Sing for Me

by Karen Halvorsen Schreck

  Now the towel has been set aside, the ache has lessened, and my way with this family is nearly easy. We are finally seated in a tight circle around the food-laden table. Theo gives me another smile, then bows his head as his uncle prays a long blessing over our repast. At amen, Mrs. Chastain starts the passing of bowls and platters.

  Every taste is new to me, and as good as it looks and smells. Better. I clean my plate. When the food is passed again, I take seconds. It’s only when I’ve eaten the last bite of this helping, and I’m as full as I’ve ever been, that I realize I haven’t said a word. I haven’t really been listening to the conversation, either, though it’s been going on all around me, along with much laughter. I glance around, wondering if anyone has noticed my silence. Mrs. Chastain nods approvingly.

  “Full up?” she asks.

  “Yes, thank you. It was all so—”

  I belch. I clamp my mouth shut, embarrassed. No, mortified.

  But everyone is laughing, and Theo is laughing hardest of all. He mops his eyes with his napkin and laughs harder. I can’t help but laugh, too.

  Suddenly Theo pushes back his chair. “Mama, leave the dishes. I’ll do them later, I promise.”

  I follow Theo and his family into the front room. There, Theo sits down at a battered upright piano, and the rest of us gather around. Mary is beside me. She must be about Sophy’s age, I realize, what with the way she’s clearly not a girl anymore, but not quite a woman, either. She is going to be a beauty, that’s clear. She already is, with her honey-colored skin and her golden brown eyes, her slim figure and soft curves. She has Theo’s elegance and dignity, which is their mother’s elegance and dignity. I smile at Mary. Instead of covering her hand with her mouth, she smiles back.

  Theo plays a few chords. The piano is terribly out of tune, but Theo’s touch brings out a jangly beauty. He’s playing “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” Mahalia Jackson’s song.

  Theo’s uncle throws back his head and lets loose singing, the cousins join in, the aunt and grandmother, and finally Mrs. Chastain and Mary, too. Mary sways in perfect time to the slow, steady rhythm that Theo has set. She slips her arm through mine, and I sway, too. I’m being rocked; that’s how it feels. I’m being cradled by this hymn. I close my eyes and join in the singing.

  Theo is playing the last note of the last verse when I realize how quiet the room has become. My voice is the only voice I hear. I open my eyes. Theo’s cousins, his uncle, aunt, and grandmother—they’re all watching me. Mrs. Chastain’s hands are steepled at her lips. She seems to be praying. And Mary—well, Mary is still rocking, as am I.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Theo looks at me. “For?”

  “Singing.”

  Mary stops rocking.

  Mrs. Chastain opens her eyes and regards me. “You know better than that, child. Now, then. I fed your body. You feed my soul.”

  The others murmur their agreement. Mary whispers something into Theo’s ear, and he smiles and nods.

  “Perfect,” he says.

  Next thing I know he’s playing the opening notes of “Winter Wonderland.”

  I know most of the words, but not all of them. When I forget, Mary and Theo join in. And when the song is over, Mrs. Chastain wraps her arms around her middle and gives me an imploring look. “Still hungry.”

  Theo plays “Amazing Grace,” and I sing that. “Stormy Weather,” and I sing that. “The Old Rugged Cross.” “The Very Thought of You.” “Just as I Am.” None of these songs excludes the others. They complete one another, a feast, filling us up.

  It’s only when he plays “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” that I stop singing. I let Theo, Mary, and my memory of Lilah Buckley carry the song.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Chastain says as the last note fades away. “I’m full up now, too.”

  There is a clock on the wall behind her, but I can’t make out the time. It’s not that the numbers are too small. It’s just that I’m in a daze. Light-headed, that’s what I am, as if I’ve been lifted to a different altitude, a mountaintop.

  “It’s almost nine o’clock,” Theo says.

  The room comes into focus, as does the clock on the wall.

  “Storm’s over. Guess I’d better get you back before your folks worry,” Theo says.

  Next thing I know, Mary is helping me into my coat. The family say their good-byes. Theo leads me to the door, opens it for me, follows me down the stairs. Then Mrs. Chastain calls him back. Her expression, as she speaks softly to him, is stern. His expression, when he turns away from her, is troubled.

  She is worried for her son’s safety. I am, too. It’s a white world where we’re going.

  Again, I sit in the back of Theo’s car. Again, he drives carefully through the night. He doesn’t whistle this time. There’s no need to fend off the quiet. Not when we’re carrying the memory of so much music.

  We’re rounding Garfield Park when Theo pulls the car over to the side of the road. He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t look into the rearview mirror. His hands grip the steering wheel like he’s holding on for dear life.

  “What’s happening here?” he asks.

  I clasp my hands tightly, bow my head. I might look like I’m praying, but I’m not. Doesn’t the Bible say that Jesus sits at the right hand of God, praying for us when we’re unable to pray for ourselves? I hope Jesus is doing just that for Theo and me right now.

  “Between you and me, I mean. What’s going on between us?” Theo says.

  “I don’t know. Do we have to know?”

  “My family likes you. My mother told me to make sure you came to no trouble.”

  Mrs. Chastain wasn’t just worried about her son. She was worried about me, too.

  “Your mother is gracious. Your whole family is,” I say.

  “I imagine your family, being your family, has a portion of grace, too.” Theo thuds his fist against the steering wheel, determined. “Anyway, this isn’t about your family or mine, is it? It’s about you and me.”

  I look out the window. From the corner of my eye I see a shadow. That gang of young men? Are they there again? Are they drunk?

  I turn quickly and see bushes stirring in the wind. And snow, stirring, too. This is what startled me—these shapes and shadows. Just this.

  Still, I can’t deny the truth.

  “It matters. The different colors of our skin, the different worlds we live in. These things matter.”

  “Oh, Rose.” His sigh is ragged. “These things kept me in chains. The chains were heavy. Made me crazy, a prisoner, not a man. I did things—I’m not going to tell you what I did. Not now. I’m not ruining this night. But the things I did, they drove me and my family right out of New Orleans. We dragged my chains all the way up the Mississippi. Just outside St. Louis, we went to a tent meeting, and the preacher there—well, he took one look at me and he saw the state I was in. The chains. With his help, I began the long, slow work of cutting myself free. Don’t get me wrong. I still have shackles I have yet to take a blade to. But I won’t be a prisoner to the color of my skin or the world we live in—not the way I was, not anymore. I wish the same for you. But I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself.”

  He doesn’t wait for my answer, which is good, because any response I may have had has just been pushed from my mind. Who is this man? I wonder as he steers the car back out into the street. What has he known? His beautiful hands, could they ever have done harm? His gentle eyes, could they ever have held rage?

  He drives me home in silence. He is helping me out of the car when the snow resumes falling. This late on a wintry Sunday night, the streets and sidewalks are empty. We might as well be back in our snow globe. My hands are in his. We stand face-to-face.

  He says it again: “What’s happening here?” And then, “Something’s happening, Rose.”

  Something indeed might happen with my hands in his and his eyes on mine and us standing so close together. The only harm, the only madness would be if we were forced
apart.

  “You are the best of men,” I hear myself say.

  But Nils is the best of men, too. It’s Mother’s voice that I hear saying this—Mother’s voice in my head, so clear in its appeal that I nearly turn to see if she’s standing right beside me. But I don’t. Because Theo is drawing closer, and I am drawing closer, and now we are closer still, and at any moment anything, everything, might happen.

  From the corner of my eye, I glimpse something moving. Mother again, silent this time, but stirring? This time I do turn, and this time someone is there, standing above us, behind the heavy velvet curtain that shields the window to our front room. Not Mother, but Dad. He is standing sentinel at his post. Any moment, he’ll part the curtains.

  I pull Theo into the shadows, where neither Dad nor Mother could ever see.

  We won’t be forced apart. We just need to go slow. We need to take care. We need to ready ourselves for what’s to come.

  I tell Theo this. In the cold darkness of this snowy night, I see the light of his smile before I turn toward the place I call home. I am a guest here now. In my hurry to escape this afternoon, I forgot my key. Luckily, I am able to clamber up the snowy fire escape, slip into bed beside my sleeping sister, avoid Dad and Mother altogether.

  Eyes growing heavy, I dream of Mahalia Jackson. I am finally hearing her sing. The man by my side is Theo.

  TWELVE

  Next morning, Dad and I pass in the hallway. His gaze skims the bruise on my arm. He looks only at the floor then. At this moment he isn’t at all a vain, handsome man. He is aging, aged, as if in the past twenty-four hours decades have gone by.

  “I would never hurt you, Rose.”

  “But you did.”

  “I didn’t intend to.”

  I think about chains. How hard it is to break them.

  “I’ll never touch you again,” Dad says.

  This I believe. For one thing, I won’t let him. For another, he never has, much. It’s Sophy he touches, and he’s only a loving father holding her.

  I walk past him to my bedroom, close the door, and get ready for work. In this way, it’s just another Monday. In so many other ways, it’s not.

  I clean and clean, one apartment after another in a building down the street from ours. And while I clean, I sing all the songs I want to sing, from “Amazing Grace” to “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart.” The doors are closed, and the windows, too. I sing as loudly or as softly as I want. At the end of the day, floors and walls are spotless, windows and mirrors are shining, yet my thoughts and feelings still split and shimmer like ripples across the surface of a pool when not just one penny but many have been cast into water. There’s no single wish, no calming my mind. The only thing I know is that I will find a way to see Theo again. I will go to Calliope’s and listen with my whole heart. And with my whole heart I will continue to sing the songs I want to sing, if only while I’m cleaning.

  As soon as I’m home, I give Rob a call.

  “Tomorrow night is Tuesday,” I say.

  He agrees that it is.

  “I’ll meet you at our usual place and time.”

  “Is this about your dad, Rose?”

  Anger stirs in me. I clench my hand around the receiver, and the anger becomes determination.

  “No. This is about me.”

  Once more, it’s a cold, stormy night—not snowing this time, but sleeting. Once more, I change clothes in the backseat of Rob’s car.

  When we arrive at Calliope’s, Rob makes no mention of valet service. This relieves me, as any sign of levelheadedness on his part always does. He drops me off at the club’s door and then drives off to park. I don’t relish the thought of entering the place on my own, but then I think of Theo and the music, and I step inside.

  I come to a dead stop as the door closes behind me. The place is emptier than I’ve ever seen it. There are men drinking at the bar, talking with the bartenders, and people are gathered at tables. But there’s no press and pull of the crowd, because there’s no crowd. With more than enough room to walk around freely, I can see the stage fine even from way back here.

  Perhaps Rob and I got the night or time wrong. Or something has happened—my heart quickens—perhaps to Theo. Only one of the Chess Men stands on the dimly lit stage—the portly white bassist. He draws his bow over a block of rosin. His brow is furrowed; he looks anxious, too.

  I don’t know what to do with myself while I wait for Rob. To put it another way: I know what I don’t want to do. I don’t want to sidle up to the bar and spend my little bit of spare change on a soda, all the while negotiating the glances and advances of strangers. I don’t want to sit myself down at a table, dreading the moment when the brashest stranger joins me. I don’t want to fend someone off.

  I look away from the bar before the men there have a chance to see me looking. There’s a coatroom I’ve never noticed before for the crowd. A girl sits on a stool behind the half-door. Bored, she blows a stream of cigarette smoke at the ceiling.

  I go to her, take off my trusty old coat, hold it out. She looks at my coat as she might look at a piece of refuse, drags on her cigarette, then grinds out the lipstick-stained butt in the ashtray on the table beside her. Blowing smoke, she takes my coat and hangs it up. She sits down again and looks off into the distance.

  “Hey, you! Blue Dress!”

  I turn. From the stage, the bassist is pointing his bow at me.

  “It’s about time!”

  The bassist is all but shouting. The coat-check girl scrutinizes me. The men at the bar and the bartenders, too.

  “Hustle on over here, Blue Dress. Hurry!”

  The bassist beckons with his bow. To ignore him would only draw more attention, so I make my way to the stage. This close, I can see the rosin dusting the tips of his calloused fingers. I open my mouth to ask what he wants from me, but before I can say a word, he swings his bow to the side, points behind the red velvet stage curtain.

  “This is the quickest way. The others are waiting. Let’s go.”

  “But—” I glance quickly around. Still no sign of Rob.

  “No ‘buts.’ We expected you two hours ago.” In a mincing, falsetto the bassist says, “ ‘Look for the brown-haired girl in the knockout blue dress.’ ” He scowls. “We’d about given up on getting knocked out, I gotta say. As it is, you may have killed our chances tonight, being so late.”

  I gape at him. “I’m not that girl.”

  The bassist doesn’t seem to hear. “Lilah said you were good. She also said you could be unreliable.” He regards me from beneath his thick eyebrows, which are as red as his hair. “Not as unreliable as she is, though, since you did ultimately show up, and you appear to be clean and sober.”

  I shiver at the memory of the needle and syringe. “Is Miss Buckley all right?”

  “She’s safe. Getting help, she says.” He leans down and sniffs my hair. “You are clean and sober, right? You look it, you smell it, but like my ma always said, looks and smells can be deceiving.” The bassist beckons again with his bow. “Never mind. Don’t answer. At this point it doesn’t matter, does it? Come on. The others are waiting.”

  “ ‘The others’?”

  He gives me a hard look. “Listen, either get to work or get lost, Blue Dress. Too much is on the line here to mess around.”

  I follow the bassist backstage to where Theo and the rest of the Chess Men sit in a small, cramped room, waiting. Theo looks up from the keyboard he’s chalked onto a tabletop, and his eyes widen at the sight of me in the doorway.

  “Better late than never.” The bassist’s voice is grim as he ushers me inside.

  The licorice-whip-thin clarinetist looks up from the reed he’s whittling down to size, the bald drummer from the wooden crate against which he’s tapping his sticks. Theo’s hands come down hard on the chalked notes, smudging them.

  “Well, if it isn’t the mysterious Elaine.” The clarinetist runs his reed back and forth across his dark cheek as if testing for ro
ugh edges.

  “I’m not Elaine,” I say.

  The bassist turns on me, reminding me of nothing so much as one of Aunt Astrid’s big bulls, suddenly riled. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I said so,” I say.

  Theo stands and goes to the bassist. “Jim.” Theo sets his hand on the bassist’s shoulder. “Calm down. It’ll be all right.”

  “It better be,” Jim mutters, shaking off Theo’s hand.

  “So.” The drummer taps his sticks lightly, nervously on the crate. “Elaine or not, can you sing? That’s all I care about.”

  “Oh, she can sing, all right,” Theo says.

  The clarinetist laughs. “Well, well. Get a load of you, my man, going all dreamy-eyed.”

  “I didn’t come to sing.” I edge closer to Theo. “I came to listen.”

  Theo says, “You came to sing.” His fingers brush against my arm, and I know it’s not an accident. None of this. Not his touch—the warmth of it, radiating so close to where Dad hurt me, soothing that lingering pain. And not my being here, either. “God knows, you came to sing,” Theo says, confirming my thoughts.

  “Yes,” I hear myself say.

  Theo draws in a deep breath and turns to the other men. “This is Rose Sorensen, fellows.” His hand isn’t touching mine now, but he’s standing so close I can feel the air thrumming warmly between us. We might as well be two magnets. “Now that we’ve taken Miss Sorensen by surprise,” Theo continues, “let’s give her a chance to get comfortable, okay? A few more minutes of waiting won’t hurt anybody. Then we’ll get started. Rose, do you need something? A glass of water?”

  “ ‘Get comfortable’?” Jim slams his block of rosin down on the table. “We got a slim chance here, and the clock is ticking, Theo.”

  Theo doesn’t take his eyes from me. “Water?”

  I shake my head.

  “Anything?”

  I shake my head again.

  “Okay. You think you can sing for us, then? Any song you want, Rose. You pick.”