Kathy Little Bird (39 page)

Tentatively I let out a single note, cautiously, more spoken than sung, more breathed than spoken. I tried a scale, also barely more than a whisper. The line was almost inaudible, but it was true. It was on pitch. It had timbre. The Little Bird sound was there, waiting to be coaxed out.

I tried broken chords, a third, a fifth, an octave jump. I added words, snatches of songs. Elk Woman’s Cree melodies, the Wind Song, the Shadow Song. I heard them in the bones of my head, I heard them flung back at me from the four walls.

Abram, on the other side of the door, expelled his breath in relief.

The music that I had disavowed, that I had kept resolutely choked down, reemerged.

I unlocked the bathroom, once more my rehearsal hall, threw it wide open, and came wheeling out singing at the top of my lungs.

Abram was transfixed.

Before he could speak, I asked, “What about the wheelchair?”

“Your voice is back. The chair? That’s irrelevant.”

A
BRAM
was right, and he was wrong. My voice was back, but it was far from my old sound. I had been so amazed and excited to hear a musical note issue from my lips that I jumped to the conclusion I was myself again. And Abram elevated a phenomenon into a miracle. He kept repeating “Praise the Lord” under his breath and, when I asked him for constructive criticism, shook his head as if perfection could not be improved.

The truth, as I discovered next morning when I tried to rehearse, was that my voice, although there were flashes of the old brillance, was creaky, cranky, and undependable. It would break in unexpected places, vanish completely at others, and become reedy on a high note.

It needed work, work, work. I remembered how Jim Gentle’s activist sentiments had wakened a tardy sense of myself as Indian. When I was a kid, I’d figured out I was forty percent Cree. That was as far as it went; my ethnicity had never played a part in my life. With Jim’s passion for causes, my own sense of identity awoke, and for the first time I’d followed the treatment of Indians on both sides of the border. But I turned from this when I turned away from him. Now, though, the prospect of reviving the program I’d worked out and almost sung gave me a spiritual high. It was more intense than even the songs themselves. I felt like the prodigal son. I had returned. I felt myself to be part of the First Nation people.

This benefit I would sing through to the end.

It gave me a nostalgic pleasure to get in touch with Jim Gentle.

“Kathy!” he said at the sound of my voice. “My God, you sound like yourself.”

“I’ve come a long way. I don’t walk and probably never will. But I sing.”

“You sing?”

“Yes, I do. I’m calling because I need you to organize another benefit. Can you do it? You’d have to drop everything. Will you?”

“Upside down, inside out, standing on my head and yodeling. What guts, Kathy. I’m proud of you, proud that you call on me. Whatever you want, it’s done.”

“What I want is to do the concert we tried for, and this time finish it. Incidentally, I’m not doing it as a way to return to show business. It would just be this once.”

“If it’s not a comeback, what is behind it?”

“Would you believe—I’m doing it to feel good about myself.”

“That’s the best reason.”

His laugh made me remember. I remembered our jam sessions, our work sessions. I remembered the good stuff.

G
ENTLE
flew in.

It didn’t hit me the way it once had. I was able to look at him and know I was happy just to see him, that he was a good friend. One who didn’t come around at all seasons—only when music was concerned. That was the part of me he loved, and I was glad to have figured it out.

We set our sights on late August. It would be tight but we could do it. Besides getting myself and my voice in shape, there were a million things to attend to. I rented a studio downtown and Jim managed to drop by every day to hammer out repertoire. Sometimes he just listened. Jim hadn’t changed. He lived life in a major key, throwing himself totally into the moment. He planned the build of the program, without in any way neglecting the smallest nuance. He pounced on my failure to hold a note, and criticized my diction. He was meticulous. He listened with his pores. His truth was music.

Gentle didn’t waste time on regrets. He never alluded to old involvements, never pitied me, but accepted that this was a new moment in time and this was the way I was. He didn’t
think of me as a cripple or even handicapped, but imposed hellishly long hours on us both.

During one of our quick lunch breaks I told him that my CDs were now being distributed by a new firm, Doric. “They bought out the old company.”

“Yeah,” Jim grinned, “I know.” He stood up, drew himself to his full height of six foot five, and said, “Meet Doric Recording Company.”

“You? You’re Doric?”

“I knew way back, the minute I heard you, you were something special. You have what I call…
floyt
. If you don’t have it, you can sing like an angel and it means nothing. But when you got it…well!…So I raised money and made an investment. I bought up all your singles, albums, everything. I got you cheap because of the lousy publicity, being booted out of the country and all. Then I waited. Let it die down, until all anyone remembered is your sound.

“And now we’re starting to make it big-time, releasing your stuff slowly, feeding it into the market. You were always good for me, Kathy. And I’m glad, really glad that I have a chance to be good for you.”

He allowed only for a warm exchange of smiles before we were at it again. We worked at top speed, battling out our differences.

Gentle carried off a marvelous coup. I was still prevented from entering the U.S., but he got around that by recalling that in the fabulous fifties Paul Robeson, the great black baritone, had also been at odds with the INS, and told if he left the United States he would not be allowed back. His advance
people scoured possible concert sites and hit on a great spot. A Peace Arch erected in an international park where Blaine, Washington borders on Canada. The arch is constructed of dazzling white concrete and the marine park where it’s located is a neutral area spanning the boundary of the two countries, commemorating their friendship. Citizens of both countries come together without border passes. There is an outdoor amphitheater and awesome views of Point Roberts, Vancouver Island, and the San Juans. So Robeson gave a memorable concert under the arch. “And,” Gentle finished up, “so will you.”

I
STOLE
time to have coffee with my daughter. Just to look at her was a tonic. The Wertheimers gave her their attic room, but I never saw her. She’d been sitting in on the planning of Lone Walker’s defense, and it took all her time. As a result she was flushed with excitement one minute, pale and nervous the next. Though she tried to present a calm exterior, I sensed that she was near panic. I think she believed Lone Walker, who had eluded capture, might show up at the concert, might even turn himself in.

“He’s really a wonderful person, Mrs. Willems, full of ideals, in a world that doesn’t work that way. By now, he must know I’m working to help him. And yet he isn’t in touch.”

“Perhaps he’s afraid of a trap.”

“You mean, that the concert is a set-up? He’ll see that for himself…police everywhere. It would be easy to take him.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll give himself up when he’s ready, not before.” I leaned across the table. “You love him.”

“Yes, I do. And it’s going to be hard to explain to Mom and Dad Mason. They’re the wonderful people who brought me up. But they won’t understand any of this: the benefit…you, the famous singer…and, on top of it, a wanted man. They’ll think I’m crazy. I know that.”

My voice was almost inaudible. “What about your biological family, the ones you came to find?”

“Actually, I found my uncle Jas. He’s a great guy, owns a pub on the outskirts of St. Alban’s.”

“Was he the only relative?”

“There was a brother, who’s dead.”

At this unexpected reference to Morrie I was jarred into a different reality, but Kathy’s voice brought me back. “I also met my father, but I don’t want to talk about him.”

My God—Jack. Something else Jas didn’t tell me. It’s a wonder it hadn’t all come out. Of course Jack was still on the payroll and too sharp to kick a good thing. I had Mac to thank for that. But I wondered if he’d been tempted.

When I told him about it, Abram put a bookmark in the volume he was reading. “You know, you can’t hide things forever.”

“I know. But I need this time to become friends.”

Abram knows when not to talk, when to put his arms around me.

My father came. I had invited him, but never expected him to actually come. He flew in the day before the benefit. I dropped by his hotel after Gentle and I finished for the day.

It couldn’t be casual between us. And I could see he had steeled himself against seeing me after two years still in a chair.

I thanked him again for coming. “It means a lot to me.”

He responded with the gallantry natural to him. “It means a great deal to me to be here, to see you take hold like this. Overcoming the odds. It reminds me of—of the circumstances I had to deal with. I refer to the amputation. I was in a chair for quite a while, and then crutches. If it hadn’t been for your mother…”

“I know from Mum that you handled it extremely well. I didn’t. For instance, this concert…I didn’t take the initiative. It’s for my daughter. I’ve met her, Erich, and gotten to know her a bit. She’s just as I imagined.” And I told him how it had come about. Taking my father’s hand, I said, “She doesn’t know. She has no idea who I am. Right now she’s grateful to me. I can’t jeopardize this. It’s more than I deserve, much more.”

He patted my hand and nodded.

“You’ll meet her after the performance, in my dressing room. You’ll love her instantly, as I did. There’s a spirited quality about her, and…

“And her name is Kathy,” he finished for me.

“I must have your word that you’ll say nothing.”

“But of course.” And then, “Are you sure that’s the way you want it?”

An emphatic “Yes” left no doubt. “There’s something else, even more difficult to carry out. So difficult that I’ll need your help.”

His look was an unformulated question.

I blurted out the decision I had forced myself to make. “After the concert I’m not going back to Abram.”

I could see his shock. “Not going back? Did I hear you?”

“Yes. Yes you did. I’m damaged, even more than you can tell by looking at me. I’m not able to be a wife to Abram. The only thing I can do is try to be fair.”

This time the pause was protracted.

“Does he know about this?”

“I need to get the concert out of the way. Then I’ll tell him.”

“I can’t believe this is right, Kathy…for either of you.”

“Only because I won’t let him go. But there is a young woman who is devoted to him.”

“And he? I don’t hear you saying he is devoted to her.”

“That’s because, oh you know how Abram is. He wouldn’t let himself even think…But if I weren’t around…Don’t you see, he could have a life.”

My father shook his head, unconvinced.