Two nights later, Stephan Pearson was again sitting on the old bench beneath the nearly naked maples between the music hall and the women’s dormitory. About half an hour earlier Cecilia Endsrud had passed by and, recognizing him from the night of the play, she had greeted him in a cheery voice. This had taken him by surprise. He had managed to return her greeting without betraying any special concern for her. It’s not easy to speak in a normal tone of voice to someone you hold so tenderly in your heart, especially when you know full well that she is according you only a passing thought. I am sharing the light she beams on everybody, Steve had told himself ruefully. But the light I am beaming on her is the only light I have ever beamed on anyone.
Right now the lilting strains of Bach’s “Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor” were floating lightly out of the center window on the fifth story, the only window in the building that was still open in spite of the briskness of the evening air. Steve did not know the name of what she was playing, but it sure performed wonders in his heart! It made him feel so close to her in spirit, and so furious with Tom.
This led him to think about yesterday at supper. Tom had walked up to where Cecilia was sitting and had politely asked whether the seat next to her was reserved for someone. She had blushed a little and just as politely motioned for him to be seated. The rest of the meal for Steve was like watching a tragedy unfold. From two tables away he had observed Tom executing and directing a most successful conversation, guiding it into what appeared to be a bashful repartee in which he was mildly unctuous and persistent and she was innocent and coy, or so it seemed. The oil of experience fairly oozed from Tom’s lips as he bathed Cecilia in discreet compliments backed up by his impressive chivalry. And, clever lad that he was, he had carried her tray for her back to the dirty dishes rack near the kitchen door, pretty well obliging her to wait for and walk out with him. When Steve had left a few minutes later, they were still talking together under the arbor in front of the cafeteria.
The same thing had been reenacted this very night, but this time Tom had joined her in the cafeteria line even before they were seated.
And as if that weren’t enough, there was what had happened at chapel this morning. Steve had mounted the steps of the balcony to his usual unobtrusive perch only to look down and see Tom Mahler escorting Cecilia down the aisle! During the service Steve had watched with growing repulsion Tom’s newfound devotion. His piety reeked with ulterior motives. Steve could almost smell the stench of Tom’s effort to impress Cecilia with his virtuousness. It was all Steve could do to stay to the end of the service.
But the final crushing weight that was bearing down on Steve was Tom’s daily reports to his friends about his encounters with Cecilia. He came close to admitting straight out that everything revolved around the age-old challenge of virtue. He seemed fixated on the glories of the conquest of chastity. Tom was a wily chap, to be sure. As he put it to the guys, for him Cecilia had it all—a thrilling challenge for the moment and a supremely satisfying companion for life. From the way the ex-soldier was talking, Steve had got the idea that his strategy in the short term was to overwhelm Cecilia’s resistance by arousing her passions to a fever pitch, and in the long term to spend the rest of his life savoring her exquisite beauty at his leisure. Steve had listened to all this from inside his room, door ajar, where he sat seething.
But now, the wondrous sounds coming through the window high above him drew Steve back into the present moment. They were being produced by Cecilia’s nimble fingers and agile feet, all of it issuing from her beautiful spirit. He was so glad she always opened her window. She must love fresh air, he mused. That way her music can fly as freely as her soul!
“O my angel! If only you knew what danger you are in!” cried out his inner voice.
At that moment he looked around and saw me approaching him down the lane. A possibility must have suggested itself to him the moment he saw me.
“Evening, Paul! Good evening!” he exclaimed with uncharacteristic energy. “Why don’t you sit down here for a minute? It’s a lovely evening, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” I returned, taking my place next to him. “I was just bringing this piece of sheet music up to my cousin, but I don’t imagine she’ll be going anywhere for a while.”
“No. Not for another half hour,” Steve assured me.
That little phrase, spoken off guard, told me everything.
“I, ah…,” he began, stammering for words. His lips parted several times and clamped shut. I was beginning to get the picture.
To break the silence, I said, “That’s her playing up there right now.”
“Yes, I know…,” Steve shot back.
This was getting very interesting. I could see that Steve desperately wanted to tell me something but was much too nervous to spit it out. So I suggested we listen to the same “Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor” that she was just beginning to play over again.
“She wants to play this work at Christmas for the people back home in Meadowville. She loves to play Bach, and this is her favorite of all.”
“I can see why,” Steve replied dreamily. He seemed a little more relaxed. “There’s places in it you can’t hear without tears coming to your eyes,” he offered.
So we sat and listened.
To this day when I hear this work well played, a little scenario comes into my head. The lilting and lyrical opening section of the Fantasia suggests to me two young lovers in a small rowboat out on a calm sea one moonlit night. Their world is magically flooded by the cool beams of the low-lying moon whose mystical purity blends with the swelling passions of their love and sanctifies it. Very gradually and ineluctably the heart-pain of their love builds up and up to an almost unbearable climax before subsiding, leaving the two of them trembling expectantly in each other’s arms.
All of sudden, with the outbreak of the Fugue, a vicious squall descends on them. The sea turns into a monster. The moon and the stars disappear. The little rowboat is pitched and tossed around wildly by the breakers. The lovers cling to one another in terror, the sea-spray whipping their faces. For a brief moment, everything calms back down and the moon peeks through the racing clouds. But the squall has saved its worst furies to unleash upon the lovers now. The breakers tower and crash around them again. Four celestial trumpet blasts signal the approaching end as a giant sea bears the quivering craft and its two passengers aloft and dashes them to bits on the rocks below. Then in a powerful restatement of the theme, the squall proclaims its bloody victory. The whole thing is an emotional wringer for me. I never did ask my cousin what it meant to her. But I know it meant something because she played it with such passion and feeling.
Well, Steve and I sat on the bench speechless. Whatever it meant to him, I could see he was deeply moved. And ready to talk.
“Paul,” he began confidently. “You’re a reasonable fellow. And besides, you’re Cecilia’s cousin and she’s partly your responsibility. She’d have good reason to listen to you.”
He looked at me intently, then almost desperately. A look of hopelessness came over him. Turning his face away from me, he muttered to himself, “Oh, crumb. What am I saying?…”
“What is it, Steve?” I asked gently.
He turned his head back toward me slowly, fixing his pleading eyes on mine. “You’ve got to protect her, that’s all. You’re her cousin.”
He would gladly have stopped there and left me to figure out the rest.
“Of course I will, Steve. But why does she need to be protected?”
Steve sat silent for several moments. He looked up into the trees, bit his lip, opened his mouth hesitantly, and spoke.
“Tom—Tom Mahler, that is—is a fine fellow in his own way and all that, but….” And he went on to recount in concise phrases all that had happened in the past week: the talk around the pinochle game, the wager after the play, the ploys Tom was using on Cecilia, the risk she was in, and more. In quoting the language the fellows had used in describing Cecilia, he took no pains to spare my sensibilities. The only factor he left out was the very one that was most obvious to me—that he had a huge personal stake in what might happen to Cecilia.
Cecilia was to me both a cousin and a woman. We loved each other very dearly. And so I was more than mildly alarmed to hear what Steve had just told me. But I had great confidence in Cecilia’s ability to sense danger and handle herself well. I was more moved by Steve’s impassioned concern for her welfare than I was about Cecilia’s alleged plight. He had obviously never before faced anything that had aroused such powerful emotions in him. I could tell from the way he referred to Cecilia throughout his account of her plight that for him she was “way up there” and he was “way down here,” that the most someone like him could hope for from someone like her was to get a glimpse of her from time to time and take some joy for himself in her happiness and her beauty.
I am not sure precisely what inspired the idea in me. Perhaps I saw something in each of them that could bless the other. I don’t know. But whatever it was, after pondering his words for a few moments, I looked straight at him and said, “Why don’t you take her out?”
“Me?” Steve looked flabbergasted. Looking down at his tendinous body and holding out his arms helplessly, he tried to tell me without words how absurd the very idea was. In point of fact, he was paralyzed by overawe and fear of failure.
“Steve,” I said firmly, taking hold of his shoulders. “I guarantee you that what you have is worth far more in Cecilia’s eyes than what Tom has.”
I paused and went on. “I’m not going to say anything for a while about what we just talked about, maybe never. But thank you for alerting me to the situation. I hope you can see your own potential for solving this problem.” With that I smiled at him, noting the stunned expression on his face. I got up, patted him on the shoulder, and left him in a daze with the words, “The key is in your hands, Steve.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever quite forgiven myself for saying that.