The Glass Harmonica, page 34
She said, “Hey,” and he gave her his quiet smile.
“Hey, yourself. Tell the guy to follow us.”
With the cases loaded carefully in the back of the battered van, they drove straight toward Seattle, no stops this time. On the freeway, Erin asked, “How’s Charlie?”
Gene glanced at her, his dark glasses flashing. “He’s about the same. Other than Ted keeping him up on his physical therapy we haven’t done any other work. Just backpedaling, really.”
She nodded. “Is he driving you crazy?”
“A little.” He smiled. “But it’s understandable. We set him up with some equipment so he can listen to music, and installed a voice program on his slimscreen. And I brought over his Akai so he could fiddle with it.”
“But he promised not to treat himself?”
Gene’s smile faded. “Yes. He’s scared, Erin. That’s not helping the work, either.”
They were quiet for a time while he drove. As they were passing the first of the high-rises, he said quietly, “So you saw her?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can ever explain it to you. Or to Charlie. I saw her, yes, in Franklin House. With the music, and then without it. It was like—it was like she’s me. Like a reflection of me, or me of her. I don’t have any philosophy to fit the experience.”
“I’m sure you know there are some.”
“Well, yes—but this is so personal. I don’t know that some ritualized system could ever fully explain it to me. But it was real. And I’m not nuts.”
“I know.” Gene reached for her hand and held it, cradling it on his long thigh until they left the freeway and turned up the hill toward Charlie.
WITH Gene’s help, Erin set up her glass harmonica in the clinic, at the opposite end from the Moog. When their hands touched, or their shoulders brushed, she felt warmth. The atmosphere between them was pleasantly charged, full of promise.
They had agreed not to tell Charlie about their plan, to let the factor of surprise be an added stimulus, but he surprised them.
He turned his blind face this way and that as Gene helped him from his wheelchair to sit inside the wooden framework. “What’s here?” he asked sharply. “Erin? Something’s different.”
“How do you know, Charlie?” she asked. Nervous now, she stood behind her instrument, her hands apart in front of her. She had washed, and washed, and washed again, wanting everything to be perfect, her tone, her technique to be smooth, nothing to jar Charlie’s concentration.
“I don’t know—I feel something. Something’s changed. Gene?”
“I’m here, Charlie.”
Erin could see how anxious her brother was, how his eyes searched the shadows that were all his brain perceived. “Gene . . .” she began.
He nodded, and moved swiftly back to Charlie’s side. He put his hand on Charlie’s arm, and spoke calmly. “It’s Erin’s instrument,” he said. “We want to try something new. Just listen, and let it work for you, all right?”
“It’s the glass harmonica?” Charlie asked querulously. “It’s here?”
“Yes,” Erin said. The power was already turning the spindle, and she dipped a forefinger and touched one of the cups. The tone spun out, sweet and clear and high. Erin shivered with memory. Charlie visibly relaxed.
“Oh,” he said. His face cleared. He put on the headphones, and Gene attached the electrodes to his temples, tucked them behind his ears. Charlie put his head back against the chair and took a deep breath. “Okay. Good. That’s good, E. I’m ready, then.”
Gene and Erin had spent hours the night before coordinating the binaural beat program with music for the glass harmonica. It had been past midnight when they were finished, Gene yawning, Erin alert, still on London time and having slept on the commuter. Charlie was already asleep in the guest bedroom. Gene ordered a readout of the program and the music, and while it was printing, he made up the couch for Erin.
He brought her a pillow from his bedroom and she stood holding it as they said good night. She came within a heartbeat of asking to sleep in his room, in his bed, but she stopped herself. She thought she knew what his answer would be. When it was over, when Charlie was better, that would be the time. Then they would be free. When Gene turned back at the door to his bedroom, his eyes flashing their clear light at her, she knew she was right. She hugged the pillow tightly, feeling the imprint of his fingers on it.
GENE and Erin both wore headphones like Charlie’s, though not the electrodes. Gene began the binaural beats, and she could see by watching his fingers on the augmented synthesizer that he had begun the sensory emissions as well. He nodded to her, and she began to play.
At first she only matched a simple progression of chords to Gene’s program, creating a background, an even rhythm, an orderly structure. She didn’t want Charlie to have to work to understand it, but her intention was to anchor the sounds of the binaural beats in a basis of tonality. She played for a few moments before she dared a glance at Charlie’s face.
His features were composed, his eyes closed, his lips relaxed. His hands, lying palm up in his lap, were still. She looked at Gene, but he was concentrating on the projected scan. Modulating carefully, Erin raised the pitch of her progression. Charlie didn’t move, his eyelids didn’t flicker.
Erin began the “Romanza.” Almost immediately, Gene lifted a hand to point to the scan. The blue lobes revolved slowly against the lines of the mapping graph. She followed Gene’s pointing finger and she saw, she really saw, the delicate arrows of light traversing Charlie’s brain. It was no longer frightening. It was encouraging. It was necessary. Gene held his finger over the area he had told her before was the visual cortex, and she saw how the lines of light fragmented around it. It made her think of two people trying to meet in a maze, dashing down each promising corridor only to find themselves blocked, hemmed in, unable to reach each other.
She finished the “Romanza” and began on the Lux Aeterna of the Requiem. Charlie had labored over that movement, struggling with the progression, working and reworking the themes until they melded into one transcendent flow. Gene watched, nodded, adjusted the emissions with his fingers on the sensor panel. Erin played the movement exactly the way Charlie had asked for it, very slowly, molto legato, with classical resolutions of the long phrases. She felt, she hoped that she felt, the intensity of her tone reach out, touch his mind, translate through the limbic system, help his brain to balance sense and sensation, intention and motor control. She closed her eyes. Feel it, Charlie. Let it help you.
A choked sound made her open her eyes to look at her brother. He sat without moving, his eyes still closed, but tears had begun to stream down his cheeks.
Alarmed, Erin looked to Gene.
Gene’s face was triumphant. He nodded to Erin to continue, and his fingers moved again across the sensor panel. Charlie sat listening, weeping. And the spears of light, the fragmented lines of energy, came closer and closer until at last they met, melding into the perfect shape that meant Charlie could see again.
Gene said softly, “That’s it.”
Erin had come to the end of the Lux Aeterna. She lifted her fingers from the spinning glasses.
Charlie wiped his cheeks, and pulled off his headphones. He opened his eyes, blinking several times as if waking from sleep. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, stretching his eyebrows up, pulling at the corners of his eyelids.
He grinned at Gene. “Hey.”
And he turned to Erin. “God, E,” he said. “Do you ever need a haircut.”
GENE strictly forbade Charlie to try walking on the same day, but Charlie was gay, ebullient, full of hope just the same. “I still don’t know why it worked,” he kept saying, as Gene brought his juice. “I’ve been listening to Erin play the silly old instrument most of my life. What’s different now?”
“In part, it’s the anticipation,” Gene said. “The augmented binaural beats are one stimulus, but music, particularly music you know well, is a different, and complementary stimulus. What we know for certain is that part of the pleasure of music is the anticipation, the expectation of a certain harmony or rhythm or cadence—and Erin played music that you had written, in which your expectations are very high. That, combined with the extra energy of the sensory augmentation, transcends the auditory cortex to stimulate the visual cortex—and I hope, in time, the motor and somatosensory as well.”
“But it has to be the glass harmonica,” Erin said. “There’s something about the timbre, the vibrations—something balancing. It’s like—listen, have you ever seen an old-fashioned chalkboard? You know—the green thing you write on with white chalk?”
Gene said, “I went to school in the tent city, remember?”
“Okay, right. So, I think the tones of the glass harmonica are like the opposite of the screech of chalk on the board. I mean, that’s not all that loud a sound, chalk scraping on a chalkboard, but it makes anyone who hears it want to jump out of their skin. Why should that be? So I don’t know the explanation, but the tones of singing glass are just the opposite—you want them to settle into your skin, you want to let that tone inside your head—it’s balancing.”
“In other words,” Charlie drawled, “neither of you has a clue.” Erin gave his ponytail a sharp tug.
Gene smiled at his patient. “It will be fascinating developing a theory to fit the particulars. And you’ll have to help, Charlie. For now, we’ll just be damned glad it works. Medicine advances often enough on hunch and instinct. Let’s use what we’ve got and analyze it later.”
“A lot later, please,” Erin said, laughing now. “I’m starved.”
Charlie got himself into his wheelchair, and they went out in search of a meal. Charlie’s eyesight was not as clear as it had been before, as they felt confident it would be again, but his excitement over having it back, even if the outlines of objects and people were a bit fuzzy, was infectious. Gene’s relief was almost as heady as Charlie’s, and Erin was buoyant.
Once they were seated in a booth of the Silk City Diner, Erin gripped her brother’s hand. “God, Charlie. Promise me. Never again. Never, never again.”
“Well, I’m still going to do augmented sensory music,” he said.
“But not on yourself!”
Gene said, “One of the reasons we had success today, Charlie, is because you’re particularly sensitive to the augmented sensory emissions. You’ve got to be careful.”
“I’m going to walk,” Charlie said stubbornly. “I am. No, I won’t use the program on myself. But from a strictly musical standpoint, Mars was great. When people get used to augmented sensory music . . .”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Could we talk about the weather or something?”
“Yes,” Gene said, “let’s talk about the weather. And wine. We have a lot to celebrate.”
They pored over the wine list together, arguing, laughing. When the wine arrived and they each had a glass, they toasted.
Erin began. “To your beautiful blue eyes, Charlie. Your beautiful, fully functional eyes!” They drank.
And Charlie said, “To Gene. Best doc in or out of the Ivy League!” They drank again.
At last Gene said, “To Erin. It took guts, Erin, going off in search of your ghost.”
Charlie echoed, “To Erin.” He and Gene drank, but Erin grew thoughtful.
“I wish I knew who she was,” she said.
“You think those were her bones under Franklin House, don’t you?” Charlie asked.
Erin nodded. “But she wasn’t important enough to be remembered. So I don’t know her name, or why she died—or much of anything.”
Gene raised his glass one more time. “We know she was a musician,” he said quietly. “And we’ll remember her. She’s important to the three of us.” His hand was close to Erin’s under the table, and their fingers came together and entwined. His were long and cool and strong, and hers throbbed with the pace of her heartbeat.
“To my wraith, then,” Erin said, holding up her glass, swirling the wine inside to watch its ruby glow. “May she rest in peace.”
GENE drove to St. Mark’s, and he and Erin followed Charlie’s chair into the elevator and down the corridor to the condo. Erin walked close to Gene, feeling his arm against her shoulder, almost painfully aware of his thigh brushing hers, his hand reaching past her to open the door to the apartment. Moonlight shone through the rose window, refracting in patterns of crimson and gold and turquoise. Charlie turned his chair in the doorway, and grinned. “Well,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at them. “Good night, you two. See you in the morning.”
Erin felt her cheeks flame. “Charlie!” She could hardly look at Gene, but every part of her body reacted to his closeness, every nerve cried out to touch him.
Charlie winked. “Oh, don’t worry about me! I can—really, really, I can—take care of myself.” He saluted them. “Thanks to you guys.”
He turned his chair, and with a jaunty wave over his shoulder, he disappeared into his bedroom. Embarrassed, self-conscious, Erin looked up into Gene’s dark face. His gray eyes sparkled like clean water in bright sun, and her body warmed beyond bearing.
“Erin?” he said softly.
She smiled tentatively. “Would you—would you like to take me home, Gene?” she whispered.
He put his arms around her and pulled her close. All she could think was At last, at last.
41
Boston, Christmas 2018
THE limo carrying them from Logan Airport pulled up in front of Sarah Rushton’s house, and Gene and Erin climbed out to wait for their bags. And for Charlie.
Charlie got out of the limo from the other side, moving carefully, but entirely on his own. He had acquired a beautiful cane of mahogany, carved circa 1940 and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He leaned on it, careful of the icy glassphalt sidewalk, and led the way slowly, but steadily, up to Sarah’s low, covered porch.
Erin and Gene stood back, allowing Charlie to be the one to ring the bell. Gay Christmas lights, blue and silver and white, glowed in looping patterns through the hollies flanking the porch. The housekeeper opened the door and gasped at the sight of Charlie Rushton standing in the doorway on his own two feet. He laughed.
“Shh now, don’t tell Mother. Where is she?”
The housekeeper, her hand to her mouth, shaking her head in amazement, pointed toward the living room. Charlie, placing the cane carefully, stepped over the sill and made a measured progress down the polished hallway. Erin and Gene followed.
They found Sarah seated by a tall, slender abstract of a Christmas tree, a twist of elongated silver branches around a gray biocomposite trunk. Red glass beads dotted it here and there, sparkling like rubies in the lamplight. Sarah’s sleek blond head was bent over a slimscreen in her lap. She heard their footsteps and glanced up.
“Who . . . ? Charlie? Charlie—god, Charlie, omigod!” She stood, almost dropping the slimscreen on the floor. Hastily, she set it on the chair. “Charlie, you’re—you’re walking—”
He grinned and flourished the cane at her.
His mother gaped, and made a visible effort to compose herself—and then Sarah Rushton did something neither Charlie nor Erin nor the housekeeper nor anyone else had seen her do for years and years. She burst into sobs. They tore from her throat, from her body, the hoarse, ugly, helpless sobs of long-suppressed grief. She covered her face in shame, bending at the waist in an agony of release. “Oh, thank God, thank God,” she sobbed. “Oh, Charlie, my son, my baby—I am so sorry—I have always been so sorry—”
Erin stared at her mother in horror. Charlie, shocked almost out of his hard-won balance, leaned against the door frame watching her cry, hardly knowing her.
It was Gene who strode forward, who put his long arm around the weeping woman, who helped her to a chair and found her a handkerchief, who spoke soothingly to her until the worst of her tears were spent. Erin stepped close to Charlie, her shoulder touching his, needing an anchor of familiarity in the sea of confusion.
As Sarah began to grow calm, hiding her face in her hands, wiping her face with the sodden handkerchief, Gene looked up at the twins.
“Erin, Charlie, why don’t we give your mother a moment? This has been a shock for her.”
Sarah said something in a choked voice, and Gene bent to hear her. When he straightened, he kept one brown, doctorly hand on her shoulder. “She says it’s a wonderful shock,” he told them, with his quiet smile.
“Sarah—” Erin began.
Charlie moved forward, leaning on his cane, but moving, walking on his own. He went to Sarah and settled into a chair close to her. “Mother,” he said. She lifted her ravaged face to him, and Erin bit back an exclamation. Sarah Rushton looked every one of her fifty-five years. But her blue eyes, dark now with tears, were vivid with an inner light.
“Charlie,” Sarah said through trembling lips. Erin saw now that there were lines in her slender throat, that her hands were blue-veined. When had she begun to age?
“Charlie, darling,” Sarah said again. “I am so happy for you. And so very, very sorry.”
“Mother, why? What are you sorry about?” he asked. He took her pale, veined hand.
Sarah blew her nose, and began to pull herself together. The signs of age disappeared as she composed herself, as she regained her dignity.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “because it was all my fault, and I couldn’t change any of it. It was too late.”
“How could it be your fault, Sarah?” Erin asked.
Sarah glanced at her, and then up at Gene Berrick, and the guilt in her face was painful to see. “I should have had the test. I should have known.”
Gene shook his head. “It might not have made a difference, Dr. Rushton.”
“But we didn’t know that, and we’ll never know. And all these years—oh, Charlie—”
Fresh tears welled in her eyes. Her son laid his carved cane on the floor and leaned forward. For the first time in more years than Erin could count, mother and son embraced. Gene looked up at Erin, and she saw the pride in his eyes, pride and satisfaction and the wonderful kindness that had made her love him.
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