CHAPTER 31
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I would not want to be a child again, for a child exists in uainty and danger. Our flesh and blood, we ot help but fear for them, as we hope for them to make their way in this life. After the break-in, I worried about our son all of the time. Edward is not who we say he is because his father is an imposter. He is not a Day, but a gelings child. I passed on my inal genes, giving him the fad features of the Ungerlands, and who knows what other traits leapt the geions. Of my own childhood, I know little more than a name on a piece of paper: Gustav Ungerland. I was stolen long ago. And when the gelings came again, I began to believe they saw Edward as one of their own and wished to reclaim him. The mess they left i was a subterfuge for a more sinister purpose. The disturbed photographs on the wall indicated that they were searg for someone. Wiess hovered in the background and crept through the woods, plotting to steal our son.We lost Edward one Sunday in springtime. On that gloriously warm afternoon, eo be iy, for I had discovered a passable pipe an in a chur Shadyside, and after services the musiister allowed me an hour to experiment with the mae, trying out what new sounds coursed through my imagination. Afterward, Tess and I took Edward to the zoo for his first face-to-fater with elephants and monkeys. A huge crowd shared our idea, and the walkways were crammed with couples pushing strollers, desultory teenagers, even a family with six redheaded children, staggered a year apart, a spiracy of freckles and blue eyes. Too many people for my taste, but we jostled along without plaint. Edward was fasated by the tigers and loitered in front of the iron fence, pulling at his cotton dy, r at the beasts to ence them out of their drowsiness. In its blad-e dreamsbbr></abbr>, oiger twitched its tail, annoyed by my soreaties. Tess took advantage of Edwards distra to front me.
"Henry, I want to talk to you about Eddie. Does he seem all right to you? Theres been a ge lately, and something—I dont know—not normal."
I could see him over her shoulder. "Hes perfectly normal."
"Or maybe its you," she said. "Youve been different with him lately. Overprotective, not letting him be a kid. He should be outdoors catg polliwogs and climbing trees, but its as if youre afraid of him being out of yht. He he ce to beore indepe."
I pulled her off to the side, out of our sons hearing. "Do you remember the night someone broke into the house?"
"I k," she said. "You said not to worry, but youve been preoccupied with that, havent you?"
"No, no, I just remembered, when I was looking at the photographs on the walls that night, it made me think of my own childhood dreams—years at the piano, searg for the right music to express myself. I have been looking for the answers, Tess, and they were right under my fiips. Today in the church, the an sounded just like the o St. Nicholass ihe an is the ao the symphony. an and orchestra."
She ed 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 sidered myself to be. I was so in love with her at that moment that I fot the world and everything in it, and thats 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 froup hug. That hope evaporated and was replaced by the horrible notion that Edward had somehow squeezed through the bars and been instantly eaten by the tigers, but a quick gla their cage revealed nothing but two i cats stretched out asleep in the languid sunshine. In the wilderness of my imagination, the gelings appeared. I looked back at Tess and feared that I was about to break her heart.
"Hes 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 dowh 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 dire. "Have you seen a little boy all alohree years old. Cotton dy."
"Theres nothing but children here," the old man said, pointing a thin fio 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 ear and clumsy jog, chasing a blackfooted penguin that had escaped his pen and now waddled free and oblivious, heading back to the o, 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 che藏书网st, 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 Edwards hands in our oere determio 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 ms, and I was home to watch him on weekday afternoons. Wheurned <s></s>four, Eddie went in with me on the way to work. Id 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 piaoddled off to his blocks and dinosaurs, iing imaginary games and panions to while away lonesome hours. Every on a while, hed bring over a playmate for the afternoon, but those children never seemed to e back. That was fine by me, as I never fully trusted his playmates. Any one of them could have been a geling in disguise.
Strangely, my music flourished in the splendid isolation we had carved out for ourselves. While he eained himself with his toys and books, I posed. Tess enced me to find my own sound. Every week or so, she would bring home another album featuring an music found in some dusty used record store. She cadged tickets to Heinz Hall performances, dug up sheet musid books on orchestration and instrumentation, and insisted that I go into the city to work out the musi my head at friendly churches and the college music school. She was re-creating, in essehe repertoire ireasure chest from Cheb. I wrote dozens of works, though st success or attentioed from my efforts—a coerced performance of a new arra by a local choir, or one night oric an with a wind ensemble from upstate. I tried everything to get my music heard, sent tapes and scores around the try to publishers and performers, but usually received a form reje, if anything. Every great poser serves an apprenticeship of sorts, even middle-school teachers, but in my heart, I khe positions had not yet fulfilled my iions.
One phone call ged everything. I had just e in the door with Edward after pig him up from nursery school. The voi the other end was from another world. An up-and-ing chamber quartet in California, who specialized in experimental sound, expressed i in actually rec one of my positions, an atonal mood piece I had written shortly after the break-in. Gee Knoll, my old friend from The Coverboys, had passed along my score. When I called him to say thanks, he invited us to visit and stay at his place so I could be on hand at the rec session. Tess, Edward, and I flew out to the Knolls in San Francisco that summer of 76 and had a great few days with Gee and his family. His modest cafe in North Beach was the only genuine Andalusiaaurant among a hive of Italian joints, and his stunning wife and head chef did not hurt business, either. It was great to see them, and the few days away from home eased my aies. Nothing weird prowling around California.
The pastor of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco allowed us an afternoon to record, and the pipe an there rivaled in tone and balahe a instrument I had played ihe same feeling of homeiered me when I pressed the pedals, and from the beginning notes, I was already nostalgic for the keyboard. The quartet ged a few measures, bent a few notes, and after we played my fugue fan and strings for the seventh time, everyone seemed satisfied with the sound. My brush with fame was over in y minutes. As we said ood-byes, everyone seemed sanguine about our limited prospects. Perhaps a mere thousand people might actually buy the record and hear my piece, but the thrill of finally making an album outweighed any projected ay about the size of its audience.
The cellist in the group told us not to miss Big Sur, so on our last day before flying home, we rented a car and drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway. For most of the m, the sun came in and out between clouds, but the rocky seascape ectacular. Tess had always wao see the o, so we decided to pull off and relax for a bit at a cove in the Ventana Wilderness. As we hiked to the sand, a light mist rolled in, obsg the Pacific. Rather than turn back, we decided to pii a small crest beach beside McWay Falls, ay-foot straight drop of water that plunges from the granite cliff to the sea. We saw no other cars on the way in and thought the place ours alone. After lunch, Tess and I stretched out on a bla, and Eddie, all of five years old and full of energy, had the run of the sand. A few seagulls laughed at us from rocks, and in our seclusion, I felt at peace for the first time in ages.
Maybe the rhythm of the tides or the fresh sea air did us in after lunch. Tess and I dozed on the bla. I had a strange dream, ohat had not visited me in a long, long time. I was back among the hobgoblins as we stalked the boy like a pride of lions. I reached into a hollow tree and pulled at his leg until he squirmed out like a breached baby. Terror filled his eyes when he beheld his living refle. The rest of our wild tribe stood around, watg, ting an evil song. I was about to take his life and leave him with mihe boy screamed.
Riding the thermals above us, a gliding gull cried, then flew out over the waves. Tess lay sleeping, geous in repose beside me, and a thread of lust wormed through me. I buried my head at her nape and nuzzled her awake, and she threw her arms around my back almost to protect herself. ing the bla around us, I lay on top of her, removing her layers. We began laughing and rog each other through our chuckles. She stopped suddenly and whispered to me, "Henry, do you know where you are?"
"Im with you."
"Henry, Henry, stop. Henry, where’s Eddie?"
I rolled off her and situated myself. The fog thied a bit, blurring the tours of a small rocky peninsula that jutted out into the sea. A hardy patch of ifers g to its granite skull. Behind us, the waterfall ran down to the sand at low tide. No other the surf against shore.
"Eddie?" She was already standing up. "Eddie!"
I stood beside her. "Edward, where are you? e here."
A thin shout from the trees, then an intolerable wait. I was already m him when he came clambering down and raced across the sand to us, his clothes and hair wet with salt spray.
"Where have you been?" Tess asked.
"I went out on that island as far as you go."
"Dont you know how dangerous that is?"
"I wao see how far you could see. A girl is out there."
"On that rock?"
"She was sitting and staring at the o."
"All by herself? Where are her parents?"
"For real, Mom. She came a long, long way to get here. Like we did."
"Edward, you shouldnt make up stories like that. Theres not a person around for miles."
"For real, Dad. e see."
"Im not going out to those rocks. Its cold a and slippery."
"Henry"—Tess pointed out to the fir trees—"look at that."
Dark hair flying behind her, a young girl emerged from the firs, ran like a goat down the sloping face, as thin and lissome as the breeze. From that distance she looked unreal, as if woven from the mist. She stopped when she saw us standing there, and though she did not e close, she was ner. We peered at each other across the water, and the moment lasted as briefly as the snapping of a photograph. There and go the same time. She turoward the waterfall and ran, vanishing beyond in a haze of rod evergreen.
"Wait," Tess cried. "Dont go." She raced toward the girl.
"Leave her," I hollered, and chased down my wife. "Shes go looks like she knows her way around this place."
"Thats a helluva thing, Henry. You let her go, out here in the middle of nowhere."
Eddie shivered in his damp clothes. I swathed him in the bla and sat him on the sand. We asked him to tell us all about her, and the words tumbled out as he warmed up.
"I was on an adventure and came to the big rock at the edge. And there she was sitting there. Right behind those trees, looking out at the waves. I said hi, and she said hi. And then she said, Would you like to sit with me? "
"What is her name?" Tess asked.
"Ever heard of a girl called Speck? She likes to e here in wio watch the whales."
"Eddie, did she say where her parents were? Or how she got all the way out here by herself?"
"She walked, and it took more than a year. Then she asked where was I from, and I told her. Then she asked me my name, and I said Edward Day." He suddenly looked away from us and gazed at the rod the falling tides, as if remembering a hiddeion.
"Did she say anything else?"
"No." He gathered the bla around his shoulders.
"Nothing at all?"
"She said, How is life in the big, big world? and I thought that was funny."
"Did she do anything ... peculiar?" I asked.
"She laugh like a seagull. Then I heard you started calling me. And she said, Good-bye Edward Day, like that. And I told her to wait right here so I could get my mommy and dad."
Tess embraced our son and rubbed his bare arms through the bla. She looked again at the space the girl had run through. "She just slipped away. Like a ghost."
From that moment to the instant our plaouched down at home, all I could think about was that lost girl, and what bothered me about her was not so much her mysterious appearand disappearance, but her familiarity.
Whetled in at home, I began to see the gelings everywhere.
In town on a Saturday m for a haircut with Edward, I grew flustered by a towheaded boy who sat waiting his turn, quietly sug a lollipop as he stared, unblinking, at my son. When school resumed in the fall, a pair of twins in the sixth grade spooked me with their uny resemblao each other and their ability to finish each others sentences. Driving home from a band performan a dark night, I saw three children in the cemetery and wondered, for a moment, what they might be plotting at such a late hour. At parties or the odd evening out with other couples, I tried to work in veiled refereo the legend of the twirls and the baby-food jars, hoping to find someone else who believed it or could firm the rumors, but everyone scoffed when I mentiohe story. All children, except my own boy, became slightly suspect. They be devious creatures. Behind every childs bright eyes exists a hidden universe.
The quartets album, Tales of Wonder, arrived by Christmas, and we nearly wore out the groove playing it over and over for our friends and family. Edward loved to hear the dissonance of violins against the steady cello line and the crashing arrival of the an. Even anticipating its arrival, the movement was a shoatter how many times one listeo the album. On New Years Eve, well after midnight, the house quiet as a prayer, a sudden blast of my song startled me awake. Expeg the worst, I came downstairs in my pajamas, wielding a baseball bat, only to find my son bug-eyed in front of the speakers, hypnotized by the music. When I turned down the volume, he began to blink rapidly and shake his head as if awakened from a dream.
"Hey, par<dfn></dfn>dner," I said in a low voice. "Do you know how late it is?"
"Is it 1977 yet?"
"Ho. Partys over, fella. What made you put on this song?"
"I had a bad dream."
I pulled him onto my lap. "Do you want to tell me about it?" He did not answer but burrowed closer, so I held him tighter. The last drawn-out note resounded as the song lapsed into silence, so I reached over and shut off the stereo.
"Daddy, do you know why I put on your song? Because it reminds me."
"Reminds you of what, Edward? Our trip out to California?"
He turo face me until we looked eye-to-eye. "No. Of Speck," he said. "The fairy girl."
With a quiet moan, I drew him closer to me, where I could feel in the warmth of his chest the quiing of his heart.
百度搜索 The stolen Child 天涯 或 The stolen Child 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.