In Sickness Or In Health
In Dar Williams’ song “Mortal City” she describes having a “special kind of hearing” on a the night of a snowstorm.
Curled up in the hotel room, stretched out across the visitor sofa in Udaipur Hospital, I feel like I have a special kind of hearing too. Voices from the alleyway are as pungent as the delicious smells of culinary sweat; I keep the bathroom fan churning mightily to pull in such fresh smells and sounds from outside.
Listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony, it is the music for my sickness. Struggling in rest, the haunting, fervent prayer of the second movement possesses me. An image condenses. A pioneer sheltering himself from the unmercifully bitter snowstorms of the Northeast, suffering frostbite and starvation, losing a loved one. Anguished melodies creep through my consciousness; an intense religious experience, it makes me weep. Footsteps of bass on damp fall leaves, or prints in fresh carpets of cotton. Clarinet rises in a tentative, searching style, for open patch of sun or fulfillment, violin flutters reflect undulations of heart; it strains forward to catch some immaterial hope. Deep melancholy in the very potential for freedom. Violins decend in half steps, in disappointed sorrow. Finally, the blossom of season … but the string quartet shows restraint, cautious of joy. Emotions ride the prismatic surface of waves.
And Debussy … who has the feel? Who understands his intent well enough to transform it into a floating string of pearly bubbles? There cannot be any rush in the act, each note is a brushstroke, meditative, lingers like the trail of smoke from a pipe, held by contemplative fingers, dissipates. The performer disappears behind sentiment.
Then Xenogears, The Treasure That Cannot Be Stolen:
do ti do so do re mi re mi re do re so fa mé re do re do ti do so do re mi re mi re do re so fa so le so fa so
From the relative silence, a tremendous wail escalates to the heights of urgency. Families congregate in silence outside the labour room and stare uncomprehending as I slink by, always burdened with bottles bulging, gurgling with water. The hospital staff all recognize me: the rumpled foreigner who stumbles around, rustles up a bit of food every day (but how, in this space bereft of spoons and glasses?), then collapses in the room just as unconscious as the patient herself. I live in slow motion. Ascend and descend the flights uncertainly like an old man with waves of vertigo.
Bright lights are blinding. I move like a ghost through the day, an apparition that everyone may notice but who takes no notice of himself. Weakness is my excuse for choosing every response, irreverence. I am invincible, unaffected by stares, probing looks, unsolicited remarks and summons; something greater pains me. I have transcended all mores. My face is no longer plastic; there are no required emotions. The body is entirely in a state of complaint. Thoughts run to my favorite things. Chinese food. An end to the deprivation of fresh stir-fried vegetables, fish, mussels and shrimp, dumplings, please! I am delirious with visions of steaming platters. For the stomach to be empty or merely satisfied with orange juice and plain rice. Oh, the pained anticipation! Video games. Magic cards.
Around ten o’clock the hospital goes to sleep. An institution falling into slumber. The ghost wanders through school after class. It sees the guard is slumped on his stool. Only silence in the halls, but there are sounds of celebration from across the empty spaces.
These are timeless times.