Sing for Me (35 page)

“I’ve done as much as I can,” the doctor says. “He’s sleeping. Doped up. X-rays are in order. But for now, let him rest. He may sleep for many hours, and if he does, well and good. He should stay in one place for as long as possible. He should be moved only when he is ready.”

“You’re asking us to keep him here?” Dad shifts uncomfortably in his chair.

Mother says quietly, “He can stay with us for as long as he needs.”

The doctor is almost out the door when I think to ask about Theo’s hands, which are swathed in bandages. The doctor hesitates, and then pats my shoulder, where the fabric of my blue dress has gone stiff with Theo’s blood. “His hands aren’t broken, but there may be nerve damage. Time will tell.”

I return to the kitchen. “I’m going to be with him tonight,” I tell my family.

“Oh, Rose.” Dad shakes his head slowly.

“You love him.” Mother says it for me. She says it in a moan.

Andreas says something about weakness. He says something about my path, and its dangerous twists and turns. I feel myself bowing under the weight of my brother’s words, cringing at the grim expressions on my parents’ faces. But then Sophy hisses at Andreas, and he goes quiet. Sophy looks at me and her eyes say
I love you no matter
. With a single look, Sophy helps me remember my strength, my desire, myself. I turn away from the table
where I’ve eaten almost every meal of my life. I take one step after another until I find myself standing where I want to be, need to be, am determined to be, come what may.

Theo’s hands lie still on the covers. I touch where the bandages aren’t. He feels cold. Carefully I cover him with an extra blanket. I sit down on the floor beside him. I will stay here until he wakes, and even then I will not leave his side.

When I wake, I’m lying on the floor of Andreas’s room in a pool of afternoon light. I sit up, dazed, and see Theo, still tucked under the extra blanket, sound asleep. He hasn’t moved. He’s breathing still. He’s alive, and I am here.

I don’t kiss him for fear of waking him, but I look at him with all the love in my heart. I can do that.

Time passes. The apartment is silent all around. I am thirsty; perhaps I can get a glass of water and bring it back here without being seen.

Filling my glass at the kitchen sink, I remember that it’s Saturday. Dex, Ira, and Jim have no idea that Theo won’t be playing tonight. They’ll be expecting him, and me, too. And then there’s Mrs. Chastain and Mary. They have no idea about Theo, either.

I can’t go back to him yet. I have things to take care of first.

I go quietly to the hallway phone. The numbers blur, and I realize how tired I still am. I blink and the numbers come into focus. I dial Theo’s number, and Mrs. Chastain answers. I can hear the panic in her hello. When she realizes it’s me, she says, “What’s happened to my boy?” I start to tell her, and she interrupts me. “Is he dead?” Only when I’ve reassured her does she
allow me to continue. I explain everything that has happened. “He’s sleeping in my brother’s room. He’ll need to have X-rays,” I finally say.

Mrs. Chastain is weeping. Mary wrests the receiver from her and begs me to explain all over again. When I do, Mary cries, too.

In the end, they agree to come to see Theo. I tell them our address. Neither of them can drive, so they’ll have to take the El. They’ll get here as soon as they can. And no, they don’t know how to contact Jim, Dex, and Ira. Theo always called the other Chess Men. There was never a need for Mrs. Chastain or Mary to do so before.

I hang up the receiver and turn to find Mother standing there. I try to say that I have more phone calls to make, but she won’t listen. She leads me into the kitchen and sits me down before a plate of food. She tells me that Dad will be working all day and into the night, and that Andreas is off somewhere with Dolores, and Sophy is taking a nap. When she starts to talk about Theo and me again—
How can you think this will ever work?—
I push away the plate. Mother holds up her hands in a truce. I agree to eat if she stays quiet. She stays quiet. I don’t taste a bite, but at least I can see straight, with food in my belly again. I go back into Andreas’s room and, wondering how to contact Dex, Ira, and Jim, I watch Theo sleep. He is sleeping so deeply. Too deeply.
Coma?
I think, and push that thought right out of my mind. Theo is asleep. That’s all.

It’s nearly six o’clock when there’s a knock at the apartment door. I let Mrs. Chastain and Mary inside, thankful that Dad and Andreas are still nowhere to be found. It’s easier this way. I lead Mrs. Chastain and Mary down the hallway to Theo. Mrs.
Chastain eases herself down on the mattress beside him; Mary eases herself down, too. When they start to pray for Theo’s healing, I leave them in privacy. In the bathroom, washing up, I realize what I need to do.

I find Mother in the front room, ironing Sophy’s baptism dress, and Sophy watching from her child-sized wheelchair.

“I have to go to Calliope’s,” I say.

Mother keeps ironing. She won’t look at me.

“I have to tell the other fellows what’s happened,” I say. “If Theo doesn’t show up and I don’t show up, they won’t be able to perform. We’ll lose this job.”
We.
The word sounds so right to me. I am part of the Chess Men. “We can’t afford to lose this job,” I say. “I have to go there, Mother, and I have to sing. I have to sing for Theo, Dex, Ira, and Jim. I have to sing for me.”

Mother sets the iron down on the board. She looks at Sophy for a long moment. Something in Sophy’s expression makes Mother nod, and then Mother turns to me.

“Go quickly before your father and Andreas return.”

Mother helps me remove the bandages from my face, arms, and hands. I can leave a few of the cuts uncovered now. Some I can hide with my hair. Others Mother bandages again as discreetly as she can.

I can’t wear my blue dress. Unless Mother works some kind of magic with her needle, I may never be able to wear it again. So I put on my second-best option: the green, cape-backed dress with the long sleeves and ruffled collar that I wore to my high school graduation. It was fashionable in 1934; it’s not so fashionable now. But it will have to do. Mother lends me a pair of white gloves, and I wear those, too. They hide the bruises and cuts on my hands.

I’m at the front door, ready to head out to the El, when Mary emerges from the bedroom and walks down the hall to me. She takes a deep breath and draws herself up to her full height. She holds out her hand, and I take it, and Mary leads me back to the bedroom, where Mrs. Chastain still sits by Theo on the bed.

Mrs. Chastain looks up at me. Her face is dry. She must have cried all the tears she can cry for now.

“I’ve never asked a white woman for a thing in my life. I want to ask you for something now, Rose. The most important thing.”

I nod.

“I am afraid to move Theo before he’s had the X-rays,” Mrs. Chastain says.

“I understand.”

She gives an impatient shake of her head. I don’t understand at all.

“Will you take care of my boy until he can come home to us? Will you keep him from getting hurt again?”

“Yes.” This yes feels as important as any vow I’ll ever take.

Mrs. Chastain nods. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.” I blurt out the words, and the horrible thing I’ve not been able to say. “This is all my fault.”

“You’re not to blame, Rose. Not any more than Theo is.” Mrs. Chastain closes her eyes and murmurs something under her breath. When she opens her eyes again, it seems she is looking right through me to a different time and place. “This world is a hard world. We’ve known this all our lives, Theo and Mary and me, and all our family, and my mother and her mother, too, and her mother before her, and all our men. I suppose you’d best
know it too, Rose, if you love my boy. He’ll need you to know it when he wakes up. He’ll need you to understand.”

“I know it. I’ll never forget it,” I say.

I look at Theo there on the bed, her wounded boy, the man I love.

When he wakes up.

Not if.

“Look at you, so early tonight,” the coat-check girl says, leaning her elbows on her half-door and eyeing me as I enter Calliope’s. I nod my hello to her and walk swiftly to the back room, ignoring the crack she’s making about my new dress—something about the big, bold change I’ve made from blue to green.

She has no idea how much I’ve changed.

Dex, Ira, and Jim haven’t arrived yet. I don’t know what to do with myself. I circle the room, and my thoughts circle with me. I want Theo to be awake when I get home. I want him to be smiling his light. I want last night never to have happened. I want this world to be different from hard. I circle the room.

Then I see it: an unfamiliar piece of sheet music lying on the table. It’s a crisp, new copy, probably fresh off the press. “Strange Fruit,” written by Abel Meeropol. I open to the first page.

It’s something, all right. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen or sung:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

I finish reading the lyrics, close the music, sit down at the table, rest my head in my hands, and try to pray. No words come
but the words of the song. So I send them up to God as a prayer. Only God can contain this.

Maybe an hour later, Dex, Ira, and Jim find me that way. They realize I’ve looked at the sheet music and quickly apologize for the harsh message of the song. We don’t sing songs like that. They know we don’t. Still, there’s something about it, something truly powerful. Don’t I think so, too?

“Lilah passed the music on to us,” Ira adds. “I went to see her for old times’ sake. I wanted to see how she was doing.”

“Mainlining again,” Jim mutters.

Ira nods sadly. “She’s hooked up with some record producer. A real player, she says. He’s taking her to LA to cut a single.”

Jim says, “ ‘When I Get Low, I Get High.’ That’ll be her single.”

“Enough. She’s a friend.” Ira nods at the music on the table. “Anyway, she gave us a copy of this song in case we were interested in performing it. No one’s even recorded it yet. No surprise, right? Lilah doesn’t want to touch it, and neither does Jim. Dex and I are tempted, but we know, we know. Theo ditched practice this afternoon—the schmuck—so we haven’t asked him yet. What do you think, Rose?”

“It hits hard,” I say.

“Exactly,” Dex says quietly. He runs his fingers over his clarinet, testing out a silent melody.

“It hits close to home.” My voice falters.

But then I do what I have to do. I tell them what happened to Theo.

At first I think Jim and Ira are going to tear the room apart. They kick chairs, upend the table, scattering the sheet music across the floor. Dex takes the news differently. He goes to a
corner and leans into it. I follow his example and stand in the opposite corner, the better to stay out of Jim’s and Ira’s way. Dex doesn’t even flinch, with all the noise and mess Ira and Jim are making. He’s too busy taking apart his clarinet. Only when the instrument is disassembled and back in its case does he look up at us. Then, quietly, Dex tells Jim and Ira to stop. Loudly, he tells them.

Jim and Ira turn to Dex, as startled as I would be if anything could startle me now.

Dex says, “Save your energy for the real fight, boys. If you were black you’d know to do that by now.” He closes his clarinet case with a snap. “I can play the piano. Not great, like Theo. Not even very well. But I can play it. A pianist is necessary. A clarinetist isn’t. I’ll play the piano tonight and every night until Theo returns. I’m going to keep our spot here until he comes back, and then I’ll play the clarinet again. Is anyone else going to join me?”

“Yes,” I say. I will tip the coat-check girl, call Mother, and beg her to take my place by Theo’s side. I want to be home with him, but he’d want me to be here.
Our music depends on it.
I swear I can hear his voice saying that.

Jim and Ira are nodding in sheepish agreement. The four of us do our best to clean up the room. And then we start trying to figure out how to hang tight, hold on, make it work without Theo. For a while. For just a little while.