Melodie (5 page)

What strikes me in
Der Rosenkavalier
is, dare I say it, the philosophical dimension of the work: the meditation of the Marschallin on aging, on time's destructive work, is a crucial moment. As we see when, towards the end of the first act, the great noblewoman sings:

One would say that today I must feel the fragility of all ephemeral things, right to the bottom of my heart; learn that one must not wish to keep hold of anything, that one's arms close around emptiness, that everything slips through our fingers, how everything comes loose when one thinks one holds it close, how everything dissipates, like dreams and mist . . . Time is a strange thing. Living day to day, it means nothing to us. But suddenly it is all we feel. It is around us. It is also in us. It streams down our mirrors, it drips from my temples. Between me and you on it flows, noiselessly, like sand in an hourglass.

What I find so marvellous in the context of this melancholy meditation on the passage of time is that, right in the middle of the work, at the very beginning of the second act, Strauss has given us an in-between state—a kind of ‘true youth of the world' to use the beautiful expression that we find in Rousseau's
Second Discourse
—already removed from the time of the Marschallin (which is noble) but not yet subject to that of Sophie (which is bourgeois), in a truly
miraculous meeting that brings together, by means of a perfumed silver rose, two young people who desire each other:

SOPHIE: . . . It has a strange perfume. Like roses—like a real rose.

OCTAVIAN: Yes, a drop of Persian attar has been placed in it.

SOPHIE: One might say it was a celestial rose, not like those in our gardens, a rose of holy Paradise. Don't you think so? (Octavian leans over the rose she is holding out to him, then he rises and his gaze is fixed on Sophie's mouth.) It is like a heavenly greeting. Already, too strong to be borne. It draws you, as if bonds tightened around your heart. (in a soft voice) Where then could I have experienced such rapture?

OCTAVIAN: (at the same time, as if unaware of Sophie's presence, in an even softer voice) Where could I have experienced such rapture?

SOPHIE: I must find this blessed place! Even if I were to die on the way! But I shall not die. It is far off yet. Time, eternity, merge together in this sublime moment; I shall not forget it until I die.

OCTAVIAN: (at the same time) I was a child, I did not yet know her. Who am I then? How did I come to her? How did she come to me? If I were not a man, I would swoon. What a sublime moment; I shall not forget it until I die.

This is a scene of sublime beauty, one that takes the breath away. And the word sublime is of course spoken by the two characters. Can one remain indifferent to such a profusion of light, to such an outpouring of happiness? Is it possible not to be profoundly moved, body and
soul, by such an impression of happy inertia, of slowness ascending? It is a moment of eternity crystallised, a fragment of paradise which we are allowed to glimpse, an angel's descent to Earth, the implanting and propagation of the ever and always in the fleeting instant. To see and hear Anne Sofie von Otter (Octavian) and Barbara Bonney (Sophie), conducted by Carlos Kleiber, sing and live this extraordinary suspension of time is a disturbing experience, which makes one want to believe in absolute fidelity and in the unchangeableness of feeling.

Listening to the duet of Octavian and Sophie, dazzling in its revelation of a certain truth of youth, I saw again, through the profuse succession of images of my own vanished youth, the exuberant dance of the two dogs, drunk with their freedom and their immense youthful strength, without a hint of anxiety or any thought of the future.

9

TO UNDERSTAND

DAYS PASSED BY
harmoniously; night followed peaceful night. Learning prodigiously quickly what not to do to make life not only possible but also pleasant, Mélodie acquired an exemplary sense of good behaviour and a tact that no one could have imagined. She never barked for no reason; she never destroyed things: not books, shoes, furniture, cushions, photo albums, knick-knacks, nothing in fact that constituted the domestic landscape was at risk; she never jumped on to our bed, or on to the yellow sofa in the living room; she never tried to take food that wasn't meant for her. Silent, discreet, almost retiring, she was there, like a filmy shadow. A sounding box too: her presence made us aware of our own breathing and, when we were moved by something, of the barely perceptible tremors of our hearts.

In the evenings, happy or unhappy about our work day, when my wife and I were waiting until it was time to go to
bed, she would invariably place herself between us. When my daughter was enjoying giving me a demonstrative cuddle, she couldn't bear to be outside the circle of affection, in the intimacy of its embrace; she came up to me, pushed her rival away and lavished me with licks. She wanted to join with us, to be one of us, to be an integral part of the family clan: as soon as the three of us made ourselves comfortable on the sofa she would slide between us quite naturally, most often with her muzzle placed on my lap, to listen to us, to hear us talking about our concerns, our worries and, perhaps more rarely, what amused us. Did she understand what we were saying? I don't know. That obviously depends on the meaning we give to ‘to understand'. She was really
with
us. The desire to be as close to us as she could, to be glued to us, was the message she gave us with the whole of her outstretched body and all of her communicative outpouring. What is ‘to understand' if not the ability to listen for, and to be in unison with, what other people are feeling and thinking?

Mélodie understood us. Our hearts opened to hers; her heart responded to ours. At times I had the impression that she even read what was in them.

10

FIRST SEPARATION

SUMMER ARRIVED
. Mélodie had grown up. She had blossomed and her stature was that of a fully grown adult. Her body was far better proportioned than those of men and women trapped by their daily fatigue and victims of the excesses in which they indulge of their own free will and that they try to offset somehow by strategies as costly as they are sophisticated; svelte, muscular and vigorous, her body now resembled an athlete's, radiating good health.

We planned to go to France to be with friends and family. I felt the desire to immerse myself again in the French language as well as in the web of ties that using it has spun for me. The problem, though, was our friend. To take her with us was inconceivable: the steps you had to go through, which were long and onerous, were a disincentive. Besides, we couldn't bear the idea of making her travel in the hold, where she would be subject to the noisy vibrations of the aircraft for
the twelve-hour flight from Tokyo to Paris. So we decided to entrust her to the A family, whom she knew. She would have fun leading something of the country life, together with her brother, Octave. She would play tag with him. She would run madly through the fields; she would immerse herself gladly on steamy afternoons in the Akikawa River; perhaps, weaving through the thick undergrowth, she would imagine herself in the old dream of her ancestors; she would roll in the dirt just for the pleasure of rolling in the dirt.

Two days before our departure I took it upon myself to take her to Akiruno. First I put all of her things into a big bag. When everything was ready and I'd finally picked up the car keys, she guessed what was happening. She began to moan. Perhaps she felt torn between the desire to go with me and the desire to stay, not to leave her usual environment. In the end she decided to get into the car. Despite herself, clearly, because she didn't like the car. Throughout the whole journey she rested her head on the armrest between the two front seats; all the while I could feel her tranquil presence, made palpable by her regular breathing.

She was greeted by Octave in a warm and brotherly way. After an explosive few seconds of celebratory hugs the brother and sister took themselves off into an alcove that served as a kennel. It connected with the living room, which had a French door. Through the door I could see them moving around as I sat at the table talking with Mr and Mrs A, a cup of tea in my hand. A sweet fragrance of brown rice mixed with the green tea powder wafted around us.

I stayed chatting for a good hour. We talked especially about the difficult way of life that human society inflicted
on the canine species, about all the explicit and implicit prohibitions imposed upon it, and finally about the scandalous irresponsibility towards it of some humans who only act in accordance with their immediate self-interest. For all this time Mélodie fixed me with her gaze, sitting in a pose of remarkable stillness. Now that the joy of meeting up with Octave had passed, was she anxious about what lay in store for her? No doubt she was.

I got up, bowed to Mr and Mrs A and said goodbye to them; I took the wheel and I drove off like a criminal who wants to get away from the scene of the crime as fast as he can. It was really an admission that I was guilty of abandoning her in a house that wasn't her own. I felt shot through with the piercing looks that she was sure to be casting at my back.

Five weeks later we returned to Tokyo; I was impatient to see her again. I knew that she'd moaned for two or three nights at the beginning of the holiday she'd spent apart from us. Was she well? What expression would she have on her face when she saw me again? Would she want to leave again with me?

Our Accord stops in front of our friends' house. Without waiting for us to appear, deep, resonant barks can be heard. We open the front gate. Mélodie's head, and Octave's, burst from the dark alcove. She climbs the fence, which is much higher than the garden hedge. We hear the strident and painful sound of claws raking the wooden fence. She succeeds, somehow, in getting over it and charges towards me. Propelled by an impulsive run-up, her body planes a metre above the ground. Anyone who didn't know her would be quite terrified by this frontal assault. As for me, I am delighted to be
assailed by this rocket of blonde flesh. My hands grab hold of her front paws; in the region of my elbows I feel a burning sensation, which tears my skin like the stab of a dagger or the violent prick of a large needle.

‘Hello, my friend. How are you? Oh yes, yes, you're so happy! Aren't you? You're just so happy!' The intense brevity of the greeting showed the length of the absence endured. In a few minutes my shapeless tee shirt, chosen in anticipation of a madly joyful reunion, was covered with muddy paw prints. My trousers, old ones that I only wore when I had work to do that would make my clothes dirty, were pierced in places by the repeated scratches from her protruding dewclaws.

When she'd satisfied her need to be effusive, she stood on her four feet. I crouched down, taking her by the neck. We were now facing each other. She licked my face from top to bottom as if she urgently had to express her feelings, driven by an irresistible need to pour out this overflowing affection. Suddenly I was struck by the sight of a streak of blood on both my forearms.

Mrs A offered to disinfect the wounds. I had to clench my teeth while she mercilessly rubbed them with alcohol-soaked cotton. The culprit for her part never took her eyes off me, looking through the French door of the living room and sitting up on her bottom in a state of anxious immobility similar to the one I'd observed five weeks earlier.

Night began to fall. The first signs of autumn could be heard in the incessant quivering of the leaves. In the garden a scattering of figs had now ripened. Nothing seemed to be hurrying us to leave behind this feeling of wellbeing … But we had to bring ourselves to leave.

‘Let's go home, my friend', I cried.

‘Come on then, we're going', said Michèle.

In a flash she'd positioned herself in front of the car door. Her whole body was trembling, and she seemed to be making a point of saying that she was definitely coming with us. I didn't have to tell her what to do: she jumped in straight away and lay down. And she didn't move again until we reached our house.

That night Mélodie couldn't bear being on her own; she wouldn't let us leave her by herself on her mattress. She didn't stop howling until I gave in and finally opened the door of our bedroom. She came and settled herself in our intimate space as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She dug in at the foot of our bed and didn't budge from there. From that time on she abandoned her mattress at night.

All the world's nights are not the same, but after that it was there that hers, invariably, would be repeated. There were, however, two exceptions: the two weeks that were a little out of the ordinary that I shall recount presently and the two days before her great journey. During these two episodes, which were different in length but equally intense, she wanted to lie alongside me, close to me, to nestle right into me.

11

THE PUPPIES

SHE TURNED FOUR
in August 2001. At once discreet and demonstrative, she had become a soothing presence; the energy she provided was healthy, invigorating and restorative. She was always there, with me, next to me, between us, among us. Imperturbably herself, she was like a mysterious barometer of the family atmosphere, of what each of us carried within us and brought back from the world around us, be it precious or pitiful. She'd become more than a companion, more than a friend, a being who could make us ill with worry, a creature for whom a word like
animal
or
beast
was not suitable, or tolerable, those terms too often being associated with the contempt that we express for human beings who are depraved and noxious and indeed infinitely more harmful to the general harmony of the world of human and non-human living beings than the animals and the beasts themselves. She was like a child resulting from an act of love,
from the passionate lovemaking performed by my wife and me in our desire to bring a child into the world. She
was
my daughter, a daughter incarnated in a dog, whom I had had—in a fabulous story of some unknown civilisation—from intercourse with my wife while we were both changed into dogs. Among billions of possible dogs, it was she who'd been given to me—this is something of a miracle, as miraculous as the birth of a child, the fruit of a unique encounter, of that one night, that long night, of a man and a woman who make love.