Ordinary Grace

  “And I’m sure you have a very different life, Julia.”

  “It can be a trial, the responsibility of being a Brandt, Ruth.”

  “A terrible burden,” my mother agreed.

  “You have no idea,” Mrs. Brandt said with a sigh.

  “Oh but I do, Julia. It’s clear from all those worry lines on your face. Excuse me,” she said sliding from the sill. “I need to get some air.”

  My mother walked from the waiting area and Mrs. Brandt took another long draw on her cigarette and said under her breath, “You perfect bitch.” Then she looked down at me and smiled and turned away.

  11

  Jake succeeded in coaxing Lise from her brother’s hospital room and Jake and my father and Axel all drove her home together in Mr. Brandt’s Cadillac. My mother followed in the Packard along with Ariel and me. In his sports car Karl returned his mother to her big mansion. Emil was left alone to get the rest everyone said he needed.

  Because Ariel and Jake were familiar visitors to the house and because they were willing it was decided that they would stay with Lise until Emil was able to return home. My mother said she’d pack overnight bags for them. When everyone left I stuck around to keep Jake and Ariel company for a while.

  There were curtains over the windows but the interior walls of Emil Brandt’s home were basically bare. The blind man, I figured, cared not at all about appearance and Lise Brandt was such a mystery to me that I didn’t know what to think about her. There was little furniture and it was placed far apart and Ariel had told me that because of Mr. Brandt’s blindness it was never moved. There were no bookshelves, no books. But there were flowers, a profusion of flowers arranged beautifully in vases set about every room. The center of the house seemed to be the grand piano that took up the entire space of what had probably once been the dining room. Ariel had told me this was where Emil Brandt practiced and composed. Near the piano sat expensive-looking reel-to-reel recording equipment which, according to Ariel, Brandt used while composing since he couldn’t see to write on a score sheet. There was a fine hi-fi system in the living room with enormous speakers and a whole wall of shelves filled with records. I considered the spare look of the house, and thought about the texture of the furniture upholstery which was soft as a flower petal, and about the fragrance of the flowers that perfumed the rooms, and about the piano and the stereo speakers that filled the house with music, and I realized that Emil Brandt had constructed a world of those senses he still possessed.

  The kitchen was different from the rest of the house. This was Lise’s territory. It was large and neatly arranged and colorful and had a wide sliding door along the back wall that opened onto a beautiful deck that overlooked the gardens and the river.

  It was late afternoon by the time we were settled and Lise Brandt set about making dinner. Ariel asked if she could help, facing Lise and enunciating clearly so Lise could read her lips. Lise shook her head and motioned Ariel out but she beckoned Jake to come and give her a hand. We ate at a table in the kitchen, ate a better meal than my mother had ever put together. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, buttered carrots, baked squash, all of it delicious. I thought that despite his blindness Emil Brandt was a lucky man. After dinner Ariel offered to do the dishes but once again Lise shooed her away and accepted help only from Jake.

  It was nearing sunset when Lise put on her overalls and signed to Jake that there was still work to be done in the garden. I could tell he was not inclined but he said okay. He also asked if it would be all right if I helped and after a few moments of consideration Lise nodded. Ariel stayed inside and the music she played on the grand piano flowed out the windows of the house. From what I knew of the music of Emil Brandt I was pretty sure she was playing one of his compositions, a piece in a minor key, sad and beautiful. In the large toolshed Lise took a pick, a shovel, and a crowbar from where they hung on a wall and handed a tool to each of us. I got the pick, Jake the shovel, and Lise kept the crowbar. She led us to an area of recently turned earth along the back picket fence. It was clear she was expanding her garden but she’d encountered an obstacle, a rock the size of a prizewinning pumpkin near the center of the new plot. It was deeply embedded in a layer of clay and probably had been there since the Glacial River Warren tumbled it down from the Dakotas. We stood for a minute eyeing it from all angles.

  I lifted my hand to get Lise’s attention. “Maybe you could just plant around it,” I suggested, speaking carefully so that she could read my lips.

  She shook her head furiously and pointed at my pick and mimed digging.

  “All right then,” I said. “Stand back.”

  I hoisted the pick and chopped into the clay beside the boulder. Lise and Jake stood back and let me work. I broke the ground and worked my way completely around the stone and afterward Jake followed with his shovel and cleared away the big loose clods. We worked in this way for nearly half an hour while Lise stood by and watched. I was beginning to resent all this labor while she did nothing except shake her head as if our efforts didn’t meet with her approval. I was about to step away and say something when she tapped Jake’s shoulder and motioned us to stop. She laid her crowbar down and went to the shed and from a pile of rocks on the east side she took one that was roughly the size and shape of a loaf of bread. She brought it back and set it six inches from the boulder. She took up her crowbar and jammed the chiseled end under the big stone and using the smaller stone as the fulcrum of her lever she put the force of her whole body into prying the obstacle loose from the grip of the hard clay. Her face squeezed into intense lines of determination and I looked at her bare arms and marveled at how muscled they were and how the veins there ran in long thick tendrils under her skin. Jake and I dropped our tools and knelt on either side of the stone and gripped it and pulled with all our might. And finally the rock broke free. It was too heavy for us to lift so Jake and I slowly rolled the great pumpkin of a rock across the yard to the shed where it joined all the other rock and stone that Lise Brandt had cleared to have her gardens. When it was settled there Jake leaped up and cried out victoriously. Lise gripped her crowbar in one hand and shot her other hand into the air in a sign of triumph and sent forth a prolonged guttural intonation that sounded not at all human and that if I’d heard it alone at night would have made me freeze in my steps. But I understood what it was about and I joined in the celebration.

  And that’s when I made my mistake.

  In my excitement I clapped Jake on the shoulder in the way of comrades and then I did the same to Lise Brandt. The moment I touched her she swung around with the crowbar in her hand. If I hadn’t been so quick and leaped back out of reach, that iron bar would have crushed my skull. The sun in its setting had gone red and a long beam shot through a break in the branches of an elm and lit her face with a demon light. Her eyes held a wild look and she opened her mouth and began to scream in the way she had earlier when the fireman had restrained her.

  I looked desperately to Jake and shouted above the screams, “What do we do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” he said. He looked in pain himself as if Lise Brandt’s unfathomable misery were his own. “Just leave her alone and she’ll stop.”

  I pleaded with her, saying desperately, “I’m sorry, Lise. I didn’t mean anything.” But she didn’t hear. I put my hands over my ears and backed away.

  Ariel rushed from the house calling as she came, “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Jake said. “Frank touched her, that’s all. It was an accident. She’ll calm down in a while. She’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” I said.

  “Go,” Jake said. “Go.” And he furiously motioned me away.

  There was a gate in the back fence and I pushed through it. Beyond was the thread of a path that ran down the hill toward the railroad tracks that lay between the Brandt property and the river. I fled the screaming but it followed me all the way down the slope and across the tracks and through the co
ttonwood trees and it wasn’t until I slid down the riverbank and was on the sandy flat that the terrible sound finally ceased. My heart beat wildly, not just from the running but from the panic of Lise’s awful scream, and I understood only too well why Axel and Julia Brandt had sent her into exile in a place that was far beyond the hearing of most people in New Bremen.

  In the blessed quiet of evening I walked along the river toward home. Black terns cut sharp curls above the channel, snatching insects from the air. In the sky the clouds had gone the color of flamingo feathers. I came to the first houses of the Flats and heard Danny O’Keefe and some other kids calling out to one another beyond the cottonwood trees but I didn’t want to join them. I made my way across the dry mudflats and approached the sandy area covered with bulrushes where Danny’s uncle had built his lean-to. From deep in the tall reeds came the rustling of someone headed my way and I slipped into the cover of the bulrushes and laid myself down trying to be inconspicuous. In a few moments a figure passed a dozen feet from where I lay. I saw that it was Warren Redstone. He walked slowly toward Danny’s house, climbed the riverbank, and disappeared. I waited a little while to be sure he was gone for good then stood up and began to make my way through the bulrushes trying to move more quietly than Danny’s great-uncle had. Which turned out to be a good idea because when I reached the clearing where Warren Redstone had built his little lean-to I caught sight of a dark shape lurking at the makeshift structure. I crept forward and once again lay on the sand among the reeds, and in the fading light of evening I watched.

  A man was crouched on all fours with his torso deep in the lean-to and his rear end outside. He spent a moment rummaging in the inner shadow then backed out and stood up. The light was dim and he kept his back to me and I couldn’t see who he was. It seemed to me that he was studying something he held cupped in his hands. He knelt again and crawled back inside and this time the beam of a flashlight shot into the dark there. I still couldn’t see exactly what the man was doing but after a couple of minutes he backed out and stood and brushed sand from his hands and from the knees of his trousers. He broke a few of the bulrushes and gathered them into a kind of broom and swept away all sign of his presence and kept sweeping as he backed to the reeds. He reached to his belt and a moment later the beam of the flashlight shot out and played across the sand as if to be certain he’d erased all evidence of his presence there. Then he turned and disappeared in the direction of town.

  In the wash of the flashlight beam I’d seen his face. It was Gus’s friend Officer Doyle.

  By the time I left my hiding place night was almost upon me. I went to the lean-to and tried to see inside but the dark was nearly absolute now and whatever it was that had so intrigued Doyle was hidden to me. I thought about erasing my tracks in the way Doyle had done but didn’t see any reason and as the bullfrogs began their deep-throated courting I headed home.

  12

  Emil Brandt didn’t return until the following Saturday, three days before the Fourth of July. He came from the Twin Cities where he’d been transferred to a private hospital for rest and care. Axel drove him to the farmhouse beyond the edge of town. My father was there to meet them and so was I. Emil’s eyes were sunken and his face drawn but he was smiling and Lise made a huge fuss over him and despite her own abhorrence at being touched she touched him lightly several times, her hands like butterflies lighting on his arms and shoulders. Ariel embraced him and held to him a long time and wept.

  “I’m fine,” he said to her. And to us all he said, “I’m fine.”

  Once he’d delivered his brother Axel didn’t linger. He thanked Ariel and Jake for all their help and then drove away in his big black Cadillac and I thought he seemed greatly relieved to be finished with his part in the drama. My father and Ariel told Emil to rest but Brandt insisted that life resume in its normal way and he signed to Lise giving her instructions to get the chess set and he and my father prepared to play a game.

  Brandt said to Ariel, “This will be an interesting chapter in my memoir, don’t you think?”

  “Please don’t joke about it, Emil,” Ariel replied.

  He reached out and when she took his hand he said gently, “It was an accident. A terrible accident that’s all. It’s finished. Now you should go home. You’ve done enough for me here.”

  “No,” Ariel said. “I’d like to stay.”

  He nodded and his eyes though sightless settled on her face in a way that made me believe he saw her perfectly. “Very well,” he said. “There’s work to be transcribed.”

  Ariel left and a few minutes later from the window of the study came the sound of her fingers dancing over the keys of the typewriter.

  My father and Emil set about their game and my father asked me to go inside and see if Lise needed my help.

  “Jake’s helping her,” I said.

  “I’m sure there’s something you can do,” he replied and it was clear my presence was not wanted.

  I went inside and stood in the kitchen doorway. Jake and Lise were busy pulling things from shelves. I offered to help but Jake said they were fine and Lise, when she saw me, made a peeved shooing gesture with her hands and I left. I wandered to the living room and stood looking at a fancy plaque hanging on the wall. It was from a music festival in Vienna and Emil Brandt’s name was inlaid in silver in the center. Through the living room window that overlooked the front porch came Brandt’s voice delivering a chess move which my father countered. Then Dad said, “Not long ago you told me you were happy, Emil. What happened?”

  “Happened? I drank too much scotch and ingested too many sleeping pills. An accident, I swear.”

  “I don’t believe that. Nobody believes that, Emil.”

  “What you or anybody else believes, Nathan, troubles me very little.”

  “We’re people who care about you.”

  “If that’s true then you’ll let the issue drop.”

  “And if you accidentally ingest too many sleeping pills again?”

  Brandt was silent for a long time and all I could hear was the sound of Jake laughing in the kitchen and Ariel’s fingers on the typewriter keys and in the distance the deep rising rumble of a train approaching on the tracks along the river. The train came and the house shook just a little with its passing and when it was gone Emil Brandt said, “I don’t have the courage to try again, Nathan.”

  “But why, Emil? Why try at all?”

  Brandt laughed bitterly. “You have such a rich life. How can you possibly understand?”

  “You have your own riches, Emil. Your music for example. Isn’t that a great blessing?”

  “In the balance it has come to have little weight.”

  “And what is it that weighs so heavily on the other side of the scales?”

  Brandt didn’t reply. Instead he said, “I’ve had enough chess for today. I want to rest now.”

  “Emil, talk to me.”

  “I said I’ve had enough.”

  I heard Brandt rise and move toward the door.

  Quickly I went to the kitchen and found Jake covered in flour and Lise rolling out dough on a large breadboard. From the living room came my father’s voice calling to us, “Boys, it’s time to go home.”

  Jake gestured to Lise and she looked disappointed but she nodded that she understood and accepted. He brushed the flour from his clothing and joined me at the kitchen door.

  Emil Brandt stood in the living room with his arms crossed over his chest, looking eager to be free from us all. Jake and I bid him good-bye and in return he offered only a terse nod. We walked to my father who stood holding the screen door open.

  “I’ll pray for you, Emil,” he said.

  “About as useful as throwing a penny down a wishing well, Nathan.”

  We all trudged to the Packard where I said, “Dad, is it okay if Jake and I walk home?”

  Jake shot me a questioning look but kept quiet.

  “All right,” my father said in a distracted way. He was gazing back
at the Brandt house and I’m sure he was thinking hard about the disturbing conversation he’d just had with his good friend. “Don’t dawdle,” he said and got into the car and drove away.

  “Why are we walking?” Jake complained.

  “Something on the river I’ve been wanting to look at. Come on.”

  The day was hot already and humid and as we kicked through the weeds on our way down the slope toward the railroad tracks the grasshoppers flew up before us in a buzz of complaint. Jake complained too. “Where are we going, Frank?”

  “You’ll see in a minute.”

  “This better be good.”

  We crossed the tracks and slipped through the cottonwoods and hit the river and started toward the Flats. When we came in sight of the stretch of sand covered with bulrushes Jake began to angle toward the riverbank. I kept walking straight ahead.

  Jake said, “Where are you going?”

  “I told you, you’ll see.”

  Jake suddenly understood my destination and he shook his head feverishly. “Frank, we shouldn’t go there.”

  I put my finger to my lips to signal silence and began as quietly as possible to thread my way through the bulrushes. Jake hesitated and started for the riverbank, paused again, and finally followed me. Near the clearing I went down on all fours and approached in the creep of an animal stalking and Jake did the same. The clearing was empty and the lean-to deserted. For a full minute I watched and waited while dragonflies shot through the heavy morning air around us. At last I stood.

  Jake said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Quiet,” I said.