American Music - Jane Mendelsohn [47]
Honor gripped Milo’s neck tighter. She saw Sam with a different face: brown skin and his hair in a black scarf. He had been blond, fair, skin pink from the desert sun. They told him he stood out too much. He was too easy a target. They told him to get makeup and darken his skin. He wrote to her on the back of a Do Not Disturb sign that the brown cream would stain his clothes and rub off from his neck. His neck she could picture his neck inside one of his loose button-down shirts. In New York he dressed like the rich boy he was, but messy. She saw his neck it was strong but not tough he was not tough and when she had heard he had to disguise himself she thought that there was no disguising this kind of difference. He was brave and he was confident and he thought he could hide but he was not devious or savvy or cunning enough to pretend he was someone he wasn’t. He couldn’t even lie.
In the end though it was not his disguise that saved him or gave him away. He wasn’t a hero or a coward. They pulled the truck over. They killed everyone. It didn’t matter what he looked like.
Do you see what I see?
The truck, he said.
Yes, she said.
I’m sorry.
She took her hand away and said, That’s what I lost. That, and a lot of other things.
You’ll tell me about those another day, he said.
Maybe, she said.
Then one day they told him that he was getting better and could go outside and could have visitors sit with him outside. There was a yard with some benches. It was spring again. It was cold. He asked her if she would come as a visitor. She asked him if he ever had any other visitors. He said, No. There’s no one to come visit. So many visions, she said. So few visitors.
She’d never seen him wearing a coat before. She brought a present. She gave him the little box.
Don’t get mad this time. It’s just a present, not a party.
I won’t, he said.
It was a watch.
I noticed you never wore one, she said. Do you already have one?
I used to. This is beautiful.
He put it on.
You’re not going to rip it off and throw it across the street are you?
No. I’m never going to take it off.
She was on a bench. He wheeled closer to her. He kissed her. They held hands in the cold. A bird bounced around on the dirt. The clouds looked like they were waiting in the sky.
I’m going to use it to time myself when I do my exercises.
Honor allowed herself a smile.
They tell me you’re doing well, she said.
I think I am. They say I’ve become more responsive. He gave a sheepish handsome grin.
You’re going to stand up and walk for me?
I’m going to do more than that.
He looked right into her and through her and she thought she could see into him straight into his head and then through him past this building past this city someplace else.
What are you going to do?
Dance.
And one day he did walk. He walked a step. Then he walked more until he walked the length of the corridor. He walked by himself to their room. He walked right up to her and he took her in his arms and he held her up and he put her on the table.
1936
Vivian went to hear him play. There were planets turning in the cigarette smoke that swirled in the yellow light. The red tips of the fingers of the hostesses clicked against the little table when they cleared her drink. Another one, honey? they asked through dark lips. She ordered another but she didn’t drink it.
Onstage he tilted slightly backwards and looked taller and thinner and his shirt stuck to him when he began to sweat. Then he leaned forward and the strap hung around his neck and his strong neck hung low and he looked solemn and calm like a horse in a field. Then he lifted only his head back and the moaning low music he had been making