— Who was that, Anne?
— Well, Saint-Saëns was one. When he was here touring…
— I think James thought that Saint-Saëns was rather silly, with his theosophy and all the rest of it.
— I think James really liked Saint-Saëns, Julia. It was Saint-Saëns’ music that James thought was rather silly, he thought that it was trite. Yes, it must have been the music, because it wasn’t when Saint-Saëns himself was here at all, it was when Paderewski was here playing Saint-Saëns.
— Steinway brought Paderewski over here years before, Herbert Hoover was mixed up in that somewhere making money to get himself through college and I don’t think it was Saint-Saëns’ theosophy, Anne. I think you’re thinking of what James used to say about Scriabin and Madame Blavatsky before he had that tumor and died. He never wrote songs.
— Was it true? said Stella from over there, — that my father and Uncle James once met on the street in some city abroad where they’d both just arrived, and without a word they put down their suitcases and started to fight?
— The boys didn’t actually fight. It was more of a philosophical dispute, Thomas insisting the magic touch of these virtuosos could be preserved on his piano rolls, and James…
— If there was anything that drove James wild it was the idea of talent going to waste, being lost, suppressed. It drove him wild.
— And that was why he took the boy in from the Jewish orphanage?
— Yes, he was a very shy, quiet little boy. He didn’t really look like a Jew to us.
— Not a jewy Jew, no.
— In those days we thought Jews all had hooked noses but he was almost blond, wasn’t he Julia. And blue eyes.
— But he took our name, didn’t he?
— Oh, borrowed it, Stella, borrowed it and used it and just never returned it. He had such admiration for James.
— Well, James loved him, and…
— No, not the boy. Not James. It was the talent James loved, he took him out of that orphan asylum because he thought the boy should be spending every minute with music, studying, practicing, working on his music, James drove him as hard as he drove himself. That was the reason he took the child in, to live with him when Edward came here with us.
— Oh? Stella turned, her arms akimbo. — When do you expect him back?
— Look at that card. Around Thanksgiving, from what I could make of it.
— I meant Edward, didn’t you say he’s just teaching? somewhere nearby…?
— Yes, James was going to try to arrange something for him through some connections he used to have, being a composer in residence somewhere, but we don’t know whatever became of that project. When it comes to returning a kindness some people have such short memories, you know.
— He was quite taken with you, you know, Stella. He had the kind of crush that little boys have, all those years ago.
— Well, Stella must have seemed quite grown up to him. When you’re that age, a matter of six or eight years…
— I don’t want to miss him but I can’t stay much longer, you don’t mind if I call for a cab?
— No, there on the secretary. The number’s somewhere.
Then casually, without a glance back, — What was it, Stella asked, — that Mister Coen wanted of Edward?
— That’s a good question!
— He wanted Edward to sign…
— Something he wanted Edward to sign, but we’d best wait to see what James has to say about it.
— And he wanted Edward’s birth…
— Pardon? Stella was dialing.
— Some nonsensical notions he had, questioning James as Edward’s father and heaven knows what else!
— James was always a lovely father to Edward.
— Well he certainly tried Anne, but James has never been the easiest person in the world to live with when he’s working. He can seem plain morose and irritable when he’s preoccupied with work.
— His Philoctetes, yes. When he was working on that, he didn’t speak to a soul for days at a time, he… what, Stella?
— She’s phoning, Anne. And Anne… in a voice that rustled, out over the floor stretching bare the length of the room toward Stella as sun, spilling in again, brought it to faded life. — I wouldn’t go into all kinds of details right now, before we hear what James has to say.
— But Julia…
— You got your cab, Stella? The name is there somewhere. A Jewish name, but I can’t recall it.
— It’s Italian, Julia. It’s painted right on the taxi door.
— The next train, yes… came Stella’s murmur at the phone. — Mrs Angel…
— Well, you know how cheap names are.
— Stella…? You got your taxi? It’s a shame you have to leave. You’ve scarcely sat down since you came.
Stella stood tracing an edge of sun with the point of her shoe. — It was Edward’s birth certificate that Mister Coen wanted? she said finally.
— He, he mentioned it, yes.
— But if there’s any question, Edward himself must wonder…
— Wonder?
— What he’s… inherited.
— Why he’s, what he’ll have from James, heaven knows. I’m sure James doesn’t. His work is always money going out not coming in, having scores prepared and getting them copied, the parts for each instrument…
— And James was never one for writing little trios. He likes lots of brass.
— And voices.
— Voices, yes. What it would cost to do his Philoctetes! Hiring musicians to play his compositions, getting them recorded and all the rest of it his royalty checks aren’t a drop in the bucket, even these awards seem to cost twice what they bring in. When the time comes there won’t be much for Edward.
— It wasn’t money I meant, said Stella quietly, and then, her voice as casual as her step, — was Nellie talented?
— Nellie?
— Talented?
— I… I don’t think the question ever came up.
— In all these pictures with Uncle James, Stella murmured clouding the glass of one with her closeness, — there’s none…
— That’s the one of him with Kreisler, isn’t it?
— But this says Siegfried Wagner, nineteen twen…
— Oh. That was Siegfried Wagner, yes. He used to be around Bayreuth and charge twenty-five cents for his photograph, simply because he was Wagner’s son.
— But in all these pictures with women, there’s none…
— That was that Teresa what was her name, Julia. She was over here touring during the war. She’d been married to that, I can’t recall him either. During the war even though he was British, he made such a scene about being German but what was his name, a French name, but what was it. He was married a good half dozen times. She was known as the Valkyrie of the keyboard, she came from Argentina or some such.
— There’s no picture of Nellie? Stella got in abruptly, turning her back on those frames and faces. — Didn’t she take lessons of Uncle James? after he was sick, and she’d come to nurse him back?
— I think you have it twisted, Stella. She was sick and, yes and James…
— There’s no reason to stir it all up again. That Mister Cohen, repeating gossip…
— But now that we speak of it, Julia, do you think we have Edward’s birth certificate?
— I suppose it’s right there in the top drawer. That little Martha Washington sewing table.
— Here? said Stella, trying it. — But it’s locked.
— Yes. The key is right there in the bottom drawer. Yes, there… let me see that, Stella. It’s a picture of Nellie with the Gloria Trumpeters when they led that welcome home parade for Charles Lindbergh, down Fifth Avenue.
— I think they went up Fifth Avenue, Anne. And you certainly can’t make out Nellie in this. I think it was before her time, at that.