Language Arts (44 page)

And then he saw the nuns: two stark, substantial, black-and-white islets in a sea of muted REI outerwear. Romy was leading him directly toward them.

“There are a couple of people who have been hoping to meet you,” she said, “and they have to leave soon . . .”

The sisters stood near the food and drink tables by the windows, holding glasses of plum-colored wine and looking up at a large mobile suspended from the ceiling: a piece of upcycled artwork, its elements were hundreds of bird shapes that looked as if they'd been scissored out of colorful tin cans. The nuns' upturned faces and obvious delight with the mobile made them look very young.

“Sister Martha, Sister Frances, this is my teacher Mr. Marlow,” Romy began. “He and Ms. Hamilton were co-advisers on the project.”

“How do you do,” Charles said, extending his hand to each of them in turn.

The sisters greeted him with warm smiles. Sister Martha had a piece of kale stuck to one of her bicuspids; Sister Frances sported a faint mustache and soul patch.

Romy continued. “Mr. Marlow's son, Cody, is the person who collaborated with Mrs. D'Amati—sorry, I mean Sister Giorgia—on the collages.”

Oh yes!

Of course!

Lovely boy.

Beautiful work.

We'd love to meet him.

Perhaps we could arrange a visit?

I'm afraid we must be leaving.

We have to catch a ferry.

So good to meet you.

Such a pleasure.

Take care.

God bless.

Charles managed to utter brief polite responses to these comments and questions—

“I'm going to walk the sisters to their car,” Romy was saying. “Be right back.”

—but inwardly he was trying to come to terms with the fact that Romy had somehow learned that Cody was his son.

Feeling suddenly woozy, Charles moved to lean against one of the catering tables. The next few minutes were an ongoing blur of pithy, pleasant social interactions: several City Prana students and friends of Romy's came along to say hello; a woman who introduced herself as Romy's mother thanked him for his support; the AWB program director—Charles had no idea how she knew who he was—congratulated him on fostering such a remarkable young person. Of all these compliments, Charles felt completely undeserving; it had always been his feeling as a teacher that, whatever his students did right, wherever they succeeded, that was all
their
accomplishment, nothing to do with him; he took responsibility only for his students' failings.

“Ms. Hamilton told me,” Romy announced without preamble upon her return. “About Cody, I mean. I hope you don't mind. I was already taking lots of photos of him so it wasn't like I chose him because he's your son.”

“What do you mean,
chose
him?”

“I only got to exhibit five pictures, and the ones I liked the best were ones of Cody and Mrs. D'Amati.”

Charles wasn't sure what to do with this information, especially since he hadn't seen the pictures yet. He noticed Romy looking past him and turned to find Alison arriving to join their twosome.

“Hi again,” she said to Romy. “Hello, Charles.”

“Romy,” Charles began, “this is—”

“Cody's mom,” Romy finished, nodding. “Ms. Hamilton introduced us before she left. Listen, I need to get back up front, but first I wanted to give you something.” She handed Charles a small wrapped gift. “See you Monday, Mr. Marlow. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Marlow,” she added.

“You as well, Romy,” Alison replied. “Good luck.”

Charles opened Romy's gift; it was a volume of Mary Oliver poems. Inside was an inscription:
To Mr. Marlow, my teacher. Thank you so much for the inspiration and support—and for having faith in me. Love, Romy B.

“I've been trying to say hello for a few minutes,” Alison said, “but I couldn't get to you, you're so popular. Have you looked at the art yet?”

“I'm about to. Have you?”

She took his arm and started leading him across the room.

“You want to go for coffee or something after this is over?” Charles asked.

“Oh, thanks, Charles, but I'm here with James. We have dinner plans.”

“James. Right.”

“Here we are.”

They'd arrived in front of Cody and Mrs. D'Amati's collages,
Untitled 1
and
Untitled 2.

“He did these?” Charles asked, aghast.

“Yeah. Can you believe it?” Alison shook her head and chuckled. “Apparently the ten-minute magazine rule has been revoked.”

Charles wasn't sure which was more astonishing: that Cody had had a hand in creating a piece of art that was this sophisticated or that his ex-wife was amused about the repeal of a fifteen-year injunction against an activity she used to condemn as
stimming.

After studying the triptychs a while longer, they walked on until they came to three of Romy's pieces: black-and-white photographs captioned with handwritten American Sentences.

In the first image, Mrs. D'Amati stood in a pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty: one small but strong-looking hand held a cloth napkin pinned loosely to her heart center; her other hand was directed heavenward, fingers arranged in a specific but mysterious shape, a kind of mudra. Her expression was confident, triumphant.

You babblers well may rule the earth, but heaven's the kingdom of the mute!

Another portrait of Mrs. D'Amati was taken from behind with the camera looking down on her from over her left shoulder. She was sitting, her hand resting on an empty table in the exact shape it would take if she were holding a pen.

When memory fails, cast the truth aside and then unbind the body
.

Finally, there was Cody, with his mortar and pestle, grinding.

Charles turned to Alison. “How—”

Alison shrugged. “Don't ask me.” She chuckled. “I have no idea how ramen noodles made their way into art class, but apparently the grinding rule is kaput too.”

Their son's face was lit with a soft glow. He was completely focused on his work and on whatever inner conversation that work evoked.

This meditation, over olive wood and wheat, is a voiceless hymn.

None of the photos were traditionally composed; they were conspicuously empty in places, or at least unpopulated. Charles was reminded that there were always vacancies in the construct of a life: blank spaces occupied by the unseen guest, the absent friend.

“I've been meaning to ask you,” he said as they looked at their son's portrait. “How is it going?”

“How's what going?”

“You know. The conversion thing.”

“The conversion thing.” Alison smiled. “It's going fine.”

“Good.”

“You know, I think about you sometimes, in class. There are certain ideas, certain aspects that you might like.”

“Really.”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . oh, the whole idea of confining It, Him, Whatever, to a single name:
God.
”

“What do you call It, then?”

“Oh, so many things. It's fairly overwhelming. Understand, I'm talking Judaism 101 when it comes to all this, but . . . there's
El, Elohim, Elohaynu . . . Yahweh, Ehyeh, Hajak, 'ilah, Jehovah, Adonai, El Shaddai, Ha Shem . . .
It's intriguing; giving It lots of different names almost has the effect of giving It no name at all—which, really, when you think about it, is as it should be. Does that make sense?”

“It does.”

She sighed. “Or maybe it's about finding the
right
name for It? A name you can live with? Maybe that's another way of getting to belief. I don't know. What do I know?”

Charles heard Cody calling out to them from the distant past:
Gaaaa
. . . He saw him touching Emmy's head on the ultrasound screen.

“So you're a believer now?” he said.

“I don't know that I can say that, Charles. But I decided it might be all right to seek comfort. It might be all right to say
Help,
because just saying it implies that something is listening—and also because saying it is a kind of comfort in itself. That might be selfish, but it also might be enough. A place to start, anyway.”

“And are you comforted?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Well. There you go, then.”

“Thank you for asking.”

Charles noticed the
SOLD
sticker on the photograph. “You bought his, didn't you?”

“You can borrow it anytime.”

“Thanks.”

“Listen, Charles,” she said, putting a hand on his arm, “I've got to go, but I'm really glad I saw you here.” She gave him a light kiss on the cheek and then gestured to another spot in the room. “The other photos are over there. Talk soon?”

“Yes.”

He followed her figure through the crowd, toward the double doors, where a tall man with a lined face and excellent posture stood smiling at her. She stumbled briefly on the entrance threshold; he clasped her arm and steadied her; they laughed, his face falling into the shape those lines described. Then he guided her into the hall, not in an overly authoritative manner, but with assuredness. They joined the exiting procession and moved out of sight.

Charles looked at a few more pieces of art and then came to Romy's last two pictures in the exhibit: matted and framed together, the photos were dual portraits of Cody and Mrs. D'Amati, sitting side by side, not touching, each obviously absorbed in his or her own work—

Speak in tempests of torn paper; I will answer with flurries of loops.

—but also clearly experiencing a sense of intimacy and connection.

Tell me your story in stillness; I'll answer with a grinding of wheat.

Charles was reminded of an early developmental milestone, one of many items on a list that, in Cody's case, was never checked off.

Does your child engage in parallel play?

Yes,
Charles thought.
Yes, he does.

Dear Alison,

Since the Art Without Boundaries fundraiser, I've found myself frequently replaying our conversation. Your comment about “finding the right name” struck a resonant chord, for that is indeed a huge part of my problem. The word itself is irreparably despoiled, a Trojan horse packed with a garrison of desolate connotations. Regenerating any kind of belief in It/Him/Whatever is really impossible until that central problem is addressed.

So, earlier this evening, I initiated a Web search: The Names of God.

Among the articles I perused in the ensuing cyberspace journey was one on Meher Baba, a twentieth-century Indian spiritual master who claimed to be an avatar of God. His name means “benevolent father.”

The good works of Meher Baba, a world traveler and contemporary of Gandhi, were legion. In 1927, he announced that he would adopt a practice of silence; he maintained that silence for the remaining forty-four years of his life, using an alphabet board and a unique sign language to communicate. Mary Pickford and Tallulah Bankhead hosted parties for him. Pete Townshend was a devotee. He is the originator of the phrase “Don't worry. Be happy.” There is newsreel film of him twirling his alphabet board with the dexterity of an NBA point guard, washing and kissing the feet of lepers, playfully tossing cashews and raisins to throngs of children, embracing horses.

What drew my interest as much as anything was the man's abiding facial expression: an irresistibly impish glint in his eyes, a perpetually pleased grin. He looks like the doppelgänger of Zero Mostel.

Given these factors, I've decided that the name Baba is acceptable—or, as you so wisely said, “a place to start, anyway.”

My feeling: it's never too late to try a new approach to learning anything, and just because one has no expectations doesn't mean one has no hope.

Ali. Alison Nadine Forché. I hope you're having a wonderful time. If anyone deserves a honeymoon, it's you.

Give my very best to James. I'll see you in a few weeks.

Love, Charles

•♦•

He could not believe the turnout.

True, it was an exceptionally beautiful day for this early in the summer, only the third weekend in June: a light breeze, temps in the upper seventies, a slow, stately march of story-inspiring cloud shapes moving up from the southwest. But such weather usually sent Seattleites out of the city to the mountains or to the water or to one of the many weekend summer festivals—not to a Maple Leaf yard sale.

He hadn't done that much advertising either, only some hand-lettered posters at his usual neighborhood haunts (Cloud City, the video store, the hardware store); a few more a couple of miles away at the other places he frequented, the QFC on Roosevelt, the library and community center across the street from the mall, the Northgate Village Starbucks; and one more on the bulletin board of the City Prana teachers' lounge.

No newspaper ads. No street signage.

Where had all these people come from?
There had been no fewer than ten customers at a time all morning, sometimes as many as twenty.

One of the first arrivals was a bearded, leather-clad, bandanna-wearing fellow who'd driven up on a Harley. He browsed for a while and then, encountering the children's section, picked up Cody's old board-book copies of
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
and
Runaway Bunny.

“How much?” he asked.