JR (9 page)

The telephone rang. —Hello… ? Oh. Yes. Long distance, for you Mis

…

—Me? Oop! my coffee…

—My office… Pecci inclined across the desk avoiding the puddle. —I told them where to reach me if … Hello?

—And something else, Whiteback reclined with a squeak, —this young man what's his name, Bast? He's a composer, he writes music, he's here from the Foundation or rather they placed him here, in this pilot program. Handed to us on a platter, he's ahm…

—Me? paid to me? No, it was paid to the law firm, my partner. Just say twenty-five thousand paid for consultation, representation, and what? No, say legal services, rendered by Ganganelli during this legislative session in conjunction with… no, conjunction, conjunk, junk…

—Motivating the music appreciation drive in these youngsters, we have him helping out Miss Flesch while we work something up for him maybe with the high school band.

—In conjunction with certain amendments to the state law relating to highway construction standards, just say standards in highway construction.

—I talked to him about it on the way over this morning, motivating this cultural drive and seeing it pay off in mass consumers, mass distribution…

—No, standards. I said standards, standards, with ad…

—Like automobiles and bathing suits.

—Law! They can't pull that law on him tell him, it wasn't even passed till after he wasn't reelected… Goodbye, call me if there's any snag.

—On her Ring, yes and, and doing a very fine job…

—He helps some, rehearsing and all that stuff and junk but he hasn't got much personality for it… here, gimme one of those, will you? She swooped at Mister diCephalis quietly disposing of a cigarette package in the wastebasket.

—No, I… they're candy, he blurted. —The children's. I picked them up by mistake, they look just like mine, the package…

She laughed at him. The telephone rang.

—Hel… oh, what? Now? They're here from the Foundation? They can't be, this isn't Friday. Well try and stall them…

—Gimme the phone, my…

—My boy's in this thing of hers, Hyde dropped to Pecci, —quite the little musician. No piano or violin, nothing pansy. Trumpet.

—My wife's taping something this morning, Mister diCephalis got in abruptly. —A resource program…

—Let's just turn on the tube and see what we've got to show them.

—Taping? what, said Miss Flesch over the rim of the telephone.

—A resource program. On silkworms, she has her own Kashmiri records…

—If your Ring isn't ready, your Wagner, what is there?

—My Mozart. She hung up the telephone and dialed again. —No answer, I'll call and see if my visuals are ready… and she found her bun, washed in another bite with cold coffee and chewed into the mouthpiece, listening.

—What's that? demanded Hyde, transfixed by unseeing eyes challenging the vacant confine just over his head. —Sixth grade math. That's Glancy.

—Sixth? That?

—Glancy. They're doing percents.

—Glancy reading cue cards. You can tell.

—Don't show them that, just Glancy writing on a blackboard.

—Try switching to thirty-eight.

—Even if the Rhinegold is ready it's Wagner, isn't it? But if the Mozart is scheduled the classroom teachers, they're ready with the fol- lowup material from their study guides on the Mozart. They can't just switch to the Wagner.

—That's a cute model, it gets the idea right across. Whose voice?

—Vogel. He made it himself out of old parts.

—Whose.

—Parts?

—Some of them might never even have heard of Wagner yet.

—No, the voice.

—That's Vogel, the coach.

—If they thought it was Mozart's Rhinegold and get them all mixed up, so you can't really switch.

—He put it together himself out of used parts.

—To forty-two, try forty-two.

—I said forty-two, try forty-two. I think Mrs Joubert has something.

—Omigosh! Miss Flesch erupted into the mouthpiece. Her free hand dug for a tissue —they're what? Over at the temple? Not the Rhinegold, the Wagner no, the… No m, m like Mary. O. Yeah like zebra… she wiped her mouth, —What do you mean will I play the piano the only prop I've got is a … no a book, a book … A book yeah so it looks like I'm reading from this book and don't forget the music for my singalong, I always sign off with a singalong…

—Go back to whatever that was about the Civil War, I think that's history…

—Or Social Studies.

—Just hang on, I'm coming over there anyway. Yeah, driving, I'll get a ride over if… she banged down the phone, dismounting the desk in an open slide toward Mister Pecci. —Is Skinner's car still out front? It's a green one, this textbook salesman. He'll ride me over…

—My wife, said Mister Pecci withdrawing a knee from the sweep of her heel, —she was one of the original Miss Rheingolds, maybe she still has a specialty number she could help you out with introducing your Rhinegold story… ?

—See you all on the hungry eye, said Miss Flesch winking one of her own and threatening one of Mister Pecci's with a sweep of the umbrella under her arm, and whether Mister diCephalis was making a last grab for it or fending it off was not clear as she passed him for the door that banged hollowly on her call to —Skinner, Mister Skinner, can you ride me over…

Mister diCephalis had by now reached and dialed the telephone, where he kept in undertone —Yes I know it that's why I'm calling, because… from the Foundation yes they're here now, that's what they're coming for, to … what? The silkworms, yes, the Kashmiri…

cultural aspect of… yes. But I do want them to see you, that's why I'm calling…

—They must be out there now they, we can't keep them waiting… Whiteback inclined to meet the screen's glassine stare with his own reaching the channel selector, —if there's something on while we're waiting for the, for Miss Flesch something in the, something…

—That's good, there…

—What is it Dan, what's…

—I'm cleaning up this coffee she wait, wait this must be hers this book about Mozart Mozart's letters, she…

—Look out you're spilling those what's all that it looks like her script, part of her script get it over to her, there's a page under the…

—Mind moving your foot…

—There's another one…

—Wait the pages are getting mixed up she'll be … —Let her straighten them out just get it over to her wait there's one under the desk, have you got your car Dan?

—No just hurry Dan, hurry up or she'll come in! We thought you'd never get here… and he opened the door full on the two figures standing there as the wall clock beyond them dropped its longer hand with a click for the full minute and hung, poised to lop off a fragment of the next as Gibbs passed, looked up and saw that happen, fingering the change in his pocket on his way to the outside door and the cloudless sky filled with the even passage of the sun itself in brightness so diffuse no shadow below could keep an edge on shaded lawns where time and the day came fallen through trees with the mottled movement of light come down through water, spread up an empty walk, over gravel and empty pavement, and lawn again, lending movement to the child motionless but for fragmenting finger and opposable thumb opening, closing, the worn snap of an old change purse, staring in through the glass with an expression of unbroken and intent vacancy.

Beyond the glass, the boy inside darted a glance from his newspaper out into the purse snapped open; snapped shut, he smoothed the porous fold of the obituary page away from him, nagged his lip with a pencil and then scratched his knee with it before his foot returned to forcing back, and forth, and back, the idle vent on a floor grating, shut, open, shut, as the light on his paper dimmed with the sun abruptly pocketed in a cloud and what shadow the child beyond had cast was lost beneath the trees where she sought the greenest leaves fallen

from the pin oaks shading the grass around her. The largest she found, she folded its dark face in, creasing across the veins, then folded another as carefully chosen over it, pausing with one blown here from a maple and slightly discolored, the green already run from its edges but folded at last with the others stained back outside and snapped all together into the purse, as a wind rustled those on the ground around her and touched the trees above, the cloud past, their movement scattering the sunlight against the glass, never disturbing those within.

—Rhine …GOLD! they howled into the glare of footlights, cowering round the empty table at the center of the stage.

—Rhinemaidens!… The baton rapped sharply through their declining wail. —This is your shout of triumph. A joyful cry! Bast thumped out the theme again on the piano, missed a note, winced, repeated it. — Can't you sound joyful, Rhinemaidens? Look, look around you. The river is glittering with golden light. You're swimming around the rock where the Rhinegold is. The Rhinegold! You love the Rhinegold Rhinemaidens, you…

—So where's the Rhinegold?

—We're pretending it's on the table there, you're all swimming around…

—No like she means we can pretend we're out here swimming like around this old table which we can even pretend it's this big rock but there's nothing on it, like there's nothing which we can pretend it's this

here Rhinegold.

Again he tapped the baton against the music stand. —The art department has promised the real Rhinegold for Friday, so today you'll just have to pretend. Pretend it's there shimmering and glittering, you're swimming around it protecting it, but you don't dream it's in danger. You don't dream anyone would dare try to steal it, even when the dwarf appears. The dwarf Alberich, who comes first seeking love … what's the matter there?

—Like if we're all so beautiful who would want to love this here lousy little dwarf?

—Well, that… that's what happens, isn't it. You don't. You laugh at his … his advances, and that hurts him, it hurts him so deeply that he decides he'll take the Rhinegold instead, so that he can… where is he now, Alberich the dwarf, where is he … ? Bast rattled the baton briskly against the music stand, and a trumpet blast shattered the comparative quiet. —What was that!

A salute stirred from the shadows in the wings. —That's where I come in here with the trumpet when you hit that thing with your stick, answered a martial miniature advancing into the glare with a clatter of knife and ax, flashlight, whistle, compass, and a coil of rope crowding his small waist.

—You come in when I point the baton right at you, and you come in playing the Rhinegold motif. Now what was that you think you just played?

—The Call to the Colors, anybody knows that. Besides I don't even know this here Rhinegold thing and my father said I probly should play this anyway because it's the best thing I can play.

—Well, what else can you play.

—Nothing.

Bast rested his head on his right hand, weakly flexing his left and studying the gouge on its back as a smart slap of salute wheeled the trumpeter off in the general direction of Valhalla, and he gave them the key with a chord.

—And like right here Miss Flesch said might be a good place for our specialty numbers, like we already have ballet tap and toe and if we're on the school tv and all …

—You… straighten that out with her.

—She's going to be here today?

—That's p. good question, Bast muttered. —Has anyone seen her?

—I seen her, came a voice from the wings.

—This morning? Where.

—No, last night in this green car parked up in the woods with this here…

—That's enough! Bast, and the crack of his baton, severed that response and the billow of tittering it rode out on, breaking against the banks of empty seats; he struck the chord and with the power of music set their brittle limbs undulating in unsavory suggestion, bony