I turned toward the house and followed the path of silver sand.
C hestra was singing lyrics unfamiliar to me; lyrics that she’d written.
…the sun is on the sea
In my mind, waves wash over me
We’ll never know
All that we possess
’Til the end of time
We can only guess
I stood near the piano, listening, the photograph of Marlissa Dorn on the table nearby. Chestra had yet to reply to the first of my pointed questions, but I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt. She had a remarkable alto voice. Her interpretation was soulful, smoky, but understated; her lyrics, articulate. Tomlinson had described her music accurately: The effect was more than auditory, it was chemical.
Once again, I wondered: How could someone with her talent have slipped through life unknown?
Down a haunted highway
Wind in my hair
And the night is laced
With moonlight everywhere
Then I heard you whisper
Right in my ear
You have come this far
You can go from here
She tried to keep the last chord alive, her foot on the sustain pedal.
“Do you mind, Doc, if I play just one more? Music—I get carried away. It’s my favorite mode of travel.”
I said, “For now, let’s stay where we are, okay? I’d like to talk.” As she sighed, registering disappointment, I added, “Later, I’d enjoy hearing you play. It’s still early”—I checked my watch—“not even nine-thirty. I thought you’d want to talk. That you’d be more excited we found your wreck.”
“I’m thrilled. It seems too good to be true. I guess I’m still in shock.”
She didn’t act thrilled when I told her. She looked troubled. Something had changed in the last twenty-four hours, that was my impression. Something else: She became flustered when I said I’d heard a rumor about the Dorn family and a German POW.
“All families have their skeletons.” She’d laughed, making light of it. But she escaped immediately to the piano after adding, “Guilt. It’s the gift that never stops giving. Some legacy, huh, kiddo?”
When I said, “Then it’s true?”, she began to play, her furtive shrug saying: It’s a long story.
Obviously, she hadn’t told me everything.
She’d played a medley of her own work—impressive. But I was determined to get answers. “Chessie, tell me what you know about the night the boat went down. Everything.” I held Marlissa’s photograph up as if it might freshen her memory. “It was so long ago, no one cares anymore. What do you think we’ll find on that wreck? You’re investing thousands of dollars. Why? There’s no need to edit your story.”
Her fingers were long, and as elegant as her legs. They moved with a surgical certainty on the piano keys, independent of her body. As if reading my mind, she said, “I don’t tell stories, my hands do. Fairy tales. Tragedies. I’m always a little surprised by their confidence.” She lifted her eyes to mine without moving her head. “Does that seem strange?”
“I don’t know. My hands aren’t skilled.”
“I’m astonished. Maybe you haven’t found the right instrument yet. The truth”—chords she played transitioned to the melody I thought I knew but couldn’t name—“you say that word like it’s something final. Truth. It’s the same when you ask questions. You’re…so definite. So straightforward.”
I replied, “The truth often is.”
“I’m not so certain. I don’t have anything against people who say they’re searching for the truth. It’s the ones who claim they’ve found it, I don’t trust. There are people who go around trying to neaten up a disorderly world. Are you one of those men?”
“No. I’m one of those men who bumbles less when I know the facts.”
She dipped her head toward the piano’s music stand, where there was no sheet music. “Just the facts, ma’am. Okay. Musical notes are facts—professional piano tuners adjust each note mathematically, did you know that? You don’t believe facts lie?” She smiled. “Then we haven’t been riding in the same elevators. And you’ve never heard karaoke.”
It was impossible not to like the woman. It was also impossible to pressure her.
I said, “The title of the song you’re playing. I’ve asked before, what’s the name—” But she interrupted my question with a lyrical flurry, an introduction. As she sang, I listened attentively, expecting the lyrics to jog my memory.
They didn’t.
Morning is breaking in New York
Silver horns and a golden sky
I see you, I need you
Don’t you ever say good-bye
You’re so tender and you’re mine
So I’ll draw the dusty blind
You are mercy
And holy to me…
Roof by roof
Through corridor and street
Room by room
The chain of memory
Make another face
Another joke
Another scheme
’Til we are gone forever
And free…
When she’d finished, I didn’t speak for many seconds. “That’s lovely.”
“Thank you.”
“You wrote it?” I was contemplating the lines: “You are mercy/And holy to me.” Pained but adoring. At one time in her life, Chestra had been in love with an extraordinary man.
She surprised me, replying, “Yes. I wrote that many, many years ago. It’s about my first love—Manhattan.” Her fingers found the keys again, softly. “I enjoy the anonymity of crowds, the sanctuary of strangers. Like a lot of people, I cling to the silly notion I’m having a love affair with that great big wonderful city because I wake up with it most mornings. One of us is a harlot, and that’s all I’m going to tell you.” Laughter.
“The song was never recorded?”
“No. I write for myself. And a few others.”
“I was sure I’d heard it. That I knew the title but couldn’t remember.” I didn’t add that it was more mystifying because the melody didn’t resemble any well-known song.
“My uncle Clarence Brusthoff—he was the grandson of Victor Dorn, who built this house—my uncle Clarence liked to quote Thomas Edison about strange things like that. Knowing a person you’ve never met before. Recognizing a tune you’ve never heard.”
I looked at the wall of photographs as she continued. “Edison and Henry Ford were both closet mystics. They believed the air was full of microscopic bits of knowledge. ‘Entities,’ they called them. Or ‘little people,’ left over from previous lives; other worlds.
“‘Ideas are in the air,’ Mr. Edison told one of my uncles. Everything already exists; every idea, every event. It’s all available to us if we’re persistent, and allow it to happen. My uncle had asked Mr. Edison how he happened to invent both the phonograph and moving pictures. No human being had even contemplated such marvels.”
It was a conversation that Tomlinson would enjoy.
I tried to get her back on the subject. “I don’t know much about the entertainment business, but someone had to offer you contracts. Anyone who’s ever heard you perform has to wonder why your name, your music, aren’t well known.”