Unspeakable Things (9 page)

Felix pulled the blankets around her neck, tucking them in tightly. He straightened and did something to the front of his trousers. “It’s finished now,” he said loudly, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

Ilse entered the room again, coming closer to the bed and looking down at her daughter with concern on her face. But Maria shut her eyes, refusing even to acknowledge her mother’s presence, that large, false, untrustworthy person who had betrayed, and would continue to betray, the girl.

Uncle Felix glowered toward Maria, who lay shrinking in her bed. “Penicillin!” he said. “A wonder drug. Remarkable, my dear lady, remarkable.” Creaking, he raised himself from the side of the cot, his body hunched like question mark as he dragged himself onto his lame leg.
Click-click.
The leg straightened.

Maria could see Felix’s hand in his hip pocket. She loathed him for trying to fool her, for thinking she could be fooled by such deceptions. “My leg!” cried Felix, hobbling once more around the narrow room and shrieking for effect. Maria refused to smile. “Look,” Felix commanded. Slowly, he withdrew his hand from his pocket and opened it in front of the girl’s nose. She looked; she could not help it. In his gnarled palm lay a shiny green frog. Felix pressed his fingers together and the frog gave off a metallic croak.
Click-click.
Maria’s mother smiled indulgently. “Here, child, this is for you,” Uncle Felix said. “Now that you’ve broken my leg, you might as well have this. My poor leg is completely useless even without my little frog to help me. Here.” He put the toy frog down on Maria’s blanket, clicking it twice more for effect. “Now I must go.”

“Felix, will you stay for some coffee?” Ilse offered as the doctor limped toward the door.

“Ah, dear lady, you are indeed too kind,” said Felix in a normal voice.

Within the wardrobe, Anna woke with a start. Suddenly, she felt she would die if she stayed in the wardrobe a moment longer. The mothball odor and the smothering pressure of the stale smell of old wool pressed down on her little misshapen body. Her delicate nostrils quivered and her compressed lungs tried desperately to suck in air. She had slept for the first time in perhaps years, and now, waking, she had forgotten why she had ever entered the wardrobe. She must have climbed in. A ridiculous impulse. Why was she here? How foolish to suffocate like that, a desiccated carcass to be found perhaps days later when the family needed an extra blanket. She must get out, and immediately. She turned on the small shelf and hesitantly put one foot down toward the floor, timidly opening the door to the wardrobe just a crack. But wait, there was someone else in the room. Someone small as Anna herself almost, small and quick and unfamiliar. Looking through the crack, Anna could see Maria still in bed, and the disarray of bedclothes. It was dark again, night at the window. Had she slept away the entire day? A bit of fresh air blew in through the crack in the wardrobe door, fresh to Anna’s lips anyhow, and she sucked it in gratefully. But something told her to stay still, hidden and concealed, until the coast was clear. Peering through the crack, she observed the room and the shrieking little man who now inhabited it.

Anna saw him dart back toward the girl. He looked at her, and one eyebrow started working furiously. Up and down. “My face!” he shouted at her. “What have you done to my eyebrow, hmm? Bad girl, have you been bothering Uncle Felix once again?” The eyebrow, as if with a life of its own, waggled furiously on Uncle Felix’s face. Maria shrank back, seeing in that eyebrow hordes of black ants. Felix held in one hand the end of a long black thread that seemed somehow to be attached to the frenetic eyebrow. Maria could see the thread protruding out of Felix’s coat sleeve.

“They all love this trick,” Felix confided to Ilse. He turned back to Maria. “Bad girl, bad girl.” Maria slipped softly into the coolness, finally, of sleep. But Anna was wide awake now, watching, startled and fascinated.

Felix turned back just before following Maria’s mother into the hallway, toward a hot plate and coffee deliciously steaming. “I’ll stay with her just a minute more,” he said as Ilse left to prepare the coffee for him. Satisfied that Maria’s eyes were closed, he darted, now totally silently, back into the little room from the doorway. But this time, he did not pause at Maria’s bed. He moved silently, lightly on his feet toward the army blanket that divided Herbert’s space from that of the mother and children. Quickly, he lifted one end of the blanket where it hung on a clothesline. Anna, watching from the wardrobe, cringed back against the blankets, hoping she would not be seen. But Felix had other things on his mind. Even more silently, giving one furtive look behind, he ducked through the blanket partition. He bent down, ran his hands quickly along the top of Herbert’s bed, and then slipped his hands under the narrow mattress that lay upon it. Silently, Felix withdrew both hands. He put both hands in his pockets now, hands that no longer grasped a black thread, but something larger perhaps, something more bulky. Felix once again made as if to leave.

Maria, lying, eyes shut, entering sleep, felt the cold rustle of folded wings. Then, dimly receding as she sank gratefully into a possible relief from fever, she heard the heavy limp of Uncle Felix. The door shut behind him, and the thump of his “broken” leg punctuated the loud announcement of his presence, exiting toward coffee, her mother, and a discussion of their mutual pasts.

Carefully, Anna exited the wardrobe. The stiff envelope crackled against her breast. She stood hunched, as if in thought. But for once her mind was clear. She walked over to the child and kissed her. “My darling child, sleep now,” she said.

Someone, Maria knew, had entered Grandfather’s part of the room. And someone had left it. But no longer on guard, Maria slept. Next to her, on the blanket, a small green frog, luminous eyes bugged open, and neck sac bulging, slept, too. Its striped back caught the light and winked back.
Click-click,
it might have said. But in the afternoon, it, too, was silent.

A
s Herbert opened the door and stepped out into the early New York morning again, the air came up and bit him with cold. It had a keen animal sharpness, the wind. Herbert pulled his ragged coat about him and hunched directly into it, heading toward the Automat and his appointments there.

Although it was early in the morning, the windows of the Automat were already rimmed in steam. Herbert hurried through the almost deserted streets of New York, barely registering the dim gloom of dawn that uncurled itself around his body, until the animal itself startled awake with bright eyes and a glittering edge of sun topped the buildings that rimmed the East River. The shaft of sun reached down and coaxed him to look up and even to feel cheerful.

“I must do something for the children,” he reminded himself. But he had errands to do that did not concern his grandchildren.

As the shaft of sun reached down through the tall, oppressive buildings, the glittering towers of New York began to sing in chorus, a metallic shimmer of sound that reached into Herbert’s ears, even though his ears were muffled by a long, grimy scarf and a squashed hat. New York sang in a whine of strained sound that merged with the increasing humming of cars, taxicabs, and even, far away, the sighs of trains and great boats shunting themselves along the river. Herbert hurried and the gloomy streets lightened in front of him. He was a man going quickly toward the vanishing point, that point where perspective meets horizon.

Eighth Avenue was punctuated by small bent figures, hunched against the wind, hurrying somewhere. Herbert stopped at the door of the Automat and then entered its warm odor.

“Morning, sir,” the waitress greeted him. As Herbert paused in the steam of the cafeteria, she went back to cleaning. The Automat had opened two hours ago, and already there were puddles of water and mud on the floor, the grime melting from early-morning customers. With a shrug, Helen indicated a back table. “They’ve been waiting for you,” she said.

“Thank you, my good woman,” replied Herbert, pulling off his gloves and removing his hat. He struggled to untangle the large scarf from his neck.

“Back there,” she said. “I suppose you want your coffee?” Not for him to stand in line. Or lift a tray.

“That would be so kind,” answered Herbert somewhat absently in his accent, automatically charming. He took a moment to overlook the situation—the dim restaurant with its few dark tables, and the already-gleaming cases of self-service items: Danish pastries, red Jell-O, whipped-cream hats.

The four men who formed the world-famous Tolstoi Quartet were waiting for him in the back of the restaurant. Two tables had been pushed together in readiness. Herbert quickly took in the dark bulk of musical instrument cases that sat expectantly next to each man. Two violins, a viola, a violoncello; the cases were dark and covered with stickers from travel—travel all over the world.

The Tolstoi String Quartet had a certain European reputation. Named for the writer they considered the most universal, the Tolstoi Quartet sought in its music to overcome barriers of nationalism. But Herbert had never quite forgiven the Quartet for not calling itself the Arthur Schnitzler Quartet instead.

Herbert had often heard them—in the concert hall in Vienna and, even more pleasantly, in his own home. Adeline had delighted in these soirees. Adeline! He saw her at the piano, for in private rehearsal she had played the piano for the Schubert Quintet with these courteous, sonorous men. Herbert did not need to close his eyes to see again the Tolstoi Quartet in his home, the elegance of the men and women, the beauty of their playing, the tears that rose to his eyes even then as he watched his dark-haired wife.

Now, as Herbert walked toward the seated Quartet, a tremor crossed the dank air of the restaurant, metallic with the stale odors of wet wool and ashen coffee. Herbert coughed, clearing his throat discreetly. Four chairs scraped and four heads turned to look. “Ah,” cried one. And at that, all four men sprang to their feet and looked sharply in Herbert’s direction. Herbert advanced toward them. “Please be seated,” he said. “Be seated, my dear gentlemen.”

The four men looked quickly at one another. In a rush, their faces contorted with fear and longing, they swooned to the ground. They fell on Herbert as he stood, his threadbare overcoat too large around his body. “Herr Professor, Herr Doktor,” they murmured. Each man attempted to clutch the hem of Herbert’s coat, and they prostrated themselves further, embracing his ankles and his overshoes.

“Please, gentlemen,” Herbert crooned, trying to take a step backward.

“Beloved Herr Professor,” the men murmured.

“Please, gentlemen, I implore you,” admonished Herbert. Gently, he reached down and placed his hands on the shoulders of the two men who encircled his feet. “Please.”

The men seized his hands and began kissing them fervently. “Our beloved Herr Doktor. We thought we would never see you alive,” they said, kissing his ring. “The ring. Your promise.”

Tears rimmed the eyes of all four men, and Herbert, too, felt his own tears rise, welcome balm to the wandering soul. He grasped their hands. “My friends, it is I who should embrace you.” Herbert’s voice was like warm honey.

The Quartet started to sob aloud, and Herbert let the sadness pour out of him, too. “Please, gentlemen, please,” he crooned, trying to encircle them all with his hands. His hands were warm now; he let the radiance flow through him into their bent, shaking backs. So frail. They all were….“Gentlemen, please.” He cleared his throat.

The men pushed themselves to their feet and stood, looking expectantly at Herbert. “It is time to begin.” Herbert lowered himself into a chair. He indicated the other chairs. “Be seated, I beg of you.” The Quartet sat down instantly.

“Coffee,” said Helen as she put the cups on the table in front of Herbert.

“Thank you, dear lady,” he said. He turned his kind, illuminated gaze to the men, looking at each one in turn, their lined faces, their troubled eyes. “Now,” he commanded softly, “tell me.”

There was sudden silence in the cafeteria. Herbert could hear the clanging of the morning sunlight outside, above the narrow streets, scraping against the sooty buildings with sharp, harsh sounds. He heard early-morning traffic, laboring. But all this was far away. “Tell me,” he said again, even more softly. “Tell me.” He whispered, as to a child or a lover. His lips were papery against each other.

Without a word, each man, as if offering a gift, placed his left hand, outstretched, upon the table. These hands—the ones used for fingering—lay on the table, palms up, vulnerable. They gleamed like newly netted fish.

“Look, Herr Doktor,” whispered the first violinist. “Observe.”

The hands, which had a life of their own, lay mute under Herbert’s examination, unprotesting. They quivered a little. They were gnarled and muscled and sinewy from years of pressing themselves against strings. Herbert looked. In an instant, as when a puzzle is completed, he understood. On each hand outstretched in front of him, the final joint of the smallest finger was missing. The hands, ashamed, lay in front of him. They trembled with the effort of trying not to hide their disfigurement. The stumps of the little fingers, which wanted only to creep away under the others, now, obedient to their masters, allowed him to see their painful embarrassment. They twitched but lay still.

“But what?” Herbert questioned incredulously. He looked into the eyes of the first violinist, then at each of the men.

Their leader answered for them all. “Yes. They took our fingers. We can no longer play.” The hands, the mutilated fingering hands of the Quartet, lay suspended on the table. “And so the Tolstoi String Quartet is silent.”

The instruments in their cases began to throb, their noise swelling next to their owners. From the dark cases came discordant deaf-mute sounds, a cacophony of scrapes, the meaningless tonalities of deserted music. The violins sobbed like sick women; the viola and violoncello howled.

“Ach…” The four men put their right hands on the instrument cases. “Be silent.” And at that, the sounds subsided into moaning, and gradually into exhausted sighs, and then diminished slowly. “Rest,” the men admonished their instruments. They turned their dark eyes toward Herbert. “We have no more tears,” they said. “But they are different.”

The instruments were silent again in their cases, except for an occasional hiccup. “They still have hope,” the men explained.

Herbert thought of the harmony of these instruments, and the look of rapid fingering hands, the left ones, dancing and twisting against the strings. He remembered the courtly sway of the right hands as they bowed the music forth. Music curled out of stringed instruments as the musicians birthed it.

“You will help us,” the first violinist said to Herbert. The four men nodded in agreement. Herbert could not keep from looking furtively at the mutilated stumps of the final fingers. “Yes,” said the leader. “That is why we come to you, Herr Doktor. That is why we asked you to meet with us. It is for the sake of music that we come to you today.”

“What can I do for you?” Unwillingly, Herbert felt he was being forced into the piano part; that what was being played here was no longer a quartet, but a quintet, with the guest artist—himself—obliged to participate.

The first violinist nodded, as if Herbert had come into the music at the right place. On one breath, on the exact same beat, all four men answered him at once. “You will find for us our fingers.” There was a brusque, brisk silence, a silence thrumming with sound.

The little fingers began to twitch on the table, their stumps dancing in exasperated rhythm. “You can do it.” coaxed the viola player in a honeyed voice. “Our fingers. Ours,” the violinists said. The cellist said only one word, but it came from the bottom of his vocal register. “Please,” he implored softly, looking into Herbert’s eyes.

The instruments in their cases now also began to twitch and scrape, and once again sound rose from their dark coffins. A cacophony of discordant, jumpy agitations, warnings, confused like the shrieks of an ambulance or a police wagon or of men being tortured. The air was filled with suffering. “Find our fingers!” screamed the violinists. “You can help us,” the violist coaxed. “Please. Please!” groaned the cellist, wringing his hands.

Herbert could not stand it. He rose to his feet and clapped his hands over his ears. “Stop this noise!”

“Ah,” breathed the four waiting men at once. And with a sigh of relief, they sat back and removed their mutilated hands from the table, putting them discreetly into pockets, where the naked fingers could lie again in safe darkness, curled around one another, taking whatever comfort that remained in one another’s presence.

“They do not like to be reminded,” explained the first violinist to Herbert as the left hands relaxed into safe pockets. “It hurts them too much. We prefer to let them be quiet, to forget a little.”

And each man placed his right hand soothingly on the instrument case next to him and, bending toward the hinged closure, whispered a few quiet words. “They, too,” said the leader, indicating the instruments. “They were with us. They saw it all.”

The hands twitched a little in their pockets. “Shh, my little ones,” the first violinist said, admonishing the fingers. “It is all right.” He looked at all four men intently, then nodded, raising his head and staring directly at Herbert as he spoke. Herbert listened, as if in a trance, as if he already knew it, to the first violinist’s song.

For twenty years, the Tolstoi String Quartet had lived as one. They had traveled, playing the great concert halls of Europe. They had even, once, come to America. They had met at the conservatory, married one another’s sisters, but their first loyalty was to music. And to one another. The violist and the cellist were, additionally, first cousins.

Each night, in some dank hotel room somewhere, they lay next to their instruments and counted themselves the luckiest of men. When they were not playing together, they were preparing to play together. Each went home and practiced day and night, embracing his instrument and thinking only of the harmonies he made with the others. Because of this, they decided to live as close to one another as they could. After several years, two flats came vacant in a building next to that of the first violinist. There was a bit of a skirmish about it, but eventually the violist and cellist took the flats next door. The second violinist moved himself, his violin, and his wife into the parlor of the first violinist, where the two men lived happily, practicing their parts until the wee hours of the morning. So really, they were never separated, if they could help it.

The men did not even need to speak to know one another’s thoughts. Critics spoke of the unity of the Quartet, as if one person, one larger God perhaps, were breathing. And the Quartet, if they spoke at all, it was only of music.

At night, after a day of playing, each man wiped his instrument with a soft burgundy velvet cloth and kissed it tenderly. The soft beds waited for them, gleaming. Sighing, perhaps under the breath still whistling the theme from
Death and the Maiden,
they turned back the covers. They laid the instruments beside them on the adjacent pillows. Gratefully, each man slid into clean sheets, embracing his instrument. And there they slept, the satisfied sleep of a part of God, until morning, when they would resume music together again.

Even the cellist refused to have a special bed made to accommodate the larger violoncello. “I like big hips,” he explained, and he caressed his instrument all night.

Sometimes from the adjacent houses would emanate soft noises, something forgotten: the instruments playing a fragment of Haydn, perhaps, or of Mozart. The instruments, happy, sang in the arms of their masters. “Shh,” whispered the men. But the instruments could not help singing out, so deep was the ecstasy in unison.

“And your wives?” asked Herbert. “What of your wives?”

The four men looked at one another, and the second violinist took up the story. “They were good women,” he said. “They could not help themselves.” The four men nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, they were good.” The four men sat back, as if the wives, and the goodness thereof, were not of great importance.