American Music (9 page)

Avedis had prepared an elaborate presentation, during which he said, as he told them what he was going to say, that he would reveal to them how he had discovered the secret formula for the making of cymbals. Not just any cymbals, but the ideal cymbals, the gleaming discs from which would ring the celestial music of the spheres. He stood up in his workshop, the dim light filtering through glass jars filled with jewel-colored liquids and flickering off the bronze cups lining the shelves reflecting onto him in a deep coppery color that made him appear like a bronze statue come to life. He was a tall, thin, wizardish-looking man with the unconsciously haughty and slightly silly air of an aspiring academic. He wore a long beard that lengthened his already long face and made his kind, sincere, searching eyes appear to be floating even higher in the lofty realm of the mystical than they actually were. He possessed a ridiculous hopefulness and his heart was visible on his face and Parvin, after getting over her disgust at having to sit beside the Sultan with her hand on his broad knee, was carried along by the rapturous recounting of Avedis’s discovery. She was pulled into his narrative as if she were a drowned body being carried along underwater by a fast current, the details and turns of his story embedding themselves in her mind like twigs and leaves and pebbles catching in the twisting scarf of her long hair.

In the drama of his recounting his first vision of her dance (again that fateful day), which he couched in quasi-religious terms so as not to threaten or offend the Sultan, Avedis became swept up in his own story. He told his rapt audience about his own past, his apprenticeship as a metalsmith, his developing interest in alchemy, his promotion within the court, his devotion to the Sultan, and he worked his way onto the subject of the great city of Constantinople. A melting pot of cultures! he cried. He spoke now with deep, affecting emotion about the cosmopolitanism of his beloved home, how the Turks, Jews, Armenians, Persians, and so many others lived in harmony together and he paused to look gratefully at Murad. In this incredible melting pot, he said, made possible by the broad-mindedness of our noble leaders—and here the Sultan smiled, because he enjoyed flattery of any flavor and also because he was intelligent enough to appreciate that it was the brilliance of the Ottoman Empire, among many other insights, to recognize the value of many cultures living together in peace, in no small part because different kinds of people were good at and willing to engage in different kinds of work, which when administered wisely hugely benefited the economy. He may himself not have been a peace-loving or intellectual man, but he was not stupid. In this incredible melting pot, Avedis continued, I myself have been moved and softened and changed, like a piece of stone turning to gold in one of my own cauldrons, by so many disparate influences that I have been transformed! Transformed by a vision of beauty! And in the transformation of my own awareness of beauty I have been given the gift of inspiration. I have been inspired and enabled to create a vehicle for reproducing, in all its wondrous complexity, a wild, delicate, mysterious, and utterly simple sound: the sound of love.

And what are the components of this sound? First: Beauty, he said. And he picked up a piece of metal and a silver stick and struck it so that a clear and lovely note rang forth. Next, Desire: and he replaced the first piece of metal he had chosen for a shinier yet darker alloy, which he again struck with the stick. A lower, more deeply reverberating sound was released. And he did the same with the next three attributes: compassion, gentleness, selflessness, each had its own corresponding metal alloy. And then, he said: Freedom. I could go on and on, but let us stop at freedom. Freedom, I realized in my philosophical wanderings toward this sound, freedom is an essential component of love, perhaps the most important. Because in trying to keep, or hold, your beloved, one is acting not of love but possessiveness, need, selfishness. The sound of freedom was the most important sound for love, but where to find it? I pondered the object of my mission, the glorious Parvin, and I watched her dance. Here his eyes misted, and a muscle near his mouth twitched. I studied her spontaneous passionate dancing, and now the Sultan himself shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and I realized that for her freedom only existed in dance, in movement, in the abstract, because, of course, my dear Parvin was not free. A tear slid down his cheek. Parvin felt a chill. She desired to curl up into a tiny ball, but she stayed frozen. She stared at the hem of Avedis’s left sleeve. The Sultan spoke up: Play the damn things! You boring fool!! He laughed, menacingly. Avedis nodded to a young apprentice, who brought over what appeared to be a plate covered by a shawl. Avedis pulled off the silk with a flourish. The Sultan’s four bodyguards put their hands on the ends of their swords. There were two cymbals. He held one in each hand, and, unable to control himself, boldly went on: She has captured the wild elegance of freedom in her dance, but tragically, yes, tragically, she is not free. Here he stared at Parvin and let the cymbals collide. A sweet, soaring, light-dark sound, the color of sunlight striking a bloodred wine, engulfed the room.

My love, he said.

The Sultan looked at one of the guards and a rush of bodies pushed from the sides of the room inward toward Avedis. Suddenly, chaos. The Alchemist remained calm as the storm rushed toward him. He stood reveling in the reverberations of his love. Parvin sensed the Sultan’s glare upon her and turned to glance back into his fury. He looked on her as he might look at a smear of shit underfoot. Then his face contorted into a different level of disgust, and under his eyes appeared half-moons bred from fear. Then again, his mouth opened and from the back of his dark throat he said: Another whore. Clutching his sword he strode forward into the crowd of bodies.

Parvin stared at Avedis as he was dragged out of his workshop, the cymbals dropping to the floor and clanging, before circling on their rims in a final, spiraling dance.

It seemed to her that the dark room was swallowing her up into one of its elixirs. She tried to stand but found herself frozen in place. She felt a familiar hand grip her arm. Follow me, a low voice said. The voice betrayed nothing as it led her through a dark passageway and out of Avedis’s workshop and just as they entered the twilit gardens Parvin lifted her head from staring at the ground in front of her feet and saw her dark handsome beloved striding purposefully forward, her hand in his. I have been instructed to dispose of you, he said, turning around quickly. Hyacinth looked in her eyes as if to say: Everything will be fine. But she couldn’t be sure. The gardens bled into a palace stairway. The two figures made a sharp left onto the stairs. A crowd of the Sultan’s henchmen passed them, dragging Avedis. His cries faded away as they hurried off.

We were wrong.

We were.

She won’t end up with Avedis.

It doesn’t look like it.

She was putting on her coat and turning on the lights.

It’s time to go. The nurse is coming.

Don’t go.

She stopped buttoning her coat.

I’ll be here tomorrow.

She kept buttoning.

Don’t go.

I have to go.

•

When Joe and Vivian said good-bye inside the car it was a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn and the sun was out. He held her awkwardly in the front seat and she was crying and with his eyes closed he remembered when he’d seen her cry before, that day at the museum. He remembered the way her tears had been reflected in the glass, drops of gold sliding downward to the jungle floor. He heard the hollow sounds of children’s voices echoing in the vast room. He felt Vivian’s restrained yet passionate presence standing next to him. He saw her face on the body of a tiger.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

1936

P
earl stood in the doorway holding the door open when he came home. She was wearing a pretty blouse and her smart skirt and she had a dish towel in her hand. Her face was glistening with perspiration and her hair was pulled back at the sides and then loose in back. Her face looked young like a twelve-year-old girl’s but her hands were thin and veined and he never liked to look at her knuckles. They showed how hard she had to work. Her wedding band swam around on her finger like a Life Saver. Her ankles were crossed and she was wearing heels. She almost always wore heels. He could smell a pot roast in the oven and through the doorway he could see the living room in a haze of afternoon light, the simple furniture blurred and softened and welcoming and beyond that a shaft of late sun slicing through the kitchen and he could glimpse it and it looked like home.

At dinner she said, How did it go? Did the band like you?

They did. Nice guys.

He took a forkful of vegetables. He chewed them thoroughly. He chewed for a long time.

Do they have any gigs coming up?

A few. Out of town.

She was getting him more roast.

Anything overseas?

Possibly. But that work is harder to get, you know. Not as many liners crossing these days.

That’s such a shame Joe. It’s such good money.

She smoothed her skirt and sat back down.

What’ll we do?

We’ll be fine, he said.

He took her hand across the table.

Only another year until I graduate. I’m doing well this semester. I’ll be getting legal work soon.

I’m glad you’re feeling optimistic, she said. Because I went ahead and bought these.

She took two tickets from her pocket and put them in his hand. They were for Count Basie Christmas Eve at the Roseland Dance Palace. He put them on the table and stared at them.

Pearl …

We deserve to have some fun, she said.

He held her hand and looked at her.

I know how much you like to go dancing, she said. Remember when we used to go? I know I’m not the best dancer, but …

He kept holding her hand and looking at her.

I’m not too shabby, she said.

2005

So who was he?

Who?

The person you lost.

She had been far away: the Bosphorus, a yellow kitchen, Roseland.

He was a journalist.

What kind?

A war correspondent.

I see.

She looked down into his back and saw the muscles tense slightly under his shoulder blades. It was where his wings would have been.

I met him when I first moved back to New York, around the time I first found work dancing. We lived in the same building. His studio was the floor above mine. He was a little older. He was out of college a few years.

A college boy. A fancy college, I bet. Smart, I bet.

Yes.

He took a deep breath. Keep talking, he said.

He was writing pieces about fires in the Bronx or waste transfer stations. He was on the Metro desk. He was just starting out. I was just starting out too. I was in a show, Off Broadway. It was doing well. We were talking about finding a bigger place.

She wasn’t thinking now she was just talking and she put her hand on his neck. Then suddenly he turned his head and she saw the muscle turn in his neck and it was like a long stretch of sand curving ahead she was walking along a beach in early May the air still stung and the sun threw out a cold unwanted light. The tide pulled things away. She was walking with Sam near his parents’ summerhouse but his parents were away they were always away and he said that he thought they should be together. He came up to her and pulled her close. Her hair blew in front of her eyes. The ocean was gray it had no blue in it and no green in it just gray and molten an almost colorless expanse of moving liquid and to her it looked beautiful that day she felt safe.

She kept her hand on his neck and she saw things she had not wanted to see: Sam in a restaurant the waiter hovering and then sliding away as Sam was telling her that they would be sending him it was a big step it was a vote of confidence it was very important for his career. She saw Sam’s parents at another dinner this time a restaurant with many waiters and his parents were very polite to her, too polite, she could tell they didn’t take her seriously even though her background was good but what had she done with it? She hadn’t gone to college she was a dancer her family was from New York but where was her mother exactly? Yes, they had heard of the college where she taught but they quickly changed the subject and asked Sam more about his plans. She had wanted to say that they weren’t really Sam’s plans they were plans that other people, institutions, governments, and countries had made for him but she knew she would sound young and foolish and immature. His father was boyish and had been successful in local politics. His mother came from so much money she could afford to look unfashionable and she seemed basically kind but she would never have wanted anything like this dancer for her son and she seemed eerily excited that he was being sent into another world because he would move on from this infatuation. Of course she must have been terrified but to Honor she seemed like someone so rich for so long that it wouldn’t necessarily occur to her that anything bad could happen. Later, Honor thought that she was wrong. She realized that what she had observed was an entirely public performance and that she had absolutely no idea what someone like that would think or feel. At the service his mother had looked like somebody who had been pieced together from different bodies. Her eyes did not look like each other. Her head seemed attached to the wrong person. She didn’t see anyone or look at anyone and it was as if she had never met Honor. Honor signed the book along with everyone else.

Honor gripped Milo’s neck tighter. She saw Sam with a different face: brown skin and his hair in a black scarf. He had been blond, fair, skin pink from the desert sun. They told him he stood out too much. He was too easy a target. They told him to get makeup and darken his skin. He wrote to her on the back of a Do Not Disturb sign that the brown cream would stain his clothes and rub off from his neck. His neck she could picture his neck inside one of his loose button-down shirts. In New York he dressed like the rich boy he was, but messy. She saw his neck it was strong but not tough he was not tough and when she had heard he had to disguise himself she thought that there was no disguising this kind of difference. He was brave and he was confident and he thought he could hide but he was not devious or savvy or cunning enough to pretend he was someone he wasn’t. He couldn’t even lie.

In the end though it was not his disguise that saved him or gave him away. He wasn’t a hero or a coward. They pulled the truck over. They killed everyone. It didn’t matter what he looked like.

Do you see what I see?

The truck, he said.

Yes, she said.

I’m sorry.

She took her hand away and said, That’s what I lost. That, and a lot of other things.

You’ll tell me about those another day, he said.

Maybe, she said.

Then one day they told him that he was getting better and could go outside and could have visitors sit with him outside. There was a yard with some benches. It was spring again. It was cold. He asked her if she would come as a visitor. She asked him if he ever had any other visitors. He said, No. There’s no one to come visit. So many visions, she said. So few visitors.

She’d never seen him wearing a coat before. She brought a present. She gave him the little box.

Don’t get mad this time. It’s just a present, not a party.

I won’t, he said.

It was a watch.

I noticed you never wore one, she said. Do you already have one?

I used to. This is beautiful.

He put it on.

You’re not going to rip it off and throw it across the street are you?

No. I’m never going to take it off.

She was on a bench. He wheeled closer to her. He kissed her. They held hands in the cold. A bird bounced around on the dirt. The clouds looked like they were waiting in the sky.

I’m going to use it to time myself when I do my exercises.

Honor allowed herself a smile.

They tell me you’re doing well, she said.

I think I am. They say I’ve become more responsive. He gave a sheepish handsome grin.

You’re going to stand up and walk for me?

I’m going to do more than that.

He looked right into her and through her and she thought she could see into him straight into his head and then through him past this building past this city someplace else.

What are you going to do?

Dance.

And one day he did walk. He walked a step. Then he walked more until he walked the length of the corridor. He walked by himself to their room. He walked right up to her and he took her in his arms and he held her up and he put her on the table.

1936

Vivian went to hear him play. There were planets turning in the cigarette smoke that swirled in the yellow light. The red tips of the fingers of the hostesses clicked against the little table when they cleared her drink. Another one, honey? they asked through dark lips. She ordered another but she didn’t drink it.

Onstage he tilted slightly backwards and looked taller and thinner and his shirt stuck to him when he began to sweat. Then he leaned forward and the strap hung around his neck and his strong neck hung low and he looked solemn and calm like a horse in a field. Then he lifted only his head back and the moaning low music he had been making flew out from him in a smoky ribbon and circled in the air and it spiraled up to the pitch black of the balcony and it kept streaming heavenward and crying in the night and it was a long desperate animal howling and she knew that things would never be as easy as this again.