“You always talk to yourself, young lady?” a gravelly voice calls out.
She spots the hamburger man smiling at her. A warm breeze sweeps through the Square, and she feels her zeal inflating. She unbuttons her cherry-red canvas coat and glances at her watch — just enough time to freshen up before meeting Burman and the sculptors for the tour of the city. Clutching a black folder under her arm, she walks toward City Hall at a fast clip, her patent leather pumps that match her coat clicking along the cement pads.
Burman catches up with her. “The tour has been called off.”
“Great!” Liza exclaims. It takes her a moment to realize what he had just said. Her second “great” is that of disappointment.
CHAPTER 2
THE AIR IS perfectly still and, behind Osgoode Hall, the western sky is blushing pink. Liza and David chat by the reflecting pool now streaked with purple hues.
“Can’t believe we’re still here,” Liza says.
David grins. “Glad those sculptors aren’t into city tours. Gave us a chance to talk. You know a good restaurant?”
They perch on bar stools in the cocktail lounge of the Savarin Tavern on Bay Street, about a block south of City Hall, and wait to be seated in the dining room.
Elbows on the bar counter, David rests his chin on his fist. “How ‘bout something little different? You like gin?”
She shrugs. He puts on an exaggerated British accent and continues: “How ‘bout the Queen Mother special? Rumour has it she was known to have said before a trip, ‘I think I will take two small bottles of Dubonnet and gin with me today in case it is needed’.” He orders two Queen Mothers with an extra twist of lemon.
The waiter places cocktail napkins next to the tumblers and looks at Liza. “Just the way the Queen Mother likes it.”
David raises his glass. “To you, Liza. And to this great day I met you.”
Her face turns red as they clink glasses. He takes her hand gently in his. His hand is warm and dry and a bit calloused, and comfort settles between them.
Looking intensely into her eyes, David nods. “If the eyes in fact are the portals to the soul, you my girl are an angel. It’s not often one meets an angel.”
She pulls her hand out of his. “You using lines on me?”
He clears his throat. “I really mean that.”
“How about we agree — no more lines, David.” She takes a sip. “Nice blend.”
He raises the tumbler toward the pendant light. “And the rose hue is eye-candy.”
She props her chin on her hand and gives him a look of despair. “You always speak in . . . riddles?”
He shrugs and taps out a cigarette. “You win. No more lines. Where’s your family from, Liza? Originally.”
“My mother was from Belgrade. My father from Nuenen — that’s in Holland. An odd combination.”
“I went to Belgrade some years back. As a student. Great old city. So much history. But Nuenen? Oddly enough, that sounds familiar.” He strokes his beard. “Of course, that’s where Van Gogh painted the Potato Eaters.”
She finds it hard to tell his age — late twenties, early thirties? His bushy beard could use a trim.
The maître d’ announces that the table is ready. He points to David’s jean jacket and tells him he cannot be seated without proper attire. David takes his jacket off, but discovers that he must have a dressy one. The maître d’ signals to the waiter who promptly darts into the back room and brings out a restaurant-issue navy blazer.
“What an anachronism,” David grumbles as he carries the blazer on his arm and folds it over chair back next to him. A few minutes later the waiter returns and asks David to put it on. David takes him aside and, as they exchange a few guffaws, he slips a bill into the waiter’s hand, and the jacket remains on the spare chair. Every once in a while David glances at the jacket with disdain, as if it were road-kill.
A blond waitress whose nametag reads “Helena” approaches the table and passes out the menus.
David raises his eyebrows at her. “Hallelujah! Did they have to restrain you to put on that black garb? Didn’t know you had a new job.”
Helena waves her hand in dismissal. Her broad smile showcases her perfect teeth. She slips her hand in her pocket, pulls it out in a fist, and asks David to put his hand out. She places a small object in his palm and closes his fingers over it.
She smiles at Liza. “He can look when I’m gone.”
Liza wonders what David meant by “black garb.” Helena’s black outfit is rather attractive. Her snug mini skirt and Lycra top outline her perfect curves. Her textured nylons and pumps with a front bow accentuate her shapely legs.
Liza studies the smirk on David’s lips. “Well, you heard the instructions.”
He opens his hand and reveals a white plastic lighter in the shape of a woman in a pink bikini. He turns the wheel of the lighter, holds down the red tab, and the bikini top lights up at the same time as the bluish flame flares up.
“Ah, that’s Helena, alright,” he says. “She’d rather be dressed like this herself, believe me.”
Helena returns with fresh rolls and butter. David flicks the lighter on and off and Helena gives him an incredulous look and they laugh. He introduces Liza as his new friend, and Helena as his old one.
Helena leaves the table and David says: “Surprised to see her here. Not her type of place.”
Liza is tempted to ask about Helena. Then she decides it’s too personal. She’ll ask about his work. Has she seen him at the U of T’s St. George campus? But instead she asks about his family. His mother is Irish and his father — in his words, somewhere there as well, Irish and Scottish.
Throughout dinner, Helena takes care of every detail as if they were her house guests. An unruly curl of thick blond hair has wiggled out of the tightly rolled bun and hangs over her right temple and down her cheek. She adjusts her tight skirt as if she is uncomfortable in it, and Liza has a desire to get to know that other Helena, the one David hints at, the fun Helena. But instead she says: “Your turn to tell me something about yourself. Your last name, perhaps.”
“Gould. David Gould.”
“Any relation to Glenn Gould?”
He laughs. And she thinks how his laughter makes her feel cozy, like a silk scarf she wants to wrap herself in. He continues. “That eccentric pianist? The genius? No. You have an interest in music?”
“I saw him perform a few years back.”
“Here, in Toronto? The man’s a recluse.”
“No, in Los Angeles. I was visiting relatives. With my mother. We were given the tickets — somebody couldn’t make it. We sat in the third row. My mother was ecstatic. She passed away a year later. I found the ticket stubs still in her purse — April 10, 1964. So I never forgot it.”
“I’m sorry, Liza. About losing your mother.”
He takes her hand and gazes into her palm as if about to tell her fortune. He examines her fingers, rubbing his thumb over each one.
Liza takes a large gulp of water. She swishes the ice and listens to it jingle. “That was the only time I saw him. Glenn Gould. I don’t think he’s had any concerts since.”
“Must’ve been quite an experience.”
She lowers her eyes. A pang of longing at the memory of her mother lodges in her chest as if she’d choked on an ice cube that wouldn’t melt. “What struck me was the way he sat in this low chair. Literally reaching up for the keyboard. He swayed his shoulders. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”
“Did he hum to the pieces?”
“You know about that? My mother was fascinated by the humming. She told me to listen for it. Apparently some people were bothered by it.”
“Funny,” he says. “I recall that concert. Something he said about draft dodgers. Almost got kicked out of the United States. For a man who kept to himself, his words caused quite a stir
.”
“In support of the antiwar movement?”
David chuckles. “Sure thing, Babe. Except it got twisted. Turned into a question. Is Glenn Gould a pacifist?” An ironic smirk flickers across his lips. “Is Glenn Gould a pacifist,” David mutters and shakes his head.
Liza examines his features — how that bitter look accentuates the sharp creases around his eyes. His murmuring reminds her of Glenn Gould’s humming. Her mother’s words resonate in her head. Glenn Gould needed to compensate for the piano’s inability to realize the music as he intended. So he hummed the notes.
She’d felt that way about the violin lessons she began in grade nine in hopes of someday becoming a professional violinist. But the violin could not produce the sounds she heard in her head. She tried humming the sounds, but her music teacher forbade it. She was told that she’d started too late to make a career of it. But she soon concluded it was the talent she lacked. She would not have made it as a professional regardless of when she’d started.
From then on, everything she did seemed off-key. The courses she took at university were not what she’d expected. The friendships she valued faded. And then she lost her mother — and fell into some sense of apathy as if nothing good would ever happen to her.
Until she landed her job with the Department of Culture and met Anna. Anna has guided her on the corporate ethos at work, as well as coached her on ordering cocktails at a bar. She encouraged her to apply for the position on the Symposium Committee. Liza’s new assignment of reporting on the sculptors’ work will be truly hands-on. This is what she’d envisioned when she accepted the job with the ministry. And it’s all thanks to Anna. Will she live up to her director’s and her colleagues’ expectations? Or will she fail, as she failed at becoming a virtuoso?
And now, as if the dam holding back her fears had burst, she is compelled to air out her misgivings about her off-key self — the misfit. But she met David only that afternoon. It wouldn’t be right. Besides, she usually doesn’t go out to dinner with strangers. Why did she accept his invitation? Is he also unable to air out the thoughts that preoccupy him? Yet, this feeling that the person across the table would understand is a shared moment, a subconscious connection — an odd conundrum. So she returns to the safe subject, to a conversation about Glenn Gould.
“Did you know Glenn Gould claimed his humming was subconscious? That he heard music in his head?”
David looks up as if he’d been caught off guard. “Glenn’s groans and croons . . . Sure thing.”
“The way you said something reminded me of just that.”
He narrows his eyes. “I groan for the war to end. The bombing to end. Napalming of Vietnam villages to end. The killing of children to stop. I croon for peace, Baby. Peace.”
Something about David reminds her of Glenn Gould. The way David leans into that chair is suggestive of the way the pianist had been scrunched up in the chair his father had made for him. The one the pianist took to all his concerts. The one he refused to play without. The picture surfaces in her mind — of Glenn Gould on stage — as if the chair held the key to his talent. Was the repository of his genius somehow sheltered in that chair and he needed to draw on it — without which there would be only sound but not music?
And now she realizes what links the two men: the look of determination, some type of purposeful obsession she sensed in Glenn Gould — and she sees in David’s face.
David leans his chin on his folded hands. “And you had to be all the way in California to see a Toronto pianist. You visit your relatives often?”
“Not any more.”
He taps out another cigarette, and before she has the chance to remind him that he has an unlit one resting on the ashtray, he pushes it in his mouth. “And your father?”
“I never knew my father. He never knew he’d have a daughter. He was killed at the end of the war, 1945. He and my mother weren’t married. She was a nurse and he a doctor. The clinic where they were stationed was bombed, accidentally . . .” She catches herself. Why is she telling her life story, her parents’ life story to someone she had just met? And why is he asking so many questions?
The maître d’ appears by their table, silently, as if he’s glided through air, and points toward the navy jacket folded on the back of the chair. Slowly, his irritation evident, David takes the unlit cigarette from his mouth and leans it next to the other unlit one on the ashtray rim. He slips his hand in his pocket, pulls out a few bills, and hands them to the maître d’. The maître d’ nods as if he’d just remembered something and walks away just as silently, and Liza is glad. She could not imagine David in that borrowed jacket who-knows-who had worn. And she does not want anyone to disrupt the ease she feels sitting across the table from him. As if she’d known him all her life.
He is the most knowledgeable person she’d ever met when it comes to dining. They order glazed Cornish hen stuffed with wild rice for her and a steak with mushrooms for him, followed by chocolate soufflé for two, and the dinner is superb. They finish a bottle of French Merlot and now Helena places two snifters of Drambuie in front of them. The pianist is playing Moonlight Sonata, the lights are dim, and all is mellow and cozy.
Liza swishes the Drambuie and inhales the fragrance. David takes her hand gently in his, and fits the stem of the glass between her fingers, so that her palm cups the bowl warming the liquid within. “You hold the glass in the palm of your hand, like this,” he says, “then you swish it a few times.” Holding her cupped hand in his, he guides the glass to her lips. She takes a sip of liqueur, and then another, and a rush of heat descends to her chest, then radiates to her face, and she is not sure whether it’s from the Drambuie or from David’s hand on hers.
She stands up and makes her way to the ladies’ room. She runs the water cold, slips her hands under, and presses chilled fingers against her cheeks; then takes a few deep breaths to collect herself.
When she returns, he pulls the chair out for her and meets her with a welcoming smile.
“I still know nothing about you, David Gould,” she says.
He picks up the Drambuie and swirls the auburn liquid slowly. “I’m from Boston.”
“You visit often?”
He looks at the unlit cigarettes on the ashtray as if deciding whether they are spaced evenly, and Liza wonders if he’d heard what she’d said, and as he continues gazing at the ashtray she realizes there is much more to this man than meets the eye. Finally, he says: “No, I don’t. I don’t visit. Unfortunately.” He says it in a distant manner as if he’s just remembered their conversation. The sadness in those words takes away her desire to ask more questions.
He picks up the lighter and flicks it on and off, absentmindedly. Helena brings the bill to their table.
David looks up at Helena. “New job, ha? How are those classes going? Anything happening there?”
Helena stares at him icily. “Don’t we have a deal?” She turns to Liza and says, softly: “Real pleasure to meet you.”
She drops the black leather billfold in front of David, then turns and walks away briskly.
Liza reaches for the cheque. “Why don’t I get this and leave the two of you to figure things out?”
He gently takes the billfold out of her hand. “Forgive me, Liza. I spoiled a perfect dinner.”
“You didn’t spoil anything. This was a perfect dinner. And Helena’s a lovely girl.”
David takes her hand into his. His touch is gentle, and she feels young and pampered, and all the tension dissipates.
The black billfold looks rather intimidating. It would’ve been more appropriate on a bank manager’s desk than at a restaurant. The thick wad he takes out to peel off a couple of bills is even more intimidating.
Helena returns to the table. David hands her the billfold with, “no need for change,” and she nods, sternly. She smiles at Liza and says how pleased she is to have met her,
and without so much as a glance at David, turns and bristles away.
Liza wonders who Helena might be. He’d asked about her classes. Could he be her professor? But would a professor question his student about a decision to take on a new job? Clearly she did not appreciate his questions.
Later that evening, Liza sits in front of the mirror combing her dark hair. What did he see when he looked at her? She wishes her lips were fuller and her complexion finer. All during her dinner with David she’d wished for a different look. Less uptight, more relaxed and fun.
She recalls how David looked at her. Curiously, is the only way she could describe it. Even when he held her hand, she did not sense affection. Yet, the memory of him is comforting — as she no longer has to restrain herself from staring at him. He’d observed her features closely, watched her walking to the ladies’ room. She knew he’d been watching her, she’d felt his eyes on her. When she returned, he asked for her telephone number.
“Okay if I call?”
She pulled out a writing pad from her purse and was about to tear out a page when he rolled up his sleeve. “Here. That way I won’t lose it.”
Her heart is racing as she recalls the scene. His arm is wrapped in a tattoo above his elbow and around his muscular bicep. Has she seen those symbols somewhere? The graphics are too dense, indecipherable. She clears her throat. “Where do you want me to write it?” He points to a bare spot of skin about the size of a ping pong ball. She leans her hand on his bare arm, brushes away a long tress that has fallen over her face, and as the ink forms the numbers, she inhales his scent mixed with a faint whiff of soap and cigarette smoke. The two top buttons of his white cotton shirt are undone, the fabric fraying around the collar. His breath is warm, and her face is inches away from his chest. She wonders if the rest of him is suntanned, and how did he manage that in April, and what it would feel like to press her lips on his bare skin. Her face is flushed and her palms are clammy and she is a bit shaky by the time the task is done. As he rolls down the sleeve he grins, seemingly amused. Then his eyes turn serious, focused on her lips. Slowly, she raises her face. He presses his cheek against hers, and draws her into an embrace.
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