Safe Passage by Ellyn Bache Page B

wrought-iron gates leading into a city named Kiev. Beyond the gates he'd pictured a domed church like the one in the encyclopedia, but surrounded by a grassy yard and stone paths instead of sidewalks.
         In the music, bells rang. There was a sound of stars falling, or maybe confetti— star confetti—and then a gong. The music sounded like springtime, so he'd pictured church bells ringing on Easter morning, summoning people from the countryside to the church inside the great gate. The sun was shining, and the grass was new green after the winter. The music grew larger inside his head. People in peasant costumes poured through the gates as the star confetti fell. He knew from the music that they had come to celebrate the Resurrection, a genuine Resurrection. Alfred didn't go to church, but his father had told him the story of Jesus. The star confetti fell on the people, and there was the possibility of perfect joy. This struck him now as strange, not only because he knew so little of religion then or because his mother was listening to the music now in anticipation of Percival's death, but because at six or seven he'd been too young, he thought, to get caught up in that kind of power. Later, when he'd taken piano lessons, it was the feeling inspired by "The Great Gate at Kiev" that he'd tried to recapture as he sat practicing.
         A note of triumph, then a silence that let the mumble of the television through from the other room. Alfred turned the record off, annoyed for having listened, for getting involved in it again, especially right now. "You ought to get out of those wet clothes, Mother," he said. "Before anyone gets here."
         "You have it all planned, don't you? This death watch."
         "Chances are he's not dead."
         "I woke up this morning with a premonition," she said.
         "That doesn't necessarily mean anything."
         "What about the time Izzy broke his ankle? What about Simon's tonsils?"
         "They both got better."
         She sighed. "Is Cynthia coming over?" she asked.
         "She wasn't up yet when I left."
         "I think most women would wake up if the phone rang in the middle of the night."
         "I told her it was nothing. I didn't want to disturb her until we knew something."
         "I see," his mother said.
         But she did not see. She had told him his living with Cynthia was setting a bad example for his brothers, even though Izzy had several different female roommates a year while he, Alfred, was practicing fidelity. She objected to his raising Cynthia's sons even though she'd always demanded that he be responsible; she objected to his plans for marriage. Alfred felt no compunction to explain. It was none of his mother's business that he had said "I love you" to other women before but "I need you" only to Cynthia. His feeling for her was as powerful as it had been for certain pieces of music when he was younger. His mother had nurtured the one, why not the other? As a teenager he had tried to play Chopin's polonaises on the piano and she had not tried to talk him out of that. When the music refused to come from his fingers the way he heard it in his heart, he had gone instead to his mother's records, needing to hear them so badly that he could think of nothing else. She had not objected to that, either. She had watched as the music built and filled him—its teasing, its cresting, its great crescendos that he recognized with some embarrassment as musical orgasms. Later his mother had been sympathetic to his need for women, which drew (he believed) from the same underlying passions. But now with Cynthia—when there was both the yearning and pleasure the music had once inspired, and also solidity and permanence, his mother was immovable in her disdain.
         He had been surprised and hurt at first, striking back by refusing to defend the relationship. But his timing had been bad. He saw that his mother was disturbed by his father's