Part 2
Apparently nobody ever had. She was given a steady, opaque look. She went on to say
that she wanted all her children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just
mouth them, like silly-billy parrots. She then blew a note on her pitch-pipe, and the
children, like so many underage weightlifters, raised their hymnbooks.
They sang without instrumental accompaniment--or, more accurately in their case,
without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost to the
point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might, without
straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest children dragged
the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer's mother could have found fault
with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept hoping it was one with a dozen or more
verses. Listening, I scanned all the children's faces but watched one in particular, that
of the child nearest me, on the end seat in the first row. She was about thirteen, with
straight ash-blond hair of ear-lobe length, an exquisite forehead, and blase eyes that, I
thought, might very possibly have counted the house. Her voice was distinctly separate
from the other children's voices, and not just because she was seated nearest me. It had
the best upper register, the sweetest-sounding, the surest, and it automatically led the
way. The young lady, however, seemed slightly bored with her own singing ability, or
perhaps just with the time and place; twice, between verses, I saw her yawn. It was a
ladylike yawn, a closed-mouth yawn, but you couldn't miss it; her nostril wings gave
her away.
The instant the hymn ended, the choir coach began to give her lengthy opinion of
people who can't keep their feet still and their lips sealed tight during the minister's
sermon. I gathered that the singing part of the rehearsal was over, and before the
coach's dissonant speaking voice could entirely break the spell the children's singing
had cast, I got up and left the church.
It was raining even harder. I walked down the street and looked through the window
of the Red Cross recreation room, but soldiers were standing two and three deep at the
coffee counter, and, even through the glass, I could hear ping-pong balls bouncing in
another room. I crossed the street and entered a civilian tearoom, which was empty
except for a middle-aged waitress, who looked as if she would have preferred a
customer with a dry raincoat. I used a coat tree as delicately as possible, and then sat
down at a table and ordered tea and cinnamon toast. It was the first time all day that
I'd spoken to anyone. I then looked through all my pockets, including my raincoat, and
finally found a couple of stale letters to reread, one from my wife, telling me how the
service at Schrafft's Eighty-eighth Street had fallen off, and one from my mother-in-law,
asking me to please send her some cashmere yarn first chance I got away from "camp."
While I was still on my first cup of tea, the young lady I had been watching and
listening to in the choir came into the tearoom. Her hair was soaking wet, and the rims
of both ears were showing. She was with a very small boy, unmistakably her brother,
whose cap she removed by lifting it off his head with two fingers, as if it were a
laboratory specimen. Bringing up the rear was an efficient-looking woman in a limp felt
hat--presumably their governess. The choir member, taking off her coat as she walked
across the floor, made the table selection--a good one, from my point of view, as it was
just eight or ten feet directly in front of me. She and the governess sat down. The small
boy, who was about five, wasn't ready to sit down yet. He slid out of and discarded his
reefer; then, with the deadpan expression of a born heller, he methodically went about
annoying his governess by pushing in and pulling out his chair several times, watching
her face. The governess, keeping her voice down, gave him two or three orders to sit
down and, in effect, stop the monkey business, but it was only when his sister spoke to
him that he came around and applied the small of his back to his chair seat. He
immediately picked up his napkin and put it on his head. His sister removed it, opened
it, and spread it out on his lap.
About the time their tea was brought, the choir member caught me staring over at her
party. She stared back at me, with those house-counting eyes of hers, then, abruptly,
gave me a small, qualified smile. It was oddly radiant, as certain small, qualified smiles
sometimes are. I smiled back, much less radiantly, keeping my upper lip down over a
coal-black G.I. temporary filling showing between two of my front teeth. The next thing I
Apparently nobody ever had. She was given a steady, opaque look. She went on to say
that she wanted all her children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just
mouth them, like silly-billy parrots. She then blew a note on her pitch-pipe, and the
children, like so many underage weightlifters, raised their hymnbooks.
They sang without instrumental accompaniment--or, more accurately in their case,
without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost to the
point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might, without
straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest children dragged
the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer's mother could have found fault
with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept hoping it was one with a dozen or more
verses. Listening, I scanned all the children's faces but watched one in particular, that
of the child nearest me, on the end seat in the first row. She was about thirteen, with
straight ash-blond hair of ear-lobe length, an exquisite forehead, and blase eyes that, I
thought, might very possibly have counted the house. Her voice was distinctly separate
from the other children's voices, and not just because she was seated nearest me. It had
the best upper register, the sweetest-sounding, the surest, and it automatically led the
way. The young lady, however, seemed slightly bored with her own singing ability, or
perhaps just with the time and place; twice, between verses, I saw her yawn. It was a
ladylike yawn, a closed-mouth yawn, but you couldn't miss it; her nostril wings gave
her away.
The instant the hymn ended, the choir coach began to give her lengthy opinion of
people who can't keep their feet still and their lips sealed tight during the minister's
sermon. I gathered that the singing part of the rehearsal was over, and before the
coach's dissonant speaking voice could entirely break the spell the children's singing
had cast, I got up and left the church.
It was raining even harder. I walked down the street and looked through the window
of the Red Cross recreation room, but soldiers were standing two and three deep at the
coffee counter, and, even through the glass, I could hear ping-pong balls bouncing in
another room. I crossed the street and entered a civilian tearoom, which was empty
except for a middle-aged waitress, who looked as if she would have preferred a
customer with a dry raincoat. I used a coat tree as delicately as possible, and then sat
down at a table and ordered tea and cinnamon toast. It was the first time all day that
I'd spoken to anyone. I then looked through all my pockets, including my raincoat, and
finally found a couple of stale letters to reread, one from my wife, telling me how the
service at Schrafft's Eighty-eighth Street had fallen off, and one from my mother-in-law,
asking me to please send her some cashmere yarn first chance I got away from "camp."
While I was still on my first cup of tea, the young lady I had been watching and
listening to in the choir came into the tearoom. Her hair was soaking wet, and the rims
of both ears were showing. She was with a very small boy, unmistakably her brother,
whose cap she removed by lifting it off his head with two fingers, as if it were a
laboratory specimen. Bringing up the rear was an efficient-looking woman in a limp felt
hat--presumably their governess. The choir member, taking off her coat as she walked
across the floor, made the table selection--a good one, from my point of view, as it was
just eight or ten feet directly in front of me. She and the governess sat down. The small
boy, who was about five, wasn't ready to sit down yet. He slid out of and discarded his
reefer; then, with the deadpan expression of a born heller, he methodically went about
annoying his governess by pushing in and pulling out his chair several times, watching
her face. The governess, keeping her voice down, gave him two or three orders to sit
down and, in effect, stop the monkey business, but it was only when his sister spoke to
him that he came around and applied the small of his back to his chair seat. He
immediately picked up his napkin and put it on his head. His sister removed it, opened
it, and spread it out on his lap.
About the time their tea was brought, the choir member caught me staring over at her
party. She stared back at me, with those house-counting eyes of hers, then, abruptly,
gave me a small, qualified smile. It was oddly radiant, as certain small, qualified smiles
sometimes are. I smiled back, much less radiantly, keeping my upper lip down over a
coal-black G.I. temporary filling showing between two of my front teeth. The next thing I
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