bird is singing.” I smiled up at Leonard. Then I heard another call, faint, distant. I covered Irving’s penis with my other hand. Yes. A mating call. “Two love birds, two song birds,” I crooned.
“And you are creating the music,” Leonard said. I sat between them cradling their music in my palms, feeling them fuse into a single instrument and I its maestro. I, who could hardly bang out chopsticks, began playing like a virtuoso, fingering the pipes, simultaneously, alternately, my hands embracing, strumming, stroking, plucking flecks of golden light, my fingertips seething with tattoos of sound as music shuttled through my fingers. I could sense the hushed audience enthralled as I tossed my head and played for the universe, feeling the music in my nostrils, hearing it on my tongue, tasting it through my eyes. I was an inspired musician playing a divine organ.
Irving and Leonard closed their eyes, released into perfect attunement. Rachel’s smile, Tom’s blessings, swelled the notes, as we created magical harmonies, mysterious chords, fierce rhythms.
“It’s the sacred music of the spheres,” I said with wonder. Wild sounds tamed by my hands into cradlesongs and beating wild again. And I, pulled by the pipes into pools of music flowing between us, knowing every thought they knew, feeling every thought they felt. One hand on the crucifix, one hand on the song. Touching where they could not. Feeling for them, through them, into them, composing, orchestrating, their music exploding in my hands. Union. Communion. The older poet giving to the younger his strength, his potency. And the younger poet giving to the older, his youth, his love. And I the altar, the temple, the wishing well of their love. They create through me. Madonna. Tara. Sheba. The birth of the Young King. And Leonard is born in my hand, and grows through me, through Rachel, through Irving, through Tom. Erect.
“Standing ovation!” Leonard shouted, rising. We applauded, celebrating Leonard’s erection, as candles ignited all about us in thanksgiving and commemoration.
Five
The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk
Ronit took the idea of a new life in a new country in her stride. She didn’t complain about leaving Montreal except for the separation from her father and grandmother (her grandfather was no longer alive). However, she was easily reassured when I promised both her and Shimon that if she was unhappy I would return her to Montreal and that, in any case, she would visit often. The idea of living in England appealed to her. By now horses were her passionate interest. For several summers she had gone to a horse-riding farm owned by a friend and had learned to ride and to care for the horses. She had won ribbons for showjumping and she longed to be with horses. We both had the mistaken notion that England would provide that opportunity. As it turned out we were always so short of money that she went riding only a few times in the years she was there.
We all looked forward to the trip. Brian had never crossed the Atlantic, neither had Ronit and I was happy to be travelling again even if it wasn’t the kind of travel I had in mind. Our ticket to Greece had a London stop-over. We stayed with Ruth, persuading her to join us in Athens. I had met Ruth through Rachel. They had been childhood friends. Rachel would be delighted to see her. In Athens we decided to rent a car and drive through the Peloponnese so we could see something of the mainland before going on to Lesbos. Brian was especially anxious to see Olympia and declaim in the ancient amphitheatre. None of us spoke any Greek and once leaving Athens and driving in the untouristy villages of the Peloponnese, we found few people who spoke any English. It became increasingly difficult to communicate even on the basic level of finding food and a place to sleep, until Brian conceived the brilliant idea of miming and dancing our needs.
His performances worked wonders. The Greeks adored him. They were so responsive that he went from the expression of simple needs to conducting entire conversations, able to convey complex ideas non-verbally.
Once we met Costa and Yani, two young Greeks, both deaf mutes. Brian was in his element. They invited us to an old-fashioned dance hall where people still danced only in couples. There were few females present making Ruth, Ronit and me very popular. Costa kept asking Ron it to dance and although he didn’t especially appeal to her, she complied. After one very slow, very close, dance she said, “1 don’t want to dance with him any more. He keeps touching me in a creepy way.”
But when he asked her again, I convinced her to oblige on the grounds of compassion. “He has enough problems being deaf and dumb, don’t give him any more. It’s only a dance. You’ll never see him again. Bring him a little joy.”
But I was wrong and she was right. He put his hand into her tee shirt and down her jeans, holding her so tight she was unable to free herself. She was in tears. Brian took Costa aside. He pointed to Ronit and formed his arms like a cradle, swaying them from side to side, rocking the cradle, indicating that Ronit was young, still a baby. Then, pointing to me, he rocked the cradle again miming that I was big, the mother and Ronit was small, the child. He reinforced the message improvising additional mother and child mime. Costa nodded in understanding, indicating surprise that I was Ronit’s mother and that Ronit was still a child — at thirteen she was taller than me. The realisation put a new complexion on things. The boys became models of decorum. Costa apologised first to Ronit, than to me, falling on his knees and begging forgiveness. He continued to dance only with Ruth, politely, respectfully.
Brian’s mime had triumphed.
He was eloquent and inventive with a remarkable talent for externalising subtle perceptions through movement. Our Peloponnese trip was wonderfully enhanced by his ability to make contact with people and to elicit warm response. He got so good at his mime-dance creations, polishing them into mini entertainments, mini silent movies and was so inspired by the response they evoked that by the time we returned to Athens to board the ship for Lesbos, he had made a massive decision. He decided to give up talking. In one of his last verbal communications he explained that he wanted the discipline of expressing himself only in movement, the experience of internal meditation, of “noble silence.” He had a captive audience on the ship and communicated and entertained around the clock, developing his silence into a fine art. During the two day voyage all the passengers grew to love him. He was deluged with wine, cheese, sausage and inviting looks, accepted by the Greeks like a family member. Considering this was his first time with foreigners, he was spectacular.
Everyone grew to love him, that is everyone but me. Ronit enjoyed him, Ruth was amused and impressed, but I grew increasingly disenchanted and needy. At first I sympathised with his experiment, but when I realised he wasn’t going to talk even to me, I began to resent it.
He was high on a solo flight from which I was excluded. When he wasn’t performing, he was silent, absorbed in thoughts I couldn’t share, enjoying his internal meditation. Rather than appreciating his noble silence, I became increasingly jealous of it. It was like a devotion to a new love. I wanted him back. Ronit, on the other hand, went along with him, relishing his complicated communications, patiently interpreting his desires. “Brian says he’s not having lunch with us, he’s eating with that Greek family, you know the one with the little girl who wears that big bow in her hair. He says we should bring our wine and join them after we’ve eaten. The father is teaching him to play the bazouki.”
Besides, I became weary of the sympathetic looks and sad smiles which said to me “you have such a fine young man, what a pity he’s a mute.” When the boat docked I didn’t mind having to make all the travel arrangements, a taxi into town, bus tickets from town, food, schedules, while he entertained, but I did mind his total preoccupation with his new love.
By the time we got to Molivos, the small fishing village on Lesbos, I felt totally alienated by Brian’s refusal to talk, and hoped that meeting Irving, Rachel and Leonard, would induce him to give up his vow of silence. But it didn’t. He remained silent, preferring his art, foregoing the contact he had so looked forward
