packs her suitcase, tossing in underwear, a toothbrush, a change of jeans.
She passes again Colette’s short note fluttering on the table, ghost of Okakura, the handwriting spidery and familiar. And passes, too, inevitably, the cello standing in the corner, its side swung toward her.
“Off again in such a hurry?” it mutters.
When she doesn’t reply, it adds, “The humidity’s terrible. Can’t you hear my pegs creak in the night?”
“Yeah, I hear them,” says Jean, stuffing a handful of socks in her suitcase and looking around for her toilet kit.
“It’s been over a month.” A sigh. “I’m nothing like this. A sculpture? You could at least dust me from time to time.”
“Shut up!” says Jean.
She could lock it in the case and shove it in the closet. That might shut it up.
“Poor old neglected thing,” she says, with a hint of bitterness. Has she ever gone six weeks without picking up the bow?
She folds a blouse into the suitcase, pats it down, then sighs heavily. Grabbing the chamois that drapes off a tuning peg, she wipes it over the rosewood soundboard. Hardly dusty at all. She can almost hear the purr of contentment. This annoys her. She feels slightly queasy, almost motionsick, as she flips the instrument around to swipe its underside. She shakes the chamois and tosses it into the open case. Before she knows it, she’s tightening the bow and passing the horsehair over a knob of resin. She unscrews the endpin and sticks it into a crack in the floorboards. Then she drops the bow on the string and draws it across tentatively.
A muted sound, like an infant crying two floors away.
She cocks her head, listens, and does it again. Then her left hand springs to the fingerboard, and the sounds turn into a familiar transcription: a Bach partita. Her fingers nimbly follow the old pattern, and the bow stabs at the proper angles.
She plays ten or twelve bars before stopping in disgust.
“What crap!” She glares at the instrument before propping it up against the wall again.
Her fingers work by habit: might as well be raking leaves. How long since she’s actually listened? Might as well be a civil servant plowing through scores of documents and procedurals.
She slides the suitcase toward the door, ready for a hasty exit in the morning.
Colette doesn’t know Jean has quit playing. No one in the family knows. Jean wonders how she’ll tell them.
One day, the last summer the family was together at the cottage, Sam said, “Let’s go pick raspberries.”
“Sure,” we said, thinking of pie and waffles.
Then Father called, “You stay here, Colette, and help me bring in the dock.”
When we got to the field, the farmer gave us each pails that fastened around the waist.
As we picked, Sam did the talking.
“Your father and I aren’t entirely happy about your plan to go to New York.”
I started to pick too fast, squishing berries as I slid them off their stems.
“Martin isn’t sure that you’ll like it there. The city is extremely competitive … ”
“I know that!” I snapped.
She sighed. “And apart from anything else, it’s expensive. If you really want to get away from home, how about Queen’s? That’s where I went. You could come home weekends.”
I didn’t say anything. A bee tried to get up my sleeve.
Finally she came out with it: “Your decision doesn’t have anything to do with Yoshi, does it?”
He was living in New York, had been for months.
I slammed the berry into the pail. I was making a terrible mess.
“No!” I was furious. Did she think I would place my future on the line — my career, the next chapter of my life — for him? A childhood infatuation?
“That’s not the reason at all!” I cried.
Maybe he’d given the name “New York” a shimmer. Like Hemingway or Piaf in Paris. A certain aura. And sure it would be easier to keep up with his doings if I could check out the papers every day. But what was the chance of running into him in a big city like New York? Would our paths intersect? Pretty damn unlikely. And would I look him up on my own? I didn’t know yet.
“For music, New York’s still the place,” I said.
Sam sighed. “I want to be sure of your motives. And sure you’re sure.” Her pail was filling efficiently. “If I knew you weren’t on some wild goose chase after that man I’d feel a lot better. So would your father.” She gave me a hard look. “Even Colette is worried.”
“I’m not chasing anyone,” I said. “I just want to play the cello.”
I even believed it.
Chapter Two
I don’t know whether to fear Or love you, ghost.
Does Colette have laugh and frown lines about her eyes now? From holding expressions too long? We’re old Kabuki actors posing a dramatic mie, crossing one eye over the other for the thousandth time.
Jean steps off the ferry onto the Victoria dock. It was a rough crossing, and she sways for a minute, holding on to the suitcase. A gust of wind sweeps across the concrete and billows her blouse into a tent. She squints at the little crowd of welcomers.
A horn bleats a sharp tattoo and, following the sound, Jean spies the old Volvo cruising to a stop by the waiting-room.
“Jean-ie!” A figure waves. A familiar mound of dyed blonde hair — Sam.
Jean skids over the pavement, suitcase castors veering every which way, her face pulled into a grin.
Sam unrolls the window. “Hurry up, honey. I’m in a no-parking zone!”
A car behind honks.
Jean dashes around to the passenger side, opens the door, and tosses her suitcase into the back seat. She jumps in beside her mother, and they kiss hurriedly.
Sam guns the motor and swings the car out of the ferry terminal in a cloud of dust and exhaust.
As Jean catches her breath she watches her mother. Nothing has changed. A fast shot of relief.
Sam turns and meets her stare. “You look terrific, old thing,”
