Page 17 of And Still Her Voice
“Because he was so drunk, he fell on his own knife?” Maggie asked.
“Is that what he told the police?”
“I guess so,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t blame you for running away from this crazy house. I’ll be out of here next. Where’s Oakland, anyway?”
“Near San Francisco.”
“That’s so far away. When are you coming home?”
“I’m not sure. Please let Mom know I called.”
“Okay. But in the meantime, can I borrow your Daniel Boone jacket?”
“Sure.”
By the time I hung up the phone, the sun shone brightly on the lake’s face, its rays filling the room with lots of natural light. But the city beyond sat in fog.
“Well, this is wonderful news. Now we can go home,” Grandma said. “I told you he would be fine. I just sensed it.”
Good news for sure and knowing I hadn’t killed Dad certainly brought me a sense of relief. Now maybe I could focus on what to do with the rest of my life. I felt no urgency to return home, especially if my family didn’t miss me, besides I still wasn’t sure someone hadn’t reported me missing, a runaway minor child, after all. I liked the idea of exploring a little more and even being in charge of my own destination, despite butting heads with Grandma.
“Let’s go.”
“You go. Why don’t you just give me a break for a while? You owe me.” I stepped toward the bookshelf and borrowed the book by Gertrude Stein.
“Ah, yes, good choice. I recall the time with Miss Stein and her girlfriend Alice in France when we all worked as volunteers during the First World War.”
Of course, you did.
***
I volunteered to watch Poppy while Betsy and Ben were downtown working on a campaign to mobilize the big rally happening the next week. I had plenty of experience watching kids, but it wasn’t my career path of choice, not that I had one.
By late morning, I discovered she loved going for walks where I pointed out the flowers, the cats in the windows, the dogs in the yards. Kitty says “meow.” Doggie says “ruff.” She repeated after me.
Back at the house, I played with her on the floor, read to her, and strummed my guitar, singing as many nursery songs as I could remember.Twinkle, twinklelittle star . . .Mairzy Doats and doazy doats and liddlelamzy divey . . .She reached out formy guitar and plucked at the strings as I sang.The wheels on thebus go round and round.Finally,I let her hold it.Frère Jacques, ding ding dong.
By noon, I’d run out of songs. As soon as she yawned, I took her upstairs to her room where she fell asleep in my arms. I removed the rubber nipple from her mouth, her little lips still puckering, and dared to imagine what it might be like to have a baby of my own someday. Just as quickly as I envisioned this idea, I set her into her cradle and then stepped away, making sure to keep her door open so I could hear her. I tiptoed downstairs, noticing the upright walnut piano in the main parlor. I walked in, took a seat, placing my hands onto the cool smooth keys.
“Don’t you miss your music?” Grandma asked.
I wouldn’t admit that to her. She knew, anyway. I pushed off and left the room to wander.
The house, not as spacious as ours, certainly seemed grander with its fill of riches from all over the world and modern art that had been part of the “degenerate” art confiscated from the German museums by the Nazis. “So the story goes,” Ben had told me as he gave me a tour of the house the night before, “the Nazis linked avant-garde art with disorder, democracy, and pacifism. The pieces were supposedly the culture documents of the decadent work of the Bolsheviks and Jews.”
Ben told me his parents had purchased the paintings at an auction in Switzerland. “Turns out, part of the money was used to finance the Nazi party,” he’d said. “But my parents said they honestly didn’t know. They thought the money would go back to the museums from where they were stolen.” He parked his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “Oh, the stories we’re told.”
I thought about all the fancy furniture and furnishings back home wondering where they came from and then I remembered Dad telling me how as a kid, he went with his stepdad to a meeting at the Nazi headquarters in a secret Glendale location.I’d been a kid myself when he told me, and I didn’t understand anything about Nazis and how their goal had been to eliminate Jews in Hollywood. I stared curiously at a vivid painting where naked Israelites danced like crazy in front of a golden cow. I remembered the Bible story of Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt. Apparently, after Moses parted the Red Sea, he left to get the Ten Commandments and when he got back after forty days, his brother who’d been left in charge, created this golden cow to appease the followers who needed a new god to worship. Oh, the stories I was told.
“Don’t you miss home?” Grandma asked.
“World traveler that you were, I’d have thought you’d like getting out.”
“Oh, indeed, and it was my music that took me places like New York or Paris, even Bombay, but I was always chaperoned.”
“Well la-di-da! Lucky for me I’ve got you as my chaperone.”
“Your grandfather eventually built me the house and I made it our home.”
