CHAPTER TWELVE — THE OTHER AUDIENCE
By late morning, the snow had stopped, leaving Chicago bright and painfully cold.
Nora rode home in one of the company cars while Claire stayed at the theater.
The driver stopped at a corner grocery before taking her to Mrs. Alvarez’s building.
Nora bought milk, bread, cereal, and two bananas with money Claire had advanced against a day of temporary work.
She insisted the amount be written on a receipt so there would be no confusion about what she had accepted.
At Mrs. Alvarez’s apartment, Eli ran toward her in mismatched socks.
He hugged her hard enough to make her shopping bag swing.
“You came back,” he said.
Nora held him a moment longer than usual.
“Of course I came back.”
Mrs. Alvarez watched from the kitchen doorway.
“I heard about the car,” she said.
“The whole building heard about the car.”
Nora explained only that a wealthy family had asked her to help at a theater.
Mrs. Alvarez listened without interrupting.
When Nora finished, her neighbor pointed toward the table.
“Sit down and eat something before you tell the story again.”
Eli spread cereal across the table and asked whether the theater was haunted.
“Only by very expensive equipment,” Nora replied.
He laughed and asked to see the music box.
Nora had kept the leather case because Henry had asked her to bring it back that evening.
She set it on the table and opened the lid.
Eli turned the box over without touching the delicate hinge.
“It’s missing a piece,” he said.
“The winding handle is separate.
”
He pointed to the small brass handle.
Nora inserted it into the opening.
She turned it once, carefully.
A faint ticking began beneath the wood.
Then a thin mechanical melody emerged, wavering on several notes.
Eli leaned closer.
“It sounds like a train that’s trying to sing.”
Nora laughed despite her exhaustion.
The melody stopped after eight bars.
Eli asked her to play it again.
When she did, Mrs. Alvarez appeared in the doorway with a dish towel in her hand.
“Where did you get that tune?” she asked.
Nora explained about Henry and the Wren.
Mrs. Alvarez stared at the box.
“My sister worked there when we first came to Chicago.”
“Did she know Marion Whitmore?”
“Everybody knew who Marion was, but my sister worked upstairs.”
She sat beside Eli.
“That tune was in a neighborhood show they did for the ushers and costume people.”
Nora turned toward her.
“Can you remember the words?”
Mrs. Alvarez hummed the first few notes, then stopped.
“I only heard the last part.”
She sang a line about leaving the lamps burning until the final worker had gone home.
Nora felt the back of her neck prickle.
“Bernard remembered four notes,” she said.
“Lena’s grandmother remembered another part.”
Eli asked whether they were putting together a broken song.
Nora looked at the music box.
“Maybe we are.”
Mrs. Alvarez told her that her sister had died several years earlier, but a few former Wren workers still met at a neighborhood recreation center.
They gathered every Thursday to play cards and complain about the price of groceries.
“It’s Thursday,” Nora said.
Mrs. Alvarez nodded.
“Then they’re probably there right now.”
Nora looked at Eli, who was already pulling on his boots.
“Can I come?” he asked.
She hesitated, thinking of the hours she had missed with him.
“Yes,” she said.
“This time you’re coming with me.”
