Whisper (36 page)

It was during my lesson with Solomon the next day that I remembered why I was attending the school, why I had abandoned my family once again and why I had risked the wrath of Celso, which was sure to come. I had taken Jeremia, Eva and Ranita to Purgatory Palace, where they wouldn't be trapped in a tiny room, but I had returned to the university. I had to keep coming back to play music. This was my voice and my story. Without it, I had little to say and no way to say it.

When I had arrived for my lesson, my hands raw, my eyes watering not only from the cold but from lack of sleep and the pain of abandoning my loved ones, I had found a man in the practice room speaking with Solomon, the two of them filling the tiny space with their loud voices and wide frames. The other man was younger than Solomon, less gray, less rotund and two inches shorter. His voice boomed and his wavy graying hair swished and bounced with every turn of his head. Solomon grinned hugely when he saw me and took two large steps toward me.

“Whisper.” He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into the room. “This is Ruy Climaco, director of the City Philharmonic.”

Ruy Climaco hesitated, his smile thin and controlled. He stood in front of the metal chair nearest to the door. I wondered if he would walk out after seeing me without the veil. He tried not to stare at my mouth, but his eyes glanced, looked away, were drawn to my face again. He shook my hand with the tips of his fingers.

“You are a marvelous violinist—and a talented composer.” He studied my face. I looked down, then straightened my shoulders and looked him in the eye. This man may have viewed me as mysterious and exotic the night of our recital, when I'd hidden beneath the veil, but this was me and I would not be ashamed.

His eyes faltered before mine did.

“Recording device,” Solomon said, picking up a metal box and showing it to me. “Ruy wants to record your song. Then he and the orchestra will piece together the accompaniment. You will be the youngest musician ever to compose for the Philharmonic.” I looked at Ruy Climaco, who still watched me surreptitiously, glancing away quickly when our eyes met.

“Can't anything be done about that?” he asked, pointing to his own lips and mouth. He wrinkled his nose and pulled his lips tight. Solomon paused and narrowed his eyes and then boomed his answer.

“Yes, but it should typically be done when the child is still an infant. We are not yet sure what Whisper's decision will be concerning surgery for her cleft palate.”

Ruy Climaco and I watched each other. Solomon looked back and forth between us.

“Well, shall we begin?” Solomon said.

I was not sure I wanted to give anything to this man whose mouth twitched when he looked at me and whose pride radiated from him as sharp as the needles on a porcupine. Solomon placed a hand on my back. I would do this for him, because of his kindness, but I did not and would not like this man who could not control the obvious disgust he felt for me. I sat in one of the chairs, unsnapped my violin case, fit the violin under my chin and began to tune the strings. The three of us formed a rough triangle, and I leaned toward Solomon. Solomon prepared the recording device, setting it on his knee.

This man would not get the song of Whisper, the song of my home, the creek, Nathanael and crayfish. No, he would get a different song, because in his presence I felt none of the happiness my camp in the woods deserved. Instead, I played the song of Purgatory Palace, with its discordant notes that spoke of Ofelia, its jerking low to high notes that told the story of the inhabitants, and its unresolved ending that hinted at our unfulfilled lives. My eyes closed, my heart slowed, and the confusion of not belonging entered the room.

When I finished and opened my eyes, both men were watching, Solomon with a smile, Ruy with a frown. Solomon pushed a button on the recording device and the soft
shush
ended.

“That's not the same song,” said Ruy Climaco.

I lowered the violin to my lap.

“I expected the song you played at the recital.” One of Ruy's legs rested over the knee of the other. The foot of the upper leg rocked with the twitching of the toe. “I had heard that you were a compliant young woman who would be honored and flattered to play with the Philharmonic. What I see here is a stubborn and sullen girl who does not recognize an honor and gift when it is handed to her. Do you even know what I am offering you, child? What it means to play with the Philharmonic? Musicians pray for this chance, and most will never achieve it, and yet you flaunt it in my face as though you, a freakish and defective child, were too good for this opportunity.”

Solomon reached over and touched Ruy on the shoulder. Ruy flinched.

“What does it matter which song she plays? They're all astonishing.”

Ruy crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pursed together so tightly that little creases appeared around his undefective mouth.

“That may be so, but I need consistency if my orchestra is to accompany her. I haven't seen consistency here. I also need someone I can work with, not some demented diva.” He waved his arm around in the air. His foot twitched.

“Play it again, Whisper,” Solomon said. “Just like before.”

I raised the violin to my shoulder, rested my chin on it and considered playing a completely different song, but I couldn't do that to Solomon. I played the song of Purgatory Palace once again.

When I finished, Ruy picked up the recording device, stood, swished his hair away from his shoulders and looked down his nose at me. While he appraised me, I met his look and did not turn away.

“You are hardly the child I imagined under that veil.”

“And you are not the man I would have envisioned at the head of a great and honorable symphony.”

Solomon clapped his hands together loudly, and both Ruy and I jerked away from each other to look at him.

“Then you shall continue to surprise each other as you work together.”

“We will see if I can do anything with this disjointed piece,” Ruy said. He opened the door to the practice room, and Solomon followed him out. I clutched the violin and bow in my hands. In a way, he was right. I didn't care about standing on a stage in front of an audience of thousands. It meant little to me except that it allowed me to play my songs and might ease my family's hard life. His vision of the music did not match my own, and I would not give away my songs carelessly. The music was my voice, my life. It was mine to share with whom I chose.

Ruy and Solomon talked in whispers outside the door, but their words crept along the floor and into the room. “She can't stand on the stage in front of thousands of upper-class, money-paying patrons without modesty. She will have to cover that face.”

“She will do so, Ruy.”

“She covers that face or she does not play. Understand?”

My back was tense, rigid, my hands still squeezing the violin, trying to wring blood from my mother's present, when Solomon murmured a slow yes and then returned to the practice room. He entered the room, adjusted his tweed coat and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Marvelous playing, Whisper, simply marvelous. Ruy found it astonishing.”

I placed the bow across my knees and reached up to touch the violin around my neck. It was gone, broken, and instead I touched my veil, which warmed my neck but spoke of secrets and masks. I liked Solomon. I trusted him. He had accepted me as I was, but he was taking Ruy's side in this, which made me feel wary and alone.

I withdrew everything I had from the bank, gave it to Candela to pay for rent and then wondered what I would do to pay for their stay after that. Seven days they could stay—seven days, and then they would be homeless again. I might have to return to the coffee shop with Candela, sit on the corner and keep every penny that came to me.

In the mornings, Ofelia was rarely around, so Jeremia, Eva and Ranita could wander the building at will, play games in the common room, eat the shared food and meet the other inhabitants, but in the afternoons they walked the twenty blocks to the university and came to visit me. I waited, impatient and nervous, until I heard Eva's light step and Jeremia's wary tread. I brought them to my room, fed them food from the cafeteria and kept them safe while I attended my afternoon and evening classes. In this way, they saw a bit of the city, weren't completely trapped in the tiny rooms and avoided Ofelia while also avoiding the campus monitors who sometimes patrolled the university greens at night.

These were not good options and didn't provide solutions to Jeremia's pacing, Eva's twirling or Ranita's crying. I didn't know how long we could manage this arrangement. We were being watched by some of the other students in the dorm. By Friday, when Dr. Ruiz came to my room, we were sniping at each other, our muscles twitching beneath the skin. Jeremia hadn't slid his arms around my waist since that first day.

“Oh my,” she said, dropping a large log to the floor in the hallway. She leaned her hand against the door frame and breathed in gulps, her doughy cheeks pink and mottled. “I've got three more in the car.” She leaned on Eva's shoulder and dragged herself into the room, sitting heavily on the bed.

Jeremia and I walked to her car and carried the pieces of wood into the dorm room, where Jeremia examined them carefully, scrutinizing their durability and quality. Dr. Ruiz stayed on the edge of my bed, her breath shallow and uneven. She tried to smile at us, but her cheeks sagged and her breath still came in gasps.

Eva stood on the flat end of one of the maple logs, then raised one leg. “Look at me,” she said.

“One of these is for my sculpture,” Dr. Ruiz said. “The other three, I thought you might be able to use.”

Jeremia extracted a jackknife from his pocket, leaned down to one of the logs and whittled into its side. A long sliver fell off the edge, the wood underneath a smooth, deep brown with lighter streaks that pointed like lightning bolts through the grain.

“And what have you decided?” Dr. Ruiz folded her hands together in her lap and squeezed her legs close together, reminding me of an owl—perched, collected, observant.

Jeremia and I looked at each other. His head lowered once, a quick nod, and I returned the gesture. We hadn't talked about it, but we hadn't needed to. There was no question, even though I felt guilt at knowing the answer. Jeremia and I would always walk the line between accepted and not, but that didn't have to be the case for the little ones.

“Ranita,” I said.

Dr. Ruiz clasped her hands together and beamed.

“Wonderful. I will secure the funds, and she will stay at the clinic, at my house. You are welcome to stay with her, of course. How old is she?”

“Four months,” Jeremia said.

“Then we'll start in three months. That gives me time to prepare.”

Dr. Ruiz stood abruptly and marched to the door. She threw it open, startling the two students standing there, Tomas and Carla. They looked over their shoulders at us, both with smirks on their faces, and then turned and ran.

“Huh.” Dr. Ruiz placed her hands on her hips. She observed the other students in the hallway, who looked our way but didn't speak or stepped to the other side of the hallway when passing the room.

“Or you may stay with me now, if need be. Please let me know.” She clasped her handbag between both hands and took short, quick steps down the hallway, saying “Shoo” to anyone who looked at her or us. I watched her all the way down the hallway and smiled as I shut the door.

“Ranita will have the surgery?” Eva still stood on the top of the log. With the added height, she was taller than me. “Ranita won't have openings between her nose and mouth? But it will hurt her.” Her eyes filled up with tears. I felt my own eyes doing the same, even though I'd been smiling the moment before. What if this was the wrong decision and instead of improving Ranita's life, we ruined it? Who was I to make this decision for another person? Nathanael would have known what to do.

“Remember the porcupine?” I asked, taking Eva's hands in mine and squeezing, watching the extra skin between her fingers wrinkle and fold. “Remember how painful it was to pull out the quills? But afterward, your hand became better, right?” I turned her hand over and looked at her palm. The scars were mere pinpricks of red, like almost-forgotten flea bites. “The surgery will hurt at first, but Ranita will be very brave, and afterward she won't have earaches and she'll be able to eat normally, without food getting stuck in the opening to her palate.”

Eva looked at me with her eyes narrowed. She was not ready to believe, but she was considering.

Twenty-Five

There was a tension in the air, and I had a pretty good idea what it was about. Any minute now, Celso would leap out from between the buildings and slice at us with his knife.

When we knocked on the door to Purgatory Palace, it took a long time for anyone to answer, and I wondered if my fears about Celso might be true. Jeremia stood with his back to the door, resting his foot on the log, which he'd carried on his shoulder from the university. We'd come in the early evening, and Ofelia was usually awake and on the prowl by this time of the day. Maybe we wouldn't be able to get in without her catching us. I was about to give up, about to squeeze into the alleyway and knock on Candela's window, when the door opened a crack and Candela peeked out at us.