Beas’s arms keep moving, but there is only the rasp of horsehair sliding along the steel strings and, from somewhere in the audience, a slight cough.
Someone titters uneasily, and then there is a gasp, followed by a low moan. George sits up, his hands gripping his knees, his knuckles colorless.
“No!” A young girl’s wail cuts through the silence. The musicians test their own instruments and then stand, knocking over their chairs and setting down their bows in a daze. Family members run forward from the crowd with outstretched arms.
An old woman stands next to me and, in a broken voice, says, “Please. Make it anything else.”
In the midst of the chaos, I frantically seek out Beas.
She hasn’t moved from her chair. She stares down at the sheet of notes in front of her, wiping tears from her face before they can fall onto her lowered violin.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Date: 10/27/1941
Bird: Canaries
Canaries do not sing in the fall. The singing parts of their brains die off.
They grow anew over the winter months, to sing once more come springtime.
“What do you want me to work on today?” I ask Phineas. I pick up our dishes to rinse them in the sink. Dew beads in glassy pebbles along the window. “I could replace the hinges on the front door.”
He clears his throat. “I think the odd jobs are pretty much done,” he says carefully. I scrub at the crusted egg yolk on my plate, realizing what that means. Now that I’ve brought home money and fixed the house, I have outstayed my usefulness.
My throat tightens, as thick as if I’d swallowed cotton. I hope he comes straight out with it. It will be so much worse if he dances around it, dropping hints.
Maybe I should just announce that I’ve been planning to leave anyway. I scrub at the plate so hard I worry it might crack in my hands. I take a shaky breath. Set the plate on the rack to dry. Purposefully leave little pieces of the egg clinging to it in a filmy ring.
Phineas folds his napkin. “I was thinking you could stay on anyway. To live,” he announces, pushing back from the table. “But we’d need a new stove. So why don’t you stop and pick up another one?”
“Oh,” I say casually. “All right.”
I pick the plate back up from the drying rack. Scrub it again, until it gleams.
The bell tinkles overhead when I enter the hardware store. I weave through the aisles, past grinders and vises, Singer sewing machines and lawn mowers, to examine the stove models under blinding overhead lights. After picking out the most expensive one and arranging for delivery, I return to the sewing machines. Some of the needles look hefty enough to stab someone with—?to gouge out an eye, pin a hand into a wall or a table. I pretend to examine the number 2 compass saw that narrows into a rapier point. I can’t tell if the mirror hoisted in the upper corner is showing me, but I palm the thickest package of sewing needles anyway. Slip them into my pocket, all while keeping my eyes trained on the saw.
I have the money for them, of course. Taking them is just for fun.
Ironically, a salesman is talking to the owner about a new lock system when I sail past them with the needles in my pocket.
The salesman slides his business card across the counter just before I walk out the door. “The question is, how much would you pay for peace of mind?” he says to the owner.
That’s when the flicker of my idea comes back to me. Catches flame.
How much would you pay?
Variants. Bottled. Euphoria. Peace of mind.
I consider it as I return home to Phineas. As I carve out an empty place in the belly of my wooden bird. I jimmy a lever like a corkscrew inside, so that when I twist the bird’s head, a needle descends.
The Variants, the Variants. The discovery that should have been at least partly mine. The Variants recapture or enhance senses. Physical experiences. Why hasn’t anyone thought beyond that? Extrapolated to another level? Is it possible to bottle emotions? Capture states of mind?
If people will pay money for a temporary improvement to the physical world—?even something as fleeting and insignificant as a scent—?how much would they pay for something that goes infinitely deeper than that? What price could be placed on the ability to apply a mental state on command, from a pouch or a bottle?
Peace.
Joy.
