Mary And The Giant

"Tweany's planning his big-time," Nitz said to the petrified girl. "He's moving along to L.A. Got an offer from Heimy Feld, the character who handles those jump concerts. Trial run at a bunch of test spots on Heimy's circuit."

"The word 'trial' never came up," Tweany corrected.

Seating herself at the piano, Beth started tapping out the G minor scale. A little island of sound came into being around her.

"Tweany," she said, with a toss of her hair, "I used to write songs. Did you know that?"

"No," Tweany said.

"She brought one along," Coombs said sourly. "She's going to trot it out and ask you to sing it."

At this, Tweany puffed up until he was even larger than usual. A bluish, steely nimbus shone out: a massive conceit. "Well," he said, "I'm always interested in new material."

Nitz belched.

As the sheet music was brought out of Beth's giant bag, Mary. Anne said to Nitz: "You should have told me."

"I waited."

"What for?" She couldn't understand.

"Until he was here. So he could answer."

"But," she said helplessly, "he didn't answer." She felt swamped by what was happening; her reality was drifting and she was unable to stop it. "He didn't say anything."

"That's what I mean," Nitz said. His voice sank down as Beth began to play. Tweany, standing behind her, leaned forward to catch the words. He had already entered a stage of rigid concentration; to him, music was a serious matter. Whatever trifle Beth had concocted was going to receive his full attention. There was an, innate grace that Mary Anne could not forget or ignore; belief in what he was doing added measure to the man's style.

"This song," Tweany intoned, "is called, 'Where We Sat Down,' and tells the story of a young woman walking through the countryside in autumn, remembering and visiting the places where she and her lover-now dead, killed in foreign lands-had been together. It is a simple song." And, taking a deep, meaningful breath, he sang the simple song.

"He doesn't usually do that," Nitz murmured as the song came to a finish. Beth began rippling out arpeggios and Tweany meditated over the enigma of existence. "It's hard to get him to do stuff on sight ... he likes to give it the once-over."

Beth was saying to the man standing beside her: "You felt it, didn't you?" Her playing took on volume and emotion. "You felt what I meant, in that."

"Yes," Tweany agreed, eyes half-shut, swaying with the music.

"And you brought it over. You realized it."

"It was a beautiful song," Tweany said, in a trance.

"Yes," Beth murmured, "it takes on a beauty. An almost terrifying beauty."

"'White Christmas,'" Nitz said, "that's the end of you. You're finished."

For the briefest interval Tweany wrestled with his composure. Then passion overcame him, and he turned from the piano. "Paul," he said, "a casual cruelty can do great harm."

"Only to a, sensitive soul," Nitz reminded him.

"This is my house. You're a guest in my house, at my invitation."

"Only the top floor." Nitz was pale and tense; he was no longer joking.

The strained silence grew until Mary Anne at last went over to Tweany and said: "We all should go."

"No," Tweany answered, his geniality returning.

"Paul," Mary Anne said to Nitz, "let's get out of here."

"Whatever you want," Nitz said.

At the piano, Beth played a series of runs. "Don't you want to wait for us? We'll give you a ride back."

"I meant," Mary Anne said to her, realizing that it was hopeless, "if we all left. All five of us together."

"That would be nice," Beth agreed. "Gosh, I can't imagine anything nicer." She made no move to get up, and her playing continued. In the corner, his legs drawn under him, Chad Lemming sorrowfully picked at his guitar, ignored by the rest of the group. His sounds, drowned out by the overpowering piano, dissolved and were lost.

"You won't get her to go," Danny Coombs said to Mary Anne in a fit of excitement. "She's got herself planted; she's set."

"Shut up, Danny," Beth said good-naturedly, beginning a progression that formed into a Faure ballade. "Listen to this," she said to Tweany. "Ever heard it? It's one of my favorites."

"I've never heard it," Tweany said. "Is it one of yours?"

Beth created a great shower of musical sparks: a Chopin prelude, followed at once by the opening of the Liszt B-flat sonata. Tweany, caught in the wind blazing around him, stood fast and survived, even managing to smile as the piece ended.

"I love good music," he declared, and Mary Anne, embarrassed, looked away. "I wish I had more time for it."

"Do you know Schubert's 'Erlkonig'?" Beth asked, playing furiously. "How wonderfully you could render it."

Lifting his camera, Coombs snapped a shot of the two of them at the piano. Tweany seemed not even to notice; he continued breathing in the music, eyes shut now, hands clasped together before him. Laughing, Coombs popped the exhausted bulb onto the floor and fitted in a fresh one from the leather pouch at his waist.

"Jesus," he said to Nitz, "he's completely left us."