The Swan House (20 page)

“You, see, Swan! Your mom knew who the donor was. If your mom knew, then your dad probably did too. And if you can find out who donated the paintings, I'll bet you a million bucks you'll find the paintings too.”

I watched her scribble down,
Ask Mr. Middleton about donor
.

“Okay, what have you got, Swan?”

“Let's see. On April thirtieth, the headline in the
Atlanta Journal
was:

“Three Paintings Mysteriously Disappear the Night Before Major Exhibition Is to Open at High—While the High Museum's best patrons were savoring a dinner of filet mignon, scalloped potatoes, and a strawberry trifle, the museum's curator, Harold Shaw, waited in vain for the delivery of the three paintings to be viewed later in the evening. No complaint of theft by the anonymous donor was made. Police have combed the area of the museum to no avail. The donor has not contacted the museum's curator. ‘It is a most disappointing and puzzling situation,' Mr. Shaw said Saturday afternoon. The exhibition, featuring fifteen Southern painters, opened yesterday, despite the absence of the three paintings that were to be donated to the museum.

“And this one, dated May first, says,

“Sheila Middleton, whose painting was to be shown at the exhibition, declined to comment on the disappearance. Her husband, stockbroker John Jason Middleton, called it a terrible loss and expressed his wife's chagrin.”

“Aha! There you have it! Your dad was protecting your mom! She knew something!” More scribbling. “This is gonna be easy, Swan. Your dad will have all the answers. He just didn't want to reveal them to the press.” She stuck the pen behind her ear, smiled, then suddenly got a sick look on her face. She groaned, “Be right back,” and took off for my bathroom.

The afternoon turned out to be a great success, but even with all the progress we made, my thoughts often strayed from the Raven Dare to Grant Park. I could not stop thinking of Carl and how he had never been in a museum before and how he had loved the paintings. There was a part of me that was dying to sweep him out of inner-city life and a part of me whose heart broke in two just thinking about the people who were trapped, as literally as if prison bars held them there, in poverty. Smart, kind, decent kids who, even if they could quote Shakespeare and Eliot, would never have a chance to escape that inner-city prison. I felt suddenly embarrassed about my obsession with the Raven Dare. I wished all the money I would raise for solving the Dare could help liberate the desperate people who came to Mt. Carmel for spaghetti meals. I wished I could hand Carl a check for $100,000 and tell him to go anywhere his heart desired.

What had Miss Abigail said?
“If a person is liberated in his soul, he
will have hope for a different future.”
And then she'd said that verse about knowing the truth and the truth making you free.

“Swan, you're off in space again,” Rachel chided.

“Sorry,” I said, not about to admit to Rachel that I was daydreaming about Carl yet again.

“Okay, now on to the other artists, Leslie Leschamps and Henry Becker. Question number one for your dad or for the donor is, did your mom know these people? If we could interview them, that would be the best. As well as an interview with the donor. Let's see, it says in the
Northside News
that they aren't local artists. So we have to find out who they are and where they live and go talk to them.”

“Even if they live in California?”

Rachel stuck out her tongue. “Don't be impertinent. They're from somewhere in Georgia. This lovely state isn't that big!”

“And what if they've moved away from Georgia?”

“Well,” she said, straightening up all the papers into one pile, “then we'll just have to find out where they live now. And call them. But first on your list is to talk with your dad. And you've got to be convincing. He can't have a clue it has to do with the Raven.”

“Should I make up another poem?” I asked sarcastically, rolling my eyes. “Ella Mae didn't speak to me for days after that!”

“No. Poetry is definitely out.” She removed the pen and nibbled on it. “You're the grieving daughter who wants to honor her mother by finding out as much about her past as possible. That's it!”

“You know, Rach, that really is it.”

And so Rachel helped me plan my speech to be presented to Daddy. But if either of us had had any idea of everything I was going to find out about Mama, I think we would have both stuffed that big black bird as far back in our minds as possible and left it there to die.

It took me five days to get up the courage to talk to Daddy. I wanted to make sure he was in a good mood. Late Friday afternoon, when he came home from the office, I flopped into a chair at the breakfast room table, where he sat reading the sports page of the
Atlanta
Journal
, and sighed dramatically.

“Daddy, I need your help.” Rachel and I had practiced that ridiculous line for three days, until she was satisfied with my intonation.

He looked up from the paper and asked, “What is it, Swan?”

“It's something serious, Dad. Is it okay to talk to you now, or should I wait?”

He set the paper on the table and gave a half smile.
Why does your
face have to look so gray all the time?
I thought. But aloud I said, “I went to the High Museum last Saturday.” I let that sink in. “I asked Mrs. MacIlvain for all the information about the three paintings that disappeared before that exhibition a year and a half ago.”

He pushed his chair back and looked worried. “Why, Mary Swan? What made you want to go digging up the past like that?”

Those were the exact words I'd predicted he'd use, and I was ready with my reply. Rachel had forced me to memorize it too.

“Just missing Mama. And looking for a way to, I don't know, to honor her. I thought maybe I could talk to the donor. Find out what he did with the paintings.” Then I showed him the newspaper articles I'd gotten from Mrs. MacIlvain.

He skimmed them, commenting, “Yes, Mary Swan. I've seen them all. Strange thing, that whole incident.” He fiddled with his tie, which hung loosely around his neck. “Imagine you digging up this stuff.”

But he wasn't really talking to me. He had that vacant look in his eyes, as if he had just arrived in another city and didn't have the faintest clue which road to take. “You just let that whole thing rest, Swannee,” he sighed. “There's nothing you can learn about your mother from that scandal.”

“Why do you call it a scandal, Daddy?”

“Because that's all it was. Some nut trying to get attention, offering paintings to the museum.”

“But, Daddy, it says here, see—” I sifted through the papers until I found the right article—“that the curator met the donor and that art experts examined the paintings. It wasn't just a hoax. Those paintings existed. Surely you saw Mama's painting. She knew who the donor was. Look what it says:

“Mrs. Middleton said that she was surprised and pleased that one of her paintings was being donated to the museum. She was flattered that the donor regarded her work so highly. When asked the identity of this person, she smiled and said she had been instructed not to reveal the name.

“So, Daddy, you must have known too. Just tell me who the donor is, and I'll do the rest.”

That got his attention, and he jerked up straight in his chair. “I'm sorry, Swan. The whole thing is a bad memory, and I was happy to let it go. Maybe your mother did know who this donor was, but I swear she never told me. She wasn't really very excited about the whole thing. She was a nervous wreck having to speak at the opening.”

“Did she speak? I mean, even though her painting wasn't there?”

He grimaced. “The whole evening was a bit of a flop, Mary Swan.” He took the newspapers from me and shuffled them around absentmindedly. It looked to me as though he was just wasting time.

“You really don't want to talk about it, do you, Daddy?”

“No, Swan. I don't. But you have to believe me, sweetie. If I knew anything that could help you, I'd tell you. I swear I would.” He got up and said, “Come with me.”

I followed him into his study. I was barefoot, and I liked the feel of the smooth carpet on my toes. Daddy went to his filing cabinet, opened the third drawer down, and pulled out a thick manila file. He laid it on his desk. “Your mother didn't want to have a thing to do with the disappearance. She refused to speak to the authorities. She didn't know the other artists. I'd certainly never heard of them. Anyway, you're welcome to look through the file. Most of it is the same as what Mrs. MacIlvain already gave you.” He slid it across his desk to me. “But, Swan, please. There's nothing there. Remember your mother just as you do now.”

The way he said it, I felt as though he was begging me to read between the lines of a letter he had never written me. Begging me to keep the memory of Mama the artist neatly arranged like a new box of oil paints.

“Could I go through her things, Dad? Could I look in Mama's studio? Please?”

“I don't think it would be wise.”

“Daddy, if you don't want to think about Mama, that's okay. But thinking about her and doing something for her is the best way I'm going to make it through all this. So please. Please let me.”

He got up and came to the other side of his desk and ruffled my hair, the way he used to do when I was young. “Her studio's not locked. You can go in there anytime you want, Swan.” His voice had dropped about an octave, and I was pretty sure he was holding back tears. But I didn't look into his eyes, because he caught me in a hug, a tight, emotional hug. “Oh, Swan. I just want whatever is best for you and Jimmy.”

To say that Rachel was disappointed with the lack of information I gleaned from Daddy was like saying Shakespeare was a half-decent playwright. To lift her spirits, I invited her to come with Ella Mae and me to Grant Park the next day. She sounded fairly interested until she remembered that her older brother, Jamie, had his baseball playoffs that afternoon, and the whole family was expected to go.

As I was finishing up serving lunch I spotted Cassandra, who was trying to eat her spaghetti while Jessie howled in her arms. I don't really know what made me do it, but I went over to her and said, “May I hold Jessie for you? Give you a chance to eat?”

Her face lit up. “You mean it, Mary Swan? Thanks! My mama's usually here to he'p, but her cousin's doin' right poorly, and she's stayin' with him today.”

With a confidence that surprised me, I took the cloth diaper, tossed it over my shoulder, and then gently held Jessie in my arms, cooing at her as I'd seen Carl do. Jessie delighted me with a real smile, and I noticed that in the course of just two weeks she seemed to have grown and changed.

When Carl saw me with Jessie on my shoulder, he gave me an approving nod and a wide grin. “Puddin's hopin' to see you today, you know. Can you come over to the house for a little while, soon as we finish up here?”

I nodded happily.

So that Saturday, after serving spaghetti and holding Jessie, I found myself sitting in Carl's “front room” with the dirty rug and the dirtier dog, and as I sat there, I thought to myself,
How could anyone hate these
people
? How? How could you hate a little baby who already had a head full of curls? Or a little girl like Puddin' who was sitting in my lap braiding my hair, her bright eyes dancing with satisfaction as she inspected her work and then let the braids undo themselves when she let go? It would take someone truly evil to hate this child.

Then I thought about Carl, who was settled in the big old easy chair across from us, his almost black eyes looking with so much love at his little sister and his big feet with those worn imitation-leather loafers propped up on the rickety table. Tall and strong, the kind of strong that comes from just a lot of hard, honest work. Why would anyone hate him? A boy who had become a man too early, who raised his siblings and worked a job and went to school. Nothing about the stereotypes of lazy blacks or unintelligent blacks or anything else I'd heard fit Carl.

When Puddin' got up to go outside and play, he asked, “Did you find anything in those papers to help you with that Raven Dare?”

“Yeah, some stuff.” I filled him in on my conversation with Daddy the night before.

Then he asked, “Do ya wanna see my saxophone?”

“Yes, of course!”

And so he brought it out. We didn't have a saxophonist in our orchestra, but I knew the instrument well from all the theory classes I'd taken. His wasn't new. It even looked a little banged up.

“Do you play in a band?” I asked.

“Yep. At school. Marchin' band, Mary Swan. Best marchin' band in Atlanta.”

That was true, now that I thought about it. Everyone had heard about Fair Oaks taking the prize last year.

“Do you practice a lot?”

“Practice a whole lot during football season, Mary Swan. A whole lot. Lots of us in the band. Two hundred.”

I ran my hands over the saxophone. “Nice horn.”

“Mighty fine, she is. She isn't mine, though. Lease her from the school. Someday I'll buy her.” He talked about the horn as if it was a good friend.

“Well, play it for me.”

He sat back on the bed and started running his long fingers up and down the keys as he played a bunch of scales. Then he adjusted his reed, placed the strap over his neck, stood up, and leaned back the way I'd seen guys do in the movies. He closed his eyes and blew into the horn.

I played the flute the way I did math problems—adequately, with a lot of difficulty and practice. But Carl played the saxophone with his heart and soul. Listening to him made chills run up and down my spine, even though it was hot as Hades that afternoon.

“Someday you'll have to meet Rachel. She plays her flute like that—eyes closed and fingers just running all over the keys.”