The hours passed slower than the minutes, the days passed slower than the hours, the weeks passed slower than the days. Black called. «No birds?»
«No birds.»
«Pity. I can't stand watching you lose weight.» And Black disconnected.
On a final night, when Fentriss had almost yanked the phone out of the wall, fearful of another call from the Boston Symphony, he leaned an ax against the trunk of the new tree and addressed it and the empty sky.
«Last chance,» he said. «If the dawn patrol doesn't show by seven a.m., it's quits.»
And he touched ax-blade against the tree-bole, took two shots of vodka so swiftly that the spirits squirted out both eyes, and went to bed.
He awoke twice during the night to hear nothing but a soft breeze outside his window, stirring the leaves, with not a ghost of song.
And awoke at dawn with tear-filled eyes, having dreamed that the birds had returned, but knew, in waking, it was only a dream.
And yet…?
Hark, someone might have said in an old novel. List! as in an old play.
Eyes shut, he fine-tuned his ears.
The tree outside, as he arose, looked fatter, as if it had taken on invisible ballasts in the night. There were stirrings there, not of simple breeze or probing winds, but of something in the very leaves that knitted and purled them in rhythms. He dared not look but lay back down to ache his senses and try to know.
A single chirp hovered in the window.
He waited.
Silence.
Go on, he thought.
Another chirp.
Don't breathe, he thought; don't let them know you're listening.
Hush.
A fourth sound, then a fifth note, then a sixth and seventh. My God, he thought, is this a substitute orchestra, a replacement choir come to scare off my loves?
Another five notes.
Perhaps, he prayed, they're only tuning up!
Another twelve notes, of no special timbre or pace, and as he was about to explode like a lunatic conductor and fire the bunch-It happened. Note after note, line after line, fluid melody following spring freshet melody, the whole choir exhaled to blossom the tree with joyous proclamations of return and welcome in chorus.
And as they sang, Fentriss sneaked his hand to find a pad and pen to hide under the covers so that its scratching might not disturb the choir that soared and dipped to soar again, firing the bright air that flowed from the tree to tune his soul with delight and move his hand to remember.
The phone rang. He picked it up swiftly to hear Black ask
if the waiting was over. Without speaking, he held the receiver in the window.
«I'll be damned,» said Black's voice.
«No, anointed,» whispered the composer, scribbling Cantata No.2. Laughing, he called softly to the sky.
«Please. More slowly. Legato, not agitato.»
And the tree and the creatures within the tree obeyed.
Agitato ceased.
Legato prevailed.