Heart of Stone (11 page)

“Do you play any instruments?” Nelson asked me, his smile blazing once again at full power. I shook my head. “Neither do I,” he said. “These days, I don't practice medicine. I'm a
scénariste
. Films, you know.”

“Anything longer than one reel?” I asked. He laughed.

“Clever you,” he said again. “Perhaps I could find a part for you in one of my movies.”

Lucia rolled her eyes. “Ignore him,” she said. “He thinks he's funny. But he's harmless. All bark and no bite.” She leaned in for dramatic effect. “Trust me.”

Lucia took her husband by the elbow and led him away, claiming they had to say hello to Jakob Eisenstadt. Nelson Blanchard turned his head and undressed me with his smiling eyes as Lucia dragged him off.

“What was that?” I asked Miriam.

She shrugged and told me as a matter of fact that the Blanchards were old friends. And wife-swappers.

“They have a very modern outlook on marriage,” she said and sipped her sangria.

“How did they end up here on Prospector Lake?”

“Nelson's a summer regular. He's been coming here since the forties.”

“So how did an old pervert like him bag a young lovely like her?”

“I think they met in California. About seven or eight years ago. Lucia was trying to make it as an actress. Nelson's stinking rich and has a mansion in the Hollywood Hills.”

“She's very pretty. Did she ever get into any movies?”

Miriam shrugged. “Maybe a stag reel or two. Nothing you've seen.”

I choked.

“She decided Nelson could offer her a better life than the lying casting directors and sleazy producers.”

Once I'd regained my composure, I made small talk with Miriam about our lives, but it was awkward. When you spoke to her she would look over your shoulder or off into the distance. And when you were otherwise occupied, you would catch her, chin lowered, peering out from below her heavy eyelids, staring at you as if you were the subject of an experiment.

Miriam and Simon had married five years earlier, I learned. They lived in Brooklyn, and had no children. She volunteered for Hadassah, raising funds for the Ein Kerem Medical Center in Israel. And, of course, she was a brilliant pianist, active in local chamber music groups. But for all of her interests, she walked through life like a mummy, as if tranquillized.

“Where's Simon?” I asked when the conversation ground to a halt.

“I suppose he'll be here shortly,” she said, looking away. “He's always here.” And she wandered off.

That was enough for me. The two drinks I'd inhaled at Cedar Haven were not going to cut it if I had to make chitchat with the likes of Miriam Abramowitz. I spotted the refreshment table across the room and made a beeline for it. Good thing there were only two children in the room, and they stayed out of my way. Someone—Isaac, I hoped—had procured a fifth of White Label, prompting a not-quite-silent “Thank God” from me.

“What are you praying for?” came a voice behind me. Isaac, finally.

I turned, took a sip of my whiskey—personality in a bottle—and flashed my brightest smile. He leaned in to whisper in my ear.

“Can I convince you to stay again tonight?” he asked, and the skin on my neck tingled.

“Not if you abandon me to Miriam again. You're on the bench at the moment.”

“Let's see if I can win first chair by the end of the evening,” he said, clearly confounding my sporting metaphor with a musical one. I didn't really care; he was in the driver's seat either way.

We found a quiet corner to talk, but soon Isaac's friends joined us. While we all drank and chatted on one side, a huge dining table set for twenty was being loaded with food on the other. I caught sight of Waldo Coons lugging heavy platters and glasses to the table. He was wearing the same corduroy slacks from that afternoon, but he'd been issued a white waiter's coat two sizes too big. Anything that covered his scabby arms was all right by me. His eyes still betrayed little sign of cognition, but he seemed content enough to dispatch his duties in silence.

At eight thirty, Rachel announced that dinner was ready. The Arcadians numbered fourteen. That evening they'd invited a couple of vacationers from nearby camps, plus Lena, Max, and me. And, of course, the Blanchards. Someone had prepared a giant smorgasbord, with everything from fish to roast chicken to steak. Hors d'oeuvres, breads, and a cheese board. Potatoes, corn, creamed spinach, and even spaghetti and meatballs. And there was plenty to drink. Chianti bottles in straw flasks, Inglenook red and white, and Mogen David for those keeping kosher. Or perhaps that was there just to rib Simon. There was whiskey and vodka and gin, as well as sherry, port, and mixers of all kinds.

“Who organized all this?” I asked Isaac. “There's so much food.”

“Rachel is the heart and soul of these Sunday suppers,” he said. “But everyone pitches in to help. We all share the costs. It gets paid for out of our dues.”

“And you said you're not Communists. You'd need a five-year plan to put this evening together. And you said ‘suppers' plural. Do you mean you do this more than once a year?”

He sipped his wine. “Every Sunday during the summer. Whenever we're here.”

After dinner, before everyone got too happy on drink, we were invited to adjourn to the area beneath the great stag's head where Waldo Coons had set up chairs and rolled the spinet into place. He stood like a ghoul, half in shadow, off to the side, watching the proceedings. Isaac had his violin. Miriam was at the piano, Simon on cello, and Ruth Hirsch on viola. We had a piano quartet in our immediate future, that much I knew.

The musicians flipped through their sheet music; then Miriam tapped on the A above middle C, and the others tuned their instruments accordingly. Max, who was seated beside me, leaned in and repeated the same joke he dusted off every time he went to a concert: “I've never particularly enjoyed this piece.” I rolled my eyes. He also had a favorite companion joke to that one. If we were listening to a modern piece, he never failed to tap me on the shoulder halfway through it to ask when they were going to finish tuning their instruments and get on with it.

Once the audience was seated with drinks in hand, Isaac stood to face us.

“Good evening, everybody,” he said, his violin tucked smartly under his left arm. “We're so happy to be among family and friends for another installment of our Sunday Bacchanalia. About ten years ago, a few of us had the idea of organizing these orgies and inviting all our nearest and dearest to share good food, wine, and music with us. Just a bunch of sunburned Jews from New York looking for an excuse to get drunk and play the instruments our parents guilted us into learning.” Laughter rippled through the room.

“Tonight we're going to play a piece that we've been wanting to do for years. We haven't had the nerve to perform it in public till now, so please don't be too hard on us; we're just amateur hacks, after all.” He retook his seat then turned to the audience again. “I nearly forgot. As always there's a prize for anyone who can name it. The folks staying here at Arcadia Lodge are ineligible, of course, since they've heard us rehearsing it for weeks.”

Everyone applauded. Isaac turned to his fellow musicians, made eye contact with them, and on a silent count of three he dipped his head. They launched into the first movement of an energetic piece in a minor key. I knew it instantly. One evening, shortly after VJ Day, I had taken notice of this piece of music as it drifted from my father's study. I had heard Fauré many times before that, of course, as my father particularly enjoyed his chamber works. I could recognize it at the drop of a needle. But that evening in 1945, a couple of months after my ninth birthday, was the moment when listening to music became less of a parlor trick for me and more a true joy. I remember creeping up the corridor where I stationed myself next to the study's open door, invisible to my father inside. The smoke from his evening pipe burned like incense, wafting through the air, out into the hallway, as if on the music. I breathed it in deeply, unconsciously. It wasn't that I loved the smell of pipe smoke; it was just there, part of my world. Daddy's smoke. Cavendish tobacco, sweet-smelling with hints of vanilla and walnut. An intimate, familiar scent that pervaded the rooms I inhabited as I child. And it was usually accompanied by its partner, lingering just underneath: the sharp, but not unpleasant, odor of alcohol. If the sweet pipe smoke represented the mildness in my memories, the whiskey was the spice.

The four movements spread out over about thirty minutes. Miriam's precise, at times powerful, at times gentle, playing stunned me. Not only was she good, she was playing in a room with thin acoustics on a modest old upright that had spent God knows how many humid summers and bone-chilling winters untouched in the Great Lodge. It was clear to me that she was by far the most talented of the amateurs, who were all fine musicians in their own right. I felt a new willingness to accept her oddness as the price to pay for her talents. Who said remarkable people had to be normal? I resolved to try harder to get to know her.

When the fourth movement drew to its spirited end, I realized I'd hardly taken my eyes off Miriam the entire time. The audience rose to its feet and roared with applause. The musicians stood and laughed and took exaggerated bows. All except Miriam, actually, who remained seated on her bench, looking back at the assembled with an expression akin to indifference, but not quite. Perhaps it was vague curiosity. It looked as if she were studying us under glass.

I smiled brightly as I clapped till my hands hurt. Aunt Lena applauded vigorously as well. And Max, still holding onto his long-since-drained glass of port in his right hand, thumped his left against his thigh in appreciation. My eyes darted around the room, taking in the reactions of the crowd. Everyone approved, including Jakob Eisenstadt, who bounced his cane on the wooden floorboards and laughed, his face glowing red. Then my gaze snagged on the shadow against the far wall. Waldo Coons was staring at me, loose-jawed, with hollow eyes, looking like Frankenstein's monster's ugly brother. I shook a shiver off my shoulders and turned to the enjoyment. When I glanced back a moment later, Waldo had evaporated, leaving nothing but a smudge on the wall where he'd rested his greasy head.

“Thank you, everyone,” said Isaac. “That wasn't so bad, was it?” A chorus of nos replied. “So who can tell me the piece we just played?”

No one volunteered.

“You must have some idea, Irv,” he said, chiding one of the guests. “I thought you liked music. Surely someone has a guess.”

“Ellie knows the piece,” said Max. There was silence.

Isaac looked surprised. I blushed. “Really?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Max. “I know it myself, but I just can't remember the fellow's name or what it's called. But Ellie knows.”

The entire audience fixed its eyes on me. Isaac waved his bow like a sword and pointed at me. I still said nothing.

“Max is right,” said Aunt Lena. “Don't doubt her. She's uncanny at this thing.”

“Ten dollars says she doesn't know,” chimed in Simon.

Isaac drew himself up and, acting like a game show host, asked me again. “Ellie Stone, for ten bucks and . . .” he searched his mind for another prize, “. . . and Simon's toothbrush, can you tell us all the piece we just played?”

“It was Gabriel Fauré,” I said. “‘Piano Quartet Number 1.'”

“That's it!” said Max. “That's what I was going to say, only I couldn't remember it.”

Simon's face told the tale, and Isaac jumped for joy. “That's absolutely correct.”

The assembled applauded politely at my parlor trick. Even Simon congratulated me, handing a wadded mess of bills to Isaac to award me. The ceremony took place immediately. I accepted the money on behalf of the UJA. I thanked Simon for the cash but told him he could keep his toothbrush.

“You'll need it to wash the taste of crow out of your mouth.”

Max looked up from his seat. “Congratulations,” he said, holding up his glass. “Oh, look at that. Finished my drink. Be a good girl, Ellie, and fetch me another?”

“I'll help you,” said Isaac.

I was so happy that I didn't mind Max's transparent ploy. In fact toasting with an empty glass was one of his signature moves to finagle a refill. Basking in Isaac's adoration, and still tingling from Miriam's exceptional performance, I floated across the room to fill Max's glass with port, not even noticing the giant ground sloth blocking the drinks table until I'd practically run into him. Ralph “Tiny” Terwilliger stood before me, a half-drunk glass of beer in his hand.

“Nice party,” he said, then sloshed down the rest of his beer and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “You look surprised to see me.”

“Not surprised,” I said. “Startled.”

“I told you I was coming here to get my pictures. Do you have them?”

“Give me a minute,” I said, leaving Isaac with the chief, and recrossed the room to retrieve the envelope I'd left on my seat.

Max gaped in horror at my empty hands. His lower lip began quivering, and I told him to hold his horses. I'd bring him his port in a moment. I rushed back to the drinks table just in time to hear Terwilliger compliment Isaac on the fine spread they'd put out.

“Glad you're enjoying it,” said Isaac.

“I didn't care much for the music, though.”

Isaac shrugged. “Sorry about that. The accordion's on the fritz.”

“Don't get me wrong,” said the charmer. “You all played real good. Just not to my taste.”

“Here are your photographs,” I said, holding out the envelope. “I didn't have an enlarger, so the pictures are small. You can get some prints made later with the negatives.”

“I doubt I'll need to do that,” he said, tearing open the envelope and stuffing his bearish hand inside to get at the photos.