Day 12

“Alright, so here’s the deal; you walk up, smile pretty, do your thing, take a bow, get the hell offstage, and then stay backstage until the MC says to come back out for the overview,” the stage manager told the gathered performers with a fast southern accent that made Klára’s head spin.

 

“That was a naughty word,” said a nine-year-old girl �" who was a baton-twirler of some sort �" tactfully.

 

The stage manager rolled his eyes as if he really knew true suffering. “Yes it was, and you’ll hear a lot more ‘naughty’ words if you don’t shut yer yapper, okay?” The little girl ducked her head, and she looked so much like Jopie for a moment that Klára squeezed her shoulder in a friendly way. Henry had given her a very long talk about how freezing out the competition was necessary for them to make it as far as possible. She had blatantly ignored it, feeling that being friendly would unsettle them even more than shunning them. Surely enough, the little girl stared at her with eyes so wide Klára thought they would burst, and then she scuttled away to the back of the group. A bell rang backstage and the stage manager clapped his hands as the distinct sound of an audience reached their ears. “Okay everyone, this is it. Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

 

Then he was gone and they were left to their own devices. Everyone looked amongst themselves nervously; there were a lot of children there. Klára bit her lip and looked at Henry, who shrugged and walked with her to someplace quiet. He told her that morning that most of the acts would probably be children. “It’s all parents’ ideas; people see a cute kid and instantly feel sorry for them, and they win. But not if we’re good enough.”

 

“Will we be good enough?” she asked as the first act began, the baton-twirler girl.

 

Henry’s hand grasped hers in the dark behind the stage. He was shaking with nerves. “I hope so.”

 

***

 

The competition only had about eight acts, and Klára and Henry were among some of the oldest there. There were only two adults other than Henry, one a gnarled old man with a pan flute and another woman of thirty who was a dancer. The rest were kids, a twelve year old violinist, the baton-girl, two little girls singing a duet, a miniscule boy reciting a poem about Paul Revere (who couldn’t remember half the words), a boy doing gymnastics, and then all that was left was Henry and Klára.

 

They walked onstage to the polite applause of people who had already clapped quite a lot in one day and were very tired. Henry, trying to control his horrible shaking, gave Klára a reassuring smile. She was white as a sheet, but smiled back regardless before walking to the piano that had been set up for them. Henry tuned his guitar quickly and Klára stretched her hands on a few keys. Then they looked at one another with nervous laughs; they hadn’t really planned what to do or say.

 

“Um, hello, everyone,” Klára finally said into her microphone. Henry’s eyebrows rose against his will; he had never believed that she would be the one to introduce their song. But her accent was adorable and he could hear audience members whispering in a positive way. “I know you all are very tired and ready to go home, so I and Henry�"”

 

“�"Henry and I,” he whispered, and she blushed.

 

“�"Henry and I will try to keep you happy enough to stay.” She smiled out at the people, and suddenly Henry could see the child she had once been, standing on a stage before an entire school and singing her heart out. She reeked of charisma. “We’re playing a cover song a few of you may know, but it means much more to Henry and me than that.”

 

She pushed her hair back behind her ear and smiled softly, running her hands smoothly over the keys of the piano. She looked so pretty; Henry’s mom had helped her with make-up again, but it couldn’t cover the dark cut over her eye, but she didn’t hide it like he thought she would. “The first few weeks I knew Henry were spent in silence, watching him play his music while he didn’t even know I was there. I saw so much about him before we even spoke to one anudder for the first time, which was a few days after we meet.”

 

“She was really shy,” Henry added meekly, causing a few laughs. He silently asked Klára if he could go on from there, and she nodded. He adjusted his microphone carefully before trying to come up with something as good as Klára had said. “This song really spoke to us the moment we heard it, because so much of our friendship has been developed through silence, and just listening to one another, and…well, hopefully it’ll speak to you too.”

 

Henry looked at Klára with a bracing smile and she returned it earnestly, beginning to play a solemnly haunting melody on the piano. It sounded a million times better than on the keyboard at home. Then he started to play along on his guitar; a few people seemed to recognize the song immediately, but the rest were clueless until they began to sing in the harmonies that had taken them hours to practice and perfect.

 

“Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence”

 

People in the crowd, both recognizing the song and in awe of the harmonies, started cheering. Henry looked back and met Klára’s eye with an elated grin. His heart was pounding about a million miles an hour, but it was in the best way.

 

“In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

 

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

 

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

 

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence”

 

People were clapping, cheering, whistling, and screaming while Henry stood there, stunned. His mind was in such hyper-drive that he already couldn’t remember a moment of their performance, but Klára was beaming at him. This was such a good sign; they hadn’t even heard this much applause for the boy playing the violin, and he had been brilliant. Henry looked down into the crowd and saw Bob Dylan himself, nodding and clapping with that agelessly sour look on his face. Henry felt like he would pass out with joy.

 

Waving and bowing and pulling Klára up to take a bow with him, they both ran offstage with their hands clasped tightly. Once out of sight, Henry hugged her so tightly that he took the breath right out of her lungs, swinging her around in circles and laughing with his elation. Her arms wrapped around his neck, the sound of her laughing in his ear, her skin against his, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to kiss her. But he didn’t, because he had made her a promise.

 

They held one another until the MC called the performers out to the stage. Henry pulled her out to the front of the stage with all the children, the old man, and the dancing woman. They smiled for the audience while the MC reminded the watchers to log onto the website and vote for their favorites. Then they were all dismissed to leave and the stage manager descended immediately upon them. “Alright, good show everyone! There are a few reporters from Channel 4 out there, so smile pretty and answer all their questions as honestly as you can, okay?”

 

There were murmurs of assent through the group, and they all started filing out of the building together. Henry’s parents were waiting out front and hugged them both tightly. “Henry, you were so awesome!” his mom practically shouted in her excitement, bundled up against the cold with his dad’s arm protectively wrapped around her. Then Markus and two younger children ran to Klára out of nowhere and surrounded her on all sides before wrapping their arms around her and speaking animatedly in Czech. This was her family, Henry realized, watching her grin at them and explain what had to be how terrifying it was to be up on that stage. Her hands were flying about as she spoke and her eyes wide, and when she made some grand gesture and a horrified face they all laughed.

 

Klára seemed to sense Henry and his parents watching her and looked up, blushing and smiling. She corralled the younger two over with her to them. “This my sister, Jopie, and udder brother Nikolas, but we call him Nik.” The boy was small and dark, like Markus, but with shoulders that would eventually be broader once he grew up a little. The girl Jopie was Nik’s polar opposite, with a delicate frame, light blonde hair and pale skin. She very strongly resembled the fair man in the photo Henry had found online, while Markus and Nik both resembled their mother. Klára looked like their mother in the face, but nothing like either parent in coloring.

 

Suddenly his mom was gaping at something over Henry’s shoulder, and he tore his eyes away from Klára at last when he felt a hand clap him on the arm. Standing behind him was Bob Dylan and a news camera. “Are you the one who told the head of the judges ‘holy s**t, it’s Bob Dylan’?” he asked very seriously. Henry nodded, stunned and embarrassed, and the old man laughed. “You’re not too sharp, but you’re funny.” He then looked at Klára, who was staring back at him with a perplexed look on her face that one might mistake for awe, and smiled. Well, it looked like a smile, at least. “Well, I’ve gotta get goin’. See you tomorrow.”

 

Before Henry could quite recover from having a conversation with Bob f*****g Dylan, a woman in a wheelchair and a red-and-black windbreaker with short blonde hair rolled over to him, followed by a camera. “Hey, how’re you feeling?” she asked. One hand still tangled in his hair as he stared at Dylan’s retreating back, he looked at the woman and the camera with the standard fish-out-of-water expression on his face. “You okay?” the reporter laughed nervously.

 

“I just had a conversation with Bob Dylan,” Henry finally spat out, laughing with how unusual it sounded coming from his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he saw f*****g Prince shaking Klára’s hand. S**t.

 

The reporter laughed more naturally now. “I’m guessing you’re a fan?” she asked, holding out a microphone to him now as the camera closed in on his face. Henry nodded and laughed again, fingers interlaced behind his head. “Well cool, good for you! Can I get your name for the people watching at home?”

 

Henry cleared his throat, suddenly shy in front of a camera. “Uh, yeah, I’m Henry Duke.”

 

“And you were a performer in the show today, right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I was,” Henry nodded, looking over his shoulder and gesturing for Klára to join him. With a few garbled Czech phrases she managed to wrestle herself away from her younger siblings and stumble to Henry’s side. “I couldn’t have done it without Klára, though!” he said very seriously, looking right into the camera.

 

The reporter smiled broadly at Henry and Klára, as though she seemed to see something other than close friendship between the two. “Klara, is it?” she asked, butchering the pronunciation of Klára’s name, but the girl took it in good grace and nodded. “And where are you from?”

 

“Um, Prague,” Klára said meekly, ten times more shy than she had been during their performance, leaning very close into the microphone and playing with her hair as she spoke. Then she leaned back and looked up at Henry as if to ask ‘I did okay, didn’t I?’ He was astounded by how quickly her personality seemed to change. He grinned at her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

 

The reporter didn’t seem to have been expecting that answer. “Oh! Wow, well I hope America’s been kind to you so far! How about you Henry, where are you from?”

 

He pointed down the street to the south. “I’m right around the corner there. Minneapolis born and raised.”

 

While the older woman smiled and said something generic about Minneapolis, her camera man started gesturing from behind his instrument, listening in to the main station with his headphones, for her to wrap it up. She rose the mic for her last question. “Well, Henry, Klara, what do you think you’re gonna do with the prize money if you win?”

 

She held the microphone to Henry first, and he leaned down and looked earnestly into the camera. “I am going to go to college like I always planned but never got the chance to.” He looked at Klára and she smiled happily at him, and he just knew that she was hoping the same thing for him.

 

“Wow, such big plans! I hope you get the chance to make it even if you don’t win,” said the reporter before turning to Klára. “How about you, Klara? Got any big shopping trips planned yet? Or maybe a trip back to Prague?”

 

Klára bit her lip and leaned down to the microphone again, still tiny and meek. “Um…no,” she said very seriously. “I’ll take my sister to the doctor, because she don’ breathe very good. Then maybe buy some new clothes. But udderwise I save for a place to live.”

 

Again, Klára made the reporter blink and lean back a bit in her wheelchair. “You…a place to live?” she asked, and suddenly Klára’s face was so broken and downtrodden-looking that Henry wondered if she might burst into tears right there on camera with the whole state of Minnesota and some of Wisconsin watching. Then she wiped her eyes and ducked out of the shot, muttering about having to go take care of something. The reporter looked at Henry, looking almost equally heartbroken. “Is she okay?” she asked Henry.

 

Biting his lip and feeling his heart trying to leap right out of his chest, he nodded. “Uh, yeah, I’m gonna just go…check on her…yeah. Okay. It was nice meeting you!” He ran off in the direction Klára had gone and found her hiding just around the corner of the building. He grabbed her shoulder bracingly. “Klára, are you okay? I’ve never seen you-…”

 

Klára spun around and smiled at him brightly, all traces of emotion gone. “I was good?” she asked hopefully, and Henry laughed, realizing that she had had the entire metro area eating out of the palms of her hands on purpose. He hugged her tightly as her siblings and his parents found them.

 

“You were perfect, Klára, even if it was a little bit sleazy,” he told her. He could tell she didn’t know what ‘sleazy’ meant, which only made him laugh again as they started walking back toward his apartment together in the fading sunlight, with his heart more full than he ever thought it could be and a beautiful girl on his arm.