An Unfinished Score Part 12

When he opens the door to his h.e.l.l's Kitchen shop, Doug greets her with his full ba.s.s voice. "Don't tell me there's a problem with the bow. My work is always perfect."

"It's kind of embarra.s.sing, but I'm here for your other talent. I need you to look into your crystal ball, or whatever it is you do."

He puts a hand on her shoulder, looking down to make direct eye contact. "That's not nice, my dear. It's not quackery, and it's not magic. I guess you could call it emotion theory, but really it's about music. Go on back. I'm going to step out for a quick smoke while you tune."

Alone in the crowded repair room, Suzanne strokes her viola, tightens the E string, rosins her bow. She notes the soreness under the calluses of her finger pads from playing more than usual. She needs to take a couple of light days before the Black Angels Black Angels performance. performance.

When Doug returns smelling of fresh cigarette, he takes a seat on a stool, crosses his long legs, places his hands palm up in his lap, closes his eyes, nods his readiness.

Suzanne almost laughs and tells him he's taking his new vocation too seriously, but she stops before she speaks. She wants him to take it seriously. This is her life: the concerto is the story of her past, the reality she lives in now, the possible ruin of her future. There's nothing at all funny about being here. Being here may save her life, which, when she closes her eyes, she envisions as ancient ruins crumbling in a stony Irish field. She inhales as deeply as her lungs allow and plays the solo voice all the way through, pausing in silence between the first and second movement and again between the second and third. After she plays the last falling note, she smiles because she has never played the composition better. The concerto almost comes together, the answer to its riddle on the tip of her tongue.

"I'll save you a little trouble," she says to break the silence. "He's contemporary. Trained in performance more than in composition. Favorite composers Bach and Brahms, though with wide-ranging tastes, except not a fan of serial music."

"I could have told you all that." Doug grins, but his mouth falls back into the downward tug of the rest of his face, and the corner of one eye twitches. "But this is a tough one. Really tough. Shostakovich's last work was his Sonata for Viola, and everyone always says that's fitting because of the viola's timbre, because it's so melancholic. But this, wow, no simple melancholia."

Suzanne paces along the back wall, examining the instruments and bows set out for repair. The light coming through the barred windows is striped, giving the room an oddly modern look. It is like looking at a new photograph of an old place.

"Many contradictory impulses. A lot of emotion, that's for certain." Doug rubs his forearm as he looks at her. "A lot of negative emotion mixed in, but not simply sadness."

Suzanne's rib cage contracts, an internal wince that she fears shows on her face. Sadness at my absence Sadness at my absence, her mind's voice insists.

"The composer was confused. There's pa.s.sion but also a lot of anger. A serious wound there, but there's control, too, a kind of patience. Brilliant but a bit of the overestimation of the autodidact. You said he wasn't trained in composition?"

Suzanne nods. "But he was trained in music."

"So many broken rules. I'm not sure this is someone I would ever want to meet."

His reading stings as Suzanne hears its truth. The childhood cuts that Alex's ascendancy sealed off but didn't heal. His love sometimes mixing with an anger that turned him cold. His self-a.s.surance bleeding into sheer narcissism at his most manic. His vast musical learning telling him that he could compose without specialized theoretical training.

Fonder memories of Alex rise in her, drowning out the difficult man Doug has described. Alex with his hands in her hair and a smile beginning to curl his lips. Alex walking down Sixth Avenue eating an unlikely icecream cone in midwinter, the prop turning the serious, distinguished man into someone playful. Alex leaning back into a stack of pillows, reading a book in silence but still tapping his foot. Alex weeping openly over a wasted half hour of a weekend in Seattle, now irretrievable. Alex with his baton, about to set loose a perfectly prepared orchestra on an audience.

"No," she says.

"I could be wrong. I don't often say that, you know, but this really is a tough one. Very hard to decipher, not a straightforward person at all. It's not another collaboration, is it?"

She shakes her head, rueful.

"So who is it? You know?"

It surprises her to realize there is no reason to lie. "Alexander Elling," she says, starting to add, "the conductor" and "Chicago" and "who died."

"I know who the h.e.l.l he is," Doug interrupts her, his goofy grin winning out again. "I didn't know he composed."

Suzanne returns her viola and bow to their case, fastening the locks with a close attention unwarranted by a manual task she has completed thousands of times. "No one did except his wife, apparently. There's only this piece, and she's asked me to arrange it. He started to orchestrate it, but there's some stuff left to be written. For the life of me, I can't quite get a hold of it."

"So you came to me as a last resort?"

"Something like that. I thought you could give me some insight into him, or at least the part of him that he put into the composition. Please don't be mad at me. I really couldn't take it right now."

"Don't take this the wrong way, okay?" His deep voice pauses, and he waits for her to answer by meeting his kind eyes and nodding. "Don't take this the wrong way because I think you are as beautiful as ever-maybe more so because I've always gone in for the anemic look. Remember that girl Helen, the one I went loopy for? But you look tired to the bone. I thought you were going to fall down while you were playing." He stands behind her, hands pressing down into her shoulders. "I'm going to buy you a sandwich, fries and milkshake not optional, and then I'm going to put you on the train, and you're going to go straight home and sleep all the way through until tomorrow."

She nods her compliance, her relief. Since Alex died and Petra regressed, no one has taken care of her. Once, early in their courts.h.i.+p, she asked Ben if he took her for granted, and he said he did. "Isn't it a good thing to be counted on?" he asked, waiting for her to say yes.

Exhausted, she tries to sleep through the trip home, but she is bombarded by cell-phone talkers, by music she doesn't like seeping around cheap earphones, by the intercom announcements of train cars and stops. For a moment she envies Adele; in the next she castigates herself for the thought. Better to hear everything than nothing-just ask Beethoven, Faure, Boyce, Vaughan Williams.

On the walk home from the d.i.n.ky, Suzanne takes the slightly longer route down Witherspoon, stopping at the little market, ducking in under the "Wire money to Mexico" banner to splurge on a tamarind soda for Adele.

Twenty-one.

On Sunday Suzanne and Petra help Adele get ready for Ben's concert. Adele turns from her closet holding a dress in each hand, eyebrows raised. Petra points to the lavender dress, Suzanne to the dark blue one. Adele looks uncertain-a child who likes to please others caught in a bind. With her hands occupied, language is only in her facial expression.

"Actually," Suzanne signs, "the lavender one is perfect."

Adele smiles her relief and dresses. She sits on the bed between Suzanne's knees. Suzanne brushes and gathers her hair, cupping it in her left hand in a loose ponytail as she brushes with her right, releasing the honey smell of baby shampoo. Suzanne is looking not at the silky hair but at the swell of bone behind Adele's left ear-the place the surgeon will puncture with a loud drill, boring a hole straight through, a procedure during which a small error would be devastating. Suzanne's stomach retracts to a tight pit. No wonder Petra took so long to decide.

Suzanne tips her head to kiss the precise spot where the drill will enter Adele's lovely egg-shaped skull. After she secures the ponytail, she spins Adele by the shoulders and signs, "You'll look absolutely beautiful as soon as you brush your teeth!"

"That's the part I part I always forget." Petra leans into Suzanne and waits until Adele leaves the room to say, "Tell me again that it's going to be all right." always forget." Petra leans into Suzanne and waits until Adele leaves the room to say, "Tell me again that it's going to be all right."

"It's going to be all right," Suzanne says steadily, though the tight circle of her stomach quivers as it releases with her breath.

"And you'll be there for Adele no matter what I do."

"You sound like you have a one-way ticket somewhere."

Petra looks up, alarmed. "I would never leave her, not that. I don't ever even think that, not even for a second."

Suzanne runs her hand down Petra's hair, a thicker, lighter version of Adele's, just as silky.

"But I'm not a nice person. I could do something awful that would make you hate me, and that would be terrible for Adele."

"Petra, you've done lots of awful things, and I never hate you."

Petra's laugh is a small snort. "True. But promise me you'll always love Adele."

"I've already promised you that. The promise is still good."

Once Adele is ready, they walk down Leigh Avenue and turn up Wither-spoon, walking in their dresses in front of Princeton's most run-down rentals and then the little market. A man standing in the doorway says, "Que bella!" "Que bella!" as they walk by, and Suzanne nods at him. Across from the new library, they stop at the bakery for brioche. Petra chooses a chocolate-walnut stick. Adele points to a round brioche with a peach half as its center. Suzanne serves herself a cup of coffee from one of the large thermoses. The sound of the coffee flowing into the cup is rea.s.suring, a reminder that the laws of physics are still in place. She breathes its rich-smelling steam before securing the lid. as they walk by, and Suzanne nods at him. Across from the new library, they stop at the bakery for brioche. Petra chooses a chocolate-walnut stick. Adele points to a round brioche with a peach half as its center. Suzanne serves herself a cup of coffee from one of the large thermoses. The sound of the coffee flowing into the cup is rea.s.suring, a reminder that the laws of physics are still in place. She breathes its rich-smelling steam before securing the lid.

Twenty minutes later they enter Richardson Auditorium holding hands, Adele between Suzanne and Petra, and take their seats near the back of the main floor. Suzanne is surprised: more seats are occupied than empty, even in the balcony. Scanning the audience, she recognizes a few of Ben's a.s.sociates and some friends from Elizabeth's parties, Daniel with Linda, Anthony with Jennifer. Mostly, though, the crowd is the anonymous audience a musician desires: people who have come to listen to the music.

A few more arrive. Ben and Kazuo take their center seats. The musicians file onstage-an orchestrated entrance-stand in place, then sit en ma.s.se en ma.s.se. The lights dim. Hush spreads.

Suzanne watches Adele as the music begins. A deaf child at a concert many adults couldn't sit through, she looks not bored but rapt. Her chest rises and falls slowly with her deep breathing, and her eyes open fully to take in the darkened scene. Since she was a baby Adele has been a serious watcher of people-so serious that her only lapse in etiquette, seemingly ever, is this tendency to stare.

Suzanne presses her small hand between her own, but she distances herself by closing her eyes and giving herself over to the auditory world that is shut to Adele. Something Alex often said when she called him at an unexpected time and asked if it was okay: I am all ears I am all ears.

Suzanne listens. She has heard Ben discuss the composition, and she has heard individual lines and pieces, but she has not attended a rehearsal and has never heard the music as a whole. Now its surprising beauty saturates her. There is no experiment for experiment's sake any longer, no exclusion of the audience, yet Ben and Kazuo have invented something. They have not abandoned history, nor have they simply reclaimed it; they have extended music's long, fascinating past into the new.

As she listens to the fugue, she remembers what Doug guessed about the composer of the music: emotionally restrained but not without effort. Someone who uses intellect to translate emotion. Fair-minded but stubborn and sometimes blinded by it. A deep point of pain. Someone not unhappy with how his life has turned out, though maybe only because he expected no more.

Maybe, she thinks, but what she mostly hears is the thing she values most in the world: perfect music. She sees colors with her eyes closed, mostly blue and purple but also orange, red, green, white. The music sounds beautiful, looks beautiful, is beautiful. It holds her, and when it comes to its end, she doesn't understand why she was deaf to it before. All of Ben's promise and talent are still there. For a moment she understands that it is worth everything to have this music in the world, whether the world wants it or not.

Deaf to. She opens her eyes, kisses Adele's temple. Adele is smiling and indeed looks to Suzanne as though she, too, is suffused by the music she cannot hear, as though she, too, has rediscovered the meaning of what they do, the reason they live and work and live lives that others think are strange.

Adele wriggles her hand, and Suzanne realizes she has been holding it too tight. She remembers Evelyn Glennie, deaf since the age of twelve, playing percussion barefoot in order to feel the music. And those case studies, those deaf people whose brain waves when listening to music mimic the patterns of the hearing, perhaps because they sense a percentage of the sound through their skin. Adele and Suzanne raise their hands to clap simultaneously. Suzanne leans back to tell Petra, again and this time sure of it, that everything is going to be all right, that Adele has the ability to hear music at least in her mind.

But she halts her voice when she sees Petra staring ahead stone-like, tears jagging her face. She is looking not at Adele but still at the stage, her expression illegible save for the tears, which Suzanne cannot interpret.

The applause in the auditorium is heavy, even ecstatic, but Petra's hands remain in her lap.

The reception on campus is Kazuo's doing, but Ben has agreed to go. He seems even to be enjoying the attention, at least a little. He seems lighter, a weight lifted like a stone from atop his head, and his smile comes more readily. From across the room, Suzanne sees him shake hands, nod in response to pa.s.sing comments, make conversation with Anthony, with Daniel, with people from the music department. He accepts Petra's quick hug. Suzanne holds her distance, supervising Adele as she scours the refreshments, getting her to eat a sandwich half and some fruit before she raids the selection of pet.i.ts fours.

"Congratulations," she says to Daniel and Linda as they approach.

"I know it's fast," Linda says, "but we're in love, and I'm getting too old to wait."

"You're not anything old," Daniel says, putting his arm around Linda's slim shoulders.

Anthony joins them, saying, "So that was very good, and very well-received." He's surveying the room, nodding approval, comforted by success.

Suzanne discovers that she is smiling, perhaps over their shared surprise that the music was obviously appreciated.

It is late in the day when Suzanne finally tells Ben what she thinks. She leaves out the fact that she was surprised, saying, "Don't be insulted by this because I don't mean beautiful in any kind of simple or stupid way, but it was absolutely beautiful."

"Or beautifully absolute?" He is smiling, playing with his words, staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as he parts her blouse. "Did you really think I'd be insulted if you called my music beautiful?"

"You never know."

He grabs her wrist as she reaches for the light switch, tells her he wants to see her standing naked. He strips her and walks around her in a circle before lifting her, completely, and carrying her to the bed. He kisses her mouth, stomach, legs, back, arms. When he pauses, just for a moment, he lingers at her ear and whispers, "It's beautiful because I composed it for you. I don't care what those other people think. It's you I wanted to like it."

She tries to make her sobbing silent. She does not want him to ask her why she is crying because she could not explain it. Ben kisses the tears on her face, her crying mouth, but he asks nothing, says nothing, and when they are done they fall asleep hard.

It is just dawn when they are awakened by a ringing phone. Suzanne bolts up, thinking, Olivia Olivia, grabbing a robe so she can hurry down the hall to answer first. But Petra has already risen to answer it and is calling, "It's for you, Ben. Some woman."

Suzanne throws down the robe and puts on jeans and a tee-s.h.i.+rt. She uses the bathroom, brushes her hair and teeth. If this is it, she does not want to be undressed. She feels each step as she walks to the living room, which is suffused in dawn's pinkish gray light as the streetlight in front of the house clicks itself off. She hears the phone receiver set down in its cradle, the sound of her husband crying.

This is the first time she has heard him cry, ever.

She sits next to him on the sofa, lightly places her hand on the back of his head, trying to fas.h.i.+on words to explain, if indeed it was Olivia who triggered his tears. "Ben," she whispers.

He turns into her, wetting her s.h.i.+rt with his tears. She waits, stroking and holding his head. "Ben," she says again with her breath.

"It's Charlie," he says when he lifts away from her.

Her loud and involuntary response brings Petra back to the room. "Are you-" she begins, but she backs away when she sees them.

Twenty-two.

While Petra takes Adele to school, Ben and Suzanne sit at the table with their coffee, Suzanne with a bowl of cereal. She has given Ben a plate with sliced banana and red globe grapes, figuring maybe he can eat fruit, but he pushes even that aside. He tells her she doesn't have to go to the funeral.

"I want to," she says, meaning it, "but my contract is pretty unforgiving, and performance night is almost here. I'm going to talk to Anthony. I want to come."

Today the quartet breaks from preparing the Black Angels Black Angels and works on the Haydn quartet it will play during the concert's first half. Sometimes Suzanne regrets advocating for the piece; at other times it feels right. Today it feels like shelter, a building she knows and needs, a place to be. and works on the Haydn quartet it will play during the concert's first half. Sometimes Suzanne regrets advocating for the piece; at other times it feels right. Today it feels like shelter, a building she knows and needs, a place to be.

The quartet plays well, each of them and the four together. It is one of those days on which years of practice distill into a clean energy and the work seems easier than it is. When the last notes are played, rehearsal disbanded, and her viola back in its case, the shock and sadness of Charlie's death return, streaming into the whirlpool of Suzanne's other emotions-her grief for Alex, her fear of Olivia, her delight at Ben's successful premiere, her sorrow that his moment of triumph was undercut so immediately by his brother's death.

When Suzanne talks to Anthony, he proves surprisingly human: he tells her she should go to Charleston, practice schedule be d.a.m.ned.

"If I missed a family funeral," he says, moving their stands to the wall, leaving the room in the condition they promised, "Jennifer would have me bullwhipped in Palmer Square."

Suzanne picks up the water bottle Petra has left by her chair and sets it by her purse. "So you know that about her?"

"More than anyone, believe me." He brushes his trousers with the palms of his hands, wiping off chalk and rosin dust. "Which isn't to say that I'm unhappily married. We all have our arrangements-give up this to get that. I know you guys don't like her, but Jennifer helps make me who I am, and I love her for it."

"Thank you, Anthony."

"Don't tell anyone I'm going soft. I wouldn't send you off if we weren't ready for the performance, and I don't want Petra and Daniel thinking they have a license to sleep all day."

Petra is lurking outside and startles Suzanne as she emerges from the subterranean practice room. The day is overcast but weirdly bright, and the buildings and trees are gray outlines against a metallic sky.

"Is he all right?" she asks.

"Yeah, he's being great, actually. Told me to go to the funeral."

"No, Ben. Is Ben all right?"

Suzanne shrugs. "I suppose. Inasmuch as he's ever all right." She is thinking that he cried in front of her for the first time, wondering if it will be the only time. It has made her want to protect him, even from Petra's curiosity.

"Tell him I'm sorry." Petra hugs her suddenly.

Suzanne steps back and hands Petra her discarded water bottle. "You can tell him."

"Sorry for you, too. I know you liked Charlie a lot."

When they get home, she tells Petra she's going to lie down for a few minutes and then pack a bag for Charleston, but instead she searches for the sh.e.l.l that Charlie gave her at Folly Beach. She is surprised when she remembers that she put it in her box of Alex mementos. Her box of souvenirs has become a coffin, containing reminders of only the dead.