Orthansa, the ensemble’s prima donna, was a literature student, a prim and professorial girl with a languorous, indulgent smile for the conductor’s smutty jokes. She didn’t dislike them, but she made a point, at least when I was around, of conserving, out of a sense of propriety, her reputation for being a bluestocking. She was noble and urbane, a diamond in a basket of knobby pebbles. Toward me she had an attitude of sympathy and complicity. Together we were part of a mésalliance with the others. We wore our difference like some token of belonging to a different caste, to a waning species, which the times had forced to submit to a ritual of humiliation and survival in new, motley social circumstances, without any hope of a comeback in the foreseeable future. In fact, we had no concept of the future. Stirred into the swill of conviviality for the length of the rehearsals and during the blessed breathers decreed by Porfirich, when everyone would smoke and gossip, I used to exchange hurried words with Orthansa, and above all meaningful glances, “looks with hidden drawers,” as she liked to call them. And in the brief moments when we were alone together, or on the way home, as far as the intersection by the “40 Martyrs” cinema, where our paths separated, we used to get back at our band mates by joking about them, laughing at the never-ending amorous war between Simona and Quasimodo, but not daring to start our own war, which, naturally, would have looked more like a reading-room idyll by comparison.
With Silviu the accordionist I struck up a composed and protective friendship from the very first. He was a stereotypical Moldavian, with a moustache framing his delicate mouth, eyes as limpid as a mountain spring, black wavy hair, and a contagious laugh that burst out at the slightest provocation. A friend. A man who understands you and helps you when you’re in trouble without asking for anything in return. Surprisingly—because he had no pretensions and automatically placed me in a privileged position—I could communicate with him more easily than with Baciu, the ensemble’s panpipes player, my colleague from university and collocutor in “nationalist” discussions.
Baciu regarded himself as being superior to the other band members. He wasn’t the only wind instrumentalist, but the pipes of Pan were simply on a higher plane: his notes in the silken fabric of the folk melodies resembled the sensuous intrusion of a young lady from the city into a rustic ring dance: they gave them suppleness and elegance, they imbued them with intrigue, they made the audience dream. The panpipes were an individualistic, self-sufficient, self-worshipping instrument. You couldn’t imagine a whole ensemble of panpipes players, whereas there’s nothing more banal, more easily ignored than a gaggle of trumpeters—and, indeed, nothing more easily heckled when they begin to get on one’s nerves. At the same time, the relative distance that Baciu and I had placed between ourselves—by mutual consent, I might add—was amicably fostered by our mutual awareness of belonging to the same circle of friends outside the ensemble, within which we had chosen to have strictly formal relations. Soldiers on the “ideological front” of the press, we read banned Romanian books and listened to folk songs from the other side of the Prut, secretly transcribing them on magnetofon tape in the university’s recording studio. Moreover, we lived in the same student hostel, even if we had begun to bump into each other ever more seldom. Baciu, of course, had other places of shelter.
Those were the characters, or at least a few of them, and that was the atmosphere in which, four times a week, we gruelingly rehearsed Moldavian folk melodies to seduce Italian communists. Once we were joined by the dance troupe, the rehearsals increased to twice a day, so that we would synchronize. By the time I went to bed, I was unable to get rid of the sprightly melodies still resounding in my head.
By the end of May, we had mastered the music and all the travel documents had been authorized and stamped: the list of students and their chaperones, the passports, the medical insurance certificates. I don’t know which of my fellow band members the University’s KGB man had recruited, but there was no doubt that arrangements had been made. Maybe he had recruited more than a few, because, surprisingly, he had left me alone. I was hiding under my shirt Miron’s letter of recommendation to Feretti, the writer from Bologna who was to help me apply for political asylum in Italy.
As we left, my friend gave me these words of encouragement: “I hope that the orchestra…”—here he hesitated, and then went on: “I think that all those torturous rehearsals will come in useful. You’ll be ready for the performance now, and you won’t make a fool of yourself.” I embraced him and assured him in the same complicit tone that all would go well.
On June 3, we got off the train at Bologna Station. I recognized Feretti on the platform, having pored over photographs of him night after night. But before I knew it was really Feretti, I had spotted his orange scarf, which was wrapped around the collar of his navy blue long-sleeved shirt. He didn’t come near, but I knew that he had seen me and would find me the next day.
[IRELAND: IRISH]
TOMÁS MAC SÍOMÓIN
Music in the Bone
I dream of myself sitting in that chair. One year ago to the day. In my clinician’s white coat. Switching on the tape recorder beneath my desk. Scribbling notes into a rough jotter while Mrs. X, the woman behind the desk in front of me, talks. Meanwhile, my partner in our psychiatric clinic in the dead centre of this city examines Mr. X. Mrs. X is tall, middle-aged, vaguely good-looking, of medium build. High cheekbones, an almost Slavic face. Carefully thinned eyebrows shaped to give an inadvertently vague look of permanent surprise. Her black dress sets off a white pearl necklace. Where have I seen this lady before. In another life? Is she a ghost ? Nothing ghostly, however, about that inexplicably familiar fragrance wafting into my nostrils.
– And, apart from that small… idiosyncrasy, shall we say, you tell me that your husband is normal, so to speak, in every other respect?
Giving a self-conscious professional’s omniscient inflection to my voice. It seems to me that I have posed a similar question a thousand times, at least. To other women. To other men.
– In every possible way, Doctor, she says. He is really the most normal man you could imagine. In every way. Apart from his passion for music and this “idiosyncrasy,” as you describe the mad behavior he gets up to now and then. The way he rises to his feet when you least expect it and starts to conduct some imaginary orchestra that nobody else hears nor sees. Even in the presence of my friends. I really don’t know what to do about my predicament, Doctor. That man has destroyed my social life.
– …?, I ask, wordlessly. (The tilt of one eyebrow can suffice to express a question mark.) The lady’s slightly nasal voice drones on as she repeats what she has already told me.
I listen carefully. For the heart of the issue is often revealed in the retelling. And as she rattles on, the unexpectedly familiar whiff of her perfume unsettles me in some inexplicable way. I ask the question of myself yet again: where and when have I smelled that fragrance before?
– It doesn't matter where in the hell we might be, Doctor, (if you’ll excuse my French). In the house, the church, the shops, on the street, on the bus. Or during social visits to the houses of our friends. Even in his office, if what his work associates tell me is true. Nor does he care who might be looking at him or listening to him. When his “idiosyncrasy” expresses itself, other people cease to exist, as far as he is concerned. And it’s as if their opinions, customs, social correctness itself have vanished like a puff of air. His movements and the flailing of his arms giving onlookers to understand that he is conducting some sort of band or orchestra. Just as I’ve been telling you.