“I’ve always meant to ask you, Doc, about the piano in the family room. I had a man look at it to make sure it was all right. It’s a beautiful piano. I see it every time I pop in but I’m always going on about something else. It’s fairly old, isn’t it? I mean almost antique.”
“Yes. I bought it a few years after I bought the house. It was used, about thirty years then, so now it may qualify as an antique piece.”
“I should have figured that you played.”
“I don’t.”
“But I’ve heard you play, haven’t I, Doc? The last time we were all at Renny’s condo, before Christmas a couple years ago, you played a song on his upright.”
“Perhaps fooling around, but not playing.”
“You were playing! You played, and we sang. “Good King Wenceslaus,” wasn’t it? You’re a natural entertainer. I remember you added all these wonderful notes. Everyone wanted you to go on, but you were too modest.”
“I don’t remember playing. I haven’t played at all.”
“You had a bit of the punch that night, friend,” Renny says. “We all did.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Someone may have had to drive you home.”
“It’s hard to believe.”
Renny says to me, “I wasn’t all there myself. Neither was Liv, if I’m right about anything. She was calling herself Party Girl that night.”
“And you were Party Boy,” Liv fake-scolds him, as it seems certain things are coming back into remembrance. “But anyway, you were great, Doc. You just sat down without a word and started playing. That was the first night we ever met, and when you told me where you lived, I pictured the house right away, the beautiful Tudor with the slate pool. I knew we’d be friends. I knew we’d all be friends.”
“Okay, Livvy, let the Doc settle in now,” says Renny firmly, turning to pat me on the shoulder. He does it with great kindness, enough to make me feel a tinge paternal. “You must be happy to be home. I’m glad you are. If you need anything, you be sure to call. I left my number on the refrigerator. I’m sure you have Liv’s. Really, call about anything.”
“I had them put up new smoke detectors, upstairs and down,” Liv breaks in. “They’re hard-wired so you don’t have to worry about batteries going dead. The flue was cleaned, too. It’s all ready to go. It’s a big, old-fashioned hearth and you can build a big fire in there.”
“Too big, I suppose.”
“Well, you’ll be careful, I know,” she says, naturally pecking me on the cheek, though it’s the first time she’s ever done so. She looks as concerned as I’ve ever seen her. “I’ll stop by tomorrow, if you want. I’ve stocked the refrigerator with a few basics but we can pick up whatever else you’d like. You have all your prescriptions?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I know you’ve managed all these years by yourself, Doc, but it’s nice to have a hand after spending time in a hospital. How are your shingles?”
“The shingles?”
“Your condition…”
“Oh, very mild now. I’m recovering quickly.”
“Okay then, we’re going,” she says, gathering her bag and cellular phone and pager, and motioning to the foyer to Renny as though she were urging him, and she says again, “Goodbye, say goodbye, Renny.” Then all the leave-takings are exchanged, the reminders reminded — of the fireplace and the oven and the new locks on the doors — and in a small caravan we all move to the foyer and open the door to the warm late afternoon light and in three breaths they are in her car and they are gone.
Upstairs, in my bedroom, I take off my clothes and change into a pair of swim trunks, the ones I was wearing at the time of the fire misplaced somewhere at the hospital. I fold myself in a heavy terry robe and descend the stairs barefoot, smelling the tomatoey, garlic-laden chicken warming in the oven. Following Liv’s written instructions, I’ve set the timer for forty-five minutes at 325 degrees, and I open the wine (having found a brass corkscrew, a gift from Mary Burns) to let it “breathe,” though this certainly makes no difference to me. The time is just past four in the afternoon, and the leaves are petaling down from the treetops to float across the surface of the pool water like a fleet of tiny, colored punts and rafts. I don’t dive. The water is cool, bracing and fresh as with the first morning’s swim, and I’m surprised by my strength, or the strength the water seems to lend me.
For years I would never enter water that was even slightly cool, being accustomed to the shore in Singapore and Rangoon, the tropical, bath-like waters of the Andaman Sea. In the days before the war began to go badly, my comrades and I would take trips to the beach on our leave days, to swim and play volleyball and eat fresh-caught sea porgies and spiny lobsters and eels. The natives had been instructed to prepare them with a tiny ration of shoyu and the local palm wine, an attempt intended to make us feel comfortable but which unfortunately served more to remind us of Japan than anything else, and our immense distance from it. There was (for the others) much drinking, of course, and then the usual exploits of the balmy, lanterned evenings, singing folk songs at the stars with girls who hardly knew how to speak our language.
I used to swim after sunset on those occasions, the water placid and unrippled as I pulled my way through it. I could hear the laughter and joking of my comrades, and sometimes the strained, rote blandishments of their companions, the awkward attempts at flattery and passion which seemed unbearable to me, sober as I was. But as I swam I sometimes listened for the other ones, those girls who didn’t make much noise or speech, wondering at their quiescence as they lay beneath the palms of the shore, the snorting and grunting of men skipping out over the surface of the water in soft reports. Down the shoreline I would go, in my usual steady crawl, and each time I’d lift my face for air I glimpsed the limp strings of lights and the kerosene torches and the arm-in-arm straggles of youthful soldiers, joyously barefoot on their way back to the base, overfilled with wine and the mercies of fallen women.
Once, in admonishment, I mentioned to Sunny what could happen to young women who strayed from the security of their families, how they would inevitably descend to the lowest level of human society and be forced to sell every part of themselves, in mind and flesh and spirit.
“Is that so?” she answered.
“Yes, it is.”
“And how do you know so much about it?” she muttered, continuing to fold her clothes from the dryer. She had returned from the Gizzi house, to stay only briefly before moving on, this time out of town completely. There had been an incident at the house, a stabbing, in fact, a week or so after I made my visit there. James Gizzi had been the victim and was in critical condition at the county hospital. His friend, the black man named Lincoln, was accused of the crime and had not been arrested, having fled Bedley Run.
I said, “I witnessed many things during the war.”
She visibly paused at the notion, which was new to her, and had to refold a blouse before placing it on her neat stack of things.
“You must heed me on this, Sunny. I have seen what can become of young women. It is often unpleasant. Perhaps even more so these days than during wartime. The newspaper is filled with stories of awful happenings in the city, where girls are tricked and abused. You’re going to live down there, you said.”
“For now,” she answered limply, going back to her laundry. “I’ll probably move on.”
“Where will you stay? How will you support yourself? You’re only eighteen and you have no skills or experience. You’ll need to work. I can’t give you enough money to support you forever.”