The Stolen Child(99)

symphony. Organ and orchestra."

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled herself against my chest. Her eyes were full of light

and hope, and in all of my several lives, no one had shown such faith in me, in the essence of who I

considered myself to be. I was so in love with her at that moment that I forgot the world and everything

in it, and that's when I noticed, over her shoulder, our son was gone. Vanished from the space where he

had been standing. My first thought was that he had tired of the tigers and was now underfoot or nearby,

ready to beg us to let him in for a group hug. That hope evaporated and was replaced by the horrible

notion that Edward had somehow squeezed through the bars and been in-stantly eaten by the tigers, but

a quick glance at their cage revealed nothing but two indolent cats stretched out asleep in the languid

sunshine. In the wil-derness of my imagination, the changelings appeared. I looked back at Tess and

feared that I was about to break her heart.

"He's gone," I told her, moving apart. "Edward."

She spun around and moved to the spot we had seen him last. "Eddie," she cried. "Where in the

world are you?"

We went down the path toward the lions and bears, calling out his name, her voice rising an octave

with each repetition, alarming the other parents. Tess stopped an elderly couple heading in the opposite

direction. "Have you seen a little boy all alone? Three years old. Cotton candy."

"There's nothing but children here," the old man said, pointing a thin finger to the distance behind us.

A line of children, laughing and hurrying, chased something down a shady pathway. At the front of the

pack, a zoo-keeper hustled along, attempting to hold back the children while following his quarry. Ahead

of the mob, Edward raced in his earnest and clumsy jog, chasing a blackfooted penguin that had

escaped his pen and now waddled free and oblivious, heading back to the ocean, perhaps, or in search

of fresh fish. The keeper sprinted past Edward and caught up to the bird, which brayed like a jackass.

Holding its bill with one hand and cradling the bird against his chest, the keeper hurried past us as we

reached our son. "Such a ruckus," he told us. "This one slips out of the exhibit and off he goes, wherever

he pleases. Some things have such a will."

Taking Edward's hands in our own, we were determined to never let go.

Edward was a kite on a string, always threatening to break free. Before he started schooling, Eddie

was safe at home. Tess took good care of him in the mornings, and I was home to watch him on

weekday afternoons. When he turned four, Eddie went in with me on the way to work. I'd drop him off

at the nursery school and then swing by from Twain when my music classes were through. In our few

private hours I taught him scales, but when he bored of the piano he toddled off to his blocks and

dinosaurs, inventing imaginary games and companions to while away lonesome hours. Every once in a

while, he'd bring over a playmate for the afternoon, but those children never seemed to come back. That

was fine by me, as I never fully trusted his playmates. Any one of them could have been a changeling in

disguise.

Strangely, my music flourished in the splendid isolation we had carved out for ourselves. While he

entertained himself with his toys and books, I composed. Tess encouraged me to find my own sound.

Every week or so, she would bring home another album featuring organ music found in some dusty used

record store. She cadged tickets to Heinz Hall performances, dug up sheet music and books on

orchestration and instrumentation, and insisted that I go into the city to work out the music in my head at

friendly churches and the college music school. She was re-creating, in essence, the repertoire in the

treasure chest from Cheb. I wrote dozens of works, though scant success or attention resulted from my

efforts—a coerced performance of a new arrange-ment by a local choir, or one night on electric organ

with a wind ensemble from upstate. I tried everything to get my music heard, sent tapes and scores

around the country to publishers and performers, but usually received a form rejection, if anything. Every

great composer serves an apprenticeship of sorts, even middle-school teachers, but in my heart, I knew

the compositions had not yet fulfilled my intentions.

One phone call changed everything. I had just come in the door with Edward after picking him up

from nursery school. The voice on the other end was from another world. An up-and-coming chamber

quartet in California, who specialized in experimental sound, expressed interest in actually re-cording one

of my compositions, an atonal mood piece I had written shortly after the break-in. George Knoll, my old