There comes a moment when there’s nothing left to say, although if you asked Margaret, she’d tell you that’s nonsense. So, when eleven-year-old Trina clammed up and didn’t speak for an entire month in early summer, we wondered why. Margaret, older by a year and with questionable wisdom, swore she’d get Trina to talk and she had plenty of opportunities to do just that. Each attempt met with dusky quiet. Lips sealed, Trina chummed around with us, doing as we did, and soon enough, we learned to read her deep-set eyes, her sharp chin, her tanned shoulders – even the flick of her step as she walked. We tracked her thin arms as they torqued through the water, her back straight or turned, knees locked or bent in a soft push against the undulating waves, searching for meaning. Standing on our smooth rock shores, her hands soared about her body like a dragonfly seeking a place to land or a conductor leading her orchestra. Which only made sense because it was the summer of the harmonica – the craze fired through school and we all had one.
We must have driven our parents mad as one by one, we followed Trina’s lead. Our chatter became monosyllabic with infusions of manners. Yes, please. No, thank you. Our harmonicas said the rest. For day’s end, Margaret mastered the Guide version of “Taps” and she heralded respectable daybreak with a riff of Beatles refrains. No doubt it was obscene noise as it echoed over the waters in our quiet bays, but to their credit, our parents said nothing. They were concerned about Trina.
It was an act of solidarity, that silence, even though we didn’t know why such quiet until the day we overheard Trina’s mother in conversation with Margaret’s mother – both were costume designers for the opera and they were rehashing the season’s series. One opera that spring was Strauss’ Daphne, Op. 82, “Bucolic Tragedy in One Act,” which Margaret and Trina had seen, all done up in their opera evening clothes – dark velvets and gloves, patent leather shoes and black tights, hairbands tight on their scalps. We’d envied them the chance to be out although to hear them talk – and Trina had been in throes of high-pitched excitement for days after the evening out – there’s been something ominous about the night. The city, which we knew well, had felt ghostly, Margaret said, as if something ghastly died. The foggy odor of charred rubber and oily exhaust, and garbage, a terrible rush of sensory filth after the glory of the night. Haloed and intermittent light threw sickly beams on the pavement as they all walked back to the car, their skirts swishing like dry leaves in a wind. Margaret told of Trina’s scarf, how she’d twisted it into a crown about her golden hair. She’d looked like a goddess.
She fancies herself an actress, Trina’s mother said as we played jacks on the verandah. We turned our heads away, pretending their conversation was of no matter to us. Margaret’s mother clicked her knitting needles furiously, uttering in a voice like her daughter’s, Nonsense. It’s a cry for attention and you must ignore her. But her father, Trina’s mother said. The needle clicking stopped for a moment followed by one word. Hush.
Like a line of sugar ants, we stood up and walked away, down to the water for a swim. In the heat-stippled air, Margaret waved her harmonica at Trina and broke her silence. Your father hasn’t been here this summer, she said. Trina’s eyes flashed but she didn’t speak. Where is he? asked Margaret. It’s not like he’s dead or something.
Trina dove into the water and with furious strokes, plowed through the water to the raft. With that wily sense children have, we looked at Margaret as if to say, Don’t you get it?
Margaret, for once, caught on as she flushed silvery crimson. Adults were of another world, speaking a foreign language, and in our world of play, there was no room for grown-up cares. But Trina brought them to us and like puzzled puppies, we cocked our heads, understanding the nuanced tone but not knowing what to do.
Except we knew no-nonsense Margaret was wrong. Sometimes there is nothing left to say, except to sit in silence and wait for the moment your lips close on vowels and consonants, and sound rings out. The trick is finding the right note in the plaintive major scale that says sorry.
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