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Authors: Cathy Lamb

The First Day of the Rest of My Life (46 page)

BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
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He took a deep breath, and I knew he had taught himself to not travel too far into the memories lest the memories kill him. “So I had many children. I love all of them, I love my wife. I love family. I had to have a family again and now you, my sister’s daughters, my father, my aunt, all here.” His face scrunched up and he breathed in and out. “You are the daughters of my beloved sister. I have missed her since the day we parted. Always a loss I can never run from.”
Our granddad, along with Annie and I, had told Ismael about Momma, about her beauty parlor, the pink, the house by the sea, our dad’s death. We had told him briefly about the trials, and how she had dropped herself into the sea. He listened carefully, but never once had the tears stopped streaming from his eyes.
“You must call me Uncle Ismael. I am your uncle, the brother of your mother.” He hugged me, reached for Annie. “You are my family,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “You are my family. Forever and ever we will be together. We are family, my red-haired nieces.”
I knew my mouth had dropped open, a gaping hole of surprise.
“You can see the red?” Annie asked.
“Absolutely!” Ismael gushed. “It’s glowing all around you. It’s the luck of the Irish in you! From your father. I hear he was a great man.”
“Yes, he was,” I said.
“Great man, a most pure and gentle mother, grand and lovely daughters,” Ismael said, so emotional again. “He would be proud of you.”
I should have attached a tissue to my face with glue to catch all the tears spurting from my eyes.
 
On the second night, after another raucous family dinner, Grandma gave Uncle Ismael the three swans she had brought with her, including the blue glass swan she had keened over that night in her bedroom, as she moaned, “Now, I remember. I’ll never forget it.”
She stood in her full-length, satiny black evening gown, her white curls piled atop her head, and tapped a wineglass with a spoon and a grape at the same time. When she had everyone’s attention, she said, “Ismael loves swans. So I have brought him swans. Don’t let them fly away, Ismael! You have to hold on to them tight because of their wings. Don’t break their wings.”
Ismael stood up as soon as she started speaking, to respect his aunt, his face tight as he fought for control, even before she reached into her gold silk purse and, with great fanfare, handed the wood, ceramic, and blue glass swans to Uncle Ismael.
“These, I have saved for you, my nephew. I knew I would see you again in the Land of the Swans.”
Uncle Ismael took them with solemn ceremony, holding the three swans in his cupped hands, then kissing Grandma on both cheeks, twice. “Thank you, Aunt Dynah. Thank you.”
“And now, I have another gift for you, Ismael.”
My cousins brought out a huge canvas, easel, brushes, and paints, and Grandma, with those talented hands, painted, truly, the most realistic, awe-inspiring swan she had ever painted, the feathers white and fluffy, the lines elegant, the palm trees of Tel Aviv in the background. The swan cradled a violin in its wings.
“For you, Ismael,” she said when she was done. “May our violins never be apart again.”
“Never,” he rasped. “Never again will we be apart.”
“I love you, Ismael,” Grandma said, her hands cupping his face, and I could almost believe the dementia, for a moment, had left. “I have never stopped loving you.”
“It is the same for me, Aunt Dynah,” he choked. “I love you. I have always loved you.”
Uncle Ismael cried again so hard, he had to sit down.
“We are together again, Ismael,” Grandma said. “Together. A family of swans.”
All the rest of the family cried, too. Hankies flying, napkins shared, how they bawled.
The next day Uncle Ismael had the picture framed and hung as a centerpiece in his home so he could look at it every night and study the lines, the texture, the color, the love.
 
On the third night, Grandma, resplendent in a purple, off-the-shoulder ball gown and a diamond necklace, stood with the ring box in her hand. She hit her wineglass with a spoon and a slice of apple. When she had everyone’s attention she said, “Ismael, now we will be married!” She opened the box in front of her elegant, white-haired nephew who had, like the gentleman he is, stood again out of respect for his aunt.
Inside the box was the wedding ring. “My husband, he gave this to your mother, my beautiful sister, who jumped like a swan and had her wings broken when she saved you from the black ghosts. Now, it is yours.”
Uncle Ismael, once again a mess, could hardly hold his hand still when she pushed the wedding ring on his pinky finger. “Your mother, she and my husband loved each other. Then, when she was gone, and I was no longer a girl, I fell in love with your father, and he loved me back. There!” she announced. “Now we’re all married together!”
Uncle Ismael’s children are so emotional. They were a blubbery mess, and they made blubbery messes out of Annie and me and our granddad, too, and Granddad wrapped Uncle Ismael and Grandma in a huge hug, and that was a blubbery mess.
It was only relieved when Grandma shouted, “I can’t make hot love to you now, Abe! You have to wait until later! Then, I’ll take you to the stars!”
She pulled away, smiled seductively, and shimmied her chest at him.
 
On the fourth night, late, when the moon was soft and waiting, I saw Annie sit down at the piano in Uncle Ismael’s living room.
She ran her fingers over the keys, played scales, up and down, up and down.
She played one piece after another by Mozart as if she had been playing in her head for years, waiting to let it out through her delicate fingers. I lifted my violin. We played together.
Somehow, the family knew this was a special moment. They were quiet, that noisy bunch. They listened, they watched, they joined us in a bubble of wonder.
I was startled when I heard a second violinist join us, and Granddad,
Granddad,
who I had never heard play before, who had refused to play, stood beside me, then Ismael joined us.
For long seconds, Annie’s fingers froze, my hands didn’t move, struck again at the head-banging surprises one finds in life, the surprises that leap and jump and twirl around, alighting at the most unexpected moments.
We dove back into our music, after Annie and I grinned at each other, confused and surprised, but hey. What the heck. There would be answers later as to why Granddad had never played his violin for us. And, if we did not receive answers, that would be okay. Life is not going to answer all my questions. I can rest in that. I can hold on to it, and be at peace with it.
We played together, my granddad, Uncle Ismael, Annie and I, Grandma waltzing around the room, resplendent in yellow, singing a song of love and lust about my granddad.
“It is a miracle,” Uncle Ismael said to me. “A most happy miracle.”
“Yes,” I said, as the sun set, purple here, orange there, yellow, a bit of pink, embracing and hopeful. “It is a miracle.”
“It was a pleasure to hear you play the violin last night,” Uncle Ismael said, those eyes so warm. “You are very talented.”
“Not like you, nothing like you.”
“You get it from your granddad.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your talent. He was one of the finest violinists, ever, in France.”
My mouth dropped open. I had heard him the night before, I knew he was talented....
“I was so proud of him. . . .” Ismael told me about the orchestra Granddad played in, how Grandma Madeline also played the violin.
“It is the strangest thing. I . . .” I paused. “You will think you have a crazy niece on your hands but . . .”
“Tell me. I want to know. Please.” He leaned toward me, eager, trusting, so kind, despite the insane horrificness of his past.
I looked into his brown eyes with a touch of gold, so like my momma’s. “Uncle Ismael, I hear . . .”
He blinked at me, and something dawned in his eyes, excitement, disbelief. “You hear?”
“I hear . . . I’m so embarrassed, but ever since I was a little girl, in my head, no one else can hear it, but I . . .”
He stared at me intently. “Madeline, do you hear violin music in your head?”
I caught my breath.
“I do.”
I paused, worrying about what he would think. “I’ve heard you play the last couple of days and I’m sure . . . Uncle Ismael, I am sure that I am hearing
you.
”
He closed his eyes, then opened them, and grabbed my hand. “It is you I hear, too.”
“You hear me?” I ran a hand through my curls. “How . . . how do you know?”
“I have heard violin music in my head for over thirty years. First I heard a child, a talented child. I knew because of the skill level it was a child, but the child became better and better. She improved in every area, and she became a master. Listening to you, I knew it was true, but I thought I should not bring it up so soon.” He laughed. “I thought you would think I was crazy. But you are a rebel violinist, aren’t you?”
I was shocked once again. “Yes, I am.”
“You play everything. From Mendelssohn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Jewish folk music, Texas-style fiddling, Western swing, Irish jigs and reels, Stéphane Grappelli, bluegrass . . .”
“Yes. I’m all over the place. I like the change, the moods, the . . . tunes!” I laughed again.
“I’ve played in the orchestra here for years.”
“I swear I’ve heard clapping.”
“I’ve practiced alone, duets and quartets . . .”
“I’ve heard you.”
“I could hear someone practicing, starting and stopping . . . finished pieces, eloquently played.”
We watched the light play on the hills, the shadows, basking in the miracle, a miracle that should not have been, that had no reason, no explanation, but it was there, between us.
“We have heard each other,” he said, wonder in his voice. “We have heard each other for decades.”
“Over an ocean, over land, over thousands of miles . . .”
Uncle Ismael stood up with his violin.
Before he started, I knew what he would play. I stood next to him. He looked in my eyes, nodded. Together, in perfect timing, we began.
It was one of my favorites: Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 in G Minor.
 
Grandma began her ritual of giving Uncle Ismael a swan on a regular basis.
“We are in the Land of the Swans,” she told everyone. “I must make sure he has enough. He loves swans!”
Nola and other members of that massive family would take her “swan shopping.” The swans she bought were made of all different materials: woods, ceramic, glazed pottery, steel, natural elements, glass. She also drew him swans.
Sometimes at night, after dinner, she would smile serenely, with such love in her eyes, and she would present Uncle Ismael with a swan. “This is from your mother,” she would tell him. “She loved you so, like I do!” Or “This is from your sister. She loved you so, like I do.”
And Uncle Ismael would take the swan, and he would sob, for his mother, his sister, for life, and others would cry. This was a very emotional family we had entered into. The men did not try to cover their emotions, and the women were equally bad. Very bad. They cried and laughed all the time, often at once.
When the gifts of the swans started to arrive, Uncle Ismael had shelves built in his living room, floor to ceiling, and the new swans joined the ones Grandma brought him from Oregon. They were displayed as one would display great art.
“Ismael,” my grandma would say to him often, smiling, but reprimanding, “no more hiding!”
“Never,” he would answer, bringing Grandma’s hands to his lips and kissing them.
 
“We are staying in Israel.”
“You’re . . . what? Did you say you’re staying?” I asked, struggling to understand.
“What do you mean, staying?” Annie asked. “You mean, you’re staying for a week? For two? We can extend our vacation. . . . ”
BOOK: The First Day of the Rest of My Life
5.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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