As I watch the shadows on the wall like some scene from a Bela Lugosi film, the music seems to call to me and I get up pulled by the haunting sounds of his music
and at first I am stopped to watch him from the gallery landing outside the bedroom that in profile overlooks Jörn at his piano in the center of the living room that is all open, like some great hall in a Norman castle with the backdrop of the dark and dense forest beyond the barn house great window
this combination of the heavy ominous music; slammed hard on the deep low range with the peddle pressed to echo vibrato in contrast to the light and tinkling of high range; like a bird in flight
I watch .... and closer still .... to catch it all
like every second of my life, this need to record, verbatim diary
as close to accurate my documented proofs of memories; existence --
I press my phone
to record .... and close up to his face
and move....
am moved--
thus moved
to stop
and sit transfixed to every detail of him; no I'd never tire of his face, no matter how old he got; this time not to go too soon. So moved by his music I hardly notice as I record him that his face is wet with tears and it is only this that induces me to rush down the stairs but have to pause because of how well he plays this sequence and caught there
Jörn clears his throat when he realizes I'm there and seems to shrug but I see this way he wipes the evidence of what I saw was there
"Did I wake you?" and his voice is more dry than usual. Instead of saying anything, I go to him and move between him and the piano and wrap around him to kiss his face and feel the texture of his hair against my lips
"I don't mind. That part is new isn't it?" I say "I love it, it's so beautiful," and then move to sit beside him
"Here--" he says and puts one arm around me, he reaches for my hands, "I'll teach it to you.... like this...." he says and then he says, "we've not done this in awhile...." and because I have missed this I let him show me
And for a long while we play the way we used to when we first met, the way he kissed me as he did this, and reminding how with his touch and his music he could possess my soul with the passion and depth of his emotion and how willingly I forget myself in it. And so he does, right there at his piano do to my body what he accomplishes with his notes, wrapped around his hips
and later after we realize we never ate and are starving with hunger, we share and devour a bowl of pesto and pasta before we return from the kitchen back to his piano again
But then, as we sit at the piano, Jörn stops playing as if becoming tired of playing and turns suddenly to me
“Your mother never mentioned Ethan Rhys Jones again after—?”
His non-sequitorial question causes me to sharply stare at him, my mind going blank for a moment.
but then, thoughts come
as if willed on their own
it causes a course of thoughts and I am sat by his side but suddenly transferred as if by a flying carpet back to our little kitchen in Amsterdam, to our flat across from Amstel Park that lays parallel to Europa Boulevard. If any place in the world conjures feelings of home, it will always pull me there
and for a long moment I let myself be indulged with this
.... and the day
that day
the very first time she said his name to me
I don’t know if there was a part of me that already knew —knew this moment would press indelibly inside my mind; that afternoon. I remember all of that moment. Drinking tea with her, a Sunday, it was, and I faced the window when on clear days I could see the hotel Okura, past the Rei.
Finally I blink and realize I got lost there
I look up at Jörn and study his expression. It is the surprise of such a strange yet deep look of —concern? or is it worry? No, I can’t at all discern what the look there on his face actually means, and I feel compelled to touch him, wanting to smooth it away,
“I was fifteen— no, sorry, sixteen....” I have to stop to calculate and take another moment to sort through a mental stack of playing cards whose suits all seem out of order.... and I try to sort them so many years now they have long reshuffled
it hurts my head to think. I have to rub the tension in between my brows as I feel the start of a migraine. I take a conscious deep breath.
After a long pause as I consider what may prompt Jörn to ask I decide he must have a reason to ask, and.... since the hike with him I have felt .... something within me towards Jörn has altered
only what, I cannot quite fathom
only that.... it feels
as if.... some gateway has opened.... up
my heart even rushes, skipping a beat and.... have to cup my hands to stop myself from the vertigo of hyperventilating ....that lightheaded feeling; blind faith
“I was always writing, even back then....” I begin, not looking at him, “you know, scripts and plays.... I was big into Oscar Wilde in those days ....and —Woody Allen....” I laugh at myself, “but I remember I was writing a story that I had been reciting to her this one afternoon.... “ I get a sick feeling, “well, it was about this bastard princess....” I shake my head and stop talking. I find I can’t breath. I turn to the piano keys and lay my fingers down.... touch the keys.... let it go .... and play some familiar chords
but Jörn watches me. I feel it, don’t have to look up. Then I do look up at him.... and see .... his eyes are patient.... he seems in no hurry to press me. He just watches me.... and again, there is something so different there now in his eyes; soft now, gray overcast the hint of glitter in the dim light
Another deep breath before I press on,
“looking back now.... “ I shake my head and shrug, “it blows my mind how thick I can be about recognizing the obvious.... well.... I remember she said the oddest thing....”
“Why—what was it?” and only now Jörn seems to rush me
I look down at the floor to avoid the distraction of his eyes now needing to figure something about this out.... even as knowing it will always allude me and is for naught
“Well— you know, she really wanted me to pursue painting, not writing. She seemed to think that I would be the artist she and my grandfather never got to be, so she was always nagging me about my sketch book, actually grading me weekly and criticizing every miscalculated mark of perspective and not spending enough time at it. So— it was a sudden turn when she said to me something that afternoon....” I stop and try to remember how she said it.... but it has been so many years now.... “she told me she wanted me to write a new story.... because she said I was gifted and reminded her of someone she once knew, and....she wanted it to be about him....” I play the Beethoven chord three times. Stop. I look up at Jörn and without realizing my intent to, I reach for his hand .... and hold it tight; grip; cling.... even as I don’t want to, I seem to keep talking, “she started to tell me about this man.... she said ....she wanted me to know who he was; a great man who had been wrongly maligned by .... the press, the government,” I shrug hopelessly lost in the memory of that talk as I remember the way she seemed to trap me in conversation ....and I grip his hand.... but realize what I do in that instant— and let go; ashamed. I look quickly away. But I go on, “it seemed hours went by— she’d even shut the kitchen door so as not to be overheard, which was weird, that door was never shut. But.... then —he— came in....”
“Your —“
“Father— or who I thought was....”
“Was this before or after the biology blood test assignment?” Jörn asks with a more mild tone as if only saying this as a prompt of encouragement
“Yes,” I say because I know he already knows. So I say, “he said, ‘are you talking about Jamaica?’”
"Jamaica?" Jörn asks
"Oh, that's where we lived my first year after I was born," I explain
"The island? Why there?"
"Because that's where my mother's best friend Barbara DeLisser was; her family owned the resort the Half Moon in those days, the playground of the jet setters my mother used to run with. That's how she became friends with people like Adolfo and Jacques Cousteau.... we lived there-- you know? I remember it--they say we don't remember early years but.... I do-- isn't that strange? I remember the soft feel of the sand ....and the voodoo shops with the faces and ....the steel drums...."
And I put my fingers back on the keys.... then the black keys.... that were always the trickiest part; their strange dissonance ....the motion sickness
I pull back.... Still— determined to face the music,
“The next day he was off to Barcelona ....” and look up at Jörn before putting the sequence together .... turn and play almost one bar
then have to get up and walk away
"Please play something else Jörn!" I go to the two story window to look out into the blackness of the forest
But I hear the bench scrape as he gets up and turn to watch him as he goes to get something by his sound equipment and realize it is a disc
"Here, before I forget," he comes toward me but then stops himself and walks deliberately towards the widescreen monitor to switch it on
he says,
"Before my father disowns me for being so forgetful about this-- you know, he called again, before to remind me! And-- he was being oddly mysterious about it ....so I know as much about what this is as you do and only then cryptically said he's 'already put it in the right hands' which he actually seemed to giggle after he said it!" Jörn laughs, "so, I'm curious...." he says before returning to the computer by his equipment to insert it
It is only once it begins that I realize what it is Joseph has asked Jörn to give me.... it is an edited version of all the recordings and footage I sent to him of Jörn at his piano of his opera but remastered with himself on cello with Elsa's vocals and his two grandchildren on clarinet and electric violin
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