I
Peter worried a good deal over Vonnie's predictions as to Pat's future.
The doubt which she had cast upon the feasibility of his scheme
heightened after the victrola was introduced into the flat. The man on
the floor below happened to be moving and meeting Peter in the hall one
night he struck up a bargain to sell his phonograph and all the records.
After the bargain was made and the machine duly delivered, Peter looked
over the repertoire and found it queer stuff according to his notions.
"Werther--Ah! non mi ridestar!" sung by Mattia Battistini; "Siegfried's
Funeral March;" "The Funeral March of a Marionette." It seemed morbid to
Peter. "Minuet in G, No. 2" played by Ysaye; "Lucia--il dolce suono (mad
scene)." "Merry old bird," thought Peter. "Invitation to the
Waltz--Weber." That was a tune he knew, but it could hardly be classed
as cheerful.
Peter went out and purchased a few of the latest song hits--"The
Sextette from Floradora," "Under the Shade of the Sheltering Palm," and
to his delight he found "Any Little Thing for You, Dear." Unfortunately
the phonograph company had chosen another voice instead of Vonnie's for
the record. Nevertheless, Peter bought it and some more.
Pat was now a year and a half old, but he manifested the most violent
interest in the phonograph. That pleased Peter but he did not like it
quite so well when Kate reported to him, "'Tis a queer child, Mr. Neale.
It's them red records he does be playing all the time. He wants the one
about somebody's funeral all the time. Would you believe it he cries
when I put on a nice tune for him."
The report was not exaggerated. Pat liked the song from Werther, but the
Siegfried record was his favorite, with Gounod a close second. Indeed
his passion to have his own particular favorites played and no others
seemed to be the compelling influence which brought him to language.
Almost his first articulate words were "Boom-Boom" which Peter
eventually and regretfully identified as an attempt to designate the
Siegfried Funeral March. When more words were developed The Funeral
March of a Marionette became "the other Boom-Boom."
Before Pat was quite two he could mess about in the cabinet of the
victrola and pick out a dozen records in response to Peter's request.
"Go get the red Bat," Peter would say and Pat would gravely pull out a
handful of records and return with Battistini's Werther. For that matter
he knew Floradora well enough to pick it out of the pile but he never
held it out to Peter with an imperious, "I want" as he did whenever he
got his hands on "Siegfried" or "The Funeral March of a Marionette." It
was still more thrilling, a little later, when he abandoned his
descriptive "Boom-Boom" for "Siegfried's Funeral March" and began to
call it, "Go to Bed Tired." Peter never knew just how Pat could identify
the records by looking at them. He supposed that some of the titles were
longer than others and that the child was able to bear in mind the
picture created by some certain series of signs.
But a still more shocking discovery came when Peter learned that his
tiny son could identify by sound as well as sight. Peter, for instance,
was never quite certain whether the record being played was the Mad
Scene from Lucia or the Floradora Sextette. At any rate not until it had
gone along about to "On bended knee--on bended knee." But there was no
fooling Pat. He never needed more than a few notes before he was able to
exclaim with a well justified assurance that the piece in question was
"Chi-Chi" or "Floor" as the case might be. The Weber waltz was never
played much and Pat had no name for it, but he evidently knew it well
enough for no sooner was it started than he would get up and swing
slowly from side to side. Peter finally got a hammer and broke that
record. He would have liked to pass the victrola on to somebody else but
Kate would have protested as well as Pat. Music had solved for her the
problem of what to do with Pat on rainy days. Outside of a little
cranking these once difficult experiences had now become practically
painless.
On Pat's second birthday Peter was startled to receive at the office of
the Bulletin a package directed in the handwriting of Maria Algarez.
Peter had travelled a little of the way toward forgetting Maria Algarez.
Time had done something, but Vonnie had done more. It was almost seven
months now since Peter first went to Two Hundred and Forty-second
Street. In the package he found a letter and a phonograph record. On the
disc he read "Chanson de Solveig--Maria Algarez." The letter
said--"Dear Peter--I send to your son a present for his second birthday.
I hope he will like it. Is his name Peter, too? So it should be. He will
be a fine boy I think, big and strong like his father. And make it so
that he shall grow up not to have the fear of anything and not the shame
of anything. Here for two years I have studied the English hard. You see
I write it much better. Now I have not danced for two years. First it
was because of the baby. It was not his fault. Maybe I have left the
hospital too soon. I did not want to stay longer and to die. All the
time I sing. The voice it is magnificent. Perhaps it is next season I am
to sing in the Opera Comique. For the phonograph company I have made the
one record and they say it will be more. I do not know. It is not
necessary ever for me to see your son, or for him to see me but some
time you will play for him this record. That he should hear me I want.
You need not say who it is. That does not matter. In you, Peter, there
is no song. For little Peter that should be different. Perhaps you will
say no. I do not think so. I want that he should hear my song--Maria."
There was no address. Peter played Solveig's song that Sunday. It
stirred him strangely. This was almost a tune. When the notes went high
he could not only see Maria in the room, he could almost feel her. He
was so intent with this presence that he did not watch Pat. The child
was lying on the floor. He said nothing until the last note had almost
died away. "I want the red Bat," he said.
II
Vonnie never came to the flat except on Sundays. It wouldn't do to have
Kate know anything about her. Several weeks after the arrival of Maria's
letter she happened in just as Peter was playing the Solveig song for
Pat. The child never put this particular record into his list of
imperatives, but he was reconciled to it. Perhaps interested. And Peter
felt a sort of compulsion of duty to play it every once and so often. He
had been surprised in the beginning that no miracle of recognition had
occurred in Pat's mind. To Pat she was merely a lady singing. Yet Peter
could not be sure what currents might move beneath the surface. Anyhow
it was enough for him that Maria had asked that he play the record. And
to him there was a certain instinct to play the record for his own
sake. Now that the memory was not so painful he rather wanted to keep it
alive. The thing was far enough away by now to be romantic. Peter took a
definite pride in the fact that once his heart had been broken. That
didn't happen to everybody.
His feeling about Vonnie was different. She was ever so much more fun
than Maria, but she wasn't romantic. He felt that he knew her better.
Certainly he was more assured and easy with her than he had ever been
with Maria, but she could not move him to that curious exalted
unhappiness which he had once known. People about to become monks or
missionaries must feel something of what he felt for Maria. Still, that
wasn't it exactly. Maria was that moment before you hit the water in a
chute the chutes. Living with her was like watching a baseball game with
the bases always full and two strikes on the batter. Even marriage was
no windbreak. There was never a moment in that year when he had not felt
the tang of a gale full upon him. Having an affair with Vonnie was
highly respectable in comparison. This passion was even hospitable to
little jokes. Life had become comfortable.
He did not know whether or not Vonnie realized that she and Maria were
different. They no longer talked ever of Maria Algarez. Even when she
came in upon the Solveig song Peter would have said nothing about it.
"It's Maria, isn't it?" asked Vonnie.
"Yes."
"Where did you get it?"
"She sent it to me."
"Has she come back?"
"No, it just said Paris."
"Maybe she thinks she don't need to come back. She can bean you just as
good with a phonograph record."
Peter said nothing, but let the song die out and then took the disc from
the machine.
"Here," said Vonnie, "let me see it."
Peter handed it over. Vonnie looked at it for a moment, then she moved
across the room.
"Pete," she said, "what would you do if I dropped this thing out the
window." She made a move as if to put the suggestion into execution.
"Don't do that," cried Peter.
"Don't do that," mimicked Vonnie. "You're still a damn fool, hey?"
"It's not mine. It was sent to Pat."
"Oh, yes, blame it on the kid. I don't suppose he's a nut about her,
too. Are you, Pat?"
Pat seemed to have no comprehension of the issue and made no answer.
"Look here, Pete," said Vonnie, "nobody can say I've ever been jealous.
You can be daffy about anybody you like. That's none of my business, but
I can't stand it to have you such a fool that you'll let this damn woman
slap you in the face and then come back for more. If you didn't know she
was no good in the first place you ought to know it now."
"I don't want you to say that."
"Well, what is she good for?"
"She's the greatest dancer in the world."
"Don't make me laugh."
"You know she is. You heard them cheering her that night."
"Hell to that. Everything was set for her. Somebody gets sick and on she
waltzes. Any audience'll fall for that. If Carmencita should fall down
and break her leg I could do the same thing. 'Miss Vonnie Ryan with one
hour's rehearsing will take the place of Carmencita.' It's a cinch."
"All right. You've got your opinion and I've got mine. Don't let's talk
about it."
"I'm going to talk about it. This gets settled right now. I don't have
to be first with you, Pete, or anybody else, but I'm not going to run
second to a dish-faced mutt. I've got some pride in the people that cut
me out. Either I smash that phonograph record or you and I smash."
"Give me that."
Vonnie handed it over.
"All right," she said. "I'm sorry. It was silly for me to bawl you out.
You haven't done anything to me. God knows I can't stand here and say
you seduced me. I had to get a half-nelson on you to pull you into the
flat that night. Maybe that's what makes me so sore. I put a lot of work
in on you, Pete."
"Please don't go way, Vonnie. It's silly for us to scrap over a
phonograph record."
"Everything's silly. I got to go way. I'm going to get just as far away
as I can. I'm going to get in some road company going to the Coast and
then by God, I hope we get stranded. You poor mutt, I'm in love with
you."
"Oh, please, Vonnie, don't cry. I know I'm no good. I just can't help
it about that phonograph record."
"Well, you don't suppose I'd bawl this way if I could help it. Now don't
be patting me on the back. I don't love you enough to let you, 'There!
there!' me."
She moved resolutely to the door and by the time she reached it the line
had come to her.
"I ought've known," said Vonnie, "no good could come out of taking up
with a fellow that thinks Mertes is a better outfielder than George
Browne."