— My wife, said Mister Pecci withdrawing a knee from the sweep of her heel, — she was one of the original Miss Rheingolds, maybe she still has a specialty number she could help you out with introducing your Rhinegold story…?
— See you all on the hungry eye, said Miss Flesch winking one of her own and threatening one of Mister Pecci’s with a sweep of the umbrella under her arm, and whether Mister diCephalis was making a last grab for it or fending it off was not clear as she passed him for the door that banged hollowly on her call to — Skinner, Mister Skinner, can you ride me over…
Mister diCephalis had by now reached and dialed the telephone, where he kept in undertone — Yes I know it that’s why I’m calling, because… from the Foundation yes they’re here now, that’s what they’re coming for, to… what? The silkworms, yes, the Kashmiri… cultural aspect of… yes. But I do want them to see you, that’s why I’m calling…
— They must be out there now they, we can’t keep them waiting… Whiteback inclined to meet the screen’s glassine stare with his own reaching the channel selector, — if there’s something on while we’re waiting for the, for Miss Flesch something in the, something…
— about money… to free the slaves and… typifying the grandeur of our natural resources and the national heritage that makes all of us proud to be Amer…
— That’s good, there…
— What is it Dan, what’s…
— I’m cleaning up this coffee she wait, wait this must be hers this book about Mozart Mozart’s letters, she…
— Look out you’re spilling those what’s all that it looks like her script, part of her script get it over to her, there’s a page under the…
— Mind moving your foot…
— There’s another one…
— the mighty Sequoia, which may reach a height of three hundred fifty feet and be almost thirty feet at the base. An age of a thousand years old is still young for the mighty Sequoia…
— Wait the pages are getting mixed up she’ll be…
— Let her straighten them out just get it over to her wait there’s one under the desk, have you got your car Dan?
— national parks. In the vast public domain, the federal government owns one hundred seventy million acres in our glorious west…
— No just hurry Dan, hurry up or she’ll come in! We thought you’d never get here… and he opened the door full on the two figures standing there as the wall clock beyond them dropped its longer hand with a click for the full minute and hung, poised to lop off a fragment of the next as Gibbs passed, looked up and saw that happen, fingering the change in his pocket on his way to the outside door and the cloudless sky filled with the even passage of the sun itself in brightness so diffuse no shadow below could keep an edge on shaded lawns where time and the day came fallen through trees with the mottled movement of light come down through water, spread up an empty walk, over gravel and empty pavement, and lawn again, lending movement to the child motionless but for fragmenting finger and opposable thumb opening, closing, the worn snap of an old change purse, staring in through the glass with an expression of unbroken and intent vacancy.
Beyond the glass, the boy inside darted a glance from his newspaper out into the purse snapped open; snapped shut, he smoothed the porous fold of the obituary page away from him, nagged his lip with a pencil and then scratched his knee with it before his foot returned to forcing back, and forth, and back, the idle vent on a floor grating, shut, open, shut, as the light on his paper dimmed with the sun abruptly pocketed in a cloud and what shadow the child beyond had cast was lost beneath the trees where she sought the greenest leaves fallen from the pin oaks shading the grass around her. The largest she found, she folded its dark face in, creasing across the veins, then folded another as carefully chosen over it, pausing with one blown here from a maple and slightly discolored, the green already run from its edges but folded at last with the others stained back outside and snapped all together into the purse, as a wind rustled those on the ground around her and touched the trees above, the cloud past, their movement scattering the sunlight against the glass, never disturbing those within.
— Rhine… G O L D! they howled into the glare of footlights, cowering round the empty table at the center of the stage.
— Rhinemaidens!… The baton rapped sharply through their declining wail. — This is your shout of triumph. A joyful cry! Bast thumped out the theme again on the piano, missed a note, winced, repeated it. — Can’t you sound joyful, Rhinemaidens? Look, look around you. The river is glittering with golden light. You’re swimming around the rock where the Rhinegold is. The Rhinegold! You love the Rhinegold Rhinemaidens, you…
— So where’s the Rhinegold?
— We’re pretending it’s on the table there, you’re all swimming around…
— No like she means we can pretend we’re out here swimming like around this old table which we can even pretend it’s this big rock but there’s nothing on it, like there’s nothing which we can pretend it’s this here Rhinegold.
Again he tapped the baton against the music stand. — The art department has promised the real Rhinegold for Friday, so today you’ll just have to pretend. Pretend it’s there shimmering and glittering, you’re swimming around it protecting it, but you don’t dream it’s in danger. You don’t dream anyone would dare try to steal it, even when the dwarf appears. The dwarf Alberich, who comes first seeking love… what’s the matter there?
— Like if we’re all so beautiful who would want to love this here lousy little dwarf?
— Well, that… that’s what happens, isn’t it. You don’t. You laugh at his… his advances, and that hurts him, it hurts him so deeply that he decides he’ll take the Rhinegold instead, so that he can… where is he now, Alberich the dwarf, where is he…? Bast rattled the baton briskly against the music stand, and a trumpet blast shattered the comparative quiet. — What was that!
A salute stirred from the shadows in the wings. — That’s where I come in here with the trumpet when you hit that thing with your stick, answered a martial miniature advancing into the glare with a clatter of knife and ax, flashlight, whistle, compass, and a coil of rope crowding his small waist.
— You come in when I point the baton right at you, and you come in playing the Rhinegold motif. Now what was that you think you just played?
— The Call to the Colors, anybody knows that. Besides I don’t even know this here Rhinegold thing and my father said I probly should play this anyway because it’s the best thing I can play.
— Well, what eke can you play.
— Nothing.
Bast rested his head on his right hand, weakly flexing his left and studying the gouge on its back as a smart slap of salute wheeled the trumpeter off in the general direction of Valhalla, and he gave them the key with a chord.
— And like right here Miss Flesch said might be a good place for our specialty numbers, like we already have ballet tap and toe and if we’re on the school tv and all…
— You… straighten that out with her.
— She’s going to be here today?
— That’s a good question, Bast muttered. — Has anyone seen her?
— I seen her, came a voice from the wings.
— This morning? Where.
— No, last night in this green car parked up in the woods with this here…
— That’s enough! Bast, and the crack of his baton, severed that response and the billow of tittering it rode out on, breaking against the banks of empty seats; he struck the chord and with the power of music set their brittle limbs undulating in unsavory suggestion, bony fronts heaving with nameless longing straining the garlands of streaked paper and seamed up remnants of other cultural crusades, here the gold fringe of an epaulette quivered, there a gold tassel shook as, revived by Bast’s flailing arm, the cry of — R H I N E gold…! filled the hall, brought up short by the Call to the Colors: down the keyboard Bast darted as though fleeing that, into the Ring motif, and now more faintly, the last to realize that the stage had been taken over by one enthralling bellow. Undismayed by lack of piano accompaniment, or now the peremptory rattle of the baton, this baying augmented as the apparition drew up at the footlights for breath.