“The Next Right Note” – a short story by Lisa Grunberger

“The Next Right Note” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 66th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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“Corona Najibe,” by Christel Roelandt

The Next Right Note

by Lisa Grunberger

…..I want to know where it started, and who’s responsible I want to know. I don’t want Daddy to die. He’s fat and he has asthma and he’s always on a diet and he smokes and he drinks, and I’m scared, Momma, are you listening? Mommy was born in Atlanta. Daddy was born in New York City. They met at Temple University in Philadelphia, which sounds like they met at a synagogue and confused my Daddy’s Mom, who died before I was born, so she thought Daddy was going to be a rabbi.

…..My science teacher Mrs. Richie explains “the disease is called Coronavirus, or COVID-19 but the virus is called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2” and she said it is important to give the proper names to things and to be precise. I love science. And one day, I swear, I’ll find the cure to this disease called COVID-19.

…..My full name is Alexandra Gabriella Alisha Stern. My Jewish paternal Granddad was named Gabriel, like the angel and my Black maternal grandmother is named Alexandra, and Mommy had a sister who died young, and her name was Alisha and Daddy’s name is Stern, which means star in German.

…..But I am also related to the weeping willow in our backyard whose name is Willy for a Black Jewish jazz musician Daddy told me about named Willy “the Lion” Smith. He was mixed like me, and when he heard the pigs squealing in the slaughterhouse where his stepdaddy worked, he said:

It was another weird but musical sound
that I can still hear in my head.
The squeaks, the squeals, the dipping them in hot water,
they put them on a hook, take off the head, the legs, going down an aisle—
I hear it on an oboe. That’s what you hear in a symphony:
destruction, war, peace, beauty, all mixed.

…..It’s very quiet outside these days. I can hear more birdsong. Grandma ordered a book about birdwatching.

…..The virus is still here stealing our breath: the cymbals of death, the squeals of silence that I can hear in my head.

…..When my Momma explained to me how I was half white and half black I asked her which half of me is white, Momma? And her black face – which is really a light mocha face, lit up and I knew she was gonna hug me because sometimes when I’ve said something that leaves Momma speechless her arms do the talking, or at least that’s what she says, and I think she’s gonna break me in half one day and my black half is gonna die and my white half is gonna be president and in between dying and being president all the rest of the world is going to die a little every day until what grandma calls a new day’ll come and people will know that the Word is God and God is the Word. Granma’s been praying at home now, on Zoom with her pastor and I can’t believe how she’s taken to connecting with Jesus virtually but she says she feels the Spirit come through the screen almost the same as being in person and Grandma says God’s love resides in most everything so why wouldn’t it live inside the machine?

…..That’s what she calls the computer Daddy got her, “the machine.” I’m going to put my white jacket on now and become a superhero scientist. Her name is Jax and she’s a botanist. And that has nothing to do with baton twirling, as my friend Amelia thought. I told Grandma that my laboratory is my church and she took me in her arms and gave me a thousand kisses and left her raspberry lipstick all over my arm.

…..So now I’m washing my face and washing my hands like I do a thousand times a day because “we’re living in plague times ‘chile and you can worship the Lord wherever the Spirit moves you, because God knows we need more spirit in this fallen world no matter what the color of your flesh.” I love my Grandma in black and white which feels like all the colors of the universe to me. And I hate the plague and I hate being isolated but Grandma says hating is a waste of my good energy. My faith is inside beakers and in specimens and things that bubble up.

…..My faith is precise and methodical and patient. Methodical is my word of the day today, May 26, the 71^st day of sheltering in place, 1.6 million Americans infected, over 100,000 dead. So I try to be grateful the way Grandma is. But her faith is the color of pearls and gold. Her faith smells of her peach pie, her faith glows in the dark, like the stars momma stuck to my ceiling because she calls me her little dreamer.

…..We danced when Obama won the second time and Daddy and Mommy spun me ‘round until we were so dizzy we fell on the love seat and fell asleep until I could smell Chef Daddy’s blueberry pancakes the next morning. I said call me President Alex from now on, because Obama’s the 4-minute mile. First I would win the Nobel Prize in botany, then I would become a Senator, then I would become President.

…..Daddy says politics is dirty. Mommy says life is dirty. Grandma says: “I imagine Jesus was probably full a the desert dust with no indoor plumbing and all, but his Love is pure as light.”

…..When Mommy said “I wish Trump’d be struck dead with COVID” Grandma threw her a look that was half Evil Eye and half Turn-the-Other-Cheek forgiveness face that made Mommy look down.

…..We danced the three of us until you could hear the birds singing, we danced to the spirit of a new era, “A President calling himself a mutt. That man has more humility and hubris all wrapped up in one black package than I’d ever seen,” Grandma said.

…..Daddy called it chutzpah and said his ancestors who escaped the pogroms in Poland and got on a ship and came to the United States, they had chutzpah too. You need chutzpah, guts, courage, to make something of yourself in this crazy world. And then Grandma said “Amen.” She loves Daddy like her own son.

…..Momma’s sewing masks to help the community and make some extra money since Daddy’s sick. I didn’t know Momma knew how to sew until now.

…..~Momma, where’d ya learn how to sew?

…..But she has her concentrating look on her face and if she looks up she’s afraid she’ll sew her fingers into the mask and that would be gross so she keeps looking down at the fabric.

…..There’s so many cool designs Momma bought! She made my little brother a Daniel Tiger mask which he wears even when he’s in the house and she made me an Olivia mask because I really love Olivia who Momma says is like Eloise but I don’t know who that is. I wish she could make me another mask with Peter Pan on it, but right now she’s busy making an adult mask for our neighbor Mrs. Green, who is like ancient, like 85 years old, and she’s a widow like Grandma. It’s a paisley pattern in hues of red and green.

~~Was that intentional, Momma, that you chose green for Mrs. Green?

…..But Momma is still concentrating so her fingers don’t end up sewn inside a mask. Mrs. Green taught me how to make pickles just the way her mother taught her how to do it in Poland. She makes me dip my index finger into the salty water called brine so I can taste just the right amount of salt.

…..~There’s no recipe, honey, your body will know when it’s right.

…..Mrs. Green speaks a thousand languages like German and French and Yiddish and English and Spanish and even a little Hebrew which Grandma loves because her beloved Bible is in Hebrew. So they sit together and Mrs. Green reads Grandma from Genesis and Grandma closes her eyes. And they both have masks on that Mommy made with her own hands and then they both fall asleep.

…..When I see that I don’t want them to choke underneath their masks, as that would be ironic, to choke under a mask that’s supposed to prevent you from catching a virus that infects your lungs. So I tiptoe over to where they are sitting, side by side and I gently lower their masks from their mouths. Momma says it’s ok for them to keep company.

…..~They’ve been friends so long they’re like sisters, those two.

…..They’re all worried that all I do is watch a computer screen and that I’ll turn into a zombie or something who is asocial and so they limited my screen time to two 45-minute sessions three times a week. Mommy’s reading Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and Daddy’s not reading anything but listening to his favorite jazz and doing deep breathing exercises that his sister, who is a yoga teacher, taught him. I’ve already taught myself how to ride a two-wheeler without hands in a local parking lot, so now I’m teaching myself how to juggle.

…..I’m learning on YouTube from a circus performer from France who recommends I begin with plastic bags since they float down more slowly than balls. Daddy’s my audience and he says the bags floating down calm his nerves so my learning to juggle is like a yoga meditation. I’m not quite sure what he means, but if it helps him breathe I’m all for it. Before the virus I was going to become a scientist or president but now I think I’ll join a circus in France, one that doesn’t do any harm to animals because that’s just plain mean. I’m not telling Mom or Dad about joining the circus until I master the art of juggling with actual tennis balls.

…..My Aunt Lisa, that’s my Father’s sister, who lives in Portland, is a yoga teacher and she’s teaching her clients on Zoom now. “She’s om-ing on Zoom” Mommy likes to say, because she likes the sound of the sentence and then she says it backwards, “She’s zooming on Om.”

…..“Not knowing is most intimate” Lisa teaches, in her soft, flowing voice. She’s a former dancer. As she stands in dancer’s pose, she looks beautiful, with one leg up in the air kicked back behind her, her arm reaching for the stars, she asks:

…..~What does this mean, not knowing is most intimate?

…..I’m glad she said that, because I was going to call her up after her Zoom-Om class and ask her myself. Daddy is an engineer (or, as he likes to say, an un-discovered jazz guitarist) but now he’s sick and tinkers with the clouds that pass by his window. He tinkers with Sudoku and listens to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor performances on YouTube and laughs and laughs. Laughter is the best medicine, Daddy says.

…..I don’t know when this COVID pandemic is going to end.

…..I don’t know when Daddy will be able to breath without an inhaler.

…..I don’t know when Mommy will stop making masks (hopefully by Halloween or we’ll have to wear masks over masks to go virtual trick or treating).

…..I don’t know when Grandma will stop telling Mommy to pray.

…..I don’t know when Mrs. Green will take her last breath because she’s so old.

…..I don’t know when I can see my friends again and go on the monkey bars.

…..I don’t know when the police will stop picking on black people.

…..I don’t know if this is what Mommy calls an apocalypse because I didn’t look it up in the dictionary yet.

…..I don’t know if my friends are still my friends now.

…..I do know that I’m going to call Aunt Lisa and ask her how all this not knowing is “most intimate.” And I’m going to impress her with a quote I learned in school: “knowledge is power.”

…..Not knowing feels like I’m choking. It feels most powerless.

…..My Daddy caught COVID like a football in the gut.

…..We’re in our sixth month of isolation. Mommy says it’s all “surreal” and I’m too lazy to look it up. I think the virus has a stranglehold on Daddy’s neck like a noose that won’t let go. I heard Mommy on the phone with her brother.

…..~There are unintended consequences to every decision. Protest if you must, but keep your distance, Jimmy, this virus is no joke.

…..When I was a little kid I hated consequences.

…..~Is that a good choice? Mommy would ask me.

…..If Daddy breathes again without the inhaler I’ll study extra hard.

…..If Daddy’s fever comes down I’ll help Mommy with the housework.

…..If Daddy is strong enough to walk downstairs I’ll go to Church with Grandma.

…..But the unintended consequence is that I can’t sleep. I have what Grandma calls dark thoughts, because I do wish Trump had COVID and not my Daddy because my Daddy never hurt a fly. My Daddy builds things, he doesn’t destroy lives.

…..My Daddy loves me and Labradors and weeping willow trees. He builds airplanes and once he took me in a plane and I got to meet the captain, a tall redheaded woman with minty breath and the strongest handshake I’ve ever felt. We hit some turbulence and my tummy went up and down like it does when Daddy and I go on a roller-coaster (Mom says we’re adrenaline junkies). More turbulence and I began to cry.

…..~Squeeze my hand and hold on tight, Daddy said.

…..Then he began to mumble a prayer in Hebrew and just listening to his soft deep voice calmed me down and I fell asleep.

…..If Daddy and I can fly a kite again,

…..I’ll be kinder to my brother.

…..If Daddy gets to be an engineer again, I’ll never say another curse word.

…..If Daddy tells me it’s gonna be OK, I’ll volunteer at the food pantry every weekend.

…..When you’re dying, hearing is the last sense to go.

…..When you’re living, no one listens.

…..I can’t breathe said my Daddy, dying under an oxygen mask. Daddy suffered from asthma for forever since I was a little girl, and Mommy said he was high risk, but I didn’t think he wouldn’t come home. I didn’t think he’d run out of air, because Daddy was white except for his chest which was covered in black hairs I liked to brush in one direction and then in the other direction when I was a little girl sitting on his lap. Daddy’s chest was like a flippy shirt but it was attached to his body, it was his body.

…..Daddy was white except for his eyes which were blue like his Daddy’s. My eyes are brown like Mommy’s but now Mommy’s brown eyes are red from crying and we can’t even have a real funeral because of this damn virus and Grandma tells me not to say damn even if these feel like the End of Days.

…..And Grandma says I should get on my knees and pray.

…..And Grandma says where there’s a will there’s a way.

…..And Grandma says if it doesn’t kill you it’ll make you stronger.

…..But Mommy’s beyond consoling and shoos Grandma away like she’s a fly and Mommy’s eyes are full of tears she doesn’t even bother to brush away. She lets them sit there streaming down her face so she looks wet and sad and tired because Daddy can’t breathe Daddy can’t breathe and Mommy can’t take it and Grandma says under her breath “if you’d remember the God in you chile, it would make the journey easier,” and Mommy shoos her away like she’s a fly.

…..I’m going to try to get through this letter my Daddy wrote to me without crying.

Dear Alley Cat,

You took my breath away long before COVID-19 did. “Ya better watch out world, here she comes!” as Grandma said when you were born. Herbie Hancock said once he played “a wrong chord,” but then Miles played the right notes that made Herbie sound good. He turned the wrong into the right and that’s what you have to do with my death, Alley. Improvise a beautiful life out of this disaster.

You see, Alley, Miles heard Herbie’s mistake as an event. The world is playing wrong notes now: virus, racism, death, but you come from strong people, Blacks and Jews, who were enslaved and murdered, who have found wise ways to keep playing the right next note. Scientist, Senator, President. Turn this poison into medicine.

Know with every breath Daddy is breathing with you, and there are no mistakes, no wrong notes, you just hear them that way now. Keep your mind open and listen, listen to the weeping willow, listen to life’s music even in the squealing pigs, and I know you know what I mean. Find the beauty inside the terror, embrace the whole symphony.

“The world is a narrow bridge. The main thing is not to be afraid.” Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav said this, and I often say this to remind Mommy. Now I’m telling it to you. I would have saved the Herbie Hancock story for another time. But COVID-19 stole time from us. Herbie said, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

Go take the world’s breath away, Alley. Don’t be afraid. Play the right next note.

With every breath, love, love and love,

Daddy

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Pushcart nominee and Temple University English Professor Lisa Grunberger is a first-generation American writer. Her poetry books, I am dirty and Born Knowing are lyrical reflections on life as a woman, a mother, and a daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her most recent poetry book For the Future of Girls was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Independent Press Award. Almost Pregnant, her play about infertility and assisted reproductive technologies, is published by Next Stage Press.

The Jewish Literary Journal recently published “Strangers and Kin,” excerpted from her memoir in progress: The Happy Adoptee: A Double Holocaust Inheritance. She has poems and creative non-fiction forthcoming in The Southern Review and Of the Book.

Whether it is the aging woman’s body, the infertile body, the body ravaged by war and trauma, all her work addresses human embodiment in a philosophical, spiritual, tender and satirical voice. Lisa’s poems have been translated into Slovenian, Russian, Spanish and Yiddish. Lisa teaches Yoga and Writing workshops and lives with her family in Philadelphia. Her website is www.Lisa-Grunberger.com.

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Christel Roelandt is a Belgian painter from Ghent in Flanders. Her work focuses on the human form; faces and nudes, and she finds inspiration by all things beautiful and often by books, music and films.

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