“If we meet somebody, play dumb,” Speck instructed. “They’ll think we’re a bunch of kids and tell us to go on home. Nod your head when I talk and don’t say a word.” I looked around the empty streets, half hoping for an encounter, but all the people seemed to be inside, at dinner, bathing the children, getting ready for bed. In many homes, an unearthly blue glow emanated from within.
The library squatted stately in the middle of a tree-lined block. Speck moved as if she had passed this way many times before, and the problem of locked doors was easily circumvented. Luchóg led us around the back to a staircase and pointed out a gap where the concrete had separated from the main wall.
“I don’t think I can fit through that. My head’s too big, and I’m not that skinny.”
“Luchóg is a mouse,” Speck said. “Watch and learn.”
He told me the secret of softening one’s bones. The gist is to think like a mouse or a bat, simply realizing one’s own flexibility. “It will hurt the first time, lad, like every good thing, but there’s no trick to it. A matter of faith. And practice.”
He disappeared into the crack, and Speck followed him, exhaling a single drawn-out sigh. Pushing through that narrow space hurt more than I can say. The abrasions on my temples took weeks to heal. After softening myself, I had to remember to keep my muscles tense for a while or risk an arm or a leg going limp. But Luchóg was right—with practice, squeezing became second nature.
Underneath the library, the crawlspace was dark and foreboding, so when Speck struck a match, the flame glowed with hope. She touched the flame to a candlewick, and with the candle lit a hurricane lamp that smelled of must and kerosene. Each successive illumination brought the dimensions and features of the room into sharper focus. The back of the building had been built on a slight slope, so that the floor inclined from our entranceway, where one could stand quite comfortably, rising to the opposite wall, where one could rest only by sitting. I can’t tell you how many times I bumped my head on the ceiling by that far wall. The chamber had been made accidentally, a sort of hollow beneath a new addition to the old library building. Since it did not rest on the same foundation, the room was hotter than outside during the summer and bone-cold in the winter. By lamplight I could see that someone had added a few homey touches—a brace of rugs, a few drinking vessels, and, in the northwest corner, a sort of easy chair fashioned from salvaged blankets. Luchóg began fiddling with his cigarette pouch, and Speck ordered him out, if he must smoke. Grumbling, he scooted through the crack.
“So what do you think, Aniday? A bit rustic, but still . . . civilization.”
“It’s grand.”
“You haven’t seen the best part. The whole reason I brought you here.” Speck motioned me to follow, and we scuttled up the incline to the back wall. She reached up, turned out a knob, and a panel dropped from the ceiling. In a flash, she hoisted herself up through the hole and was gone. I knelt on the spot, waiting for her return, looking up through the empty space. All at once, her face appeared in the frame.
“Are you coming or not?” she whispered.
I followed her into the library. The pale light from our chamber below dissipated in the room, but I could still make out—my heart leapt at the sight—row after row, shelf above shelf, floor to ceiling, a city of books. Speck turned to me and asked, “Now, what shall we read first?”
? CHAPTER 11 ?
The end, when it arrived, proved both timely and apt. Not only had I learned everything Mr. Martin had to offer, but I was sick of it all—the practice, the repertoire, the discipline, and the ennui of eighty-eight keys. By the time I turned sixteen, I began looking for an excuse to quit, a way out that would not break my mother’s heart. The truth is that while I am a very good pianist, great even, I was never sublime. Yes, by far the best in our remote hamlet, no doubt our corner of the state, maybe the best from border to border, but beyond that, no. I lacked the passion, the consuming fire, to be a world-class pianist. Looking forward, the alternative was dreadful. To end up like old Mr. Martin himself, teaching others after a second-rate career? I would rather play in a bordello.
Over breakfast one morning, I opened with this gambit: “Mom, I don’t think I’m going to get any better.”
“Better than what?” she asked, whipping eggs.
“At the piano, at music. I think it’s as far as I can go.”
She poured the mess into a skillet, the eggs sizzling as they hit butter and hot iron, and said nothing while she stirred. She served me a plate of eggs and toast, and I ate them in silence. Coffee cup in hand, she sat across the table from me. “Henry,” she said softly, wanting my attention. “Do you remember the day when you were a little boy and ran away from home?”
I did not, but I nodded in the affirmative between bites.
“It was a bright day and hot, hotter than Hades. I wanted a bath to cool off. The heat’s one thing I can’t get used to. And I asked you to mind Mary and Elizabeth, and you disappeared into the forest. Do you remember that?”