Crescendo Read online

  A torch is lit. The darkness flees like a dream. The fire animates the faces of my tribe. I wish someone would put it out, for at least in the dark I was blind to their disapproval. One of the members will not even look at me: my brother. We are all family here, though he alone is my blood.

  That morning there had been a hunt. All the men took part. I snuck off, even though they needed me for my skill with the spear-thrower. My brother is also good, the second-best hunter in the land, although they never give the spear-thrower to him.

  I went straight for the wild beast. No one had seen her except for me, for my eyes were gifted to me by the hawk. I crawled to her, told her to run or be slaughtered. I knew that she had just birthed calves, and that her death would mean theirs. I had watched the calves be born and reared and loved; they were as tender to me as my own. I hissed at her and made a giant of my body. She stared at me, uncomprehending, then lumbered off. The men were still on the hunt, and I slipped silently alongside them.

  Someone had sighted me. I knew it in the way all prey knew it: in the terror that fizzes in the belly; in the fear of the unspeakable coming to pass, in the acceptance that it has. I recognized it from my nightmares, where I’d seen the face of my death and learned its contours.

  It was my brother. He would never give me away. I was safe.

  I was wrong.

  In the elder’s hut, my body is cold with dread and hot with fire. Everyone blames me for the unsuccessful hunt and for their hunger, and rightfully so. I valued the life of the animal more than the life of my tribe. I betrayed them by denying them their sustenance. I betrayed them by being born a man too weak in the heart to hunt, worse than woman. “Vision of hawk, courage of mouse,” they chant, though their song is joyless.

  They do not kill me, but they do not let me stay. Where will I go? There is only open plain, and desert beyond that. I will be alone in the emptiest place on earth. Even the stars are disgusted and turn their backs on me. It is a death sentence by another name, a longer one.

  I look around at the others. Their faces show no sadness. I walk toward the one that most resembles my own. The spears and the glory will be his now. I look into those December eyes, black and frozen.

  The eyes of hatred.

  The eyes of my husband.

  We are being handfasted, he gives me a ribbon and I give him my troth

  and

  I am the lowly monk, he wears the saffron robes. I scale the cliffs to learn the secrets of his breath

  and

  I bear him from my body. When I hear his first wail it is like the stars are exploding inside me, I had not even known I had stars inside me until that moment

  and

  when he dies I believe he will come back to me as a crow. I search the skies every day for his return

  and

  he is my teacher and he is my neighbor and he is my sister and he is my husband and he is my wife and he is my child and he is

  Once she’d left the cave behind, the woman had assumed that she would do the same with her grief, that she would trade its company for her husband’s. “He will be with you always,” the king and queen had told her, and she took their words for truth. She spoke to him, she cried out for him, she reached out for him. He never answered. She sought him everywhere and found him nowhere. He was with her, but his presence was not. His humanity was not. The bounce in his gait and the timbre of his voice and the hollows carved from his collarbones were not. What did his return mean, if none of those things had returned along with him? Every response of his that she didn’t hear, every glance of his that she didn’t catch, reminded her of what was missing, of what had been lost—all those indefinable qualities that differentiate a man from a phantom. And so, unlike him, grief refused to let her walk alone. It slithered alongside her, tracking her with its unblinking reptilian eyes. It coiled itself around her legs, constricted her, squeezed the life from her.

  DA CAPO AL CODA MEANS “FROM THE HEAD TO THE TAIL,” LIKE A SNAKE. PLAY EACH PASSAGE DA CAPO AL CODA—FROM THE BEGINNING.

  How often she had read these lines in her book, thinking them an instruction when they were a prescription. Go back to the beginning of your love song, and play it over and over. This will release the pressure. This will sheathe the fangs.

  She had thought that she would never touch her husband again. Now she finds that she cannot touch a life without touching him. She has been so many people and feels she can hold no more inside her, though she has merely skimmed the surface of the water and of the self. Her body has stopped swimming. Her mind has not.

  The old man sits peacefully on the shore of the lake, awaiting her return. The woman thinks that she has been in its depths for an eternity. For him no time has passed at all.

  “My husband is everywhere,” she begins to tell him.

  “Yes,” he says.

  The woman fingers the tangled threads of her pain, smooths out their knots. Her husband has died repeatedly—the strands start to knit together—and with each new birth he is returned to her, not as a favor but as a rule—the pattern presents itself, the design takes shape—and if there is no death by old age, and no death by exile, then what is death by fire—then what is death?

  She sews and she spins. The threads arrange themselves and fall into place. The white light arises from her hands, which are already familiar with these motions, for a harp is a loom that weaves notes instead of cloth, that turns the material of misery into music.

  And life, too, is a loom, the soul the shuttle, she the warp and he the weft. They cross each other, they clasp each other, they weave in and out and through each other to create a blanket that covers the shoulders and the stars. Over and over the weft passes, and the warp separates in two. One layer is raised, the other lowered. With enough repetition, a fabric is formed. Over and over the body passes, and the human separates in two. One layer is raised to the sky, the other lowered into the earth. With enough repetition, an angel is formed. The bereaver calls this dying; the weaver calls it shedding. She understands the rhythm, is aware that the separation is temporary: a pause of her breath, a flick of her wrist. She knows that the threads are not coming apart but preparing to come together. They are not fraying, they are not unraveling. They are stitching the tapestry of time.

  She is the lotus, he the dragonfly, I the breeze that propels him into her arms.

  I am a maple leaf, renouncing my branch in order to fly. This is the moment of my death, for I will no longer have roots on which to feed, yet every day has led to this leap and I am unafraid. I let go! The wind leads and I follow; it dips me and I twirl. I am dizzy with joy, enamored with sky. The dance must end, though until then—freedom unlike any I have ever known. The grass catches me in its arms. We dissolve into laughter and leaf. The sun melts me away and the earth feeds me to my brothers on the branches, those who watched me die, those who watched me fly.

  I am a sailfish. I didn’t know that anything without legs could run as powerfully as horse, yet without land to slow my steps I become a weapon, slicing the waters like steel. My body is a bullet, sleek and streamlined and gunmetal gray. I am gasoline on fire. I am fast enough to catch everything except the sun. I spend my days stalking it, jumping wildly in the air, never catching it, always trying.

  The mare’s soul is born to move, to hurl every possible body against the wind, to be the wind. And now it is lame, prevented from doing that which it loves the most. How better to truly learn the nuances of movement and of freedom?

  The woman feels horrified, responsible. She has crippled the mare more than any injury could: forcing it to endure her journey, asking it to lay its freedom at her feet, reining in its birthright to run. It seems to her that it is she who is running blind and reckless through life, depriving the ones she loves of their bodies.

  But the mare knows that every plodding step it takes alongside the woman pushes her a tiny bit farther, higher. An animal heart does not have the same boundaries or conditions as the human heart. It
is more tolerant, more transparent. The human is to learn to remove the limits on her heart. The animal is to show her how. This too is a lesson in movement, and in freedom.

  “The dragonfly was my soul mate, as was my ancient wife. Why would my husband come back to me as a schoolgirl on the train,” the woman wonders, “as a classmate instead of a soul mate?”

  “Who but a soul mate would drape you with kindness so that you could rest? Who else would agree to take on time with you—and for you?”

  “Wouldn’t a soul mate be forever? I never saw the schoolgirl—him—again.”

  The old man is puzzled. “Never saw him again?”

  She recalls the failed hunt, the exile under the stars. Her voice and her eyes drop to the ground. “You mean to tell me that a soul mate would be so disloyal, so hateful.”

  “Who but a soul mate would lower himself for your learning? Who else would allow you to experiment with pain and with hatred, and do this for you out of the highest form of love? Don’t forget: the same brother who betrayed you is the same wife who gave you companionship, the same schoolgirl who gave you comfort, the same husband who gave you music.”

  The serpent of guilt sidles up to the serpent of grief, touches tails, takes its place. “I can’t blame him,” she says. “I took away his body. I took away his child. Whatever he did to me in the past, I’ve done much worse to him in the present. I’m the one who must be punished, who must make it up to him.”

  “Oh yes, punished. Make it up to him. That’s a good one! What was his punishment for betraying you? To cover you with blankets of sunlight, to lavish you with grandchild upon grandchild, to braid wildflowers into your hair and happiness into your song.”

  The old man waves his arm in front of her face. Scenes appear in its wake, transforming so fast that she can scarcely make each one out before it disintegrates. A home far out on the steppes, a man’s hands, a sharp knife. A mother and child, disembowelment, blood on the dirt, on the knife, on the man’s hands—her hands. She brings them to her lips. The blood tastes of iron but it is mixed with another taste, a more savory one: pleasure. It is too strong for her to stomach.

  “You have forgiven yourself for these actions,” the old man says, “but not for an accident of physics, of flame?”

  The king and queen had convicted the woman of a crime, had brought her to her knees with remorse. Now the old man performs the same spell. “That man, that butcher—that was me?” she utters, the sound coming from some low, dim place inside her, someplace the antlike being cannot access. She suddenly wants to run from this lake of time, afraid of how many other murderers might emerge from its depths, clutching candles and knives, wearing her face. “And you show me this so that I judge myself less? I am unforgivable. I shouldn’t be allowed to live, to keep coming back.”

  “No. You are learning. What you did then, others do now. They are also learning. And because there is no time, there is no difference between then and now, or between you and them. We’ve all given life and taken it. This hand thrusts a knife into an innocent belly,” he says, tapping her left hand, and then her right, “and this one extends alms to the hungry. The same person who slays a mother and her child gives its own life to save a beast and her young. Marvelous, isn’t it?”

  The woman does not find it very marvelous at all.

  The old man leads her back into the lake, guiding her shoulders beneath its surface. In its waters a reflection appears, a mirror of time. She sees herself as a young girl, dressed in a white pinafore and sitting cross-legged on the floor of her kindergarten class.

  “You knew so little then, in a way,” he remarks, watching the girl with paternal fondness. “You could not read the literary classics or the periodic table. You were just starting to learn how to share with others, to wait your turn, to care for your body and figure out what it’s capable of doing. Was that unforgivable?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  A boy in the classroom hunches over a toy guitar, pulling its strings until they squeal. The little girl, intrigued by the sound, bounds over to him. She wants his toy. He stands in her way. When she asks to have it, he declines. So she shoves him and he falls to the floor, crying in displeasure. He considers kicking her or throwing a temper tantrum, although he decides against it.

  “Were you unforgivable?”

  “I was just a child! I didn’t know any better.”

  A teacher walks up to the children. She pats the boy’s head and lifts him to his feet, then turns to the girl.

  “The teacher ought to kill you,” the old man suggests, and the woman gasps. “Isn’t that what you said? Or she could put you in a time-out for all eternity, though there’s really no need. Even the most disruptive student will sooner or later get her act together and move on to the next grade.” He stops speaking as the teacher kneels down to the girl’s level and explains how the boy must have felt when she pushed him. “Ah, a softer approach.”

  He slowly spins the woman around in the water, one full turn, and now she sees the girl and boy grown taller, older, smarter. They are standing in a conservatory classroom. The boy strums a classical guitar. The girl listens with a frown, disagreeing with him over the arrangement of the piece. Her hand shoots out—is she going to shove him again? Of course not. That is what children do. She lightly places it on his arm, having learned that the purpose of touch is to soothe, not to strike. He looks at her and smiles.

  “Same students, same curriculum,” says the old man. “Can you guess what the lesson is?”

  “How to love one another?”

  “Not such a riddle, after all.”

  She considers the love that slipped out of her grasp and into the skies one still summer night. “But why must I learn it on my own?”

  “Who said that you were on your own? When have you ever been in a class without a teacher, a tutor? Nobody expected you to learn geometry or calculus on your own.”

  “I’m not certain I learned them at all.”

  The old man laughs. “Love is not as complicated as calculus. Don’t make it so.”

  It may be less complicated, the woman thinks, yet what could be more brutal than the emotional mathematics of love? How it can shatter into fractions in an instant. How three minus two can equal zero. The cold, crisp precision with which division does its work, leaving behind a mere remainder of what was once whole.

  She is not the only one who has watched love disappear from her life without warning, without reason. For ages, people have searched for the logic to this, for the answer to the unanswerable, the equation that would piece their fragmented life back together and give it meaning. They devised increasingly complex methods to solve the simple arithmetic of loss. They came up with algebra: the setting of bones, the reunion of fractured parts, the science of restoring what is missing. They created calculus, the study of how things change, from the very word meaning “stone” or “rock”—what better to describe death? “We will determine the value of the unknown,” they said. “We will figure out the point of this pain.” As if there were a reason, the woman says to herself. As if there were a point. As if all that intellectual activity were anything more than a baffled, broken mind running in circles. There is no science to subtraction, no formula to derive meaning from grief. Nothing can solve for loss. Loss has no solution.

  She is exhausted. She has been working on this problem forever. To see the pattern behind the lifetimes is progress; to choose to keep repeating it is insanity. “I’ve had enough of an education,” she decides. She will gladly agree to less knowledge if it means less suffering.

  “You have more to learn,” the old man tells her. “Master the material, then come back and teach it.”

  She remains unconvinced. If it is her decision to attend school, then it is her decision not to attend. And this school is so difficult. The lessons break her heart. The exams break her bones, and no math can mend them. What could ever make her come back day after day, body after body, lifetime afte
r lifetime?

  At that moment she happens to glance across the lake. On its banks rests a young schoolgirl with black braids against her head. She is drinking a cup of tea and delicately peeling a mandarin with her fingernail. Their eyes meet. The schoolgirl’s eyes reflect something shining and gold: mountains, memories. A wool blanket lies on her lap. Its edges are unfinished, never finished, not until the warp wraps its arms around the weft one final time and refuses to let go. She waves at the woman, gives her a warm smile, and pats the grass next to her in an invitation to come sit. Here you are, my little bird.

  LESSON 6

  Duet

  Here you are, my little bird.

  It’s you! Are you really here?

  Where else could I be?

  You left me. How could you leave me?

  I was a student. Now I am a teacher.

  While I stay stuck in class.

  Yes. I am so proud of you.

  Proud? I am to blame for your death! Aren’t you angry? Don’t you regret ever meeting me, ever loving me?

  Regret and love cannot share the same sentence.

  They can if it is a death sentence.

  You are not to blame. It was my choice.

  I lit the candle. I gave it the power to strangle you. You were caught inside the attic. You had no choice, no chance.

  Before there was so much as a flicker of the power, my higher self had already made its decision. You did not give strength to the flame. You gave it to me.

  Why would you choose to leave me?

  It was my gift to you.

  Gifts are wrapped in paper and bows, not grief and tears.

  Had I not left, you would not have left either. You would not have ventured from the shelter of our house into the darkness of the woods. You’d have stayed safe and small. You were an acorn: dormant, aching to grow. There is nothing wrong with being an acorn, except that you were meant to be the oak.