Orpheus’ testament
It is randomly that I hear the strangest shock of a sound— or rather, more like an alarming array of notes,
“Oh my god! What is that?!”
“It’s my mother....” Jörn says to me
Why does that make me look around?
I see him go over to his phone to check a text. I watch him grin and chuckle and then he looks st me and blinks switching lives between Sweden and here
“I think you’d like my mother....” he says this walking back over to the birch wood dresser where he is busy sorting things .... it is hard to determine if he chooses color or purpose when he’s organizing but I find it provides entertainment to watch
“You said she’s a musician too?”
“Did I?” he asks
“Yes, you said something like how all the people in your family are....”
He seems to have found something he was looking for behind some socks and sets it aside to stack a pile of neatly dry-cleaned shirts across the top shelf of his closet that I realize is eye level to him
“What instrument does she play?”
“My mother? She’s an opera singer....” he goes back over to the dresser looking at what he found in the drawer; they are cuff links I see now and he looks at them thoughtfully before he closes them up in a box
I hear that crazy sound again and he turns to go back to his phone
I realize this time it is the sound of an operatic voice singing in exclamation “OOhhhhh!!!!!!” in a very high pitch ..... as if demanding to be heard as if to drop everything immediately. Which clearly he does
“Is that her voice?” I ask
He glances at me while he’s texting his mother back, smiling, so it must be funny
“Hmmm....” as he looks back at his phone
.... it makes me I wonder if he recorded that himself or —?—bought it on a Swedish ringtones app
“What instrument does your father play?”
“Oh, all of them,” he shrugs as he is busy replying to his mother
Another sound emerges from his phone and this one sounds like a crescendo in an orchestra with one dramatic and long open note
“Father?” I ask looking up at him as he walks by me laughing into his messages
“He’s the conductor at the opera house,” he says to in answer to my question and says this also with a shrug — but now he pauses suddenly—thoughtfully as he looks up from his phone at me to study me
“What?” I ask at his odd expression
“My father says ‘hej’ ....”
It takes about three seconds for it to sink into me that he means that his father says ‘hej’ —to me
....Jörn concludes, for us both now, a bit stunned,
“Andreas must have told them about you....I think —they want to meet you....”
I feel the need to sit down.... now.... wow....
Parents?
the parents.... I never thought I’d be meeting anyone’s parents at this point in my life.
It’s been almost twenty years for me
Mine long gone.... a long time to not have .....the overshadow of their looming subconscious presence. I don’t remember anymore what it’s like to have parents
I begin to feel a sense of fear and panic
“Why do you think....?” I whisper this..... I feel nervous and start to organize my own things —the contents of my purse are all over his bed and so I start to gather everything
Jörn watches me now and laughs,
“They’re in Sweden, min lilla duva, it’s not like they’re coming this instant!”
It is a self conscious laugh when I realize I have exposed my fear to him by this. And I don’t notice I mumble something until he asks me,
“Why do you keep saying that phrase? You keep asking if they speak German....”
“what?”
“‘pratar du tyska’?.....”
“Ohhhh—Have I?”
“Yes.... he smiles at me,
His electric stormy eyes are now laughing at me as he says,
“have you been falling asleep to that lära sig svenska app again, sötnos?”
“Ohhh....” (he knows I do this?)
“Anyway, I must get to rehearsal, have you decided to come tonight?”
“What is it again?”
He walks over to kiss me quick on the lips,grabbing hold of my hair as he does so as if it is a rope to pull my head to him
“I told you twice, min lilla duva, Stravinsky and Mozart,” and kisses me again
“I have to meet Eliot about the Project....”
“Do you think it’s wise to trust him with your work? He seems like such a shark, isn’t that obvious to you?”
But then his phone chimes “OOhhhhh!”
“Mamma!” I say, imitating his accent
Starbucks Script discussion; sketching the opening scene for Electra’s dictionary
I meet with Eliot at a nearby Starbucks and he starts talking immediately,
“Why haven’t you answered me?”
“Because I’m still not sure about .... doing this....”I tell him and say ‘with you’ to myself which he doesn’t hear
He asks,
“Are you going to be using any of Nigel’s footage?”
“Are you going to be using any of Nigel’s footage?”
As if....,
Instead I say,
“I told you I found his videos of me under hypnosis—did you know about that?”
Eliot looks uneasy and turns his face away scratching his ear uncomfortably
“I told you I found his videos of me under hypnosis—did you know about that?”
Eliot looks uneasy and turns his face away scratching his ear uncomfortably
