Richard Powers - The Time of Our Singing

“I mean for me.”

She picked up the cover of the Gesualdo. Her hands were shaking, as if he could reject her even through that object. Her eyes strayed across the group’s photo. Her mouth twisted a little. “Which one’s Jonah? Just kidding.” She pulled out the liner notes and read the first paragraph. The cadence of the words angered her, and she handed the disc back to me.

“What do you think? Just to hear.”

Her voice was ragged. “Go ask the boys.”

The real CD in a real CD jewel box did intrigue Kwame. This was before worldwide make-your-own. “I got an uncle in a crew? That’s dope. Put it on, brother. Let the brother do his shit.” My nephew didn’t last through the first hemiola. “You fuckin’ with my bean, ’Tween.”

Little Robert, next to him, squealed with delight. “Yeah! Don’t be fuckin’ our beam!” I stared at him. He smirked and clapped a hand over his mouth.

I went back to Ruth. “So what did they say?” she asked. For a moment, she seemed to be hoping for a yes.

“They’re going to wait for the video.”

She lifted her palms. “What do you expect, Joe? Not our world.”

“Our world’s anywhere we go.”

“They don’t want us there. So we don’t have time for it.”

“Can’t be both, Ruth. Can’t both them and us decide.” She said nothing. “He wants you to go, Ruth. He wants us all to be there.”

I held out the tickets Jonah had sent. She gazed at them without touching. “Forty-five dollars? Can we just take the cash instead? Think of all the subsidized lunches…”

“Ruth? For me? It’s eating me up inside.”

She considered it. She really did. But the last sadness in my life was minuscule compared to what still had hold of her. She smiled a little, but not at me. “Can you imagine Robert and me dressing up to go to a show like this? Not without a purse full of smoke bombs, honey.” Then, not looking at me, forgiving me my trespass: “You go if you want. I think you ought to.” I turned to go. “He can always come by here, if he wants.”

The Friday of the concert, I went alone across the bay to Grace Cathedral. I knew the drill well enough not to contact Jonah beforehand. Of course, he didn’t contact me. I sat unrecognized in the fake Île-de-France nave, amazed by how many people turned out for the event. All my life in classical music, the audience had consisted of the disaffected and the dying. Mostly the dying. Either the art truly belonged to another lost time or certain human beings woke one day, crippled with age and desperate to learn a repertoire that was heavier than the rest of existence, before death came and stripped us of all our tribes. Sounds almost as old as death itself, sounds that had never belonged to them, sounds that no longer belonged to anyone. For what could belonging mean to the dead?

But this crowd was young, vital, manicured — crisp with the next new thing. I listened to two couples behind me as the preconcert excitement gathered, comparing the virtues of the Tallis Scholars and the Hilliard Ensemble the way one might compare two subtle Burgundies. I couldn’t follow the discography. I’d been away too long. I twisted around to check the swelling crowd. No more than twelve black faces were in attendance. But of course that was a count no one could make just by looking.

The house went hushed and the group sauntered on. The applause bewildered me. The church was full of fans, people who’d been waiting years to hear this blending. A blast of panic: I wasn’t dressed. I didn’t know the program. There was no way I could get up onstage without humiliating myself. A second later, I was again blissfully no one.

The six voices — two of them unknown to me — wandered at random to their marks on the stage. They dressed more silkily than we had back when. Otherwise, they sought that same casual, choreographed shock. My brother stopped and turned, staring out over the heads of the audience. The others seemed ambushed by calm. They stood for an awful moment, as we must have stood, building the intake, looking inward. Then the first fifths crystallized out of them.

All six were past words. But Jonah floated above the stage. He sang like someone from beyond the grave who’d managed to return for one remembering moment to don again the surprise of flesh. Everyone in the cathedral fell back against their pews. My brother had confessed to me the source of that perfection when we’d spoken over the phone. He’d tapped into the pure, voluptuous power of indifference, the sound of how good all sounds will sound to us once we’re past them.

After the second burst of applause, he seemed to see me, ten pews back. But the smile was too small for even professional recognition. He gave no sign for the rest of the performance that he felt anything but disembodied grace. He’d gotten beyond not only race. He’d gone beyond being anything at all.

My impatience blotted out the second half of that rapturous program. The lovelier the sound, the more criminal I felt sitting and listening. By the second encore, John Sheppard’s In manus tuas, I replayed in my mind every petty betrayal I’d ever committed. The fiercely applauding audience made the group sing two more encores.

I was a wreck by the time I found my way into the receiving line. Jonah sprang forward when he saw me near the head of the queue. But the light in his face dulled a little as he approached me. “You’re by yourself? Sorry, Joey. That’s not what I meant.”

“Of course I’m by myself.” When were we ever anything else?

“They didn’t want to come?” It seemed to confirm his worst suspicions.

Every lie we’d ever told ourselves occurred to me. I spared him all of them.

We were surrounded by packs of envious people who just wanted to stand close to these singers who’d thrown off all chains and could make sounds others only dreamed of. All nearby heads appraised us with that look that listens while pretending not to. Jonah stared at me. “Why not? Why wouldn’t she? How long…” I lifted my palms, pleading. He pursed his lips. “Fine.” He put his hand around my shoulders and led me back to where the other antique voices stood. “So what did you think of that Taverner? Was that the closest thing you’ve ever heard to God?”

Then there were the others. Hans Lauscher greeted me with awkward affection. Marjoleine deGroot swore I looked younger than when I’d left. Peter Chance patted my back. “How long has it been?”

I smiled as well as I could. “Since at least 1610.”

Everyone wanted the reunion to end as quickly as possible. Jonah had to return to attending to his fans. He was grace itself. He signed programs and smiled for pictures with the heavy donors. Total strangers wanted to invite him to fancy dinners, introduce him to celebrities, throw parties in his honor. Although this was ensemble work of the most selfless order, even the tone-deaf could hear where the magic came from. The gentry of the silicon age wanted my brother to love them as they already loved him. I stood by and watched Jonah charm his admirers like some high-art faith healer. It was after midnight by the time we were alone.

“You promised me a tour of your backwater,” Jonah said.

“Not this late. They’ll shoot us. Come say hello to Ruth. Tomorrow morning.”

He shook his head. “She doesn’t want that.”

“She doesn’t? Or you don’t? Somebody has to go first, Jonah.”

He put his hands on my chest. “You’ve got some new forte hints in there, brother.” His smile died at my silence. He withdrew his hand. “I can’t. I can’t force myself on them.”

“Come to school on Monday. Meet the kids. She’ll be there. It’ll be easy.”

“I wish I could. We leave tomorrow.” It seemed almost to save him.