Chapters (33)
She kissed me tenderly. “In the next lifetime, Bobo.”
“I promise it,” I said.
I put my suitcase and hang-up bag in the car and crossed the street to Avrum’s bench and sat. It was five minutes before five. Do it at five o’clock Avrum had instructed in the note on his parody of the kaddish.
A cooling wind stirred the limb-tips of the hemlocks and oaks and birches and pines, fanned them like waving hands calling for a gathering. And as I sat and waited, they began to appear. Harry Burger and Nora Dowling walked down the steps of the Inn. Ben Benton drove by in his truck, stopped it on the street, and got out and began walking toward me. Arch Ellis came from his store, sweeping the sidewalk with his broom. Mrs. Mendelson waddled across the lawn, her head bobbing with her step. Evelyn Lourie stepped from beneath a table umbrella at the swimming pool. Joey Li and Eddie Grimes leaned against the door of The Cave. Carter and Rene stood beside an oak, holding hands. Avrum was sitting beside me on the bench, smiling proudly.
“Listen, listen,” Avrum said. He closed his eyes and tilted his head.
Amy had said that magic was making things happen that we’re afraid of.
“Do you hear it?” Avrum whispered.
And then the first note from the voice of Amelita Galli-Curci, singing the “Shadow Song” from Dinorah, floated in, grew stronger, swam through the valley below High-mount. It was surprisingly clear from the tape player and the speakers that Sammy had taken from the Inn to Sul Monte.
Play from Sul Monte the music I most love, Avrum had written.
I saw Lila open the front door of the Inn and walk to the porch. She sat in a chair and listened.
Dan Wilder stood very still in front of his coffee and pastry shop, his head lifted.
Trinity—the girl of the jump rope and the bicycle and the bouncing ball—held to her bicycle on the sidewalk. She looked up and searched for the music with her eyes.
Avrum leaned to me on the bench. Again, he said, “Do you hear it? Do you?”
I could feel the voice of the music touching me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you know, ja? You know.”
“Yes.”
“Go, go,” Avrum urged.
I stood and crossed the street to the Inn.
“What is it?” Lila asked.
“I want to use the telephone,” I told her.
She smiled and closed her eyes and rested her head against the cushion of the rocker. The brilliantly clear music from the throat and soul of Amelita Galli-Curci drifted across the porch.
Inside, I dialed Amy’s number. She answered immediately.
“Tell him,” I said.
“Do you mean it?” she asked. Her voice quivered.
“Yes,” I answered. “Yes.”