Somebody put a pot of coffee in the prow of the canoe, but Diane wasn’t sure if she was in the kitchen with her mother or her mother was standing in the canoe with her. “They asleep,” she heard her mother say.
Then the voice of one man, kind and quiet, such a pretty voice, like soft fudge.
The two of them, Mama and Pretty Voice, went back into the kitchen and turned into two trees, her mother was a pine with so soft needles, and the man was an oak. A squirrel scampered over his big branches. In clusters of two, acorns hung beneath his big leaves. Their voices were like the limbs of trees sometimes entwining and sometimes stroking the wind. Diane imagined herself sitting in that man’s lap, like a big girl in a big boy’s lap. “Best biscuit I ever ate,” he said.
Then her mother was scooping her out of the canoe. You just lie over here beside Honey on his bed, she said. “Mama needs your pallet.”
Mama and Pretty Voice must have spread her pallet on the kitchen floor. They wanted to rest in the forest by themselves, not in the bedroom with the babies. Occasionally, from the kitchen floor, they whispered or sighed.
“You’re heaven,” he said.
Jonathan, the Pianist
BECAUSE STELLA WAS DRIVING THE OLD CAR SLOWLY AND carefully, it was easy for Jonathan to follow them. Because he didn’t want to crowd them, Jonathan didn’t follow closely. Leaning into the car window before Stella could turn the key, Jonathan had invited Stella to join him for a snack at Dale’s Cellar, after she took Cat home. “Maybe” was all she had said. She had seemed very uptight. Grim, maybe depressed. Angry. When he reached his arm across her to shake hands with Lionel Parrish, Jonathan had thought she might bite his forearm.
People had told him that the girl in the wheelchair—Cat—had had a gun. That she’d pulled a gun on Mr. Parrish and Stella and made them leave her alone in the building. But Jonathan hadn’t seen a gun. Just Agnes and Gloria and Cat sitting in the circle of candlelight singing hymns. Maybe he had been stupid to join them, but they had sounded small and alone. He had thought of Goodman and Schwerner, dead in Mississippi, and their courage. Which was more dangerous for outsiders like himself, the cities or the rural South?
When he saw Stella pull up to the curb in front of a house with a wheelchair ramp, he parked his car half a block back. Maybe, she’d said. Maybe she didn’t want her friend to know she was going out without her. Did they live here together? Should he approach them? Cat had looked pleased when he and Mr. Parrish shook hands. She’d just beamed, as though she had arranged the meeting, a Cat swallowing two tasty mice. He’d be glad to take Cat out with him and Stella sometime, just not tonight, the first time. He remembered the emotion in Stella’s voice when he had teased her:Now, my little Christian. Whom did we resurrect? The layers of feeling when she spoke:My mother.
At Juilliard, one of the teachers had asked the new student, Kabita Rana, who was half Indian, which of the late Beethoven sonatas she played. All, she answered, and Jonathan suddenly had straightened up like a prairie dog scouting for danger. Play the 110, the teacher had said, scowling. All the lines in the teacher’s rugged face became deeper. The 110, a wicked curveball. Kabita bounced out of her chair as though it were a trampoline; she glided toward the piano noiselessly as a cheetah. Aren’t you afraid of this piece? the professor asked. She glanced over her shoulder but continued moving. Sure, she said.
Ah, the layers she put into the one word!
Sure, the teacher repeated, trying to imitate her. I like the way you say that, he said; he smiled at her, a little puzzled. The other students were studiously unimpressed, but Jonathan knew they were idiots. Here was the real thing. He didn’t know what kind of real thing, but the real thing. Only the battle-scarred teacher and he recognized it: the ability to communicate in some musical way many contradictory emotions at once, in a single word, perhaps a single note.
She had played the hell out of the Beethoven 110, from the simple heart-breaking opening melody to the fiendish fugue. She played fearlessly but without aggression. She loved the music too much to attack it. And she had stirred Jonathan’s heart to its depths.
The way his own playing had stirred Stella.
What would it mean not to have a successful career as a concert musician? NYC seemed as full of teeth as the South, just filed down for different purposes. Despite the obvious dangers, Jonathan liked the pace of southern life; their soft drawl was oddly pleasant. Stella’s was. The temple bombing in Atlanta back in the 1950s flashed before him. A warning. And other harassments: a gunman had attacked a synagogue in Gadsden, Alabama. Jonathan had no inclination to attend synagogue except on Yom Kippur.
After Stella parked—more than three feet from the curb—he watched her get out into the dim light and lift the trunk lid. The passenger door opened slowly; Cat must have given it a shove. The folded wheelchair seemed heavy, and Stella had to lean into the trunk at an awkward angle, but she grasped the chair confidently, set the wheels on the pavement, expanded the chair, put down the footrests, and wheeled the chair into the wedge space between the open door and the passenger seat. Ah, the distance from the curb had been intentional. Stella and Cat were a team, he could see, used to their routine.
When they went up the ramp, Stella pushed the chair from behind, and Cat worked the wheels to help her. Stella put keys in Cat’s lap; Cat opened the door and then rolled inside. Quickly, Stella walked down the ramp. At the end of the ramp, she took off running down the sidewalk. She didn’t seem scared; she just sped up, running in an easy, happy lope.
Jonathan started his car and followed her. Had she forgotten that she’d said “maybe”? Maybe she didn’t understand that he meant now. She must live close by. But no, she ran a block and then another, taking time at the crossing to check for cars. He could easily overtake her, but he didn’t want to. After four blocks, during a well-lighted stretch of sidewalk, she slowed down, and he brought the car up beside her. He tooted the car a gentle beep, she leaned down to check who was driving.
“There you are,” she exclaimed. She crossed the easement of grass toward the car. “I thought I’d lost you back in traffic.”
He leaned across and opened the door.
“Would Orpheus lose Eurydice?” he said.
She stopped. “You’ve got our roles mixed up.” She sounded gay, happy to see him. Her thundercloud of anger had disappeared.
“You sound cheerful,” he said.
“I’m free,” she answered. “I feel free.”
“Too free to go to Dale’s with me?”
“Free enough,” she answered. “But, hey, I’m engaged to Cat’s brother.”
“I don’t care, if you don’t,” he said. “I’ve been out with married women.”
She got in the car. “I’ve never been to Dale’s.”
“Probably too late for a full dinner. We’ll just get a snack this time.”
And the conversation began its happy weave. Why were you running? I like to make my heart pump. Especially after I take Cat home. You said you used to play the cello. Not anymore. That was my childhood path. Not now. Maybe you just need fresh encouragement. (But he didn’t want to encourage her;maybe she knew what she was doing; maybe he trusted her judgment.) When did your mother die? When I was five. Let’s not talk about it right now. I live with my aunts. You seemed upset after the bomb scare. I was mad at myself. For leaving Cat. For not being brave, like Gloria and Agnes. But now you’re not still mad. I got over it. Cat and I talked about it. And you’re engaged to her brother? We talked a little about that, too. To be honest, I’m not so sure. Where is he? On the island of Tonga, in the South Pacific.
Oh.
He added, “Actually, I haven’t ever been out with a married woman.”
“All the better,” she said.
WHEN THEY PAUSED at the top of the steep steps leading down to Dale’s Cellar, Jonathan offered the crook of his arm to her. She’s southern, he thought. Used to courtesy. Then he remembered how she’d run, like a young gazelle. He g
lanced at her feet: socks and tennis shoes, but this was a fairly fancy place. Maybe she didn’t know. But she was cultured, loved his playing. The phrase genteel poverty occurred to him. Stella took his arm and smiled at him.
At the bottom of the stairs, the restaurant was very dark.
“Stygian gloom,” she said.
“You like Greek mythology?” he said.
A waiter approached them. He was wearing a gleaming starched white jacket. His skin was so dark that the coat almost seemed uninhabited. The restaurant began to come into focus for him, hazy clouds of low light here and there. Only a few couples. Three businessmen.
“Give us the most private table, please,” Jonathan said. “The darkest table with the tiniest light.”
“Yessir,” the waiter said. “It’s too late for dinner, sir.”
“We’ll have an appetizer,” Stella said pleasantly.
“And dessert,” Jonathan added.
After they got settled, Jonathan remarked, “This place feels like New York. Almost.”
“Except all the waiters are black and all the customers are white,” she said.
“I meant the ambiance. The darkness.”
“I like it, too,” she said.
She had chosen to sit with her back to the restaurant, facing only him and the wall. He liked that.
Then she was asking him if he had traveled, and because of the dark, he told her about traveling in Norway, and how dark the tunnels were there, how they seemed to eat the light, and what you dreaded when you drove inside was seeing the red eyes of a cow or sheep glowing at you from the middle of the road.
She had never been out of Alabama. The fact amazed him—she seemed well educated, spoke well, was obviously not conservative. Genteel poverty?
“Have you ever been engaged?” she suddenly asked him.
“Not exactly. Almost. I’ve had girlfriends.” He thought of Kabita and felt sad. His failure, not hers. “But you’re engaged,” he said. “Where’s the de rigueur ring?”
“I don’t wear it.”
“Why not?”
She seemed confused, and he wondered if she were a neurotic. His shrink had told him to beware mirroring himself with neurotic women.
“Well, it’s too big to stay on.” Now she looked mischievous. “And it’s too cheap.”
“Cheap?” A materialist. She had seemed ethereal, otherworldly. So thin.
Now she laughed. “Well, Don got it out of a Cracker Jack box.”
He ordered chardonnay, shrimp cocktails for their appetizer, and a cherry turnover with warm cheese sauce for dessert. She told him about her engagement—which sounded like a freak or whimsical accident—to Don Cartwright.
“But I meant it,” she added. “Until recently.”
“How recently?”
She shook her head and answered vaguely, “Somewhat gradually.”
“Do you ever tell lies?” he asked her.
“I try not to. Why?”
“I just want to know what kind of footing we’re on here,” he said. He felt as though he were sailing on Casco Bay, with a favorable wind. He’d liked Port-land. Why hadn’t he fled north from New York to Maine, instead of down here? It could have gone either way till September 15. Suddenly he felt exhilarated. He wanted to tell her about sailing in the harbor at Sydney, with his father, when he was sixteen. Here in this underground hideaway in Birmingham, things felt “down under”—as fresh and exciting as Australia.
“I’ve been engaged twice,” she said, and he knew he’d intimidated her into trying to tell the truth about herself. But she wouldn’t be trying to be open if she didn’t trust him, if she didn’t like him.
“What happened before?”
“He was incapable of radical thought.”
He was startled. She sounded very judgmental. Globally judgmental. Yet she was speaking softly, smiling sweetly. She had almost drained her glass of wine.
“Are you a Communist?” he asked.
She just shook her head: no. Maybe she didn’t trust him at all. Why did trust matter?
“You seem fairly conventional to me,” he said. “In a good way, I mean.”
“I’m not.”
“I mean, like, you’re not going to suddenly toss your glass down on the tile floor.”
In an instant, the glass had shattered on the floor.
She remained perfectly calm, as though nothing at all had happened. The waiter came promptly with a whisk broom and a dustpan. “So sorry,” Stella murmured in a genteel voice.
“Would you like another?” Jonathan asked, trying to match her imperturbable manners.
“I’d better not,” she said. “That was the first glass of wine I’ve ever had in my life.” Now she was smiling broadly.
“You’re not telling the truth.”
“I try not to lie,” she repeated, impishly.
To hell with this, he thought. He cleared his throat. “Let’s just cut to the chase and be frank with each other,” he said. “Always.”
“Well,” she began gravely, “I was engaged to someone before Don. He was an organist, and I loved his playing. He used to drive a motor scooter, and I was terrified of it.”
“Playing the organ must be like driving a tank,” he said.
She made no reply, but he knew she disagreed. The shrimp cocktail, served in a collar of ice, was before them. The shrimp were large and plump. He heard himself saying, “They fly them in, from the Gulf.” Then he heard himself adding stupidly, “I can’t get enough of them,” and she asked why, and he said, “Shellfish. In New York I never ate shellfish.”
“I’ve never eaten shrimp before,” she said.
“Christ!” he said. “This is a night of firsts for you.” He felt good again, daring. “Ever been kissed?”
“Many, many times,” she said. “Very, very beautifully.” She looked happy to remember it, happy to be there with him talking about it. “We southern girls are very good kissers,” and he knew why without her having to say so:because we don’t go much further.
He ordered another glass of wine for himself.
He watched her watch him dip the flesh of his shrimp into the cocktail sauce. Then she did the same. She tentatively bit off the end of her shrimp. “It’s delicious,” she said. “So tangy. I like the texture.” She ate another shrimp. “It’s like eating my little finger,” she said. She crooked her pinkie, dipped the knuckle in the sauce and sucked it clean, while she stared into his eyes. “Tastes just the same.”
“Don’t use so much sauce, so you can taste the fish.”
What kind of life had she led? Unbelievably sheltered? Somehow eccentric, even for the South.
“My mother let me eat with my fingers and then suck on them. You can if you want to.” She smiled, challenging him. “I’ll let you.”
“No, thanks,” he said, and he could feel himself blushing. He stabbed a shrimp with his cocktail fork.
“The forks are too cute not to use,” she said. “Three-pronged, like little tridents.”
He drank his wine too fast to appear suave. The kitchen had closed; their turnovers were waiting under the heat lamp. Six shrimp were not enough for him. He coveted hers. Shrimp had never been so delicious. They had never tasted so firm and succulent, fresh like the Gulf. He almost didn’t want the sauce, though he loved horseradish. “This is one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been in,” he said, “ambiance-wise, company-wise, and food-wise.”
“Methinks you have a whiff of the Underworld about you.”
“Hades?” And the wine. More delicious with every sip.
“My favorite myth is that of Hades and Persephone,” she said. “When I was engaged to the first boy, we had a dangerous experience. Then we got engaged.”
“Isn’t just living dangerous enough?”
Her blond hair was gleaming in the candlelight, with a beautiful up-scroll at the end, almost like a violin or an unfurling fern. She explained that Persephone got to live half the year with her mother, half with
her lover: “the perfect balance.”
“Do you have a nickname?” he asked. Shadows played across her pale face. He loved how the darkness of the restaurant isolated them. He quickly said, “I’d call you Fern.” He held out his hand to her across the table, but she didn’t take it.
“Fern?” she repeated.
“Fern or Pheasant,” he said.
“Pheasant,” she said brightly. “I like that.” And her eyes danced.
And the turnovers were there. She’d eaten all her shrimp. None left over for him.
“I’ll never forget this,” she said a little stiffly. “The night I first ate shrimp and drank wine.”
Lord, he wondered, where had those other boys been taking her? Ed Salem’s Drive-In? Across the front of Ed Salem’s (always packed with cars), pink neon footballs blinked in series, simulating the arc of a pass. “Why is Vulcan’s light sometimes green, sometimes red?” he asked.
“If it’s red, somebody or some people have been killed in a wreck.” She spoke as though the life were draining out of her.
He reached his hand to her again, and this time she took it. Neither spoke for a moment, then he said quietly, “Let’s eat this before the cheese sauce gets cold.”
He loved the sugary graininess of the sweet melted cheese, and the cherries were allowed to be authentically cherries, not mired in overly sweet goo. The pastry was flaky and flavorful—probably made with pure lard.
“My Jewish mother would be ashamed of the way I’ve eaten this evening,” he said soberly.
“No, she wouldn’t,” Stella said. “She’d be glad you were having a good time. So would mine.”
They’d eaten everything, with incredible relish. Drained their glasses. His best move would be to stand up, to take her home now.
“Pheasants are heavy and slow moving,” she said, “when they rise.” She spoke solemnly. “They have beautiful plumage. Fit for nature and for art. Hat decorations, anyway.”