The Lyre and the Lambs

by Sydney Avey

  As Roger and Andy discuss all the possibilities, Danny slips out of the room. The front door squeals in the cold and, soon after, light flashes back and forth outside the window. Before I have time to put together what Danny is doing, Valerie grabs my attention. With a hand over her mouth, she lurches toward the bathroom. I am right behind her when she falls to her knees in front of the toilet and throws up the contents of what she’d snacked on in the movies. The smell of stomach acid and cola fill the small bathroom. I grab a washcloth, wet it and give it to her to wipe her mouth. Then I hand her a glass of water.

  “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  As we head for the kitchen, where Andy is on the phone with the police, I stop to turn up the thermostat. Danny slips back into the house carrying a flashlight.

  “I looked around outside. I didn’t see anything out of place, Aunt Dee. It doesn’t look like anybody has been around back. I went clear around the house and checked all the windows and doors. I didn’t see any other broken windows.”

  One is all it takes to deliver a message.

  R

  The phone rings a couple of times as the report makes its way down the line. The last call is from the detective on the night desk who agrees with Andy that a midnight visit from the police department isn’t necessary.

  “We’ll send Detective Ramos out in the morning to look around and get your statement. You’re probably right, Mr. Ibarra. Probably some kid shooting off his dad’s gun. Probably an accident it hit your window. But we’ll investigate.”

  “Is that really what you think, Andy?” I can’t believe an attorney couldn’t put it together. “What about the threat Walter made to Roger?”

  “Dee, all Walter said was that the neighbors were upset. He made no specific threat.”

  Having a son-in-law who is an attorney is frustrating. I have to choose my words very carefully when I talk to him.

  “Okay, then, he said that they were ’bugged,’ and he intimated they might be prepared to do more about it than just file grievances at city hall and smear my morning newspaper with dog shit.”

  Roger laughs and pats my knee as if he were admonishing a potty-mouthed child whose antics he finds amusing. Valerie has gone to bed, and Danny is making noises like he is about to do the same. Nobody wants to talk about who might have done this and how far that person might be willing to go.

  Why am I the only one who is so worked up? When Roger tries to put his arms around me after we go to bed, I turn away. He lays on his back staring at the ceiling for a minute. Then he whispers to me.

  “Dee, I know you’re upset about this, but we have to keep cool heads. Let’s just wait until we talk to Detective Ramos tomorrow and see what he says. Do you think you can sleep now?”

  I pretend to be asleep.

  R

  Late Saturday morning we are having coffee in the family room when Detective Ramos pulls up in our driveway. I’m glad he didn’t park on the street; I want to minimize any speculation about why the police have been called. The strain of this situation is starting to make me paranoid. Most of all, I don’t want Carlo, or whoever did this, to think we’re rattled.

  The men troop outside, leaving Valerie and me to stare at each other across the table. Valerie has dark circles under her eyes and the same greenish tinge to her complexion I saw last night. Her hair hangs in her face like a limp curtain she’s hiding behind.

  “Go back to bed sweetie. I’ll let you know what the detective says.”

  “I think I will, Mom. I don’t feel very good.” She makes a face at her coffee cup and heads for her room, scooping up Puffy on her way.

  The troops return, and Detective Ramos gives me a bright smile.

  “Good morning Mrs. Russell.” He consults his report and launches into a speech that sounds memorized. All I get out of it is yes, it was a pellet gun; no, there is no way of identifying who did it; yes, of course he and his partner will interview the neighbors to see if anyone saw anything. He doesn’t ask the question I’m waiting for, so I volunteer the answer anyway.

  “Carlo Santorini next door owns a pellet gun, and he hates us.”

  “Mrs. Russell, I imagine all your neighbors own pellet guns. They use them to shoot the gophers and scare the deer away. It’s entirely possible this was just an accident. Whoever did this may not even be aware they hit your window.”

  Detective Manuel Ramos should run for city council.

  “You don’t think the sound of glass shattering would have given them a clue?”

  “Mrs. Russell, believe me, I know this is upsetting. We are going to beef up the patrol in your neighborhood for a few days. If it was intentional, and that’s a big if, that should stop it. When the uniforms start going door to door, it will send a message.”

  Roger and Andy do nothing to help me hold up my end of this argument, so I stop. Fine. We’ll just wait until they bring out the big guns, line us all up against the garage door, and...

  KABOOMBA, BOOMB! A loud staccato thumping comes from the garage.

  I jump in my seat and Roger and Andy burst into laughter. The detective covers his mouth with his hand, but his eyes are laughing.

  “Dee, that’s Scott testing his drums. He’s out in the garage waiting for Danny to come home so they can play some music.”

  “Mrs. Russell, the best thing you can do is just go on with your life like normal.” Detective Ramos folds up his notebook.

  There is nothing about my life that is normal.

  R

  Things do return to normal, though. My life is just one long conversation after another. I fill Laura and Ivy in on what has happened and set up a long overdue appointment to talk to Mike. Valerie rallies, although her energy doesn’t seem to be what it used to. She takes long naps after work.

  There’s another conversation I’ve been meaning to have. It’s time for me to do an end run around Roger, sit down with my nephew, and get him to talk.

  The men went golfing this morning and Valerie hasn’t come home yet, a perfect time to ambush Danny when he stops home for lunch. I make two sandwiches and position myself on a stool at the kitchen counter at noon, knowing he will come into the kitchen from the garage. Sure enough, he appears right on schedule.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Aunt Dee. I need to talk to you.”

  Finally; and Danny is initiating the conversation. Good. I can’t believe I have let so much time go by without asking about the trouble Domeka is in. Roger keeps telling me to be patient. I haven’t been patient, I’ve just been busy. That’s not really it. I haven’t wanted to face how frustrated I feel not to be able to talk to Alaya. Letters won’t do. I need to see her face.

  “It’s about Scott.”

  “Scott? What about Scott?” I don’t want to talk about Scott.

  I don’t like Scott. He reminds me of Eddie Haskell on Leave It To Beaver, all charm and innocence on the surface but he’s probably pushing drugs to schoolchildren in the park. Roger confirmed that the weedy smell that lingers in the air after Scott goes home, or wherever he goes, is in fact marijuana. He assures me that he has told Scott not to have any drugs on him when he comes to our house, and I believe him. Roger is pretty direct with people.

  “I don’t like Scott very much Aunt Dee, but I feel sorry for the guy so I let him hang around. I just wanted to check with you and make sure you’re okay with that.”

  “I don’t like him either Danny, but I don’t have any real reason to tell him he can’t come to the house when we’ve welcomed all the other boys. So yes, for now I’m okay with it. Danny, tell me what’s going on with your brother.”

  A cloud of pain passes across Danny’s eyes, settles into sadness and stays there. He looks down at his hands folded in his lap.

  “When we were at University it was the first time in our lives that we didn’t play the same sports, take the same classes, and have the same friends. We talked about it, and we decided that being away at school would give us an opportunity to fly so
lo.”

  I remember from visits to the farmhouse how the twins were constantly at each other’s heels. They bickered, but more in the teasing way that children do for amusement.

  “I took math classes. I got into music. I thought about going to seminary, but I like girls too much.” He looks up at me I see a sparkle of sunshine break through the clouds.

  “Domeka continued to play Jai Alai tournaments. He was always better than I was, but he reached a level of play where he wasn’t winning anymore, so he quit. I know our Dad was cool with that, but I’m not sure Dom believed him. Dad was also cool with Dom running the family businesses, but the truth is he enjoys tinkering with farm equipment and making improvements to the production process. He doesn’t have a head for the marketing end of it, and that’s what we really need. We need someone who makes good decisions about distribution and pricing and that kind of stuff.

  “I can’t really tell you how he got hooked up with the ETA. It’s not that popular a movement in Navarra. I think he was just at loose ends. He wasn’t playing sports any more. He stopped going home on weekends to work on the farm. He was studying history and politics and starting to get interested the greater Basque community. But you know what I think happened? He’s a big guy with muscles and a passion for tinkering. I think they came after him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aunt Dee, Domeka was making bombs for the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna. They are an armed group of Basque nationalists who want independence. They believe that violence is the only way they will get it.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know. I had no idea he was involved with the ETA until he got arrested after a street riot. My brother isn’t violent. He didn’t participate in the riot, but he supported it.”

  “And now he’s in jail.”

  “Yes.”

  “Danny, I have to ask. Were you in any way involved in this?”

  “Not in any way.”

  “Why was your mother so afraid for you to stay in Navarra?”

  “She thought people would not believe I had nothing to do with Domeka’s activities. Like I said, it’s not a popular cause in Navarra.”

  This must be killing my sister and her husband. To fear for your son’s life, to fear retribution from your neighbors; what we are going through is kids’ stuff compared to what my sister is facing.

  I’ve only ever thought of my sister as an American, one who moved back to our homeland with our father when she was a toddler. Our conversations over the years have focused on our cultural differences, never our politics. I know nothing about this issue.

  “Well.” For now I need to think about Danny’s best interests. “Of course you can stay with us as long as you like. We’ll need to talk some more about your future.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Dee.” A tear runs down his cheek. He turns his head away and wipes his eyes. To spare him embarrassment I pretend not to notice his tears. This makes me feel worse. The truth is that I’m uncomfortable with raw emotion. I don’t like that about myself.

  In a broken voice Danny says, “I’m not worried about my future. It’s my brother’s future I’m worried about.”

  Tending the Lambs

  Tending the Lambs

  Maybe Detective Ramos was right. There have been no more incidents. It could be the frigid air forcing people indoors has chilled their anger. I’ve chosen to deal with mine by focusing on my neglected career.

  Valerie has rallied. When she isn’t at her desk she takes long walks through the neighborhood. That will be good for her. She’s starting to put on a little weight.

  Andy is still meeting with clients at the house. Telephones ring; doors slam; voices drift through the walls and interrupt my focus on the pieces I’m laying down on my art board.

  We’ve taken on a lot by moving in with the kids. I honestly don’t know why Valerie and Andy proposed this arrangement. Roger seems at ease but I tiptoe around looking for privacy I can’t find. The light in my studio is perfect, but the space is cramped. It is as irritating as trying to fit into a dress that is a size too small. I’m blaming my creative block on the size of my world.

  Mike says I need to think differently about this. He reminds me of the value of green periods, when life hums along and we’re in the doldrums. I understand doldrums. I feel like I’m circling with the current and heading nowhere. What I don’t get is why Mike thinks this is a valuable experience.

  Today, Mike and I are closeted in my studio. As he talks, he runs his hand along the counter where my jars of brushes and bottles of glue line up.

  “This might be the time for you to step into another activity.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve already stepped in it by picking up a new husband, moving in with my daughter, and making a home for my nephew?”

  Mike shakes his head and rests his eyes on a sketch I’ve abandoned. “Perhaps now is the time for you to do something that scares you.”

  “Moving into a glass house surrounded by neighbors with weapons isn’t scary enough?”

  “Apparently not.” He holds up my boring sketch, and waves it in front of my face.

  My early collages captured all the emotions I felt about Leora’s disaffection for her family. Peeling that onion had the effect of scratch art. I etched the layered forces of human nature to reveal dark motives and produced works of eerie beauty. When I finally laid my mother to rest many years after she died, my passion was spent and my work shows it.

  “Are you suggesting that to resurrect my creativity, I have to manufacture discontent?”

  “Not at all.” He lays down the sketch, clears a place on the laminate countertop and hefts himself up to sit in the middle of my work, legs dangling off the counter. When he sees that this invasion annoys me, he lifts an eyebrow. “I’m saying what I’ve always said to you. Make room for people.”

  “I haven’t done that?” I stretch my arm out toward the glass panel that pulls light from outside. On the other side of the window Valerie and Roger are in lively conversation, probably about the deck she wants him to build out over the creek.

  Mike slides down off the counter and takes a few steps over to where I stand. He takes my hand and pulls me around so I’m facing him. His hands form a large chafing dish, warmed and ready to receive my cold ones.

  “Dee, you hide in here from your family, from your community, I daresay from the God who wants to use your talents to grace other people’s lives.”

  “I’m an artist! I need to be alone!” I hear what a cliché that is as it comes roaring out of my mouth. I start to giggle. I give Mike my best Greta Garbo impression.

  “I vant to be alone.” I croon these words, and we both crack up. “Okay Mike, I’m done defending myself. What is it you have in mind?”

  “Look at what God is sending you.”

  “Young people. Lots of young people.” Danny is here for the duration. David arrives tomorrow. Laura is starting a Bible Study at her house for teenage girls and she wants me to come and help.

  “He’s sending you His lambs.”

  “I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “Just watch over them. Instead of holing up in your studio, join us for our social time. Get to know these kids.”

  “That’s all I have to do? Be social?”

  “Be available. Be approachable. That’s all.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “We don’t serve a small God. Dee. If your neighbors oppose your family for building something that’s different, think what’s it’s like for these kids. The way they dress, their music, their openness to new experiences, good and bad; they attract opposition. Someone has to be on their side, to help guide them in the choices they make.”

  “You seriously think I’m a good candidate for helping young people make good choices?”

  “Let me tell you what I see. You have a peaceful home. You have a full measure of wealth and talent and love, pressed down, shaken together, running
over. How can you not share that?”

  R

  David has arrived. What a good-looking kid. I’ve never met his mother but I can sort out the features that are Roger’s and the ones that must come from Dara. He’s tall, like his father, but not as athletically built. He’s on the slender side. Dara must be small-boned. He has Roger’s deep-set, dark brown eyes, but where Roger’s eyes are deep waters with a calm surface, David’s are more penetrating and wary. Well-trimmed, straight black hair sweeps across his forehead. Roger’s used to fall forward in curls but in the last few years he’s had the barber cut his curls off. Less gray to remind him that he’s getting older.

  David’s long, straight nose is more prominent than Roger’s. When he smiles, his thin, straight lips hint at the kindness but not the humor of his father’s smile. I imagine he has his mother’s passionate nature.

  Rather than marry Roger after the war, Dara chose to go to Israel with the Selvino children. These were Jewish war orphans who were being prepared for relocation from Italy by The Jewish Brigade. Dara gave them instruction in Judaism. Her route to her new homeland was a circuitous one. A Polish Jew, she was raised in London. Roger told me that she wasn’t all that keen on her religion until she came to understand what it meant to be a Jew in wartime. The tug of her outrage over what these children had suffered was stronger than her love for her own child’s father. She wanted to raise David in a kibbutz in Israel, alongside the children she was committed to caring for in a new country committed to defending its people at all costs.

  When the children grew up and David came of age, Dara married a professor of Agriculture who moved his little family to a moshav ovdim on the Haifa coast. Rural cooperatives were giving way to privatization. Members of the moshavim could own property. Dara’s professor was involved in an industrialization movement and eager to profit from its innovations. David was amenable to leaving the kibbutz, but resistant to moving to a new farm with his mother and her new husband.

  Like the American teenager who feels constricted by his parents’ choices, young people in Israel are beginning to reject their parent’s readiness to band together under a collectivist system that sublimates personal choice in favor of the common good. Life is changing in Israel, but not fast enough for David. He leaped the ocean to accept his father’s offer of a Stanford education.