Rose leaned close to Bea’s ear. “She does look like a whale, don’t you think?”
Bea looked to Ira, a pit rising in her throat. She knew he must be awake now—the shouting, Bea’s need, would have roused him. But he lay still, eyes closed. He wouldn’t rescue her from the despair that swelled inside her at the sight of that stomach, those hands, the odd pietà Adeline and Jack made on the floor, Rose’s whispered insult echoing Bea’s own smothered rage. She remembered huddling with Julian in the attic when they were still children, and inseparable, always hiding together—“little phantoms,” the adults called them—and how she wished then that he was her brother, so she could have him near her all the time, how his smell, and his warm skin, seemed more familiar even than her own. Now his slender hands cupped Brigitte’s vast stomach and Bea considered her options (attempting detachment, considering herself consider), to scream or to leave, and settled on a groan, hoping it would come out more quietly than it did.
Everyone stared. Bea didn’t look up but she could feel them staring—she heard their thoughts traveling the room like arrows. Poor cousin Bea. What’s wrong now?
The abrupt silence was punctured by the whistle buoy’s wail.
“Play a song, Bea?” Julian’s voice was kind—clearly he meant to help her—and Brigitte started playing a staccato “Yankee Doodle,” as if to help her further. But they had made everything worse. Bea could not play.
“Come,” Brigitte said. “A song of the freedom!”
“Independence,” Rose corrected. “Oft confused, but not the same.”
“The freedom of the dolphin!” Oakes cried. “It’s brilliant!”
“Go on, Bea.” Ira spoke gently. Even Ira was in on it now, though he knew the piano for Bea was like alcohol for others, her desire for it verging on lust, disease. She had kept herself from it for so long that she couldn’t imagine touching a key now without losing control.
She couldn’t play. And she couldn’t sit here with her fear flayed, her heart shrinking, as everyone shouted at her. So she stood. And with a jovial, almost peppy wave—hammering this, hammering that, mashing back tears, seeing double—she walked out. “Good night, everyone, I’ve work to do, well done, Adeline, hurrah! Goodnightgoodnightgoodnight!”
? ? ?
Brigitte’s bony rump cut off circulation to Julian’s leg. Her playing was awful, and very loud. She had no shame! He was crazy for her. He loved that she sat there with her stomach knocking against the piano, banging out patriotic songs she barely understood. He worried a bit, too, at how little she had changed. Even her body, apart from her stomach, was exactly the same, long and lean, like a deer’s. You could look at a girl like Adeline and see that she made a natural, good mother. But Brigitte might be more like Vera, always pulled to do something else, an unstoppable wind. Julian feared she might have the baby and forget about it, go off to paint or brew tea or knead clay or dance by herself in front of the mirror the way she liked to do, and just forget.