20 (23 page)

Clarissa's Guarnerius was in Amsterdam. A rich, winey beauty. With it, she caught fire, plunged into Paganini, Sarasate, Saint-Saëns, Wieniawski. I had to call Altman again. “She needs a teacher. She plays better than I do.”

“Listen, Opal,” said Altman, “I can get you into a quartet out here. It's hard today, very hard. The kids coming on are good. They show up knowing all the standard repertoire already. But I can get you in.” He wanted to hear Clarissa play.

“On the telephone?”

“Yes.”

But the grandfather found out and didn't like it. He bought airline tickets and sent Clarissa and me to California.

Flying terrified Clarissa. She clutched her fiddle case, fought nausea, turned white, bit her lips. And finally surrendered. “Mrs. Franklin, do you know why I hate you so much?” Her voice was a gray wisp, devoid of hope.

“Yes,” I said. Gently, oh so gently. “Because I'm thin…and you think thin is beautiful.”

Then her tears came, and small, bitter sobs. “I want to change. You'll help me…I know you will.”

“Like hell I will,” I said, capturing her in my arms. “You're a wonderful, marvelous person, just as you are.” So I told her about the babies. I told her about Brisbane and Buenos Aires. I even told her about my mother and scopolamine.

“So nobody gets everything,” said Clarissa, sniffling.

We landed, not healed, but holding hands. Eight years later, while on tour, Clarissa sent me a postcard from Buenos Aires: “Hey, I'm here! Come on down! Love always, Clarissa.”

Altman said, “Juilliard.”

“That's what I thought,” I said, but the grandfather paid for everything and seemed pleased.

He met our return plane. “She'll need a high school equivalency,” I told him.

“We'll get a tutor,” he said. “Go ahead with her preparation.”

When I got Clarissa past her auditions, the grandfather appeared at my door with roses and kissed my hand.

————

After Clarissa came Dwight, Stephen, Mary Ruth, Annette. Twin brothers who went into country music and still send me chocolates at Christmas. A quiet boy who loved Debussy and became a Lutheran minister. A gentle girl with white hands who, incredibly, committed suicide. More names than I can remember. But never another Clarissa.

————

In the same month, Altman died and St. Theresa's offered me a job. I received a call from Sister Mary Elizabeth. “Mrs. Franklin? Sister Theophane wants you for our music department.” Mary Elizabeth is nothing like her fragile name. President of St. Theresa's, one hundred pounds of intensity, tough, formidable fund-raiser, frequenter of Chicago boardrooms.

“Sister, I'm afraid I'm not a very good Catholic.”

“Who is these days? I wasn't proposing to hire you as a theologian. We already have a couple of those. We're looking for a violin teacher. You graduated from St. Theresa's, also studied privately, and played professionally. That combination makes you interesting to us. Come in and we'll talk about it.”

“All right. Has everything changed?”

“Yes and no.”

————

Sister Mary Elizabeth, wearing a gabardine suit, received me in her small, pleasant rooms: sliced cheese, poured cider. “We're putting together a music performance major. We've never offered it before. We've turned out school teachers, nurses, and secretaries.”

“I can't imagine St. Theresa's changing. It looks the same.”

“Read Father Newman, unfolding revelation. Our mission is to educate women. On any two successive days that means two different things, at least two.”

“Ah!” Sister Theophane came in and settled into a chair. “If you're going to cite Father Newman then cite Prometheus as well.”

Mary Elizabeth smiled. “Sister means we've been criticized, but that's nothing new. There's always been something a little illicit about educating
people, especially women. For years our simplicity was protective coloration—cloisters, high walls, habits—to cover what we were really doing.”

“Committing a crime?” Theophane asked cheerfully. “The first women composers were nuns. The orders sheltered them. And in the Middle Ages if you were fleeing an enemy you could run into a convent and claim sanctuary. And many people did. It's never been strawberries and cream, keeping the flame and all that.”

————

And so the sisters took me in, and now I have that commodity above price: a place to get up in the morning and go to.

————

“Opal?”

“I'm sorry, Sister. What did you say?”

“I asked if you were going to eat dinner with me tonight.”

“No, I'm going home to eat. Look, you've managed St. Theresa's Fine Arts Series for nine years, three programs a year, almost without a flaw. I really think everything will be all right.”

Theophane is not convinced. “I think I'll close up my office and see you in the morning.”

“And I'd better call my husband.”

————

“Howie?”

“Hi.”

“I'll be here another hour.”

“No problem.”

“Sister Theophane's upset. She's afraid the Suzuki kids will play out of tune.”

Howie likes Theophane, immediately takes sides. “Do you believe this guy really has fourteen prodigies?”

“Suzuki? He claims they aren't prodigies, just ordinary children taught by his method.”

“Baloney,” says Howie loyally. “Does Suzuki come with them?”

“No, he's too old to travel. He sends his assistant. Guess what the assistant's name is.”

“What?”

“Honda.”

“You made that up.”

At the far end of the cafeteria the serving line opens and the first boarding students drift in. At St. Theresa's the median age of students used to be nineteen. Today it is twenty-six. The numbers are weighted by part-time students, day students, evening students. Our oldest student is a woman of seventy-one who is studying art history.

————

“Opal, you're still here!” Winifred Orbison in blue jeans brings her brown bag dinner to my table. Thirty-seven, mother of two, political science major, she does not have time for music. “I can't get one damned person to picket O'Hare Saturday afternoon.”

“O'Hare?”

“A military air show. I can usually count on at least ten people, but everybody's going to hear those Japanese kids play. Opal, I don't mean to be rude but what the hell is your music going to be worth if they drop the bombs?” She eats her sandwich without tasting it. “Try a cookie. My daughter made them. She's twelve.”

“Delicious! Tell her I said so.”

“She cooks all the time, even bakes bread. She's four times smarter than I ever was. You should hear her father brag about her. Opal, the bombs scare the hell out of me. I tell people just to walk down that hall and look in the day nursery, just look in at those children and think about it. Have you ever done that?”

“Yes.”

“I have to run.”

————

Our day nursery is under the direction of Sister Angela. She is small and rosy with fluttering hands. She never tires of children. She wears a black tunic and slacks, sits on the carpet with small boys and girls while their mothers study. She charges one dollar an hour and insists on being paid promptly.

————

My last student cannot come in until after work, tonight has been asked to work overtime. Betty. Bluff, bright, eager, she just wants to see if
she can learn to play the violin. Last year she took a course in auto mechanics at the vocational school to see if she could learn to fix her own car. Betty has no sense of magic. “Count,” I say to her. “Three-four time is a waltz. Do you dance?”

“Not the waltz.”

I assign Beethoven's “Ode to Joy” in a student transcription, asking the music to do my job for me. “Five simple notes created the most glorious anthem the world has ever known.”

“Can't I play a woman composer?”

“Yes…of course.”

Cecile Chaminade's “Pas des Echarpes.” She plays it mechanically, taking great care with the chromatics, as she takes great care with everything. I have four Bettys this year. The number is down slightly from last year.

The pleasant aromas of food drift through the room. Hannah passes. “Hi, Mrs. Franklin.” A senior art student, she is graduating and being married in June. She has selected a china pattern, named her bridesmaids, asked me to play at her wedding.

“Hello, Mrs. Franklin.” Maria is in music education. With her pleasant soprano voice she will teach school children to sing. Her parents' divorce has left her skittish about boys. She budgets her money carefully, sews her own clothes.

“Staying for dinner tonight, Mrs. Franklin?” Carol is twenty-two, an unmarried mother. Her parents care for her little boy while she studies nursing.

They come together, a line of bright flowers, all the modes of a scale, unique and yet related in an important and special way. They are the women I have always known, eager to laugh, nearly as eager to cry, filled with swift enthusiasm, sharp sorrow, enormous hope.

I rise, pass through the double doors, and bump squarely into Sister Theophane who is now smiling. “I read through everything again. Three teachers travel with them. They tune. Apparently my friend didn't know that.”

“They don't need us, Sister. We're obsolete.”

Theophane sighs. “I think you're teasing, but I will be so very glad when you get over this fifty business.”

“Enjoy your dinner, Sister.”

In the silent hallway my footsteps echo as in a cathedral, past deserted classrooms to my teaching studio. I think ahead to dinner, stopping on the way home for shrimp, Howie's favorite. At the doorway of the nursery I pause and look in at pale sunlight falling across soft carpeting, abandoned toys returned to bright shelves, silent walls. Five plush animals sit neatly on a windowsill: two bears, a rabbit, one soft cat, a perky dog. Misshapen from much hugging, inexpressibly sad. It is a trick of the light, the pale Chicago light that will be gone in a moment.

“Mrs. Franklin! I'm so sorry I'm late. Are you coming?”

“Yes. Yes, I'm coming.”

Reginald McKnight

Idi, my very best friend here in Senegal, was suffering from a very strange eye malady. He didn't know precisely what had caused his usually quick, pebble eyes to swell, yellow, tear, and itch so. He'd gone to both doctors and
marabous
and they didn't know either. “All that I can say,” said Idi, “is that my eye sickness remind me very much of my Uncle Moustapha's eye sickness.” And at that he proceeded to tell me the story of his Uncle Moustapha M'Baye's eye “sickness”:

“This was a long, long time ago, Marcus. Before I even was born. My uncle live in a small, small village along the Gambian river near to Bassi Santa Su, call Sakaam. It is too, too hot there. You would not believe it, my friend. The sunshine is so heavy there that a man can reach his hand into the hot air and squeeze the sunshine like wet clay. The mosquito there can only walk and the baboons move like old men, in Sakaam.

“It was there my Uncle Moustapha live and work with his three
wives and seven children. He, it is say, was the finest peanut farmer in his whole village. He hardly never had a bad crop. When even there was too much rain, his crop was fair, and other farmers' much worse. And when the rains were thin, Uncle Moustapha always have plenty of rice for he save from the good years. This mean he was a very careful man. He was a hard worker, and very lucky. He had strong juju and was also a good Muslim.

“His only problem in life was that always, always he think about Death. He always think about Death most deeply on the night before his birthday. Now, you must understand, Marcus, that even when I was born thirty years ago, people did not know their birthdays. But Uncle Moustapha was very fond of many things in white culture. He like chocolate and watches, books and French bread. He like birthdays too, because my father tell me, he was a proud man and like the idea of having a personal day of celebration. So he begin keeping a birthday from the day his seventh child was born. He begin at the age of forty, and every year for twenty years, he keep the day of June seven as his birthday. This only add to his worry, for as we say here, Marcus, Death is birth and birth is Death.

“So on the eve night of his sixtieth birthday, he think about his death and he could not sleep. He lay in his hot room and no sound came to his ears. He wait with a numb heart for Death to enter any minute. He focus on nothing but the door, knowing that his final moments were upon him. He expect that soon, soon, a long, white hand would push the door open with no sound; that Death's face would be reveal to him and that he would be taken. He was not really afraid to die. Only he was very worry that his lazy brothers would not take good care of his wives and children. ‘The moment I see this door open,' he say, ‘I shall light a cigarette and smile at the old fool.' He feel for his cigarette and his matches. Upon coming into contact with both, he let his hand rest on them and say in a loud voice, ‘How do you do, Death? Do you care for a smoke? No, no we have time, you and I; have one…yes, yes, of course. I have plenty left. Have one with me…indeed, master, sit anywhere…. So how are you? Been busy lately?' This make him laugh, you see, but only for a brief moment. He choke back his laughter when he notice that he cause his wife to wake. ‘Why do you wake me?' she say.

“‘I wait for Death,' he say, ‘as always. My birthday is tomorrow, you remember.'

“‘Ah, you crazy man,' my Auntie say. ‘These whiteman ways make you too, too silly. To talk and laugh with yourself is madness. Madness, you hear? If you have no birthday, you have no fear of Death.'

“‘I do not have…'

“‘First it is chocolate which make you sick always. Then it is watch which make your wrist turn green. Then it is birthday which make you fear Death and ignore the courage that Allah give you. Then it is foolishness about sun…'

“‘It is eclipse, you old 'ooman. Eclipse. And it is true. There are a thousand of white men in Bassi Santa Su who wait for it. They say the sun shall disappear and I believe them. It will be tomorrow on my birthday. You shall see.'

“‘Dugga doff tropp,' she say, which mean my Uncle Mousse was a very crazy man. Auntie Fatima was my uncle's favorite wife, but not because she was always sweet to him, but because she always tell him the truth. His other wives always would smile at all his curious doings and hold out their hands for the
xallis.
Fatima love him the most, and she did not care for a man with a lot of
xallis.
She say when he was first having birthdays she did not mind much. She used to even sit up with him each night before his birthday and humor him. But through the many years, as you say, Marcus, no dice. It make her angry.

“So she say, ‘Dugga doff tropp,' to him and turn away to sleep. Uncle Moustapha only shrug, get up from bed and cross the room to where his clothes were. He reach into the pocket of his boubou and remove his watch. It was some minutes after midnight. He lay the watch on the floor and then say his prayers, thanking Allah with all his heart.

“‘Get up, old man' say Auntie Fatima. ‘Get up, I say.' It was morning. Uncle Moustapha open his eyes, but seem to see nothing as he always did in the mornings. His old bones were sore. He look about himself with his blind eyes and say, ‘Fatima, it is dark, yet. Why do you wake me?' Auntie Fatima look at him and say, ‘
Wyyo!
Did you not ask me to wake you at cock-crow? It is you who ask me to do this so that you may see this Sun foolishness.'

“‘Where did I put my watch?'

“‘I do not know where is this watch,' say Auntie and she leave the room.

“Uncle Moustapha leap from his bed and find his watch. It was six o'clock and some minutes in the morning. There was still plenty of time for him to get to Bassi Santa Su before the eclipse. He wash his body, had a breakfast of bread and bitter black coffee, and put on his best boubou. ‘Fati!' he say. Auntie Fatima return to the bedroom. ‘Fatima,' he say, ‘I will take my lunch in town today.'

“‘There is someone to see you, Mousse,' say Auntie.

“‘Why did you say nothing to me?'

“‘He came only this moment.'

“‘Who is this who comes here?' say my uncle, very angry. You see, he want no one to interfere with his trip to town on this most important day. ‘It is a white man' my Auntie say, ‘with many strange machines.'

“‘The name is Madison,' say the white man. And it seem he was a scientist interest in renting some of Uncle Moustapha's land to set up his machines and telescopes on. Uncle Mousse's land is green, green and beautiful as heaven. It is call the jewel of Sakaam, and I would not be surprise if Madison the white man want to stay at there because of its beauty, but he say instead that it was the perfect scientific place for him to view the eclipse because of all these scientific reasons. ‘How much may I give you, Mr. M'Baye?' say Madison. And he reach to his pocket for some money. Uncle Moustapha stop the white man's hand and say, ‘Wait, wait, wait! I want no money from you.' This shock Madison to make his green eyes stick out and his face turn red, red.

“‘But your land is perfect,' he say. ‘I need it. I will pay you any price.' Uncle Moustapha say no. This make Madison even more shock for he have never seen a black man refuse money, you see. ‘But I do not want this money,' say Uncle Mousse. ‘Please allow kindly, Mr. Madison, for me to view the eclipse with your machines.' Uncle Moustapha explain, that because it was his birthday, he must be allow to see this very special gift from Allah. Madison only shake my uncle's hand and smile a big, big smile.

“Time move slow, slow for the two men. The eclipse begin at eight o'clock and some minutes in the morning, and all the land and sky change
to a mysterious, curious haze. Like a pearl. Many people stay in their homes because this cloudless sky was becoming darker and darker. Uncle Mousse was singing and dancing inside himself because it was his personal day and a very strange important thing was happening. But like a true Wolof man, he was quiet and serious outside. He help Madison the white man assemble his equipment as Madison explain to him many things about telescopes, eclipses, etcetera. The sky grew darker. It became empty of birds and the land was quiet and golden green.

“Every few moments Uncle Mousse would turn his eyes up to the sky of haze to look at the Sun, but when Madison one time saw this, he say, ‘Mr. M'Baye, you must not look at the Sun. It is too dangerous. One could go blind from such a thing.' Uncle Moustapha say nothing, but he did as Madison say.

“When the machinery was prepare, my uncle and the white man take turns viewing the sun. Uncle Moustapha was astonish. Never did he see something like this in his life. Finally, the sky was as dark as early evening. ‘Happy birthday, Mr. M'Baye,' say Mr. Madison. My uncle was overjoy. This was his gift from Allah, a present from his ancestors. He shake Madison's hand and walk away very quickly to his home with the memory of the orange-black moonsun deep in his mind. ‘Fati,' he yell, ‘Fati! You must come go with me to our baobab tree.' This shock and surprise Auntie because Uncle Mousse never had interest in baobab tree or in the spirits of the old ones, though he respect them.

“So, anyway, he take Auntie Fatima and tell her all he saw and all what Madison had say him. They walk in the semidark to the great baobab tree of the M'Baye family. The baobab tree, as you must know, Marcus, is the great and huge upside-down tree in which, it is say, live the spirits of the village. The tree that belong to Sakaam (perhap you have seen it when we were there together) sits on the great knoll on the edge of the village very close to the river. It stands alone there; more alone than any tree or shrub or twig in the entire environs. The most remarkable thing about this baobab is the curious way it bows to the east. It resembles a faithful servant of Allah.

“Uncle move as if he were pull to the tree. He ran the last few meters, pulling Auntie along with him. Then he let go of her hand and threw himself
at the base of the tree. He say a silent prayer to himself and with his hands, grasp the enormous roots. Auntie Fati say it is as if the very touch of the tree make him feel a sudden power of the spirit, and cleaning of his heart and mind. He seem to empty his heart on the red soil under him as he begin to sing the ancient song of our ancestors.

Oh fathers. Oh Mother

Welcome to our hearts

You will bring us comfort

At the setting of the Sun.

“Of course, this strange behavior in my uncle did not too much surprise my Auntie Fatima because, as I say, she love him so much. She fall to her knees and say a prayer too. Then she rise when Uncle Moustapha rise and kiss him and say to him in English, ‘Fine birthday to you, crazy old man.'

“Ahh and then, Marcus, my uncle's senses at this moment became strongly, powerfully alive. His ears heard like a bat. He smelt the river and the earth and the rustling grass, the sweet, hot air. The smells about him were as strong as the smells of the ocean or a steaming bowl of
tjebugin.
His eyes took in everything—everything. He view each individual stalk of yellow-green grass, every twig, every pebble that sat on the ground. The twigs had made the earth look like to be an enormous patchwork boubou. The soft air touch him delicately as a smile. He turn slowly around—seeing, smelling, hearing everything no matter how small, small or subtle or obscure. And with not one moment of hesitation, he lift his face to the sky and stare directly into the eclipse with his both eyes wide open. He stand staring, unblinking, unflinching.

“He saw it all in supreme detail, as if his eye beams were like Madison's telescopes. He watch the burning moonsun, his birthday present from Allah, and Auntie Fatima watch his eyes knowing somehow that she must not disturb him. Uncle Mousse could see the eclipse more clearly, he later say to Auntie, than he could see them in Madison's machines. It was, you see, his eclipse. His eclipse!

“‘Mousse,' say Auntie to him. ‘Hey! Mousse. You say the white man say it is dangerous to look at this thing. Hey, Mousse. This is too dangerous.' She lead him to the bottom of the knoll. ‘Mousse,' say Auntie, ‘are you
fine?' Uncle Moustapha's eyes were close. He sense that it would be unwise to open them straightaway, though he knew that he could still see. The image of the eclipse was yet in his eyes. It became a lemon, now an emerald, now a circle of evening sky—deep blue, now a violet, a rose and then it fade into darkness. ‘Did you see it?' he whisper. ‘Did you see my eclipse?'

“‘No,' say Auntie. ‘You tell me on the way here to not look at it. Anyway, it is your gift, you crazy old man. Are you fine? Can you see?'

“‘What does it matter? I saw it. My own eclipse.'

“‘We must go, old man. You are hungry.'

“So, Marcus, they walk away from the hill. They did not look back. Soon, Moustapha open his eyes and look about him. The whole world was more beautiful to him than ever before. He tell his wife of all that he have seen before, during, and after the eclipse as they walk home. He was happy that he did not obey Madison.

“When they get to the family compound they saw Madison packing his equipment into his suitcases and Auntie ran to him and speak very fast, but he did not understand. He spoke no Wolof, you see. ‘Don't worry about my 'ooman, Mr. Madison,' say Uncle Mousse. ‘She is afraid for I look into the eclipse.' Madison almost pull out his hairs when my uncle say this for, as you know, my friend, it was dangerous. ‘You crazy man!' say Madison, ‘I say not to do this, but you do this. Why?'

“‘But I am not blind, Mr. Madison.'

“‘One does not have any difficulty seeing after looking directly at an eclipse for a few hours, or even days. You must go see a doctor.' But Uncle Mousse smile only and light a cigarette. He spoke to Madison in the manner of a great imam. ‘I will,' he say, ‘see today, tomorrow, and always. I have seen what no other living soul have seen today. No, Mr. Madison, no doctor for me.' So Madison finish packing his things, slip some money to Auntie Fatima and went away.