Collected Stories. Carol Shields

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СКАЧАТЬ her psychiatrist after the last episode, and he told me she made up dreams all the time.”

      “I have dreams,” said Stanley.

      “She makes up dreams in order to reinforce her image of herself as a victim. In her made-up dreams there is always someone shouting at her or scolding her or pointing out her faults. In one of the dreams Papa was telling her she’d ruined her career because she’d cut her hair. It took all the creative force out of her.”

      “Like Sampson,” Stanley said.

      “There was another dream, more extreme, when Papa was accusing her of causing his accident. She invited him to supper, and then she phoned and told him not to come after all; she was too tired even to make him an omelet. That was how he happened to be wandering down Sherbrooke on his way to the delicatessen when the motorbike knocked him down. Of course, it was all invented. She prefers to think she’s the guilty cause of disaster. You might say she’s greedy for guilt. But she didn’t fool the psychiatrist at all. Real dreams have a different texture, and he’s convinced Elke never really dreamed these dreams.”

      “I have dreams,” Stanley said.

      Elke started awake so suddenly her left leg cramped beneath her. Gently she kneaded at the hard knot in her calf. The window was open, and the moon floated full and fat as though for her inspection. Last summer she’d been sent to study in Paris, and in the bank where she’d gone to change her grant checks there had been a sign: DEMANDEZ-VOUS DE LA LUNE. Of course she never did. Instead, she’d spent the tissuey franc notes and the long August afternoons in the café nearest her hotel.

      She was seized, as always, in the middle of the night by regrets. She’d been so close to something original; it had flickered at the edge of her vision, in one of the darker corners of the café.

      She must try to sleep. She would have to focus her energy and try to concentrate, if only for their sake. At least they found her worth their trouble. That was something.

      “Too much, too much.” She whispered these words out loud.

      Then she slept, and her head again filled with dreams.

      Despite being a Wood, Stanley had at least one vivid little dream every night. In the morning, as soon as he woke, he wrote a summary in a spiral-bound notebook. Sometimes he dreamed of food, chiefly artichokes, which he loved immoderately; sometimes he dreamed of music; and very frequently he dreamed of wandering down corridors with labyrinthine rooms going off to the left and right. He never dreamed about Papa. In fact, he seldom thought about him for weeks at a time, and he was naturally a little ashamed of this.

      But he excused himself; he was busy. He woke early every day, drank a glass of hot tea and was in his workroom by eight-thirty. He had a great many orders—everyone seemed suddenly to want a handmade guitar. A student from a technical school helped him in the afternoons. They talked as they worked, which Stanley found charming. At 4:45, he locked the door and walked the mile and a half to the concert hall in order to catch the end of Elke’s rehearsal. Usually, Ross was there when he arrived, sitting with a copy of the score on his lap and holding a little penlight so he could see in the dark.

      One day after the rehearsal, a week before the performance, Stanley slipped Elke a note. “Dear Elke,” it read. “The night before Papa’s accident I forgot to remind him to take his heart pill. You remember how forgetful he was. I am certain that he had a heart attack on the way to the delicatessen and collapsed just as the motorbike came around the corner. Love, Stanley.”

      Elke was too tired to read yet another of Stanley’s little notes. She accepted it with a small smile, then slipped it between the sheets of music on her stand. She never saw it again and assumed that it had fallen during the night and been swept up and thrown away—which was what she would have done with it herself.

      In any case, the note wouldn’t have comforted her. She worried less about the actual cause of Papa’s death than everyone thought. It was what he’d meant to her that she fretted about, and his expectations. Her psychiatrist had assured her that the death would release her, but she knew she was going through with the concert for Papa’s sake. For Papa, everything must be flawless.

      Stanley told her her playing was perfect. It was impossible for her to improve. “Don’t change a thing,” he begged.

      Ross told her he would select her clothes for the concert. He had examined her wardrobe. Only the red blouse would, perhaps, do. She needed a skirt, shoes, a scarf—everything. She was not to worry about it. He would look for the clothes and would buy her what she needed.

      Elke found herself thanking him.

      Ross was happy. Stanley had not seen him so happy since before Papa died. He smiled; he pranced; he showed Stanley the new clothes that he’d spread out on his bed. (Once this had been Papa’s bed.)

      There was a long black skirt made of some silky material, a pair of black shoes that consisted of thin little straps, and a printed scarf with red fleurs-de-lis on a black background.

      That night, however, Stanley dreamed that the scarf became wound around Elke’s neck during the performance and strangled her. He said to Ross in the morning, “I like everything but the scarf. Elke should wear the gold necklace instead of a scarf.”

      “It’s too heavy for Elke,” Ross said.

      “It might bring her luck,” said Stanley.

      Many generations of Woods had worn the gold necklace. Three Woods had been married in it. A Wood had worn it to a funeral mass for Czar Nicholas. A Wood had shaken the hand of the great Schiffmann while wearing it. A Wood had hidden it behind a plaster wall in the city of Berlin. Another Wood had carried it out of Spain in 1936 sewn into the hem of a blanket.

      “Gold can be vulgar,” said Ross. “A scarf has more esprit.”

      “Papa would have insisted she wear the necklace,” said Stanley. He was tired. He’d worked later than usual.

      “All right,” Ross said. “Tomorrow I’ll go to the bank and get it out of the vault. But don’t tell Elke. I want to surprise her.”

      On the day of the concert, Elke woke refreshed and alert after what seemed to her to have been a dream-free night. She lay for a few minutes in her bed and tried to remember when she’d last felt so almost happy. Her bedroom was filled with sunny shades of yellow and red—colors she’d chosen herself. The room was quiet. She could lie here as long as she wanted, and no one would come to tell her to get up.

      She was at the hall by noon, before the technicians, before her brothers, before the audience and critics. Today the stage felt friendly; it welcomed the sound of her steps and her soft humming of the music she would play tonight. There was no terror in this.

      “How do you feel?” Ross’s voice sounded sharply at her feet. He was standing, suddenly, at the stairs leading from the front row to the stage. “Did you sleep well?”

      “Woods always sleep well.” Her rare teasing voice.

      “But did you?” He paused, then walked up the stairs to where she was standing. His arms stretched toward her in a curious, beseeching gesture. “I’ve brought you the necklace. I got it from the bank yesterday, just before it closed for the weekend. I was so worried, I hid it underneath my pillow all night.”

      “Are you sure—?” Elke asked.

      “Papa СКАЧАТЬ