She continued mastering the English language as well, feeling it closer every night. Her ambition of reading both The Iliad and The Odyssey from cover to cover seemed an increasingly real possibility. Often she sat well beyond midnight, with a dictionary by her side. Many times she fell asleep like that, in the kitchen, her face all creased and sideways, against the warmth of pages; it was her constant immigrant Everest.
How typical, then, and perfect.
This, after all, was Penelope.
As the feat loomed up before her, the world came down in front of it.
* * *
—
It was like that pair of books, really.
Just when a war was there to be won, a god would get in the way. In this case, obliteration:
A letter arrived.
It informed her; he’d died outside.
His body was toppled next to an old park bench. Apparently, his face was half-covered in snow, and his hand was a fist, and sunken across his heart. It was not a patriotic gesture.
The funeral predated the letter.
A quiet affair. He was dead.
* * *
—
Her kitchen was full of sun that afternoon, and when she dropped it, the letter swayed, like a pendulum made of paper. It skimmed beneath the fridge, and she spent many minutes, hands and knees, reaching under, and in, to retrieve it.
Jesus, Penny.
There you were.
There you were with your knees all pinched and stretched, and the table cluttered behind you. There you were with your blurry eyes and crestfallen chest, your face on the floor—a cheek and an ear—your bony backside up in the air.
Thank God you did what you did next.
We loved what you did next.
It was like this that night, when Carey left The Surrounds, and Clay unraveled the paper: He peeled off the sticky tape gently.
He folded the Herald’s racing section flat, and tucked it under his leg. Only then did he look at the present itself—an old wooden box—and hold it in both hands, chestnut-brown and scuffed. It was the size of an old hardcover book, with rusty hinges and a broken latch.
Around him, The Surrounds was airy, and open.
Barely a breeze.
A weightlessness.
He opened the small wooden door on top, and it creaked like a floorboard, and dropped.
Inside was another gift.
A gift within a gift.
And a letter.
* * *
—
Usually, Clay would read the letter first, but to get to it he lifted the lighter; it was a Zippo, made of pewter, about the size and shape of a matchbox.
Before he even thought to take it, he was holding it in his hand.
Then turning it.
Then steering it toward his palm.
It surprised him how heavy it was, and when he flipped it onto its back, he saw them; he ran his finger across the words, engraved on its metal chest:
Matador in the fifth.
That girl was something else.
* * *
—
When he opened the letter, he was tempted to flick the Zippo open, to light its light, but the moon was enough to read by.
Her handwriting small and precise:
Dear Clay—
By the time you read this we’ll have talked anyway…but I just wanted to say that I know you’ll be leaving soon, and I’ll miss you. I miss you already.
Matthew told me about a far-off place and a bridge you might be building. I try to imagine what that bridge will be made of, but then again, I don’t think it’ll matter. I wanted to claim this idea for myself, but I’m sure you know it anyway, from the jacket of The Quarryman: “EVERYTHING HE EVER DID WAS MADE NOT ONLY OF BRONZE OR MARBLE OR PAINT, BUT OF HIM…OF EVERYTHING INSIDE HIM.”
One thing I know:
That bridge will be made of you.
If it’s okay with you, I’m hanging on to the book for now—maybe to make sure you come back for it, and come back as well to The Surrounds.
As for the Zippo, they say you should never burn your bridges, but I offer it to you anyway, even if only for luck, and to remember me by. Also, a lighter sort of makes sense. You know what they say about clay, don’t you? Of course you do.
Love,
Carey
PS. Sorry about the state of the wooden box, but somehow I think you’ll like it. I figured it couldn’t hurt, to keep some treasured things in. Take more than just a peg.
2nd PS. I hope you like the engraving.
Well, what would you do?
What would you say?
Clay sat, stock-still, on the mattress.
He asked himself:
What do they say about clay?
But then, very quickly, he knew.
Actually, he understood before he’d finished asking, and he stayed at The Surrounds a long time. He read the letter over and over.
Finally, when he did break his stillness, it was only for the small heavy lighter; he held it against his mouth. For a moment he almost smiled: That bridge will be made of you.
It wasn’t so much that Carey did things largely or commanded attention or love, or even respect. No, with Carey it was her little moves, her easy touch of truth—and in that way, as always, she’d done it: She’d handed him the extra courage.
And she’d given this story its name.
On the kitchen floor, Penelope made up her mind.
Her father had wanted her to have a better life, and that was what she would do: She would shed her meekness, her politeness.
She would go and pull out the shoebox.
She’d take the money out and clench it.
She’d stuff her pockets and walk to the railway—all the while remembering the letter, and Vienna: There’s another way to be.
Yes, there was, and today she would take it.
Bez wahania.
No delay.
* * *
—
She already had the shops mapped out in her mind.
She’d been before, and she knew each music shop by its location, prices, and varying expertise. One shop, in particular, had always called her back. The pricing was the first part; it was really all she could afford. But she’d also enjoyed the shambolic nature of it—the curled sheet music, the grimy bust of Beethoven scowling in the corner, and the salesman hunched at the counter. He was pointy-faced and cheerful, eating orange quarters almost always. He shouted through his deafness.
“Pianos?” he’d boomed the first time she went in. He fired an orange peel at the bin and missed. (“Shit, from one meter!”) Deaf as he was, he picked up on her accent. “What would a traveler like yourself want a piano for? It’s worse than a lead weight around your neck!” He stood and reached for the nearest Hohner. “Slim girl like you needs one of these. Twenty bucks.” He opened the small case and ran his fingers along the harmonica. Was this his way of explaining she couldn’t afford a piano? “You can take it anywhere.”
“But I am not leaving.”
The old man changed tack. “Of course.” He licked his fingers and slightly straightened. “How much have you got?”
“So far, not much. I think, three hundred dollars.”
He laughed his way through a cough.
Some orange flesh hit the counter.
“See, love, you’re bloody dreaming. If you want a good one, or at least half-decent, come back when you’ve got a grand.”
“Grand?”
“Thousand?”
“Oh. Can I try one?”
“Certainly.”
But till now she never did play any of the pianos, not in that shop or the others. If she needed a thousand dollars, she needed a thousand dollars, and only then would she find a piano, play it, and buy it, all on the same day.
And that day, as it was, was today.
Even if she was fifty-three dollars short.
* * *
—
She walked into the shop and her pockets were bulging.
The shopkeeper’s face lit up.
“You’re here!”
“Yes.” She was breathing heavily. Sweating soggily.
“You got a thousand dollars?”
“I have…” She took out the notes. “Nine hundred…and forty-seven.”
“Yes, but—”
Penny slapped her hands on the counter, making paw prints in the dust, her fingers and palms all clammy. Her face was level with his; her shoulder blades threatened to dislocate. “Please. I must play one today. I will pay the rest as the money comes—but I must try one, please, today.”
For the first time, the man didn’t force his smile on her; his lips parted only to speak. “Okay then.” He waved and walked, simultaneously. “Over here.”
Of course, he’d directed her to the cheapest piano, and it was nice, the color of walnut.
She sat at the stool; she lifted the lid.
She looked at the boardwalk of keys: A few were chipped, but through the gaps of her despair, she was already in love, and it hadn’t yet made a sound.