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A WATCH OF NIGHTINGALES
By Liza Wieland The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2009 University of Michigan
All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-472-11672-0
Chapter One
Mara heard the voice from a long way off, a girl calling the doves. She stood alone in the stone courtyard, listening. She knew without seeing that the girl's hands were cupped close to her face, as if she were whispering a secret into another girl's ear. Mara waited, but no bird answered, and so she pulled the heavy door closed, scattering the cote of doves roosting above her. The rush of their wings was like fluttering pages, a sound Mara believed she had heard all her life: not so much books, but scores, hymnals, librettos, singers finding their places, waiting for the music to begin again. She let her key rest in the lock, and wondered whether she had been the last to leave, if any of the students were still inside. She listened again, this time for the voices of boys, but all she heard was the tick, tick of wet snow. She turned the key and dropped the ring into her bag.
Walking in this snow was treacherous, but exhilarating too. The stone and the ice glistened, indistinguishable, in the half-light of early evening. She told herself it was like learning to walk-though no one remembered that feeling, not really-or maybe like having one's feet bound, and here she slipped and slid downhill, but managed toregain her balance. She was glad the weather had driven everyone indoors, that no boys loitered outside the refectory and the library, beneath the chapel portico. She could see them now, as she passed by, seated at the long tables or wandering between, in search of more milk or dessert or conversation. They looked warm and content. They suspected classes would be cancelled tomorrow, and Mara observed both ease and excitement in their bodies, in the way they lounged over their half-empty plates. She thought they would not notice her, but then one of them, a tenth grader standing beside the window, smiled and waved. The boys near him turned, and one pressed his palms together, furrowed his brow in mock supplication, mouthed the words, snow day, Mrs. Raynor. Mara slowed further and raised one ungloved hand.
She felt their eyes on her as she continued past the refectory and came into the shadow of the cathedral, and she was grateful both for the darkness and for the shoveled, salted steps down to the street. Her bag seemed heavier suddenly, and she wondered why she'd brought home all these files. She knew she wouldn't read them tonight. She'd bake the defrosted chicken, and then maybe they'd watch a movie if Rachel had finished her schoolwork. A car passed slowly, slid toward her, halted with a shimmy, then continued its descent. Mara couldn't imagine trying to drive tonight-she tried to remember if she had ever navigated snow in Washington. She heard the squeal of brakes further up the hill, on Wisconsin Avenue, and waited for the muffled crunch, the chime of breaking glass. Never. Not once. John always drove because he knew this kind of weather made her nervous.
She crossed the street and stopped at the bottom of the driveway, letting her bag fall onto the wet cement. She'd left the light on in the front room, over the piano. She could see the illuminated keys, and a disc of light on the bench below, as if someone were about to enter the room, sit down and begin to play. Another softer glow came from the back of the house, from the kitchen. Mara lifted her bag and started up the driveway, past the snowbound car, around the side of the house and through the back gate. A white slash of snow hung precariously along the arm of the sundial, and it stopped her for a moment, like a hand held up in warning. She heard the telephone ring and then the machine, its brief greeting, followed by a click and the single bleat of the line going dead.
In the mudroom, Mara dropped her bag onto the low seat and shrugged off her coat. She reached for a hanger and wondered again how anyone could prefer hangers to hooks, and which one of the previous occupants had decided this question, and why. She sat to unlace her boots, pulled them off, then settled back against the wall, looked down at her watch. A quarter to six. The house was silent, except for a faint creak as the snow on the roof bore down. Rachel was probably on the train from Baltimore, though she might decide to stay another night if the snow kept up like this. Mara leaned toward the stairs and called Rachel's name. No answer. She felt a little ping of relief, like a splinter eased out. She looked down at her hands, spread her fingers over the black wool of her trousers. The nails were looking less ravaged; soon she'd start painting them again. Her fingers were still white from the cold, the index finger on her left hand an odd, creamy color, the right thumb too, like wax. She knew now the only way to bring the fingers back was to run hot water over her hands. It was fascinating to see, really, the blood blooming into the tips of her deadened fingers, turning them the color of plums, of eggplant.
Mara stood then and passed through into the kitchen, glanced at the chicken in the sink, the small glass beside it, a film of cranberry juice at the bottom. She turned on the hot water and passed her hands under the stream, watching their transformation, the purplish stain seeping downward. There was a name for this condition, something much more glamorous-sounding than poor circulation, but Mara couldn't remember what it was. John would know, of course. He was so good at that sort of thing, arcana, word-play, crossword puzzles. He could recite the names of all his predecessors, and their wives, in order, back to the school's first headmaster, 1876.
When her fingers were mottled and tingling, Mara turned off the water, crossed to the high cabinet and took down a china teacup and a bottle of Irish whiskey. She stood at the counter and surveyed the empty order of her kitchen. She thought about music: they always had music in the evenings, but she couldn't decide what she wanted to hear. There were four or five CDs in her bag: the new Renée Fleming, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, a couple of other possibilities for the spring performance. She considered each disc, but as the whiskey did its work, her bag seemed farther and farther away, and finally lost in another country.
Music always saves you. It always has. She heard the words in her brother's voice. How right he was about her. Phil was always right. At least he had been right in December, about Christmas carols. All month, Mara sang them or played them, very low in John's office, from morning until night, rehearsed Christmas carols with her choirs at Georgetown. The melodies, as familiar as her own voice, gave her something to concentrate on-a line she knew or suddenly remembered, another verse, all the verses of "Once in Royal David's City," the carol that was best for processionals. She liked to begin it in the north porch of the cathedral, with one boy soprano, but after his solo, there was plenty of music left. Hundreds of singers could march through into the nave and arrange themselves on the altar before the final lines.
Christmas modulated into the new year, through the Feast of the Epiphany, and now, somehow, it was the end of January. Mara put down her empty teacup and considered the chicken, wondered whether Rachel would be home in time for dinner. If not, she'd cook something else, open a can of soup. She could see, across the kitchen, that the answering machine light held steady: no messages. She could try calling Rachel, and as if she'd conjured the sound, the telephone rang.
"Mrs. Raynor?" Mara heard Arthur Overby's voice, familiar, but always a little off, as if disguised, as if he were trying to sound like anyone but himself.
"Yes?"
"How did it go? How is Bandasari?"
"He's fine, Arthur. He's going to be all right."
"No, I don't think so."
"What?"
"Think about the knife. Bandasari's knife."
"It's not a knife-"
"It's a weapon, Mara. On school grounds."
She listened to his accent then, the echoes of Chicago and Boston, the r at the end of her name, the vowels as flat as Midwestern fields.
"Arthur, please. It's resolved."
"You can't do that. The board should meet-"
"I've taken care of it."
"You can't just take care of it. That's not how things are done. We've let you have certain responsibilities, in light of your relationship with the boys...."
"And I'm very grateful for that, Arthur."
"But you're a music teacher. You're not an administrator."
"This came up. It had to be dealt with."
"A student has a knife, Mara. You have a child in a school. Would you want her to be in danger?"
"She's not in danger. No one was in danger."
"What if she was?"
"Arthur, please. I need you to ..." Mara stopped. What did she need from Arthur Overby? "We've both been through the mill."
"You're too lenient with that boy. I've seen you. You're too interested. You have no idea what will happen if you set this precedent. No idea. It will be terrible for you, I can promise you that."
"Good night, Arthur," Mara said. She hung up, and the sound of the phone crashing against its cradle echoed through the house. She was shaking. She picked up the handset again and called Rachel's cell phone. Not turned on, as usual. Then she tried John's mother in Baltimore. After five rings, the message began, Fern Raynor's chirping voice, so cheerful, a voice that has no idea what's happened to it, Rachel said a few weeks ago. She left a message, two questions: Is Rachel still there? What train did she take?
And then slowly, slowly, like light through fog, it came to her that maybe Arthur Overby had been watching. How else could he know where she had been, with whom, and that she was now at home? He must have seen her and Gurtej Bandasari at the school. She was standing next to the light switch in the kitchen, and she reached up to turn off the overhead lamps. There was a small work light still illuminated on the stove, but she knew no one could see her in the room, while she could see clearly out into the back garden. She looked carefully and saw there were no footprints across the back lawn, a swath of grass twelve feet wide running between the gate and a six-foot-high stone wall. Through the window beside her, she could see that the snow in the side yard was also undisturbed. The white of the snow reflected up into the night sky and came back as a kind of weak glow-like the milky light of early morning, just before objects return to being themselves.
Two hours earlier, she had come to the office to find Gurtej Bandasari, gorgeous, dark, framed in the perfect light of the rose window. He was waiting for her, waiting with his hand clutched hard against the outline of the kirpan. The winter light spilled through the stained glass and around him in weak reds and blues and violets-such an illusion of color was one of the saddest jokes played by late January in this city, at this latitude-and still kept him in shadow. It looked as if he were being held out of the light somehow, by some force, some terrific absence.
"Mrs. Raynor," the boy said, and his voice sounded both broken and astonished. "Here I am."
"Gurtej," she said. "What are we going to do?"
"I can't give it up. I have to wear it."
"I know."
"It's not even sharp," he said. "Look." He opened a fold in his shirt, reached inside and drew out a roll of cloth, and from it, a steel blade, a hand's length. He held the knife in his open palm, point outward, and it gleamed dully, as if lit from inside.
Mara had been walking as she spoke, and as the boy replied and spoke in turn. Now the kirpan lay between them, aimed just below her chest.
"The other parents ..." No, she thought, be truthful. "Some of the parents have complained."
"Who?"
"Well, Alex's parents, obviously."
"The State Department."
Mara smiled. "Not the whole State Department, I'm sure." She took the kirpan and closed her fingers around it. It felt light and cool. She clutched the knife more tightly, to warm it up, to transfer its meaning through her skin. Gurtej put his hand over his chest, the empty space where the kirpan should have been.
"Dr. Raynor wouldn't have let this happen," he said.
Mara pressed the knife to her heart, and for an instant, the two, the boy and the woman, stood in exactly the same pose. She watched the red and purple and blue beams from the stained glass fall like liquid around them. In a few minutes it would be dark enough that the automatic lights would flash on in the hallway, and they would be stunned at first and then even more alone with each other.
"Here," she said, and offered the kirpan back.
"What do the parents say?"
"We should go to the office," she said. "Can you come now?"
Gurtej nodded and took the kirpan, rolled it into the cotton cloth and slid it back inside his shirt. He waited politely, at attention, his arms hung stiffly at his sides. Only his fingers moved, flickering in and out of the light, as if he were warming up to play piano.
Mara held out her hand. And then she did not know what she expected the boy to do with such a gesture. He was too old to walk hand-in-hand with the head of school, but too polite to refuse. So he took her hand and shook it.
"There," he said. "We're making a deal."
"I hope so," Mara said. "When Rachel was a little girl, four, I think, she used to say, 'OK that's the deal, but what's the compromise?'"
"That sounds like Rachel," Gurtej said.
"You know her pretty well, then?"
"We've been studying together lately."
"Really?" Mara said.
"She's doing better."
"I'm glad."
The headmaster's study was in the very heart of the school, facing into an open courtyard, a fishbowl of a room at the end of a long hall of administrative offices. Now it was Sunday, and the hallway was dark and silent. Mara moved around her assistant's desk, then paused at the study door to let Gurtej pass through first. The space was so close she believed she could smell him, the mix of him, a soft scent like lavender, a hint of sweat, another heavier perfume, a woman's. His backpack brushed her arm, and he apologized. She invited him to sit down. There were two armchairs set to form a right angle, and Gurtej took the chair closest to the door. Mara eased herself into the other. For a moment they looked out the windows, into the courtyard. The other side of the building-classrooms-was dark. Snow fell, as it had all day. Flakes whirled into view and then disappeared, and Mara had the odd sense of being underwater. When she glanced back at Gurtej, she saw he was looking around the office, at the books, mostly John's. After half a minute or so, he met her gaze and smiled.
"I haven't been in here since Mother brought me," he said. Then the smile faded. "I've been that good."
"I know you have," Mara said. "Dr. Raynor spoke highly of you. And you're not in trouble now, Gurtej. But we have to work this out somehow."
"My mother knows you from school in England."
Mara considered. "Yes. She does. We haven't had an occasion to meet yet though. Not since then." She let out a sigh. "But I suppose we will now, yes?"
"Tell me what happened," Gurtej said suddenly, and Mara had no idea what he meant. She stared at him. "Tell me what they said about the kirpan."
"He wrote it out," Mara said, crossing the room to the desk. "We asked him to. He wrote it all down." She glanced over her shoulder at Gurtej, and saw that his face was drawn into a frown. "No, don't be angry. I was the one. I asked him to."
"Alex."
"Yes." She found the other boy's statement and returned to her chair. She began to read, silently. "It's very even."
"Even?"
"I mean he doesn't sound upset. More surprised. It sounds like everyone was surprised."
"Can I see it?"
"Of course."
Gurtej read the page, or began to, then dropped the paper in his lap and rubbed his eyes. He reached down, into the front pocket of his backpack, and took out a maroon-colored glasses case.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A WATCH OF NIGHTINGALES by Liza Wieland Copyright © 2009 by University of Michigan . Excerpted by permission.
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