He digs out the business cards he collected at Kathleen’s recital in Halifax years ago. Makes enquiries. He writes to the chief administrator of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, “Dear Sir: Who, in your expert opinion, would you say is the pre-eminent practitioner in the field of vocal training?” He receives the answer, and sends a lengthy telegram to a man with a German-sounding name in New York City. Receives a reply: “Yes, Herr — will see Kathleen in his studio at 64th Street and Central Park West, 10:00 a.m., March 1, 1918.” James writes to his spinster cousin, Giles, in New York, “… and as my mother always spoke highly of you…. Naturally I am prepared to reimburse you for any and all….”
The time has come. Kathleen is barely eighteen, but her voice is ready. And cousin Giles has agreed to act as chaperone. Moreover, James no longer deludes himself as to where the girl is likely to be safest.
Even with the boots, it becomes apparent that this step will be crushing to the family finances. James does not hesitate. He writes to Mahmoud and asks him straight out for money to send the girl to New York.
The directness of the request startles Mahmoud even more than James’s initial business overture. Ensconced in a mauve satin armchair, his slippered feet resting on a cushioned ottoman, Mahmoud squints and reads the note a second time.
Surrounded as he is by comfortable curves, it is easy to see how angular Mahmoud has become with the years. Business has eroded flesh and sharpened bones; vigilance has contracted the eyes, which are as keen as ever. His hair has thinned to a meticulous steel-grey and two deep lines crease either side of his leather face from cheekbones to jaw. He has grown to resemble his spare wooden chair in the back room of his shop. Only Mrs Mahmoud looks at him now and sees the tall dark and handsome he used to be.
Mahmoud glances up from James’s letter over to the old accursed piano. The voice comes from the Mahmoud side, of course. All the men and women of his family sing. Born singing. It is a gift from God and apparently God and Mr Mahmoud have transmitted this gift through Materia — dead to me, she is dead — to the eldest daughter of the enklese bastard. Too bad. She is no granddaughter of mine.
Mahmoud raises the forefinger of his left hand slightly, and his wife replenishes his teacup.
In the kitchen, Teresa Taylor chops parsley for tabooleh and wonders why Mr Mahmoud treats his wife like a maid now that he can afford several real ones. The old standby about the strangeness of white people doesn’t really apply here because, although you’d take your life in your hands if you said it, the Mahmouds aren’t really white, are they? They’re something else. They are somewhat coloured. What this means in Nova Scotia at this time is that, for the Mahmouds, the colour bar that guards access to most aspects of society tends to be negotiable. It helps that they have money.
Teresa is a beauty. Although most people in these parts might not think so unless they saw a picture of her in a book about Africa. Everything about Teresa is tall — her face, her eyes especially. Everything about her is fine — her hands dicing tomatoes, her ankles standing, striding between counter, table and sink nine hours a day. Her voice with its trace of Barbados. And beneath her dress, the silver cross she wears that Hector gave her.
Teresa won’t be a maid for ever. She is engaged to be married. She squeezes the juice of three lemons and says a little prayer of thanks to Jesus for keeping Hector safe. In 1914 he volunteered to go overseas and fight but the army wouldn’t have him: this was a white man’s war, they didn’t want “a checkerboard army”. Hector went into the steel plant instead and swore off wars altogether. Now they can’t conscript him because he is in a vital industry. Teresa and Hector are both saving money so that he can go to the United States and study to become an Anglican minister.
Teresa has known Hector all her life. When she was ten, their families came here at the same time, moving from a lush island to a stark one, so their daddies could work, first in the mines, then at the mill. Teresa has grown up in The Coke Ovens section of Sydney’s Whitney Pier and, despite the ongoing battle with grime from the trains and smokestacks, she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, except New York City. That’s where she and Hector will move once they’re married.
Thus, Teresa does not begrudge a single working hour at the Mahmouds. And it really isn’t a bad job. She likes the food she’s learned to prepare for them — this tabooleh, for instance. It makes a nice change from the Anglos and Scotch she has worked for, with their endless meat and potatoes and not a spice in sight. Most of the Mahmouds are very friendly and they know how to throw a party — always singing, with no need of liquor to let go, not like the meat-and-potato set. And Mr Mahmoud pays well. Teresa has already started buying her trousseau. He expects the best but, unlike most, he’s prepared to pay for it — he hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Nor has he ever made an improper advance, though he does have a temper. Ask his daughters. In the meantime, Teresa works hard, stays out of his way, and feels sorry for her. Mrs Mahmoud has everything money can buy — not to mention a devoted family and lots of grandchildren. But she has a private sorrow, too, Teresa can tell. Teresa drains the water from the cracked wheat the Lebanese call burghul, and folds it into the spiced meat — they’re having kibbeh tonight.
In the big front room, Mr Mahmoud dozes while his wife, Giselle, looks on. Except for her grey bun, she seems not to have changed at all over the years. The same smooth round face, round arms, soft eyes. She is wearing her moonstone ring and strand of genuine pearls to please her husband. Carefully, she removes the note from his hand and takes it into the kitchen.
“Teresa. Read please.”
Mrs Mahmoud has never learned to read English. Teresa reads the letter aloud, then says, “Kathleen Piper. That’s the young lady we heard sing at the Lyceum before the war.”
Mrs Mahmoud nods. “My granddaughter.”
Teresa raises an eyebrow. The girl my little brother ferries to and from school. The princess who has never spoken a single word to him. The one with the voice. Well. “That’s your granddaughter, Mrs Mahmoud?”
Giselle nods.
That night in bed, Giselle skilfully enlightens her husband as to his own intentions. In the morning he writes a cheque. He tells himself that he does it for Giselle. But as he writes the third zero, he reflects upon the future of the family voice. Universally acclaimed. The crowning glory of his success in the New World.
Only Teresa will do for an errand of such importance, and Mahmoud puts the envelope into her hand, saying, “Get a receipt.” Teresa sets out for New Waterford, where she anticipates a rare look at the severed branch of the Mahmoud family tree.
Materia answers the door. She is wearing a smock. She has a pair of stained scissors in her hand. She’s been cutting kidneys for a pie. Little Frances stands peeking out from behind the foliage of her mother’s crazy floral print. Materia’s gaze has widened over the years, as though she sees more of the world at once than other people do. But although she seems to see more, she does not have the expression of someone who is processing what she sees. She doesn’t look, she stares. Now she’s staring up at Teresa.
Teresa recognizes the look of someone who’s not all there. Teresa would have assumed that the big sad woman in the doorway was the hired help had she not been prepared to spot the Mahmoud family resemblance — discernible in the shade and smoothness of the skin, in Mrs Mahmoud’s eyes veiled in a vague face.