Rodin's Debutante by Ward Just

were conducting an orchestra. Then I heard him moan, a sound from deep within. My heart went out to him.
    My father told me once that all you needed to know in life you could learn from American blues, mostly forbearance but other things too, like tolerance and compassion. I think he meant that two ways. They were serious people, the jazzmen. They had gravity. There was not a mill on earth they had not been through time and again. That was the source of their music and while you wouldn't wish the mills on anyone, something good came of it, this original American art form imitated everywhere but never duplicated because it rose from a specific condition. That was sometimes the way of things, not as often as you would like. My father was not entirely satisfied with that thought because he turned gruff, mixed another cocktail, and demanded to know if I'd done my homework and if not why not. Even the greatest musicians practiced their scales, even Bechet.
    Now my father leaned far out over the windowsill, his head bowed, and remained there, deep inside himself, most troubled.
    ***
    THE ARTICLE IN THE
World
the following afternoon was anodyne. It carried no byline and the tone was ex cathedra. There had been an incident at the high school and the police were investigating and expected an arrest within the week. That was the gist of it, elaborated over five paragraphs on page fourteen, nestled between two advertisements and an account of a recent zoning board meeting. That was the last word on the subject of the bad situation to appear in the
World
or anywhere else. The
Tribune
and the
Daily News
never picked up the story, as they had no means of reading between the lines. Magda Serra's attacker was never identified and in due course the girl and her mother left town for parts unknown; the rumor was that they had returned to Serbia. Magda never spoke of her ordeal and so far as anyone knew never regained consciousness. In fact, while she was in St. Vincent's Hospital and later on in a private facility she barely moved and never uttered one word. Of course there were rumors in town and in the corridors at school, but the rumors were guarded, side-of-the-mouth conversations, and in the absence of fresh information they died away, though a profound uneasiness remained, the uneasiness of the uncompleted thought. Most everyone assumed that the tramp's killer or killers had gone away to another part of the country but no one knew that for certain, either. In time both matters were forgotten or hidden away in an attic region of the mind, except by my father and the others who had gathered that night at our house; and they did not speak of it. It was true also that Mayor Bannermann was defeated at the next election, his twenty years in office cut unexpectedly short. Chief Grosza resigned and took a security job in Florida. The principal of the high school retired, as planned. And New Jesper began its long decline.
    The atmosphere at home changed. My mother no longer sang as she went about her household chores. She was as incensed by the attack on Magda Serra as she had been by the tramp's death a month earlier. If the high school was not safe, what was? New Jesper was not the place she thought it was and she no longer felt safe in her own house; now the doors were locked day and night. She worried about my safety. She wanted to return to Champaign where she grew up and where her parents still lived but she knew that was impossible. A judgeship was not transferable. My father insisted that the tramp's death and the attack on Magda were isolated events—appalling, certainly, but isolated. They could have happened anywhere. In Chicago murder was virtually a civic sport, public entertainment. Given enough time, he said, New Jesper would return to its normal self. The argument between my mother and my father continued each evening after dinner. From my bedroom I could hear the rise and fall of their voices and in my mother's tone a new