—I don’t think James tried to deceive them, Julia. James took it all as rather a lark.
—A lark? People losing their whole life’s savings? Most of them had been domestics, they could hardly speak English.
—Is this Uncle James? here, in this hat? Stella asked absently, mirrored in the picture’s glass, her back to them in a simple curve of gray tailored to the grave decline of her shoulders.
—No, James, James didn’t put on one of those getups. The gondolier’s hat and all the rest of it, none of that was his idea at all. He was simply selling lots on commission for Doc what was his name, when he went to jail . . .
—No, no, Anne. She means that picture over there, James in some sort of academic costume. An honorary something he got somewhere after that first performance of his . . .
—And where is he now?
—There’s a card from him Stella, it’s there on the mantel. A picture of a castle.
—This? with the corner cut off it? There’s no way to know . . .
—James’ hand is impossible to read. The only way we can write to him is to cut off the return address and paste it on to the front of a letter, and since we never really know where . . . there! Just hold still for a moment, Stella. Do you see it now, Julia? The resemblance to James?
—If she’d raise her chin a little. A little, perhaps, around the mouth but . . . is that a scar? Around the throat, it must be the light in here but it looks . . .
—Julia! I wouldn’t . . .
—It’s all right, said Stella, turning from them what might have become a smile to draw up her throat’s long and gentle curve.—You see? It goes right around, she seemed to finish, and turned back to the photographs framed on the wall.
—It almost looks . . .
—You, you might want to wear a necklace, Stella. There was one that belonged to Charlotte, somewhere. Who did that go to Julia? the one with the . . .
—Oh, I don’t try to hide it . . . she brought them forward with the dull calm in her voice.—The children in our apartment building, do you know what they say? That I’m a witch, that I can screw my head on and off. They think that this one comes off at night and I put on another . . .
—Stella! that’s . . . you, you’re a beautiful girl!
—One that would turn them to stone if they saw it, she went on, all they could see of her expression its movement in the glass, and then—there were beautiful witches after all, she finished with a slight tremor that might have been a laugh.
—What . . .
—What was it? An operation. Thyroid.
—It’s a shame you . . . you’ve never had children, Stella. Children of your own, you and . . . oh, I can never recall his name.
—Whose.
—Why, your husband, Mister . . .
—Norman, oh, said Stella in the same dead calm, and then—and this? turned again to a picture.—Sitting at the piano beside Uncle James, this little boy. It’s not Edward, is it?
—That? No. No, that’s not Edward, no.
—Is it . . . anyone?
—It’s . . . no, it’s a boy. A boy James took in for lessons.
—Reuben? Stella turned abruptly, and stood there as the turn had left her, one foot cocked on a heel.—The boy he adopted?
—He didn’t. James never adopted him. There. Do you see? the stories that get started?
—Yes, that Mister . . . this lawyer who was here. Prying and gossiping, trying to bring Reuben into things too, saying the adopted child has the same rights as the blood child and so forth, why . . .
—Here, his card’s here somewhere. Cohen, here it is. You see? he said they’d left out the h. You would think he’d want to get new cards printed.
—Perhaps he doesn’t care to spend the money. It might be cheaper just to change his name, you remember Father saying . . .
—Why your husband had to send him out here Stella, as though things weren’t confused enough.
—I’m sorry I missed him. When Norman’s secretary said he was coming out to see you and Edward and help clear things up . . .
—Clear things up? Waving his arms around, breaking furniture, tossing papers every which way? And his language!
—I’m sure that Norman never meant him to . . .
—Crystal clear but he couldn’t speak simple English, unless you call profanity crystal clear. Be careful of that chair arm, he broke that too.
—Perhaps Edward can fix it, Julia.
—Yes he warned us against Edward, if you can imagine.
—But I’m sure Mister Coen didn’t mean . . .
—Referring to Edward as an infant . . .
—A lunatic . . .
—Talking about suing the Ford Motor Company, using infancy as a sword instead of a shield whatever that means, he kept repeating it. Remember Danziger, he said, versus the Ironclad Realty Company. I won’t forget them in a hurry after that performance, but heaven knows why. I never heard James mention either of them.
—Or Father either, why Mister Cohen even wanted to hear that old story about Father and the violin.
—And that picture of Charlotte in the Indian headdress to prove some notion about resemblances, that gossip about our Indian blood and talking about emancipation, Edward being emancipated! as though we were all a family of . . . well!
—We even had to sew a button on for him. Where do you suppose that picture is, Julia? The one on the song sheet. It was when she opened at the New Montauk Theater . . .
—It must be over in James’ studio with everything else.
—With everything else, yes. It’s a good thing he never got loose over there. When he started to pry into James’ income tax returns, asking if James took Edward as an exemption . . .
—There’s no reason he shouldn’t. I’ve heard James say myself that as long as Edward is a fulltime student . . .
—That Bryce boy, the one they called the young planter, he was still in high school at the age of twenty-nine.
—That was quite a different story, Anne.
—Wasn’t Reuben an orphan? Stella said abruptly over them.
—No. Certainly not.
—I thought I’d heard my father say . . .
—Just because James found him in an orphanage. The boy’s mother had died and his father couldn’t look after him and put him in an orphanage where he’d get decent care. That’s where James found him, giving music lessons. The Masons did charity work, you know, and James was giving lessons in a Jewish orphanage. He thought the boy had talent and, well, that it should be developed.
—But he brought him home, didn’t he?
—James brought him home to teach, simply that. It’s . . . it was all so many years ago and I’m sure the only reason your Mister Cohen brought it up was to try to stir up those old stories about James and your father. About James and Thomas not getting on, simply because of . . . of what’s at stake.
And Stella’s turn and movement from them in her gray took a melancholy dimension from the fading streaks of the fall sun mottling the glass.—What’s that, she said.
—Why, the business. After all.
—After all, it was James who helped him get started. When Thomas first talked about music publishing . . .
—I’d hardly call it music publishing, Anne. When Thomas first talked about making piano rolls, James said he thought that playing reed instruments all those years had loosened something in Thomas’ head.
—Nevertheless I would not have imagined there was still so much money in piano rolls, but your Mister Cohen says it’s doing very well. I thought people had radios and things today. It’s not as though James has no stake in it, after all.
—But he still owns his stock, said Stella from the pictures.—And you both do too?
—You certainly wouldn’t know it from the dividends.
—Not that it’s all just a matter of money.
—Then what is it . . .? What light there was was gone, pocketed above, leaving Stella in her turn matching her stare to thos
e fallen to the empty floor and left there, as though something only a moment before had been there, moving, and fled.
—Why, why simply I think James simply felt that Thomas took . . . took certain advantages. Musician friends of his, of James, they showed up here on concert tours and James had scarcely introduced them when he found that Thomas had them out there in Astoria cutting piano rolls.
—Who was that, Anne?
—Well, Saint-Saëns was one. When he was here touring . . .
—I think James thought that Saint-Saëns was rather silly, with his theosophy and all the rest of it.
—I think James really liked Saint-Saëns, Julia. It was Saint-Saëns’ music that James thought was rather silly, he thought that it was trite. Yes, it must have been the music, because it wasn’t when Saint-Saëns himself was here at all, it was when Paderewski was here playing Saint-Saëns.
—Steinway brought Paderewski over here years before, Herbert Hoover was mixed up in that somewhere making money to get himself through college and I don’t think it was Saint-Saëns’ theosophy, Anne. I think you’re thinking of what James used to say about Scriabin and Madame Blavatsky before he had that tumor and died. He never wrote songs.
—Was it true? said Stella from over there,—that my father and Uncle James once met on the street in some city abroad where they’d both just arrived, and without a word they put down their suitcases and started to fight?
—The boys didn’t actually fight. It was more of a philosophical dispute, Thomas insisting the magic touch of these virtuosos could be preserved on his piano rolls, and James . . .
—If there was anything that drove James wild it was the idea of talent going to waste, being lost, suppressed. It drove him wild.
—And that was why he took the boy in from the Jewish orphanage?
—Yes, he was a very shy, quiet little boy. He didn’t really look like a Jew to us.
—Not a jewy Jew, no.
—In those days we thought Jews all had hooked noses but he was almost blond, wasn’t he Julia. And blue eyes.
—But he took our name, didn’t he?
—Oh, borrowed it, Stella, borrowed it and used it and just never returned it. He had such admiration for James.
—Well, James loved him, and . . .
—No, not the boy. Not James. It was the talent James loved, he took him out of that orphan asylum because he thought the boy should be spending every minute with music, studying, practicing, working on his music, James drove him as hard as he drove himself. That was the reason he took the child in, to live with him when Edward came here with us.
—Oh? Stella turned, her arms akimbo.—When do you expect him back?
—Look at that card. Around Thanksgiving, from what I could make of it.
—I meant Edward, didn’t you say he’s just teaching? somewhere nearby . . .?
—Yes, James was going to try to arrange something for him through some connections he used to have, being a composer in residence somewhere, but we don’t know whatever became of that project. When it comes to returning a kindness some people have such short memories, you know.
—He was quite taken with you, you know, Stella. He had the kind of crush that little boys have, all those years ago.
—Well, Stella must have seemed quite grown up to him. When you’re that age, a matter of six or eight years . . .
—I don’t want to miss him but I can’t stay much longer, you don’t mind if I call for a cab?
—No, there on the secretary. The number’s somewhere.
Then casually, without a glance back,—What was it, Stella asked,—that Mister Coen wanted of Edward?
—That’s a good question!
—He wanted Edward to sign . . .
—Something he wanted Edward to sign, but we’d best wait to see what James has to say about it.
—And he wanted Edward’s birth . . .
—Pardon? Stella was dialing.
—Some nonsensical notions he had, questioning James as Edward’s father and heaven knows what else!
—James was always a lovely father to Edward.
—Well he certainly tried Anne, but James has never been the easiest person in the world to live with when he’s working. He can seem plain morose and irritable when he’s preoccupied with work.
—His Philoctetes, yes. When he was working on that, he didn’t speak to a soul for days at a time, he . . . what, Stella?
—She’s phoning, Anne. And Anne . . . in a voice that rustled, out over the floor stretching bare the length of the room toward Stella as sun, spilling in again, brought it to faded life.—I wouldn’t go into all kinds of details right now, before we hear what James has to say.
—But Julia . . .
—You got your cab, Stella? The name is there somewhere. A Jewish name, but I can’t recall it.
—It’s Italian, Julia. It’s painted right on the taxi door.
—The next train, yes . . . came Stella’s murmur at the phone.—Mrs Angel . . .
—Well, you know how cheap names are.
—Stella . . .? You got your taxi? It’s a shame you have to leave. You’ve scarcely sat down since you came.
Stella stood tracing an edge of sun with the point of her shoe.—It was Edward’s birth certificate that Mister Coen wanted? she said finally.
—He, he mentioned it, yes.
—But if there’s any question, Edward himself must wonder . . .
—Wonder?
—What he’s . . . inherited.
—Why he’s, what he’ll have from James, heaven knows. I’m sure James doesn’t. His work is always money going out not coming in, having scores prepared and getting them copied, the parts for each instrument . . .
—And James was never one for writing little trios. He likes lots of brass.
—And voices.
—Voices, yes. What it would cost to do his Philoctetes! Hiring musicians to play his compositions, getting them recorded and all the rest of it his royalty checks aren’t a drop in the bucket, even these awards seem to cost twice what they bring in. When the time comes there won’t be much for Edward.
—It wasn’t money I meant, said Stella quietly, and then, her voice as casual as her step,—was Nellie talented?
—Nellie?
—Talented?
—I . . . I don’t think the question ever came up.
—In all these pictures with Uncle James, Stella murmured clouding the glass of one with her closeness,—there’s none . . .
—That’s the one of him with Kreisler, isn’t it?
—But this says Siegfried Wagner, nineteen twen . . .
—Oh. That was Siegfried Wagner, yes. He used to be around Bayreuth and charge twenty-five cents for his photograph, simply because he was Wagner’s son.
—But in all these pictures with women, there’s none . . .
—That was that Teresa what was her name, Julia. She was over here touring during the war. She’d been married to that, I can’t recall him either. During the war even though he was British, he made such a scene about being German but what was his name, a French name, but what was it. He was married a good half dozen times. She was known as the Valkyrie of the keyboard, she came from Argentina or some such.
—There’s no picture of Nellie? Stella got in abruptly, turning her back on those frames and faces.—Didn’t she take lessons of Uncle James? after he was sick, and she’d come to nurse him back?
—I think you have it twisted, Stella. She was sick and, yes and James . . .
—There’s no reason to stir it all up again. That Mister Cohen, repeating gossip . . .
—But now that we speak of it, Julia, do you think we have Edward’s birth certificate?
—I suppose it’s right there in the top drawer. That little Martha Washington sewing table.
—Here? said Stella, trying it.—But it’s locked.
—Yes. The key is right there in the bottom drawer. Yes, there . . . let me see that, Stella. It’s a picture o
f Nellie with the Gloria Trumpeters when they led that welcome home parade for Charles Lindbergh, down Fifth Avenue.
—I think they went up Fifth Avenue, Anne. And you certainly can’t make out Nellie in this. I think it was before her time, at that.
—Then why would we ever have kept the clipping?
—Nellie played . . . trumpet?
—You knew that, Stella. You knew James gave her lessons.
—But not, trumpet. No, I just thought, just music.
—Yes, or was it cornet, Julia.
—And I thought Uncle James just wouldn’t waste time on people without talent.
—Well, but after all, Stella.
—Nellie wasn’t well, Stella, after all. She had consumption. You knew that, didn’t you? It wasn’t as though James set out to make her the finest cornetist in the world. The doctors said she must build up her lungs, and that was why she came for these lessons. But she came too late.
Closer, over the sewing table fitting its key, Stella’s hand rose as it might have in scorn, lost to her forehead tucking a strand of hair.—Oh?
—That’s . . . but you knew that, didn’t you? Stella?
—Knew?
—Knew that . . . that that was how Nellie died.
Motionless, eyes taking all, giving nothing, Stella said—Was it?
—Why, why . . .
—Yes, why yes Stella . . .
Their looks suspended three sides of a broken triangle which crumbled, shifting on different planes.—I’m sure that Thomas has told her, Anne. Perhaps it’s just slipped her mind for the moment.
And two sides of the triangle rose again, querying, seeking confirmation in the third; but Stella’s eyes stayed down, kept the distance in her voice.—There’s nothing here but stock certificates, securities . . .
—Yes, that’s what James always says isn’t it. Bonds are for women, and . . .
—Stocks are for men. But that was Father.
—Listen. I think I hear hammering somewhere.
—You might as well stop looking there, Stella. It’s probably over in James’ studio, though I’d hate to be the one to look. Digging through all that, pictures, clippings, deeds and tax bills, song sheets, scores and all those piano rolls . . .
—Julia . . . now? Don’t you hear it? Hammering?
—Edward?