Middle C (46 page)

He never locked his car, not the driver’s door or the trunk, and he was grateful for that neglect now. The trunk, though, wouldn’t open, deformed as it was, so he had to toss his pillowcases into the backseat. An onset of shivers overtook him. It was cold, the car was cold, the seat as cold as an enamel sink, his cheek bitten by particles of ice, and his ears were burning, maybe from her sounds, maybe from the wind. He felt keys heavy and cold in his pocket: house key, library key, car key, mom’s key … cold, and he was scarcely dressed. His hands hurt while on the wheel. Its cold cut through flesh and bones that were no longer fingers. There was a laugh in the sound of the starting car—Witch Hazel’s laugh—it coughed, she laughed, it ran, and he bungled the clutch into gear so the car lurched from its curbside onto the street and immediately began to wobble down the hill toward town.

Lord. Lights, he thought. One worked. It looked like one was working. He could see a house lunge out of the dark at him as the beam swept along the sidewalk. Joseph refused to drive at night. Before this, that is, he had refused. He pumped the brakes as he had learned he had to do to slow the machine on icy streets, and the Bumbler squeaked like a conversation held between rusty hinges. He knew one thing for certain: he didn’t dare get stopped. First he drove below speed out of caution and then sped down the road out of fear and finally settled in at thirty-five as the safest. But the lone light was a beacon. The police would surely see it. And then he would be arrested for having an unsafe vehicle and no proper license and heaven knows what crimes the Major may have accused him of, for she was someone known and trusted in the town and would be believed. Without lights he could only crawl, and as he left the
limits of the city the stark darkness of thick woods and plowed fields closed in until he turned his one eye back on.

A car came at him blazingly bright and blindingly haloed. Then blinked before it passed. What was that? what did that mean? Sometimes he saw the white line. Sometimes he saw a tree, a fence, a highway sign before the road turned, and he swung just in time to follow its course. He was too cold to know now just how cold he was. The windshield wept and the wipers weren’t working. He heard himself say Oh God oh gosh as he drove, growing small and losing his hold on Joseph altogether.

Whoa. He was traveling up a hilly dirt lane. He didn’t remember this. The road had gone the other way. Joey stopped and backtracked in a series of jerks and consternations as if retreating between deep ditches or climbing down a ladder leaning in a well, seeing only where he shouldn’t go, since ahead of him was entirely behind. He realized, in the midst of this, that he needed to pee. His bladder, he believed, had shrunk to the size of a prune. Tears of frustration felt like frost on his face. He halted the car but left it running and relieved himself in a stream against the side of something. It was covered with weeds and wouldn’t mind. Then he threw up, too. Mostly milk. Good boy, Joey said, wiping his mouth as far as his eyes. Good boy. The rest of his drive continued on the back of the night’s mare.

The lights of Woodbine were reassuring. He stalled the car in front of his mother’s house. Now it would have to be his house, too. It coughed as if killed. What next? What next? He dreaded the fuss that was about to ensue. Women. Major Miriam Miss Moss Debbie Miss Spiky Madame Mieux … Women. Mieux and Marjorie, Miss Moss and Miriam … Women. Mieux and Major, Moss and Mizz Spike, Debbie dear what have you done? He sat quite still in the driver’s seat until he got the joke, got out, and walked with slow deliberation to the house. He had a key for that, didn’t he? Which key? The cold one with the long cold barrel. In Woodbine, no sleet this night.

His mother actually put her arms around him. Poor Joey, she said in a tone meant to soothe. He had already thrown up so he didn’t cry. He sighed. His chest shuddered so his mother thought he might be sobbing. Joey broke her hold to insist he wasn’t. It’s all right to be upset, she said, which ordinarily would have made him furious. He held her hands to
his cheeks. See. Dry-eyed. Poor boy, she said. Joey ran to his room and stood near the bed in despair. The bed … He couldn’t sit there. Eventually, he chose the chair.

During the next few days, Miriam got around to reminding him that she had always maintained the majorette woman was up to no good, had deep designs, even though Joey had not told her what had really happened. He wasn’t sure himself. There was an unpleasant proportion at the bottom of this business. As the Major had screamed at Portho, Marjorie had screamed at him. And he had been kicked out into the street the way Portho … the way Portho had been …

  with lowlife language …

            kicked …

                  along with his car …

                         into the street …

                                 actually, Joey had been booted

                                                                           out of town.

Like a penny in a pudding, the truth sank in. The Major’s yell had been intended to turn all blame toward him. No one else would hear his protest—Unhand me, Madame—they would only hear her cry as she defended herself from his … advances. Joey’s innocence made him guilty once again. So Portho may have been innocent, too, asleep behind the fold of his magazine to be suddenly awakened by a familiar perfume or drift of hair across his cheek … the possessive cup of her hands felt through the fur of his face. Yet Joey had placed his mother’s hands upon his frozen cheeks. Suppose Marjorie had simply been making a friendly, a comforting, a cheek-warming gesture he had then rejected in obnoxiously theatrical terms. That was another upsetting element in all this: the way the “unhand me” expression had apparently leaped from the page into some hole in his head only to pop from his mouth in a moment of startle.

How unexpected? Hadn’t he viewed the milk and cookies with some apprehension? Why would anyone be suspicious of such a harmless gift? or his all-too-ready hire, the handy offer of a spare room, its more-than-reasonable rent? Or the friendly chats or the fond banter? Joey had to admit he had found the shelter of her wing pleasant enough. Looking back, however … Perhaps their relationship had been adding to a different sum. And he had sensed that.

On the other hand, had he ever been any good at sensing slight things? did he pick up small clues with alacrity or even look for any? Joey was too busy sending misleading signals of his own. Was that the right method? maybe to become motionless, scarcely to breathe? the rabbit’s ruse. In contrast, Rudi Skizzen, his mentor in these matters, was a master of disguise. His false mustache was hidden by his beard. Mistrust was catching, though. The deceiver deceives the deceiver before he deceives the deceived. Ah … how about playing a role just for practice? To get good at it. Was Marjorie Bruss good at it? Well, he simply didn’t know. Miss Moss certainly thought so. But Miss Moss called herself a witch. What did that mean? Mr. Kazan was certainly a man of multiple suspicions. Yet Joey remembered thinking Mr. Kazan feared what wasn’t there—perhaps a good part of his obscure past. Still his store was robbed. Or was it?

There was a poet who had written about a word he liked—“presentiment”—the author’s name would not come to his tongue—such an annoyance, a sign he was flustered—and that poet had said the word referred to the way a lengthening shadow signaled the setting sun. It seemed a gloom-soaked poem, a gloom-soaked word. The unanswered question was: did Joey have, regarding Marjorie Bruss, some sort of presentment? Oh dear, he realized suddenly that his mother had accused him of crying. She didn’t know it was over spilled milk. Well, the cookies hadn’t crumbled, had they?

32

Don’t hang back. Come in, my boy. My name is President Howard Palfrey. These are my colleagues, Professors Morton Rinse—no, over there—and Clarence Carfagno, to my left. My left, yes. Have a seat. Oooh. I should say, have a chair, meet a chair, shouldn’t I? It’s more fitting a president. Well, one day we shall have a chair or two here at
Whittlebauer. I call these gentlemen colleagues because we are a family here at Whittlebauer, and I think of myself as a member, you see, of every department, therefore they are colleagues, QED. That one will be fine. You, sir, appear to be younger than you are, if we can trust your transcript and vita. Haha. But what else is there to a man but his CV, come to think of it. We are rich in CVs here at Whittlebauer.

Yes, sir. I guess I do look young for my age. My mother thinks I’m still in my teens.

Ah, haha. You have a mother. Of course. They always think so, don’t they? Might be a problem, though, managing a class, keeping discipline, that line of things, what do you think, Mort?

Very possibly. Yes, sir. Well observed.

But now we are getting ahead of ourselves. Mr.… ah … Skizzen, this meeting is merely—. What sort of name is that, may I inquire?

It’s German.

German?

Austrian.

Hear that, Clare, Austrian.

Viennese.

Viennese! But I know that, don’t I, from your CV. What I asked was what does it mean?

I believe it refers to … means … is a … sketch, sir. Plural. Yes, the plural. Sketches.

There’s many of you, then. Morton here we call Salty Wash. Out of our dear love, of course. The students are so fond of Mort, aren’t they? of Clare, too, of course. You don’t play the piccolo?

No, sir. The piano. Only the black keys.

Rich … only the black. Haha. That limitation isn’t mentioned here … in your CV. Nooo. So we know it’s been thinned, not padded. Haha. Haha. You find me in a good mood.

I thought Mr. Skizzen mentioned the organ in his dossier, Professor Carfagno ventured. In addition to the piano.

Oh. I did. Yes. The organ.

We have a wonderful organ here at Whittlebauer when it works, the very thing angels would play if it was light enough for them to carry around. Though I guess they find all things easy.

We need an organist, and somebody who can do choir. Professor
Carfagno spoke to Joseph’s knees, pressed together like a girl’s should be.

But we mustn’t rush things, mustn’t let need hasten us into error. Yes. I mean no, we mustn’t. This meeting, for example, is wholly preliminary. We shall cast our net wide. Our trawlers shall plow the seas. However, since we could see from your CV that you—surprise! eh?—live here in Woodbine … well, we thought we might speak to you first.

I’m glad of that.

How long have you been living in Woodbine—it seems such an unlikely spot.

Oh, now, Clare, don’t say that. What is unlikely about our little piece of Eden?

For someone born in Austria.

We all come from somewhere else, here, in America.

I understand you studied music in Graz.

No, sir, Professor Rinse. My studies were in Vienna where my father played a second violin for the philharmonic.

Quite an accomplishment.

Thank you, yes, but a second violin. To be only a second. It broke his heart.

I should imagine. Rinse’s eyes had now risen to Joey’s belt.

The symphony has a school. I studied with the great Gerhardt Rolfe.

You don’t say. Rolfe?

A very demanding man. I was very young, of course.

How precocious!

I might have been called that if I had been four or five, but I was ten.

It seems to me I’ve heard your name. Bruited about, you know. Morton’s eye was eye to eye with Joey’s finally, under a wrinkled brow.

My mother lives in town, too. And I did do some substituting at Saint Agatha’s Church.

Ah, yes, that … must … be … it.

I must see to the welfare of my mother.

Is that on your CV? I don’t remember that being on your CV.

It was just a little substituting. I didn’t think it significant.

For what were you a substitute, may I inquire?

The organist.

Nice crowd at the Saint Agatha’s. You read our ad, I suppose, and know what we need. Here at Whittlebauer we are a different denomination, of
course. So many children … in their world of belief … destined for the service of the church. Great advantage. They are aimed like an arrow …

No, I’m afraid not, sir. I didn’t see—didn’t read—

But they are as prolific as herrings!

Yes, sir. I meant that I learned of the position from my mother and she from friends before I called the office here on the Hill and got the information.

Oh, too bad. We had a fine ad … in all the major journals, too. We even considered the
Times
, the ad was so fine.

The
Woodbine …
?

No, no.
New York
. The
New York Times
. But they wanted entirely too much. Who do they think they are? We are not a wealthy school. Just rich in CVs. Haha. They take advantage of our Middle West, our size. We select, of course, as carefully as any good greengrocer. Our students. And our faculty, too, as you can see.

Professor Rinse, you might have heard my name—I just remembered where—you might have heard my name in connection with President Palfrey’s niece, Miss Gwynne Withers, who—

Gwynne Withers! she’s my niece. How is it you know her?

—whom you once substituted for—music and magic, was it?—when she was unable—

To get my piano tuned! yes! I remember that. You remember that, don’t you, Mort? the piano she was going to use—well, the piano belongs to the college, of course, but it is located in my—

For the Board of Trustees? yes, she was quite distraught, as I remember. So I stepped in, Mr. Skizzen, as it happened, yes, music and magic, stepped in with Music and Magic. I play the violin, sometimes, with my tie.

They couldn’t find a tuner in time. Was that you? who was to accompany—?

Yes, but I found a tuner. He just couldn’t find us. I was to accompany her in preparing for her recital. A man from Columbus was to have—you know—come for the occasion from Columbus, it was indeed Columbus—

There is a story there, Mr. Skizzen, with a moral. Or an immoral—haha. I
am
in good spirits. Whittlebauer is in good spirits.