Kaleidoscope (8 page)

Anna's eyes brightened. “But then—what is it?” “His work,” said Madame Karitska. “It completely absorbs him. He—they?—something is being invented, something new. It consumes, excites him. There is a feeling of feverish research. Something new . . .” she repeated.

And dangerous,
but she did not add this. She returned the watch to the woman, not wanting to hold it a minute longer; it was too unsettling. “The important thing—what troubled you most, of course—is that there is no other woman. Absolutely no woman.”

Not even you,
she thought, but refrained from saying this. Instead, regarding her with compassion she added, “It would be sensible, would it not, if you found some work of interest to keep you occupied while he is so intensely involved?”

“Work?” She looked shocked. “But I haven't worked in years. I was a model before I married, but I would be too old, surely, for that. Why do you say this?”

“Because,” Madame Karitska told her carefully, “for the moment he has committed himself entirely elsewhere, and what better than to cultivate a life of your own?”

“But—”

“Volunteer work, perhaps? All your waking hours center on him, do they not?” Seeing her face turn sullen she made an appeal to her vanity. “Such worry and frustration will
age
you. Add lines to your face.”

She was vain enough for this to penetrate. “Age me?” she faltered.

“But enough,” said Madame Karitska, rising. “Think about it. Work is always good for the soul.”

Reluctantly the woman rose. “I just wish I could know what is so interesting, working in a small town in Maine like Denby.” She sighed but gave Madame Karitska a forced smile. “What do you charge?”

“I prefer to let my clients decide that.”

The woman reached into her purse, but so clumsily that a shower of memo notes fell out of it to the floor. After bending over to pick them up she placed a fiftydollar bill on the table. “And you're absolutely sure there's no other woman?”

“Absolutely,” Madame Karitska assured her.

“Then I thank you. Marjorie said . . . yes, I will believe you. I must.”

And she was gone. The taxi had waited—for a woman of such means a taxi would always wait, reflected Madame Karitska—and noticing a slip of paper on the floor she picked it up. It appeared to be a list for camping:
sleeping bag,
she read,
five kerosene
lamps, wood for fireplace, canned goods, water in gallonjugs . . .
It certainly didn't match the woman who had just left, but obviously it had dropped from her purse. She placed it on her bookcase, should the woman miss it and return for it. She glanced at the clock; she had no evening appointments and she had fifty dollars, more than she had expected for this day when added to the amount from her four clients of the morning.

With a decisive nod she pocketed the fifty-dollar bill, locked the door of her apartment, and set out for Sixth Street, a notorious neighborhood for anyone with a fifty-dollar bill, but she had been there before. She was heading for a certain hole-in-the-wall storefront with a sign that read HELP SAVE TOMORROW, and it was necessary to pass hustlers, drug dealers, glares, and a few whistles until she reached the shabby entrance with its peeling sign.

She entered to find Daniel Henry standing over a pile of T-shirts on the counter and sorting them. Over in a corner several small boys were looking over the few books in a bookcase. Glancing up, Daniel grinned his pleasure with a “Madame Karitska!” leaving her to reflect, not without humor, that on this street the “Madame” could easily be misunderstood.

Daniel was big and well-muscled and black; he was an ex-convict, and if she had told him that on the street one day as she passed his store a sense of his personality had caused her to pause, not even seeing him, and had drawn her inside to meet him, he would no doubt have thought her quite mad, when in fact she had never before sensed a man so dedicated to helping rescue the flock of sad, dangerous, and hopeless people he lived among. A local church contributed some money, but never enough.

“I've had a good week, Daniel,” she told him, and placed the fifty-dollar bill on his counter.

His mouth dropped open. “Madame Karitska—”

She laughed. “Not again! I've told you, I've many times in my life gone hungry for want of money.”

His broad scarred face beamed at her. “Hard to believe.”

“Believe!” she said, and as she returned to the door he followed and shouted, “Hey, you guys, let her pass, you hear? She's a
lady
.”

With a feeling that Anna's fifty dollars had been well placed, she strolled back to Eighth Street. The sun had begun its descent behind the taller buildings of the city, and the sky was fading into gray. It had been a surprisingly busy day, and she could look forward now to meditating, to savoring her dinner of
tajine
, and she might listen to Bach, or perhaps tonight she would choose Edith Piaf.

6

Madame Karitska had begun to notice the new family that had moved in across the street from her. The father was seen only rarely, when he returned in his work clothes from whatever job paid for their rent and food. The mother did a great deal of fussing over a pretty little girl about seven years old. There was a boy, too, but little attention seemed to be paid to him; he was younger, perhaps five or six, and the few times that Madame Karitska had seen the three of them go out together in the morning the boy still occupied a stroller, never smiled, and appeared simply to stare straight ahead of him with no expression at all. The girl was vivacious and skipped happily beside her mother, always with a bright ribbon in her dark hair, but she too ignored her brother in the stroller. To Madame Karitska the boy's being conveyed in a stroller at his age seemed odd, and she wondered if perhaps his legs were deformed, but she was accustomed to this automatic awareness of others without allowing it to be more than idle curiosity.

At least until the woman knocked on her door sharply that noon when Madame Karitska was fortunately between clients . . . or had the woman watched the house, she wondered, waiting for someone other than Kristan or herself to leave? She was a small woman with fierce black eyes, wearing a long and dusty black dress under a cardigan with several buttons missing.

She said at once, defiantly, “No
danaro
. . . no money, I cannot pay, you help peoples?”

Obviously she was on the edge of hysteria, or certainly desperate. “Come in,” Madame Karitska told her gently. “Tell me what I can do for a neighbor of mine. Forget the money.”

“Sì? Grazie,”
she said in a softer voice, and followed Madame Karitska inside.

Her accent was thick; Madame Karitska insisted on reheating and bringing her a cup of coffee, the woman following her into the kitchen, too distraught to sit and wait in the living room. They were new here, she said, from a small village in Italia, and her son did not
parlare
—talk, she corrected herself, and her husband had taken Luca to
il dottore
at the clinic, who said— and here tears rose to her eyes—“he said Luca is auto-something and should—must be—what is word, put away?”

“Now that is very sad,” agreed Madame Karitska, leading her back into the living room and pouring coffee for her. “Please sit down. Was the word he used
autistic
and the other word
institution
?”

She nodded vigorously. “
Per favore,
can you heal? Like
il dottore
? I hear things, you are
simpatica
?”

Knowing very little Italian Madame Karitska guessed that the woman hoped for the impossible, and yet she had seen the child from across the street, so impassive, so stoic and yet strangely attractive, and she admitted to curiosity, as well as to pity for his distraught mother, who cared. She said, “His name is Luca?”

“
Sì.
Luca Cialini.”

Madame Karitska nodded. “I would have to see him,” she said, “and see him
here
.” She waved a hand at her living room.

The woman poured out words in alarm, from which Madame Karitska deduced that her husband must not know; it would have to be
segreto
.

“Secret?” suggested Madame Karitska.

The woman nodded vigorously. “He say Luca has
maledire
,” and when this met with a blank and questioning response she scowled, searching for a word. At last, “curse,” she blurted out.

Madame Karitska said, “Nonsense,” and feeling that she had just about exhausted the little Italian she knew, she reached for pencil and paper and drew a clock for her. “
Domani . . .
in morning? Saturday morning?” And she drew two lines in the circle denoting nine o'clock.

The woman brightened. “
Bene
—good,” she said with relief.
“Grazie. Grazie mille,”
and putting down her cup of coffee she rose, nodding, smiling, and was escorted to the door, so radiant with hope that Madame Karitska winced.

The next morning she waited for the family with some anticipation, but when the door opened across the street only Mrs. Cialini and the boy emerged. The mother struggled with the stroller, placed Luca in it, and carefully wheeled it across the street. “So—no father, ” murmured Madame Karitska, this man who believed his son cursed, and opened the door to them; the stroller was left in the hall and Mrs. Cialini carried her son inside to the couch, where he sat staring at the books lining the wall, and then at Madame Karitska, still without expression. His face was well formed, framed by a crop of curly black hair, his eyes wide and fringed with long lashes, but there was no hint of curiosity in them, not even when Madame Karitska sat down beside him on the couch and gently reached for one of his hands, a technique that she rarely used but in this case the only one possible, since no toy had accompanied him; there was only himself. It needed time . . . more time than holding an object that he loved, if he possessed any. He certainly showed signs of neglect, and she wondered if he had been abused— as if neglect in itself was not abuse—and it was necessary for her to close her eyes to shield herself from the boy's mother, who sat on the opposite couch, leaning forward with eagerness, and watching closely.

Very slowly impressions surfaced and grew, until abruptly Madame Karitska removed her hand from his, startled. The boy's eyes met hers for a moment and—incredibly—she thought he looked amused.

She said softly, “He lives in a strange world.” When the mother opened her mouth to speak, Madame Karitska signed to her to be silent while she regarded the child thoughtfully. After a few minutes she went to the telephone and dialed the number of the Settlement House, where Jan worked on Saturday mornings, and asked to speak with her.

“Marina, what a surprise,” said Jan.

“You're busy, I know,” she told her, “but I wonder if—this noon, or after your work ends—you could come and confirm . . . I have a small boy here who has never talked, quite neglected, his name is Luca. I'd like to know what impressions
you
receive psychically.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Jan.

“I'd guess he's about six years old,” continued Madame Karitska. “An Italian family. The mother doesn't speak much English. I don't know about the husband, but it could be difficult.”

“Not really,” said Jan cheerfully. “You're forgetting that I spent my junior year at college in Italy. I'm not great but I'm good enough to be resident translator at the Settlement House.”

“I
had
forgotten,” admitted Madame Karitska. “I've one other request. In your children's day school you have what I can only describe as an electric keyboard, a laptop piano the children play music on?”

“You bet. Good idea—it's a rare child who doesn't react to music. So I'll be leaving at noon and come directly,” promised Jan, “and hope your mysterious small boy can be there by half past the hour.”

“My fervent thanks, Jan,” and hanging up the phone Madame Karitska returned to a frightened mother. “It's all right,” she told her soothingly. “Your son interests me very much, and I've asked a friend to come and see Luca later today. Please? At—” Again she drew a clock and sketched in the hour with lines.

She was not comforted. “My husband no like,
no.
”

“He must come, too,” Madame Karitska told her sternly. “If he does not come we will cross the street and
make
him come. This is his
son
, is he not?”

“But you tell me nothing,
nothing.
”

Madame Karitska smiled. “I say this—
no
institution for Luca.”

The woman brightened. “Dear God, a
miracolo
?” and for a moment Madame Karitska feared that she would kiss her hands. To avoid this she helped her lift Luca into his stroller.

“Tell me,” she said, “can Luca walk at all? His legs . . .” She pointed to them. “Yes? No?”

His mother looked suddenly mischievious in the glance she gave her, and much younger. “When Mario go,” and her voice was conspiratorial, “Luca
passeggiata
.” She thought a minute and then, “He take steps.” Abruptly her face saddened. “But Mario, I think he want not even—” She broke off and Madame Karitska watched her push the stroller down the steps and across the street.
Not even to live,
thought Madame Karitska. A serious business, and upsetting, and she returned to her kitchen to rescue her spinach quiche from the oven before her next client arrived.

At quarter past twelve Jan's car drew up to the brownstone, and Madame Karitska went out to meet her, considerably cheered by the sight of her. She was currently wearing her pale blond hair long, and it charmingly framed her piquant face; she was also, Madame Karitska noted, carrying the long toy piano board under one arm, and a book in the other.

“My Italian dictionary,” she explained, handing the latter to her. “Just in case. What's it all about, Marina?”

“That,” she said, “is what I hope we can find out,” and led her inside. “The child is without schooling and virtually an invalid, and yet, and yet . . .” Glancing out the window, “They come now, and thank heaven the father is coming, too.”

“Not happily,” said Jan, looking over her shoulder. “And the child in a stroller? Why doesn't he carry him for her?”

“Apparently,” said Madame Karitska, “he doesn't care to even touch him.” He did indeed look furious, his wife submissive but yearning, the boy as passive as usual. Jan at once went out to help pull the stroller up the steps, and the three of them entered, the father grudgingly.

“I not like this, my wife make trouble for us,” he said, his English superior to hers. “The boy is not good in the head, he is nothing.
Malo.
Evil.”

“This is Jan,” said Madame Karitska calmly, “and your wife is very upset about sending Luca away; surely you know this?”

He shrugged. “A man needs a son who will work one day, can walk, talk, earn his living. He is
diverso
. Different. She will not listen.”

Madame Karitska gave him a curt glance and told them to sit down, and with a nod to Jan she went into the kitchen to bring out a pot of coffee. When she returned, Jan was holding the child's hand and smiling at him and he was staring at her without expression. To prevent the parents from speaking she gave them each a slice of cake and a cup of coffee, and sat down to watch.

Jan's face was showing a growing astonishment. “It's like . . . like . . .” and to his parents, “You say he never talks, but does he make sounds?”

His mother shrugged. “He will sometimes . . .” She struggled for a word. “Like a bumblebee?”

Jan nodded, and walked over to the keyboard that she'd already plugged into an electrical outlet, and placed it on the child's lap. Grasping one of his fingers she pressed it to a key, and at the sound of the musical note the change was astonishing. A sense of blissful wonder swept over his face; he moved his finger to the next key and then to the next; a little melody developed and then a second finger joined the first to make a chord, and his face was pure delight. Kneeling beside the boy Jan lifted her gaze to his parents and said, “He has been making music in his head—in his
head
, silently, and it's . . . it's . . .”

The father made a face. “So? What is that mean, he is
pazzo
—crazy?”

“No,” Madame Karitska told him, “gifted.” And to Jan, “When I got through to him this morning he was singing every word of John Painter's ‘Once in Old Atlantis.' Silently.” And to the mother, “You have a radio?”

“S
ì
—sì.”

Jan said dryly, “I can top that, Marina, he paid no attention to me, he was busy constructing what I swear were chords from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Near the end of it, when it rises higher and higher, a part I love.” Placing the child's hands on the keyboard again, “Can you say the word
music
?”

The boy looked at his father in terror, but Jan pressed his finger harder.
“Music.”

His lips contorted, moved, and with effort he said, “Mooick.”

There was silence until his father said angrily, “What is this you do? Look at him,” he said accusingly, “he is cursed, I tell you. Evil. Rosetta said any son of mine—” He burst into Italian, passionately waving his hands, the only understandable word
Rosetta
, recurring over and over, while Jan looked more and more shocked.

“My God,” she murmured, and when he faltered she said, “Rosetta Dellaripa . . . in the small mountain town where they lived she was a
strega
—a witch.”