Duet for Three Hands (19 page)

“I suppose.” He noticed Whitmore glance at Jeselle. The girl kept her head down and went through the door to the kitchen.

Clare’s face was neutral, but her fingers clutched the hem of the tablecloth. “Have you boys read any good books lately?”

“Why, Mother,” Frances said, smirking, “how come you don’t ask me that question?”

Clare smiled, but her eyes remained dull. “I know you don’t have time to read novels, Frances.”

“I read a beautiful story in the
New Yorker
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He went to Princeton,” Whitmore said, trailing off.

Frank gave his son a blank look and nodded to Jeselle as she came into the room. “Bring me another whiskey.”

“Nate met him once, didn’t you, darlin’?” said Frances. She looked at Whitmore, a bit triumphantly, Nathaniel thought. “Did you know that, Whit?” Frances’s eyes slithered back to Nathaniel. “Tell them how he was there with his wife, Zelda.” She paused for a quick breath. “She’s simply one of the most fashionable women in the world.”

Nathaniel cut a piece of his beef. “I believe he’s a drunk. As I recall they were both more than a little tight the night I met them.”

A look of anger passed over Frances’s face before she covered it up with a polite, stiff smile. “Not that part, darlin’. Tell how they fell all over themselves to come backstage and meet you. Wasn’t that the first night you played Carnegie Hall?”

A silence came over the table, like the fog that crept in over the lake. One didn’t see it coming, but suddenly it was there, hovering, encasing everything with a cold, murky chill. Nathaniel felt the familiar constriction in his chest. Whitmore gazed at his hands resting in his lap, the flush on his face gone, replaced with a disheartening paleness. The tablecloth covering Clare’s hands swayed. The only sound was Frank chewing what must have been a particularly tough piece of meat.

Finally, Clare broke the silence, her voice careful, light, “Regardless of Fitzgerald’s personal problems, the man is a beautiful writer. I’m sorry to hear of his troubles.”

Frances tossed her hair. “I saw his photograph in the society section of the
Times
the other day. It was right next to a picture of Ginger Rogers.” She smiled at Frank. “One of the girls at the beauty shop says I look just like her. Do you think so?”

“Who’s that now?” asked Frank.

“Oh, Daddy, you’re awfully funny.” Frances giggled.

Nathaniel put down his fork, glancing at his wife. “To answer your question, Frances, it wasn’t my first time at Carnegie. But it was the pinnacle of my career.”

He spoke flatly, as if simply reporting facts. “I played the Brahms
B-flat
that night. It takes almost fifty minutes to perform, took me six months to learn. The first movement is nearly twenty minutes, nineteen to be exact, and then a difficult scherzo, played appassionato.”

Frances brushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes. “Yes, but what did they say to you?”

“Who?” he asked.

“F. Scott and Zelda. What did y’all talk about?” asked Frances.

He hesitated, deciding if he should answer or not. “He’s a writer, of course, and thus interested in the story of the Brahms piece. He asked me about it, and I told him that Brahms wrote it out of anger, you see, because his previous concerto was performed terribly by a woman pianist. The story goes that Brahms vowed he would write a concerto no woman could ever play. It’s believed that a woman’s hands are too small for the span and rapidity of the notes.” He paused, his voice husky with emotion. Whitmore watched him closely from across the table. “Whether the story’s true or not, it’s a piece that only the finest pianists in the world can master. Fewer than you could count on one hand.”

“But you mastered it, isn’t that right, Nate?” asked Whitmore. “No one can ever take that away from you.”

“I don’t much care for critics,” said Nathaniel. “Used to make a practice of never reading reviews. Hated to have them in my head. But Walt, my manager, insisted he read me the reviews from the early edition papers. One of them called it ‘flawless’ and ‘unusual for a pianist only thirty years old.’ I’ve kept those words close over the years, as a consolation.”

Clare reached across the table and squeezed his forearm. Whit’s face looked both stricken and sympathetic.

“Now, Whit, don’t look like that,” said Nathaniel. “You must remember, I’ll always have the memory to draw upon.”

He could recall the night as if it were yesterday, instead of eight years ago. The crowd fell silent, no rustling of programs or stirrings that made chairs creak. He heard them listening, felt them with him at every note. They were at ease, confident in his ability. He’d known then that he was a master of the craft; it was there, unmistakable, in the relaxed silence of a rapturous audience. The months and months of practicing faded from his memory, and he was left with just the feeling of the triumph.

“Sorry darlin’,” Frances said now, playing with her necklace, “but that’s just about the boringest story I ever heard. You must be the only man alive who can meet the Fitzgeralds and come away with a story about a dead composer.”

T
he morning after Christmas
, in the downy softness of the guest room bed, Nathaniel awakened from the edges of a long, familiar nightmare. The man, a knife slicing down the center of a piano, the clanging of bells. He jerked awake, guilty, sweaty. Stifling a groan, he rubbed his eyes. The clock on the bedside table told him it was quarter after nine. How many drinks was it last night, he wondered? He hadn’t bothered to count. Frank Bellmont did that to a person.

The room felt cold, which was a relief to his overheated skin. He breathed deeply and rubbed his burning eyes before turning a bleary gaze to the painting hanging on the wall. Frances at two years old smiled at him. She wore a white dress, and blonde ringlets framed an angelic face. Where had that little girl gone?

Dishes clanged downstairs in the kitchen. It smelled like his mother’s home on Saturday mornings: bacon and rising bread. He dressed in a freshly ironed shirt and pants, then sat on the wooden chair in the corner of the room, floorboards cold on his bare feet. He bowed his head, as if he might pray, but instead reached for a pair of socks and pulled them over his cold feet and headed out.

All the bedroom doors were shut except for Whitmore’s. Downstairs, Cassie worked in the kitchen, her hands and forearms covered with flour. She moved with repetitive efficiency, flattening the bread dough, folding it over on itself and pressing it down again, occasionally adding another handful of flour. She looked at him and nodded. “Mornin’, Mr. Nate. Can I make you some eggs?”

His stomach turned as he sat heavily in a chair at the table. “Just some coffee, please.”

“Yessir.” Her eyes darted to his face before pouring a large cup of dark coffee. She set it in front of him, adding a splash of cream without him asking.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Bit of a headache this morning, I’m afraid.”

“’Spect so.”

Cassie had the same pencil-straight posture and way of holding her mouth in a line of disapproval as his mother. Rubbing his left arm, he stared out at the fog that hovered over the lake.

An image of his mother came to mind. She knelt on the patch of grass behind their house, her arms deep in a tub of water, washing clothes. It was warm, the smell of the sea drifting through the Maine breeze, her freckled arms moving up and down, the sun shining on her brown hair so that it appeared almost red, the water in the tub making a splashing sound that harmonized with the waves below. She’d taken in laundry all that summer, washing a stranger’s shirts so that Nathaniel could study piano.

Cassie’s voice brought him back to the warm kitchen. “Your arm ache this morning?” She asked without a hint of pity.

“A little.”

“You have the dream again?”

“’Fraid so.”

As if she’d softened to him at the mention of the dream, she sighed and poured a thick green liquid from a tin pitcher into a coffee cup. “Drink this before your coffee.”

He grimaced. “What is this?”

“Juices of different herbs and roots. It’ll cure what ails you.”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Even your herbal remedies can’t cure what ails me, Cassie.”

She put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Whiskey sure won’t cure you, I can tell you that, Mr. Nate.”

“Did I ever tell you that you remind me of my mother?”

She shrugged, the corners of her mouth in a half-smile. “Don’t change that I’m right.”

The green concoction tasted bitter. Earthy? “Cassie, this is horrible.”

“You’ll thank me in a few minutes.”

He got up from the chair. “I’ll take it with me into the study. I’ve got some work to do this morning.”

“Composing?” She raised her eyebrows, a hopeful lilt in her voice.

“No, reading through applications for my summer composition course.”

“Teaching’s fine.” She picked up her dough, smacking it and then making it into a ball. “But no reason you can’t compose.” She buttered the dough and put it into a bowl.

“Ah, Cassie, you think too highly of me. I’m nothing but a sack of self-pity.” He paused at the door, gesturing with the glass of green liquid. “Thank you for the coffee. And this. I think.”

“Don’t bring me nothing but an empty glass.”

In the study, thinking how much a whiskey would soothe his headache, he focused his thoughts instead on the papers scattered across the desk. There were at least a dozen applications for his summer musical composition program. Sighing and occasionally rubbing his temples, he looked through the applications and accompanying sheets of original compositions.

There were three decent compositions from the typical applicants at Alabama College: wealthy young ladies from upstanding families. The fourth was from a Mrs. Lydia Tyler. Her composition was technically more sophisticated than the other applicants, and her application letter unusual. He read his favorite paragraph twice, smiling at the Eleanor Roosevelt reference.

I am a middle-aged widow interested in exploring the craft of composition. My life was devoted to my family for almost twenty years, but I now find myself free of obligations. My daughters are grown, and it seems the world would like to discard me as no longer useful. The residents of the small town where I live think I should be content to accompany the hymns at our Methodist church and serve the hungry at our soup mission. However, I rage against the idea that because of one’s age one must stop learning and growing. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt is a woman I greatly admire. You don’t see her in the background of life, meek and quiet.

He wrote the acceptance letters, which included one to Mrs. Tyler, and addressed and stamped the envelopes to ensure they would go out in the afternoon’s mail. Afterward, he decided to call his mother. He’d had a telephone installed at her home just for this purpose, to call her on holidays and her birthday. She hadn’t answered when he’d called yesterday; he imagined how the ring echoed in the stark, small, seaside house with its brick fireplace, stained black from years of soot, and the twin rocking chairs, empty since his father died.

Nathaniel went to the desk and dialed the operator, asking to be put through to his mother’s house in Maine. She answered on the second ring. “Hello.” She sounded like she was shouting into the sea’s wind, afraid she couldn’t be heard.

“Ma?”

“Nathaniel.” Her voice softened, sounding pleased.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, son.”

“Where were you yesterday? I called several times.”

“Ach, well, had to make the rounds with my pies. There are so many folks down on their luck, Nathaniel. I baked a dozen, and Preacher Thompson and I delivered them all yesterday morning.”

“You get the money I sent?”

“I surely did. There was no reason to send it. I get along just fine.”

“I wanted you to buy something nice for yourself.”

There was static on the phone line, and he knew she must be shaking her head. “No, I don’t need a thing.”

“Something you wanted, Ma.” He stifled a sigh. Was that seagulls in the background? “You have the windows open, Ma?”

“A crack. Gotta have some fresh air.” Another pause, and then he heard her chuckle. “I gave what you sent to the church, but not before I slipped a little to Earl’s wife. I’m making some bread to send up there right now. He’s been out of work two years, not a toy in sight for those children on Christmas day if it hadn’t been for the money you sent. I was proud to know you had it to send. The people here are suffering, Nathaniel.”

He heard loneliness in her voice. “I know, Ma. I’m glad you used it how you wanted. Sorry we didn’t make it up to see you again this year.”

He imagined she tugged on the front of her apron the way she so often did, her eyes gazing unfalteringly toward the sea from her kitchen window. “I know your wife’s family expects you.” She always called Frances his wife instead of her name. “How’re you feeling?”

“Same, Ma. No difference.”

“You keeping up practicing with your right hand?”