d better not wear dark glasses, come to think of it. They’d probably make you practically as blind as I am. You have to lead me.”

  “Like Little Lord Fauntleroy,” she teased, pulling his hand through her elbow. “Just lean on me, Grandfather.”

  Rudi had no trouble navigating the stairs. He had the places he went inside the house memorized by now. She opened the front door and, seeing he was wavering even yet, she tugged him through, big as he was, and slammed it behind them.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  He lifted his head, breathed deeply the wonderful October air, took her arm, and began to walk with her.

  “Thank you, Anna,” he said quietly, a moment later. “I’d forgotten how it smelled.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” she said and they turned the corner.

  A couple was coming toward them. As Rudi heard the sound of approaching footsteps, he gripped her arm so tightly he hurt her. She bore it until the people had passed them.

  The instant he thought they were out of earshot, he demanded, “Did those people stare at me?”

  “How would I know?” Anna asked.

  He stopped in his tracks and half-turned to her, as though he wanted to see her face. Then he guffawed so loudly that Anna did see a woman, out raking leaves, lift her head to look. She did not mention the lady.

  “It’s not all that funny,” she said, trying to keep from laughing herself.

  “Talk about the perfect squelch!” Rudi said.

  “If you still trust me, we can cross the street here and walk in the park,” Anna suggested.

  “I trust you,” Rudi said. “But be careful.”

  “I’m always careful,” Anna said with dignity, and they went and walked in the park, the dry leaves rustling and crackling around their feet.

  When they were safely home, Rudi said, “The minute we’ve sprung all this on the family, how about going walking every day? It would do you a world of good.”

  “I already planned on that,” Anna said, sounding smug and not caring if she did. “I knew you’d like it.”

  That night, Anna wakened in pitch darkness to feel Rudi’s hand close over her mouth, stifling her inevitable scream.

  “Anna,” he said in a frantic whisper, “I’ve forgotten everything I’ve learned. I’ve been trying and trying to read but I can only get a couple of letters. I know it starts with an R and then, a little further on, there’s a W and another R, but I can’t recognize a single other letter. Here. You try.”

  Anna felt a healthy urge to slay him, blind or not. But she sat up, still in the dark, took the Braille book and found, as he said, an R, some letters she didn’t recognize, and then a W.

  “If it’s any comfort to you,” she said, “it makes no sense to me either.”

  She was wide awake now, sharing his consternation. As she shifted a bit to get a better grip on the bulky book, an idea came to her.

  “Here,” she said, shoving it back at him. “Try it now.”

  He stayed right there by her side and began going laboriously from letter to letter.

  “O … N … E … D … A … Y …

  One day!” he exclaimed, amazed. “How did you do it?”

  “You had the book upside down, you big idiot,” she said. “R is W backwards. Who’s the dummkopf now? Go away and let me sleep.”

  The next evening, when Rudi came downstairs after supper, he brought three sheets of Braille paper with him, hidden in an old notebook. Once the news was over, before anyone had a chance to drift away, he announced to all of them that he wished they would stay for a few minutes.

  “It won’t take long,” he said, his voice strained. “I have something to read to you.”

  They sat frozen in their places, staring at him. Papa turned and looked at Anna. She, glancing around to make sure everyone was paying proper attention, caught his eye. He patted the place beside him. She got up and moved over and sat there, with his arm around her.

  “We’re just getting settled,” she explained to her student, who after all had no way of knowing what was happening. “Now they’re ready. Go ahead, Rudi.”

  He had been waiting for her signal, as they had arranged. He took the sheets of Braille out where the whole family could see them.

  “What we picked is special,” he said. “You might guess it’s by Emily Dickinson, since she’s Miss Sutcliff’s favourite poet.”

  He paused, and he and Anna laughed. The others did not know how to react. They sat in bewildered silence. Rudi struggled on.

  “The poem matters to me because it was through books, one talking book, that Anna first broke through my shell. We’ll explain later. Anyway, these words seem to be written about me.”

  Resting his fingers lightly on the top line of the transcribed Braille, he began, slowly, to read.

  He ate and drank the precious words,

  His spirit grew robust;

  He knew no more that he was poor,

  Nor that his frame was dust.

  He danced along the dingy days,

  And this bequest of wings

  Was but a book. What liberty

  A loosened spirit brings!

  Even though Rudi, through repetition, knew the words, he disciplined himself to feel each letter and really read so that they could all see. Papa’s arm tightened around Anna.

  She could feel him shaking. She twisted about and put her arms around his neck and murmured into his ear, “Isn’t it wonderful to see him, Papa?”

  Still holding her, he nodded, his eyes never leaving his son.
>
  Rudi finished. There was one hushed second. Then pandemonium broke loose. All the questions, the muddled explanations, the congratulations, poured forth together. Finally Rudi stood up, put his arm around his mother’s shoulders and said to his father, although he was not quite facing him,

  “You can call that man from the C.N.I.B. for me tomorrow, Papa, if you don’t mind.”

  Papa took one quiet step so that his voice would come back from where Rudi had thought he was. Anna, the only one to notice, wanted to hug him again, but stayed where she was.

  “I’ll look up the number for you but you can call him yourself, I think,” Ernst Solden said.

  “Yes,” Rudi said, after a moment. He made his voice sound as casual as his father’s had seemed to be, although neither of them fooled the other. “Yes, I think I’ll do that in the morning.”

  Chapter 24

  On the first of November, when there was an almost warm day, Anna, at last, invited her three friends to drop in. Rudi boasted that he now felt strong enough to take even Suzy’s adulation. They moved out onto the back porch, which looked out over their tiny yard. Rudi sat by the railing where he could feel the wind blowing. Mama, home early for the occasion, brought out a tray of cookies and coffee. Somewhere she had found nuts and currants to put into the cookies and lots of butter; she must have been saving them for a special day. The girls chattered, self-conscious at first and then more and more themselves.

  Maggie told of their latest letter from her father. It had been censored in places but he was somewhere where he was freezing to death.

  “He told Mother he’d give anything to cuddle up with her at night,” Maggie said.

  “He’s probably on one of those convoys which go up through the North Sea,” Rudi said. “I think I might have landed there. I wish I were with them sometimes but it’s nice to be warm.”

  The visitors were silenced by this. Mama, who was growing accustomed to the new Rudi, made a half-disapproving noise with her tongue. What she meant by it was not clear but Rudi smiled in her direction.

  He reached carefully for his coffee cup.

  “A little to the left,” Anna said quietly.

  He picked it up with ease and sipped, not acknowledging her words. This was part of life for them now. She, because of and in spite of her poor vision, seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to his needs.

  She drank her own coffee, feeling pleased with the afternoon. Clouds kept coming up but they would soon pass, she hoped. Meanwhile, Mr. McNair had been over to talk to Rudi a couple of times. In the last few days, he had begun to talk about returning to college when he had really mastered Braille and had learned to move about more independently. Someone had spoken of a possible guide dog. Anna did not know how any of it would turn out but it was hopeful talk. And now both she and Rudi were sleeping at nights. He joined them for supper now and when, as was inevitable, he had knocked over his water glass one night, he had been the first to say, with a laugh, what Mama had said for years.

  “It’s only water and an extra washing won’t hurt anyone in this family.”

  Suddenly Rudi lifted his face to the sky.

  “The sun’s come out again,” he said.

  Mama looked startled. Suzy blurted, “How do you know?”

  “Oh, I have my secret methods,” Rudi said, his voice light and teasing.

  Anna looked at the warm sunlight touching his cheeks and wondered how sighted people could be so stupid.

  “It’s really clearing up,” she said, ignoring Suzy. “The sky is turning a lovely bright blue in the east.”

  “And the birds?” Rudi said, turning his head to where she sat. “Are you listening for their singing still, Anna?”

  “Oh, they came out of their shells long ago,” she told him, choosing her words with care. “They’re grown now and starting their journey toward the sun.”

  “It’s a long way,” he said, smiling just a little, letting her know he understood.

  “But I think they’ll make it,” Anna said.

  “Yes,” said Rudi. “I believe they will.”

  Acknowledgements

  So many people helped me with various aspects of the research necessary for this book. I wish I could thank each one of you individually, but there are just too many. You know who you are. Thank you all.

  My special thanks goes to Tamara Puthon who is in charge of research at the Guelph Public Library. She answered countless questions from her desk and also read the manuscript through carefully at home, checking it for errors. It was she who told me what Germans might eat for breakfast, the exact time war was declared, where Hitler was born, whether there are skylarks in Germany, what meats taste best with sauerkraut, and a hundred other things. Thank you, Tamara, for your ready help and your unflagging interest.

  About the Author

  Jean Little is one of Canada’s best-loved writers; she has written more than fifty novels, picture books and poems for children.

  Books such as From Anna, Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird and Orphan at My Door are classic Little. Her work has been published in many languages around the world and has won her the Canada Council Children’s Literature Prize, CLA Book of the Year Award, Mr. Christie’s Book Award and more. She has received several honorary degrees as well as the Order of Canada and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.

  Perhaps because of her own challenges — she was born with scars over both corneas and attended a school for the visually impaired because she is legally blind — Jean often writes about the underdog. Her characters often face external challenges, but it is the inner life that she portrays so convincingly.

  After fifty years of creating books that children and adults love, Jean is still writing, still listening to children to find what engages and disturbs and delights them, and still finding intriguing characters that demand to be let into a book. She lives in Guelph, Ontario.

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  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Little, Jean, 1932-, author

  Listen for the singing / Jean Little.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4431-4873-3 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4431-4874-0 (HTML)

  I. Title.

  PS8523.I77L5 2017 jC813’.54 C2017-901501-X

  C2017-901502-8

  Photos credits: cover bird: basel101658/Shutterstock;

  cover background: R_lion_O/Shutterstock.

  The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from:

  Over the Rainbow (from “The Wizard of Oz”). Music by Harold Arlen. Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg. Copyright © 1938 (renewed) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. © 1939 (renewed) EMI Feist Catalog Inc. All rights controlled and administered by EMI Feist Catalog Inc. (Publishing) and Alfred Music (Print). All rights reserved.

  Used by permission of Alfred Music.

  Copyright © 1977 by Jean Little.

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io M5V 1E1, Canada.

  First e-book edition: October 2017