What Is Left the Daughter

by Howard Norman

  "Like an archaeologist, I glued pieces of Mr. Hillyer's phonograph records together," Hans said. "They're too damaged to play, of course. But I was able to write down the names of the composers and the compositions, you see. And my idea is, you accompany me to Halifax, because I frequent a classical music store. The proprietor's name is Randall Webb. Randall and I are friends from almost the first day I arrived to Halifax three years ago. In exchange for German language lessons, Randall allows me to borrow music."

  "Hans, darling, no need to start every story with Genesis," Tilda said. "Just tell Wyatt what's the plan."

  "All right, yes," Hans said. "I hope to purchase new copies of my father-in-law's phonographs, the ones he left broken on our bed."

  "I get the picture," I said. "You need my car, so here's what. I will drive you down to Halifax. But only because Aunt Constance would be pleased to have those records back playing in the house."

  "That's reason enough, Wyatt," Tilda said.

  "How are you going to pay for this big scheme of yours?" I asked.

  "I'm pitching in my soon-to-be-earned mourner's fee," Tilda said. "And Hans has scholarship money left. Not much, but some."

  "You can figure out your family finances on your own. My part of the bargain, though, is that I don't want to wait. I want to drive down to Halifax today. I'll even loan you some money if you need it. What do I spend it on, anyway?"

  "Halifax prostitutes, I thought," Tilda said.

  Hans practically spit out his coffee. "Where, Wyatt, that building on Lower Water Street? Or that small hotel near Citadel Park?"

  "How'd you come by such information?" Tilda asked.

  Caught up short, Hans took Tilda's hands in his and said, "Some seniors from Dalhousie frequent these places. At least that's my understanding."

  "By the bye, I'm tagging along," Tilda said.

  "My car's right outside."

  "I'll need a few things," Tilda said. "Be back in a jiffy."

  "Sit in the car with me, Hans," I said. "I'll explain 'jiffy' to you. I could tell you liked that word. See how I'm getting to know you?"

  When she returned, Tilda sat between Hans and me and we drove out of Middle Economy. "I have to make a stop in Truro," I said. When we got to Truro, I parked in front of Winterson's Cleaning Establishment. Hans and Tilda waited in the car while I went inside. Since I was no longer going to give Tilda away in marriage, I'd intended to take my suit back unlaundered and save the money. But Bettina Winterson said, "Your suit's ready." I paid her and carried the suit on its hanger to the car, opened the door and laid it across the back seat.

  "What's that?" Tilda asked.

  "Wedding suit," I said.

  "How much did it cost to clean?" she asked. "I'll pay you back so I won't feel bad."

  "It had to be cleaned eventually," I said. "Let's leave it at that."

  We hardly spoke the rest of the way to Halifax. Once in the city, Hans directed us to Ballade & Fugue, his friend's store, on Trollope Street. I locked my suit in the car. The store consisted of one large room with narrow aisles of bins packed with gramophone records. It smelled musty and the front windows needed washing. Music was playing on a gramophone behind the counter; I didn't know the composition. A blackboard announced NEW ARRIVALS, a list underneath. A big contraption of a cash register sat on the counter. Hans and Randall Webb greeted each other in German and said two or three additional German sentences, laughing a bit at the end. I noticed that the one other customer, a man of about thirty and wearing an RCN uniform, stiffened his shoulders, worked hurriedly through a bin for a minute, said to Randall, "Sorry, fella, nothing here for me," then left the store.

  Randall shrugged. "He'd come in asking for—how to say it? More popular types of music. Oh, well."

  Randall was well over six feet tall, lanky, with a generally bedraggled look and ill-fitting clothes. But he had a lively, alert face beneath his long black hair, parted straight down the middle, revealing a white furrow. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles. I could see into the storage room. There was a sink, a toothbrush in a water glass, pajamas hanging on the back of a chair. There must've been a mattress or cot back there, too. I thought Randall Webb must live in his store, or at least stayed there on occasion. Hans introduced Tilda and me.

  "Tea?" Randall said.

  All of us declined. Hans said, "Here's a list, Randall. I was hoping you might have these."

  "Hans, my friend, let me read it." Randall studied the list, looked up and said, "Mostly you're in luck. Nix on the Schumann Piano Quartet in E-flat and the Piano Quintet in E-flat, though. By the way, that's got Schumann's three string quartets, all on the same recording. I haven't had one in stock for about a year. But there's a store in Montreal I do business with. I can try them. You pay for the long-distance call, I'll make inquiries."

  "Let's just start with what you have in stock," Hans said.

  Consulting the list, Randall moved through the aisles. A few students meandered in, browsed, chatted in French, but didn't make a purchase.

  "How long have you had this shop?" I asked Randall, and he said, "Going on eight years."

  Watching Randall scour the bins, I recalled Constance's "always leave a little room for a new purchase," and thought to send a postcard, even splurge on a telephone call or wire to Newfoundland, in which I'd recommend, if she still had room in her trunk, that she stop by Ballade & Fugue. She might find a gift for my uncle—and herself, of course.

  The inventory of gramophone recordings was overwhelming. The bins held composition after composition I'd never heard, let alone knew existed—the shop seemed to be a crowded exhibit of my lack of musical knowledge. In fact, I pretty much knew only the works Donald had played every evening, and a few others from Classical Hour. Tilda shot me a disappointed, even embarrassed, look when I said, "Randall, can you tell me the name of the greatest composer born and raised in Nova Scotia and point out the right bin?"

  Hans said, "That might take more research than Randall has time for just now, Wyatt."

  That didn't help my confidence in the least. So it was a great kindness when Randall said, "Anything to do with classical music, I'm willing to find out. I admit I don't know such a composer, Wyatt. Professors in the music department come in here often, and one or two mention they've got talented students in composition, though they're mostly from Europe. I attend a student concert now and then, too. But to my knowledge, no Dalhousie student has gone on to make a reputation in the big wide world yet."

  I was so grateful for his indulgence, I said, "Randall, would you pick out something for my aunt? She's already been up to her ears in Beethoven and Bach and Chopin. Maybe you can recommend something that will surprise her. Just make your best guess."

  Randall seemed more than pleased. He walked to a bin against the far wall, took up an album and handed it to me. "This might work," he said.

  Hans was curious and came right over and looked. "Selections from La Bohème, by Puccini," he said. "Tilda, does your mother enjoy opera?"

  "For the life of me I don't know," Tilda said.

  "Add this to my list, please, Randall," Hans said.

  "No," I said. "Keep it separate. This is my gift to my aunt."

  "Can you play it for us, Randall?" Tilda said.

  Randall took the record from its sheath, carefully lifted the needle from the gramophone, then replaced one recording with the other. He set the needle down again, and as the overture began, he displayed the CLOSED sign on the front door, slid in the lock, lowered the door's shade and said, "It's a crime if La Bohème gets interrupted."

  Randall brought out a chair from the storeroom. I sat on the chair, and Tilda and Hans sat on the frayed sofa, holding hands. "Did Puccini ever visit Canada?" I asked, nearly whispering to Randall as he walked past.

  "I know for a fact he didn't," Randall said.

  Ten minutes into it, I knew this music—and it didn't matter that I couldn't understand the words—wasn't going to allow small emotions. Tilda slid close
to Hans and closed her eyes, a peaceful expression on her face. Randall lay down in an aisle, head resting on the stack of records he'd gathered from the list.

  Hans changed records and sat back on the sofa with Tilda. Again they held hands. I looked over to the front window and saw three men, all in RCN uniforms, peering inside. I recognized one as the customer who'd been in Ballade & Fugue when Hans and Randall had greeted each other in German. Each Navy man had his eyes cupped and shaded by his hands, adjusting to the interior light of the store, probably wondering why the CLOSED sign was up. I'm certain they could hear La Boheme. One face disappeared, and I noticed the front door handle being tried. Randall, Hans and Tilda were lost to the opera. And right then and there I got a sick feeling, a bad feeling, but I made no logical connections, not like in a game of Criss Cross. I thought it had to do with the uniforms, the realization that I was officially in the RCN, that I might soon be out among German U-boats and every other horror. It could have been a thousand things. Then the three Navy men disappeared.

  "Randall," I said, "that CLOSED sign turned away a few customers, I'm afraid."

  "Look at it this way," Randall said. "What if they wanted to buy La Boheme right when we were listening to it? I only have the one set."

  When the arias ended, Randall finished filling whatever of the list he had in stock. The money Hans had in his wallet fell a little short. I was going to offer some, but Randall said, "The rest we can work out in German lessons." He gift-wrapped the records individually and wrote out a receipt.

  "We should be getting back home," I said.

  "What on earth for?" Tilda said, and I had no good answer.

  "Want to listen to more opera?" Randall said. "Once I put the sign up, I don't take it down till morning. My hours are my own." (I saw Hans jot down that phrase in a notebook.)

  But we left Halifax shortly. The recordings were on the back seat. Once in Middle Economy, we went directly to the bakery, famished. It was already closed, so Tilda used the key Cornelia had given her. When we stepped inside, we found a note: A bit under the weather—there's half a cake on the counter. That cake with vanilla frosting was our dinner. I left the bakery at about nine P.M.

  The next morning I was violently shaken awake. I squinted up at Uncle Donald, his unshaven face gaunt and derelict, breath like he'd been chewing sawdust. He was holding up the Halifax Mail. "See this, Wyatt!" he said loudly. "Right here on page two. Some Navy boys took direct action in Halifax last night." He tossed the newspaper onto my face and I heard him leave the room.

  I went into the kitchen, ran cold water from the spigot and splashed some on my face, then sat with the Mail at the kitchen table. A headline on page two read: POLICE INVESTIGATE BREAK-IN; THREE RCN QUESTIONED. Underneath that: "Owner of Record Store in Serious Condition in Hospital."

  Really, Marlais, I could scarcely believe my eyes. The article, which ran to two columns, informed readers that late the previous night thugs had broken into Ballade & Fugue, torn the place apart and "systematically splintered 1,789 gramophone recordings of classical music, according to owner Randall Webb's inventory." I knew it had to be those men who'd peered in through the window, the ringleader maybe the man who'd heard Hans and Randall speak German to each other. The rest of the article described how they'd attacked Randall in the storeroom, "rained blasphemies and indecencies on him, and had, in the course of a beating, broken his nose, cheekbone, and four ribs, punctured his spleen and left him with a severe concussion." It wasn't until four A.M. that Randall had managed to telephone the police, who immediately dispatched an ambulance. To my amazement, it was Officer Dhomnaill—I recognized his face in the photograph; he was standing in Randall's store—the newspaper quoted: "We jimmied open the door and found Mr. Webb unconscious and bleeding on the debris here in his shop."

  I drove to the bakery to deliver this news to Hans and Tilda. It was already nine A.M. but they'd just sat down for breakfast. I'd heard rumors that newlyweds sometimes slept in like that.

  Murder

  IN THE END, the Dewis family decided not to put out the money, and Tilda lost that mourner's fee. "No good deed goes unpunished" was Cornelia's response, after she'd informed Tilda that Reverend Plumly had called to cancel her services, with apologies. "And here you'd gone and changed the date of your wedding on their behalf." Yet the same day Tilda got another offer to mourn, in the village of Lorneville.

  "It's arranged through Reverend Greene at Lorneville Methodist," she said.

  "Didn't he refuse to perform your wedding service?" Cornelia asked.

  "One of many who did," Tilda said. "I don't have to be his best friend, I just have to work with him half an hour."

  "Practical of you," Cornelia said.

  Over the next few days —October 11, 12 and 13—I lived like a hermit. I pretty much kept to the house, scarcely laying eyes on my uncle, though I'd hear his truck come and go. And what I'm going to tell you about now, Marlais, which occurred on the night of October 13–14, I didn't see as a premonition at first. Yet it must've been a premonition that led me to wander into Donald and Constance's bedroom and sit on my aunt's side of the bed. I use the word "premonition" because, a few days later, an article in the Mail substantiated that the ferry Caribou had been torpedoed and sunk at about the same time of night.

  I hadn't been able to sleep. My uncle was out in his shed. Sitting on the bed, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the room, then toured the ancestral portraits in frames on the walls. I looked at my aunt's hairbrush on the bureau, her hand-held mirror, the vase of dried flowers, her blue cotton bathrobe on its hook on the door. I looked out the window. The moonlit view was down the scrub pine slope, a number of ponds, a stream that eventually widened out into the Minas Basin.

  There were several lights on in Betty and Abel Wickersham's house; possibly they were already up and about. I recalled how a week earlier at the post office Abel spoke to me about the change in Donald's character. "This war—all of us are coming apart at the seams," he said. "That young man from Advocate Harbor and that other from Diligent River shipped home in coffins. Fellow from Portapique, what family was he from, the Cogmanaguns, wasn't it? Reverend Witt says people need to use all the old prayers more often, but come up with some new ones, too, to fit this war in Europe. So much sadness and not always knowing what to do about it."

  "I sure don't know what to do with mine," I said.

  "It's nothing new to our part of Nova Scotia," Abel said. "Being from Halifax you may not know, but during the Great War not one man of conscription age from Great Village ever came back. Not a goddamn single one survived. That whole generation of men, absent like if you woke up and discovered your middle finger had disappeared. After that, if you were a young woman from Great Village wanted to marry, you looked elsewhere."

  "The world's gone haywire again, Abel, hasn't it."

  "Who doesn't feel that? So tell me, what gives Donald the right to poke his finger into our chests, hectoring about U-boats as he's been doing?"

  "You got me there."

  "Look, I've known Donald Hillyer my entire life, and I'd be the last to contend he's mild-mannered by nature. But he never used to hector like that. Understand, I'm less filing a complaint than mystified."

  Moonlight flooded the wide field behind Patrick and Marcelline Bastow's house, down the road to the west of the Wickershams'. The Bastows had only their porch light on. Their son, William, served with the ambulance corps in France. Tracing their road farther west, I came to Reverend Witt's house. Witt lived alone and raised about a hundred sheep, which brought the behind-his-back comment that a Christian flock wasn't enough for him. Not more than ten days before, Reverend Witt had dropped by the house and told my aunt that Donald had asked to deliver a sermon in church.

  "Donald getting up in front of all those people?" Constance said. "He couldn't have been serious."

  "Here's the list he gave me of his ideas," Witt said. "See for yourself."

  My aunt and I both read it. My unc
le's every topic was U-boats, no surprise there. My aunt could only shake her head, incredulous, and say, "My Donald's got smoke blowing out of his ears. Tea, Reverend Witt?"

  The three of us sat down for tea. Witt said, "Just so you know, I told Donald that I had sermons composed for the next long while. I could see this didn't sit well with him. He said, 'If that's the best answer you've got, I might approach churches elsewhere.'"

  Now, I realize, Marlais, that human memory is an unreliable stenographer of such conversations, but you get the gist of them. The one with Abel Wickersham, the one with Reverend Witt. In fact, many of the people who'd had run-ins with Donald had come to a similar conclusion: my uncle in effect had (to paraphrase Scripture) become what he beheld—U-boat atrocities, radio war reports. He'd become those and was almost a broken man for it.

  The night of October 13–14, I tried to sleep on top of the quilt on my aunt and uncle's bed, but couldn't. At first light I went to the shed to attempt to make amends, but my uncle was nowhere to be found. I killed some time — doing what, I can't remember. Around noon I drove to the bakery, and Cornelia said that early that morning Donald had dropped by for coffee. "He was on his way to get toboggan runners from the blacksmith in Truro," she said. The blacksmith's name was Steven Parish. He'd fashioned runners for my uncle for two decades, had only once raised his price, in 1934, but not before or since.

  "Tilda around?" I asked.

  "She and Hans went to visit Randall Webb in hospital," Cornelia said.

  I got in my car and drove to Truro. My uncle's truck was at the blacksmith's shop. The shop was across the road from a restaurant that featured a view of the Tidal Bore, the berserk tide that filled the long cove in just minutes. The cove was not fifty meters from the restaurant, though locals regarded the Tidal Bore as a world-class phenomenon of nature. In fact, the restaurant, McKay's Diner, bragged-up the Tidal Bore at the top of its menu—a drawing of a couple, daredevil in a rowboat riding a tall wave, eating a big stack of pancakes. The printed motto was "Our blueberry pancakes fill you up fast." For my aunt's sixty-first birthday, January 5, 1942, we'd gone to this restaurant for breakfast, Donald and Constance, Tilda and me, and the pancakes were excellent. When Donald had started in on a story from his childhood about his competing in an ice-skating race despite a sprained ankle, my aunt said, "Husband, don't be a tidal bore." I laughed loudly, so did Tilda, and so did our waitress, who'd been refilling our coffee cups. But then the waitress asked my uncle, "Well, did you win or not?"