"Now here," my sister said, "is the pièce de résistance."
Marly set aside her art case and placed a department store shopping bag on my kitchen counter with a dramatic flourish. She pulled out a basket of apples and a small tissue-wrapped package. "Organic art," Marly said. "Our very first for the gallery. In four dimensions."
I watched her unwrap the tissue and lay out neat piles of Popsicle sticks, crudely carved to resemble arms and legs. "Who is the artist?" I asked as she whirled toward my knife rack.
She brandished a carving knife. "Q'meh," she proclaimed, her thin brows soaring, then paused, waiting for a reaction.
"I'm supposed to know this name?"
"Oh, Barb." Marly reached for an apple and sliced it neatly in half. "Don't you ever read the material I leave for you?"
Upstairs, unbidden, my daughter began her piano warmups, and unconsciously Marly picked up the rhythm as she sliced apple after apple.
"I'm sorry," I said, when it was clear she wouldn't speak until I had apologized. "I do save it, but I get caught up dealing with the books, and the bookkeeping, and parent chores."
Marly carefully trimmed away an apple core. "Organic art is Q'meh's specialty--and I bought this one because it's participational as well. Genius! The woman is a genius, and this in our front window is going to bring people in."
"People with checkbooks, I hope," I said. "Speaking of filthy lucre, what do we owe this genius?"
Marly sniffed. "You can be mercenary after you experience synergy."
Her fingers delved among the little wooden arms and legs, again in rhythm with Elizabeth's labored arpeggios. My attention was drawn upward by the unaccustomed tempo of Elizabeth's playing; was it anger, or eagerness? Four tonal steps later I looked down at an apple-half with arms stuck on the high curves at each side of the top. Halfway down on either side were little legs, giving the apple a spread-eagled look.
"That is obscene," I said.
Marly's dark eyes narrowed into a glare. "Rape is obscene. Murder. Environmental destruction. This represents woman. Female symbolism is beautiful."
I touched an apple-woman. "Is this how we are supposed to see ourselves--a vagina with arms and legs? These things don't even have heads!"
"That is how men see us," she said briskly, plunging her hand back into the bag. This time she pulled forth a celery stalk, its foliage close-trimmed, and set it in a little carved stand so it stood upright at a suggestive angle.
"Will we have to cough up more money when this food art rots?" I asked.
"We paid for the rights, of course. Don't you see it, Barbra?" Touching celery, then apple, and again celery and apple, she said, "Male sex, female sex, the Tree of Knowledge--the forbidden fruit--Adam, Eve. They wither, representing the loss of innocence." She smiled. "Genius."
Upstairs, Elizabeth faltered in B flat. There was a discordant clangor, as if a seven-year-old fist had crashed down on the keys, then the arpeggios finished in an aggressively marked rhythm.
Marly's smile faded. "You're still forcing Lizzie to play that piano?"
"I'm not forcing her," I said, working to keep my own impatience from showing. "She asked to learn."
"Only because you love to play. But she doesn't enjoy it--she told me herself last time I came up here."
"That's because she found out that it takes work to learn. The piano teacher said it's a common pattern. I remember hating it at first, but Gram made me keep at it."
"Gram made us do a lot of stupid things."
"I told Elizabeth she can quit on her birthday if she still doesn't like it."
Marly shrugged, fussing with the last of her circle of apple-women. As she finished, she cocked her head. "Well, I like what she's playing now."
Through the false notes and uncertain tempo of an inexperienced player's sight-reading came phrases of melody, a skipping, laughing harmonic line that evoked summer gardens and dancing children. Elizabeth came to the end of the piece and launched straight into it again.
"She seems to like it as well," I said.
Marly nodded, but her focus was back on her artwork. Flinging her hands wide, she said, "Do you see it? The Adam and Eve shtick, the sultan and his harem, a brilliant indictment--" Her voice dropped into a stagey accent--"of the typical male attitude toward women in our civilization?"
"I see fruit halves circling a celery stalk. Hole in one. Or is that one in hole?"
"Oh, Barb." Marly let a snicker escape, and then, as if mad at herself, swept the food into her bag. "How can someone so literal have such a dirty mind?" She whirled around. "I'm taking these downstairs to set them up. You can cut a check." Slamming a contract onto the counter, she grabbed her stuff and marched to the door.
I looked down at the contract, but the words flickered before my eyes. The emerging melody--Elizabeth's fourth repetition--was so compelling that the hesitations and false notes made my fingers ache to play it right.
Dropping the contract onto the counter, I ran upstairs. Elizabeth was hunched forward over the piano keys, her whole body stiff with the intensity of her concentration. She wasn't alone. All three of our animals were in the room with her, a rarity. The dog lay on the carpet, head on paws. Both cats perched, like fuzzy meatloaves, one on each arm of the recliner.
To my surprise, Elizabeth did not use my entrance as an excuse to quit. She played on, laboriously at times, impatiently backtracking to repeat measures. When she reached the end, she lifted her hands and turned on the bench to grin at me.
"That's a pretty piece," I said. "I don't remember the piano teacher playing it for you."
"That's 'cause the music lady gave it to me."
"Music teacher? At school?"
"Music lady," Elizabeth corrected, her wide brown eyes intent.
I sat down on the piano bench beside her. "May I play it?"
She nodded vigorously, her black curls bouncing on her skinny shoulders.
The music was handwritten on standard composition paper, obviously photocopied many times. Slanted italics at the top stated, "Animal Dance." There was no composer name, no .
I played it through once, then again, with careful attention to tempo and phrasing. It was a lovely piece of music, evoking images of faerie folk dancing about the piano. Elizabeth watched my hands, her legs swinging to the skipping beat.
"Play it again," she said when I was done.
I did. She said, "Oh, Mom, that was good. It was almost as good as the music lady."
I was silent, hiding the amalgam of irritation and pleasure this response gave me. The irritation I dismissed as mere jealousy. Obviously a professional would play better, and I held onto the pleasure, glad that my daughter exhibited signs of discrimination.
"One more time," she said. "Please? Then I want to try again."
So I played it a fourth time, then stood up. "Maybe your piano teacher will let you play it for the next recital."
"Oh, the music lady said she would give me more if I learn this one. And all her songs are pretty ones." She waved her hands, calling to mind a vivid memory of Marly at her age.
"Well. Go for it," I said, crossing the room to the door. Elizabeth was playing again, this time with more assurance. I looked back, and laughed when I saw the two cats and the dog lined up behind the piano bench, just like a little audience, listening.
"I think they want you to feed them, Elizabeth. When you're done with practice?"
"Okay, Mom." She went right on playing.
)
