Somebody Else's Music(18)

Gregor didn’t remember her, either. The sight of Bennis packing his shirts was oddly unsettling. It wasn’t the kind of thing Bennis did, and for a moment—obviously, he wasn’t getting enough sleep—he had that gut-twisting reaction that people are supposed to have when they realize they are confronted by a shape-shifter. Maybe he hadn’t moved in with Bennis at all, but with Lida, in a body she had put on the way she put on her three-quarter-length chinchilla coat to go to church in the winter.

“Gregor?” Bennis said.

“I’m here.”

“Barely.”

“Why does she have the harpsichord?”

Bennis pulled the clothing guard down over the shirts and tied it tightly to the suitcase’s side with ribbons. “It’s what she does. Plays the harpischord, I mean, and the—what. Virginals. That’s something else that looks like a piano. She got a job with the Philadelphia Early Music Ensemble.”

“And she moved in here?”

“She says she saw the ad and thought she remembered the name of the street and that you lived here, so she figured it must be a nice street. Or something. You really ought to ask Tibor and Lida about this. Ask Lida. I think what Tibor mostly did was get her to tell him what books he should read on early Renaissance polyphonic song.”

“I’m surprised there was an ad. I take it that was Russ’s idea.”

“Probably. I don’t know where the ad appeared, though, so don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Is she buying or renting?”

“Oh, renting,” Bennis said. “Donna says she hasn’t got any money. Apparently, you don’t make much playing early instruments. Didn’t I tell you all this before? Whatever. From what Russ is hinting, I think that if they like her and really want her on the street they’ll make some arrangement so that she’ll be able to buy. You know what it’s like around here. Even Howard Kashinian behaves himself when it comes to apartments and town houses. Are you sure you want to take all these suits? It’s practically summer and you’re going to the country.”

“I’m supposed to be working.”

“Sometimes I think you think it’s still 1965 and you can’t get dinner in a good restaurant unless you wear a tie.”

“There aren’t any restaurants where I’m going,” Gregor said. “From what I understand, there isn’t even a place to stay in town.”

Bennis hung his suit bag on the high arm of his silent valet and unzipped it all the way around. “There’s one more thing,” she said. “Tibor’s absolutely insisting that we all have to go see Grace play when she plays, so he’s buying season tickets to their shows, the Ensemble’s shows, for when they play here in Philadelphia. They play in a church, but they travel some, so it’s a little confusing. At any rate, Lida’s buying some, too, and so are Donna and Russ, and they’re getting extras. I don’t know how many sets there will be in the end, but—”

“You said you’d buy some for us.”

“It seemed like the least I could do. And I like early music, or at least some of it. I mean, I don’t like chant, but I don’t suppose they can be doing chant, not if they have a harpsichord. Anyway, they don’t even start playing until September. This summer, they’ve got rehearsals and some Renaissance fairs and then they’re going to make a CD, which is why they needed Grace so early. Their old harpsichordist quit. Grace says—”

“Bennis.”

“Right,” Bennis said. She took a deep breath. “I’m acting like an idiot. I always seem to. I’m going to go put on a pot of coffee.”

Gregor thought about saying Bennis again, but didn’t. He watched her leave the bedroom and head down the hall instead, wishing that the hall weren’t so dark. It was a bright day outside, so bright that the bedroom looked as if it were about to become the landing area for the Second Coming. Sunlight streamed in in those hard-edged rays artists used to represent the gaze of God. If he went to the window and looked down to the street, he could see old George Tekemanian sitting under a huge umbrella at a round table his nephew Martin had sent to him from L. L. Bean. Lately, old George had not been looking as well as he might, and Bennis had begun to look formidable, the way women did when they entered middle age with both confidence and resources. It didn’t bother him to think of Bennis reaching middle age, although he doubted she’d look it in quite the same way Lida or Hannah had. He was middle-aged himself, and one of the things that had stopped him for so long from realizing what he felt for her had been the simple fact that he’d thought she was too young for him. His wife—another Elizabeth; he was surrounded by them—had been almost exactly his own age, and they had grown up together, so that by the time they’d been married half a dozen years, they’d no longer really needed to direct whole sentences at each other. He almost went to the drawer where he kept Elizabeth’s picture under his socks. When he’d first moved back to Cavanaugh Street, he couldn’t remember how many years ago now, he’d kept it out where he could see it at all times. Even after he’d finally made himself put it away, he’d taken it out to look at it almost daily. Now he thought it must have been weeks since he’d seen it, and that part of him that had been able to hear her voice all around him when he was alone had apparently died. Things changed. That was reality. It scared him to death.