“Did you come to the recital?” Francisco asked. “There were a lot of people there.” He drew his thin arms off the table and sat up a little straighter.
“No, I’m sorry that I missed it. Can you tell me what you played?”
Can you tell me, Estelle thought. Madelyn Bolles had yet to discover that it wasn’t “can” in this case. It was “would.”
“Some of this and that,” the little boy said, suddenly feeling the eyes on him…especially his grandmother’s. Teresa Reyes had deeply ingrained rules about the behavior of children, particularly exuberant little boys who would take over the adult stage without a thought if allowed to do so. She hadn’t snapped her fingers yet, that ominous signal practiced over decades in the old mud-walled school in Tres Santos, so Estelle knew that her son was still on safe ground.
“Francisco actually played three pieces,” Estelle prompted.
“Yes.”
“That’s hard work,” Madelyn observed, and Francisco looked puzzled, since playing was never hard work for him…not even a day that included five or six hours at the keyboard tussling with some composer’s fascination with five or six sharps. “What did you play?” she asked.
Francisco looked up at his father, but it was the elbow from the opposite direction, in his left ribs, that goaded him on. “You don’t remember what you did this morning, let alone what you played last fall, old guy,” Gastner scoffed.
“I remember,” the little boy said, squirming with delight. “Everybody already knows those stories.”
“Ms. Bolles has never heard them,” Estelle said.
“Give us some after-dinner music while I see if Irma remembers how to make decent coffee,” Gastner said.
“There’s some in the pot from three days ago,” Irma said, knowing full well Bill Gastner’s indiscriminant taste for the brew-freshly ground gourmet beans, or days old in the steel pot with an oil slick on top, it was all the same to him.
“And you promised some pie,” he said, turning and craning his neck to see into the kitchen. “Do we have to wait until this kid finishes stumbling all over the keys, or is it fair game now?”
Estelle reached out an arm and hugged her mother, and saw the tight compression of Teresa’s lips ease a little. “I was hoping for a peaceful evening,” the old woman said, but she couldn’t conceal the pride in her voice.
“I for one don’t have any room for dessert,” Madelyn said, and Teresa Reyes, who had been gradually working her way upright, stopped with one hand braced on the table.
“It’s better to wait,” she said, and aimed the comment at Gastner. “We don’t want an orchestra of forks clanking rhythm.”
“I heard that,” Gastner said, and held out a hand toward Francisco. “Help me up, old guy. I ate too much.” He allowed both little boys to push, shove, and heave as he feigned helplessness.
“Be right back,” Francisco said, and vanished down the hall.
“He has to have the right shirt on,” Estelle explained as they maneuvered chairs this way and that…except for Teresa Reyes’ rocker, which sat in a corner by the fireplace. The grand piano had been moved so that during the day natural light from the large living room window flooded in from behind the bench. Beyond that adjustment, the piano’s location was determined by Francisco’s mood. It had to sit at just the right angle, a cornerstone into his world.
“If you have cell phones, they go on vibrate or off,” Francis said. “I can say that, because I’m the primary offender.”
“Mine’s on the counter in the kitchen,” Estelle said. She had already captured Carlos, and he sat comfortably in her lap in the glider. “Would you check it, please?”
Francisco padded into the room, wearing his favorite plum-colored golf shirt. His soft-soled sneakers had been replaced by black, leather-soled penny loafers…wonderfully out of sync with his grubby blue jeans.
Madelyn Bolles, having chosen one of the padded straight-backed chairs from the dining room, sat immediately beside Estelle. To the right of the piano, they had an unobstructed view of the keyboard. Madelyn leaned close to Estelle and whispered, “Why am I nervous?”
Estelle hugged Carlos closer and beamed at the writer. “Just enjoy. No matter what happens.” She meant that literally, of course, since one of the little boy’s quirks was eschewing the announcement of what he intended to play.
Gastner stretched out on the opposite end of the sofa from Irma, his boots kicked off and feet on the small coffee table. He reached over and patted her knee affectionately. “You do good work, kid,” he said. Irma blushed. Dr. Francis settled in the recliner.
The enormously heavy piano lid was already yawning wide, and Francisco used both hands to open the keyboard cover, letting it ease back to its stops. He regarded the keyboard as if suspicious that someone might have rearranged the ivories since his last visit-less than two hours before. As he settled on the bench, Estelle took his measure, seeing that he could now easily reach the pedals with his toes.
“I was looking at this today,” he said quietly as if talking to himself. His speech now was so introspective and mature that it gave Estelle a turn. There was no music on the rack, and to Estelle it always seemed as if the little boy had to wait until the music burst from the pathways of his mind to each of his strong, slender fingers. As the generator of that process spooled up, he sat quietly and stared, as if trying to burn a hole in middle C. Then his hands moved to the keyboard.
The piece was clearly Bach, and el gruñón, or the Grump, as Francisco had nicknamed the composer, had appealed to the little boy with a prelude that was both playful and melodic. Without a giggle, he managed long passages where the two hands argued back and forth, and despite his rocketing musicianship, Estelle felt a pang of regret that this little boy who in the past would dissolve with helpless laughter at some musical image now performed so flawlessly.
Madelyn Bolles leaned slightly forward, as if she couldn’t quite believe that the music rack was empty. Prelude rolled into fugue, and in places Francisco played so softly that the piano hammers seemed to kiss the strings, grazing the notes only enough that their purity was unquestioned.
And it was during one of those magic moments that Estelle heard the car’s aging muffler outside as the vehicle chugged down 12th Street and then pulled to a stop along the curb. Although she recognized the sound immediately, for an instant she allowed herself to entertain the fantasy that this might be a visitor for one of the neighbors. She heard a car door thud closed. The living room curtain was drawn, but it sounded as if the car had parked immediately behind Bill Gastner’s Blazer. Sure enough, in a moment Estelle heard footsteps coming up the sidewalk. The visitor hesitated at the bottom of the three steps leading to the front door, and Estelle groaned inwardly.
She lowered Carlos to the floor and rose silently, padding to the front door. It opened on silent hinges, and Estelle held up a hand, the backs of her fingers over her mouth, begging for silence. Father Bertrand Anselmo hesitated, then slipped inside.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Con permiso,” the priest whispered as the final notes of the fugue died away. “I am so sorry to intrude.” He turned to Estelle. “May I?”
“Of course. Come in.”
Anselmo entered the living room and crossed first to Teresa Reyes. Estelle’s mother beamed. “You’re late,” she croaked. “My grandson has just started.”
“I am so sorry to intrude,” Anselmo said again. “You’re well, I trust?” He took Teresa’s tiny right hand in both of his enormous paws.
“I’m old, is what I am,” Teresa said. “But that can’t be helped.”
“Bless you, Teresa,” he said. “And how are you, doctor?” the priest asked, stepping across to Francis, who now stood, bemused, with his hand on Francisco’s shoulder. Bill Gastner didn’t rise but leaned forward with a grunt and extended a hand to the priest as he passed. “Always good to see you, Bill,” Anselmo said.