Sight Reading (32 page)

Chapter 6

W
hen Nicholas arrived at the day shift that morning, the waitress with the heavy walk was fitting herself behind the counter. Shaking her head, she said, “Bad news about Harvey.”

“Oh no,” Nicholas said.

The old man had broken his hip; it took hours before he found help. “I guess that's what happens when you live alone,” the waitress said. “I keep expecting him to walk through that door.”

Instead the anorexic woman had come in. She wore her hair in two low ponytails, and as she ordered her coffee with hot chocolate, her hair itself struck Nicholas as abhorrent. It was abhorrent that she should try to look youthful, when in reality she was just ill.

“With old people,” the waitress continued, “these are the things that do them in. Here—do you want to sign this card for him?”

Nicholas wrote his name into the card, adding a jaunty line about the twentieth-anniversary party. But his hand was shaking. How could he be so upset, when he barely knew the man? Well, he was still smarting from his conversation—if one could call it that—with Yoni. Hard not to keep puzzling over what Yoni could have meant. Even Hazel seemed to want more from him somehow. And now this. He looked to the mute television screen, where a perky-looking blonde was giving a report on what was apparently a new trend: beauty spas for dogs. Nicholas felt a surge of disgust.

Everything was rotten. And he still hadn't figured out what to do for Remy.

On the television a little dog wore pink sneakers—four of them—and a matching bow in its hair. The newscaster nodded in conversation with its owner. Normally Nicholas found humor in such things, but today all he saw was one more indication that the world was going to pot. What an abomination, he thought. The crappiness of it all. He had little appetite when his eggs arrived and shifted them around on his plate; by the time he tried to eat them, they had gone cold.

HE WENT TO HIS OFFICE
and worked there into the evening. It was Friday, a Symphony night—Remy's last performance of the season. She would be heading there right now. What he would do, to not have hurt her.

He stood, his legs stiff, and took Sylvane's CD and manuscript from the envelope. He couldn't help being curious.
That
at least he could count on;
that
he knew would be beautiful. He opened to the first page of the score, placed the CD in the stereo, and pressed Play.

At first he was simply reading along as he listened. The opening was sparse, mere daubs of color, the woodwinds lightly touching the air. Then a slow repeated knell rose from the tuba, was caught by the French horn, increased in speed, and was lifted by trumpets until it became a siren skirling. But instead of whirling out of control, the trumpets were absorbed by the orchestra
tutti
and, after a long calming diminuendo, a lovely air emerged, a flute's whispered wisdom, one of those runic melodies Sylvane so excelled at. Nicholas pictured a shady bower, a trickling bourn, blossoms dandled by a breeze. Gradually the music's tracery widened, first into shimmering rills (the tremolo of the second violins), then broad ribbons of sound, and the woodwinds' counterpoint against the first violins. The sound grew luxuriant, the brass a haunting chorus as the strings came together densely, a jungle of deep green vines. The thick tangle of the vines, the bright voices of the woodwinds . . . It was a gorgeous, luscious jungle, but he was lost.

He began to weep.

For the entire first movement he wept, sobs that tore at his chest. His lungs were exhausted by the time the second movement began. Nicholas became quiet, managed to flip ahead in the score to find his place. At the third movement, he rested his forehead on his desk and simply listened. Sylvane's music crept up from the dale out toward the glade—the piping of a piccolo, its sunny tinctures. The brass and strings continued to weave their patterns, numinous harmonies, a panoply of voices.

For the finale, Sylvane had done something unusual—quite unlike her signature conclusion, that melancholic swell and gradual fading out that often left Nicholas with a feeling of quiet sadness, some dark effluvium hanging over everything. This time she had used a higher register, so that the sound was lighter, brighter, and there was an angular lilt from the violins, and the clarinets' sudden bright accents, rooted by the cellos' modulations. The sound became lucent, as if emerging triumphant from some hidden shadow. Yes, it was as though Sylvane had at last cleared her way through that forest, cleared out the knots and the darkness. What remained was vibrancy, without the lurking danger. Instead there was brilliance. As the woodwinds carried their melody up toward the sky, Nicholas felt his own heart lift.

He opened his eyes. She had done it, after so many years. She had made it through. Nicholas wanted to call out to her, Sylvane, at last, you did it! So much was possible, then.

He listened as the last reverberations died out, the tremolo of the violins like heat glimmering on a desert clearing. I've been saved, was his thought. I must tell Sylvane, You saved me.

But first—the thought came to him with clarity—I must make amends.

He stood from his desk. Yoni was absolutely right: How had he let these days pass by? So little time. These people in his life, the people he cared for . . . Only a few hours remained until Remy would have finished up at work. Time enough. Nicholas went to fetch the big, full plastic bag by the door.

AT NESTOR'S IT WAS STILL
early and not many people were on the dance floor. Nicholas spotted Paula easily, amid a small group of young men, and waved.

She looked up from her beer and a made a surprised face, as the others followed her gaze. The young man next to her frowned and said something to Paula, then headed briskly toward Nicholas. Paula called, “You're kidding, right?”

But the young man had already grabbed Nicholas by the shoulders and was pushing him toward the side door. “We don't need you here.” He was taller than Nicholas, his bones thicker, his hands large.

“Please,” Nicholas heard himself say. “Pardon me, but—”

“Just use her and then disappear, is that how it goes?”

When Nicholas raised his hands in protest, the man simply grabbed one and dragged Nicholas outside, where the sky was now dark and the asphalt twinkled beneath the parking lights.

Nicholas said, “You're hurting my wrist.”

“
You're hurting my wrist,
” the man whined in a mocking voice, and in one fluid movement wrenched Nicholas's arm back, twisting his wrist until something popped. Pain leapt from Nicholas's left shoulder down through his forearm. He heard a cry and realized it was his own.

“Oh my God—stop it!” Paula was there, pulling furiously on the young man's button-down shirt. “What the hell's wrong with you?”

“He won't bother you anymore.”

“He wasn't
bothering
me! Are you insane?” The young man looked offended as Paula added, “God, Nicholas, are you okay?”

With surprise Nicholas said, “I can't move my arm.”

“José, you idiot.” Paula reached for Nicholas's arm but stopped when she saw that his wrist, too, was injured.

José put his hand on Paula's shoulder and said, “Come on, girl—”

“Get the fuck away from me!” Paula's face was red with anger. José turned, moping, and headed back into the club.

“Shit, Nicholas, does it hurt?”

“Well, yes.” He felt, incredibly, tears in his eyes. “I'm not sure how I'll drive home.”

“You're not going home. I'm taking you to the hospital. I think he dislocated your shoulder.” She exhaled loudly. “Jesus Christ. Where are your keys?”

“In my pocket. The left one.”

Paula reached into his pant pocket, swearing under her breath, and followed him to the car. “That creep just confirmed every suspicion I had about him.”

Only when he had sat down in the passenger seat, and Paula had closed his door and taken her place behind the wheel, did Nicholas realize that his legs were shaking.

“What are you even doing here?” Paula asked. “I thought you were through with dancing.”

“I was. But I never thanked you. I saw some wool, and . . .” He took a sharp breath, because a new, searing pain shot through his wrist.

“And you thought of me? That's sweet.” Paula said it in a way that Nicholas couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic.

“That bag of yarn, in the backseat. It's for you.”

Paula gave a quick look toward the back. “All that's for me?”

“I hope you'll take it. I certainly don't know what to do with it.”

“Are you serious—you really bought all of that for me?”

“It's New Zealand wool. I remember you said that was the best.”

Paula had reached back to look inside the bag. “Wow.” She gave a loud exhalation and, glancing at his arm, said, “Your wrist is already starting to swell.”

It was red, throbbing. “It's all right,” Nicholas told her, weakly, because it was all he knew to say.

BACKSTAGE, DURING INTERMISSION, REMY TRIED
to imagine that this could be the last time. Next season she might be far away, no longer next to Carole at the front of the second violin section. Well, who knew what might happen. This morning, practicing the violin solo, she had felt something from long ago, from when she was still a girl. Aspiration. A furious
wanting
. It had stunned her, this determined yearning, so that she had to wonder: What had happened to the girl she had been, the one who wanted everything?

Now here was Christopher, with his carefully teased mustache and serious air. “Did you get my e-mail?”

“I haven't checked it yet.”

“Just some more information. It looks really good, Remy, it's an amazing opportunity.”

“I know. I looked up the m.d. again. She sounds terrific.” Thrilling, what could be a world-class orchestra, and directed by a woman.

“I'm telling you, she's wonderful to work with. And she's open to all kinds of new music.”

“I appreciate it, Christopher, really.” Remy recalled how she had felt back when she was a student, learning new work every week, that continuous self-renewal. And now, after so many years, she was feeling it again. She had practiced for so long yesterday, the bruise on her neck had developed a rash.

That she could capture again what she hadn't felt since her student years, that sense of constant discovery, left her with a feeling of hope mixed with dismay. Hope that she might find again what she had sworn all those years ago never to lose: commitment to her own talent. And dismay for what she had allowed herself to become: some lesser version of herself.

“We'd better get back,” Christopher said, and he and Remy returned to their seats.

THE CALL CAME AN HOUR
later, when she was leaving Symphony Hall. Cybil's voice through the cell phone was hoarse, explaining that she was at the hospital. “Mass. General. Yoni's had a heart attack.”

Remy said, “No,” as if she could simply refute it.

“I just left you a message at home. He needs surgery.”

Remy had stopped walking and stood on the sidewalk, feeling lost. Despite the late hour, the avenue was busy, cars crowding past, their lights suddenly alarming in the dark of night. A stormy breeze swept Remy's long skirt into an angry billow while Cybil said, “If you could come here.”

A taxi was passing, and Remy frantically waved him over. “I'm on my way,” she said, but her voice sounded funny; only when she had shut the taxi's door and huddled, terrified, back in the seat did she realize that she was crying.

Chapter 7

S
he found Cybil in the waiting area, her face very pale. Cybil explained what had happened, and that Yoni was sleeping now. Though still somehow neat, Cybil looked diminished, like a wet bird.

“They need to do emergency surgery. Normally they would wait until he was stronger, but they think—” Cybil slouched, something Remy had never seen her do. Remy wrapped her arms around her. Cybil whispered, “I'm so frightened!”

Remy clung to her tightly. “Where's Ravit?”

“Trude's with her.” Gertrude was Cybil's sister. “Is Nicholas here?”

“I was going to ask you.”

Cybil shook her head. “I left him a message. Yoni asked for you. Earlier, before they had to rush him in. He really wanted to see you.”

“I want to see him.”

“He looks awful!” Cybil began to cry.

A doctor came up to them then, to ask Cybil to fill out some paperwork, and Cybil allowed herself to be led away.

Fluorescent lights gave the room a bluish tinge, and as Remy sat, alone, she felt sick to her stomach. She stared at her hands in her lap, clasped them, unclasped them. She changed the cross of her hands, right over left, which felt unnatural, and looked down at her thumbs crossed one over the other. When she was very young, she had looked at her hands one day while washing up for dinner and, seeing the tap water fall over them, thought to herself, These are my hands, and they will be my hands when I'm old, but they'll be different, they'll be older hands. And the thought had seemed profound and overwhelming, and had been followed by one of those unanswerable questions: Are they still the same hands?

A year or so ago, her colleague Carole had accidentally sliced the tip of her left-hand forefinger while cutting a cucumber—and had refused to be rushed to the emergency room for stitches, terrified that surgery might compromise the sensitivity in her fingertip. Instead she had some kooky ultraviolet light contraption that a friend had rigged up, under which she placed her fingertip for hours each day, to help the skin of the sliced section rebind itself. After a week, like magic, the fingertip was fully healed.

If it could happen for Carole's finger, all back to normal and good as new, then it could happen for Yoni, too. Remy clasped her hands the other way. Though it was nothing she had been brought up to do, she decided to pray. Please, please, let him be all right.

And now she found herself making a pact with a God she had never really thought much about: If you let him live, I will forgive everything. I will forgive Nicholas, forever, no matter what he did with that woman. Just let Yoni live, please.

As if hearing this, Nicholas materialized. He walked up to Remy briskly, pale, frowning. His left arm was in a sling, the wrist bandaged. “Have you heard anything?”

“My God, what happened to you?”

“Let's just say I avoided a fight. Is Yoni all right?”

“What? Jesus.” Remy felt her heart plunge all over again, at the life Nicholas must lead without her. Just how many secrets did he have? But all she said was, “We've been waiting for you. He needs surgery. Right now he's sleeping.” Then, feeling furious all over again, she couldn't help asking, “Why didn't you answer your phone?”

He nodded toward his arm. Then he sat down and asked, “Is Cybil with him?”

“She's with the doctors. There are lots of . . . decisions.” Remy realized her jaw was shaking. The quick thumping in her chest seemed suddenly faster. “What the fuck, Nicholas?” she asked quietly, but he just shook his head.

They waited.

“Well, here we are,” Nicholas announced after many minutes, as if they had already completed long laps.

Remy said nothing, just looked down at her hands until a nurse finally came and told them they could see Yoni now.

THEY WERE USHERED INTO A
small bright room. “Hey,” Cybil said weakly, and then, “Oh, no—what happened?”

“Never mind,” Nicholas said, “I'm fine,” and then nodded hello to Cybil's sister, Trude, whom he and Remy had met a number of times. She was holding Ravit, who was awake yet oddly peaceful, grabbing onto some small purple fuzzy thing. Yoni lay in the bed, motionless, eyes closed, asleep.

Nicholas watched Remy go to Yoni and say, “Hey, you,” in a low voice. Her kiss on Yoni's pale gray cheek met no reaction other than a tiny twitch of his face. “Jesus. Look at you.” She burst into tears. “I'm sorry to cry,” she said, turning her head away.

Her face was wracked, as if Yoni were
her
husband and not Cybil's. Nicholas felt suddenly confused, nearly dizzy—from the painkillers, probably. And from the fact that this was
real,
this awful scene before him was actually happening.

He dropped down into one of the plastic seats, overwhelmed.

“We have just a few minutes,” Cybil's sister said tightly, absently rubbing the baby's back; Ravit had begun to squirm, and Cybil reached for her. “They have to prep him for surgery.”

Nicholas nodded, because he found he couldn't speak. He felt panic coming on, though he told himself it would all be all right, of course Yoni would be fine. But the panic was still there, rising. He hadn't felt such a thing in years, in decades, not like this—not since that day in Italy, at the train station, when he hadn't known who had died.

He wanted to reach out for Remy, hold her, but did not dare; instead he stood and moved toward the bed where Yoni lay, gray-looking, not right at all. No mischievous smile, no flicker in his eyes. Nicholas still heard the echo of their breakfast conversation, Yoni's quiet anger, the way he had nodded his head so slowly, as if to prevent himself from bursting.
I've already done all I can
.
There's nothing more I can do
.

A thought whipped through Nicholas: that the episode might have somehow triggered this attack. But no, these things were common enough. Every winter Nicholas read in the paper about men not yet old keeling over from the mere effort of shoveling snow. Even the ones who seemed fit, who rode bicycles and, like Yoni, jogged and went on hikes and drank protein shakes. They, too, succumbed. Sometimes it was simply congenital; you can't help what goes on in your heart.

Yet a horrible guilt clung to him. “I'm sorry,” Nicholas mouthed, but no sound came out. Leaning down, he managed to whisper, “I love you, Yoni. Please. Get well, hmm?”

He waited, as if Yoni might speak. Despite the nearly imperceptible movement of his eyes beneath their lids, Yoni simply lay there while everyone stood watching him, this man they all loved, except that it was no longer the same man.

WHEN THEY RETURNED TO THE
waiting room, Nicholas dropped carefully into the seat next to Remy. After long, awful, silent minutes, he said, “I guess this is what it means to grow up.”

Remy turned to look at him. “For you. The rest of us grew up a long time ago.” She let her head drop into her hands. How can I stay so angry, even now? What does it even matter? I made a worse mistake. I broke up a family. Who am I to feel wronged? Other people can turn the other cheek. Look at Hazel the other day, so kind to me. I turned her life upside down, and in return, she has been nothing but kind to me, really.

But, of course, Remy reminded herself, that was who Hazel was: a person who gave. She had shared, if unwillingly, her life with Remy—her daughter and her family—with all the grace she could muster. She had given, and had forgiven.

To be able to do that. What Remy would give to be able to do that.

She looked up to see Cybil's sister standing in front of them, her face pale. “They've stopped the surgery, there was a problem. Cybil's with him, but they won't let me in with her. It looks . . . It's not good.”

Remy began to shiver. That small sentence—“It's not good”—those short, benign adjectives that people use to deliver the most deadly of news.

Nicholas was asking questions now. Surely there must be a way, he was demanding, almost belligerently, as if it were Cybil's sister who had caused all this trouble in the first place. “Surely there's something they can do!”

Remy didn't hear the response. She was biting her lip so hard that she tasted blood. “It's not possible,” Nicholas said, angrily, when Cybil's sister had left them again.

Remy thought of Cybil, what a good mood she had been in the other day, Ravit a neat little package there on her chest, and the backgammon board in its bubble wrap. Remy could practically see it now, leaning against the wall.

A new kind of pain crashed through her. This very moment, Yoni was in a room somewhere fighting for his life. Impossible, that they might have to live without him. And yet it was what people did, of course. Continued.

“It's not possible,” Nicholas repeated, in a murmur.

But yes, Remy told herself, of course it was possible. Yoni was a casualty of something beyond health or illness. It seemed clear this disaster was something she and Nicholas, their own misdeeds, had led to, inevitably.

Remy held her arms around herself, to try to stop the shivering. Then she let go, because nothing would do.

The pact she had made, her pact with God . . . It was the wrong pact. She saw that now. It was too easy. A selfish pact. One where she could keep everything for herself. But a fulfilled wish was not a reason to forgive. It was the unfulfilled wish that was the reason. Forgiving
despite
that.

A fullness came over her, a furious clarity.

Yes, that is why we forgive: because we live only so long, and love only so long.

She said none of this to Nicholas. But as if hearing her, he made a small motion with his arm, as though to lift his hand to hers, before his face broke into pain. Remy reached for his other hand and curled her fingers around his. She continued to hold on, for what felt like a long time, and prayed in a silent, ashamed way.

They were still sitting like that when Cybil came toward them, dreadfully slowly, her face as they had never seen it, so that even before she had reached them they had begun, already, to understand.

IT WAS VERY LATE WHEN
the three of them accompanied Cybil and Ravit home. Nicholas felt he was moving through someone else's life. Cybil made the first call, to Yoni's brother in Haifa, but the effort was too much; after that, Trude and Remy took over while Ravit slept in her crib. Nicholas sat on the sleek gray sofa and held Cybil as best he could with just his right arm. His other arm hung in its sling, wrist bandaged, useless.

If I had known, he wondered, that would be the last time I would speak to him . . . But what would I have done differently? What could I have done that would have made it any better? In a way, he's always been cross with me.

Well, I could have run after him. Told him how much I love him, and that I forgive him.

Forgive him. Where did
that
come from? Really there had been an opposite dynamic, as if Nicholas owed Yoni something, always the sense that Nicholas was in the wrong somehow.

Well, there was something else. It had to do with that odd period years ago, those uncomfortable months when something had gone on with Remy. Whatever it was, Nicholas never quite understood, only that it was something she must have told Yoni, something he held over Nicholas—because for a while there had been such uneasiness around him.

Cybil fell briefly asleep on Nicholas's good shoulder, but then awoke and cried again, great loud sobs that became hiccups. Nicholas had to fight himself not to join her.

Night had begun to turn to day. Remy scrambled some eggs. Nicholas was amazed that although he had no appetite—surely none of them did—all four of them ate, swiftly, automatically. Nicholas had to hold his fork with his right hand, making him feel even stranger.

Ravit ate, too; the three women took turns feeding her some green puree with a baby spoon.

When Cybil's sister asked, in a hoarse, tired voice, “So, what exactly happened to you, again?” Nicholas just said, “I got my comeuppance. Let's leave it at that. I'm too ashamed to admit how this happened.” The wrangle at the club seemed something from days ago—from another lifetime.

That was when Cybil stood, quickly, and ran to the bathroom. They could hear her vomiting. Trude went to help her, and so it was just Remy and Nicholas, sitting across from each other, and Ravit in her swing seat, as the sun rose. Remy spooned some more green mush out of the jar, and Ravit played with the purple spoon. Remy touched Ravit's plump cheek. Then Remy's face crumpled; she began to sob.

Nicholas watched, paralyzed, as Ravit reached out for Remy's hair. He still heard the anger in Yoni's tight, furious voice:
You have no idea, that's for sure.

And yet Nicholas
knew
how much Remy loved Yoni, and that Yoni cared just as deeply for her. He wanted to scream at Yoni, I know, I know!

From the bathroom, the sounds came again, Cybil retching into the toilet, while Remy reached down and wrapped her arms around her own abdomen, her face collapsing all over again. The pure physicality of all this grief was horrifying.