C. Morgan - All the Living

So then she found her motion in the house and it was the motion of playing. When she dragged the rugs out to the back lawn where the laundry cords were strung near the willow, she beat them in time with a broom. She beat them in 3/4, she beat them in 4/4, and then, because she amused herself this way, she switched between the two and then broomed a 5/4 and felt the forgotten pleasure of her own abilities. It was something she had not felt in a long time, the house misered out reluctant joys. And later, when she hung the laundry, the pins seemed like quarter-note tails against the white page of the sheets. She trailed her finger down the wet cotton and thought again of all the music waiting to be played. She was standing there, a silhouette portrait against the white sheets in the morning sun, when the phone rang. She considered not answering it, not because the dining room was far but because she was thinking of her music and she did not want to move, it was so pleasing, but then she relented and ran for it. She picked up the receiver and said, Hello, and a deep voice said hello back, its timbre black and warm. She did not recognize it.

Who is this? she said.

This is Bell Johnson, the voice said. When she made no immediate response, he said, I’m the preacher down at Falls Creek. You walked in the other week asking about a job.

Oh, she said and then again, brightly, Oh.

Well, he said, that was some kind of timing, because the lady who’s our piano player passed on last week.

Oh no, she said. That’s terrible.

Well, yeah, she was eighty-four, bless her heart. She played for a long time with us, longer than anyone could ask, I reckon. She was here with my daddy for forever, since I was little at least, and so that’s a good long time. So.

I see, she said.

So, I reckon we are looking for somebody now. She taught some gals here, but they’re pretty young and we’re looking to have somebody a while too. Leah never took no payment, but that’s not… What I’m saying is that we’ll pay. She never took it, but we can spare it, that’s the right thing to do. We can’t pay nobody much, but we have some extra. Nobody’s starving under this roof.

Oh, I’m not too worried. I just want to play, really, she said, but then she turned to look out toward the southern end of the farm visible out the window, out at Orren’s land, and she said, But a little bit would be good.

Alright, well, you reckon you might could come down here and maybe play some for me and whoever else is around? Just some churchy songs, just to see.

Like an audition, she said.

Well, like a audition, alright.

Sure, she said, I can come down today.

Oh, okay. That’s good of you.

That would be no problem. She smiled out into the room, the light from the window finding her face.

Thank you, Bill, she said.

It’s Bell.

Bell. Johnson. Sir, thank you.

Alright. Well, you come on down and we can set for a minute and maybe you can play.

I’ll be there directly, she said.

Fine, he said.

He was a bigly proportioned man. She had not remembered that. Or perhaps she’d not gotten a proper sense of it in the cramped and dark kitchen of the church where she’d met him that first day. He was waiting when she pulled into the small gravel lot, seated on the front steps with his elbows on his knees, keys cupped and catching sun in his hand. It was when he rose that she saw he was a good foot taller than her. He leaned into his hip in the modified stoop of tall men.

That was quick, he said. He crossed the gravel between them, but made no move to shake her hand, only pocketed his keys and left his hands in his pockets. She caught his smile — a warm but brief thing — and the formal way he had of bowing his head hello so that she saw the blackish curls there and the white scalp beneath like snowy ground peeking through brush.

Hello, I’m Aloma, she said. Pleased to meet you again. His mouth curved slightly, interrupted his reserve, and he seemed not to know where to look. He glanced over his shoulder then, made a curious full rotation once looking around and said, I was hunting around here for somebody to give a listen, but some boys who were just here had to go up to Rocky and they took my mother. She had some things to purchase up there, so she went too. I reckon it’s just us. I’m no expert, but I got a ear and I know a hymn when it’s rightly played.

Okay. She nodded and held her purse to her chest, remained standing with her rear to the driver’s door.

Is that your truck? he said.

Yeah, she said. She looked down at it and saw how dirty it was, streaked and spattered with the dirt of the farm. It had never crossed her mind to wash it, she hoped it didn’t speak to her employability.

I used to have one like that, he said and he smiled, at the truck, not her. I bought it from one of my cousins in Glenly and spent near everything I had fixing it up and then I went and I wrecked it the first week it was road ready.

He crossed his arms over his chest, and with his arms between her and him, his shoulders dropped slightly. You know that elbow bend when you come up around by the Tarson’s, and it goes like this — he snaked one hand so it took a sudden curve in front of him, his eye touched hers — and here’s the big canebrake on the one side and their house on the other, I spun it out there and wrapped it around a tree. I wrecked it good and proper. He sighed. Daddy said it was a good thing, that truck was pure vanity. And it was, he laughed. It was. He sighed and looked at her, then pursed his lips. She said nothing, only watched him and smiled. His eyes were very dark and they did not linger. He said, You live around here?

She nodded, but coughed once in lieu of words.

He nodded too, seemed on the verge of saying more, but changed his mind and said, Come inside and play a bit?

They went in through the front door. The church was white on the outside, white on the inside, with no stained glass so the high afternoon sun raged through the windows, colorless. The pews were old oak, dirty blond, their scurfy varnish flaking in the light, most with thin red cushions resting on their seats, but some not. Up front, the lectern was stationed uncentered on a landing atop three steps with a workaday upright at its foot to the right of the congregation and cockeyed so the pianist could eye both the preacher and the church. Aloma followed Bell down the central aisle on a strip of red carpet worn and darkened the color of charcoal along its middle. As if reading her thoughts, Bell said, We aim to replace this rug soon, but you know how it is. Yes, she said, as if she did. Leaning across the first pew, he plucked up a hymnal, its leaves shagged by years of use, and opened it, flipped a few pages. Aloma walked over to the piano and sat down. She pressed one key and it responded as it ought, the pitch held without wavering or bowing until it thinned and evanesced out of sound altogether. She inhaled on her pleasure and she could smell the well-used piano, its waxy wooded scent.

Bell laid the hymnal down on the scrolled rack before her. How about you just play this hymn for me, he said. If you don’t care to.

She had not played in well over a month, but she did not hesitate, she felt nothing but eagerness. She took one look at the printed page and said, Oh heavens, I can play that with my hands behind my back, and she closed the hymnal. But then she peeked up at him because she heard how sure, even vainglorious it sounded, though it was the truth. Then she played “The Old Rugged Cross” as simple and straight as she could, slowing down churchily at the end and throwing in a few dissonant suspensions for good measure. She tried not to look too pleased with herself as she played the last chord.

Well, wow, he said. You play it like you hear it.